Orange DAO, YC's alumni DAO first created a membership NFT to scratch their own itch.

In late 2021, Orange DAO ran a Discord server but discovered that they needed a better way to grant automatic access to YC alumni. The solution needed to work with Discord, as well as other token-gated applications that were coming online.

A small team of engineers got together and created “Alumni Gem”, the first membership NFT — a non-transferable (Soulbound), revokable NFT that represented a member’s YC alumni status on the Polygon blockchain.

These Alumni Gems gated access to Orange DAO's Discord (via Collab.land), Notion (via Charmverse), as well as other internal applications, such as the member’s section of orangedao.xyz. Over 1,000 people have already claimed their membership NFT and successfully onboarded into Orange DAO.

Passport is a public goods project by Orange DAO that productised Alumni Gem to make it accessible to everyone. Using Passport, anyone can create their own membership NFTs in a few clicks — all without code!

We believe NFTs are important for the internet because they make identity portable across platforms, and they’re composable by nature, meaning people can build on top of their data permissionlessly.

By making it easier to create and share membership NFTs, we want to encourage more builders of all stripes to experiment with NFTs so we can create a more open and permissionless internet.

Check out the project on passport.orangedao.xyz.

Open protocols are not new. While crypto has renewed interest in open protocols, they actually form the backbone of the internet. Picking from the least obscure acronyms, we have TCP/IP to connect the internet; HTTP to power the web; SMTP, POP, and IMAP to deliver emails; and RSS to transmit blogs.

In a bygone era of the web, enterprising developers were able to build businesses like Google by indexing the open web. But over time, only a few of these protocols survived, while others were replaced by closed protocols or walled-garden equivalents like Twitter, Facebook, and Slack.

Why?

Venture capitalist, Fred Wilson, attributes this to the lack of monetary incentives to create and sustain open protocols. The very nature of their openness, made them difficult to monetise via traditional business models. It’s often far more profitable to improve products built on top of protocols, like email clients, than it is to improve the protocol itself[1]. Indeed, many of the internet’s core protocols were created by various government and research agencies.

The emergence of blockchain technologies, however, has opened up a whole new design space for protocol business models. It is now possible for open protocols to be monetised, and for people who innovate on new crypto protocols to be handsomely rewarded.

Take Ethereum, for instance, the world's decentralised computer. In order to store data or run calculations on Ethereum requires the user to pay a certain amount of "gas," a fee denominated in Ethereum tokens. Value is created for the creators and holders of the Ethereum token when there is demand for storage and compute through applications like NFTs and other smart contracts. The corresponding increase in value of Ethereum accrues back to the token holders and developers, who are then incentivised to continue work on the Ethereum blockchain to stave off hungry upstarts.

The incentives unlocked by such a mechanism has since opened the floodgates to all kinds of new open crypto protocols for file storage, social networks, push notifications, and many more. And unlike the open protocols of web1, these new protocols now have strong financial incentives to evolve and persist into the future.

It is this business model innovation, not so much the technical breakthroughs that have piqued investor interest. One of Fred Wilson’s investment theses, is that business model innovation is more disruptive than technological innovation:

Incumbents can adapt to and adopt new technological changes (web to mobile) way easier than they can adopt new business models (selling software to free ad-supported software). So this new protocol-based business model feels like one of these “changes of venue” as my partner Brad likes to call them. And that smells like a big investable macro trend to me.

As end users, we are the ultimate benefactors of this investment, competition, and innovation. The more open protocols we have, the more open systems and open infrastructure we will have.

On the flip side, when we don't have open protocols, value tends to be restricted by the controlling entity. The evolution of Twitter offers an interesting case study, as it illustrates both the promise of open protocols and the stagnation that can arise in walled gardens.

In a 2009 essay on Why Twitter is a Big Deal, Paul Graham was quick to identify Twitter's significance and promise:

The reason is that it's a new messaging protocol, where you don't specify the recipients. New protocols are rare. Or more precisely, new protocols that take off are. There are only a handful of commonly used ones: TCP/IP (the Internet), SMTP (email), HTTP (the web), and so on. So any new protocol is a big deal. But Twitter is a protocol owned by a private company. That's even rarer. …Because they haven't tried to control it too much, Twitter feels to everyone like previous protocols. One forgets it's owned by a private company.

In Twitter's early years, there were a number of third party applications built on top of its API that extended Twitter's feature set. There was Summize for search, Tweetie for mobile apps, amongst many others. Developers big and small were able to experiment, earn a living, or even build businesses on top of the protocol.

Unfortunately, this approach did not last. For a whole host of reasons, all reasonable at the time, Twitter steered towards an ad-based business model. They began to compete with or acquire third party applications, and restricted API access. Summize was acquired by Twitter in 2008 to augment Twitter's search capabilities, and Tweetie was acquired in 2010 and rebranded as Twitter's official mobile application.

Jack Dorsey later reflected that this was the "worst thing we did”.

In the beginning, Twitter was so open that many saw the potential to become a decentralized internet standard, such as SMTP protocol. For a whole host of reasons, all reasonable at the time, we took a different path and we increasingly centralised Twitter.

Interestingly, Twitter has since started to explore the possibility for Twitter to reinvent itself as an open protocol.

From the perspective of developers and entrepreneurs, open and permissionless protocols lowers the barriers to entry. When the network is open, developers no longer need to deal with API keys, rate limits, or unpredictable denials of service. When developers have access to an existing network, the cold start problem becomes much easier to solve. Convincing potential customers to try a new product is much easier when they can bring along their data or social graph with them.

The reduced barriers to entry will spur more competition, and competition will spur more experimentation and innovation. Just as Google was built on top of the open web, we'll see new businesses and value created on top of this new generation of open protocols. Just as Pull-to-refresh was first introduced on a Twitter third party client, Tweetie, open protocols will introduce new paradigms, UX patterns, and of course, memes into all corners of our digital world. Just as the Renaissance revived and surpassed the ideas and achievements of classical antiquity, I’m optimistic that this Renaissance will revive and surpass the ideas and achievements of the early web.

Truth and accuracy is a value I hold dear. If any of the above is incorrect or inaccurate, please let me know. My primary goal for writing is to improve my own understanding.

#019

What computer pioneer, Alan Kay, calls "The power of the context" or "Point of view is worth 80 IQ points" is the idea that your social and intellectual environment exerts an invisible yet powerful influence on your thoughts and dreams.

When you infuse the right conditions and context into a group of talented creatives—whether artists, authors, philosophers, or engineers—you get progress in leaps and bounds.

In art, the French impressionists regularly painted together in the countryside and held discussions in the Café Guerbois in Paris. Their collaboration created an entire movement that would shape the aesthetic sensibilities for generations to come.

In literature, the Inklings held regular readings and discussions at The Eagle and Child pub at Oxford. These discussions would later inform and shape the magical worlds of Narnia and Middle Earth.

In philosophy, the Vienna Circle regularly met at the Mathematical Seminar at the University of Vienna. The ideas developed in this seminar room continue to hold immense sway in philosophy to this day.

Returning to the story of Kay, such powerful conditions also existed at ARPA/PARC in the 60s, where many ideas and technologies foundational to personal computing and to the internet were born. Many of these ideas were, and are still "ahead of its time", such that many technologists today still look to them for inspiration.

What was in the water at ARPA/PARC? What was special about their 'context' that made it extremely productive and fruitful?

As difficult as it was to pin down the principles that made ARPA/PARC so successful, Kay was able to conjecture at some key principles, many of them thought-provoking and well worth reading. But what resonated most vividly was the first principle: "Visions not goals".

"...A great vision acts like a magnetic field from the future that aligns all the little iron particle artists to point to “North” without having to see it. They then make their own paths to the future."

For ARPA/PARC, their vision was "interactive computing as a complementary intellectual partner for people pervasively networked world-wide". It's quite a mouthful, but it did prove to be tremendously effective.

By not trying to impose specific goals on researchers, researchers were given the freedom to pursue multiple, sometimes opposing points of view. By also cultivating highly-motivated people with great ability, ARPA/PARC was able to do away with much of the oversight and mistrust that plagues many dysfunctional corporate cultures.

In this context, Kay does not disavow goals per se, but suggests they should be viewed as a by-product of a strong vision:

"The pursuit of Art always sets off plans and goals, but plans and goals don't always give rise to Art."

The necessity of a vision

In our own lives and creative endeavors, we can apply the "vision not goals" principle to align the little iron particles that are our own scattered thoughts.

I've often slipped into the trap of obsessive optimization and productivity, without careful consideration as to how I spent my time. This productivity trap, it turns out, has caught many smart people unaware. At Bell Labs, Richard Hamming observed that although many of his colleagues worked just as hard or harder than he did, they didn't have nearly as much to show for it. "The steady application of effort with a little bit more work, intelligently applied is what does it... drive, misapplied, doesn't get you anywhere."

A clear long-term vision also helps us avoid the temptation of chasing after others' desires. When you don't know what you'd like to achieve and how you might go about achieving it, your behavior will be greatly influenced by the desires of those around you. The entrepreneur and investor, Peter Thiel, points to business schools as a classic example of this mimetic behavior:

"...They [business schools] end up attracting students who are very extroverted and have very low conviction, and they put them in this hothouse environment for a few years—at the end of which, a large number of people go into whatever was the last trendy thing to do. They’ve done studies at Harvard Business School where they’ve found that they largest cohort always went into the wrong field. So in 1989, they all went to work for Michael Milken, a year or two before he went to jail. They were never interested in Silicon Valley expect for 1999, 2000. The last decade their interest was housing and private equity.”

The antidote to mimetic behavior is to live by your own vision. Developing a compelling vision takes hard work—perhaps why it's often easier to outsource this decision to your role models or peer group. It involves a lot of trial and error and constant refinement. But the most important thing is that you have a vision. As the neuroscientist Ed Boyden advises, "Even if you change it every day. The act of making the plan alone is worth it. And even if you revise it often, you’re guaranteed to be learning something."

#018

We're in the midst of a disturbing psychometric experiment on an unprecedented global scale. This was the observation made by economist, Tyler Cowen. He asks us to observe whether the pandemic has boosted or decimated our productivity (for those of us knowledge workers lucky enough to work from home), and to pose this question to those around us, and to our institutions and society more broadly.

The way each of us respond to stress can reveal a lot about our character. Between the new quarantine TikTok memes and the free pornography for those in lockdown, how do you respond? Do you take the expedient way out, or the path that alleviates stress in the short-term but is ultimately less meaningful? Cowen proffers the hypothesis that our response to this crisis is one interesting measure for how we handle stress. He cites the example of the now-cancelled Candidates 2020 chess tournament, where the winner earns the right to challenge the defending world champion, Magnus Carlsen.

'Ding Liren was one of the two clear favorites (with Caruana), and he lost three games in the first half of the tournament.  That is evidence he does not play well under an extreme degree of stress. Yet he still is rated No. 3 in the world, from a career playing under conditions of “not a pandemic level of stress but still world-class levels of competitive stress." [...] Caruana, the American, was worried he may not be able to get home after the tournament.  His play was OK but subpar, at least for a world-ranked number two. The non-favored but sturdy Nepomniachtchi was up three games, before unwisely playing a Winawer defense with the black pieces, but still he was the clear leader.  How should we now revise our opinions of him?'

For knowledge workers fortunate enough to work from home, stress is the obvious answer to plummeting productivity. Kids aside, I submit that there's something more pernicious but less talked about in the transition to working from home: the erosion of social accountability.

To be clear, social accountability is not just the constant gaze of a micromanaging eye of Sauron. It is also the subtle gestures and cues, and the serendipitous communications between coworkers throughout the day. Just as the CEO's stress can overflow and permeate an entire office, the emotional contagion from a colleague "in the zone" can be equally infectious to the productivity of the whole team. Accountability cuts both ways: as an oppressive force to control, or as an encouraging cheer from the sidelines to help you realize your ideal self.

So how do we leverage the positive aspects of social accountability in an asocial environment?

For starters, the loss of a social environment is not all bad. You get full reins over your own schedule. You can work the hours most conducive to your productivity or creativity. Plus, you get to spend more time with family and friends.

On the flip side, the cozy home environment is filled with many temptations. Home is the switch in our brains that flips from work mode to relaxation mode. The well-stocked fridge, the cozy bed, or the blank TV staring back at you are all quietly waiting, poised to pounce when you let your guard down. For too long, I stubbornly relied on my own willpower to guard against the perils of these homely seductions. Without the right systems and safeguards in place, the incessant demands on our attention to make the right choice gets exhausting. Relying on willpower alone is ultimately an unsustainable Sisyphean grind.

When I took an empirical view of the areas where I've made the most progress, I discovered they all shared one thing in common: they all employed socially-leveraged commitment devices.

A commitment device, popularized by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt of Freakonomics, is a way to lock yourself into following a plan of action that you might not want to do but you know is good for you. A Socially-leveraged commitment device is a way to lock your future self into a plan of action while putting your personal reputation on the line. This is the classic problem of Future Homer, but in a good way:

When I decided to take learning Spanish more seriously, rather than continue my dilly-dallying on Duolingo as I have for the last three years, I signed up for two online classes per week on iTalki for ten weeks. At first, it took some effort to get into the habit of reviewing material and creating flashcards to keep up with the lessons. But once I built up rituals around it, it's incredibly rewarding to see the things I've learnt start to stack up. Having a teacher I was accountable to, and who cares about helping me hit my goals has been the difference between my previous on-and-off learning, and sticking to a fast-paced learning plan on top of my other work.

More recently, I've started to incorporate social accountability into my efforts to do more deep work. Every morning, my friend Andrew and I would both state the number of hours we intended to invest into deep work that day. Throughout the day, we'd proceed to put our phones away and message the channel whenever we started or concluded that session of deep work. Despite being in different states, even the simplest of status updates provides enough of a flow-contagion effect to help me overcome the initial friction of getting started on a task.

With a bit of creativity, you can make social commitment devices work for any number of habits beyond language learning or deep work. Jocko Willink, former commander of the US Navy and now author, uses a commitment device to wake up at 4:30am every day. From his books and podcasts, Jocko has built up a reputation as a man with the discipline of steel. His mantra is appropriately, "discipline equals freedom". Each morning, Jocko wakes up and posts a picture of his watch to his 1.2 million followers on Instagram. By staking his entire reputation on this one habit, he's got both the carrots and sticks of his 1.2 million followers to help him follow through with his intentions.

The author, Ryan Holiday, has done at least 50 push-ups a day since June by filming himself using an app called SPAR!. If he misses a day, the app will charge him $5. To make things more fun, the winners (people with fewest misses) split the pot of everyone else's fees.

So if you're in the transition to working from home, or if a new habit is failing to stick, inject a little social accountability. Start a new Instagram account, a newsletter, book some lessons, sign up for SPAR!, or any of the other social tools out there.

As the stoic philosopher, Epictetus would say, “How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?” Or, to rephrase it with social accountability: how long are you going to wait before you ask someone else to demand the best for yourself?

#017

We live in a Romantic era. I first discovered this heterodox view, oddly enough, from a Periscope live-stream of Eric Weinstein:

"This is a romantic era. If you think this is Armageddon, then you're living in a romantic era. If you think this is nothing, ...you're still living in incredibly exciting times. There's no possible way that you could be in a situation that is anything other than an incredibly romantic era."

We're not living in 18th century Europe, clearly. This is 2020. Yet there are many parallels that we can draw from a bygone era, to learn to live more courageously today.

The term "romantic" took on a different meaning in the 18th century than it does today. Although it was commonly used to glorify natural beauty—such as sunsets and pristine vistas—there weren't the same amorous connotations the word carries today. Historians have yet to agree on a definition, nor when the era began or ended, as "romance" took on different manifestations across Europe and across different artistic media or areas of thought. The French poet, Charles Baudelaire, proposed one pithy definition:

"Romanticism is precisely situated neither in choice of subject nor exact truth, but in the way of feeling."

But perhaps the best way to understand romanticism is to look empirically at some of its defining characteristics.

An emphasis on emotion

Self-understanding was an important aspect of Romanticism, and the expression of emotion was key to that self-understanding. Whether through art, literature, music, or even science, Romanticism emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience. This included, in particular, the feelings of apprehension, horror, terror, and awe.

Individualism and authentic expression

As we all experience different feelings and reactions to the events around us, individualism and an authenticity to oneself naturally became another defining characteristic. The expression of feelings had to come from the artist, unadulterated by any externally-imposed "rules". Originality was to be revered; to be derivative was an unimaginable sin. The philosopher and historian, Isaiah Berlin, captures this Romantic idea:

"The painter, the poet, the composer do not hold up a mirror to nature, however ideal, but invent; they do not imitate, but create not merely the means but the goals that they pursue; these goals represent the self-expression of the artist's own unique, inner vision, to set aside which in response to the demands of some "external" voice—church, state, public opinion, family friends, arbiters of taste—is an act of betrayal of what alone justifies their existence for those who are in any sense creative."

How do we live life romantically?

The Early Romantic period carried a sense of profound optimism and belief that the world was in the process of great change and improvement. This was despite the tumultuous backdrop of chaos and war (the French Revolution followed by the Napoleonic Wars).

We too are in a time of war. War not in any conventional sense, nor against a conventional enemy. Nevertheless, Weinstein submits that we must treat it as such, as the human spirit knows how to fight wars and how to unite against a common enemy.

Everything we do is now tinged with life and death. This was always the case, but our collective awareness of this has never felt more real. We are all at risk for death or permanently debilitating consequence from this illness. You, me, or someone dear to our hearts may not see the other side of this crisis. As much as we'd want to, we can't put our lives on hold for three weeks, two months or however long the government says so. These are trying times where nobody seems to know what is going on. If our leaders are failing us, how are we to deal with what is likely a life or death situation? How do we live in a manner that's befitting of who we are?

In this Romantic epoch, Weinstein suggests that we live more aggressively. We are going to have to take a more heroic mindset, but without taking unnecessary risks to public health. Take this as an opportunity to enact profound change. Perhaps there's someone you love, but where things haven't been good between you for a long time. Call them up, let them know how you feel. Get on Zoom with a few of your friends you haven't spoken to for a while. Whatever it is, fight learned helplessness.

"Open that bottle of wine you've been saving for a long time, because who knows, you may not get a chance to enjoy it. If you have something that you're thinking about doing, think harder about doing it now, if it can be done from home."

If you have an idea that's been simmering in the back of your mind, seize this opportunity and act. Take a page from the Romantics. Direct your intense emotions of the moment towards something both authentic and productive. Forget about the demands of the external voices, and create something that is true to your own unique inner vision.

It might be hard to see it now, but we're living through something historical. This is what we've been watching in our movies, reading in our novels, and listening to in our songs and stories. This is going to be remembered 100 years from now. So let's get through this with a totally different attitude. Laugh more. Live life more courageously, joyously, and with a romantic sense of awe.

#016

The Greek poet Archilochus wrote, "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." In the modern world, is it better to be a hedgehog or a fox?

Numerous smart and successful people have spoken about this topic. Whether as frogs and birds, or generalists and specialists. But as with most apparently simple questions that require complex answers, it depends.

This week, I distill some of the best ideas I found:

The importance of sampling

Many "experts" argue that mastery in any field requires "10,000 hours" of intense "deliberate practice."

In Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, David Epstein argues otherwise. He cites the contrast between Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. Tiger's path to success was through the long and arduous path of deliberate practice since he was a toddler; Roger's, was completely different. Despite having a tennis coach as his mother, she decided against coaching Roger at a young age, instead encouraging him to sample other sports. At first, Roger's approach seems counter to conventional wisdom, but when scientists examined the developmental path of athletes, they found that the eventual elites typically devoted less time early on to deliberate practice. Instead, they underwent a "sampling period." Only later do they focus on and ramp up technical practice in one area.

Scott Adams, author and creator of the Dilbert cartoon series concurs: "sampling is the smartest system for discerning your best path to success"

As we grow and acquire new skills and experiences, our potential paths for success multiples exponentially. There's really no way to be sure which path will be most fruitful except to try different things.

When it comes to skills, quantity > quality

As you sample different skills and experiences, Scott Adams offers a formula for success:

Every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success.

The maths is a bit off, but it is directionally true: Adams argues that the benefits of its simplicity trumps accuracy in this instance.

To see how this is directionally true, consider professional sports. To excel in any sport at a professional level requires you to be in the top 0.01%. But by integrating multiple skills together, you can rig your own game of underwater chess boxing gymnastics where you are uniquely qualified to excel. You don't have to be a master at any of these skills—you'll quickly hit diminishing returns well before the 10,000 hours mark—you can develop a unique and valuable skillset by merely good at a select few complementary skills.

Acquiring multiple skills confers another advantage: the more you know, the more you can know. Once you develop skills in one area, it's much easier to transfer that skillset into an adjacent area, which is why professional athletes often excelled in multiple sports before they turned pro.

Double down on your circle(s) of competence

James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits, proposes a secret to maximizing the odds of success: choose the right field of competition.

He gives the example of comparing 23-time gold medalist Michael Phelps and Hicham El Guerrouj, two-time gold medallist and one of the greatest middle distance runners of all time. Although the two men differ in height by 7 inches, their legs are of similar lengths. Phelps has relatively short legs for his height and a very long torso, the perfect build for swimming; El Guerrouj has incredibly long legs and a short upper body, an ideal frame for distance running. If they were to switch sports, they'll both be left in the dust by the competition. Like Phelps in the pool and El Guerrouj on the track, you want to play a game where the odds are in your favour.

Clear argues that what is true for physical characteristics is also true for the mental. The people at the top of any field is not only well trained, but also well suited for the task. If you want to be truly great, choosing where to focus is paramount. So once you get a better sense for where your talents lie, then aim for mastery.

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet's business partner, describes this idea as your circle of competence:

"You have to figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don’t, you’re going to lose. And that’s as close to certain as any prediction that you can make. You have to figure out where you’ve got an edge. And you’ve got to play within your own circle of competence."

Over time, work to expand your circle of competence. Don't be afraid to say "I don't know," and never fool yourself about where the boundaries lie.

Some lessons here may seem contradictory or seem like a clear-cut either-or, but the dichotomy here is largely an illusion. In practical terms, this is how I am acting on these findings:

1. Give myself ample opportunities to sample

As I get older, I see more and more of my peers get stuck on a career trajectory they are no longer excited about, for fear of having to start from square one. I certainly recognize some signs of this in my own psyche, and need to remind myself to get out of my comfort zone every once in a while and practice beginner's mind. Whatever you decide to sample, you are almost never starting from square one.

2. Move fast

Embedded in the sampling strategy, is the necessity of speed. The quicker you can reach a level of proficiency in a skill to determine whether it's right for you, the more skills or fields you can sample, and the more time you can dedicate to the right skills.

3. Develop a T-shaped skillset

There are numerous advantageous to both strategies of fox and hedgehog. A wide skillset makes you more robust (or antifragile) to fast-paced changes in your field; a deep skillset is more marketable and often more valuable to bigger institutions. It's a tricky balancing act, but I am striving to develop a broad range of skills with some tall "spikes."

One last caveat: It's always tempting to believe our role models and authority figures have it all figured out. It's certainly something I'm still learning. There's certainly a ton of valuable advice from these authors, investors, and those who've achieved "success," but we should always keep pushing against the walls of what they say life is or ought to be. As Steve Jobs would say:

"When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money. That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again.”

#015

It's been 7 months since my last visit to Melbourne. What struck me quite vividly this time around was just how much Melbourne cafes were alike: the same indoor plants; the same exposed brick walls; the same Scandinavian furniture; and the same organic, GMO-free, fair-trade menus.

It's not just cafes, this "millennial aesthetic" has taken over billboards, mattresses, open floor plan offices, and are threatening to take over the rest of our material lives.

Why is the material world converging on the same aesthetic?

The convergence of interior design towards this "millennial aesthetic" is both promising yet fraught with a lack of humility. After decades of utilitarian and functional design, landlords and business owners have woken up to the realization that aesthetics do matter—a well-considered design or brand confers trust and authority. The look of a product or environment does have a tangible impact towards a business' bottom line. Although it is primarily driven by money, the millennial aesthetic is a promising step towards a greater public appreciation of the arts, design, and beauty—not unlike the Renaissance of 16th-century Italy.

What is disconcerting, however, is the sameness of this period we're in and the vivacity we're pursuing this alleged ideal. It's as if millennials have somehow arrived at the pinnacle of taste, and we are thus obligated to transform our collective environment at haste.

The millennial aesthetic is democratic. It's elegant; it's ethical; it's economical; and it's simple. The clean sans serif typefaces and plentiful negative space is cheap and easy, and requires little in the way of skills. Online tools like Canva and Squarespace are "democratizing" design to the masses. AI-enabled cameras, editing tools, and brilliant smartphone displays are "democratizing" stunning imagery.

Technology is training us to have more "refined" tastes. The short feedback loop—from the moment you post to the incoming torrent of likes—trains our tastes for what looks "good." Or more precisely, what captures the most attention, and therefore generates the most advertising dollars. This short feedback loop in conjunction with the ubiquity of smartphones pushes consumer tastes and design towards the same convergent aesthetic. The sameness becomes pervasive, and our interconnected culture increasingly crowds out any space for the weird and quirky to gain a foothold.

Molly Fischer from New York Magazine puts it aptly:

"If you simultaneously can’t afford any frills and can’t afford any failure, you end up with millennial design: crowd-pleasing, risk-averse, calling just enough attention to itself to make it clear that you tried."

My fear is the stifling of innovation as we fall deeper and deeper into conformity, towards a risk-averse flavor of "good."

How are we to make sense of all this?

A caveat: I am not an expert in design, food, nor culture. I concede that my analysis may be badly wrong. I am simply a somewhat astute consumer with strong opinions, loosely held. The following is my current attempt to navigate the perils of this trend when it comes to food.

Understand what your values are

As someone who eats, takes great pleasure in eating, and goes out of my way to discover new ways of eating, taste takes precedence above all else. I'll happily dine at a street cart on the side of a traffic-congested road in Mexico City if their Gorditas are juicy, cheesy, with a satisfying outer crunch; I'm more than happy to put up with inattentive service in a Sichuan restaurant if their chillies makes the hair on the back of my neck standup, and leave my tongue in a tingling daze. To me, service, presentation, even hygiene (to a certain extent) are secondary. I'll take the combination of good food with good company any day of the week.

In practical terms, when I search for a new restaurant, I deliberately discount reviews based on service (this is especially true when it comes to Asian cuisine). Your "value stack" will obviously vary, but it's good to understand how your values stack up and use it to calibrate reviews and recommendations.

Don't Instagram your food

Food photography has replaced prayers as our pre-meal ritual. Personally, I find that pulling out your phone to snap a food pic disrupts the flow of conversation and distracts from the experience. On the odd occasion where I do snap some pictures, it is for later inspiration and isn't shared beyond private chats. I don't worry about which angle or lighting looks the best, nor how many social brownie points I may get. I find this practice removes social-driven biases that distort the enjoyment of the dish itself.

As a society, I believe we are overvaluing how a dish looks over how it tastes. As consumers, we "vote" with our wallets. Right now, we are overpaying for the "experience" of food without realizing its long-term consequences. When we pay for Instagrammable dishes at Instagrammable establishments, we are pushing all restaurants and cafes in the same direction. In Melbourne, this has led to a severe lack of differentiation in the brunch scene, where cafes are known more for their differences in millennial decor, and less for the food.

What are your heuristics for finding good food?

#014

I recently picked up a book about buildings by Stewart Brand.

Not sure what exactly pulled me in to an interest in buildings; I have no plans to get into real estate yet (fun fact: the "real" in "real estate" derives from re-al meaning "royal"), nor do I have a deep interest in the building preservation movement. I'm barely halfway through the book, but it's already profoundly changed the way I view and interact with buildings.

“A change of perspective is worth 80 IQ points”—Alan Kay

Three years ago, I hadn't given buildings much thought. They have always been there in the background, as part of our modern habitat. We live, work, and play in and around buildings but most people don't give it a second thought unless there's a problem. For something so fundamental to our comfort and existence, I made a conscious effort to deconstruct this particular cultural code.

On my travels since, I started to notice buildings from different eras or architectural movements, how buildings are designed to withstand different climates, and also learnt to see the iconoclastic features that distinguish a Frank Gehry from an I. M. Pei. I slowly came to admire the futuristic scales of the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Guggenheim Museum, and am still awed by the audaciousness of Gaudi's Sagrada Família. But despite my newfound interest and keen eye for observation, my view of buildings remained shallow, as I wasn't able to see beyond the surface.

Since I started reading the book, I've started to view buildings in a new light (two to be precise):

Buildings live in 4D, not 3D

The word building is itself an oxymoron. It means both the action of "to build" and "that which is built." Architects like to view buildings as permanent artifacts to their legacy, whereas to the users of a building, it is is always building and rebuilding.

Brand proposes a useful mental model for viewing buildings through time: "shearing layers." He argues that there isn't any such thing as a building. A building properly conceived is several layers of longevity of built components. There are 6Ss in any building:

1. Site: the plot of land
2. Structure: the foundation and load bearing elements
3. Skin: the exterior "looks"
4. Services: wiring, plumbing, AC, HVAC
5. Space plan: layout of rooms, walls
6. Stuff: chairs, lamps, mugs

The order reflects on how the component relates to both people and time. In relation to people, the site interacts at the level of the state (zoning, footprint restrictions), whereas stuff interacts with people on the level of individuals. In relation to time, services wear out or obsolesce every 7–15 years, whereas stuff can change on a daily to monthly basis.

“An adaptive building has to allow slippage between the differently-paced systems of Site, Structure, Skin, Services, Space plan, and Stuff. Otherwise the slow systems block the flow of the quick ones, and the quick ones tear up the slow ones with their constant change.”

Viewing buildings in this light has given me a deeper appreciation for the necessity of long-term thinking.

Beneath the surface, buildings reveal underlying systems and incentive structures

Have you ever wondered why many modern buildings are not user friendly and stick out like a sore thumb? Blame the underlying incentives.

Starting in the mid-19th century, architects aimed to distinguish themselves from mere "builders" through "art." Architects get work through getting awards, and the award system is based on photographs. Not use. Not context. Just purely visual photographs taken before people start using the building. On its surface, an emphasis on a building's aesthetics can add character to a skyline. But art is fundamentally in tension with the practical function of buildings:

“Art must be inherently radical, but buildings are inherently conservative. Art must experiment to do its job. Most experiments fail. Art costs extra. How much extra are you willing to pay to live in a failed experiment? Art flouts convention. Convention became conventional because it works. Aspiring to art means aspiring to a building that almost certainly cannot work, because the old good solutions are thrown away. The roof has a dramatic new look, and it leaks dramatically.”

On a local regulatory level, it's also fascinating to see how the underlying incentives can drive design (not from the book):

In the UK, where there is a tax on windows:

In France, where floors were taxed but the roof exempted:

In Brazil, where churches are taxed upon completion:

In Lima, where tax is applied to finished houses:

Via negativa, Latin for "negative way," describes knowledge obtained by negation. This method of description is rather counter-intuitive. Since an early age, we're taught to describe objects and ideas in the "positive" way (via positiva), using traits or characteristics that help define the subject. For the vast majority of cases, via positiva describes objects and ideas in a straightforward and succinct manner ("that car is red," or "this book is a space opera"). In more abstract cases, or cases where the set of possible traits is too big, via negativa can be more useful instead. This is particularly so when trying to describe the limitless.

When the ancients tried to describe the divine, they ran into a problem with via positiva. Because in the attempt to define what God or the divine is via positiva, you end up limiting what is in essence unlimited. Rather than try to describe what God is, via negativa (apophatic theology), lists what God is not through the process of elimination. Notably, eight of the ten commandments are instructed via negativa.

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy
5. Honour thy father and thy mother
6. Thou shalt not murder
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery
8. Thou shalt not steal
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour
10. Thou shalt not covet (neighbour's house, wife, slaves, animals, or anything else)

In more technical terms, via negativa works by leveraging the asymmetry of knowledge. Negative knowledge (what is wrong, what does not work) is more robust to error than positive knowledge (what is right, what works). What we know to be right could turn out to be wrong tomorrow. Conversely, what we know to be wrong cannot turn out to be right tomorrow, at least not as easily. To use Nassim Taleb's example of black and white swans,

If I spot a black swan, I can be quite certain that the statement “all swans are white” is wrong. But even if I have never seen a black swan, I can never hold such a statement to be true.

When it comes to our personal productivity, we don't know what 'hack' or tool is going to work for us. Productivity systems are highly personal. We come from different backgrounds, have wildly varying personalities, and are tackling a myriad of different challenges both personal and professional. In such individualized circumstances fraught with a high degree of randomness, any prescriptive solution is bound to fall short. What works for an insanely conscientious person won't necessarily work for the procrastinator on the other end of the conscientious scale. Any attempts to generalize productivity advice usually ends up removing nuance, and reduces any substance to banal tropes of the "follow your passion" variety.

What we do know, however, is what is unproductive. Through "addition via subtraction," we can take steps to reduce behaviors we know are unproductive, and leave room for the things our future selves would be proud we accomplished. Via negativa is not a productivity system per se. Rather, it's a method—the negative way—for you to find out what's not working in your existing system. It works because it doesn't ask you to find what is most productive, it simply asks you to reevaluate what you know is clearly not.

How to leverage via negativa

1. Identify triggers that are clearly not productive.
2. Design systems to remove them.

What are the notifications, triggers, or other stimuli that's subverting your attention? For me, that was YouTube and its recommendation engine and autoplay setting. This is a lethal combination that's swallowed many productive hours. Upon recognition of this destructive pattern, I downloaded a Chrome extension to block all YouTube recommendations, comments, and the entire homepage, and breathed a sigh of relief.

This two-question exercise has become a part of my weekly review. Not all of your well intentioned systems are going to work. It takes time and some trial and error to rewire maladaptive patterns. Over a number of weeks, I've deleted most social apps from my phone (except for messaging), and use StayFocusd to block or limit the time I spend on certain sites (Reddit, news, etc.).

Indeed, minimalism (digital and lifestyle), essentialism, and the Marie Kondo method all leverage the asymmetry of disconfirmation. These movements arose, in part, in response to the encroachment of technology into our lives. Rather than adopt newer tools to curb the old, these movements asks us to remove the non-essential. They recognize that new technologies are designed to heighten their perceived benefits (and exploit our neomania) and obfuscate their costs. The way to stop modernity from crowding out what matters most is the negative way, via negativa.

Think of your productivity in the same way Michelangelo saw David. When asked by the pope about the secret of his genius, referencing his sculpture of David, Michelangelo answered,

"It's simple. I just remove everything that is not David."

In part I, we traced satellites from its science fiction beginnings to technical feasibility. All that was missing was a way to get into orbit (and how to pay for it).

The precursor to rocketry can be traced all the way back to ancient China in 300BC, in the form of gunpowder. Its discovery is not well documented, but the first recorded use of the earliest form of solid rocket fuel was in religious ceremonies. In a tradition that continues to this day, bamboo tubes filled with gunpowder were cast into ceremonial fires to produce a deafening racket, in hopes of warding off evil spirits.

The zero to one leap from gunpowder to rocket weaponry took roughly 1300 years. In contrast, the globalization of this new technology took only 200 years to reach Europe. The Sung Dynasty first developed the military use of gunpowder and rockets as early as 1045 AD against the invading Mongols, who then adopted its use against the Maygars (Hungarians) in 1241 AD, and the Arabs in 1258 AD. By 1300 AD, rockets would find its way into most European arsenals, but used only in fits and starts. Napoleon notably chose not to use rockets in favor of cannons, despite the French army’s prior use of rockets against the English during the Hundred Years War in 1429. Until WWII, military interest in the technology was lukewarm at best.

To take the next technological step, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Robert Goddard independently came to the conclusion that a more powerful liquid-propellant motor was needed. Not for military purposes, but to realize their dreams of living on other worlds. Tsiolkovsky, the Soviet rocket scientist who was inspired by the works of Jules Verne, demonstrated the feasibility of multi-stage liquid-fueled rockets to reach orbit in 1897. Goddard, who was transfixed by H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds at age 16, would go on to design and launch the first liquid-fueled rocket in 1926. The rocket, dubbed “Nell,” rose just 41 feet during a 2.5s flight, but it was an important milestone that demonstrated the feasibility of liquid-propellants for much larger rockets.

The significance of Goddard’s breakthrough was not appreciated by the U.S. government. The Weather Bureau did register interest in 1929 to conduct atmospheric research, but was unable to secure sufficient government funding.  Across the Atlantic, Germany saw what the U.S. did not. In what is now a remarkable feat of prescience, Goddard was well aware of German interest, and expressed his concerns in a letter to the Smithsonian in 1923—three years before Nell. In it, he stated that he “would not be surprised if the research would become something in the nature of a race.” He didn’t predict the right opponent, but he certainly nailed the race that eventuated.

In Germany, rocketry started out as an amateur movement. The Verein für Raumschiffahrt (“VfR” the Society for Space Travel) was founded in 1927 following the popularity of Herman Oberth’s The Rocket into Planetary Space (1923). The society conducted their first successful test firing with liquid fuel in January 1930, and sought out the German army for funding later that year. Rocketry, it turns out, was not restricted by the Treaty of Versailles that brought WWI to a close. 1930 also happened to be the same year that a young mechanical engineering student by the name of Werner von Braun joined the VfR.

By 1932, the newly created German Army rocket research group took a serious interest in VfR, and von Braun in particular. Von Braun was subsequently recruited to work on liquid-propelled rockets for the army, taking most of the VfR with him. Prior to 1939, German scientists posed a number of technical questions to Goddard. His answers, in addition to his plans from various journals were incorporated by von Braun to build the Aggregat (A) series of rockets. The fourth iteration of which—given the technical name A4—would go on to wreck havoc in Western Europe as the V-2 “Vengeance” missile. As the first successful ballistic rocket and the first artificial object to travel into space (by crossing the Karman line), some historians fairly mark this occasion as the beginning of the space age.

The V2s entered the fray in 1944—too late to impact the outcome of the war. As Nazi Germany started to collapse in 1945, von Braun and his staff decided it preferable to surrender to the Americans instead of the Soviets or the British, especially after the damage they’d recently inflicted on London. Choosing from a half-dozen conflicting orders, von Braun and 500 of his staff made their way toward American lines under the order of relocation, while using his status as an S.S. officer to avoid being detained. On May 2, the same day that Berlin fell, von Braun’s brother, Magnus, accosted—on a bicycle—the first American soldier he could find to arrange their surrender. The Americans were well aware of the significance of the catch: von Braun was atop of their list of German scientists targeted for immediate interrogation. What they perhaps initially overlooked, was just how important the rest of his scientists were in the Cold War that is to come.

Of the 500 scientists von Braun wanted to bring to the U.S., only 177 were accepted. The rest were captured by the Soviets and ultimately aided their efforts in the space race. Primarily between 1945 and 1959, the U.S. took in over 2,200 German scientists and technicians in Operation Paperclip. It was initially intended to “assist in shortening the Japanese war,” but its objective later targeted the Soviet Union explicitly, towards building a U.S. military advantage in the Cold War and the Space Race. On the Soviet side, there was an even more aggressive push to capture what was left of German technical talent and know-how. Operation Osoaviakhim forcibly removed over 2,200 German specialists and their families for employment in the Soviet Union. Much of the research and production facilities for the V2 was also transplanted into Russia. As a historic counterfactual, had von Braun’s Original 500 all been accepted initially, the trajectory of the space race might’ve looked quite different.

In this overly brief and overly simplified look at the developmental history of rocketry, here are my brief thoughts:

Innovation is nonlinear. The zero to one leap from gunpowder to rocket weaponry took roughly 1300 years. It took another 700 years to take that next leap from solid-fuel to the more powerful liquid-fuel rockets to cross the Karman line and into space. This fits-and-starts nature of development seems to be characteristic of technological progress more generally. Examples of the steam engine, computing, and even the invention of the wheel (this is a fascinating topic deserving of its own article).

Rocketry, satellites, and fanciful ideas of space exploration all share humble beginnings as amateur movements. These were groups—sometimes lone eccentrics—who shared dreams of discovery and adventure. These dreams were seeded by great works of science fiction, with ideas just on the brink of plausibility for the “naive.” To the more “rational” majority, they were mere “dreamers,” “too utopian,” and deserving of ridicule and rejection. In the age of the internet, with the world’s knowledge in our pockets, how do we best connect the dreamers of today? And how do we protect the seeds of ideas when they are at their most fragile?

Funding these risky ideas also presents unique challenges. In rocketry, it wasn’t until technical and military feasibility was established that the money came knocking. Procuring funds from the government in particular remains onerous: NASA is constantly fighting a PR battle to justify its worth, and funds are rather mercurial—dependent on the political climate at the time, varying from administration to administration. Fortunately, innovations in funding mechanisms since has made it easier for risky ideas to get off the ground. Through venture capital, crowdfunding, initial coin offerings (ICOs), and income share agreements (ISAs), we’re experimenting in a myriad of ways to get risky ideas and ambitious founders started. Space in particular tends to be highly capital intensive. What are financial innovations that can uniquely enable some of the more ambitious ideas?

In the next part of the series, we’ll follow the mysterious radio signals detected on U.S. soil during WWII, and see how that sparks the genesis for communication satellites.

Download it from the Chrome Web Store.

In NASA’s Budget Request for each year, there’s always a section dedicated to “education.” This number changes according to the priorities set from administration to administration. Recently, as much as $119M was allocated towards education in 2015, before getting cut entirely for 2019 and 2020, as funds are redirected to “NASA’s core mission of exploration” in response to the Trump administration’s directive to return to the Moon by 2024.

A main motivation of funding education is to convince the American public that NASA is valuable and worthy of every dime. It’s a perpetual PR battle—one that was fought even at the height of the Apollo program—to the common refrain: “why are we spending money in space when there are plenty of problems here on Earth?” This is certainly a valid critique, and one that’s rather difficult to address satisfactorily, given the unpredictable nature of technological innovation. Perhaps because of these critiques, NASA has launched a number of successful education programs and initiatives in response.

One of NASA’s most successful education programs is Astronomy Picture of the Day, or APOD. As its name suggests, “each day a different image or photograph of our universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.” Since its launch in June 1996, it’s become one of the most popular websites across all federal agencies. It surpassed a billion page views in 2012, and is translated to 21 languages daily. APOD would go on to win the Klumpke-Roberts Award in 2015 “for outstanding contributions to public understanding and appreciation of astronomy.” During its illustrious 20+ year history, however, the APOD website has not received much attention visually, and appears rather outdated in 2019.

My aim with this project is to translate APOD to a wider audience, whom might not otherwise habitually open APOD on a daily basis. Plus, this is also a fun side project to work with NASA’s APIs and get my feet wet with development for the Chrome browser.

Extensions that display information (pictures, todo lists, weather, etc.) are not new; they’ve been around since browser tabs have been a thing. Of all the APOD extensions in the Chrome store, I wasn’t able to find one that quite met my wants or taste. Too often they were overly cluttered with information, unnecessary icons or tabs, or weren’t able to elegantly handle pictures of various aspect ratios that update each day. Rather than a pleasant, welcoming experience as you transition into a new tab, the experience was often a jarring one; like a stick that repeatedly prodded at the perfectionist in me. My goal for an ideal extension is not to distract you from your original intent when opening a new tab.

One extension that’s been a fixture in my Chrome repertoire has been Momentum. It displays a new landscape photo each day along with the time when you open a new tab. In recent years, the extension has gotten too bloated for my liking with features like todo lists, links, quotes, mantras. From the perspective of a business, this is perfectly understandable, but it does arouse in me the desire to return to simpler times. So for my APOD extension I chose to include the time, rather prominently, to act as a gentle reminder to stay on task.

As for visual inspiration, I was recently perusing the original film posters for 2001: A Space Odyssey. I particularly liked the sense of optimism and adventure these posters invoked. Admittedly, those emotions were to a large degree elicited by the imagery, which for APOD, is out of my control.

After some visual explorations:

I ultimately landed on something clean and simple for v1:

To my eyes, something still feels “off,” depending on what image NASA selects for that day. I’ve attempted to rectify this by automatically changing whether the full image is displayed (if it’s in portrait) or to fill the browser container (if it’s in landscape). At the end of the day, good beats perfect. So I’d love to hear your feedback and keep iterating on this project!

Download it from the Chrome Web Store.

Satellites are an invisible yet integral part of modernity. In meteorology, communications, logistics, agriculture, and defence, to name just a few applications, the satellite industry generated $261 billion in revenues in 2016.^[1] Despite its present value, its path from science-fiction to market maturation was fortuitous and far from a “sure thing.” From the mysterious radio signals detected on U.S. soil during WWII, to the misinterpretation of KGB intelligence, this essay series looks at the key events and milestones of satellite (and by extension rocketry) development. To what extent were satellites inevitable? Was satellite innovation a case of top-down, directed research, or was it more serendipitous?

Newton, from what I could gather, was the first to propose the idea of artificial satellites. Published as a thought experiment in A Treatise of the Systems of the World (1678), Newton’s Cannonball, as it has come to be known, first demonstrated the mathematical possibility of orbits.^[2]

Two centuries later, science fiction writers, Jules Verne and Edward Everette Hale would resurface this idea in their depictions of artificial satellites launched into orbit.^[3] Jules Verne’s De la Terre á la Lune (From the Earth to the Moon) in particular, would become the space-geek bible of sorts and go on to inspire the original pioneers of rocketry: Tsiolkovsky, Potočnik, Oberth, Goddard, Pierce, and von Braun.^[4]

Satellites and rockets was lodged squarely in the realm of science-fiction until 1897, when Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Russian maths teacher and a founding figure in rocketry, mathematically demonstrated the feasibility of rockets to launch spacecraft into orbit. In Investigating Outer Space with Rocket Devices, he derived the “Tsiolkovsky rocket equation,” calculated the minimal speed required to orbit the Earth, and demonstrated that this could be achieved by using a multi-stage rocket. His work did not garner much attention or serious consideration initially—this was six years before the Wright Flyer after all—and he was regarded as an eccentric and recluse. As we’ll see, this characterization of the rocketry pioneer as part dreamer, part science fiction writer, and part scientist would come to define rocket scientists of the early 20^th century.^[4]

In 1928, Herman Potočnik, a Slovene rocket engineer proposed concrete ideas for space applications. In contrast to Tsiolkovsky, who believed space colonization as an inherent good and will lead to human immortality,^[5] Potočnik was more practical. His book, The Problem of Space Travel: The Rocket Motor, put forth detailed designs for a space station, peaceful and military uses of Earth observation satellites, and describes space as a unique environment to conduct scientific experiments. But like Tsiolkovsky before him, his ideas were mostly ignored by his colleagues in the Austro-Hungarian scientific community.^[4] His most ardent fans would come from the German amateur rocketry movement, the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR - “Spaceflight Society”).^[6]

To mainstream narratives, it still wasn’t clear whether spaceships were science-fiction or science-fact. One leading member of VfR, Hermann Oberth, who would go on to be known as another founding father of rocketry, had his doctoral dissertation rejected in 1922 by the University of Göttingen on account of it being too “utopian,” and its author nothing but a “romantic futurist.”^[4] Even after WWII, when John Robinson Pierce, Executive Director of Bell Lab’s Research-Communications Division, first wrote about the potential benefits of communication satellites, it appeared in the Astounding Science Fiction magazine in 1952. It didn’t help that he was also a science fiction writer and published the article under his science fiction pseudonym J. J. Coupling.^[7] To tug on the science fiction thread further, it was Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the British futurist, undersea explorer and science fiction author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, who first proposed the use of geostationary satellites (satellites in orbits that stay in the same position above Earth) as telecommunications relays in 1945. The geostationary orbit is now officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union as the “Clarke orbit.”^[8]

Early spaceflight innovations were borne of grand narratives embedded in the scientific understanding at the time. Being careful to not read too much intentionality into these developments, as historic narrations are prone to do, two main things stand out: 1) The power of narratives and the 2) Lack of top-down direction or “experts”.

Jules Verne’s meticulously researched stories captured the imagination of the early space pioneers: Tsiolkovsky, Potočnik, Oberth, Goddard, Pierce, and von Braun all read Verne's From the Earth to the Moon. And in Oberth’s case, he re-read it to the point of memorization.^[9] Of all the threads that tie these founding fathers of rocketry together, this is the one that stands out. To what extent Verne's work influenced theirs we can't be sure, but it certainly lends credence to the necessity of imagination in innovation. As Carl Jung postulated, “people don’t have ideas; ideas have people.” Perhaps the space dreams of these pioneers—whether planted by Verne or otherwise—"had" them sufficiently to persist in the face of overwhelming ridicule. Because to build an industry or category, by definition, means stepping outside of pre-existing boundaries.

Early spaceflight progress was marked by amateur bottom-up experimentation. There was no issued “objective” to the early research that was conducted, as much as science fiction depictions could be called an objective. There was little funding available initially as the ideas proposed seemed too far-fetched. Tsiolkovsky himself had to fund many of his early research, and had to take up position as a teacher to do so. So while President Kennedy’s “We choose to go the Moon” top-down promise is widely remembered as a defining moment of the space race, the early innovations should be remembered for its bottoms-up tinkering.

In the next part of this series, we’ll dive into the Nazi war machine and the fortuitous circumstances that led to the development of rocketry.

References

[1] Bryce Space and Technology. (June 2017). State of the Satellite Industry Report
[2] Newton's cannonball. (September 2019). Wikipedia
[3] Rocketry Through the Ages, Rockets in Science Fiction. Marshall Spaceflight Center
[4] John Bloom (2016). Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story.
[5] Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. (September 2019). Wikipedia
[6] Herman Potočnik. (September 2019). Wikipedia
[7] Donald C. Elder. Beyond the Ionosphere: The Development of Satellite Communications, Chapter 2. NASA History Series
[8] Arthur C. Clarke. (September 2019). Wikipedia
[9] Hermann Oberth. (September 2019). Wikipedia

No, not velocity.

This list compiles examples of aerospace technology that was developed in a surprising amount of time (whether surprisingly long or short).

(1927) The Spirit of Saint Louis

The Spirit of Saint Louis is the custom-built, single engine monoplane flown by Charles Lindbergh on the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight from Long Island, New York, to Paris in May 1927. It was designed by Donald A. Hall of Ryan Airlines and Lindbergh in 60 days for $10,580.

Source: Spirit of Saint Louis (September 2019). Wikipedia

(1943) Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star

The first fighter jet used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). Designed, built, and delivered by Lockheed in 1943 in just 143 days.

Source: Ben. R. Rich (1196). Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed. Back Bay Books

(1957) Sputnik

The first artificial satellite. Development speed was accelerated by what the chief Soviet rocket scientist, Sergei Korolev, thought was an almost-successful American satellite launch, based on KGB intelligence. In response, Korolev stripped down designs to what the engineers called “Prosteishiy Sputnik” (bare-bones satellite) and got the approval of the Ministry of Defense.

“We made it in one month, and with only one reason, to be first in space.”

—Georgy Grechko, rocket scientist who calculated the Sputnik’s trajectory and would later to go on to become a cosmonaut.

Source: John Bloom (2016). Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story.

(1968) Apollo 8

The second crewed mission in the Apollo program, and the first to leave low Earth orbit, orbit the Moon, and return. On August 9, 1968, NASA decided that Apollo 8 would go to the Moon, assuming Apollo 7 would turn out to be a success, if they are to attain the “in this decade” goal. Apollo 8 launched just 134 days later.

Source: The Apollo Spacecraft - A Chronology. NASA (2007)

(1969) Boeing 747

The 747 was the first wide-body (twin-aisle) commercial aircraft, and the first to be dubbed a “Jumbo Jet.” Boeing was asked by Juan Trippe, president of Pan Am to  build an aircraft with twice the capacity of the 707, in an attempt to counter airport congestion from a growing number of passengers on smaller aircraft.

The first 747 was completed on September 30, 1968, less than three years after Pan Am signed the letter of intent. The schedule was so fast that the team assigned to it were nicknamed “The Incredibles.” Management was said to have “bet the company” to commit to this deadline given the technical and financial challenges present.

It’s also interesting to note that Boeing expected supersonic airliners (announced in 1960s) to render the 747 obsolete. Boeing responded by designing the 747 to be easily converted into a cargo aircraft, where demand was expected to be more robust. Boeing’s original sales expectations of 400 aircraft have since been eclipsed with 1,554 aircraft built by June, 2019.

Source: Boeing 747. (September, 2019). Wikipedia

This list is inspired by Patrick Collison's examples of people quickly accomplishing things together.

Please tweet or send me more examples! (Preferably with sources.)

Productivity (like knowledge and relationships) compounds. Given two people with similar abilities, one of whom delivers more work each day, the latter will deliver exponentially more than the former over the course of a career. To put it in numbers, even a 5% difference, over a 15 year period, will lead to over 200% difference in results. Of course, it doesn’t matter how fast you go if it’s in the wrong direction. Combining the two, productivity is simply a function of what you work on, and the speed at which you make progress.

The second part of the equation is something I’ve found challenging to sustain. Between meetings, Slack notifications, or distractions that come part and parcel with open-plan offices, I’ve often struggled to recall "what the hell did I actually get done today?" This sentiment is often echoed by colleagues, and “office disruptions” is an issue that gets raised from time to time in our team “retrospectives.”

Enter RescueTime. As the saying goes, “what gets measured, gets managed.” RescueTime does just that. Once installed, it tracks how long you spend on different apps and websites. Based on how you and other users have categorized these apps and websites (from very distracting to very productive), RescueTime gives you a “productivity score” out of 100%. It’s not a perfect measure of speed or progress, but it’s enough to heighten my awareness for when I’m doing something that’s obviously counterproductive.

My biggest wish for RescueTime was for it to be more front and center. Out of the box, users have to refer to the RescueTime dashboard in the browser. It’s filled with detailed breakdowns of how you allocated your time, but it’s also easy to forget—I’ve gone weeks without checking back on it. This led me to my hypothesis for this project:

A visible “productivity score” in my Mac menu bar will prompt me to be more industrious because it: a) quantifies my productivity for ease of comparison; b) quantifies unproductive time.

I built this app to show your “productivity score,” and how much time is “very productive” out of the total hours that you’ve been active on your computer. At a glance, you can see just how productive your day is going (anything above a 67% is above average). When you click into it, the drop down menu shows you your “productivity score” and percentage of your time that was “very productive” over the past seven days. If your score is above 70, you get a check mark for that day!

It’s still early, but it's already psychologically shifted how I approach my days. Rather than starting my days opening email or Slack (very distracting), I now dive right into coding, designing, or writing (very productive) to start the day with a high score. Incidentally, this also correlates well with tackling my most important tasks first thing in the morning. On the flip side, I am slower to reply to email or other messages, but so far no one has complained, yet.

This post will be updated as I continue to experiment with this app and test various hypotheses. I should note that the majority of productivity ‘hacks’ I have attempted in the past did not stand the test of time for one reason or another. Fighting the procrastination monster is a constant battle. The important thing is to keep experimenting, iterating on what works, and discarding what doesn’t.

This menu bar app is a plugin built on top of BitBar. You can find the open source code for the menu bar app on GitHub. If you are interested in using it, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

The motivation for this project is to accelerate progress towards a space-faring civilization. I use a broad definition here to encompass progress in the technological, cultural, political, and moral spheres. This is a lofty goal, to be sure, but it is an important one to tackle. I am interested in this project because I believe technology—its development and its access—is the most important driver of growth in the industrialized world. I focus on space in particular, as I am inspired by the Apollo era techno-optimism of the 60s and early 70s, and the NewSpace renaissance of the current era.

Space was at one time synonymous with the future. Those merely a few generations before us grew up in a time of rapid progress—they witnessed the Wright brother’s first flights at Kitty Hawk and their triumphant reversal from lunatics to geniuses; and they witnessed Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon—all in a span of 66 years.

Extraordinary engineering feats were accomplished with astounding speed. The P-80 Shooting Star, the first jet fighter used by the U.S. Air Force, was designed, built, and delivered by Lockheed in 1943 in just 143 days. In 1927, the Spirit of Saint Louis, the aircraft flown by Charles Lindbergh on the first non stop solo transatlantic flight, was designed and built in just 60 days. On August 9, 1968, NASA decided that Apollo 8 would go to the Moon if they are to attain the “in this decade” goal. Apollo 8 launched just 134 days later. These audacious feats were all accomplished on unimaginable timescales, especially by the standards of today.

This sense of rapid progress seeped into the cultural zeitgeist. Stanley Kubrik’s 1968 classic, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” made the future easy to imagine. Not wanting to miss out, Pan Am, the now defunct airline, also fed into the techno-optimism with the promise of flights to the Moon. This was almost certainly a marketing tack, but a rather successful one at that. In the months after Apollo 11's successful mission, reservation requests to Pan Am’s “First Moon Flights” Club reached 100,000. Given the rapid progress witnessed by this generation, the line between science-fiction and what was possible was less clear cut. To them, it was only a matter of time.

Then came the stagnation. We have not returned to the Moon since 1972. Transportation speeds have declined for the first time since the industrial revolution (after the retirement of the Concorde fleet in 2003). Since the Shuttle Atlantis retired in 2011, the U.S. has had to rely on the decades old Russian Soyuz to get astronauts to the Space Station. This shift in dynamism begs the question: what changed? The obvious answer points to the political conditions of the Cold War. Beyond the political, did institutional or market conditions have an impact on innovation? Or were the lowest hanging fruits in the aero/astro orchids picked bare?

The turn of the millennium signaled a renaissance of sorts: the NewSpace era. NewSpace brought a shift from an over reliance on government contracts towards an independent private sector. SpaceX’s pioneering developments in reusable launch technology has dramatically lowered launch costs and increased access to space. Since 2000, private investors have poured over $20 billion into the private space industry. SpaceX, Amazon, OneWeb, and others are developing constellations of satellites in the thousands that promises to deliver high speed internet access worldwide. Boom Supersonic is building Mach 2.2 passenger planes. And whatever your political affiliation or confidence in the Trump administration, its directive to NASA to return astronauts to the Moon in 2024, at the very least, puts us back on track towards greater progress and innovation.

What were the conditions that catalyzed rapid progress in the first half of the 20th century? Is aero/astro still in a period of stagnation? What’s behind the massive capital injection into NewSpace in the last decade? What are our most important problems still on the horizon?

My goal with this project is to answer these questions and more. This is not a normal research project, nor is it a nostalgic homage to the “golden” years of space. Rather, I aim to learn about the important breakthroughs and milestones that got us here; to extract lessons from the scientists, engineers, leaders, and organizations that made it happen; and with that foundation, to discover what our most important problems are.

I aim to post regularly with each post focusing on a single topic, in one of two general categories: 1) the history of aerospace, or 2) the future of aerospace. The posts aren’t going to be polished, but more akin to sharing my notes in public—an experiment in learning in public, if you will. With that, I invite you to join me on my journey and follow my thinking as it evolves. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.