Hi,

Welcome to the Procrastilearning Newsletter, where your time is well spent even though you should probably be doing something else.

• 💡 3 ideas worth procrastilearning over

• 🗣️ 2 quotes to help you refocus

• 🪄 1 tip to keep you on track

3 things worth procrastilearning over

1. We have surnames mostly because of medieval plagues

Back in the good ol’ days of no medicine, sewerage or democracy, most English peasants didn’t have surnames. They lived in small villages and didn’t move around, so being known by a single first name was enough. Only the rich had them, mostly to show off who they’d descended from.

But with the Black Death and other plagues that kept popping up, thousands of peasants were dying, leaving many landowners without any locals to look after their fields. So they had to broaden their recruitment process: they found peasants from other places and paid them to move. All that movement meant it was more common to meet others with the same name, so people started adopting surnames to distinguish themselves. As you probably know, most of those surnames were linked to their profession or where they were from.

Other countries have similar stories: populations grew and then got wiped out, giving people deadly reasons to relocate and encouraging surnames to become more common.

Fun fact: the Black Death started in Kyrgyzstan.

2. The first proper commercial made by AI has appeared

It’s pretty weird, obviously. It’s for the US toy giant Toys R Us.

Watch the full 1-minute version on the Toys R Us website.

I like how the kid’s face is different in every shot - that surreal discontinuity is so hot right now.

Elsewhere, the CTO of the company that made the tech behind the advert has said that if some people's jobs disappear because of AI, maybe they shouldn't have had those jobs in the first place… 🙈 

And if you’re looking for more proof AI is baked into everything now, the New York Times, that bastion of journalism suing AI companies for scraping their articles, has hypocritically been experimenting with getting AI to write its headlines. Oops… 🤷‍♂️

3. Boring architecture is bad for your health

A 2020 study found that being surrounded by boring high-rise buildings all the time makes you miserable. And there are definitely lots of popular threads on Twitter / X where people complain about how boring modern architecture is - it just doesn’t give you a sense of awe.

This is almost the opposite experience of walking into a forest where thousands of tiny things and movements engage your brain subconsciously. This is one of the reasons that spending time in nature is so restorative - it’s good brain food.

All in all, it seems there is a slow movement to make big architectural projects a bit more interesting, with the designer of those revamped Routemaster London buses one of the most vocal voices. Even if you aren’t interested in aesthetics, or in your brain, he also highlights the environmental issues caused by architecture that isn’t built to last:

2 quotes to keep in mind

1 simple tip to improve your social skills

Remember people’s names!

Have you ever been to a party where you forgot half the names of the people you met? Or maybe a conference? Worse, a business meeting…?

A lot of awkwardness can be avoided if you put in a little effort to ensure the name sticks when you’re introduced. Trying to say it back to them within the flow of the conversation is one simple method (Them: “Hi, I’m Jim”. You: “Nice to meet you, Jim”).

As well as being respectful, there are several benefits - not least, it makes you both feel more at ease. As Dale Carnegie wrote: “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

If you have trouble remembering names, scientists recommend making it into a game.

That's all for today. Many thanks for reading. Here’s a photo of a cow interrupting a NASA training exercise.

Adam

Adam Zulawski
Procrastilearning on Beehiiv / More stuff
Currently reading: 10X Is Easier Than 2X by Dan Sullivan & Benjamin Hardy

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