We're sunsetting PodQuest on 2025-07-28. Thank you for your support!
Export Podcast Subscriptions
cover of episode The Best Of Recommendations

The Best Of Recommendations

2024/3/27
logo of podcast After Hours

After Hours

AI Deep Dive AI Insights AI Chapters Transcript
People
F
Felix
M
Mihir
Topics
Felix: 本期节目推荐了多个播客、音乐、面包店以及其他,其中包括一个名为"The World"的播客,它以当地记者的视角报道全球新闻,并特别关注那些被忽视的重要事件;墨西哥乐队Banda El Recodo的音乐,认为其音乐能够让人心情愉悦;位于伦敦Bloomsbury的Fortitude面包店,称其面包、三明治和咖啡都非常出色,并且就餐体验也很好;以及Andrej Karpathy关于大型语言模型的YouTube讲座,认为其讲解清晰易懂,并推荐了Dwight Garner的新书《Upstairs Delicatessen》,该书讲述了作者在阅读和饮食方面的经历,以及纽约现代艺术博物馆设计商店和麦纳利杰克逊书店,称其零售体验出色,还推荐了Apple TV+的电视剧《Slow Horses》第三季,并讨论了每周更新剧集的优缺点以及加拿大电视剧《Three Pines》,称其以真实而感人的方式展现了加拿大对原住民的待遇。 Mihir: 本期节目推荐了多个书籍、电影、电视节目以及其他,其中包括Bob Rubin的新书《The Yellow Pad》,该书探讨了复杂决策中的概率思维及其在实际应用中的微妙之处;亚马逊Prime视频上的电视剧《Deadlock》,称其是一部融合了警匪剧和喜剧元素的迷你剧,背景设定在澳大利亚塔斯马尼亚州;Netflix上的迷你剧《Bodies》,称其是一部跨越不同时空的侦探故事,巧妙地处理了时间旅行的元素;英国喜剧游戏节目《Taskmaster》,称其以喜剧演员为参赛者,节目内容幽默有趣;以及Netflix纪录片《American Symphony》,该片讲述了音乐家John Batiste的"美国交响乐"项目及其个人生活,还推荐了人们利用节日的机会去体验和了解不同的文化,以及Jonathan Rosen的非虚构类书籍《The Best Minds》,该书讲述了作者朋友Michael Lauder患精神分裂症的故事,以及《经济学人》杂志中的一张图表,该图表通过三个步骤对国家的财富进行了重新排名,考虑到了价格和工作时间等因素,以及Carlo Rovelli的新书《Anaximander and the Birth of Science》,该书讲述了古希腊思想家阿那克西曼德的故事。

Deep Dive

Key Insights

Why did Felix recommend the podcast 'The World'?

Felix highlighted that 'The World' provides a roundup of global stories that often deserve more attention but are overlooked due to shifting focus on major catastrophes. It features local journalists, offering authentic perspectives on global events.

What is Banda El Recodo, and why did Felix recommend it?

Banda El Recodo is a Mexican banda band founded in the 1930s, led by a member of the original family. Felix recommended it for its uplifting, joyful music, perfect for lightening the mood after consuming heavier news content.

What makes Fortitude bakery in London unique?

Fortitude is unique for its emphasis on sourdough bread, excellent prepared foods, and spectacular coffee. Located in Bloomsbury, it offers a charming outdoor seating experience in a lovely alley, making it a memorable bakery visit.

Why is Atsuko Okatsuka's comedy special noteworthy?

Atsuko Okatsuka's comedy special stands out for her ability to tackle serious topics with humor and her unique storytelling style, incorporating recurring themes like tandems, which create a shared secret language with the audience.

What does Mihir suggest for celebrating cultural holidays?

Mihir suggests using cultural holidays as opportunities to explore and engage with different traditions by visiting culturally diverse neighborhoods, sharing meals, and connecting with people from those traditions.

What is Bob Rubin's book 'The Yellow Pad' about?

Bob Rubin's book 'The Yellow Pad' focuses on decision-making in complex situations, using probabilistic thinking and risk management. It explores nuances in decision-making through Rubin's experiences at Goldman Sachs and as Treasury Secretary.

What is the TV show 'Deadlock' about?

'Deadlock' is a quirky cop show set in Tasmania, Australia, featuring a lesbian couple and a close-knit community. It blends comedy with a compelling mystery, offering a unique intersection of cop drama and humor.

What is the documentary 'American Symphony' about?

'American Symphony' follows musician Jon Batiste as he explores the concept of reinventing the symphony for modern times. The documentary also delves into his personal life, showcasing the balance between joy and hardship.

What does Felix recommend for understanding large language models?

Felix recommends Andrej Kaparthy's YouTube lecture on large language models, which provides a technical yet accessible overview of how these models work, their limitations, and the nuances of their design and functionality.

What is the significance of the data visualization graph in The Economist?

The graph in The Economist ranks countries by wealth, adjusting for GDP per capita, price levels, and working hours. It highlights how simple adjustments can dramatically change perceptions of economic wealth, such as Belgium moving from 18th to 6th place.

Chapters
Felix recommends the podcast "The World" for global news and Banda El Recodo for upbeat Mexican music. He highlights the local perspectives in "The World" and the joyful, family-oriented nature of Banda El Recodo.
  • Recommendation of "The World" podcast for global news with local perspectives
  • Recommendation of Banda El Recodo for uplifting Mexican music

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
中文

Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. You know, one of the perks about having four kids that you know about is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north. And this year, he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint Mobile's unlimited wireless for $15 a month. Now, you don't even need to wrap

bit. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited. See mintmobile.com for details.

So good, so good, so good. It's time to save. Clear the Rack is on at your Nordstrom Rack store. Now through Thursday, take an extra 25% off clearance. All sales final. Hurry, shop this sale at Nordstrom Rack today. Please see nordstromrack.com or ask a store associate for details.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

Hello everyone, this is Felix. After Hours is still on break, but we wanted to bring you a few past episodes that we hope you will enjoy. Let us know what you think, and as always, thank you for listening. Intro

Okay, recommendations. Felix, what do you got? So I slip into your role for one episode and I have two recommendations. Oh, and then I get to chastise you for it. How could you? One is actually an old recommendation that I just wanted to re-emphasize. It's a podcast called The World, which is maybe a half dozen stories about what is happening in the world today. But the reason why I wanted to talk about it is...

It strikes me for completely obvious reasons that our attention swings so dramatically from one topic to another, in part because we have these big catastrophes that really deserve our attention. So we go from talking about Ukraine almost nonstop to now, yes, some things are happening in the Ukraine, but it's

not really the center of attention anymore. Almost no one talks about just the incredibly terrible things that happened in Sudan. Khartoum, I think, is completely leveled at this point in time. We have all of these dramatic developments in Myanmar. If you wanted an interesting roundup of stories around the world, and in particular stories, I think that deserve more attention, but we don't naturally pay attention to these stories, The World is a really fabulous source

In particular, because it's all reported by local journalists. So it's always a truly local angle, which is absolutely fantastic. Fantastic. That sounds great. And then, of course, after listening to the world, you need something that's a little more uplifting. Yeah. You might need a drink indeed. You need a drink or you need some Mexican music. And one recommendation that I have is Banda El Recuro. What is that?

I don't know if it's the oldest or one of the older Mexican banda bands. It's basically a family enterprise. It was founded in the 1930s. And the person who leads the band is still from the original family. Of course, it has to have...

an amazing sousaphone player, which you get all the sousaphone you can possibly hope for. And no matter what the news of the day, no matter how terrible it is, you feel lighter right away. It's really a joy to listen to these guys. So Banda El Recodo and any album really that you can find will be a joy to listen to. Oh my God. That sounds like a great recommendation. I will take a look. So what do you have for us here? I too have something to maybe lift your spirits. Uh,

Fortitude is something that I admire in many people, including you, Felix, as a co-host for Dealing With Me. But Fortitude is also the name of, I think, the best bakery I've ever been to. Oh my God. Okay. I love bakeries. I've previously recommended Olinstein and Rosetta, but this is a bakery in London, which I happened upon and is just so good. Yeah.

So it's located in Bloomsbury. And I think when you're traveling, there is nothing better than finding a good bakery. And this is just one outlet. It's in Bloomsbury and it's located on this lovely alley. There's no indoor seating. So part of it is also just the experience of waiting in line and then sitting outside in this little alley. And they emphasize sourdough. So they have just great breads, but they also have prepared foods.

And so they have great sandwiches and great beignets. I went there four days in a row and everything was spectacular. I went there for breakfast and for lunch. And I got to tell you, it was spectacular every single time I went. And so I recommend it highly. And by the way, unlike some bakeries that I love, like for example, Flour in Cambridge, I love. Yes, it's fabulous. But the coffee, not great. But at Fortitude, the coffee is also spectacular. So everything about Fortitude, the whole experience is...

And when you're traveling, you need a good bakery. So if you're going to be in London, I'm going to recommend Fortitude. What a recommendation. As if I needed another reason to want to travel to London. Exactly right. There you go. I saw a show last week by a comedian. Her name is Atsuko Okatsuka. Very nice. She's out of L.A. and she's...

She is amazing. I can't really remember laughing so hard for so long. It was just an incredible show. And many of our listeners will probably know her. She has an HBO special called The Intruder, where you sort of get to see her personality and get to see her comedy. And she's on tour now.

up until early 2020, 2024. So you might be able to catch her in one of the cities. But to me, she's really special for two reasons. One is she starts with these topics that sound quite serious. For instance, in this latest show, there's this issue around how do you actually make friends as an adult?

So easy as a kid. And then as adults, we know it's... And so you think, okay, so this is like a really serious topic. And then these little twists and turns when she thinks about when does it work well? When is it harder? What is it about the workplace that it somehow seems easier to make friends when we're at work as opposed to others and so on and so on. So that alone is like really fantastic. Yeah.

And I don't really remember having seen this the way other comedians build their shows. She has these little snippets that reoccur. So for instance, in this particular show, she talks about tandems and how she likes to ride a tandem with her husband. And the tandem becomes this little symbol. It's almost like a secret that she shares with her audience. And then at various points in the show, the tandem or a single bike shows up again and

And because you experience the earlier part of the show, it's this secret language that you have with her that then makes you laugh and think about things. Other than having the most complicated name on the planet, she's just really fabulous if you have a chance to see her. And I love the idea of these themes.

that get woven through sometimes these comedic routines because it makes you realize that it's really very subtle the storytelling they're doing. It's easy to kind of look at it as a set of jokes or a set, but often it's really very delicate what they're up to. Yeah.

What do you have for us, Mihir? So given that it's Diwali, my recommendation is a little bit related. I just think these occasions are wonderful occasions to taste other cultures and embrace other cultures. So I just want to encourage everybody, especially at this time of year, since we have so many of them, to use these occasions to

to embrace and explore a different culture. And in particular, one can do that obviously by reaching out to people from those traditions, but also by visiting parts of your city that might be dominated by different people and different cultures, going there for a meal. These holidays are spectacular and they're wonderful invitations to engage with other cultures. So rather than think of them as times to let other people celebrate,

perhaps try to understand them as opportunities for you to celebrate yourself. - Wonderful. - I think people who come from different traditions love nothing more than to share it. - Yeah. - And so it is a good opportunity to engage with different cultures than your own. - I love that.

I have a book recommendation this week. It's a book by Bob Rubin, who used to be a senior partner at Goldman Sachs, who served as Treasury Secretary under President Clinton. So a very prominent figure. And he has a new book out called The Yellow Pad. And it's about decision making and the way to think about complicated decisions where you're

You're sort of at a loss, even analytically, how to think about these decisions. And it's actually quite fabulous. And I don't know if this is literally true or if it's just sort of a mechanism in the book. He describes how he would usually take one of these legal paths and he would describe all the outcomes that are possible and then he would attach probabilities to it. And when I first looked at it, I thought, yeah, so probabilistic thinking is

Isn't that what we're all doing all the time? Isn't that the most obvious way to make decisions? And what's fabulous about the book is then he looks at lots of decisions that he made as a private investor, when he was a Goldman, when he was the Treasury Secretary. And you see that the nuances...

are actually incredibly important. And that in many of these cases, our intuition about decision-making is not really close to what this yellow pad would suggest. So I'll give you two examples. He talks about how you should always think about risk as a range. Risk is not a number. Risk is a range. And you need to think about the probability distribution. And then, of course, everybody knows, right? When I just look at expected outcomes,

That's not quite the right way to think about it. And then guess what? He talks about risk management in large financial institutions where they essentially look at one number.

And the whole distribution gets lost. So it's a real joy to read because it takes something that you take for granted and that you're familiar with, but it puts it in the context of a really remarkable career and a rich life. And you see many of the wrinkles of decision-making that are super interesting to follow.

That sounds fantastic. I'm just taking a look at it now. I hadn't seen that it had come out. It just came out like six months ago. That looks great. Yes, it's relatively recent. My only disagreement is mine is a quadrile graph paper pad. But aside from that, it sounds fantastic. Very good. What do you have for us, Mihir?

So I have a weird, quirky TV show on Amazon Prime. Ooh, I love weird, quirky. Yeah, and as you know, I'm a cop drama comedy kind of fan. And this is the ultimate weird intersection of cop show and comedy. And it's called Deadlock. And it takes place, first off, in a beautiful place, which is Tasmania, Australia. And then second, it is a portrait of this wonderful community in Tasmania, Australia. In particular, the woman who is the lead is...

is in a lesbian relationship with this other woman. And then there is a whole community of people in Tasmania. And it is just such a wonderful pinpoint connection

of that geography and of a community. It's just both hilarious and actually has got a really good mystery underneath it all. It's actually like there's a good cop show and then it's just laugh out loud funny along the way. It's a mini series? It's a mini series. I think it's six or seven episodes long, which is my perfect arrangement and thoroughly enjoyable. So I had happened to have gone to Tasmania recently and I just found it to be fantastic. Wonderful. Wonderful.

Have you seen Bodies, a miniseries that streams on Netflix right now? No. It's a detective story, of course, which is why I was thinking of you. It plays at four different points in time and radically different points in time, as in the first one is in the 19th century. The last one is far out into the future. Hmm.

And I'm not going to say too much because I want you to watch it and enjoy it. But what happens is that there's some commonalities across the crime that you observe at these four points in time. But you also see the different responses given technology, given how police was organized, given the individuals who were involved in the tragedy that takes place. So it's a fabulous idea that has a little twist.

to do with time travel, but doesn't really have all the problems that usually time travel stories have. Wow, that sounds fantastic. Yeah. I'm all for cop shows and detective shows. That's great. Yeah, it's really fabulous. So by the way, Felix, this morning I did have a Felix and me here recommendation thing happen to me, which is as we were driving this morning, the song came on, which was the Brian Eno John Cale album. Oh,

And you know what I couldn't remember? Is I couldn't remember if I had recommended it and you liked it or you had recommended it and then I liked it, which is just a testament to the fusion of our recommendation brains. And what's a little scary is I also don't remember. I know I love that music, but I can't quite. Exactly. I can't remember who said it. I don't know. Anyway, so my recommendation is I have a tradition of recommending silly British game shows and

So they've taken the game show and they've perfected it. And in part, what they've done is they've had comedians who play a large role in the game show. So most game shows are rather vapid because they feature regular people. They have figured out that if you have a game show, but it's got comedians who are the contestants, it's hilarious. So I've historically recommended University Challenge and only

only connect, but the one I'd like to recommend now is Taskmaster, which is somewhat variable in quality given the season and who the comedians are. But my God, is it hilarious. They basically have comedians and then they make them do the most ridiculous and creative and ridiculous

wonderful things and then they all compete. But it's all in the great spirit of fun. And it happens to be entirely on YouTube and you can watch all the seasons. Is it a little bit like Whose Line Is It Anyway? Do you remember that? Way back, Drew Carey and his friends. Absolutely. It's a little bit like that in that I love comedians generally, but they don't have to just do stand-up. They're just so wonderfully improvisational. Now, Whose Line Is It Anyway was really improv. Was really improv. This is like improv...

But they're just put in these weird circumstances and they have to deal with the weird circumstances. And not really with each other, but just with these tasks. Anyway, so Taskmaster is my pick. There you go. Fabulous. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. One of the perks about having four kids that you know about is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north. And this year, he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint Mobile's unlimited wireless for $15 a month. Now, you don't even need to wrap it.

Wrap it. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment required equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited. See mintmobile.com for details.

Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home.

Out. Indecision. Overthinking. Second-guessing every choice you make. In. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out. Beige on beige on beige. In. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today.

So now that teaching is over, I'm remembering some of the books that I've read in the summer that were really fantastic. So there is a nonfiction book called The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen, which is a memoir, which I usually don't typically like. It is the story of a gentleman named Michael Lauder, who is Jonathan Rosen's friend and who we grew up with.

who has this remarkable career as a young person and is diagnosed with schizophrenia and then goes to Yale Law School, goes to work at Bain, and then comes undone by schizophrenia and ends up committing a horrible crime. And so it is just so well-written and such a thoughtful meditation on mental illness and the way we think about mental illness. Previously, I've recommended Strangers to Ourselves by Rachel Aviv and

The Mind Fixers, which is about psychopharmacology. And I think this one is kind of nice because it's a memoir and it has a different kind of tone to it. And it's written just so beautifully. So The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen. It sounds wonderful. Really great. Yeah. Is it science based? It does have science in the background. It even has the health care system in the background. Obviously, we see how he navigates the health care system.

You don't want to read it to learn about schizophrenia, but you want to read it just as a story of mental illness and about that fine line. And we all know people who are on that line between genius and madness. And it's so compelling and so trenchant. You can't help but think this could happen to any of us. And it's very complex when it does. Wow. Okay. What a recommendation. And what do you have, Felix?

I'm on a roll. I recommended a cop show, mostly thinking of you, of course. And this week, again, another cop show. Oh, my dreamy outcome. Have you seen Three Pints? I think I've heard of it. I have not seen it. It's really remarkable.

Maybe the most fascinating thing is it takes place in French-speaking Canada. Yeah. And the context is Canada's treatment system.

of indigenous people, indigenous women in particular. So the little town is close to a school, a home that mistreated indigenous children for a very long time. There are people living in the village who went to that school and have complicated memories about what happened.

And it's just a spectacular way to show the historical significance of those relationships

You know how sometimes it can feel you're misusing that context to do something bigger? It never feels like that. It feels very genuine. And the filmmaker is someone who's a member of the Kainai First Nation tribe, a person called Tailfeather. And perhaps the involvement of someone who's really close to the phenomenon helped.

to make it real authentic and to make it feel like we're not just misusing the context, but the combination as a result is really powerful. So it's a miniseries, eight episodes. Crimes are typically solved across two episodes, which is also interesting. And then there's a bigger story in the background. That is fantastic. It's really super interesting to watch. And it stars one of my favorite actors, which is Alfred Molina. He's amazing. Oh, yes. He's really amazing. And I'm just looking at it here. By the way, I feel compelled...

Because I feel like I'm losing my status as the cop show guy. I'm just going to mention Annika with Nicola Walker, which is also fantastic. Okay. Anyway, I just feel like I have to do that because I feel now some competition with you on the cop show. No, you've come through with two very strong ones, Felix. I'll retreat to my territory of making music suggestions next week. No, well, I was actually going to recommend a Turkish polka, but maybe next time.

My recommendation is a documentary called American Symphony. And it's about a project or an idea of a musician, John Batiste. I think he's probably best known for having been the band leader on The Late Show for a very long period of time. Yeah, Stephen Colbert's show. Exactly. He's fantastic. And then he had a super, super successful album that won many, many Grammys. And

The American Symphony project that the documentary starts out with is the idea, if someone were to invent the symphony today, what would it look like? And everything from who are the musicians, what are the instruments, what kind of music do they play? And so the documentary is about how he's working on this project, and you get to see snippets of that symphony.

But then the documentary is also about the relationship with his wife and what that relationship is like. I loved it because it was such a powerful reminder how life can be incredibly sweet and joyous and uplifting and

and just impossibly hard at one and the same time. And so we get to see their experience and we get to see how they live through these very happy and these very sad times at one and the same time. So American Symphony, it's a documentary that streams on Netflix. That sounds fantastic. I have to say, I'm just taking a look now. The song he composed for Colbert is just a great theme song, by the way. It does strike me, Felix, that if the question is,

If someone were to invent the symphony today, aren't you the right person to answer this question as a late bloomer? I wish. Yeah, very late bloomer. So ask me in 10 years. And you will figure out the answer to that. That was a great suggestion. Yeah. What do you have for us here? Well, first, I just need to channel Peter Linane, our sound engineer, because I had the opportunity to spend some time with him on a separate project earlier this year.

earlier this week. And he reminded me of a long time ago recommendation, I think from Young Me, but the new season is out of Slow Horses on Apple TV. Oh, I missed that. And thanks to Peter, I caught up. And let me tell you, I've only seen the first three episodes, but it's great. Season two, I thought was a bit of a miss. Season one was amazing, but season three is great. Certainly the first three episodes are. And can we stream the entire season? It's coming out every Wednesday, I think. Salami tactics, salami.

You know, I really dislike that. I think it's terrible. Don't give me this going back 20 years, every Tuesday, every Wednesday, you serve a little bit. That is ridiculous to me. If I thought creatively about ways to cheapen and worsen the

customer experience. That will be the top of my list. I don't know. I'm a little bit okay with it because binging is not super healthy for me. I can't control myself. Okay. And so you end up binging and it's like five episodes in a night. There's a lot of

there is a little bit more enjoyment from the delay. So I'm going to take the other side of that. Let me counter. I was in a workshop once with one of the writers who wrote for The Office. And this was right at the time when binging became possible and when we all started doing it. And I asked him, what's the effect on how you write? And he says, oh, it's entirely different. If you see something once a week...

The number of characters that you can introduce, the complexity of the stories. Yeah, that's interesting. It's very limited because people don't remember what they had for lunch yesterday. How will they remember the fifth character in a particular show? And I feel we go back to an earlier time and we're here with a little more self-control, maybe. Yeah.

That's the story of my life. Speaking of self-control, my real recommendation is the Upstairs Delicatessen.

which is a new book by Dwight Garner, who's an author who I've recommended before. Garner's Quotations is this lovely book of quotations that he put out. It's called A Common Book. But in Upstairs Delicatessen, he speaks about a life without self-control. And in particular, with respect to reading and eating. So he's a voracious reader and he's a voracious eater.

he's got appetites and those appetites are really just about those two things yeah it's a

a kind of memoir, but it's organized in this weird way. There's a section of the book called Breakfast and then Lunch and then Dinner and then Sleeping and then just kind of like these weird pieces, but he's knitting together his culinary appetites with his intellectual appetites. So he's talking about preparing a meal and eating a meal, but then he's talking about how Iris Murdoch describes eating and food and all this kind of stuff. And you'd think, how could this work? But he's such a likable companion to

he's just the kind of guy when you're reading him you want to spend more time with the guy okay and so not a lot of self-control there but i'm a huge fan of dwight garner and the upstairs delicatessen wonderful

So I don't know how useful this will be in the short run, but maybe it'll be useful long run. So I do all my Christmas shopping late. And so I have just done some Christmas shopping and I had two retail experiences that I think were just really wonderful. And I encourage people to do. So the first is, you know, when you walk into a store and you're just shocked by how much stuff you really love. Okay. That's an infrequent feeling for me. Let me put it that way. And I had two recent experiences. The first is,

The MoMA design store is such a spectacular retail establishment. And maybe that's partly my aesthetic. But you go into that store, you find stuff at different price points that's wonderful. And it's just so bankable. And then the second and related one I had is if you love bookstores, we

We've talked in the past about Barnes & Noble and its revitalization, but I got to tell you, I went to the new flagship McNally Jackson store in Midtown Manhattan. And man, is that a beautiful bookstore. Oh, really? Yeah, I haven't been. The kinds of bookstores that exist, frankly, in the UK, in Japan, in India. There are some beautiful bookstores in those countries, at least that I know. I haven't walked into a US bookstore and felt that sense of wonder and awe there.

The way there are books everywhere, but they're organized really well. The way that the employees are enthusiastic and people who you want to talk to. And it's operating at scale. It's not like some niche-y little location. This is like a big footprint. It was just so wonderful to see someone do retail of books and to do this kind of design retail so well. So my recommendations are McNally Jackson and MoMA Design Stores for shopping.

I know that's not that useful because you're probably already done with all your shopping, but maybe after Christmas sales, you should go and figure those two out. Wonderful. And what do you have, Felix? I wanted to recommend a YouTube video by Andrej Kaparthy. He's at OpenAI. And he has this roughly one hour long lecture on large language models. I think it's called Intro to Large Language Models. And it's the best thing ever.

I've seen so far. In part, it's good not only because you can tell, oh, here is someone who has actually looked under the hood of large language models and understands how they're constructed and where they come from, but also it's just technical enough that you can get an intuitive sense of what's involved,

what the issues are with some of these models, how they actually work. Like when we say, oh, people are working on large language models. What does this really mean?

And interestingly, he uses one of Meta's models. And the reason is that Meta, unlike almost everyone else, has put theirs in the public domain. So we actually know the code, we know how it works, and we can talk a little bit about some of the things that are easy to understand, and then some of the puzzles also. So why is it that you type into...

a large language model the same query twice and the answer is not the same. How can that be? And so if you're interested in a little more than just knowing roughly it spits out predictions about what world is likely going to follow another world,

His lecture is really quite nice. It's such a great recommendation because we need explicators at this time. We need people who can explain things deeply and profoundly. My version of that is the Substack by Timothy Lee, who also does, I think, a great job explaining AI. But it's the same principle. I look forward to this video. That sounds like a great picture.

One of the trends I paid a little bit of attention to is the quality of data visualization. And it's been around as a topic for quite some time now. But I have to say, wherever you look, mainstream media, I...

follow a subreddit called Data is Beautiful, people have just become so good at telling sometimes complex stories with the help of beautiful and simple data visualization. And I wanted to recommend one particular graph that I really loved. It appeared in The Economist

And it asks the question, how rich are countries really? If we had a ranking of the richest country, what would it look like? And what the graph does is it takes three steps. It starts just with GDP per capita. And then it asks, well, but actually prices of products and services are not the same.

What if we adjust for Switzerland being super, super expensive and other economies less so? And then the last step is an adjustment for how many hours do people actually work to produce that kind of income? And it's one of these things where just...

Seeing these very simple and obvious ideas, how big a difference they make, is just absolutely fabulous. So the US, for instance, starts out ranked seventh on the list of GDP per capita. It slips by a rank once you take prices into account.

And then it ends up being 11th once you take into account that Americans work long hours. One of the most dramatic changes is if you look at Belgium, no one thinks of Belgium as a superstar economy. So they start out 18th.

on GDP per capita, they're 15th once you take prices into account. And then once you take into account how much they work, they end up being the sixth richest economy. So it's all captured in this really simple, elegant graph of

that connects the different steps. People who do data visualization, if you have a chance to look at it on Visual Capitalist, on Reddit, on any of these forums, I think it's such a joy. You learn so much and it

It's often just incredibly beautiful to look at at the same time. That is a great recommendation. I agree. Data visualization is such a wonderful field. I remember like being obsessed with Tufty like way back when. Yes, exactly. The FT actually has gotten really good at this. And one of the things they've done, which I really love, is the regional differences within countries. So if you look within the US and you look at the poorest parts of those countries, you

They look a lot like developing countries all around the world. Looking under the hood is so powerful, just like what your example does, which is really fantastic. That sounds great. What do you have for us, Mihir?

So I have just started this book, but I have just already fallen in love with it. It is a book by Carlo Rovelli, who is a physicist who writes books for the lay audience about physics. But his latest book is about Anaximander, which is a mouthful and somebody I had never heard of before, who is a Greek thinker and really, Rovelli argues, kind of the original scientific thinker. Oh, yeah.

And so Anaximander turns out to be this incredible character who arguably is the father of the scientific method, is somebody who thought about evolution quite deeply early, who thought about laws. And I had never heard his name before. Yeah, I haven't either. Yeah. And Rovelli writes so beautifully. And in

in a world that sometimes is lacking reason, it is wonderful to like read about somebody who thinks so seriously about the origins of science. So it's Carlo Rovelli and the book is called Anoxymander and the Birth of Science. And it's really fantastic. Fabulous.

So this is it for tonight. And we wanted to thank all our listeners for listening in, for thinking with us about the world and the changes in business, the changes in culture. And then, of course, a very, very big thank you to our audio engineer, Peter Linane, who's responsible for the wonderful sound that you get to hear on the After Hours podcast.

This is it. After Hours from the TED Audio Collective.

So good, so good, so good. Get ready, because Clear the Rack is on at your Nordstrom Rack store. Now through Thursday, find incredible deals on wear now styles on sale for even less at Nordstrom Rack. Take an extra 25% off red tag clearance throughout the store from brands like UGG, VINCE, Stuart Weitzman, AG, and more. All sales final. The best stuff goes fast, so shop this sale at Nordstrom Rack today. Please.

Please see NordstromRack.com or ask a store associate for details.

Every idea starts with a problem. Warby Parker's was simple. Glasses are too expensive. So they set out to change that. By designing glasses in-house and selling directly to customers, they're able to offer prescription eyewear that's expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Warby Parker glasses are made from premium materials like impact-resistant polycarbonate and custom acetate. And they start at just $95, including prescription lenses. Get glasses made from the good stuff.

Stop by a Warby Parker store near you. At Amica Insurance, we know it's more than a life policy. It's about the promise and the responsibility that comes with being a new parent. Being there day and night and building a plan for tomorrow, today. For the ones you'll always look out for, trust Amica Life Insurance. Amica. Empathy is our best policy.