Hey, Pulse fam!
How’s it going? Tomorrow marks one year since I moved Pulse to Substack from Revue. It also marks one year since I joined Clubhouse, special thanks to my friend Wade for the invitation, which was in very high demand back then.
Joining Clubhouse and moving to Substack have influenced my year quite a bit. I met so many interesting people on Clubhouse that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I’ve also become part of the Substack community, which is a fascinating one. I’ve had paid subscribers, job offers, projects and a lot more through becoming part of this community.
This year, as usual, I’m trying some new platforms and services, and I think this time next year, their impact will be even more significant. And I definitely will write more about them in the coming weeks — as I did for Clubhouse.
— 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.
One Game
Wordle
Before we move on to the main sections, here’s something that has grabbed my attention since last week.
If you’ve been on Twitter recently, you probably have seen Wordle.
Wordle is a puzzle game that gives you six tries to guess a five-letter word. Once you figure it out, you can share how well you did — like this. There’s only one word every 24 hours, so you don’t have to worry about spending too much time on it.
Wordle’s gone crazy viral, from almost 90 users in November to over 2 million users last weekend. There’s more about it in the news section.
In Today’s Issue
This Week in the News
Article: Ideas Want to be Shared
Podcast: Range by David Epstein
Newsletter: Carbonated — Bye bye bad bio
Tweet: I write to…
Tool: Locket (iOS)
And a gift for you.
This Week in the News
Apple’s market value has grown by more than $700m a day from when Tim Cook took over in August 2011 to this week when it struck $3tn [link]
Tesla accepting Dogecoin, Block’s open-source Bitcoin mining plan, and Fortnite on iOS [link]
Wordle copycats, Microsoft’s chips, and Nigeria’s ban on Twitter [link]
Meta’s monopoly suit going ahead, Samsung missed its own event, and Kim Kardashian in a pump-and-dump scam [link]
Carriers against Apple’s Private Relay, Signal’s CEO, and Meta’s office policy [link]
Zynga’s Take-Two, Apple headset, and Microsoft HR’s Meta nightmare [link]
One Article
Ideas Want to be Shared
Most of us are used to the fact that ideas should be owned by their creators. Kevin Kelly has contrarian ideas on intellectual property. Former Wired magazine editor believes that “public domain and fair use should be the default, and an IP monopoly should be the exception.”
The default metaphor for intellectual property in modern times is “ownership.” In this model of ownership, all ideas, stories, inventions, characters, product names, techniques are understood to be inherently born as the property of their creator. These thoughts-made-real are seen to be owned by the mind that births them. You think them, you own them. With this status of ownership, intangible creations such as a novel, a musical melody, a plot, a phrase, formula, etc — all things created by a mind — are given a monopoly of rights in order to encourage further creations by the same creator. And to spur others to create. This lawful monopoly — such as copyright, patents, trademarks — protects the creation from being used by others for gain. By current law, this inherent monopolistic ownership is held strongly for long periods of time, ranging from decades to a century, depending on the conceptual type (patents may be 17 years while copyright may exceed lifetimes). This awarded monopoly has a few exceptions for very limited special cases, such as “fair use” and public domain. In these modes anyone can fairly use the invention for their own purposes. Certain restrictions may apply, like if the use might need to be for education, or for parody, or so used in a transformative way, or bettered by the use. These exceptions were to be kept to an absolute minimum in order to maximize the monopoly of the hard working creator. This framing plays into both the modern idea of ownership as the sacred foundation of wealth and prosperity, but it also plays into the idea of creator as a hero, or at least as the bedrock of progress.
I believe this arrangement is misguided. The whole framework should be inverted. Public domain and fair use should be the default, and an IP monopoly should be the exception.
read the full post on The Technium.
One Podcast
David Epstein on Wisdom from the Top
If you’ve been a Pulse reader for a while, you’d know that ‘How I built this with Guy Raz’ is of my favourite podcasts ever. I’m a big fan of Guy and his interview style. The amount of research and work that goes into each episode is truly tremendous.
‘Wisdom from the Top’ is another one of Guy’s podcasts, and its quality is as good as HIBT, only it is not interviews with founders, but with leaders of fantastic companies or writers and researchers, etc.
In this episode, Guy interviews David Epstein. David’s a science writer and investigative reporter. His articles cover a wide range of topics from crime and violence to athletes using steroids to the Olympics.
David’s the author of The Sports Gene and Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. But, before all of that, David studied geology and ran on Columbia University’s track team as a walk-on. David went from star athlete to discovering that having a wide range of interests leads to more successful outcomes — in sports and in life.
listen to it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts.
One Newsletter
Carbonated — Bye bye bad bio
I’ve been following Blake (@heyblake on Twitter) for some time now, and since his newsletter, Carbonated, came out in December 2021, I’ve been a regular reader of that as well.
Blake’s writing it consice and to the point, it always adds value and actionable tips. ‘Bye bye bad bio’ is an example of that.
One Tweet
I write to
read this earlier this week and it stuck with me. it makes sense, doesn’t it? explaining something is really difficult if you don’t understand it properly. writing about it helps clarify your thoughts, find the gaps that need filling.
One Tool
Locket Widget (iOS)
in case you missed it while Wordle-ing, Locket has skyrocketed to the top of Apple’s App Store this week. it’s super cool!
Locket is a widget that shows you live pictures from your friends, right on your Home Screen. It’s like a portal to the people you care about — a little glimpse at what they’re up to throughout the day.
download Locket Widget.
🎂 One gift for you.
happy birthday mate!
And that’s all for now; thanks for bearing with me.