nikita.space 👩🏾‍💻 days: building Fortuna Health, nights: exploring spaceship earth
🇦🇺 to NYC
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Andrew Garfield discovered Catholicism (specifically Jesuit mysticism and spirituality) after a new role he played for The Uprising as the leader of a peasant rebellion in the 14th century.
Enjoyed listening to this podcast on his faith journey open.spotify.com/episode/7oq…
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TIL that when the Soviet Union collapsed and western countries/ companies began to trade with Russia in 1987, Pepsi briefly became one of the world’s largest naval powers
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You know those immigrant stories where someone from India says they came to the US with $8 in their pocket? It’s actually true.
Not for the reason you think: in the 70s, India had extreme foreign exchange controls. Indians were capped in how much of their own money/rupees they could convert into foreign currency/USD. $8 was the rough amount of convertible currency.
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Manhattan Project for AI is an interesting proposition. In the nuclear age, the government entirely funded physics, material, and nuclear research ($2B+). DuPont and Kellogg were just cost-plus government contractors.
We do not have the same conditions with abundant capital.
I’m more and more of the opinion that the DoE should nationalize the frontier labs so they can safely work on all the scary, world ending shit with the right controls.
And let the rest of us get on with building useful AI that, you know, automates menial shit and cures people.
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In the 1920s, pre-FAA, we used to pay farmers to light large bonfires to help pilots flying at night. Imagining planes flitting across the Midwest, moths to a flame, being guided home
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I am decidedly optimistic about the future, with the only regret that the current era of tech has empowered some of the most annoying people alive. Even as an a16z port co, I think “new media” is schlock
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Nikita S retweeted
Keeping this one in reserve for the next drinking session with the lads
John Thompson has been studying the guqin—a silk string zither—and classical Chinese music since 1974.
Here he is with Hong Kong filmmaker Lau Shing Hon performing a drinking song first published 1589 and attributed to third-century poet Ruan Ji: Jiu Kuang (Wine Mad)
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Has anyone recorded a definitive history of Mixue (originally a shaved ice cart started by a 20 year-old in rural China)? It boggles my mind this is now a fast food empire larger than Starbucks and McDonald’s
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Recent grads - don’t waste your talent on data labeling.
We’re hiring in product operations at Fortuna Health (a16z-backed). If you want to modernize and consumerize government technology, we’re looking for high-horsepower people to join our NYC team 🤛
jobs.ashbyhq.com/fortuna-hea…
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Infinite Jest presaged when years would no longer be 2030 / numbered but subsidized and sponsored by brands (“Year of the Trial-sized Dove Bar,” “Year of Perdue Wonderchicken”), brands larping as civic services, etc.
The Ordinary is launching a free NYC bus line between Domino Park in Williamsburg and Prospect Park, cutting out the irritation of having to travel through Manhattan just to get between two parts of Brooklyn.
The limited-run shuttle operates May 26 through June 9.
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Almost finished with the biography of William Booth, founder of Salvation Army. His *only* job before becoming a preacher was working at pawn shops as a teen. There were as many pawn shops in 1800s England as pubs.
The Salvation Army innovation was tying pawn brokering to faith.
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Italy innovated on the model far before the UK. During the Renaissance, the Catholic Church allowed secular brokers under Monte di PietĂ (accumulation of piety). The monti were municipally chartered, charitable pawnshops aimed at ameliorating the condition of the poor. Even the Medicis offered money to Florence for its monti.
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