Iterate Weekly - Issue 1
Your weekly digest of content to make you a more tech-savvy, intelligent, healthy member of the human race.
Welcome to Issue 1 of the Iterate weekly newsletter! My name is Chris Jennings. If you really have no idea who I am and why you’re receiving this e-mail, take a look at the about page for a reminder.
You’ll see that the content here is broken down into 4 categories.
Tech - This will be the main focus of the newsletter. I’m dedicated to helping people improve their relationships with technology.
Learning - I consider myself an autodidact and like to examine the concept of learning how to be a more productive learner.
Health - None of these other topics are important if you’re not healthy enough to enjoy them.
Grab Bag - This could be something personal, something silly, something fun that doesn’t quite fit the other categories.
Finally, we’ll wrap things up with a quote of the week and a piece of content that I recommend you check out.
Thank you so much for reading, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment and let me know what you think of this format.
Tech
Meet Moxie the Robot
Are you familiar with Moxie the robot? It’s a creation from the company Embodied that is meant to be a thinking, feeling, learning AI-powered companion for your child. They say the design is inspired by Pixar animated characters. Let’s just agree that it is somewhere between adorable and frightening, I’m not entirely sure yet.
Based on the demo videos, it seems to be a super-powered doll that your child can share their deepest emotions with. Maybe they’ll share things with Moxie that were off-limits to talk about with Mom and Dad. Moxie can read to them and help them learn new subjects. It syncs with an app that can be controlled by the parents.
As a relatively new parent, I often joke with my wife about my daughter’s future robot boyfriends or girlfriends. It’s fun to make light of things like this, but Moxie is the first real proof of this concept. I have zero doubt that within the next 15 years, my daughter will be telling her deepest adolescent secrets to robots of some sort. I guess I’m ok with it? I’ll definitely be keeping tabs on this company to see how Moxie is received.
Would you buy something like this for your kids?
Learning
Pomodoro Method
Does the word Pomodoro mean anything to you? Sure, it means tomato in Italian. But if you pay any attention to the world of productivity or learning tools, you are probably all too familiar with Francesco Cirillo’s tried and true method of getting work done. It can be the perfect tool to add to your kit if you’re learning a new skill in bite-sized chunks or struggling to tackle a huge project like writing a book or creating a course.
The concept is simple. Focus on completing just one task for roughly 25-30 minutes with no distractions. Each Pomodoro session is usually followed up with a 5-minute break. Then there may be a longer break sprinkled in after several sessions. Cirillo happened to be using a physical timer that was shaped like a tomato, but these days it’s more likely that you’re using a digital countdown in your browser or on your desktop.
Productivity nerds swear by this idea. And I only see the concept becoming more and more mainstream. The modern workday (whether it’s remote or in an office) will start to be shaped by concentrated sessions of work. Here’s to hoping that strategic Pomodoro sessions start to become as widely accepted as the traditional hour-long team meeting.
Health
Hidrate Spark
We all know how important hydration is right? Our body can’t do anything without getting the proper intake of water. But what is the proper water intake? The old adage was to drink 8 glasses a day. Is that 8 fluid ounces in each glass? Can we get that converted to liters?
My point is that this has always been somewhat confusing and complicated. Yes, you could just drink until you’re not thirsty but what fun is that? In this newsletter, we’re all about using technology to help us make life easier. HidrateSpark is a company that does just that.
I’ve been specifically using their STEEL water bottle now for over six months and I think it’s fantastic. The bottle syncs with the smartphone app with very few issues. I always thought I was drinking enough water. But now I have quantitative data each day that proves it. You can get as crazy as you’d like when tracking your intake, but I find that 90-120 ounces (2.6 - 3.5 liters) a day works really well for me.
Grab Bag
SF Giants NOBs Jerseys
If you’re a sports fan or design nerd you may appreciate this story. If you’re neither one, you can just keep scrolling. But it’s the beginning of baseball season here in the US, and my local team is making an interesting change to their visual identity.
The San Francisco Giants will be featuring the players’ last names on the back of their beautiful cream-colored home jerseys. Why didn’t they do this before you might ask? It harkens back to old-school traditional baseball where the team was all equal. No individual name on the back of the jersey was to overshadow the team name on the front. The team had added names for a stretch of their existence but removed the names on the home jerseys for good when they moved to their new ballpark in 1999. The Giants are abandoning this tradition in order to make it easier for young fans to know who their favorite players actually are.
Fun Fact! This leaves only three teams in Major League Baseball (Yankees, Red Sox, and Mariners) who still have versions of their jersey that lack names on the back (NOBs) of jerseys.
Quote of the Week
“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it” - Viktor Frankl
Content Recommendation
Business Wars Podcast
You may be familiar with Wondery’s fantastic Business Wars Podcast. I’ve listened to some of them over the years. I really loved the Denim Wars episodes from a few months back, but recently I finished listening to The Late Night Wars and was very entertained. I was a little young for some of the early stories so a lot of this was new to me. I think the biggest takeaway is just how powerful late-night TV used to be. In today’s world of endless media options, nothing really has that reach anymore.
You made it to the end of my newsletter, nicely done! If you enjoyed this and know of someone else who may enjoy it, please share it with them.