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SECRET SOFTWARE BILLIONAIRE: MARK LEONARD FROM CONSTELLATION SOFTWARE
Mark Leonard is the founder and CEO of Constellation Software. And there’s magic to that name. (Leonard also happens to look a bit like Gandalf.) He’s bought more than 500 software companies, but never sold any of them—with one exception, which Leonard regrets until this day. Constellation Software buys software businesses to keep and grow…
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TRELLIS OF WISTERIA
A trellis of wisteria, a sight to behold It stands in the garden, its beauty ever so bold Vines of deep purple, its leaves of soft green It stands in the sunlight, a beauty to be seen It’s sweet aroma fills the air A reminder of beauty and peace to fare The delicate blooms of…
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WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE SYSTEM
We live in a world where energy companies make a fortune when there’s an energy crisis, the military industrial complex makes a fortune when there’s war, and pharmaceutical companies make a fortune when there’s a pandemic. This is something comedian Russel Brand said on episode #1949 of the Joe Rogan podcast. Whatever you think of…
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IRAN DISCOVERS WORLD’S SECOND LARGEST LITHIUM RESERVE
Iran seems to be a country very lucky when it comes to natural resources. We all know they make a lot of money selling oil. But they now found what’s believed to be the second largest reserve of lithium in the world (#1 is Chile with 9.3 million metric tons). The newly discovered Iranian reserve…
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HOW WIRED WILL (AND WON’T) USE GENERATIVE AI
WIRED magazine announced how they’ll use AI, and while the entire article is worth reading, there’s a few things that were of interest to me: If you read the entire piece, you’ll find that this is a very thoughtful and balanced approach to the use of AI, probably the best I’ve come across from major…
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AI UP YOUR DOODLES
I know that “ai” is not a verb, but that doesn’t stop me from using to create the potentially worst possible title. Scribble Diffusion is a cool toy that allows you to draw a scribble on the screen, add a prompt, and it will then generate an AI image for you. I drew a circle…
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AI MOVIE RECOMMENDATIONS? YUP, AND IT’S PRETTY GOOD
Turns out AI is also good at recommending movies for you. I don’t mean the terrible Netflix recommendations, but I just discovered a site called Movie Deep Search which allows you to type in a phrase like “strong storytelling movies with a plot twist” or “funny movies with good writing” and it spits out a…
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SHOWER TEMPERATURE CONTROL
One of the most common first-world gripes is getting the water temperature right when taking a shower. It’s a common experience that the water is too cold, you move the shower handle a tiny little bit to make it warmer, and suddenly instead of slightly too cold, you now get way too hot water. Ben…
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WARAYAKI-YA わらやき屋
Warayaki is a spectacular way of preparing food: Take a bunch of rice straw (wara) and burn it (yaki). The chef puts a bunch of rice straw on the fireplace, lights it up, and puts the food into the flames. It’s a very short, intense exposure to heat and smoke and light. The food will…
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Myeong-yi Namul (명이나물)
Myeong-yi Namul (aka myeongi namul, 명이나물) is the Korean name for for pickled leaves of Korean mountain garlic. Now it’s not really garlic as far as I can tell, it’s called like this because it tastes a bit like garlic and grows mostly in the mountains. My (so far unconfirmed research) shows that this plant…
Got any book recommendations?