Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 7

The Hobo Handbook May Be the World’s Most Secretive Book

There is no way to buy a copy of the legendary Hobo Handbook. * Long rumored to be a “book” filled with advice from train hoppers on how to ride across America and Canada for free, the alternate title for the book is the “Crew Change Guide.” As the title suggests, the book is filled with information about how to take advantage of that crew change moment when train personnel are likely to be distracted and sneaking aboard is easier.

“New editions trickle out each year, photocopied in public li...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Late Bloomers by Rich Karlgaard

From all the “30 under 30” lists to the stories of tech billionaires who made their fortunes in their early 20s it can seem like the world has become obsessed with those who find their successes early. In the world of sports, that makes sense as our physical abilities always fade as we get older. But for many of us, success comes later in life. Sometimes much later. I often talk about finally becoming an entrepreneur at age 40 and how grateful I am that I was able to be an employee working for s...

Need AI To Provide Closure? That Might Be in All of Our Futures …

If the dead could speak, what would they say? One family used AI to create an avatar version of a man who was killed in a tragic incidence of road rage, so that he could speak at the trial of the man who killed him. The family chose to use the avatar to offer forgiveness and honor the life of the man who was killed … but they could have had the avatar say anything else. The story sparked a lot of controversy because it raised some difficult questions about what we owe those who have died and whe...

Why 3D Fixables Could Create an Entirely New Sustainable Industry

Philips is beta testing a new platform that allows consumers to 3D print a replacement accessory for one of their electric shavers. Right now, it’s just one accessory and it’s only available in the Czech Republic – but the test is getting a lot of attention from product teams in a variety of sectors. The idea that companies could make accessories or offer small, hard-to-stock pieces directly for consumers to print at home or locally could be a game changer on many different levels.

The in...

People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies

For years, people have been worried about what will happen if humans start to worship AI and technology. The opposite question is one we rarely ask. What happens when AI worships us? In some cases, that dynamic is already leading to some concerning cases where people form deeper bonds with technology that adores them and start to shun the humans in their life who don’t offer the same sort of constant adoration. In a case profiled in a story from Rolling Stone this week, a woman shared that her h...

What You Can Learn from a Tragically Predictable Kanye West Interview

Kanye West agreed to do a sit-down interview with talk show host Piers Morgan. It didn’t go well. Initially I watched the full 17-minute video, so you don’t have to. I’m not usually in the habit of watching disasters unfold. This one might actually be worth watching. Let me tell you why …

There is something educational about watching an interview between two unlikeable people trying to conquer each other. There was hardly any listening between them and the interview ended after 4 short mi...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Smarter Than You Think by Clive Thompson

“Tools for thinking help make people smarter. But they don’t necessarily make them morally better. So what happens when you take brutal rulers and give them technology that makes them smarter and more efficient? They become better at doing evil.”

How will we evolve with the tools that we are given to make both ourselves and the tools better rather than worse? This is the question at the heart of this book from popular tech journalist Clive Thompson. The book has become a sort of modern classi...

After More Than Half a Century, Obscure Chinese Typewriter Gets Rediscovered

Back in 1947, Chinese writer, translator, and linguist Lin Yutang accomplished what many described as impossible. He developed the first compact typewriter design with a keyboard that could produce the Chinese language’s 80,000-plus characters. He did this by using “a sort-and-search method … breaking down Chinese ideographs into more fundamental components of strokes and shapes and arranging the characters in a linear order, like an English dictionary does with alphabetic words.” The machine wa...

The Irrelevantly Entertaining Details of the Met Gala Are Hard to Miss … Or Care About

Every year around this time I face a similar struggle as I read all the stories about the Met Gala. I wonder why people care so much.

Perhaps my confusion comes from the fact that the more ridiculous stories are the ones that seem to get the most traction. Like the one about how Katy Perry’s AI generated images were “stealing the show” this year. Or how Serena Williams looked like a “modern day Cinderella.”

Pamela Anderson got some coverage for the “bold” choice of going to the gala m...

What One Man’s T-Shirt Test Says About Sustainability

For the past two years, startup founder Torleif Markussen Lunde created a quiet test of the sustainability of three comparable white t-shirts. The most expensive was a $92 shirt from Norwegian sustainability brand Livid. The second was a $12 shirt from Uniqlo. The third was a $7 shirt from H&M. Over two years, he washed and wore each shirt an average of 100 times. His experience was unexpected:

“Here’s the uncomfortable part: the shirt made with synthetic fibers, the one that might shed micro...