Covid and 2020
Comparing COVID-19 vs. Influenza Mortality in the U.S.
Harrowing visualization that shows how bad it is. COVID killed more people in 2020 than the flu did over the last nine seasons.
Vaccine myths on social media can be effectively reduced with credible fact checking
You have probably seen the plethora of misinformation about vaccines. Researchers showed warnings like, “This post is falsified. Fact-checked by the Centers For Disease Control. Learn why this is falsified.” The results showed that those exposed to fact-checking labels were more likely to develop more positive attitudes toward vaccines than misinformation alone.
A tale of 2020 in 20 McKinsey charts
See the story of this unique year through data visualizations from McKinsey. Everything from COVID deaths, unemployment, school closures to cost-benefit analysis of once-in-50-year pandemic like COVID.
[Book] Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live
Unleashing new divisions in our society as well as opportunities for cooperation, this 21st-century pandemic has upended our lives in ways that will test, but not vanquish, our already frayed collective culture. Dr. Christakis envisions what happens when the great force of a deadly germ meets the enduring reality of our evolved social nature.
Technology
DALL·E: Creating Images from Text
Imagine telling your computer to create an image of “an armchair in the shape of an avocado” or “a cube made of porcupine” and see the result right away. The folks in OpenAI have trained a neural network called DALL·E that creates images from text captions for a wide range of concepts expressible in natural language. Super impressive technology with a really fun blog post.
How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance
If you haven't, please watch this robot dancing video first. Impressive, isn't it? This article describes how the engineers works with dancers to coreograph the movements.
Recognizing Emotion Cause in Conversations
Emotions are intrinsic to humans; consequently, emotion understanding is a key part of human-like artificial intelligence (AI). This novel machine learning model is now able to recognize the cause behind emotions in text.
There are an insane amount of cool space things happening in 2021
Aside from the James Webb Space Telescope launch and the arrival of the 2020 Mars fleet, NASA has a lot going on this year.
Business
No Meetings, No Deadlines, No Full-Time Employees
Gumroad grossed $11 million in annualized revenue in 2020 without a full-time employee. This article explains how they get there and how the founder runs the business.
How Apple Is Organized for Innovation
How does Apple work? It’s about experts leading experts. The vice president of Apple University wrote this great article.
Psychology
Why Small Habits Make a Big Difference
“... if you can get 1 percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. What starts as a small win or a minor setback accumulates into something much more.”
Why Procrastinators Procrastinate & How to Beat Procrastination
We are all veterans at procrastination. This fabulous two-part article series explores why we do it and how to beat it. You should check it out for the hand-drawn hilarious illustration alone.
[Book] The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt shows how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. Very topical to help us understand the massive division in the political world right now.
Products
Excalidraw
With COVID and the remote work, we can't brainstorm on a whiteboard with colleagues easily anymore. I came across this tool recently and loved how easy it is to draw collaborative diagrams. They just wrote an excellent one year review article.
DeskCycle 2 Under-Desk Exercise Bike
Because of the shelter-in-place rule, going out to exercise is more challenging. This small “bike” will be able to help you stay fit. The odometer said that I’d biked 400+ miles on this since early December 2020. I biked when working, browsing, meeting via video conferencing, and even when reading books. I love how it made cardio effortless.
Fun
Soul
A great movie about finding your purpose in life. We watched it with the kids, and they liked it too.
The Illusion Only Some Can See
Up until the end, I still couldn’t see through the illusion. It probably broke my brain.
Making Lego Car CLIMB Obstacles
Who knew cheering on Lego car climbing books would be so exciting.
The Queen's Gambit & Searching for Bobby Fischer
We watched these two titles, one after another, on Netflix. As a result, I’ve downloaded chess apps on my phone to learn more. I recommend Learn Chess with Dr. Wolf.