Hugh Howley book about life inside a subterranean shelter, where the cardinal rule is "if you talk about going outside, you get your wish." You're given a piece of wool to clean the lens on the camera before you die.
I enjoyed the first three books, but the "prequels", decidedly less so. YMMV.
Kevin Xu of Interconnected wrote an interesting analysis post about Why Is Facebook Not in the Cloud Business[1] its worth a read, he points out that they have the tech for it but they don't seem interested and even if they were the hard part isn't necessarily the technical aspect its building the human part
>>"The tougher part is perhaps not technical, but human. Facebook will have to build out an enterprise sales and support team that is culturally and operationally very different from running an ad-supported social network. Google, also a primarily ad-supported company, suffered from this “identity crisis” and is still trying to catch up to AWS and Azure, despite offering what many believe is a superior technical product."
He also points out they also have a trust deficient due to all the privacy and misinformation scandals.
“When do you think people die? When they are shot through the heart by the bullet of a pistol?
No. When they are ravaged by an incurable disease?
No. When they drink a soup made from a poisonous mushroom!? No! It’s when… they are forgotten.”
Here is a story of a man who collected cans and bottles for cash and invested the money he got in the stock market, he died a millionaire.
"Curt Degerman, known to many as "Tin Can Curt," Degerman spent nearly 30 years roaming the streets of Skelleftea in northern Sweden collecting tin cans and bottles for cash. Those who passed him by simply assumed he was another ordinary street bum.
But to the surpise of many, when Degerman died in 2008, he left more than $1.4 million to his cousin. In between collecting cans, Degerman spent a lot of time in his local library reading business papers and studying the stock market. "
He knew stocks inside and out," said his cousin.
By immersing himself in an education of thrift and smart investing, Degerman used his tin-can earnings to purchase mutual funds. He bought 124 gold bars and also expanded his cash with a savings account. By riding a bicycle and not having a mortgage on his house, his savings were made even easier.
But in 2008, Degerman died of a heart attack, leaving his entire estate to a cousin who had visited him regularly during his last days. He died a millionaire."
I remember reading some version of the story where he figured out what companies were on the rise by going through peoples trash. Like he would make note of what people were actually buying so he had an inside track.
"If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once... until he found the object of his research. I was sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculations would have saved him 90 percent of his labor."
Here is a YT video of Lars Doucet(the guest author of this newsletter post) discussing Georgism, Lars is a video game designer and developer by profession.
Here is two interesting articles from The Economist where they analyse the success of Hamilton[1] and where they see if you could have predicted the success of Hamilton[2] and here is a in depth post on the data and methodology of the model they created and used[3]
The main sign it was going to be a success was a performance Lin-Manuel Miranda did at the White House. Listen for where the laughs are; they're not there when you see it on Broadway (and I assume The Public Theater).
That's important because the premise is high school cringy. Let's take a historical story and set it to rap! If it wasn't so well-executed, it would have come off as painfully gimmicky.
Are you sure the target audience doesn't also find it cringey now? I noticed Hamilton seemed to drop out of the zeitgeist almost overnight at some point. It wasn't as precipitous as Game of Thrones's fall, perhaps, but it was fast. Can you imagine the Obamas saying Hamilton is the “best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life” (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/theater/hamilton-takes-a-...) today? Seems unlikely.
I'm not sure how long it took for Rent to feel cringy, but the premise of 20-somethings trying their hardest to avoid getting jobs so they can continue being artists also didn't age well.
Yeah I would say I had the same perception. I think things that get that popular that quick almost have to go through the uncool downside of that curve.
I'd be the first to admit that you are basically correct, I dislike a vast majority of broadway musicals. There are some musical movies I like and things like Book of Mormon which I'm not sure if it's considered broadway. I find Le Misrables to be okay.
But I would still have to say, amongst all the broadway that I don't like, Hamilton sticks out to me as especially weird, like one of those 90s educational videos where people would rap when they clearly just shouldn't be.
Anyway, to each their own. More power to you if you like it. Something about it really bugs me though.
I’ll offer a counterpoint. I’ve seen it once live and soon going to see it twice next time it comes to town in a few months. I can’t wait, I’m giddy. A whole lot of people out there clearly are too.
I totally get that some people literally can’t understand rap music words. If you are hard of hearing and aren’t familiar with the story, you are totally lost in the audience (ESPECIALLY as the actors change characters after intermission)
In my experience there’s a group of annoying “New Yorkers” (aka people who identify as New Yorkers, as in they lived there during an internship in college or spent a couple years “working in finance” finding themselves before moving back to Tupelo) who love to shit on anyone who recently saw Hamilton; they roll their eyes and say “oh yes yes I saw the original cast back in 2015, it was cute…” Calling Hamilton extremely cringey sounds like signaling or sneetching vs. an honest critique of the show. It’s a thing I’ve noticed repeatedly and this comment fits that bill, and I don’t know why it bothers me more than simply saying “I didn’t care for it” but it does.
Hamilton is a phenomenal work of art, the White House performance is a peek at creative genius in process, my kids have probably watched the Disney+ production 100 times and know all the words to (almost ;) ) every song and therefore know more about that specific era of American history than I did until I was much older.
Back to the TFA, I think it was such a runaway success compared to other shows because it feels like an intensely personal work of art and not just “let’s copy paste and bang out another ALW formula show.” There’s no shortage of misguided efforts at for-profit art, and people scratch their heads wondering why their absurdist introspection of (fill in the blank) or the kinkade-y reboot of some hit in another format didn’t rake in a billion dollars. The soundtrack is light years more listenable than most other musicals; that’s very subjective but I think it’s a significant part. I appreciate the overarching message of Hamilton, power of the pen, the hope for the future, the need to take smart action, the ability to recover from mistakes, and the inability to recover from letting pride override rational decision making. There’s just so much there.
One more thought on the overall economics of a show not discussed in the article: since shows are largely seen by tourists, as a tourist, there’s more to the cost of the show than the ticket itself. The opportunity cost is the most expensive part, and only devoted fans of theater are going to see more than 1-2 shows on a tourist visit to NYC. If I’m going to see a show, it better be good, and I have little interest in risking a precious afternoon in NYC on a swing-and-a-miss. As such, it makes me wonder if a second line touring circuit is possible for very small shows to get exposure in other smaller cities (any other city besides NYC). It would almost have to be a very intensive 4-5 performances a day for 3-5 days in a city, with a brief but panoramic advert blitz at the local level. The equivalent of a small up and coming music group refining their grind and performance at college bars across the country before hitting it big. Digital projection of sets, keeping a deep bench of local stand ins available as needed, relatively standardized audio production requirements, A reciprocal agreement amongst a network of theaters, with a special deal with a nearby hotel in each market could take a lot of the load and cost off. Maybe it already exists.
> As such, it makes me wonder if a second line touring circuit is possible for very small shows to get exposure in other smaller cities (any other city besides NYC)
Cities like SF will keep getting first national tours and have somewhat limited theater space, so it might not make sense to take shows there, but I could see it working for critically acclaimed shows in towns with community theaters and season ticket holder willing to spend $50.
Off Topic but I finished my last exam today and I wanted to start watching Gundam. I wanted to know if you have any recommendations for which Gundam series I should start with first as someones who likes anime but has never watched Gundam.
I recommend the universal century, one year war movies to get you started: The mobile suit gundam movie trilogy followed by 0080: war in the pocket (a masterpiece of both storytelling and animation).
In fact, starting with 0080 war in the pocket isn't a bad idea given the self contained story.
From there, I'd check out 0083: Stardust memory and move on to the Zeta Gundam tv show.
Then, for a completely different experience, you can check out the alternate universe shows like Mobile Fighter G Gundam or After War Report Gundam X
If you want a super short intro to the series, _Gundam Thunderbolt_ is very good and self-contained. There's currently two hour-long OVAs that compile the first and second season. A third season and movie is planned, but it'll be a while before it's released.
It's definitely one of the more kiddie Gundam series, but it touches upon the themes of the original 1979 show, and is one of the few to depict the Stanford torus rather than O'Neill cylinders.
Here is a insightful blog post from Erik Bernhardsson on Business secrets from terrible people[1] where he writes about management lessons from the Taliban, Theranos, Al-Qaeda and The Black Kings a crack-dealing gang in Chicago.
And here is an interesting article from the Economist on management lessons from Mexico’s drug lords[2]
