KFCblog - March 2021

Life

Baby, it's cold outside. Piles of snow everywhere; more than a week straight with below zero (°F) temperatures. The scary thing is that I actually like it a little, especially when the sun is shining. It makes me feel like I'm at a ski resort (well, except for the lack of mountains). I just would like it to all end by mid-March.

My son Tommy just moved into a new apartment down in Chicago. After living in a small apartment, he's now giving high-rise living a try. The best thing in my opinion? He now lives about 500 yards from the best BBQ ribs anywhere at Twin Anchors.

Sports World

I lost my Super Bowl bet on the Chiefs; TB12 and the Bucs showed their stuff and Tampa came up with a defensive plan to stifle Mahomes and the Chiefs. I did, however, win my prop bet that the coin toss would be Heads.

Novak and Naomi won the Australian Open. Tiger had an awful car accident. March Madness will be held all in Indianapolis with 25% fans. And spring training has started for baseball. The defending champion Dodgers are the biggest favorites to win again (take the over 101.5 wins). While the Cubs are projected to be middle of the pack, the White Sox are favored by most to win the AL Central.

Hello, World!

I am close to the end of my free agent journey. I expect to be starting a new job in March working on a really interesting effort in an area that I am extremely passionate about. I apologize for being cryptic about it, but I want to wait until it closes and is official before I share broadly. I will write more about it next month...

Puzzle Corner

Ten random residents of a city were surveyed as to how many people lived in their households. The answers gathered were: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

What is the expected average size of a household in this city?

Caught My Eye

The CDC has a COVID vaccine tracker. As of today (28Feb), almost 20% of Americans over the age of 18 have had at least one shot.

We know the COVID will likely be with us for quite a while. Here's a rational rule of thumb for when we can be back to "normal". TL;DR - about 100 deaths per day - the same as a typical influenza season [we're still averaging > 2000 per day on 1 Mar 2021).

A good explanation of how decisions can be made with incomplete data in the context of COVID clinical trials.

The UK is starting a COVID trial that will intentionally expose healthy people to COVID to understand what it really takes to get infected. Thank you, volunteers!

My coolest link of the month: MyHeritage AI photo animation service. Ok, it's a bit creepy too.

Film.ai is a new movie search engine using ai. Try searching for "baseball".

Have you ever noticed that little pull grip in your car's trunk and wonder what it is? It's an emergency escape release and is in all US cars largely due to the heroic efforts of one woman.

An interesting write-up on mental models, what they are, and why they are useful.

I normally like articles over videos, but one of my favorite builder YouTubers, Mark Rober gives you some simple science about Pinewood Derby cars. The best observation is that it's ok to overtake your son's project, because he will get a chance someday when he is a dad. He's got some great other stuff too - check out his Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder and his Can't-Miss Basketball Backboard.

Want to know where big investors put their money? Cheaper Than Guru lets you see the detailed investments (and performance) of people like Bill Gates. Or did you know that Apple makes up 42.7% of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway?

If you like to make fun of consultants and the words they use, check out unsuck-it. After you've checked it out, we can have a convo about it.

We're all tired of SPAM calls with fake CallerID. While doing a little reading on the topic, I came across Spooftel that lets you spoof CallerID yourself.

You have probably seen The Great Courses? I just found out that you can access these courses for free in many cases if you have a local library card through a service called Kanopy

MIT Technology Review Top 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2021. Leading the way? mRNA?

We will have feature films with life-like fully AI-generated actors in our lifetimes? Not sure about that? Take a look at Unreal's MetaHuman Creator.

An article about Non-Fungible Tokens - blockchain tracked digital assets from Andreessen Horowitz. I wrote in the past about my interest in NBA TopShot

HSBC is getting rid of 40% of their office space for the post-COVID world. Goldman Sachs thinks the virtual workplace is an aberration. Clearly, YMMV.

I Bought This: With the extreme cold weather and one bedroom in the basement, this model has worked like a dream

Closing Quote

“Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good too.” —Yogi Berra