Habit Chess Newsletter

3 highlights to think on today:

Reading is timeless tech:

“The irony is that we can still read a manuscript patiently copied over ten centuries ago, but we can no longer watch a video or see the contents of a disc recorded just in the last few years, unless we keep all our successive computers and recording equipment in rooms full of junk in our homes, like a museum of obsolescence.

Let’s not forget that the book has been our ally for centuries in a war that is absent from history textbooks. The struggle to preserve our most valuable creations: words, which are scarcely a puff of air; the stories we tell to give meaning to chaos and to survive it; the true, false, always provisional knowledge we scratch across the hard rock of our ignorance.”

​(Irene Vallejo and Charlotte Whittle, Papyrus)​

Machines vs Humans:

“Moravec’s paradox: machines and humans frequently have opposite strengths and weaknesses.”

​(David Epstein, Range)​

Bezos On Failed Experiments:

“He knew that creating Amazon Prime was what he calls a oneway door: it was a decision difficult to reverse. “We’ve made mistakes, doozies like the Fire Phone and many other things that just didn’t work out. I won’t list all of our failed experiments, but the big winners pay for thousands of failed experiments.” He was aware that it would be scary at first because those who signed up for Prime would be the heaviest users of shipping. “What happens when you offer a free all-you-can-eat buffet, who shows up to the buffet first?”

“The heavy eaters. It’s scary. It’s, like, oh, my God, did I really say as many prawns as you can eat?” But eventually Amazon Prime led to the combination of a loyalty program and a convenience for customers as well as a huge source of customer data.”

​(Walter Isaacson and Jeff Bezos, Invent and Wander)​

In your corner,

Misbah Haque
Founder of Pod Mahal & Habit Chess​

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