Resources
The past year has highlighted the degree to which our world is interconnected. However, this is nothing new. Emily Cataneo explains the history of Maine’s historic King Pines:
Masts, in the days of wooden ships, played a far greater part in world affairs than merely that of supporting canvas. They were of vital necessity to the lives of nations,’ wrote William R. Carlton in a 1939 New England Quarterly article. Canvas was easy enough to produce, but a tree worthy of becoming a mast took centuries to grow. Some British ships needed masts of 40 inches in diameter, a resource hard to come by in Europe. Before colonization, the British sourced their masts from the Baltic, but even those trees rarely topped 27-inch diameters.
When wars cut off British access to the Baltic region in the 1650s, the king turned in earnest to the forests of the New World. He appointed a surveyor general, who directed laborers to tramp into the woods and mark all trees with a diameter over 24 inches with a “broad arrow,” the official mark to denote the king’s property, made with three blows of a hatchet.
Atlas Obscura
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Adventures in Capital
Here’s Mark Andreessen discussing the history of venture capital with Noah Smith:
M.A.: There’s something very old about what venture capital is — Tyler Cowen uses the term “project evaluation”, the process of sorting through many possible configurations of people and ideas and then picking a few to back with money and effort to try to create something new and important in the world. In venture capital, this idea traces back to the whaling industry of centuries past, where independent financiers would fund captains and ships to hunt whales — legend has it this is the origin of the term “carried interest”, which originally meant the share of the whale carried by the ship and kept by the captain and crew. The same “project evaluation” pattern has played out repeatedly for centuries, for many kinds of large-scale, risky projects, from colonial settlements like the Plymouth colony, to music/film/television projects, to the world’s largest private equity transactions.
Noahpinion
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Peace
As the world starts to awaken from the pandemic, it’s worth reflecting on what the slower pace of the past months may have revealed.
There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence ….
(and that is) activism and overwork. The rush and pressure
of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form,
of its innate violence.To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of
conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands,
to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone
in everything, is to succumb to violence.The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the
fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of
inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.
(H/T Tim Ferriss – Five Bullet Friday)
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Just One Thing
We were looking for a funny / silly movie last week and found Central Intelligence. Here’s my favorite exchange from the Movie:
When Bob Stone (Dwayne Johnson) is asked how he was able to transform his body he responds, “I just did one thing…I worked out six hours a day, every day, for the last 20 years straight. Anybody can do it, right?”
Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean its easy.
This prompted me to think of a few more examples:
Diet: Eat more fruits and vegetables and less meat.
Sleep: Get around 8 hours of sleep a night. Avoid alcohol, caffeine, and blue light in the hours before bedtime.
Personal Finance: Keep expenses less than income. Save a portion of the difference and invest. Give it time to compound.
For many of life’s problems, we already have the solution.
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Recommendations
Before iPods, most of us found out about a new song or band from a friend. Today, it’s more likely to be a suggestion made by an algorithm. Is this better or worse than the old way? How often will an algorithm make a recommendation that is way out of the norm?
On one end I like a few classical music songs, on the other end I like songs by Pearl Jam and Guns and Roses. Would Spotify or Pandora ever make the connection? My gut tells me the new way isn’t necessarily better or worse, just different.
Back in the day, a friend of mine turned me on to a Raleigh band, The Connells. This is the song they are known for:
While I was watching this on YouTube, another video popped up. This 12-string / harmonica solo version is amazing:
It’s a great example of how algorithms can aide in discovery. Again, not better or worse – just different.
If you like “’74-’75”, check out “Slackjawed”.
H/T Allan for sharing this band with me.