JA Westenberg explaining what is effort heuristic:

There’s a concept in behavioral science called the “effort heuristic.” It’s the idea that we tend to value information more if we worked for it. The more effort something requires, the more meaning we assign to the result. When all knowledge is made effortless, it’s treated as disposable. There’s no awe, no investment, no delight in the unexpected—only consumption.

Kent Beck’s thought provoking post on, what he calls, ‘bridge model’ to make connections with others:

Here’s the mental model that finally helped me: a bridge.

I can unilaterally construct a bridge to another person. I can reach out. Make contact. Say something real. The further the distance—emotionally, culturally, socially—the harder the bridge is to build. But it’s possible with almost anyone of positive intent. (It’s also possible with people whose intent toward me is negative or merely transactional. That’s a different problem.)

With the bridge in place, I can walk halfway across.

Half. Way. I can make an investment. Do something a little uncomfortable. Reveal something true about myself. Share an observation that matters to me. Ask a question that shows I’m paying attention.

And then I have to stop.

I have to stand in the middle of the bridge and wait.

Jacob Schroeder sharing his 25 lessons on money and meaning. This lesson regarding raising kids stood out for me.

The cost of children is an admission to adventure, love, pain, joy, despair, loss, fulfillment – all that life can and should be. Then one day it’s over. The ride comes to a stop – hopefully, much later than sooner – and that emptiness is a bittersweet debt. It is a debt that can never be repaid. You are left desperately wishing to repay it only to take it out again so you can relive it all over, desperately wishing to take out a second mortgage on all the spills, the cuts and bruises, the breaks, the heartaches, the tears, the smiles, the hugs, the laughs, the I love yous and the goodbyes, enough to get you angry at the unfairness of it all.

I am still on this adventure.

This comment by nicbou who is sharing their thoughts on the layoffs among technical writers due to AI.

I write documentation for a living. Although my output is writing, my job is observing, listening and understanding. I can only write well because I have an intimate understanding of my readers’ problems, anxieties and confusion. This decides what I write about, and how to write about it. This sort of curation can only come from a thinking, feeling human being.

I revise my local public transit guide every time I experience a foreign public transit system. I improve my writing by walking in my readers’ shoes and experiencing their confusion. Empathy is the engine that powers my work.

Most of my information is carefully collected from a network of people I have a good relationship with, and from a large and trusting audience. It took me years to build the infrastructure to surface useful information. AI can only report what someone was bothered to write down, but I actually go out in the real world and ask questions.

I have built tools to collect people’s experience at the immigration office. I have had many conversations with lawyers and other experts. I have interviewed hundreds of my readers. I have put a lot of information on the internet for the first time. AI writing is only as good as the data it feeds on. I hunt for my own data.

People who think that AI can do this and the other things have an almost insulting understanding of the jobs they are trying to replace.

I would implore you to read the comments in the Hacker News thread. A lot of folks are having a feeling that there’s no going back and it reminds me of this—we are in a market of lemons.

Weimin Chu has documented the scale of renewable energy in China in series of photographs. Yale Environment 360 showcases these photographs along with the energy capabilities of these renewable energy sources.

Last year China installed more than half of all wind and solar added globally. In May alone, it added enough renewable energy to power Poland, installing solar panels at a rate of roughly 100 every second.

The massive buildout is happening across the country, from crowded eastern cities increasingly topped by rooftop solar panels to remote western deserts where colossal wind farms sprawl across the landscape.

“From the ground, it’s hard to grasp the scale of these power plants,” said Chinese photographer Weimin Chu. “But when you rise into the air, you can see the geometry, the rhythm — and their relationship with the mountains, the desert, the sea.”

Matheus Lima sharing his thoughts on processing everything at 2x, just because you can.

Life happens at 1x. Every conversation you’ve ever had. Every walk, every meal, every meaningful experience. None of it comes with a speed dial. We’re biological creatures wired for real-time processing. When someone speaks to you in person, you don’t get to fast-forward through the parts you find boring.

There’s something strange about trying to shortcut how humans communicate. A podcast is just a conversation you’re eavesdropping on. The pauses, the rhythm, the way someone builds to a point. That’s all part of it. Speed it up and you get the words, sure. But you lose the texture.

Your brain needs empty space too. This is the part we’ve collectively forgotten. Boredom is a feature, not a bug. It’s where our best ideas — like starting this blog! — come from. It’s where you actually process what you’ve learned, make connections, have original thoughts. Constant consumption, even sped up, leaves no room for any of that. You need to be bored.

The irony is that consuming faster often means processing less. You’re optimizing for throughput when you should be optimizing for understanding. All those 2x podcasts blur together into background noise. What did you actually retain? What changed how you think? It’s empty calories. It’s fake productivity.

Morgan Housel shares his theory about nostalgia.

I have a theory about nostalgia: It happens because the best survival strategy in an uncertain world is to overworry. When you look back, you forget about all the things you worried about that never came true. So life appears better in the past because in hindsight there wasn’t as much to worry about as you were actually worrying about at the time.

Ha!