222
Dearest reader,
The number 222 is how many times I’ve written the Recurrent Patterns newsletter. When I started I had no idea for how long and how frequently I'll be writing. And here we are, 222 weeks later.
I would like to thank you to all of you who week after week didn't hit the 'unsubscribe' button, who are reading my newsletter and sharing it with your friends. Also thank you to many of you who started a conversation with me about various topics inspired by my writing. Keep them coming.
The one question I frequently get asked by people who know me personally: if I really write these newsletters or if I have a team of writers who slave on my behalf and I just attach my name to it. Yes, there are no ghost writers. There is no AI. There is nothing else but me, week after week trying to find a topic which I think is interesting and worthwhile to share with you.
(However, I do have a team who edits my newsletters. They share with me various articles and specially make sure that the writing is as crisp as it can get. I thank the Mind Meld PR team for that.)
The next question: How do you come up with a topic every single week for 222 weeks? That’s the most difficult part of it! There are weeks where nothing meaningful happens. Once you find the topic, life is easy, until the following week …
(First, I thought that I would mention this progress when I got to 100 issues. Later, I thought about doing this at 200 but then, there was no nice pattern. I think the number 222 is a nice one.)
Why did I start writing? For once, to become better at writing, which I was always not good at. Second, and that I realize much later, it really forces you to think about the topic. Talk is cheap and when you have to write it down, you really have to spend some time thinking about it and every word you put down matters.
After writing about so many topics for some time, it makes my conversations easier. I can't count how many times I could use the 'Funny enough, I wrote about this a few weeks/months ago'. I can then supply a list of links. It also puts me on record. Sometimes I am right, sometimes I am not, but it always forces me to learn more. And I sincerely hope that you found the topics useful in your dealings as well.
If you are wondering, this was the first post, How to think about digital transformation. In my defense, I was young and innocent.
For the super curious, here are all the posts since the first post: http://recurrentpatterns.com
Over the years, I wrote about very big tech companies and very small ones. I wrote about new technologies and interesting ideas connected to those technologies. I wrote about astronomy, smart cities and other topics far and wide. In all of this writing, I especially have tried to highlight where and how to use the technology which will benefit people. And how to separate the marketing hype from what the technology really is good for.
What have been some of the most popular posts?
A few of them were around AI, particularly The circus monkey and ChatGPT, the snake oil salesman.
I got quite a response for Clippy, the dead are walking again.
A spirited discussion began when I posted Hive, the new Pied Piper?
Sometimes, I got carried away, like when I encountered a lack of brain activity. A good example is this post, LinkedIn on its way to Artificial Stupidity or How brain-dead are they?
I guess that by now, you are expecting the 'what's the recurrent pattern in all this?'. Let me break that recurrent pattern today.
Earlier this year, I read an article, Never Repeating Tiles Can Safeguard Quantum Information which talks about 'aperiodic' tile sets. You can either use these tiles for your next bathroom renovation or use them with your quantum computer to encode information to shield it from errors. You will never see your bathroom the same way. Is it a bathroom or a quantum computer?
However, if you are looking not for a set of tiles but only for one, then I can recommend the einstein prototile, a shape that can tessellate space but only in a nonperiodic way. The entrance to your house will become a topic of conversations among your jealous friends.
With that, I thank you and we will resume the recurrent patterns next week.