Dear Newsletterest,

What if you could soundproof a room just by hanging some curtains? Why are today’s gamers motivated by self-expression more than the need to unwind? How will we trust any online reviews in the future? Are the pronatalists and their movement to convince everyone to have more kids actually winning? What can you learn about human ingenuity from they way acid was distributed in the 70s? All those stories and more in this week’s newsletter …

Enjoy and stay curious!

Rohit

Soundproof Silk May Transform How We Manage Noise At Home and Work

Early in the pandemic I decided to make a home studio and looked into installing sound panels. Unfortunately, they were generally expensive, bulky and needed professional installation. Researchers from MIT may have developed a solution for this and many other problems with a new noise cancelling silk fabric about the width of a human hair that uses vibrating fabric to "generate sound waves that interfere with an unwanted noise to cancel it out, similar to noise-canceling headphones."

If it works, there could be plenty of uses for this. Room dividers, head scarfs, curtains, wall coverings, super thin cubicle or workspace walls, and sound canceling "green" screens made of fabric are just a few that seem like immediately possibilities. As the research continues, more noise-suppressing fabrics leveraging this same technology could be used with canvas, muslin and other materials as well.

The Remarkable History of Acid Blotters

LSD is significantly more potent than most other drugs, lacks taste, color or odor and is too strong to consume "raw." All these facts mean it has usually been mixed with something before it's distributed. From injecting it into sugar cubes to creating digestible tablets, "carrier mediums" have always been a critical part of LSD distribution for decades. Perhaps the most unique medium was blotter paper, a historical quirk that offers the inspiration for a new book titled Blotters: The Untold Story of an Acid Medium by Erik Davis.

Blotter papers, infused with LSD and perforated into small stamps for easy transportation and consumption were a widespread counterculture symbol in the 70s. From Mickey Mouse to blue unicorns, the different blotter designs offer a nostalgic look back at a time when the LSD and psychedelics movement was just starting in the US. Decades later, Davis observes that they have become popular collectible contraband:

"Like chocolate bars with their grid of grooves, blotter asks to be fondled, torn and crumbled, nibbled. But like coins or stamps or show flyers, it also has the feel of ephemera you might want to hold onto for a while."

Right now, we are seeing a resurgence in experimentation with psychedelics after decades of stalled research and government bans. As this interest grows, this “untold” story of blotter paper offers a fascinating reminder of just how far people were willing to go to have their transformative experiences.

Why People Become Gamers ... And How Its Changing

Fandom recently released the latest edition of their annual Inside Gaming Report where they survey 5,000 "entertainment and gaming fans globally." The data this year found that the top reason that people play games continues to be to unwind or relieve stress, followed closely by a more surprising motivation: self-expression.

Nearly 50% of the gamers surveyed suggested that "creation, imagination, and self-expression" were their main motivations for gaming, a rise of 10% since 2023. While some of this rise may be attributed to a bias in who is participating in the survey (not to mention the motivations of the platform behind it), these two data points offer a valuable perspective on why gaming matters.

Games offer an escape, and as they get more sophisticated, more people will invest time and money in crafting their online identity as well as look to find ways to bridge the gap between their online selves and their selves in the real world. Over time, these digital identities will continue to be a greater part of us and also bring some real world implications for products and services that can help us bring these various identities together.

Read highlights from the study »

Marques Brownlee and Walt Mossberg On Trustworthy Tech Reviews

How useful will tech reviews (or any other kind of online review) be in a future where they can increasingly be AI generated? This was a topic tech journalist Kara Swisher focused on in an interview with tech reviewers Walt Mossberg and Marques Brownlee. They are an interesting duo to discuss the topic side by side. Mossberg essentially invented the category of tech reviews as the long time reviewer at the Wall Street Journal. Brownlee is a wildly popular YouTube reviewer with hundreds of millions of views across his videos.

In this interview they explore how to build trust (consistently tell the truth), why sensational headlines work (as long as the payoff delivers) and why real experts reviewing tech will continue to have a huge impact on buying behavior. Whether you work in tech or any other industry, the discussion has repercussions for anyone considering the role of reviews in buying behavior and how trust will be built or squandered in an AI-enabled future.

The Pronatalists Want Everyone To Have More Kids. Are They Right?

Malcolm and Simone Collins believe it's their duty to have as many kids as possible. They think you should too. Over the past few years, they have become the unofficial spokespeople for pronatalism, the idea that the only way to fight population decline is to encourage the world to have more kids. Lots more kids. Their methods are controversial, as are some of the people they sometimes share stages with. Their movement is fairly criticized for its lack of diversity and how it can sometimes attract followers who maintain racist ideals of what the right mix of future ethnicities should be.

In a wide ranging interview covering everything from home schooling methods to why maternal leave may be unnecessary to why slapping a two year old may be a good parenting style, the Collins' offer plenty of perspectives that may challenge your beliefs about what good parenting or work life balance looks like. Despite the urge to dismiss their unconventional ideas, it is worth considering why some of their views seem so popular. Like many things, you don’t have to agree with their methods to learn something new. Or, if you prefer a more critical take on the movement, this article is worth a read.

Even More Non-Obvious Stories …

Every week I always curate more stories than I'm able to explore in detail. Instead of skipping those stories, I started to share them in this section so you can skim the headlines and click on any that spark your interest:

How are these stories curated?