Woolgathering #142: 1st Quarter Book Roundup!
Plus: Bats, Philosophy, and the lightbulb conspiracy
At the beginning of the year, I hopped on the 12-week year wagon. That is, I began setting goals and measuring my activity based on 12-week intervals that I treat like a year. If you’re curious about how this works, check out the book. I highly recommend it.
Right now, I’m in the period where my “year” has ended. I’m reviewing, renewing, and setting the goals and plan for the coming 12-week year.
While doing that, I took a look at the books I read during that period that are worth sharing. Most of them, I’ve shared already in previous editions of this newsletter. But I figured it might be helpful to compile that list here, with a brief blurb about why I liked the book, and what I think it has to offer.
Feed Your Mind
Bats and the Origins of Outbreaks (graphic)
You may have heard that COVID-19 is thought to have passed on to humans from bats. As it turns out, this wouldn’t be the first time. Bats are apparently ideal hosts for viruses that want to get to humans. This artfully crafted graphic from Reuters walks the reader through the uniqueness of bats as carriers of zoontic viruses. And that doesn’t appear to be going away.
Bats are the only mammals capable of powered flight. There is a high energy and metabolic demand for flight, leading to elevated body temperatures in bats which is similar to the effects of human fever that occurs during immune response. This means some viruses they carry have adapted to be more tolerant to higher temperatures, potentially bad news for other animals if infected.
Paul Graham on How to Do Philosophy
My background is in academic philosophy, but because of the dearth of career opportunities in it, I chose to leave. I always suspected there was something about it that was both its best feature, but also its most crippling limitation. Paul Graham writes beautifully about it, as well as what he proposes is a better way to practice:
In the humanities you can either avoid drawing any definite conclusions (e.g. conclude that an issue is a complex one), or draw conclusions so narrow that no one cares enough to disagree with you. The kind of philosophy I'm advocating won't be able to take either of these routes. At best you'll be able to achieve the essayist's standard of proof, not the mathematician's or the experimentalist's. And yet you won't be able to meet the usefulness test without implying definite and fairly broadly applicable conclusions. Worse still, the usefulness test will tend to produce results that annoy people: there's no use in telling people things they already believe, and people are often upset to be told things they don't.
(Video)
A Fascinating Look at What’s Behind the Lifespan (or lack thereof) of Products
There's a lightbulb at a fire station in California that's been shining for 120 consecutive years. They sure don't make 'em like that anymore. And that’s actually by design. Because a shadowy group called the Phoebus Cartel made sure of it. And how does that shadowy cartel relate to the rollouts and updates of iPhones? This fascinating video breaks it all down.
A Question to Ponder
What is the smallest productive interval of your time?
You can certainly get important things done in a year, a month, a week, or a day. You can get some important things done in an hour, a half hour. But what about 10 minutes? 5 minutes? 2 minutes?
We tend to wish for more time, and if we pay attention, we’re often give the gift of more time—just not in a way we notice. When we have to wait in line somewhere unexpectedly, or we show up earlier than everyone else for a meeting, we’re gifted time—albeit in small intervals. If you can learn to see those intervals as productive, you will feel like you are getting more time. And it will feel great. But it’s a mindset you have to develop. This question will help you to challenge yourself to see those small intervals you get as productive.
A Quote
“A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.”
— Salman Rushdie