#026: Create the Song of Your Dreams, Making Computer Chips from Scratch, Beauty in Craftsmanship

Hi All!

We are pleased to welcome you to this week's edition of Undiscovered, a newsletter with exclusive resources and insights expanding from the material found on our main site - becketu.com.

We also have an URGENT request to ask of you (especially if you are reading this from a Gmail account). Can you please respond to this email? You can say 'Hi!', tell us the last book you read recently, or what your favorite resource was from below.

We are experiencing difficulty with Gmail deliverability, and responding to our emails will help us out a lot. Giving you many thanks in advance, and we are excited to share what we have found this week:

The Best AI-Generated Songs I've Ever Heard

The most impressive thing I have come across this week is easily the AI music generation app, Suno. I first discovered it after coming across this rave review from Shopify CEO, Tobi Lutke:

tobi lutke @tobi http://Suno.ai is the craziest, most magical thing on the internet right now. How is not everyone talking about this Suno.ai Suno AI We are building a future where anyone can make great music. No instrument needed... 8:40 PM • Apr 3, 2024 445 Retweets 3655 Likes Read 311 replies

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The app allows you to make playful songs about your goldfish, going to the dentist, mitochondria, and anything else your mind can think of. What makes it special though and not a gimmick? The songs are actually good. This is one of those pieces of software that is both scary and incredible at the same time, and you really have to experience it to believe it.

Making a Computer Chip From Scratch in 2 Weeks

On March 29th, Adam Majmudar was challenged to make a computer chip from scratch in less than 2 weeks. The catch? He has no prior experience in the field. In this tweet, he outlines a detailed explanation on how he was going to tackle the problem.

If interested in chip manufacturing, this would be a great place to start learning alongside a brilliant individual on a time-sensitive mission. At the very least, it's an impressive goal that makes us think about how much we can learn and accomplish in such a short period of time.

What Do Schools of the Future Look Like?

Many of you know our mission by now, but for those that don't - we have always been inspired to change the way we approach traditional education. The system is outdated, and we have always been intrigued by new ways of teaching.

Enter Mentava and Synthesis. Both of these programs are centered on teaching kids STEM subjects at an accelerated pace. With Mentava, their goal is to get students on track for college-level math before they enter high school. Synthesis even has videos with their students explaining how it's 'the next level of education' and how they 'are learning by playing a game'.

It's a space we would love to see grow, and hopefully this type of education becomes more embraced.

Make Your Own 3D Interactive Bookshelf

Shoutout again to our builder of of the week, Adam Majmudar, as he shared with us a 3D interactive book review page he built.

adammaj @MajmudarAdam spent way too long making my book review page ended up building a 3d interactive bookshelf 9:4 PM • Feb 21, 2024 88 Retweets 2444 Likes Read 128 replies

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This site immediately made me think of, Stripe Press, which is not only one of my favorite book publishing companies, but also one of the most beautiful sites on the internet. It makes sense Adam says he was inspired by Stripe Press, along with Derek Sivers' book page. The best part of all this? He shared how you can make your own in a follow up tweet. Thank you, Adam!

The Importance of Beauty in Craftsmanship

What Adam created above touches upon a principle I have always felt mattered, but struggled to articulate. That is the importance of beauty and taking pride in whatever it is you are creating. Stripe founder Patrick Collison discusses the idea below:

Startup Archive @StartupArchive_ Patrick Collison on the importance of beauty and craftsmanship when building products “If Stripe is a monstrously successful business, but what we make isn’t beautiful, and Stripe doesn’t embody a culture of incredibly exacting craftsmanship, I’ll be much less happy. I think the… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1774403827548242333 7:50 AM • Mar 31, 2024 276 Retweets 1774 Likes Read 23 replies

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Shoutout to former Github CEO Nat Friedman for bringing this to my attention and encouraging the dialogue. It makes us reflect too: What is it that you're creating? Are you making it as beautiful as it could possibly be? As humans, we have a natural bias towards attractive things. So if you're going to make something, make it beautiful.

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Always wishing you the best,

J.B.