Ways of Looking #9 (May '25)
In this issue: building intuition for quantum mechanics, lognormal engineering estimates, a magical tincture, and fast-charging your phone.
Welcome to Ways of Looking. Roughly every month, I send my friends links and summaries for anything I’ve written recently, plus a few things I’m enjoying.
Check out my more regular writing and reply to this email anytime. Thanks for reading.
What I wrote last month
Quantum intuition for everyone, or: why Einstein thinks reality isn't reasonable — Understanding quantum mechanics (even just a bit) can fundamentally shift your worldview. This is an explanation of one mind-bending component, written for laypeople. I’d love feedback on this post (or any others!) — is it clear?
AI Captain’s Log — I’ve started logging brief weekly notes on my usage of AI (what’s surprising me, what’s interesting, which models and tools I’m using…). Things are moving so fast that I think it’ll be interesting to look back on this years from now.
What I’m enjoying
Articles: four very different ones this month —
Task estimation: Conquering Hofstadter's Law by Jacob Bayless. “Engineers never estimate projects correctly,” everyone claims — but what if that’s because their estimates are (unknowingly) lognormally distributed? Fascinating.
On Really Trying by Gwern. It turns out that 20% of the time I go to write a post, Gwern has already published a version of the same idea (in this case, my draft “On the Application of High Effort”). Many of the stories in Gwern’s piece here are outstanding.
Lost in the Meritocracy by Walter Kirn (archive link). Excellent writing on one man’s experience transferring into Ivy League “meritocracy” in the ‘80s.
How to quickly charge your smartphone: fast charging technologies in detail by Eugen Barilyuk. I love the genre of “person gets obsessed with understanding something weird in plain sight.” In this case: “why do some charging blocks and cords charge my phone fast, and others don’t?” (The answer isn’t simple.)
Product: Heal All Oil. My wife always has an array of tinctures and serums and elixirs around the house, but this one is particularly magical. Anytime there’s something cracked, dry, cut, blemished, etc. on my face, I put it on and am healed overnight.
e.g., a couple weeks ago the corners of my lips cracked open during travel while I wasn’t with her, and it was painful for five days. Then we reunited, I applied Heal All Oil, and the next morning it was as if nothing had happened.
It’s just high-quality 100% Tamanu oil, which I had never heard of before. I’m increasingly intrigued by certain oils that have special properties, perhaps based on their fatty acid ratios. Castor oil is another that seems to have unusual effects.
Book: How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand. This book changed my mind on the “right” way to build a building, and gave me a much deeper appreciation for the craft of building construction and management. Recommended!
App / Experiment: How We Feel. A free app that prompts you multiple times a day to quickly (5 seconds) log how you feel between four quadrants: high or low energy, and pleasant or unpleasant (i.e.: high energy & unpleasant, or high energy & pleasant, etc.). You can then add additional detail if you want. I’ve been using this for a long time, and find it really interesting for two use cases:
The 4x daily “check in” makes me stop and think, and I often quickly realize “oh when I do [x] it is energizing” (or the opposite).
It has a nice visual view for looking back at the past, and you can easily see “oh that week was not good” — and then think about why that was and make a change.
About me: I’m a three-time founder (Eco, CoinList, Sidewire) based in Austin, TX. I’m currently spending time on: Eco, exploring the home health & environmental toxins space, supporting FreeWorld, hacking on a few products, and investing in and advising great companies and founders.
Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next time.
— Andy