Interesting Stuff from the Internet
The article "Fact or Fiction?: NASA Spent Millions to Develop a Pen that Would Write in Space, whereas the Soviet Cosmonauts Used a Pencil" from Scientific American debunks the popular myth that NASA spent millions of dollars developing a space pen while Soviet cosmonauts simply used pencils. The legend suggests that NASA's bureaucratic approach led to unnecessary expenses, while the Soviets opted for a simpler, more economical solution. However, the article clarifies that the story is not true and provides the factual history behind the development of the space pen.
Initially, both NASA and Soviet cosmonauts used pencils. However, pencils posed several problems: they were flammable, and the tips could break off, potentially causing harm in a microgravity environment. In response, Paul C. Fisher and his company, the Fisher Pen Company, independently developed the space pen, investing $1 million of their own money. The pen could write in extreme conditions, including zero gravity, underwater, and in extreme temperatures.
After extensive testing, NASA adopted Fisher's pen, and the Soviet space agency also purchased it. The pen's unique design features a pressurized ink cartridge and a gel-like ink that turns fluid upon contact with the ballpoint, making it reliable in various conditions.
Prince Charles Cinema drops AI-written film following backlash (bbc.com)
Due to public backlash, the Prince Charles Cinema in Soho, London, canceled the premiere of "The Last Screenwriter," a film entirely written by AI. Concerns were raised about AI replacing human writers, reflecting broader industry issues. The film, created by Peter Luisi with ChatGPT, aimed to explore AI's capabilities in scriptwriting. Despite being marketed as the first feature film written by AI, the cinema responded to feedback from its audience, emphasizing its commitment to supporting traditional filmmaking. The incident highlights ongoing debates about AI's impact on creative industries and the need for fair compensation for artists when their work is used by AI developers.
Snippets from the Newsletters/ Newspapers/ Books
“You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give.” - E.O. Wilson
Between 1995 and 2000, the NASDAQ skyrocketed 800%. Then it nose-dived 78% over the next 2.5 years
Now, Sequoia, the crème de la crème of venture capitalist firms, is wondering if AI's headed for the same fate.
Their logic? It's all about ROI. Think of building AI like renovating a house—you need the home's value to increase more than what you spent on those fancy upgrades.
For AI, that magic number is $600B. That's how much the AI ecosystem needs to generate in revenue to justify its current spending on GPUs and data centers, which is how AI gets built.
The Economist did some related number-crunching: investors have added over $2T in market cap to the big five tech stocks, projecting an extra $300-400B in revenue each year.
Reality check: OpenAI's annualized revenue is $3.4B. Impressive, sure, but it's not $600B—which, BTW, is more than Apple makes in an entire year.
Adding to the concern, OpenAI actually makes more money selling its AI models than Microsoft, which added a trillion dollars in market cap over the last year.
Why it’s a biggie: It's not that people aren't using AI—a Microsoft/LinkedIn study found that 75% of global knowledge workers use it. The problem? They're not spending enough to justify what investors are spending to build it.
TL;DR: Most folks are just mooching off the free chatbots from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
For AI to justify its current valuation, more people and companies would need to start seeing serious impacts to their bottom line (think more zeros in the profit column). Otherwise, we might be in for a reality check in the next 1-2 years.
List of every book and author mentioned in the Hacker News thread: "What book bit, stung, and shook you deeply?":
1. Capital Vol 1 by Karl Marx
2. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
3. Blindsight by Peter Watts
4. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
5. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
6. Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb
7. Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams
8. 1984 by George Orwell
9. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
10. Educated by Tara Westover
11. Blindness by José Saramago
12. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
13. Leaf by Niggle by J.R.R. Tolkien
14. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
15. The Black Book of Communism by various authors
16. Russian Spring by Norman Spinrad
17. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
18. The Dark Tower series by Stephen King
19. Just Revenge by Alan Dershowitz
20. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
21. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de las Casas
22. People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
23. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
24. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
25. Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
26. The Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
27. The Master and his Emissary by Iain McGilchrist
28. The Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov
29. Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes by Jacques Ellul
30. Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
31. The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell
32. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
33. 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
34. His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman
35. Brother Karamazov and Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Inferior mirages show us things that don’t exist—puddles on the road or pools in the desert. But superior mirages show us things that do exist. The mountains that Ross saw were real. The trouble is, they weren’t twenty-five miles west of him in Lancaster Sound. They were two hundred miles west of him, on a distant island in the Canadian Arctic.
“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” - E.O. Wilson
First-Sale price: The concept of "first-sale price" refers to the initial price at which a product is sold by the manufacturer or the primary producer to the first purchaser in the supply chain. This excludes additional costs, such as taxes, tariffs, or markups from intermediaries, retailers, or distributors. It is essentially the price set by the original seller before the product enters the broader market.
Example of First-Sale Price
Let's consider an example in consumer electronics, specifically a smartphone.
Manufacturer: ABC Electronics manufactures a new smartphone model.
First Sale: ABC Electronics sells the smartphone to a wholesaler, XYZ Distributors, at the First-Sale price of $300 per unit.
Additional Costs:
Import Duties and Taxes: XYZ Distributors imports smartphones into another country and pays import duties and taxes totaling $50 per unit.
Shipping and Handling: The shipping and handling cost to the destination country is $20 per unit.
Wholesale Price: XYZ Distributors then sells the smartphone to a retail chain, TechMart, at a wholesale price of $400 per unit.
Retail Price: Finally, TechMart sells the smartphone to end consumers at a retail price of $600 per unit.
Profit-maximizing control refers to a business's strategic actions and decisions to achieve the highest possible profit. This involves various aspects of business operations, including pricing strategies, cost management, production efficiency, and market positioning. Below are key components and examples of how businesses can implement profit-maximizing control.
Key Components of Profit-Maximizing Control
Pricing Strategies:
Dynamic Pricing: Adjusting prices based on demand, competition, and other market conditions.
Price Discrimination: Charging different prices to different customer segments based on their willingness to pay.
Bundling: Offering products or services together at a combined price that is often lower than the total price of buying each item separately.
Cost Management:
Economies of Scale: Reducing per-unit costs by increasing production volume.
Lean Manufacturing: Minimizing waste and improving efficiency in the production process.
Outsourcing: Contracting out certain business functions to specialized, lower-cost providers.
Product and Market Strategy:
Product Differentiation: Creating unique product features that justify higher prices.
Market Segmentation: Targeting specific market segments to meet their needs better and maximize sales.
Innovation: Continuously improving and innovating products to stay ahead of competitors and attract customers.
Revenue Management:
Upselling and Cross-selling: Encouraging customers to buy higher-end products or additional items.
Subscription Models: Offering products or services on a subscription basis to ensure a steady revenue stream.
Promotions and Discounts: Strategically using discounts and promotions to boost sales without significantly eroding margins.
Operational Efficiency:
Supply Chain Optimization: Streamlining the supply chain to reduce costs and improve delivery times.
Inventory Management: Balancing inventory levels to avoid overstocking and stockouts, which can tie up capital and reduce sales opportunities.
Automation: Implementing technology to automate repetitive tasks, reducing labor costs and errors.
Reverse Matilda Effect
According to S&P Dow Jones Indices (SPDJI), 59.7% of U.S. large-cap equity fund managers underperformed the S&P 500 in 2023. As you stretch the time horizon, the numbers get even more dismal. Over three years, 79.8% underperformed. Over 10 years, 87.4% underperformed. And over 20 years, 93% underperformed. This 2023 performance follows 13 consecutive years in which most fund managers in this category have lagged the index. According to S&P Dow Jones Indices, only 24% of the stocks in the S&P 500 outperformed the average stock’s return from 2000 to 2022. Over this period, the average return on an S&P 500 stock was 390%, while the median stock rose by just 93%.
Stannley Druckenmiller's No. 1 piece of advice for novice investors 🧐
…you don't want to buy them when earnings are great, because what are they doing when their earnings are great? They go out and expand capacity. Three or four years later, there's overcapacity and they're losing money. What about when they're losing money? Well, then they’ve stopped building capacity. So three or four years later, capacity will have shrunk and their profit margins will be way up. So, you always have to sort of imagine the world the way it's going to be in 18 to 24 months as opposed to now. If you buy it now, you're buying into every single fad every single moment. Whereas if you envision the future, you're trying to imagine how that might be reflected differently in security prices.
In Be Water, My Friend, Shannon Lee explains why:
“Worry doesn’t solve a problem; it makes a problem out of the problem. Pessimism doesn’t solve a problem; it makes a problem harder by implying it is impossible to solve. Fear doesn’t solve a problem; it stops us from attacking the problem because we are afraid of failing or making the problem worse. Doubt doesn’t solve a problem; it gives you an excuse not to solve the problem. And apathy doesn’t solve a problem; it leaves you uncaring about anything at all.”
"Sad" has 3 letters but so does "Joy"
"Fall" has 4 letters but so does "Rise"
"Curse" has 5 letters but so does "Bless"
"Ignore" has 6 letters but so does "Listen"
"Enemies" has 7 letters but so does "Friends"
"Immature" has 8 letters but so does "Maturity"
"Ignorance" has 9 letters but so does "Knowledge"
"Negativity" has 10 letters but so does "Positivity"
You have two realities to choose from.
It's up to you to decide which one you want to live.
-Alex Wolfe