Back in the days when we were back in school, an old friend of mine was preaching about the number 23 for a short period.
I think he first saw it in a movie and then read more on the internet, and he was telling some "facts" (which most were not) how everything comes down to number 23. I won't go into details now, and you can google about it if you are interested.
I am bringing this up now because today, I felt that everything was pointing at the coming pandemic that we have now.
So my personal list is this:
It is just the figment of my imagination.
But what if this is some human collectives premonition? Some untapped power that we cannot yet use, as we have always dismissed such things.
Or if you want to go the conspiracy theory way - what if this is some sort human of programming / preparing us mentally for the pandemic event?
Anyhoo, just having deja-vu with the number 23 past-preach.
There are some movies, there are some songs, and there are some books, etc., that make you cry, that make you laugh, make you think about the world and living people in it.
Strangely only in my late twenties and early thirties did I think to myself - "wow, people who are creating these works, they are moving thousands, millions and overtime billions of people to express these XYZ emotions. That's so cool and inspirational."
I guess the same can be said for some products or life-changing medicine. But I feel that the creations which are about the human condition (being human), have more intrinsic lasting inspirational value (until we are not human anymore).
Anyways with this daily entry just wanted to celebrate all the passionate creators.
First, no, its not a personal monopoly game. I learned this term today myself by reading David Perell's blog. For me, it is not something "new new", and I'm actually currently in a slow, but steady process to establish my own "personal monopoly" (these dailies are the part of it).
So "Personal Monopoly" is kinda like self-branding, except that instead of projecting "YOU" from outside-in, you do the reverse and project from inside-out. It is an intersection of your knowledge, personality, and skills that combined create this unique thing - a "Personal Monopoly".
Of course, you need to make people aware of this monopoly, and by doing that, build leverage for a higher salary, better contracts, a bigger network, etc.
I agree with Perell in him saying - "Personal Monopolies aren't found. They are created".
To learn more about this and more read Perell's blog. I also enjoy his tweets and tweetstorms - @david_perell.
Today I was thinking about bio-hacking, and the thought led me to CRISPR.
For those who don't know, CRISPR is a simple yet powerful tool for editing genomes. It allows researchers to easily alter DNA sequences and modify gene function. Think of Superhuman, super crops, faster-growing trees, etc.
So I knew about CRISPR for some time now (say 2years~), but I always assumed that it was something that only "rich" science labs could experiment with.
But boy, I was wrong.
After seeing the Netflix documentation "Unnatural Selection" (a definite recommend) half year ago, my eyes opened. I learned that CRISPR, in essence, was quite an easy technique and did not require super expensive tooling to start your gene experiment.
I got very excited about the information I got from the documentary, it reminded me of the old computer times. The times where computers were already quite commonly utilized by governments and big companies, but only by a minority of private individuals. The industry was growing fast, and computers became more and more accessible to regular people -- and hackers (or crackers to be more precise). I feel that CRISPR is in that phase now. And both very excited and also scared.
Excited in the sense that we could heal diseases, "upgrade" humans, and a lot more. I'm now following news and companies who are doing CRISPR and even learning bit by bit myself.
And Scared - because we are not "hacking" computers but living organisms with reproduction capabilities and gene passing. All the post-modern-strange movies come to mind now. Worst funny case this could also lead to zombie-like humanoids.
I'm really looking forward to playing around with GraphCMS v2, Prisma v2, KeystoneJS v5, truly cross-platform react-native (with web included).
I have already done some experiments with some of the above - looks and feels fantastic.