📡 Make decisions like a computer
Pulse #159 — and 52 things Tom learned in 2021
Hey, Pulse fam!
How’s it going? First of all, let me apologise for the last week’s Pulse. So many typos! 😅 Hopefully, it won’t happen this week.
So, if you’re reading this in your email, tap (or click) here and read it on the web; see if you’ll notice any changes. And the news links. Let me know how you feel about them.
Also, I’ve expanded Pulse with two new sections: Books & Newsletter. Do I really have to explain why? Well, there’s a lot of good ones out there that I enjoy; therefore, I share. You can, too!
This is the beginning of the changes to come.
— Behrouz
PS. Some of the links in Pulse are affiliate links. It means if you click on them and buy something, I’ll earn a small percentage. It’s one way you can support Pulse.
In Today’s Issue
This Week in the News
Book: Algorithms to Live By
Article: 52 things Tom learned in 2021
Podcast: A Book That Predicted the Future
Newsletter: Citizen Scholar — Atomic Habits
Tweet: Audience
Tool: .eth
And a gift for you.
This Week in the News
USD backed PayPal stablecoin “PayPal Coin” in the works [link]
Google’s Sonos defeat, Mozilla’s crypto donations, and Clubhouse’s new features [link]
Brave Stats, Open Source Crypto, and Crypto scams in 2021 [link]
Money toward NFTs, Meta’s VR OS, and TikTok out in the open [link]
Samsung's new TVs, Apple's AirPods, and China's crackdown on gaming [link]
One Book
Algorithms to Live By
Recommended by a friend on Clubhouse, I’m reading this book and mid-way through it, I can’t recommend it enough! (Made me add a section to Pulse!)
‘Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions’ is a fantastic book exploring how computer algorithms can be applied to humans’ everyday life and decision making. “What does that mean!?” you might ask.
Well, first, you need to know what algorithms are.
… an algorithm is just a finite sequence of steps used to solve a problem, and algorithms are much broader—and older by far—than the computer. Long before algorithms were ever used by machines, they were used by people.
The word “algorithm” comes from the name of Persian mathematician al-Khwārizmī, author of a ninth-century book of techniques for doing mathematics by hand. (His book was called al-Jabr wa’l-Muqābala—and the “al-jabr” of the title in turn provides the source of our word “algebra.”) The earliest known mathematical algorithms, however, predate even al- Khwārizmī’s work: a four-thousand-year-old Sumerian clay tablet found near Baghdad describes a scheme for long division.
But algorithms are not confined to mathematics alone. When you cook bread from a recipe, you’re following an algorithm. When you knit a sweater from a pattern, you’re following an algorithm… Algorithms have been a part of human technology ever since the Stone Age.
There are many decisions we make every day that are the result of our lives being lived in a finite space and time. What should we do, and what can we leave undone in a day or week? How to balance new experiences and favoured ones to make our lives more fulfilling? When looking for an apartment, how many should we look at before making a decision considering if we don’t have infinite time and if we keep looking for the perfect one, we might lose on a very good one?
These problems seem like they are unique to humans, but computer scientists have been dealing with them for a long time, and some of them now have optimal solutions. Like how your computer processor should allocate its processing power to different tasks you ask it to do. Or when to stop looking and choosing that apartment you were looking for.
As someone with a technical computer/IT background, these problems and solutions seemed like a great read to me, and even though I haven’t finished the book yet, I highly recommend it — even if you’re not a technical person.
Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions
One Article
52 things Tom Whitwell learned in 2021
Alright, so this one comes from a Clubhouse conversation too. Tom Whitwell is Managing Consultant, and since 2014, he’s been publishing this yearly post about things he’s learned in a year.
It’s an exciting and diverse list of things you wouldn’t usually think about or look for. Here’s are a few of them:
Short afternoon naps at the workplace lead to significant increases in productivity, psychological well-being and cognition. In contrast, an extra 30 minutes sleep at night shows no similar improvements. [Pedro Bessone]
If you want useful answers, ask questions that respect the answerer’s time, energy and attention. [Josh Kaufman]
Until 1873, Japanese hours varied by season. There were six hours between sunrise and sunset, so a daylight hour in summer was 1/3rd longer than an hour in winter. [Sara J. Schechner]
The Japanese zip company YKK also produce zip-themed anime. [YKK via Josh Centers]
For $64/hour you can hire an LA photo studio that looks like the interior of a private jet, to impress people on Instagram. [Nana Baah]
read the full post on Medium.
One Podcast
A Book That Predicted the Future
Unlike last week’s podcast episode, which was almost 150 minutes, this week, I’ve got a short one for you — just about 10 minutes. It’s from Founder’s Journal by Alex Lieberman, co-founder of Morning Brew (one of my favourite newsletters).
In this episode, Alex talks about a book by James Dale Davidson, which I haven’t read yet, but have heard quite a bit about. It’s called ‘The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State’, and it does sound fascinating.
listen to it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts.
read the show notes, transcripts, and other stuff here.
One Newsletter
Citizen Scholar #9 — Atomic Habits
Citizen Scholar is a free newsletter covering a book or essay every Friday and discusses its key ideas and implications.
Their goal is to spur discussion around books that shed light on the past (history, classics, biographies), explain the present (economics, finance, general studies) or perhaps a glimpse into the future (cutting edge technology, theory, etc.).
I read through their past editions and love the content’s high quality. Their issue on James Clear’s Atomic Habits got me hooked, and now that I’ve read it for a few months, I’m comfortable sharing it with you.
One Tweet
Audience
seems really approperiate in today’s issue!
One Tool
ENS Domain
hopefully, you’ve already set up a crypto wallet like MetaMask (if not, go read Pulse #158).
you know how every time you sign up for a social platform, you need to create a profile/ID for yourself? now, on web3, you can have one to login to pretty much any web3 service and you don’t have to worry about the fact that it’s already been taken!
.eth domain is kinda like that, but much more. it’s still early days, and it’s worth registering your name/domain — i took behrouz.eth!
remember, almost everything you do on Ethereum blockchain is a transaction and it costs money (gas fee). if you wanna learn more about blockchain/web3 stuff, don’t miss the gift below.
👀 One gift for you.
community? are you an early adopter? you’d want this.
And that’s all for now. Stay curious, and enjoy learning.
