Books read:
📕 Crypto Confidential by
- would recommend to people curious about what happened in crypto in 2021.📕 The Proposal by Bae Myung-Hoon - would recommend to sci-fi / space (and a bit of romance) lovers.
📕 On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong - loved his poetry, and his prose is just as tenderly stunning.
📖 Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg
❌ Day Trading Attention by Gary Vaynerchuk - dropped this book because I realized that he’s going for social media marketing involving analytics etc and I don’t vibe with that. Nothing wrong with intense social media but I’ve realized it’s not who I am / who I aspire to be.
October 29
🎧 Taylor Pendleton — Graincheck, Sunny Sixteen, and Finding Your Voice on the Internet
Why Taylor’s videos resonate
You just have such a distinct style when you're making videos. I mean, they're much longer form. There's a lot of room for moments to breathe within those videos. It seems like there's a lot of intentionality behind leaving all that time in those videos. And they're just really pleasant to watch. It's very calming to watch and your style of choosing to narrate over a lot of those sections too while you're explaining whether it's uh, cameras that you're using to document a scene Or just the thoughts behind the process itself and like why you're choosing to do something and explaining more of the philosophy behind it. Uh, it just feels like there's a lot of intentionality behind the kind of like longer form nature of your channel as a whole.
Taylor’s approach to making YT videos: photo-first
I made my first silent photography video because I literally, Steven, I just had, I was having just kind of just like a not great day. I needed to go film something. And I was like, but what am I going to talk about? And I'm talking to my partner, Tyler. I'm like, what am I going to talk about? I have nothing to say. And he's like, well, maybe you go with that. And I'm like, actually, I should totally go with that. That's what I'm going to do. And so it did come from a selfish place of like, I don't want to have to say anything. But then when I started making that content and it started resonating with people, and then I started realizing, oh my God, this is giving people something that they don't currently Maybe have on YouTube. And this is actually a much more peaceful experience for me to make it in this regard because I now don't have to talk to a camera, which I don't really want to do. But I've been trained to do so I can do and I'm happy to do. But if it's up to me, do I do I want to like, no, I would so much rather string together like some narrative piece. And that's where it comes to like the voiceover and the narration and everything kind of in the editing that really accidentally happened. Because. Honestly, when I started Grain Check and I was setting out to go and make these these videos, which are pretty daunting by by myself as a very, very, very mediocre filmmaker. So I, you know. I'm setting out to make these videos and the most natural way to do it was to think about the photos first and not about the video. Go make the photos. Do whatever you need to do to easily get the video, but still make it decent. Okay. But not let it bog me down because I need to think about the photos more than I do really about the video. Because the photos are, that's my work.
Taylor’s YT video-making process: take photos first & whatever footage. Put into video editing software. Import film photos after development. Then figure out story/narration/script afterwards
But I've been trained to do so I can do and I'm happy to do. But if it's up to me, do I do I want to like, no, I would so much rather string together like some narrative piece. And that's where it comes to like the voiceover and the narration and everything kind of in the editing that really accidentally happened. Because. Honestly, when I started Grain Check and I was setting out to go and make these these videos, which are pretty daunting by by myself as a very, very, very mediocre filmmaker. So I, you know. I'm setting out to make these videos and the most natural way to do it was to think about the photos first and not about the video. Go make the photos. Do whatever you need to do to easily get the video, but still make it decent. Okay. But not let it bog me down because I need to think about the photos more than I do really about the video. Because the photos are, that's my work. The video is showing that process. Right. And so it was, it was this hierarchy. So I would just kind of quickly film and then I would come and bring it back to the computer. And of course, when you're shooting film, you can't talk to camera. You don't have current thoughts. You don't have a current anything to talk about. You don't know what's happened. So it's like, I don't have any thoughts right now. So I would come back to the computer with all of this footage and then I'd put the footage together and then I'd get my photos, scan my photos in, put those in. And then I say, what's the story? What is, what am I telling? And then I write my script and then I put my script in. So that's how my videos come to be.
The photos Taylor fails to take
About the whole point of photography. So it's this really funky place I'm in right now. And this is like very current. This is like literally been on my mind this week. Um, so it's a, it's a, it's a real journey I'm on with like, I'm a photographer, but I'm also a filmmaker and I'm also blending the two and it's, it can be a bit disorienting at times. Um, which might sound silly, but it really honestly can. Because it's like, which one do I really want to spend my time on today or this week or this month or this year? How do you do both? All those fun questions. It's definite balance. But I do find that what I'm, to really answer your question now, especially in the YouTube process, when I'm in the editing process and I have my stills and I have my motion, find that all The things I got video of are the things that I actually probably also wanted photos of, but didn't take. Okay. And I'm, it's showing me how stupidly precious I still am with my film when I really don't need to be like, I really don't need to be, this is my job. I have people behind me on this. I have a lab. It's like my fridge is full of film. I, I have all of the resources in the world to shoot every single frame I want. And I still don't. And my video footage is showing me that. And so it's freaking me out. Interesting. So I'm having this whole thing. I'm like, I'm starting to even like maybe even work on a video about like all the frames you don't take or like all the photos you don't take, because they're kind of haunting me right now In the sense that I have them all in video form.
What sells now is comfort, not sex (appeal)
📰🎥🎧📕
October 28
📰 Ocean Vuong shares stories behind ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ via LA Times
Ocean Vuong said he wrote the first draft of his bestselling novel by hand — and in a closet. It was the only quiet space in his home. “It was perfect. ... I cleared out the closet. I put a lamp in there. I put on my headphones, and it was kind of like a cockpit,” Vuong told more than 600 people gathered at the L.A. Times Book Club Monday night. “It’s really good. I highly recommend it.”
Vuong also talked about the profound impact on his work of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” a novel about a black woman who escapes slavery after the Civil War.
For me, as a poet, I was always beginning with truth,” Vuong said about why he wrote a fictional autobiography. “So I think my impulse was the impulse of the poets before me, from Dante to Homer to Dickinson. They wrote myths out of reality. As a novelist, that seemed natural to me, to begin to see the truth as only the foundation.”
🎧 Trump’s Strange Playlist, Kamala on Fox, and Elon’s Robot Fail - Pivot Pod
Reframe argument. Instead of buying an asset class, buy the index
Think you got to reframe the argument. And that is rather arguing against her foreign asset class, because quite frankly, she might be right and you might be wrong. Each of you has a 50-50 likelihood that gold is a good or a bad investment or the U.S. Economy is going to go up or down from here. It's the wrong argument. The argument is a following. It's mom, we have some money, you have some money. Nobody knows. The brightest people in the world don't know. We money. What they do know is that we shouldn't put too many of our eggs in one basket. Mom, if you feel you have insight here or you get some reward from picking this stuff, then okay, we're gonna take 10, maybe 15% of your assets and you're gonna buy gold. But we're gonna put the rest in diversified index funds because here's the thing, mom, you don't have the time to make it back. And it doesn't matter how smart you are. Warren Buffett lost 50, 60% of his net worth during the Great Financial Recession. You can be a genius. The market will always trump individual behavior.
🎧 Will a Bazooka Stimulus Revive China’s Economy? - Prof G Markets
China's Unique Autocratic Model - China's autocratic model, with its centralized power, has allowed it to mitigate financial and economic risks, such as the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. - This centralized system enables regulators to bail out companies and manage liquidity, contributing to China's economic success, although this model is not easily replicated in other contexts. (Time 0:40:54)
Talent Arbitrage
I think in another life, you'd be a talent agent. I mean, because I attract... Well, the key to my limited success has been finding and retaining smart young people. The ultimate economic arbitrage is young people because, I'll flip it on the other side the most because i can pay you less um the best companies in the world i don't care if it's goldman I don't care if it's alphabet or they have one agreement and that is the following if you go flat out here i mean if you just go flat out we just we don't own your ass but you've given us your Ass and sounding kind of weird you basically have given us your life and you just want to go flat out for your career. We'll get you to, at 30, where your parents were at 50. And I think essentially that's the unwritten agreement at every amazing company that adds, or at least adds just a shit ton of shareholder value. They say to people, you're smart, you're hungry, you want to make a shit ton of money, you want to do interesting things, but go flat out for us and we can let you run as fast as you want. Because if you go to work, there's some great companies that are icons of yesteryear, still really solid companies, but it's basically, no, if you're amazing, you get promoted in four Years instead of five. And if you're just okay, you get promoted in six years instead of five. But great companies say, run as fast as you can and as good, and if you're as good as we think you are and you run as fast as you can, we're not afraid to promote you every 18 months. Those are the people you want to find.
October 25
📰 More Recs Than an Old School Camera Store by
Joan Didion: Where To Start: Part One
I’m an essay guy, so I want to start with one of my fav essay collections of Didion’s - The White Album. It came out in 1979 and includes essays of hers that were published in other places over the prior ten years:
In Hollywood (1973)
The White Album (1968-1978)
The Getty (1968-1978)
Good Citizens (ZZZZ)
📰 The Antidote to Writer's Block Is Friendship by
Writer’s block is just the interruption of our friendship with ourselves.
October 24
🎧 What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health - Huberman Lab
People with a genetic predisposition to alcoholism or who drink regularly tend to feel energized and good for longer periods when they drink, unlike occasional drinkers. - This prolonged positive effect can be a reliable predictor of alcoholism predisposition, separate from tolerance. (Time 0:18:47)
Alcohol impacts the gut-liver-brain axis. - The gut, liver, and brain communicate through nerves and chemical signals, and alcohol's metabolism in the liver affects this communication. (Time 0:54:02)
Order of things going to cause hangover (scale from severe > mild): brandy > rum / red wine > whiskey > gin > beers
Turns out that's not the case, or at least that's not what the science points do. If you look at the expected hangover severity, what you find is that at the bottom end of the scale, there's a drink that I'm not going to tell you for the moment. But what you find is that near it is, for instance, beer. The consumption of beer provided it is not over consumption. It's not far beyond the tolerance of the individual. So there's one or two beers is less likely to cause a hangover than, say, whiskey and a glass of whiskey, or I should, you know, not as much whiskey as beer, of course, but a glass of whiskey, For instance, is more likely to cause hangover than gin. Is it turns out again, this is what's fallen out of the data. And yet a glass of rum or red wine is more likely to cause a hangover than any of the other things I've mentioned so far at the top, top, top of the list of drinks that induce hangover is brandy.
Our immune system constantly fights off small tumors that develop. - Alcohol weakens this defense, promoting cancer growth and hindering the body's ability to eliminate cancerous cells. (Time 1:41:31)
October 23
🎧 What Impacts Will AI Have on Hiring? What to Do if You Get Laid Off, and Being a Dad - Prof G Pod
Being a man = create surplus value
I've been thinking a lot about the notion of masculinity and the rite of passage when a boy becomes a man. And I love what Richard Reeves, the president of the American Institute for Boys and Men says. He uses this concept of surplus value. And I've actually sat my boys down and explained this concept. And I said, okay, right now there's all these people at your school trying to help you damage the muscle in between your ears such that it grows back stronger. You're not doing a lot for them. Your parents are paying them some money, but you're not adding a lot of value there. You are in a society that, for the most part, really values children. We're living in London right now, and they spend a lot of money such that you can have the tube to go to school. They spend money on building malls. You can go play mini golf or whatever it is, and you're not adding a lot of value back. You're not making any money. You're not paying any taxes. We love you immensely. We think about you all the goddamn time. We're constantly thinking about the lunch and filling out the form so you can go on field trips. We're constantly thinking about ensuring that you have the right pillows because one of my kids is allergic. We're just constantly working on you, and you are not constantly working and thinking about us. It's negative value. How you become a man is you start adding more and more value. And when you become a man is when you flip to the credit side. Is that right? You add surplus value. And that is you start doing more for other people. And I do little things called what a man does.
📰 One Essay Could Change the Future by
The colonists could not have imagined life without the Monarchy until Thomas Paine’s Common Sense made them realize they could become their own country.
It was messy business, starting the first democracy, and no one had any idea what that should look like until Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Papers got them behind the constitution.
Martin Luther King Jr. once read Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience” and was inspired to peaceful protest
📰 The Tyranny of the “For You” Feed by Julia Angwin
In this case, however, I think there is an even easier fix: tech companies can escape the courts’ impatience with immunity by giving us control of our feeds. If we are in charge of our feeds, it will be much easier for tech companies to argue in court that the problems of social media are what we are doing to ourselves - not what they are doing to us. / As I wrote in the New York Times, “It could be a win-win: We get to decide what we see, and they get to limit their liability.”
📰 Two Values by
Here’s a good exercise to cure yourself of the middle value mumbles. Do a sketch where everything in the light is rendered in white and everything in shadow is stated in black.
For this to work, you need to have a subject lit by one light source, or by the sun. Try to ignore the actual local color. Push everything to dramatic extremes.
Define everything with shapes.
It takes supreme determination to avoid the temptation to blend the colors into greys. Don’t give in! Let edges disappear! The viewer of your picture will not mind seeking out or imagining the edges that you have to leave out.
📰 How Capitalism Actually Makes Us Nicer by
Matt Ridley, in The Rational Optimist, spells this out in a way that makes perfect sense. He says, “Exchange is a peaceful, cooperative act. The habit of exchange leads to the habit of cooperation, trust, and kindness.”
Ridley has another gem of a point: “You don’t kill people you trade with.”
Here’s something else that capitalism gets right: it makes trust and reputation matter.
🎧 Yuval Noah Harari on AI & the Future of Information - On with Kara Swisher
Munich witch trials - Pappenheimer family
Yuval Noah Harari: And to give just one example to balance the funny story about the penises. So in Munich, they arrested an entire family, the Pappenheimer family, accusing them of being part of this global conspiracy of witches. And it's a father, mother, three kids. And they start by torturing the 10-year boy, the youngest of the family. And you can still read the protocol of the interrogation in the archives in Munich today. And they torture a 10-year boy in unspeakable ways until he incriminates his mother. He admits, yes, she's a witch. She went to meet Satan. She kills babies. She summons Hailstorm. And they break the whole family. And they execute all of them, including the 10-year boy. And, you know, this eventually also reaches to America, the Salem witch hunts. Right. And this was, again, this was fueled, not caused by, of course, it's not that the printing press caused it, but the printing press enabled it to spread. Right. For the same reason that fake news and conspiracy theories spread today.
Kara Swisher: And then the people that create the printing presses don't take responsibility for it in modern day. Yeah, I've been in that conversation.
Yuval Noah Harari: I mean, and the thing is, that conversation happened centuries ago.
Kara Swisher: Right.
Yuval Noah Harari: And today you again have millions of Americans basically believing in the same story about a global conspiracy led by Satan. Right. To destroy civilization. Right. And if you look, what stopped it last time? How did we, in the end, get to the scientific revolution? It wasn't the technology of the printing press. It was the creation of institutions that were dedicating to sifting through this kind of ocean of information and all these stories about witches and so forth, and are developing mechanisms To evaluate reliable information.
Not a single Roman emperor was ever toppled by a democratic revolution
And not terminating. We tend to talk about AIs in the context of democracies, but dictatorships also have a huge problem with AIs. For dictators, for human dictators, the scariest thing in the world is not a democratic revolution. The scariest thing is a powerful subordinate that takes power from them, either assassinates them or manipulates them. If you think about the Roman Empire, for instance, this is the reference to Tiberius, not a single Roman emperor was ever toppled by a democratic revolution, but a very large percentage Of them were either killed or toppled or manipulated by powerful subordinates, a general, a provincial governor, their wife, their son, somebody. And this is still the number one problem for dictators around the world.
October 21
🎧 Modern Medicine and Its Blind Spots — With Dr. Marty Makary by Prof G Pod
The food industry's initial focus was on tackling food insecurity and global hunger. - However, this focus shifted towards techniques like genetic modification and pesticide use. (Time 0:23:54)
The food industry, initially focused on addressing food insecurity, now faces unintended consequences. - Techniques like genetic modification and pesticide use, while increasing production, pose health risks. (Time 0:23:54)
Eat things that grow out of good soil and clean meats. - Consider intermittent fasting. (Time 0:26:47)
Contrary to popular belief, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) doesn't significantly increase cancer risk for perimenopausal women. - HRT can alleviate menopause symptoms and offers long-term health benefits like reduced heart attack rates and cognitive decline. (Time 0:28:09)
Reduce cavities by stopping sugary drink consumption. - Question the dogma of adding fluoride to drinking water, considering its potential impact on gut microbiome. (Time 0:36:01)
I can tell you about alcohol. As a doctor who has dealt with liver and pancreatic issues for a long time, if there ever were any tiny benefits to the heart from drinking a glass or two of wine a day, they are far eclipsed by the damage done to the liver.
Prioritize strong social networks to manage a high-pressure, ambitious career. - These connections offer crucial support and contribute to overall well-being. (Time 0:50:46)
If you lack close friends, actively seek out a group of virtuous, intelligent people who value friendship. - Join a club, sports league, or any group that meets regularly to build camaraderie. (Time 0:52:36)
Find your group of friends; it could be through any shared activity or belief. - As you age, love and camaraderie become paramount, offering support and shared joy. (Time 0:52:49)
📰 Breadcrumbs by
Virtue should not be thought of as a handmaid of heroism, but instead as an undercurrent of everything one does. Day-to-day matters are more important than theoretical great acts, and failure to give them proper attention is its own cowardice. Let every small thing you do be as careful and good as it can.
As I mentioned a few years ago, the cost of going to a cafe every single day is cheap, if it means you find your wife. Or put another way, the act of only drinking coffee at home can save some money, but can come at a non-financial cost. (View Highlight)
Note: [[essay idea]] I workout in classes vs alone. I ask people their names, if they work close by. Small talk in our 20s breaks in between sets. Sometimes it's existing friends like classmates from college or my Hyrox doubles partner. Every hour we spend training together is friendship-building time. We get closer and can catch up without having to drop that money on mortgage-costing avo toast.
If you spend a lot of time online or making things, it’s good to find a way to leave these breadcrumbs. The trail of your digital self should be interesting. If you use social media, you should ensure it makes your goals, desires, projects — if not clear, at least worth stumbling upon.
If you have art, or writing, or projects of any kind, you should have a small website or instagram or some other way that people can find you. Or so people who have found you can learn more (see more, “stalk”) at their leisure. And because social media affords repeated, small interactions, the digital unplanned bumping into each-other, you afford yourself something more durable than the somewhat vicious PASS/FAIL style of dating that people have come to accept.
📰 An Antidote for the Sunday Scaries by
It’s not the actual freelance work itself that’s made a difference in my overall job satisfaction — I still have deadlines, clients to answer to, tedious tasks and the occasional late-night emergency project. What has made a massive difference however, is having autonomy over when and how much I work, which in turn, has provided the flexibility and time to be able to pursue a number of other personal interests: extended travel, learning a new language, writing online, launching a few indie projects, and picking up a couple of other new hobbies.
having freedom over my daily routine is more valuable than any annual raise or hefty bonus that I ever received in my former corporate life.
October 20
🎧 Bill Gates on How to Tax the Rich, AI, Misinformation, & the Election - On with Kara Swisher
Bill Gates’ Netflix show
What's Next, the Future with Bill Gates, and it's about some of the biggest issues we face at the moment. AI, disinformation, global health, the wealth gap, and how technology could help... Or not. It's a funny and substantive series by Morgan Neville, who did docs like Won't You Be My Neighbor?, about Mr. Rogers, Roadrunner about Anthony Bourdain, and 20 Feet From Stardom, which garnered him an Oscar. It's a good match since Neville got Gates to actually use his own experiences as case studies in some of the episodes. It's surprisingly intimate actually, and I actually really liked it. I didn't think it would be as good as it was, and it really is, especially for people who don't know a lot about these topics.
How malaria was gotten rid of in the US
Yeah so what you have to do is get rid of 90% of the mosquito population and so the reinfection rate you slow it down enough that you can test and treat and if you go through a bunch of low seasons Where you've done that this is what happened in the the U.S. We had a lot of malaria but at the time you could spray DDT on the ponds and that decimated mosquito populations. And so, because of winter's low seasons, we actually got to zero. We're trying to create the equivalent in places like Nigeria, where, you know, as a child, you have a one in six chance of dying before the age of five.
🎧 Kamala's Media Blitz, Elon's Giant Leap, and Guest Chris Urmson by Pivot Pod
Chris Urmson: my expectation is that if you are driving a truck today and you want to retire driving a truck, you're going to be able to do that. But in the interim, what we're going to see is more automation come in to support the logistic industry. And that over time, there'll be less and less people that actually do this job because in the same way we have fewer and fewer saddle makers than we had way back in the day. And if you look at, there was a study by the Department of Transportation and they see that this technology is actually going to grow the U.S. Economy. And I think the irrelevant metaphor is if you think about what happened with the automated teller in banks, that originally there was this concern, okay, that's going to kill, you know, The banking industry. There won't be people to work there. And the automated teller actually came in. And what it did was it allowed the, it reduced the cost of operating a bank to the point where they could open more branches. And it moved the people that were the tellers from basically a cost center to a profit center. Instead of standing there to count out your dollar bills, they were now offering, you know, helping customers with new financial services.
October 19
📰 Is It Time to Rethink How Much You Drink? - Harvard Health
Light-to-moderate drinkers tend to be educated and relatively well-off, so they’re more likely to have heart-healthy habits that may explain their lower risk.
🎧 8 Reasons Why Traveling Alone Is the Ultimate Path to Self-Discovery & Why You Should Take a Solo Trip - On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Travel solo to figure out what you want
And that might even be a great way for you to discover what you might want. And when you're doing this, here's a tip that I'd love for you to practice. And it may feel weird at first, but give it a go. When you're thinking about what you want, don't try and make a choice. Just sit with it for a second and see how both experiences feel in your body at this time. So let's say you're trying to choose between a city break or a beach break. Just sit with that for a second and see how thinking about a city break feels in your body and see how thinking about a beach break feels in your body. What I love about this approach is that not only are you becoming more self-aware, you're actually gaining the ability to tune in to what you need. And what I'm trying to say here is that we often kind of label ourselves as beach people, city people, country people, whatever else it may be. And the truth is your body and mind may need something different right now. This is a great check-in system. I'd love for you to try it out.
Solo travel to learn how to read a room
What I mean by this is can you read a room? I find that when you're surrounded by people you're used to being surrounded by, you're no longer reading the room, you're predicting the room.
October 18
📰 A Message From the Past by Morgan Housel
It’s hard to remember how you felt when you know how the story ends.
Thomas Jefferson said, “How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.”
The past wasn’t as good as you remember. The present isn’t as bad as you think. The future will be better than you anticipate.
📰 Statistics Are People, Too. by
But flawed as it is, the news is ultimately stories about us, and I believe we still have a responsibility to make some sense of it and decide which stories are important. The stories we tell create the world we live in. What we celebrate is what we value, and what we ignore is what we normalize. Finding reasons to celebrate is arguably as important as doing the hard work worth celebrating.
📰 Finding Your Aristotelian Friends by
At the turn of the century, American political scientist Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone, a book that took a hard look at the state of the American community.
In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle identified three forms of friendship:
1. Friendships of utility: relationships that hinge on mutual benefit with an explicit gain to be made from one another, often in the form of a business partnership
2. Friendships of pleasure: what we think of as platonic friendship where pleasure is the root of the relationship and the bond exists to experience shared interests or hobbies
3. Friendships of virtue: relationships of mutual respect, admiration, and a shared commitment to cultivating one another’s moral and intellectual development
📰 Stop Missing Out on New Friendships by
Four steps to becoming a people person
1) Make the first move
Even a short message or a follow-up after a meeting can spark a small, meaningful connection that grows over time. Think of it as exposure therapy for your inner hermit.
2) Call out a strength
Make it specific, genuine, and unconditional—let them take it or leave it.
3) Notice and acknowledge In your next interaction, simply notice something insightful the other person says and acknowledge it.
4) Be bold Don’t hesitate to ask for what you want—whether it’s advice, a collaboration, or simply a conversation.
🎥 My NEW Planner! by AmandaRachLee
The ability to create without guilt of timelines and logistics and capacity and bandwidth just felt like weight was lifted off my shoulders. I really allowed myself to think big and dream big for the planners this year and for stuff that's coming out that you guys haven't even seen yet. That's why making these planners changed my life.
October 13
🎧 Rachel Maddow and Billy Corben on Mobsters, Russia, Trump and the 2020 Election - On with Kara Swisher
LA is where you go when you want to be somebody. New York is where you go when you are somebody.
October 12
🎧 Geopolitics, Power, and Solutions — With Rory Stewart - Prof G Markets
Why we should be giving people in poverty straight up cash
That there are basically two models in the world. And it's caught up in this phrase, teach someone to fish, they can eat for a lifetime, give them a fish, they eat for a day.
A lot of the fashion in international development for very understandable reasons has been not about giving people things, but instead about giving them training, knowledge, Capacity building.
Cash is very radical because it's an action of radical humility. You're essentially saying, these people have a better idea about their lives and priorities than I do, and I'm going to get out of the way and give them what they really want, which is Cash.
Why does it work? Evidence is very striking. Hundreds of randomized control trials demonstrating the impact. My guess for why it works is that firstly, it's much more flexible. I think the second thing that it does quite powerfully is it's generally much more efficient. I mean, if I give you the cash to fix your own roof in a very poor community, you can probably get it done for about $150. If I bring in a nonprofit, we'd have to bring in engineers, we'd survey your house, we'd procure your roof, we'd do all these studies, and we'd end up spending many thousands of dollars, Almost only for similar impact. And then I guess somewhere at the bottom of it is the sense that in many cases people already have the knowledge. They already know what business they want to run. They just lack the capital to get that business off the ground. So those three things together, I think, are the ingredients that makes cash so effective.
Where is the UK headed politically?
The first really big date is at 2005, when 2005 the British economy is still bigger than the Chinese economy, not very long ago. Nineteen years ago, the UK had a bigger economy than China. Now the Chinese economy is about seven times us. So that's the first big fact. Our relative power in the world has changed very dramatically. And it's concealed from us because we've gone from being the fourth largest economy in the world to being the fifth largest economy in the world. But in relative terms, the shift has been off the scale.
Second date, I think, is 2010 when a Conservative government was elected, which has been in for the last 14 years and was only finally kicked out by a more left-wing Labour government That came in, just in an election just under 100 days ago. And they came in after the financial crisis, and their watchword was austerity. So they tried to reduce the debt and deficit, they cut government spending very dramatically. As you can imagine, there's a huge argument between conservatives and people on the other side about whether that was the right thing to do for the economy or not.
Next date, 2016, Britain votes to leave the European Union. That removes us from being part of a single marketer customs union with our largest trading partner.
Next date, I guess, that matters is 2020, when we get into one of the most aggressive COVID lockdowns in the world, far more so than the US. I mean, people were kind of shopping their neighbours for gathering in groups of more than three at a barbecue outdoors. And we're still calculating the cost of that, but it probably cost the British government about £400 billion. So a really significant chunk of government expenditure annually is about a trillion. So about 40% of annual government expenditure was spent on the COVID response.
Then the final thing has been demography. So when we set up a welfare state before the First World War, there were 20 working people for every one retired person. Today, there are just under three working people for every one retired person. We're living longer and longer.
October 11
🎧 Should We Be Religious? - Staying up with Cammie and
Being impatient doesn’t make something come sooner. It just makes you kind of wish death sooner
Because you're literally like, I want time to pass now. Because I can't do anything like this. So stupid. But like we're waiting on these tiles to come to our house so that they can finish the basement so that I can have my basement again.
October 10
📰 We Need to Talk by
Here are a few questions to get you started:
How often should we stay in touch, and what's the best way—texts, Zoom calls, carrier pigeons?
Are you glued to your phone, or is a delayed response your style?
What's your typical day like? Are there times when you're off the grid?
October 9
🎥 Film Is Getting Too Expensive... Now What? by Sunny Sixteen
Taylor's Black & White rolls: Cinestill BWXX, Ilford HP5, smaller brands e.g. Japan Camera Hunter Street Pan BW
📰 The Incredible Science Behind Eliud Kipchoge's 1:59 Marathon by WIRED’s Matt Burgess
A group of seven pacemakers were in front of Kipchoge in a V formation. Kipchoge was placed at the bottom of the formation with two pacemakers running behind him. During the run the pacemakers worked in teams to rotate in and out of the race during each of the 9.6km laps of the course. They changed positions at the finish line on each lap.
📰 Your Secret Weapon to Achieving Goals Faster by Ali Abdaal
In 2019, marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge made history as the first person to complete a marathon in under two hours. But he didn’t do it alone.
He had a team of 41 pacemakers, including Olympic medalists, who helped him keep the perfect pace and stay focused throughout the race.
📰 The Man I'll Be for My Son by
My son won’t see me as a job title, the owner (or not) of our house, or by the purchasing power I have for toys and vacations. He won’t see status or accomplishments, only the grooves worn into my character from the ways that I choose to act in the world.
He will emulate many heroes throughout his life, but I have the privilege and responsibility of going first.
📰 Quarterly Author Update: October 2024 by
Scribe has some great data on this, where they say the average nonfiction book sells 3,000 copies in its lifetime, and they aim to sell 1,000 in the first three months.
📰 To Make a Snow Angel on a Stranger's Grave by
A year ago I wrote what I called “a new kind of bucket list.” It wasn’t an index of wild adventures. It required no bungee jumps, wingsuits, or hot air balloons. Instead, I listed my emotional dreams, goals for my spirit and perspective in this lifetime. A few things on that list were:
To know what lives at the root of my fear. To weed that garden until only truth blooms.
To see exactly what parts of me are comforted by other people’s approval and comfort those parts myself instead.
To know that shame can’t live in the light, and let the light fall wherever I am hiding.
To interrupt my judgments, criticisms, and blames knowing they are almost always trying to distract me from my own pain.
To see people as a mystery, especially those I know best.
A quote I recently heard by Suleika Jaouad (a writer who is also living with cancer) shares this same essence. Suleika says, “Rather than living every day as if it’s my last, I’ve shifted to a gentler approach of living every day as if it’s my first. I want to wake up and meet the day with the wonder of a newborn, to cultivate childlike qualities like curiosity and play.”
My bucket list of little things aims to live every moment as if it’s my first.
📰 Letters From Esther: The Art of Erotic Communication by Esther Perel
“You said, ‘You haven’t looked at me like that in months.’ Imagine if instead you had said: ‘I love when you look at me like that.’”
October 8
📰 Stitching Time: How My Grandmother's Quilt Inspired My 1000-Day Plan by
“Publish already!” was a message that I leaned into. Jane Austen died at age 41. John O’Donohue died in his sleep two days after his 52nd birthday. Enough with the wordsmithing. If I have something to say, I should get on and say it.
📰 On the Knife's Edge of Hope and Despair by
I remember the day I surrendered to helplessness with Spencer. He’d been arrested and detained under the Baker Act — another 72 hours of stability that dissolved the minute he was released.
I still have to remind myself that my helplessness was real — that my surrender wasn’t giving up on Spencer but a conscious and deliberate act of brotherhood.
📰 Don't Let This Hold You Back... by Matt D’Avella
One of the most valuable skills you can develop as a creator, whether you write essays or make YouTube videos, is learning how to turn the ordinary into something special. And honestly, THAT is the fun part.
📰 Painting a Film-Noir Streetscape by
So, here are some tips for painting a film-noir-style street scene:
Composition: Noir is often characterized by dramatic compositions. If there’s a figure, put it in shadow or silhouette. Use leading lines, such as buildings, streets, or shadows, to draw the viewer's eye into the scene. Consider the use of strong diagonals and asymmetrical balance to create tension.
Value Range: It helps to use a wide range of values and organize them into a light mass and a dark mass. Pay attention to how light interacts with the forms in your scene, particularly the play of streetlights or other light sources cutting through the darkness. Don’t be afraid to throw big areas into shadow
Atmospheric Effects: Incorporate elements that enhance the noir atmosphere, like fog, rain, or reflections. These effects can add depth and intrigue to the scene.
Enhance Your Palette: You can introduce subtle hues in the lights or shadows (like a hint of blue in the shadows, or a yellow-green cast to a streetlight). That can make it feel like full color while maintaining that monochromatic scheme.
Play with Edges: In noir films, the use of hard and soft edges adds a sense of mystery and depth. Vary your brushwork to achieve this effect—some areas can be sharply defined while others are softer and more blended.
📰 What Migrating Geese Taught Me About Making Major Life Decisions by
But sometimes, you have to do the irrational thing that your soul wants you to do. Like wild geese following the instincts that drive them on their yearly migrations, you have to quit the job, move abroad, elope, or whatever it is that your intuition is telling you.
You won’t ever read the most important thing a writer can know, that grammar is logic.
For that, you are better off reading books like the various grammar guides, Tufte’s Syntax as Style, Fowler’s Modern English, Forsyth’s Elements of Eloquence, or any other primer of rhetoric. Read as many of these as you need to so that you can practice the techniques you find there. And of course, read as much actual good writing as possible. The best writing advice is actually reading advice.
October 7
🎧 How to Master Your Emotions in 90 Seconds & Save Yourself From Regret - On Purpose with Jay Shetty
90s = 27 deep breaths
Three deep breaths take about 10 seconds. So in 90 seconds we can take 27 deep breaths. This is a great number to count up to, to put it in your mind's eye. Count to 27 as you breathe in and breathe out. This 90 second rule allows you to understand that chemically, if you allow this to pass in 90 seconds, you have the ability now to truly choose how you respond.
Use a timer for the 90s rule
Here's the way I want you to think about how to actually put the 90 second rule into practice. The first thing is set a timer. When you're going through something like this, set a timer and watch that countdown. It's almost like doing a plank. If you've ever done plank position in a workout and you know you've got 60 seconds, 90 seconds to do it, and you're just waiting there, you might be in pain. You might be sucking in your core and then trying to loosen it. You might be trying to cheat a little bit on the sides but you're sticking it out for those ninety seconds treated that way. Turn on a timer have a ninety second time are ready to go so that you know you're allowing the chemicals to go down naturally.
In first 90s if we react, we’re extending anxiety, stress, pain
Those first ninety seconds you call someone, you tell them how it's going, you now exacerbate it. Right? You start texting someone frantically, you now exacerbate it. So we're constantly extending our overwhelm. We're constantly extending our anxiety, extending our stress, advancing our pain, when actually we could deal with it in a much more healthy way.
Internal weather reporting
The next thing is Take a moment to do what I call an internal weather report Right. Where's it feeling cloudy? Where's it feeling rainy? Remember? We're not avoiding our emotions. We're feeling them. We're letting them be there We're just not acting on them. That's the difference, right? We're just not reacting. We're allowing time to go past so that we can respond. If you act straight after experiencing something, that is a reaction to what happened. If you allowed the 90 seconds to pass, you now received it and now you're responding. I think another great tool is to check in with your body. It's asking yourself, what's going on in my body right now? What am I thinking about? How am I feeling? You're almost learning to observe your body and mind. This also allows us to not make it personal. Often the reason why we react so frantically, aggressively, passionately is because we take everything very personally. These 90 seconds allow for you to not make it personal and just observe yourself experiencing these emotions and especially notice the physical and mental emotions you experience.
Noticing & naming emotions
A lot of us don't realize when we pretend like we're not experiencing anything it actually gets stored in the body and we don't want that to happen we don't want stress to get stored in The body. I've already mentioned inhaling and exhaling can actively relax tense areas of the body and mind. And this is probably one of my favorite ways. Noticing and naming the emotion is a really important thing. I found that being able to label how you feel, especially things that come about more often than others, is a really healthy way.
Relabeling “bad” emotions
I know that before I go on stage, I often feel nervous, but I call that my stage nervousness. I know that that's my anxiety that I'm experiencing because I care about what's happening so I've labeled it care anxiety.
90s is slowing down, observe things in slow motion
When you're driving fast, you miss everything. When we're moving fast, when we stay busy, when we ignore these 90 seconds, we keep moving fast. You will miss so many signals from your body. Every day we miss so many signals from our body. Every day we miss so many signals from our mind. Because every day our body and mind is trying to protect us, trying to help us, and trying to encourage us to learn. But we miss out on all of that because we're moving fast. Because we're moving at a pace where we believe we can't slow down. And for this 90 seconds, when you choose to just slow down for 90 seconds, you stop yourself reacting from a fast car. And instead you learn to respond in slow motion. It's almost like when you're in slow motion, you can actually see things for what they are.
Too used to dive deep into pain, swim shallow in pleasure
We've practiced over and over and over again to dive deep into our pain and swim shallow in our pleasure. Right? We actually swim shallow when it comes to amazing experiences. Maybe you'll post on social media, maybe you'll share one line. You have a very shallow experience with the good things in your life and a very deep experience with the bad things in your life. Try to take a moment to acknowledge today the good that you've done. I'm sure it was so easy at the end of the day to judge yourself, to shame yourself and to guilt yourself at the end of the day. I'm sure it was so easy to make yourself feel bad. I wish I did that better. I could have done that better. I made a mistake on that. I should have been smarter. I should have been faster. I should have been quicker. Why didn't I know that? Right, this is how we talk to ourselves. We're so good at making ourselves feel bad, but making yourself feel bad will never lead to you doing good.
📰 Chromatic Shadows by
If you have two light sources of different colors shining on the same form, the cast shadow from each light source will be the color of the other source.
October 4
🎧 OpenAI’s Exodus, the Rise of Palantir, and the Longshoremen’s Strike - Prof G Markets
One of the questions was, I have an offer to go run AI at a Fortune 500 company that's not that prestigious, or I can take a much more junior role at OpenAI. And I'm like, Oh, go to OpenAI. When, when there's a rocket ship taking off, even if you have a shitty seat in economy, you get on the rocket ship. And you'll be branded for the rest of your life as someone who worked at OpenAI in the fairly early days, which is like getting an MBA from Wharton or Stanford.
October 2
Chris Gethard once worked on a book on the Amtrak
I even once took an Amtrak train from New York City to Savannah and I worked on a book the whole time. And then I stayed in Savannah and I would wake up in the morning and I'd go to one coffee shop and then I'd walk through the park and passed a bunch of squares up to another coffee shop and I'd have lunch there. And I worked all day on my book and it was lovely.
October 1
🎥 Is Bigger Really Better? Medium Format vs Full Frame - Sunny Sixteen podcast
Taylor’s medium-format digital camera: Fujifilm GFX50SII
just the standard profile coming out of the GFX it's like these colors the the gradation between highlights and shadows is so much butter it's so butter it's insane
Lens: 50mm, f3.5. The one that I'm loving right now is the 50mm / So is that like a 35? / I believe so yeah. So the 50 I have, it's a 3.5. I love shooting with that lens. I don't need any more from it. It's perfect. I [also] have have a 110 which is an f2 and a 80 which is a 1.7 and those are madness to shoot.
I used both of them on a portrait shoot and it was slow. I was missing focus a lot. So those actually were a lot more frustrating on medium format. I will say though, when I did get the right focus and nail it, it was definitely worth it. But the experience with it, I feel like I was slogging through those shots with those lenses. It seems like the next generation of technological advancements is going to come with medium format.
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Thanks a big October! Thanks for including me in the list.
I'm going to check the proposal out - I'm a big fan of space novels after the three body series.
Thanks
1. for including me in your list again, Becky
2. for creating and curating this list so that I can discover new authors and ideas to explore.
Every edition. Without fail!