Tippets #182
Cost of meetings, proof of hard things, super friends, paint, and more. Enjoy!
A warm welcome to new readers getting this for the first time. Thank you for letting me be a small part of your week. As a reminder, Tippets are tidbits and snippets (aka. tippets!) from my reading around the web.
And to regular readers, I'm experimenting with this space and making some changes to the format in the coming weeks. One of the changes is that I'll be separating my reading list (the tippets) from my blog posts to make the content experience simpler and more enjoyable. I would love to hear your feedback!
Tippets from Around the Web:
How this e-commerce company is using calculators to put an end to 'pointless' meetings
Time is money. Wasting time is wasting money. And as anyone who has been in any kind of meeting ever has certainly experienced, some meetings are just a plain waste of time. Now Shopify is quantifying just how much.
“The Canadian e-commerce company has rolled out a calculator embedded in employees’ calendar app that estimates the cost of any meeting with three or more people…A typical 30 minute endeavor with three employees can run from $700 up to $1,600. Adding an executive — like Chief Operating Officer Kaz Nejatian, who built the program during a company-wide hack day — can shoot the cost above $2000…The company is on pace to cut out 322,000 hours and 474,000 discrete events in 2023, according to Nejatian. “No one at Shopify would expense a $500 dinner,” Nejatian said in an interview. “But lots and lots of people spend way more than that in meetings without ever making a decision. The goal of this thing is to show you that time is money. If you have to spend it, you think about it.”
Google needs to make that a default feature.
(3-minute read - Bloomberg)
Proof You Can Do Hard Things
A terrific post by
on the importance of doing hard things.I recently realized there is a very good reason to take Calculus. It’s to prove you can do hard things.
The ability to do hard things is perhaps the most useful ability you can foster in yourself or your children. And proof that you are someone who can do them is one of the most useful assets you can have on your life resume.
Our self-image is composed of historical evidence of our abilities. The more hard things you push yourself to do, the more competent you will see yourself to be.
(3-minute read - Nat Eliason)
Is America’s inflationary fever breaking?
Data this week suggests that the once overheating US economy might finally be cooling down.
Headlines focused on the deceleration in the overall consumer-price index: just a 3% year-on-year rise in June, a sharp slow down from the 9% pace of June 2022, thanks largely to a fall in energy prices. Yet a range of measures of underlying inflation also looked appealing. Most notably, prices for core services excluding housing—a category to which Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, often points as an indicator of underlying inflationary momentum—fell slightly in June compared with May.
A bunch of questions still remain, and despite the news the market still believes there is a 92% chance that the Fed raises rates at the end of the month. But there is renewed optimism that perhaps the worst is behind us.
(3-minute read - The Economist)
The Trait That ‘Super Friends’ Have in Common
Some people just seem to be better at making and keeping friends than others. New research shows that these people, ‘super friends’, have a common quality: secure attachment. They are more willing to take risks in relationships, share personal details, and are more resilient.
Super friends tend to have one quality in common—one that allows them to flourish outside of their relationships too. Studies find that people with this trait have better mental health; they’re more satisfied at work, more open to new ideas, and less prejudicial. Research suggests that they feel less regret; that during typically stressful events, like math tests or public-speaking engagements, they keep calm; and that they are less likely to have physical ailments such as heart attacks, headaches, ulcers, and inflammation.
(10-minute read - The Atlantic)
To Help Cool a Hot Planet, the Whitest of White Coats
Researchers at Purdue have developed what the NYT calls “almost superheoric” paint.
It canmake surfaces as much as eight degrees Fahrenheit cooler than ambient air temperatures at midday, and up to 19 degrees cooler at night, reducing temperatures inside buildings and decreasing air-conditioning needs by as much as 40 percent…[One researcher] calculated that if materials such as Purdue’s ultra-white paint were to coat between 1 percent and 2 percent of the Earth’s surface, slightly more than half the size of the Sahara, the planet would no longer absorb more heat than it was emitting, and global temperatures would stop rising
Now, mind you, covering 1 to 2% of the Earth’s surface would require producing over 15x the amount of paint and coating we currently produce on an annual basis, so not going to happen any time soon. But still, pretty amazing!
(5-minute read - NYT)
Three-Point Shooting History!
Sabrina Ionescu of the WNBA’s New York Liberty put on an all-time 3-point shooting performance, missing only two shots out of 27 during the 3-point contest. Absolutely incredible!
(1.5-minute watch - YouTube)
Quote I'm thinking about: “Sometimes you keep things because you don’t have time to throw them away.” - Cal Sounder, Titanium Noir
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