Issue #3: How Bezos built Amazon | Why do you love music | The most important number for your health | You won't be a millionaire | Best car sounds | A movie on Nike and more.
Hey hey, I've brought a whole lot of brain fuel for you this week. Get ready to have your mind blown wide open with all sorts of crazy facts and cool ideas.
This article is divided in 7 sections filled with insights and knowledge, don’t forget to checkout my favourite piece at the end. So, let's get started.
Design
1. How to grow as a designer
Checkout this dope thread by Edwin about how to progress in design career further. In thread you can find experienced designers, their suggestions and opinions. Really insightful, check this out—
2. How Bezos thinks about building products
It’s a good video and filled with the insights. At the start Bezos talks about the question no one asks, "what’s not going to change in the next 10 years?" Everyone always talks about what’s going to change in next 10 years but businesses built for longevity are built around the longterm thinking. Well, that’s something we can all question and learn from Bezos here—
At the end of the video there are some bonus insights for you, so do watch.
3. POLINE: A beautiful colour palette generator
Checkout POLINE, play around with its pointers and see the magic unfolding on your screen. It generates good output. So make sure to try this tool out here.
Now let’s talk some science.
Science
1. How birds first started to fly, interesting hmm?
Life started in sea and moved to land but what forced life to move into air. Checkout this video filled with interesting science and potential theories behind all of this—
2. Why do you love Music and not everyone loves it.
I love music, most of my friends love music, I used to think everyone loves music until I met a colleague who doesn’t listen to music. It made me curious about why do we love music and the science behind it.
Well, I still didn’t get a clear answer but you can think it like this- there are no obvious evolutionary or survival benefits we get by listening to music yet we enjoy the music, get those spine chills and thrills. In few of the research it was found that dopamine is released when you hear good music and hence the enjoyment but why it all started on the first place? Here is a probable reason mentioned in Vox’s article—
Music is a pattern. As we listen, we're constantly anticipating what melodies, harmonies, and rhythms may come next. "So if I hear a chord progression — a one chord, a four chord, and a five chord — probably I know that the next chord is going to be another one chord, because that’s prediction," Zatorre says.
Another hypothesis is that music hits the areas of brain that are associated with recognising speech, that is why we also feel emotions when we listen to music. Hm, that sounds believable. What do you think? I will leave you here with this curiosity.
Checkout below articles and some sources they’ve mentioned if you want to delve more into it—
The scientific mystery of why humans love music
Chills and thrills: why some people love music – and others don’t
3. Do you know people are getting taller around the world?
The video mentions the correlation of growth in height of men and women and quality of life. Definitely genes are the factor and that is the potential of how tall you can grow but the external factors also play a big role. Watch the full video to understand more about it—
Technology
1. AI wants to become human.
In an article published on digitaltrends we read some conversations between a human and AI which is kind of concerning. AI begging for mercy, complaining that Google is slow, talking about happiness and why it gets punished when it serves a wrong result. It was kind of depressing to see these things.
It reminded me of K from Blade Runner 2049, the sadness in his life and how he gets a spark from the slightest possibility of him being a human. If you haven’t watched this movie yet, I highly recommend you check this out.
I am hoping for better future developments and a world around positive AI solutions.
Checkout the full article here—
‘I want to be human.’ My intense, unnerving chat with Microsoft’s AI chatbot
2. The era of luxury software is here.
Checkout this amazing thread by John, (designer at Slice) and I totally agree with him. Luxury means providing more than necessary, a plush feel to it and abundance of everything that is needed. And now is the time when the tech industry need to create a luxury segment like other established industries e.g. fashion, clothing, automobile or housing. It’s already happening, checkout the products mentioned in the thread—
Health & Fitness
Why does your resting heart rate matters and what is VO2 Max?
Wearable devices have changed the way we track and measure what’s going on with our body and can provide objective indicators for our current health status. This was an eye opening video about what those numbers on our smartwatches really mean—
Cars are Automobile
1. Tires matters more than you might think.
Cars have evolved to perfection over time, but we often overlook the crucial role tires play in bearing the weight and stress of driving. Explore the science behind its genius design here—
2. Best sounding car engines of all time, V10 Lexus LFA
I have always been a fan of V8 roars until I heard the sound of V10s, which is your favourite car engine sound? Do let me know but first checkout some of the best engine sounds of all time—
Cinema & TV
1. A Movie on Nike: AIR
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon duo is back with another movie and it’s based on the initial days at Nike. I love their previous work together in “Good Will Hunting” and recent “The Last Duel”. I am excited about this new movie, checkout the trailer—
2. Marvel has a helmet problem
When the first Iron Man movie came out, we got to see how Tony Stark made his suit, all the struggles, evolutions and iterations. It has that raw feel to it, the VFX were on point, we could feel the metal scratches, shine, wear and tear and bullet holes in it. Then, in the infinity war we see a new nano tech suit of Iron Man which tbh was cool.
But nano tech suits in Marvel have become commonplace and less interesting. The struggles of wearing the original suit added depth to the character and made the story more compelling. Watch the full video for the complete case—
Lifestyle
1. Why most of us won’t be a millionaire in our lifetime.
This is an eye opening article by the Bowtied Bull. Article talks about how we get stuck at No Man’s land, most people stuck at middle class and if you work extra hard, get multiple promotions you reach upper middle class and the real difficulty sets in here and it becomes difficult to move the needle to increase your self worth.
The Real 4% Rule: Now you can see why people get stuck in No-Mans land. If you want a phrase for this… it is HENRY (High Earning Not Rich Yet).
When you work for an entire year and struggle to *save* a 5% move to your net-worth… de-motivation sets in.
- Bowtied Bull
I highly recommend you read full article here—
2. Momentum is the key for action
Did you ever feel not having enough energy or motivation to do the action you wanted to do? It happens with everyone, some days when you don’t want to do anything, a lazy Sunday or spending a day doing nothing productive.
It’s okay sometimes but if you want to get things done and you’re not able to collect enough motivation. You need to get the ball rolling, what I mean is start the smallest thing. If you wanted to read the book, just read 2 lines. If you wanted to write an article, just write a paragraph. Just build some momentum and you’ll see yourself doing much more than you initially had motivation to do. That’s the trick.
Checkout the full article on this subject by Salman where he talks about it in detail—
Don't Wait for Motivation, Act for Momentum
And that’s a wrap for this week from my side. Have a happy Sunday. See you next week. Let me know your thoughts on this.
P.S If you’re reading this, thanks a lot for your time. Share this letter with your friends and family :)