Hello lovely email friends, happy Guacamole Day. If you didn’t observe that already, you’re welcome.
šŖ The IKEA catalogue through the ages is a greatest-hits of Scandinavian-style design. The company has digitised 70 years’ worth of catalogues for your viewing pleasure.
š The economic benefits of being beautiful: Researchers have repeatedly found that attractive people benefit from widespread biases that can translate into big bucks.
š Why Hypercolor T-Shirts Were Just a One-Hit Wonder: In a brief three-month span, between February and May 1991, $50 million worth of color-changing, heat-sensitive T-shirts, shorts, pants, sweatshirts and tights were sold. But as a result of mismanagement and overproduction, the company couldn’t handle its overnight success and declared bankruptcy only a year later.
š¤« Intelligent Minds Like Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos Embrace the Rule of Awkward Silence: the rule is simple: when faced with a challenging question, instead of answering, you take a long pause and think deeply about how you want to answer.
š ScreenplaySubs is a browser extension for Netflix that syncs up movies with screenplays, displaying them side-by-side, like having a subtitle that provides more insights on films.
š§āāļø 10 Ways to Find Stillness in Turbulent Times: There are thousands of years of teachings and proven exercises that will help you keep steady, disciplined, focused, at peace, and able to access your full capabilities at any time, in any place, despite any distraction and every difficulty.
š„ Am I a Potato Chip Addict or a Victim of Food Science? Processed food companies have invested heavily in orosensation ā how each of the human senses is stimulated by the act of eating. Food scientists study the principles of ‘food pleasure’, which is a combination of sensory factors and caloric stimulation. Every product is tested among consumer groups for years until it achieves the ultimate ‘bliss point’: the ideal ratio of sugar to fat to salt that evokes feelings of carnal pleasure.
š³ The companies that help people vanish: Each year, some choose to ‘disappear’ and abandon their lives, jobs, homes and families. In Japan, there are companies that can help those looking to escape into thin air.
What’s an idea worth?
I’ve worked in creative industries for a long while, places where ideas are highly valued. On any given challenge, the way forward is to get some ‘ideas people’ in a room. Held in high esteem, these people’s idea-having time is sold by the hour to the grateful.
Yet, I’ve found my faith in the value of ideas constantly challenged. They don’t seem to be scarce: everyone has ideas, albeit of various quality. And now AI can generate near-limitless quantities of ideas, will this finally allow us to focus on what’s truly valuable?
Severable renowned figures had a view about the value of ideas relative to other creative work. Around 1903, Thomas Edison remarked that ‘Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration’. Charles Darwin unpacked a similar point in a letter to his son: ‘Many men who are very cleverāmuch cleverer than the discoverersānever originate anything. As far as I can conjecture, the art consists in habitually searching for causes or meaning of everything which occurs’.
In 1989 the psychologist John Hayes identified the so-called ten-year rule, stating a person must persevere with a craft for about 10 years before they can make a breakthrough. Surprisingly few have been achieved in less than this time. The initial evidence came from studies of chess-players, who take at least ten years become masters. Then it was found to apply to Olympic swimmers and concert pianists. Further studies of scientists and mathematicians, painters composers and poets further supported the rule.
Even if not relying upon AI, there are good ways to come up with ideas on demand. There’s even an email newsletter, god forbid, chipping out free ideas every day. So as ideas are plentiful, and the act of having them is more a long-developed discipline rather than flashes of inspiration, it’s a good time to address how we can pay for creativity in the digital age: not focusing on the merit of ideas but rather on the commitment and graft shown by creative people.