💡 Warp News #295
🌲 Reduced deforestation globally. 🦈 Extinct sharks to make a comeback. 🤒 People are becoming less sick.
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Free newsletter with fact-based optimistic news about technology, science, and human progress with the angry optimist, Mathias Sundin. If you are not a subscriber, become one here.
0️⃣1️⃣Cursive Binary
The cover of my book is actually a work of art—and it has a fun little backstory.
I got a tip to interview Sasha Stiles for my book, and I’m very glad I did.
She’s a poet, artist, and AI pioneer. Even before ChatGPT, she had created an AI trained on her own writings, and together they composed new poetry. As I prepared for the interview, I noticed that she was fascinated by the language of computers: ones and zeros, or binary code.
I agree—it’s fascinating, because it’s both simple and infinite at the same time. All information—text, video, sound, images—can be broken down into nothing but ones and zeros. Yet with those ones and zeros, you can describe everything in our universe, no matter how complex it is.
“Binary is so simplistic. It’s the most rudimentary possible way of coding messages, but it also is very transcendent and can add up to sort of infinite meanings and can do so many things.”
She has therefore drawn binary code in her own handwriting. She calls it Cursive Binary. That’s the green, swirling pattern on the cover.
I thought it was not only beautiful, but also the perfect metaphor for the message of my book—about blending human and artificial intelligence.
So I was thrilled when Sasha let me use her Cursive Binary on the cover.
📗 So close now!
I’m a bit obsessed with helping people understand the possibilities they have to make a positive impact on the world with the help of AI. That’s why I have such high ambitions for my book, which aims to convey exactly that message.
The response so far has been incredible, and I’m very grateful for it!
We hit our first goal of 250 preorders right away, and the same with 500. Now we’re very close to the next milestone: 1,000 preorders—actually, only 30 to go!
Here’s a final special offer (valid only through Friday, October 31!). The book is so far only available in Swedish.
🥳 Final guest at the book launch: media entrepreneur Camilla Bergman
Camilla Bergman took Breakit from a media startup to an established and profitable company. Now she runs her own media company, Loop, both in Sweden and abroad.
Welcome on November 5 at 6 PM at Eidra, Grev Turegatan 1.
👉 Sign up for the book launch (the event will be in Swedish).
Mathias Sundin
The Angry Optimist
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📗 Book excerpt: The beginning of what we can become
But technology itself will not create progress. It depends on where and how technology is used and must go hand in hand with social progress. That's where you come in.
💡 Fact-based optimistic news of the week
🤒 People are becoming less sick
Illness and disability have decreased by 12.6 percent since 2010. Lost years of life due to infectious diseases have decreased by between 58.9 and 79.0 percent.
🖥️ Quantum computer demonstrates controlled advantage over supercomputer for the first time
The Willow chip calculates molecular structures 13,000 times faster than one of the world's fastest supercomputers. The technique can be used to measure distances in molecules and provide more information about chemical structure than today's methods.
🏭 Graphene moves from laboratory to factory after 20 years
British company plans pilot facility for production of graphene-based chips. Graphene was discovered at the University of Manchester in 2004 but has not been produced at large scale until now. The material is stronger than steel but lighter than paper.
🦈 Extinct sharks to make a comeback in the ocean
ReShark is the world's first program to reintroduce sharks into nature, focusing on Indo-Pacific leopard sharks in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. The program uses surplus eggs from aquariums around the world that are transported to locally operated hatcheries in Indonesia.
🐋 Humpback whales more numerous now than before industrial whaling began
The population of humpback whales along Australia's east coast reached over 50,000 individuals in 2024, around 20,000 more than before commercial whaling began in the early 1900s.
🌲 Forest cover increases in several regions – FAO report shows reduced deforestation globally
Deforestation continues to decline, and net forest loss is less than half of what it was in the 1990s. Net loss of forest has decreased by 61 percent since the 1990s.
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