Saturday Links

Etymology of the day: ‘window’ was a gift from the Vikings, whose word for a hole in a wall or roof was ‘vindauga’: ‘eye of the wind’.

Before ‘window’, the Anglo-Saxons used ‘eye-thirl’, in which ‘thirl’ meant ‘hole’: hence ‘nose-thirls’ or ‘nostrils’, ‘nose holes’.

— Susie Dent (@susie_dent) August 22, 2020

• Read everyday.
• Spend time with nature.
• Ask questions.
• Never stop learning.
• Don't pay attention to what others think of you.
• Do what interests you the most.
• Study hard.
• Teach others what you know.
• Make mistakes and learn.
• It's Okay to not know things!

— Prof. Feynman (@ProfFeynman) August 22, 2020

With rising nationalism & socialism, the only way to build an international tech company by ~2030 may be to not build a tech company at all.

Build it protocol-first and share the wealth with users. Make it widely popular, hard to ban, open source, & algorithmically transparent.

— Balaji (@balajis) August 22, 2020

He was digging a hole for a time capsule.

He dug deeper and deeper. He needed to, for such a huge capsule.

He was going to stuff the entire year inside.

And bury it.

— A Small Fiction (@ASmallFiction) August 22, 2020

Uber’s innovation was two-part: an app consumers could use to hail rides + an app where people could earn money without a job interview. The fact that politicians don’t see why it’s problematic to replace it with an app that gives instant full-time employment is just hilarious.

— Zack Kanter (@zackkanter) August 21, 2020