New Explorable! + Nicky's Oct Reading List

Lesson learnt: don't release a new project on a Friday just before the weekend, coz people will miss it. Also, in case you missed it, my new explorable came out Friday!

💭 HOW TO REMEMBER ANYTHING FOREVER-ISH  💭 

For you $2/$5/$10+ tier supporters, your Names/Polygons/Peeps are in the credits at the bottom! (link to a standalone credits page, if you want to right-click-n-save your rewards)

By the way, I want to try doing something new this month, and it's...

If you're reading this, I'm sure – like me – you love to learn! So why don't we share with each other what we're learning? I don't just mean between you↔me, I also mean you↔other Patrons. That way, we can be a small community, learning from each other.

I'll start! Here's five books I read recently (≤3 months) that I loved:

🤔 The Book of Why by Judea Pearl & Dana Mackenzie – This is one of those rare books that's both technical and accessible. Pearl's not afraid to show actual math formulae to a "general audience", but also empathetic enough to explain, step-by-step, what they mean. On its surface, the book is about statisticians' struggle with causality rather than mere correlation, and Pearl's (and others') work on a new "causal calculus". But on a deeper level, this is book is about that fundamental human question: WHY? 

👭 My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness and My Solo Exchange Diary by Nagata Kabi – A humorous manga memoir of the author's struggles with depression, family, and (as one does) losing her virginity in a Japanese lesbian escort love hotel. The first book was good. The sequel was great. The sequel deals with a very specific problem I had after publishing Coming Out Simulator: putting up with the fallout of airing all your dirty laundry about your queerness & family issues. And yet, Nagati Kabi is NOT  a "100% #relatable" character. She does things which are baffling. She hurts others and herself. Some of her experiences are far outside my own. That is: she's an actual, living human being.

😴 Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker – A pragmatic manifesto, to raise the alarm (ha ha) on our modern lack of sleep. For centuries scientists have wondered about the physical/mental health function(s) of sleep, and now we're discovering the answer: pretty much everything. Also: this was the first book I read while using Spaced Repetition! Every time I found an interesting fact, I made a card out of it. That's why, two months later, I still remember most of this book.

👽 Everyones A Aliebn When Ur A Aliebn Too by Jonny "Jomny" Sun – You know when you eat something bittersweet, the sweetness makes the bitterness even more bitter, and the bitterness makes the sweetness even more sweet? This book is like that. It's the story of a lonely aliebn [sic] on Planet Earbth [sic], who makes friends with the the brave, insecure earbth creatures. It's a story told with charming drawings, genuine gut-laughs & gut-punches, and terrible spelling.

⚛️ Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum by Leonard Susskind & Art Friedman – I'm still going through this & doing the exercises, but so far, I love it. Like The Book of Why, it hits a rare middle ground. It's far more technical than 99% of pop-sci books, yet far more accessible than 99% of physics textbooks. Like with Why We Sleep, I'll be using Spaced Repetition with this book, so I can internalize a deeper understanding. I'll let you know how it goes!

How 'bout you? What are you currently reading/recently read that you love? Next month I'm taking a mini-Sabbatical, to dedicate myself to learning new things, so your recommendations will come in handy for me – and if not me, for each other.

We learn from each other!

<3,
~ Nicky Case

P.S: Also next month, I'll be in Alabama for ThinkerCon! Vi Hart (awesome person & co-creator of Parable of the Polygons) will be there, along with other internet edu-peeps like Smarter Every Day, Minute Physics, 3Blue1Brown, Physics Girl, CGP Grey, Veritasium, Kurzgesagt, RadioLab, Crash Course, etc. (If you want tickets – which are admittedly kinda pricey for a 4-hour event – the code to get 30% off is "ThinkerPatrons")