9 Habits, AI Tales, Climate Quitters and How to Use Semicolon
#42 of 10+1 Things|📍Delhi | 13° C
⚡ Welcome to #42 of 10+1 Things!
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Here are 10+1 Things that I thought were worth sharing this week:
🚲 Becoming a Super Randonneur
In my 2022 review, I mentioned that becoming a ‘Super Randonneur‘ was one of the highlights of last year. Super Randonneur is a title awarded to cyclists who complete a series of rides within a calendar year. The series includes four rides of varying distances: 200km, 300km, 400km, and 600km with cut-off times of 13.5, 20, 27, and 40 hours respectively. This was one hell of an experience and in a blog post, I’ve pinned down my experiences and learnings from becoming a ‘Super Randonneur‘.
🤳 9 Habits
When it comes to forming habits, there is a plethora of books available. But the problem is that many of the principles mentioned in these books are not practical in a chaotic modern world filled with information. After studying all major habit books, Ivaylo Durmonski has listed down 9 good habits for busy people in the 21st century. In a nutshell, these habits are: regularly reminding yourself, practicing ignorance, being thoughtful, becoming an adaptive thinker, reflecting on your experiences, seeking solitude, finding motivation, and focusing on progress.
🏭 Climate Quitters
Climate change is transforming the labor market and is expected to create 24 million green jobs by 2030. Over the years green jobs have grown rapidly and last year, more people were employed by clean energy companies than by fossil fuel companies. With the shift in the labor market, a lot of people are quitting their existing jobs to work in areas that tackle climate change. Bloomberg in an interesting article has shared the stories of some of these 'Climate Quitters'. Recent surveys have shown that a third of the workforce that joined the renewable sector from other sectors is mainly from the oil and gas industry. From an oil and gas lawyer who quit after reading International Energy Agency’s 2021 report to a communication specialist living off-grind in New Zealand, the list is quite interesting.
💾 Last Man Standing
Tom Persky is the founder of floppydisk.com, a company dedicated to the selling, recycling, and data transfer of floppy disks. Over time the number of floppy disk users has gone down, but the suppliers went down even faster than that. This provided a unique market opportunity and he is a worldwide supplier of floppy disks and also related services. Tom currently has about half a million floppy disks left in his inventory and still gets clients to date. Read more on know about the current state of the industry and the pros/cons of running a business like this in the modern era.
Muscle Wiki
MuscleWiki is a website/app service that lets you click on muscle groups on a human body to discover exercises and stretches. The website is powered by gifs and shows corresponding exercises or stretches via gifs for demonstration. When it comes to exercises there are options that make use of body weight, dumbells, kettlebells, bands, barbells, and more. Lately, I've started to stretch properly after my workouts and have found the stretch section quite handy!
✍️ Finding Purpose
'How to find purpose in life?' must be one of the hardest, yet common questions on this planet. Usually, I don't share discussions in the newsletter, but I couldn't resist after reading some interesting discussions on this thread while taking notes. I believe there is no right or wrong answer to this question, but it's interesting to see different perspectives from a range of personalities. The purpose for different people can be learning new things, pushing boundaries, being meaningful, having children, helping others, or making the world a better place.
The one I could relate to the most is:
Follow your curiosity. Don't worry about finding the one true path. There are many great paths you can take. As long as you feel that you are learning new things, keep going.
What's your take?
🧵 How to Use Semicolon
Yet another interesting short thread by Cultural Tutor where he explains how to use a semicolon effectively. The semicolon can be used instead of commas in a list or also as a connection for completing clauses. Semicolon adds clarity to a statement and is more powerful than a comma!
📚 Code: The Hidden Language
I've been enjoying coding lately and stumbled upon this book which happened to be the most mentioned book on HackerNews of all time. ‘Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software’ was originally written in 1999 by Charles Petzold and is a classical guide on how computers work. Petzold starts with very basic things like morse code/braille and slowly introduces switches, and relays, and before you know it you're building a basic computer. Even if you're not a tech enthusiast, this is an interesting read to understand how computers work.
My favorite so far from the book is:
“Code is not like other how-computers-work books. It doesn't have big color illustrations of disk drives with arrows showing how the data sweeps into the computer. Code has no drawings of trains carrying a cargo of zeros and ones. Metaphors and similes are wonderful literary devices but they do nothing but obscure the beauty of technology.”
- Resurfaced using Readwise(It’s free!)
Last Week's Read: So Good that They can't Ignore You
📷 Cultivar Series
This week I'm exploring an art project titled 'The Cultivar Series' by Uli Westphal exploring the mind-boggling diversity of crops we have cultivated. Ever since industrialization, the focus on agriculture has been on crop varieties that are predictable, high-yielding, and good-looking. The artist argues that during this transition, traditional crop varieties have been displaced and we have lost the genetic diversity of these crops along with cultural and culinary heritage. From cucumbers to pumpkins, the series gives us a rare glimpse of species that often aren’t available in the grocery store or markets. Some of these varieties are sourced from farmers around the world and some are cultivated from seeds obtained from vaults across the globe.
🎬 Save Ralph
Save Ralph is a stop-motion animation short film about Ralph, a bunny being interviewed for a documentary on his daily routine as a 'tester' in a lab. The film is produced as a part of Human Society International's campaign to ban animal testing for cosmetics and highlights the cosmetic industry's cruelty through the story of one bunny. The film is short(<4min), yet powerful and is shortlisted for this year's Oscar in the Best Animated Short category.
💡 AI Tales
This last section of the newsletter explores a thought I had, an idea I'm exploring, a dream I experienced, or something interesting that I observed:
Like everyone on the internet, I've been obsessed with ChatGPT for the last couple of weeks. In fact at work last week, I was trying to figure out a piece of specific code in Python and ChatGPT helped me to figure it out. I'm amazed by the sheer potential of the platform even at this nascent stage and decided to run a fun experiment. I've started a Substack titled 'AI Tales', featuring the content produced by ChatGPT itself. The title of the Substack was even suggested by ChatGPT! The plan is to give an interesting prompt every week to generate content and see how it turns out. If you're curious, read my first post which is titled 'The Complexities of Complexion: The Fair Skin Paradox'(This title also was suggested by ChatGPT!).
📣 Shoutouts
A designer's memoir featuring two minutes of unfiltered thought.
Losing weight is less about dieting and more about psychology. This tool uses principles of behavior change psychology to help you understand your habits and change them for the better.
My morning routine starts with this newsletter featuring the best stories the web has to offer.
This interesting wearable helps you to get up to 30 more minutes of sleep a night. (I shared this link last week, but some of you mentioned that the link was not working!)
That’s 10+1 Things for the week.
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See you next week!
With Love,
Rishi
“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”
— Jacob Riis
I'm intrigued about the Apollo strap and how it works and if others actually notice a difference. I'm not $400-curious however.