Podcast of the week
Let's begin this week's letter with the podcast you should listen to. For the record, I am too old to listen to sad stories. I despise them; they do nothing for me. It may inspire or awaken something for some people, but for me, they are just mood destroyers.
When I started listening to Finding Emilie from RadioLab, I thought, "Oh hell, no... this is gonna be SADS!" But the podcast took a twist, and I thoroughly enjoyed it so much that the entire episode flew by.
SPOILER: listen to the podcast before going on.
But wait, I have questions! And this one is the flawed nature of human beings. The story begins with her boyfriend, Alan, who falls in love with Emilie. He's also the centerpiece of her getting noticed for her functions and preventing her from being moved to a nursing home (or a dead end, is a better term). Towards the end, ten years since her last interview, we hear her from her home, where she lives with her dog and her new partner, Kirby. I get it; people change, and the most significant changes are from when we are in high school/college to when we are adults in our thirties. My thing here, though, is that she doesn't even mention Alan… at all. Why? Of course, it's none of my business, but I can't get this out of my head. A mere mention, a thank you, no matter the fallout?
Gaming
I was browsing some articles on game releases in 2024, and you know? Nothing jumps out at me. This is probably the first time in years that game anticipation has been blah. I do have my rotation of MMORPGs that I cycle through, so the story there is that I will have my "new games" via expansions.
I returned to a game last played in 2011 - Star Wars: The Old Republic. The amount of voice acting here is incredible; the storylines are unbeaten by either *World of Warcraft* or *Lord of the Rings Online* (the other games in my rotation). What surprised me the most was how much this game thrives with the population—much more than the big three (FFIV Online included). It's not the prettiest of the two - I still can't believe how gorgeous LOTRO looks today without major graphics overhauls since 2009.
My SteamDeck lays there as I can't get motivated to play anything on it. The same goes for the Nintendo Switch. Aside from the Zelda games, nothing else moves the needle for me. PS5 is in a similar situation—the same regurgitated games, yawners, or maybe I am just getting old.
Medicine and Health
My favorite topic in all of life. First, there's this gem on longevity. Nothing new here, fruits, veggie diet, along with faux fasting? We are now trying to fool our bodies into thinking that we're fasting instead of, you know, actually fasting? Second, intermittent fasting is what I do, and I am a big fan of it. Once you start and stick to it, I promise you won't be eating as much as you did *by choice!* as before. Go for six weeks; you can easily have one meal daily if you're not working out. This means you're losing weight *and* your body is cleaning itself from mal, damaged cells. Everyone should try it.
Tech
My second favorite topic is that it's not an AI piece. But we shall talk about AI - a much better search engine and nothing more today. Let's keep things in perspective. Which is best?
In my experience and testing, ChatGPT version 4 beats everything else. Yes, it's a paid model, but it's well worth it. By doing complex queries, I get meaningful results compared to others. Google’s Gemini is somewhere in the middle, and GROK is total crap, though; not worth even if using it for free.
Apple's iOS18 "What's in the OS" will be held on June 10th, probably at 1 PM EST, as it has been for years. The focus is AI. We know they are partnering with Google for some of it, but we will also see some Apple-centric AI.
Quality Control of American Products
I call it ruining a product when all a company's leaders care about is the bottom line. Engineers vs Wall Street. This is brilliantly highlighted in [this article](https://www.thefp.com/p/boeings-dead-whistleblower-spoke-the-truth), a must-read.
The key takeaway for me is the following quote:
Internal Boeing documents made public by Congress showed that the company’s engineers were disgusted by what they were being asked to do in building the 737 MAX. “This airplane is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys,” read one internal email between engineers. A second one read: “I’ll be shocked if the FAA passes this turd.” And a third: “Would you put your family on a MAX simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn’t.” There were also comments about how all the company cared about was cutting costs.
Sadly, the failed model is within Boeing and many other US-based corporations.
Must Read of the Week
I've published this on Twitter last week and will link it to you. My preface for it goes as such:
Once in a rare decade, you find an article that makes you feel things. Not that others don't; it's that this particular one hits close to what you care about, which is people and chronic diseases that, eventually, people die from.
Please read it; it's not gloom and doom; it's quite the opposite.