Anne Lamott on aging: “Older joy is not so much about chasing down things, as it is about what seizes the eye, out the window or on a walk. Older joy is less caffeinated. When you are younger, joy is photographable, for display on the curated Facebook life. Younger joy means endorphins. Older joy feels more like contentment. Someone at my church once said that peace is joy at rest and joy is peace on its feet. Older age can be a balancing act — how much to put out, how hard to try, how much to let go. And if things aren’t working, how to accept that with grace. There can be a lot of joy in all that still works with our bodies and minds. The miracle is not high dives and Segways but appreciation, and knowing the great miracle: decades of love and loyalty.”
NYTimes on 50 years of Rubik’s Cube: “Mr. Rubik dates the Cube to the spring of 1974. Preparing a course on descriptive geometry and tinkering with the five Platonic solids, he had become especially taken by the cube. But, as he wrote in his 2020 memoir, “Cubed, The Puzzle of Us All,” for quite a while it “never once occurred to me that I was creating a puzzle.” By about the time of his 30th birthday, in July 1974, he had created the structure, realized its puzzling potential and — after playing with it intermittently for a few months — solved the Cube for the first time. He submitted a patent application in January 1975, and by the end of 1977 the “Magic Cube” had debuted in toy stores in Hungary. Travelers spirited it out “in their luggage, next to other Hungarian delicacies like sausage and Tokaji wine,” he recalled.”
FT: “Financial services are failing to implement artificial intelligence successfully, European fintech executives have claimed, even as evidence mounts that the hyped technology will boost productivity and cut costs. Job loss fears, regulatory concerns and institutional inertia are among the factors deterring bankers from fully embracing the systems that underpin products such as ChatGPT. “The big banks will definitely not adopt [the technology] as quickly as any of the fintech,” said Tom Blomfield, co-founder of Monzo and group partner at Silicon Valley start-up incubator Y Combinator. Generative AI will however “make banks more efficient and able to provide the same products at a cheaper cost”.”
Indian Express: “Technically, a developed country is associated with high per capita income. Developed countries also have advanced infrastructure and diverse industries and services. But more importantly, people in such countries enjoy access to good quality education and healthcare. The system is sensitive to social and economic inequalities and attempts to ensure a level playing field for all. The onus for that is on institutions, autonomous to the powers-that-be. The paucity of such institutions has been amongst the biggest failings of independent India.”
Scott Linciome: “They [protectionists] butcher economic principles (and basic facts) and fundamentally misunderstand that, far from being a modern creation of government or corporate elites, globalization is just ordinary people working, interacting, bargaining, buying, and selling as they’ve done for millennia – all in ways that just so happen to cross political borders.” [via CafeHayek]
