Ben Mann Monthly May 2023

Vancouver, bears, trails, Clong

Purpose

• An index for my memory

• A menu of topics for my next conversation with you

• A faster way to share what I’m excited about without the barrier of writing a complete blog entry on it

• A skimmable way to spread content I found valuable

Photos

Experiments and experiences

• Trail making YouTube binge

  • How are hiking trails made? In the simplest case, you just clear the forest debris and you're ready to roll. But designing a good trail involves thinking about rainwater runoff, following elevation contour lines, routing near interesting features, building bridges and retaining walls, and a lot more. You can often volunteer to help out on your local trails too!

  • Sources: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX6SCdOp_bNK0V2_aMbDHmDyIvCf1SffI

• Vancouver

  • Spent 3 weeks in Vancouver with Diana's family. It was our first time flying with Euda, and it went surprisingly smoothly! We bought a giant bag for the stroller and car seat that we could gate check. That made it really easy to get through the airport. Diana's parents picked us up, but in hindsight it would've been easy to install the car seat in an Uber if we had to. As we boarded the plane, everyone who saw here broke into a smile as if Euda were some kind of national hero. For pressure changes, pacifier worked great. Euda slept most of the flight. This makes me more excited to fly with baby! Diana's parents took care of Euda all day once they came back from morning golf time, which gave us mostly free nights. We used them to go hiking, go to the movie theater, eat ice cream, and generally chill out. Diana's mom stuffed us with Korean food every night 🤤.

• Vancouver zoo

  • Although it's sad to see animals all cooped up and out of their natural habitats, I find visiting zoos fascinating. We saw all sorts of animals including grizzlies, mountain goats, ostriches, giraffes, lions, tigers, pumas, red pandas, lemurs, tortoises, flamingos, and animatronic dinosaurs. I particularly love to observe monkeys and apes, but alas there were none. A zoo is a reminder of the diversity and strangeness of life on Earth, and of how limited our daily experience of biological diversity is.

  • To be 4 feet from a caged grizzly bear one day, and 20 feet away from a black bear on a hike the next humbled me. If I'd run into a grizzly instead, I'm not sure I'd be here to write this newsletter!

Life updates

• 🚀 100k launch aka Claude Long aka Clong

• 📜 Published Claude's constitution

• 📚 Started reading Superforecasting

Content

5 point Likert ratings for “I would recommend this content to a friend”, sorted

• Ted Lasso S3E8-12 4/5

  • The show continued to push the envelope on how we fit into society, whether it's sexual orientation, fame, a troubled past with our parents, or our struggle to connect with others. The finale tied things up very neatly; some would say too neatly. But Ted Lasso is about believing that people can be good, and finding happiness is possible, even if it's not the happiness we thought we were looking for.

  • Go read this poem on parenthood that's recited in one of the episodes!

• John Wick 4 3/5

  • Exactly what you'd expect, but more.

• Sing 3/5

  • Pretty similar to Sing 2, but the main character is even more of a charlatan who somehow is redeemed and all sins washed clean.

• Marcel the Shell with Shoes On 3/5

  • Trying really hard to be cute and philosophical, and mostly succeeds. Surprisingly heavy content.

• For All Mankind S1 3/5

  • What if the Soviets landed on the moon before America? The show's alternate history posits it'd lead to America not abandoning the space program, but instead pursuing it into the stars. I'm a bit doubtful that's what would've happened, but I love the optimism of the characters: striving for greatness; risking everything because life without risk isn't as full.

  • "We are egomaniacal narcissists. I bet Columbus was… and Magellan. And they had to be to do what they did. I say here’s to selfish pricks. ‘Cause we move the ball forward for mankind." Not sure if it's true, but fun to think about.

• Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania 2/5

  • The Marvel formula: slightly funny, lots of money on special effects, competence porn, no plot, and no character development.

• Polite Society 2/5

  • Trying hard to hit a comic book vibe a la Scott Pilgrim vs The World or Kick-Ass but came across as much more amateur.