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Welcome to Galaxy Brain — a newsletter from Charlie Warzel about technology and culture. You can read what this is all about here. If you like what you see, consider forwarding it to a friend or two. You can also click the button below to subscribe. And if you’ve been reading, consider going to the paid version. One thing that happens when you regularly send a newsletter out to tens of thousands of people is that you see a lot of automatic Out Of Office (OOO) email responses.

"I need to know about what now?!" Right-half-plane zeros. Or at least, I want you to know about them, because there's a really critical one that's about to play out and could affect the well-being of a lot of people. So what am I talking about exactly? I'll admit that this isn't quite the order of presentation that I had originally planned for this material. I intend to gradually put together a series of notes on control theory targeted at the undergraduate to graduate level, and right-half-plane (RHP) zeros would probably show up somewhere towards the middle.

¡Hola! This month’s newsletter is about the avocado, or as we call it in Peru, “palta.” Palta Rellena is a stuffed avocado piqueo or small bite, and Verde Que Te Quiero Verde is a pisco and avocado cocktail. I also share the story behind my first Zoom cooking class and my farmers market recipe for a summer Gazpacho Andino. Palta Rellena / Stuffed Avocado For a long time, I thought palta rellena was from Peru. Most Latinx countries call the fruit aguacate so “palta” seemed uniquely Peruvian.

On the one-year anniversary of this newsletter, I reflect on the plant-forward diet of my Quechua ancestors in Peru’s Andes Mountains. Before colonization introduced livestock to the Americas, Quechua communities thrived on a plant-based diet of crops they cultivated in the Andes Mountains: quinoa, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, hot peppers, and coca leaves plus plenty of foraged herbs like huacatay, a wild mint. Animal protein native to the area—alpaca, llama, vicuña, cuy, game, and river fish—was reserved for special celebrations, ceremonies, or rituals.

Well, to be precise, you should not always standardize your data. There are times when you could standardize and when you shouldn’t. Here are a few reasons why you might not want to standardize your data: Your data is on the same scale. You might not need to standardize your data if the variables are already on the same scale. For example, if you have a dataset measuring height and weight in meters and kilograms, there is no need to standardize the data.

Hi friends, I have exciting news: We are just two weeks out from the start of our annual Summer Reading Bingo Game. It’s the biggest time of year for readers — so start warming up (stretches, deep breathing, requesting books from the library, etc.). If you have an idea for what should be on the Bingo card or would like to contribute a prize (thanks to everyone who has already donated!

Yes, my adventure into studying creativity started with that all-purpose silver tape. It began with a discussion about the name – and when I followed my curiosity, I discovered a fascinating story. And it highlights how you don’t need to be a Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs to come up with a great idea. So here’s the story where it all began, that sparked my curiosity, and started my fascination with all things creativity…

Good morning, JTL subscribers! Because I’m basically 12 years old at heart, I still find things like bodily fluids and emissions intrinsically hilarious. But since I also understand that many people don’t, let me issue the following trigger warning for this post: If you are easily grossed out by the mention of male reproductive fluid and/or the ingestion thereof, please read no further and wait for the next Jagged Time Lapse entry, which will be along in a few days and — I hereby assure you — will be agreeably devoid of ejaculate.

It’s the cardinal rule of parenting, and sooner or later everyone learns it: If you’re a mom, nothing you do will ever be right. The way you give birth is wrong and inadequate. You’re feeding your kids wrong. You’re simultaneously being too loving and not loving enough. You’re too strict. You’re too permissive. You don’t show up perfectly for every single thing, always, forever, and do extra each time. You. Are.