Hilarious (RE: #VanLife)
“I may have set expectations a little high. Based on my pitch, Michael later told me, he’d imagined us cruising California in something resembling ‘a Beyoncé tour bus.’ Instead, our 2013 Ford Econoline E-150, with a psychedelic jungle-scene paint job, resembled a Rainforest Cafe on wheels. Thanks to a huge acid yellow and electric blue bug-eyed chameleon perched just behind the driver’s door, it looked like a vehicle a mobile vape company might use to dispense free samples, or something a person might drive to let onlookers know: Here is someone willing and able to perform unlicensed aquarium repairs — for the right price.”
and this…
“To suggest that the worst part of vacationing in a van is sleeping in a van is not fair to the other aspects of the endeavor, which are also all the worst part — but it is cramped, slovenly and bad.”
I Lived the #VanLife. It Wasn’t Pretty. by Caity Weaver
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Fascinating
“If we were to tie a rope tight around the Earth’s equator – about 24,901 miles of rope – and then added just a single yard of slack (additional knowledge), would the extra footage make any noticeable difference to someone standing on the ground nearby?
The astonishing answer, contrary to our intuition, is ‘Yes.‘
The additional three feet of rope across nearly 25,000 miles raises it almost six inches off the ground all around the earth.”
“The Better Letter: Insufficient Imagination” by Bob Seawright
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Metadata
This Stratechery post has helped me conceptualize what the Metaverse might look like:
“Here is the punchline: the Metaverse already exists, it just happens to be called the Internet…
…What makes ‘The Metaverse’ ‘unique, then, is that it is the Internet best experienced in virtual reality. This, though, will take time; I expect that the first virtual reality experiences will be individual metaverses, tied together by the Internet as we experience it today.”
Microsoft and the Metaverse via Stratechery
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Yesterday’s Explorers
“Several years ago, the journalist David Epstein wrote the book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, which argued that early specialization was a poor strategy for succeeding in a world of complex problems that defy easy answers. Instead, Epstein said, people are better off exploring a variety of fields and approaches and braiding their knowledge to produce new solutions. Wang’s research seems to back up that claim. The central paradox of the explore-exploit sequence is that hot streaks are examples of specialization, but specialization itself doesn’t lead to hot streaks. Today’s best exploiters were yesterday’s best explorers.”
The Atlantic
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Tiny Thought (by Shane Parrish)
Things that reduce the odds of long-term success:
H/T Farnum Street – Brain Food Newsletter – November 14, 2021
A lack of focus.
Making excuses.
Staying up late.
Eating poorly.
Checking email first thing in the AM.
Working more to fix being busy.
Buying things you don’t have the money for.
Focusing on yourself.
Letting other people define success for you.
The wrong relationships.
A lack of patience.
To this list I would add:
Stop learning.
Not working on the relationships you have.