Managed to put this together this week as well.
As always, all links on this newsletter can be found here.
History, Culture, and Religion
Yacob and Amo: Africa’s precursors to Locke, Hume and Kant | Aeon Essays
The highest ideals of Locke, Hume and Kant were first proposed more than a century earlier by an Ethiopian in a cave
An overview of 2 philosophes I'd never heard of before : Zera Yacob and Anton Amo
What We Lost – Rands in Repose
This is. A photograph of Carrie Fisher in her role of Princess Leia. Chances are, your brain can tell the difference between the two photos. The first is a computer generated image ("CGI") and the se
Why video calls suck
A superbly interesting article with a provocative title. I recommend you read it + send it to anyone who says the phrase - 'I want to drop out'
When Islamic Double Discourse Meets Western Liberal Double Standards - Areo
It is not uncommon to perceive that which is alien to us through an exotic lens. It is easy to idealize that which we have no direct access to, but…View Post
Came across this interesting article about something I wondered about given recent events in India.
Tech, Science, and Math
A Harvard Mathematician Finally Cracked This 150-Year-Old Chess Puzzle
How many queens can you place on a chess board so that none are attacking each other?
The n-queen's problem has finally been solved! The savior? Math!
Google Docs’s new update takes aim at Microsoft Word—and Notion, too
Google Workspace adds pageless documents, AI-generated summaries, and deeper ties to Maps and Gmail.
Google Docs is getting an upgrade!
And politicians made things even worse
Explainer from 2020 on the broken healthcare system in the US, many lessons to be learned.
Why I’m for COVID vaccines, but against vaccine mandates. - Peter Attia
In the heated debate over vaccine mandates, science and logic have often been lost amid politics and fear.
Can you be pro-vax but anti-vax mandates? Peter Attia seems to think so, I don't agree with him, but, I like him and find him interesting.
Music theory for nerds / fuzzy notepad
Not music nerds, obviously. I don’t know anything about music. I know there are letters but sometimes the letters have squiggles; I know an octave doubles in pitch; I know you can
I've been spending more time learning the Guitar of late and I came across this neat article that deep dives into music theory through the lens of math.
Everything else
Venus and Serena Williams on Their Own Terms
The tale of Venus and Serena Williams has been told many times. Now they get to be the ones to tell it.
A great piece on and by the Williams sisters
A couple of pieces on the tension right now between Russia and basically everybody else looking at it from the view where Russia actually comes out best.
What if Russia Wins? | Foreign Affairs
If Russia gains control of Ukraine or manages to destabilize it on a major scale, a new era for the United States and for Europe will begin.
The US is not Ready for a Peer to Peer Fight in Europe | Small Wars Journal
As we all have, I have been watching the impressive Russian ground forces arrayed to invade Ukraine from three sides.
The adorable love story behind Wikipedia’s ‘high five’ photos
Nearly 14 years later, the tale of this iconic couple can finally be told.
Wikipedia has been using these 'High Five' photos for a long time, it features a couple who have an interesting love story.
Trump’s Truth Social Can Only Make Mastodon Stronger
The Trump-backed Twitter lookalike looks near to launch, and for better or worse, this will draw more attention than ever to my favorite social network.
Trump launched his own social network based on Mastodon recently which i thought was interesting.
What do rights holders earn per Audible listener credit? Short answer: Much less than you think. Audiblegate, authors and narrators fight against Audible
Audible and its hidden costs, Audiobook narrators and authors might be making much less than you think
Book
Tell Me a Story: Narrative and Intelligence by Roger C. Schank
How are our memories, our narratives, and our intelligence interrelated? What can artificial intelligence and narratology say to each other?
This weeks recommendation is Tell Me a Story by Roger C. Schank. One of my favorite books about the nature of intelligence.
Thank you for reading
That’s all I have for this week.
Do subscribe if interested and do reply with interesting stuff
Sainath