Work Related

Robots Rise

• ⛓️‍💥 People are challenging norms by creating Luigi chatbots. Meanwhile, it’s going to be a real challenge finding less sympathetic jurors.

• :✈ While certainly not the most practical of solutions an interesting delivery test case is how DoorDash is partnering with Google Wing for drone deliveries from Dallas malls. Current limitations are the distance (4 miles) but you can expect a drop in about 15 minutes. Amazon Prime Air is also using drones in Arizona with a slightly wider delivery radius of roughly 8 miles from the hub.

• 📹️ Have you wondered why almost every image of the drones over NJ looks like absolute trash? Well, it turns out we can blame both photographers and their smartphones … but mainly the smartphone.

  

• ⚖️ Every AI copyright lawsuit in the US visualized 

• 🔌 Commercial real estate developments in Florida and California are looking to smarter ways to reduce electric costs for tenants. Initial programs in Florida can reduce costs by over 50% using a heat exchange connected to the aquifer. In California, there’s a program starting to leverage AI in the data center so that you only pay for power generation unrelated to heating and cooling which local data centers will offset.

Check yourself 👨🏻‍⚕️

🚨 Via the excellent N-1 newsletter from James Huang, I just learned that the Garmin Varia radar light is considered illegal in France due to the way it flashes — which is the whole purpose of keeping you safe. Since I realize most readers are not cyclists, the Varia has become essential equipment for just about everyone I know. It’s a small radar unit packed into a red blinking light mounted on the rear of your bike. As it detects cars, the blinking light pattern changes from steady to something a bit more inconsistent to draw attention to your presence so cars can be more careful. It’s 1000% worth the money and isn’t even that expensive. Probably makes a terrific last minute gift idea as well …

One ring to rule them all? Oura has raised a 200MM Series D at a valuation of $5.2B which is impressive but also begs the question on their end game. The round included participation from Dexcomm which had recently integrated their CGM for combined glucose with sleep and diet trends. In my years of tracking health and athletic data, the ring a device I’ve yet to try. I had stopped wearing my wedding band a number of years ago after it started slipping off from weight loss. Not sure I would want a ring now, though who knows, I’ve normalized the Garmin watch as a daily and sleep tracker pretty seamlessly. BTW, Oura has released their annual review much like the other wearables previously shared.

Speaking of the Garmin watch, I used the somewhat new Jetlag Advisor on my Forerunner 955 this week on a quick trip to the west coast and while much of the advise is simple and known to well traveled types, it’s still very helpful to get suggestions on activity, caffeine and alcohol intake and use of lights at a certain hour of the evening to help with sleep and recovery. After getting home late last night, I’ve seen the caffeine and nap suggestions along with some suggested movements today.

📊 Training Peaks and Strava have both released annual reports highlighting your activities. These are always fun and revealing types of things. I think this is Training Peaks’ first effort and it nicely highlights both the range of activities as well as specifics in a way Strava doesn’t. I found the Strava report a bit “less than” previous years but 🤷. I like that Training Peaks also calls out your coach which is a core value of the platform and frankly their revenue even though both coaches and athletes pay to work together.

🥹 We are spending 70% less time with friends than a decade ago and seeing a 300% increase (12%) (pdf) of Americans who say they have no close friends since 1990. Loneliness is a serious problem and our devices are not helping.

📑 Tim Cook Wants to Literally Save your Life is a long Steven Levy interview in Wired. I found that skewed my expectations a bit, but it is still good to get a CEO perspective on things. A lot of what’s here is on the state of the state. But Tim does enjoy hearing how Apple products have helped keep people safe …

💉 The team behind the Enhanced Games has released The First Declaration on Human Enhancement (pdf) which is something … I can’t quite find the headspace to accept, but there will be a games and there will be doping.

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Vouri has been in my social feeds for a long time and this past year I finally gave it a real try along with Rhone. Both are excellent btw if you are looking for athleisure and smarter casualwear. Vouri has been killing the market though and stealing share from incumbent Lululemon.

🛒 Never Say Never Again … but will we get another Bond film? The Broccoli family and Amazon do not see eye to eye on anything yet and it’s going to take a massive shift to change that anytime soon. This WSJ (gift link) gets into all the details … we can at least stream them thanks to the MGM acquisition … for now.

📺️ Not sure there’s any piece of technology I want less than a transparent television, but LG continues to push this bit of frontier screen tech at the very high end. 60K for a 77” is beyond excessive especially when you realize you can choose to have imperfections from behind the screen influence what you see while watching.

Random thought of the week

While traveling across a few flights this past week, I watched all four John Wick movies (again) and while it has always been clear they pick up pretty much where the prior movies end, they seem to take place within a week or two of each other if not less. That is a lot of dead bodies and a lot of getting hit by cars.

Feel Good Friday

Last Friday I shared an Instagram carousel Red Bull had put together of Kobayashi Ryoyu breaking the ski jump record but here’s the remarkable feat (need to click through) captured by a follow drone. He’s flying over 3 football fields in the air!

redbull

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Have a great weekend! Next week will probably be pretty light given the holidays …

Please feel free to hit reply with any feedback or questions.

I have served.  I will be of service.

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