Creating a Quality Mindset: the news, negativity, finding rays of hope, and building good software
If it bleeds, it leads
In August 2017, I stopped reading the news. I deleted apps, unsubscribed from emails, unfollowed podcasts, and canceled subscriptions.?
Earlier that month, I’d sat through Peter Diamandis’ keynote at the Gartner Group’s Catalyst conference, where he pointed out what had been evident for some time: news publications preyed on our negativity bias with an overwhelming stream of horrifying and titillating news designed to addict readers and increase revenue. He went on to demonstrate that, beneath the flood of war and catastrophe, smart people were doing innovative, positive work that benefited the world in unprecedented ways. All you had to do was focus your attention on that stream of information, and the outcome would be a whole new mindset.
As a skeptic and pragmatist who sometimes trends toward pessimism, his thesis captured my attention.
I turned to his Tech Blog , which focuses on exponential technologies and how they create abundance, as my sole news source. I later added a subscription to The Information , a publication run by professional journalists who do actual fact-based reporting on the tech industry. More recently, I included The Neuron , Superhuman , and One Useful Thing to keep track of all things AI. I read the Ageist and sometimes listen to the Huberman Lab Podcast to get information about health and longevity.
From the Abundance360 blog, I learned about vertical farming and how companies like Plenty and Aerofarms were increasing food production by 350x, using as little as 1% of the resources of traditional agriculture. They were also figuring out how to produce food supplies that didn’t require 1500-2500 miles of travel to reach population centers.
Meanwhile, researchers were busy creating self-healing solar panels from nanomaterials and inventing nanobots that attack cancer cells. A pair of designers based in Washington and South Africa collaborated virtually to produce cheap, open-source, 3-D-printed prosthetic hands for children.
These stories are about good humans working hard to improve the world around them. They inspire hope and optimism, inform using facts, and eschew opinionated sensationalism. They remind us to pursue quality in our daily endeavors and work with purpose.
Redemption and the James Webb Space Telescope
And then, on December 25, 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope launched. Amid a sea of bigotry, nationalism, trolling, and conspiracy theories, JWST stood as a testament to the power of science and the value of global collaboration. The telescope uses infrared technology to look into the depths of space and show scientists previously unknowable facts about the universe.
JWST uses four instruments to capture images: NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera), NIRSpec (Near Infrared Spectrograph), MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), and FGS/NIRISS (Fine Guidance Sensor and Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph). Suddenly, we can see thirteen billion years into the past and directly observe phenomena about which we’d previously only theorized. The power of these instruments and their potential to support innovative science reduces astrophysicists and astronomers to tears, and the images they produce astonish.
领英推荐
Rays of hope in engineering feats
If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend watching Netflix’s documentary about JWST’s development and launch.
The JWST team’s engineering feats seem fantastical but result from a focus on precision, quality, and perseverance. Successfully launching and deploying the telescope meant overcoming 344 single points of failure. The telescope’s deployment had 144 release mechanisms that all had to work perfectly. Backups and redundancies didn’t exist. So, the team tested and practiced contingency plans for two years. JWST would essentially be a $9.7B piece of junk floating through space if anything went wrong.
Even though you know the outcome, the documentary is a cliffhanger. As the telescope slowly unfolds itself, deploying a solar array, a sun shield, and the hexagonal segments of the primary mirror, the tension mounts.
“I hope it works!” I shouted more than once.?
Full deployment and positioning into orbit took about a month, followed by several more months of calibration and fine-tuning. On March 11, 2022, JWST captured its first NIRCam image and was ready for full scientific operations by July.
It has been a steady stream of scientific discovery and startling images ever since.
Infrared astronomy and inspiration
Whenever I need a pick-me-up, I carve out a few moments to linger on the JWST website and the Flickr photo albums . The universe’s vastness is somehow soothing, and the flood of science inspires me...