Hi and welcome to SPAM š
Most newsletters promise to ānever send you spamā (as if thatās a sort of favour!) but here at Seeking Passion And Mastery, Iāll do my best to do the opposite and send you all sorts of interesting things that I discover. š
Iām Prince, and no, not like the dead singer formerly known as [1], but Prince of Persia.
Iām from London and when Iām not travelling and seeking #beauty, I try to create it in whatever Iām doing āĀ whether itās the art of Calligraphy šā, or modelling & presenting business data as a Data Visualisation specialist šØāš».
āTreat a work of art like a prince: let it speak to you first.āā ā Arthur Schopenhauer
Iām writing this newsletter because Iām one of those people who just canāt stop themselves from clicking on hyperlinks and going down internet rabbit holes. š°š³
So Iām always finding interesting and useful things, but have constantly felt that I donāt know the right person to share and talk about them withā¦ Iām hoping youāre one of those people Iāve been looking for! š
Here are some of the things Iāll be writing about here: [2]
š” Critical Thinking
So many people work every day towards making the world a better place, whether itās driving adoption of more sustainable practices, working with charities to relieve poverty, or even giving away their free time to teach underprivileged kidsā¦ Now, I donāt do any of that š¤·āāļø but thereās one thing Iāve always liked to help with, and this could be my chance to do it.
I truly believe the world sorely lacks the power of logic and critical thinking.
We see it every day. Just open up your favourite social media app, look at any controversial (but undoubtedly intentional) headline and see how the āargumentsā unfoldā¦ Or make the mistake of bringing up politics at a dinner party (please donāt) and watch the effects of the insidious propagation of fake stories, half-truths and half-baked theories in real time. š
If I can help even a small number of people become better at understandingĀ and criticising information that comes their way, recognising argument flaws, debate better and reach stronger conclusions, Iāll be glad that Iāve done my part in making the world an ever so slightly better one.
And trust me, this isnāt about scoring points in your next argument about some social media controversyā¦ Itās useful for every day situations like detecting red flags and avoiding scams, understanding if a proposed economic policy will actually benefit your life, or making sense of statistical data to decide on your kidās schoolā¦
So get ready because in the next issue weāll be delving into one of the most important and useful decision-making tools ever - Bayesā Rule.
š¶ Music & Art
I listen to quite a lot of music (I was something like top 7% of listeners in this yearās Spotify Wrapped [3]) and love being introduced to different culturesā music.
Hereās my most listened-to track of 2023, Totentanz by my now-friend Chris Keya:
The original Totentanz (meaning āDance of the Deadā š) was composed by Hungarian virtuoso Franz Liszt.
You can listen to it here (my favourite part starts from 7:45):
If you have any non-English / cultural songs you canāt stop listening to these days, please reply and let me know! š
š³ Random Rabbit Hole
The inaugural rabbit hole entry goes to the term itselfā¦ š
As obvious as it may be to many of you, I was quite surprised to learn that the earliest written record of the phrase actually was in Alice in Wonderland (1865).
In fact, as the first chapterās title, āDown the Rabbit-Holeā are the bookās very first words. š
š Data Visualisation
Shameless plug of another recent small bet of mine. š
Iām currently an Analytics Engineer at a multi-national in the Sports industry, with experience in start-ups and scale-ups (Finance, Aviation, etc.) too, and one thing I truly enjoy is the science & art of āDataVizā and delving deep into how it can make or break effective communication.
So recently Iāve started writing on LinkedIn on how business professionals can design better data dashboards & reports [4] and how small business owners can increase their profits by hiring me enabling analytics.
Hereās a post on some terms we always come across, esp. when editing photos on our phones: A very quick intro on RGB colour encoding in computer graphics šØ
š Devilās Word of the Week
Iāll be signing off every issue with an entry from Ambrose Pierceās Devilās Dictionary.
I spent an inordinate amount of time researching the most complete unabridged version of this satirical masterpiece [5] from the early 20th century, so thisāll give me an extra reason to peruse it now and then. š
Palace, n. ā A fine and costly residence, particularly that of a great official. The residence of a high dignitary of the Christian Church is called a palace; that of the Founder of his religion was known as a field, or wayside. There is progress.
If you got to this point without opening IG / TT (and then forgetting to come back) I really appreciate you! And if you tried but I lost you somewhere along the way, I still appreciate you! š Either way, would love to hear what you liked or didnāt! šØ
Till next time!
Prince š¦
ā¦ And if it wasnāt your cup of tea but know a friend who likes this kind of, erm, tea(?), please consider sharing :)
[1] - You have no idea how many times girls have started singing Purple Rain when I told them my name. š
[2] - I find it amusing that the first issue(s) of anything is mostly written for yourself, and maybe some wonderfully curious people who in the future will go back to the very beginning. As such, I donāt doubt Iāll be re-writing a lot of these soon.
[3] - Though the Shapeshifter personality made me sound indecisive (lol)
[4] - So that people will actually want to use look at them.
[5] - Named as one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature".