Succinct, or at least rightly organized.

To me, books aren't meant simply to be read, they're to be used, and I often treat them like references. Many would benefit from concept indexes, or at least being broken into more discrete parts beyond the chapter.

Search helps with digital, but it's not the same as being able to get a high-level physical impression from thumbing around. I'm a fan of longer-form content indices found in some volumes of poetry, or the way a cookbook might list "Beef" and then include every recipe that contains it.

If we can characterize how or what is happening, then depending on the format of the book, it could make sense to include information like summaries, timelines, maps and diagrams, etc, but I rarely see that in modern works.

Since switching to a smartphone, I can't count the number of times an app or notification has engaged and prevented the proximity sensor from blocking screen input, causing my ear to tap something, disrupting the call.

I also can't hear well (or be heard) without speakerphone on regular calls because the handset speaker is small and hard to align with my ear, and the max volume generally isn't sufficient to overcome ambient noise. Related, Teams noise cancellation also suppresses my voice if there's a low rumble in the background, like air conditioning.

Using speakerphone with the volume lowered is usually the only way I can reliably make and take calls.

At scale, yes. Because human males have significantly longer fertility periods than females, the specific adaptations of men who are healthier into later life can be passed onto offspring. The same applies to women who reach menopause while they're still healthy are able to continue caring for family without the risk of expanding the population, albeit for their offspring.

While human evolution is not predictive, it has selected for a wide variety of survival-associated adaptations beyond the mere individual.

Humans have selective adaptations to reduce resource competition between older and younger members of populations - examples are menopause and testosterone levels.

Part of the reason it benefited us that some but not all people become old is because people require more attention during two phases of their lives. Our biological evolution has prioritized care for the very young over the very old, with respect to a limit on resources (like attention), effectively until the modern age. In some cultures, for instance, those with teeth must pre-chew food for those without, or expected members to engage in ritual suicide at a certain age.

A friend recently related the life of Robert E. Howard in a really fascinating way, and one of the points he made about how he got into writing Conan really stuck with me.

Howard started out writing historical fiction, but the research was pretty grueling and the outcomes mediocre, so he switched to a sort of adventurous self-insert character in historical fantasy settings, which later turned into Conan.

When I consider notable science fiction authors, they all seem to start with some understanding of a facet of the natural universe, then tease ideas into explorations of those points. To the layman on reflection, this might seem like some sort of predictive exercise, but I see it as a sort of rote process of extrapolation. Contrast that to science fantasy authors who focus on theme and aesthetic, imagining Westerns in future-space with gadgets or contemporary plots in scifi-associated settings, and there's quite a vast and exciting landscape left to be explored.