$1M Cube, Compressed Book, Hardest Race & Painted Sandwiches
#68 of 10+1 Things | Abu Dhabi
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Here’s a life update: at 30, I just discovered I have astigmatism. It’s funny how our bodies surprise us with their imperfections. Long story short, the adjustment to cylindrical glasses was rough. I was unable to look at my laptop screen or even the television without straining. It took a toll on my work, but all good for now.
It’s natural for our bodies to wear down; I suppose that’s part of the design. But before we start, pause for a second and reflect on the oldest thing you own. I got this as a journal prompt and embarrassingly realised that the oldest thing I own is my Kindle from 2016. Phew, the oldest thing I own is just 9 years old. To be frank, coming from a big corporate like Amazon, I’m surprised it lasted this long.
While exploring this idea, I came across the concept of planned obsolescence - an intentional corporate strategy to design things that eventually die, reducing the time between purchases. It’s just pure evil.
Combined with how today’s tech companies make gadgets hard to repair, it feels downright unethical. On the contrary, my mom still uses a Singer sewing machine from the 70s, which her mother used - and it’s still fine. Meanwhile, I’m here super-gluing my 2-year-old earbuds…
I’m curious, what’s the oldest thing you own?
Without further ado, here are 10+1 things I thought were worth sharing this week:
📒 The Diary of Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys was a 17th-century civil servant who kept a detailed diary from 1660-1669 documenting life in London. This site by Phil Gyford publishes a daily entry from Pepys's diary in real-time, so January 1st, 1660's entry appears on January 1st of the current year. This is the third complete "reading" of the diary - the project started in 2002 and has been running cyclically. His diary entries give us real-time insights into personal revelations and eyewitness accounts of great events, such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Anglo-Dutch War and the Great Fire of London.
The truth is, I do indulge myself a little the more in pleasure, knowing that this is the proper age of my life to do it; and out of my observation that most men that do thrive in the world, do forget to take pleasure during the time that they are getting their estate, but reserve that till they have got one, and then it is too late for them to enjoy it with any pleasure.
~ Excerpt from Saturday 10 March 1665/66
💵 $1M Cube
In this interesting blog post, Calvin Liang shared about his visit to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's Money Museum, where he got suspicious about their display cube claiming to contain exactly $1 million in $1 bills. Unable to count the stacks accurately by eye, he built a web tool called Dot Counter that lets you click on images to count objects. Using his tool, he measured the cube and found it contains 102×8×19 bundles of bills, which equals $1,550,400 - meaning the Fed is off by $550,400 or about 50%. He speculates it might be hollow inside, they're planning for inflation, or it's just bad math, but nevertheless he created a cool tool to count stuff in photos.
🦾 Notes on Robot Vacuums
If you didn't get it already, the cover image on top was of our new vacuum cleaner. We got a new robot vacuum cleaner, and trust me it's been life changing. While researching, I took some notes and decided to publish them on my blog. Brands have done a pretty good job of confusing customers with weird naming conventions - it's very hard to distinguish between these Base, Plus, Pro, Max model terminologies. Some discoveries: as you go premium, mops get dried automatically, more premium means hot air drying, even more premium means hot water cleaning. Some robots can double as surveillance cameras that navigate your home, premium models can climb 60mm thresholds using retractable legs, and fancy all-in-one stations need 4-5 feet of clearance which can be problematic in small apartments. We ended up getting the Xiaomi X20 Pro during Prime Day for around $270.
⛏️ Precision Vise
I'm in the process of setting up a small desk for DIY stuff and found this K-One precision vise very cool. Unlike traditional vises with flat clamps, this has a flexible clamping system that wraps around odd-shaped objects without damaging delicate items like ceramics or polished metal. And the best part - it has motorized clamping where you press a button and the jaws automatically close at the right pressure. The magnetic base for catching screws and the built-in magnifying glass are also some cool features. I think this is a one-size-fits-all product that will work for everything from fossils, ceramics, clay, electronics, watches and more.
🏎 Fast
Patrick Collison (CEO of Stripe) has compiled a list of ambitious projects that were completed remarkably quickly. Examples include the Bank of America launched in 90 days, the P-80 jet fighter designed in 143 days, the Empire State Building built in 410 days, and JavaScript prototyped in just 10 days. The list contrasts sharply with modern projects - San Francisco's Van Ness bus lane took 21 years (2001-2022) and cost $346 million, while the Alaska Highway was built across remote tundra in 234 days. Collison notes that most fast physical infrastructure projects occurred before 1970 and points to various theories about why America has slowed down, including increased bureaucracy, regulatory complexity, and what some call a shift to a "vetocracy" where interest groups can block progress.
For the opposite, check out Slow by Michael Nielsen on exceptionally long-term projects.
📖 Compressed Book
Low-tech Magazine faced a sustainability dilemma: how do you publish physical books about being eco-friendly without killing more trees? Following their low-tech philosophy of compressed images on their solar-powered website, they "compressed" their three-volume series into one book, cramming 84 articles into just over 600 pages instead of 1,700. Using smaller fonts, two-column layouts, and ruthless editing, they cut paper consumption by nearly two-thirds while improving content through rewrites. The uncomfortable math shows their 10,000 books sold required about 400 trees, and a book needs 2-3 readers before it's more eco-friendly than their solar-powered website.
🍔 Painted Sandwiches
I came across this interesting project called ‘Painted Sandwiches’ by Nick Rougeux. He took Eva Green Fuller's vintage ‘Up-to-Date Sandwich Book’ from 1909 and 1927 (with 555 recipes total) and turned them into a clever visualisation using simple painted brushstrokes to represent each ingredient stacked in order. The colours are from actual ingredients, ingredients are stacked in order with brushstrokes with colours from photos, and garnishes appear as smaller brushstrokes. If you are an enthusiast, you can buy a poster as well!
💬 Useless Talent
I was browsing through Tildes and found this discussion where people shared their useless talents. People have some wild abilities - someone can look in two directions at once and dominated split-screen games, another can make their pupils vibrate, and there's a person who sings Klingon battle songs while juggling. Others mentioned having perfect internal compasses, reading upside-down text without noticing, memorizing songs after three plays (but getting stuck with jingles forever), expert whistling skills, and even controlling a lazy eye independently. The thread shows how many weird little human abilities exist that serve no practical purpose but make for interesting party tricks.
Sadly, I don't possess any such talent. What's your useless talent?
📚 How to Do Nothing
I picked up an interesting book recently called "How to Do Nothing" by Jenny Odell thanks to Christie for recommending it. This isn't your typical "quit social media" guide but something deeper about what we lose when our attention gets hijacked by technology. What I found fascinating is her example of an old-growth redwood tree that survived because it was "useless" for human consumption, challenging us to rethink usefulness and resist the pressure to always be productive. There's been fair bit of criticism that her solutions require privilege and may be too individualistic, but nevertheless, an interesting read!
Some excerpts from the book are quite interesting:
“Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new, whereas we do not tend to see maintenance and care as productive in the same way.”
~ As always, resurfaced by Readwise (FREE!).
If you’re interested, read my review of Readwise.
🚛 Trucks and Tuks
This week I had so much fun exploring this interesting photography project by Christopher Herwig called ‘Trucks and Tuks’. He drove around Southeast Asia for 10,000 kilometers taking pictures of these amazing decorated trucks and tuk-tuks. The drivers go all out decorating their vehicles with bright paintings, flowers, tassels, and even celebrity photos. It's like each truck becomes this crazy colorful art piece rolling down the road. What I found interesting is how the drivers create these dream-like spaces inside their cabs even though they have tough jobs. Unfortunately, this tradition is slowly dying out because governments are banning vehicle modifications and cheap mass produced vinyl stickers are replacing the hand-painted artwork.
🎬 Hardest Race
I've been following Magnus Midtbo, a retired climber and crazy athlete who does these insane fitness challenges. His latest video was jaw-dropping - he attempted the Norseman triathlon, one of the world's toughest races, with just 2 weeks of training and no real experience in swimming, cycling, or running beyond his climbing background. Most athletes train for at least a year for this brutal race that involves freezing fjord swimming, mountain cycling, and a marathon up a mountain. I'm not gonna spoil anything, but the results are crazy.
📣 Shoutouts
Nipissing First Nation spiritual consultant guides you to a life of joy through mindfulness practices. Weekly journal questions included.
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That’s 10+1 Things for the week!
Which one was your favourite this week?
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With Love,
Rishi
“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit"
Oldest thing I own is my grandmother’s wedding dishes, from Bavaria. Approximately 1910.