225 - life update ⚫🥬
Hey there, !
It seems like an age since I've done one of these, so let's get into it.
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Chinese New Year was great - lots of food, and celebrations as always. Did you know that Asians, who are really good at marketing, ate a particular type of weird fungus called 'faat choi' which is only found in the deserts of Mongolia, and has been eaten to near extinction? And this was all because the word 'faat choi' sounds like 'Make a lot of money'. Yeah, it's real!
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On that note, did you know that a couple of is defined as up to 6??? Yeah, it's true! Also from the comments of the tiktok, "“couple” comes from Latin “copula” meaning ‘a tie, connection’. It’s also where get get “copulate”". The more you know 👀
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My basil and lettuce are going OUT OF CONTROL but after a recent harvest some of them are less good - we cut out the leaves that were helping them grow...on the bright side it means I can start growing some other stuff! Fun times :)
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I'm looking forward to watching Dune Part Two (IMAX, Labour Day) - but the Superbowl commercials also announced Wicked the movie, Deadpool & Wolverine, and A Quiet Place: Day One. So many fun movies coming out that I'm interested in gettin' to. On that note, I'm also looking forward to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, as I am every year - though sadly I'll be in Japan for two weeks smack bang in the middle of the festival. Going to be able to catch a few shows - hoping that I just stumble on some good ones so I don't have to plan it all out!
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Oh yes, I'm going to Japan for two weeks! Travel bug Vince activated since last year, and we are going STRONG. It's been 10 years since I last went, and things have changed, I think. Everything is so much more accessible through apps and guides online - it was much easier to get things booked and planned this time around. Let me know if you have any key recommendations in the Big Three Cities (Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka) as long as they aren't shrines. They're just like churches in Europe - once you seen one, you've pretty much seen 'em all. If you have any recs let me know!
How are you going? I'm always curious - you can always reply to this email and we can chat!
Chat soon :)
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✔️Real Life Recommendations
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Mr and Mrs Smith - it's on Prime, and it's not too bad. I'm about 2/3rds of the way through, and it's definitely a different vibe to the earlier Mr and Mrs Smith. Less sexiness, more comedy, better worldbuilding but more meandering story. I think the chemistry between the actors is definitely not as good as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but they have their moments! If you got Prime, you probably already watching it, if you don't, then thank you for not supporting capitalism...er, but anyway - it's a recommend from me :D
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Arshee Fried Chicken - add it to the tier list! I found it on a sad night wanting to get some nearby fried chicken and found this place - 4.7 on Google and damn it delivered! It's just a local fried chicken shop - nothing fancy whatsoever - but the chicken was juicy and surprisingly flavorful (I remember zoning out and then snapping back to reality because I was like 'wait how come this is so nice?'), the batter was crispy and full of different bits and pieces (exactly the texture you want), the chips were hot and crispy and salted beautifully. Highly recommended!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Don't give advice, be useful - I love this reframe because it's something I noticed a while ago myself but has more useful things to say about what you should do rather than trying to give advice. It's a bit consultant-y but still has some great thoughts: "Always work on the next most useful thing. And that doesn’t always involve doing what the client asked for."
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the new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed — Ask a Manager - a great piece from 2022 which I can't remember if I've linked before but is worth another link; someone rocked up to work obviously having gotten someone else to take the interview. Fantastic stuff.
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Give AI curiosity, and it will watch TV forever - I think this makes sense, in that if you code an AI's reward function to be novelty, then it will keep flipping channels because everything is 'new' and 'different'. As always, we're trying to keep up with human evolution - I'm still uncertain if the concept of 'attention' can be captured autonomously by an AI, because I think that would help AI actually process the world around them; filtering is hard even for humans!