#027: Cloning Yourself, Abacus Finger Theory, Best Courses of All Time

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 and bring it into your 'primary' inbox? 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:

Cloning Yourself?

I was recently exploring Myles Snider's new cooking website when I noticed something interesting in the 'Ask Me Anything' section. In this section, he stated you will encounter 'a custom Delphi chatbot that's been trained on everything I've ever published online'. Not having heard of Delphi before, I decided to check it out.

What I discovered, is that this new AI model can be trained on any content you create (YouTube, Twitter, Substack, Notion, etc.) and learn to think and speak like you! It's an incredible tool we will look at implementing on our site, and it may even allow us to generate a personal tutor for all our visitors.

Guide to Asking Great Questions to Great People

​Adam Majmudar was the star of our newsletter last week, with his main goal of quickly learning how to make a computer chip from scratch (he actually posted an update here where you can see the progress he's made).

But he also posted an insightful tweet about how to pose interesting questions to intelligent people. This small checklist is something to consider when approaching those with clear domain knowledge and will simultaneously challenge them to think deeper about their subject:

adammaj @MajmudarAdam how to ask great questions to cracked people > your question is about the frontier of human knowledge > in their domain of expertise > that they're specifically well positioned to answer > and the answer can't be found online 3:6 PM • Apr 9, 2024 5 Retweets 103 Likes Read 4 replies

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Abacus Finger Theory

I came across this wonderful video from the account, Massimo (@rainmaker1973), where he reposted a young girl using the abacus finger theory for figuring out quick math.

For those unfamiliar, the abacus finger theory is a method for learning mathematics that uses finger combinations to calculate numbers up to 99. It's a (relatively) simple way for children to learn the basics of computation, and watching a child well versed in it is always an impressive sight!

Massimo @Rainmaker1973 The abacus finger theory allows to mentally perform arithmetic calculations just by using certain special finger combinations. [📍 Kerala, India] 7:24 AM • Apr 8, 2024 8593 Retweets 84274 Likes Read 1233 replies

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One of Our New Favorite YouTube Channels

If you are a fan of the easy, actually YouTube channel, we are pleased to introduce you to another account we are sure you will enjoy. The channel is simply called 'This.' - and it specializes in scientific videos with humorous tones.

A few of our favorites include Time Dilation, Explained for Gen-Z, The Biggest Void in the Known Universe, Dreaming Breaks Science, and The Science of Funny. All the videos are relatively short at under 7 minutes, and are a great quick watch during lunch or if you're looking to pass some quick time.

The Best Online Courses of All Time

We are always on the search for the latest and greatest courses online. You may have been able to tell from how we gathered the best within math, physics, computers, microeconomics, game theory, and persuasion.

So naturally, we got a little excited when we saw this list from Class Central of the 'Best Free Online Courses of All Time'. We understand you may have interests outside of those subjects, and thankfully this list gathers the highest rated online courses and MOOCs (massive open online course) from top universities around the world. If you're looking to pick up or learn a new skill, this is a great place to start.

We appreciate any feedback you are able to provide here. What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Feel free to reach out to us on Instagram and give us a follow there, tag your friends on our posts, and please forward this newsletter along to anyone else who would enjoy it. And don't forget, please reply to this email!

Disclaimer: Becket U is an Amazon Associate and purchases through Amazon links may earn a small affiliate commission, but the price is the same for you. We only recommend books we love and think you would love, too.

Always wishing you the best,

J.B.