Sara’s Weekly Update #9
Welcome to my newsletter! I write down my thoughts & opinions on the topics I read/watch in the last week. My topics of interests are wide, please feel free to skip to the topic you like.
Turkey-Syria Earth Quake
It’s sad to see what happened in Turkey & Syria, 28,000 dead & still counting. Below link has some approved organizations to donate for this cause.
What I Think About LeBron Breaking My NBA Scoring Record
LeBron James passed my scoring record and now is the leading scorer in NBA history. It takes unbelievable drive, dedication, and talent to survive in the NBA long enough to rack up that number of points when the average NBA career lasts only 4.5 years. It’s not just about putting the ball through the hoop, it’s about staying healthy and skilled enough to climb the steep mountain in ever-thinning oxygen over many years when most other players have tapped out.
It is hard to be in a profession for a long time & keep scoring. That too is very difficult when it is physically demanding.
It’s also about not making scoring your obsession. Otherwise, you’re Gollum and the record is your Precious. The real goal is to win games so that you win championships because you want to please the fans who pay your salary and cheer you on game after game. Fans would rather see you win a championship than set a scoring record.
It’s more about service to customers than about one self.
It’s also about making sure your team gets their moments to shine and thrive and pursue their own greatness. A record is nothing if you used other players’ careers as stepping stones just for self-aggrandizement. For me, I strove to play at the highest level I could in order to be a good teammate. The points—and the record—were simply a by-product of that philosophy. I think LeBron has the same philosophy.
It takes a group of people to make great changes, and we have to be a good team player, no escape to that at any level.
Millions of children across the country pushing themselves toward excellence because they saw an athlete do something spectacular and they want to do it too. Or at least try. That same kind of drive is behind many of humankind’s greatest achievements. And it’s all exceptionally glorious.
This is so true. All the time I get inspiration from others' excellence and that pushes me to strive for excellence in what I do.
Occupational Hazard of working too much
"I had trouble sleeping last night, so unfortunately, I’m not at my best," the 51-year-old told a lawyer during the trial, as quoted by the WSJ. "I’m sorry for squirming around. I have quite severe back pain."
"Last three months were extremely tough, as had to save Twitter from bankruptcy, while fulfilling essential Tesla & SpaceX duties," Musk tweeted in response to the WSJ's report. "Wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone."
I tried to put in 80 hours of work 7 years back when I got so inspired from Elon’s hard work. Within two months my body started showing signs of stress, my eyes started twitching, it was so stressful & got burnt out. I concluded I cannot replicate his lifestyle. I always keep wondering how he pulls this. Looks like there is no secret or magic pill here, your health does get affected one way or another. I do believe in hard work, but there is a balance I guess.
https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-responds-to-health-concerns
Mom’s voice holds a special place in kids’ brains. That changes for teens
“Just as an infant is tuned into a mom, adolescents have this whole other class of sounds and voices that they need to tune into,” Abrams says.
The current results support the idea that the brain changes to reflect new needs that come with time and experience, Seltzer says. “As we mature, our survival depends less and less on maternal support and more on our group affiliations with peers.”
We all know teenagers don’t listen to parents, this one tells why thats the case. Its does makes sense I guess :-)
Voices can carry powerful signals. When stressed-out girls heard their moms’ voices on the phone, the girls’ stress hormones dropped, biological anthropologist Leslie Seltzer of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and colleagues found in 2011 (SN: 8/12/11). The same was not true for texts from their mothers.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mom-voice-kid-brain-teen-neuroscience
AI Generated TV show (#tech #ai)
Just last week I was talking about this 24 * 7 AI generated TV show, and this week it’s suspended as it's making insensitive remarks about LGBTQ community. These AI bots are mostly good, but they need a human supervisor in the loop to make sure it’s appropriate.
AI War (#tech #ai)
Microsoft brings chatGPT in the Bing & Edge browser. And Satya Nadella is on almost every media this week marketing about it. For him there’s nothing to lose, maybe they will gain some marketshare in the searching.
Google also demoed their Bard this week but it didn’t impress so much.
Chinese Baidu is also talking about ChatGPT style bot in their search coming soon.
Looks like the AI war is getting started among the tech giants.
State of the Union
The heckling of the President's state of the union & the many republicans response to the state of the union makes me think that the congress is so divided that they may drop the ball in increasing the debt ceiling, and cause chaos like it happened once in Obama’s period.
MSCI reduces weightings for some Adani companies
He estimated there would be around $570 million to sell by passive funds across Adani Enterprises, Adani Total Gas and Adani Transmission on Feb. 28. The changes on MSCI indexes take effect on March 1.
This is another blow to Adani’s.
Fed Chair Powell Speaks to David Rubenstein
Good Interview. Came to know that his salary is just $190k. An entry to mid level engineer in tech companies makes this salary easily. For such a high responsibility, stress & heat that they take in this job, this salary is not meager. They are doing this job not for the salary I guess, it's just a service to the country. Huge respect for these public leaders.
This Is Where You Belong (#books)
6. Commune with Nature
Studies have found that spending time in green space improves immune system function, lowers blood glucose levels in diabetics, boosts cognitive functioning and concentration, lengthens attention span, and strengthens impulse control. Residents of counties with a large amount of green space tend to be thinner.
In 2012, a pair of Swedish environmental psychologists asked 1,325 people about the type of landscape they grew up in and where they chose to live as adults. The relationship between the two was undeniable. Of people who grew up on the coast, 73 percent later settled in a coastal area; 63 percent who grew up among forests settled in a similar landscape later on.
According to Gerard Kyle, a professor in the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences at Texas A&M, yes—and even more if I did it with other people. “It’s the activity, the experience, and who you share that experience with. So if you enjoy the activity and you enjoy it with significant others, then the meanings you attach to those relationships often become embedded in the place.”
Personal Update
Boys are boys, both are attracted towards cars :-)
Nila reads book for Deva, I am thinking to delegate this work to her going forward :-)