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What I learned last week

What I learned last week (#63)

Art projects are like little fires:

Here are four recent ones.

Four little fires

Quote I was thinking about this week:

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

Peter Drucker

Subscriptions are only going to get more ubiquitous: That everything is seemingly behind a paywall is frustrating with news and science, it might not be a bad thing entirely in the long run:

Today, there seems to be a larger integration happening across-the-board, for everyone. All of us, in one form or another, will have no choice but to practice self-sponsorship. Imagining a future where Twitter and Instagram have private monthly subscription options for users with locked accounts doesn’t seem that far off. Maybe certain platforms offer package deals. For $10 a month on YouTube, you choose which five creators you want to subscribe to, of which they get a cut.

This new reality is less about everyone transforming into their own brand or even becoming an independent contractor at the whims of a mercurial gig economy—it will be the very basis for life, or at least livelihood. It’s the creation of a future in which we can never afford to stop working, or better yet, where work doesn’t actually feel like work. Most people will still have the kind of jobs they have now, but living them will provide the additional capital they need to get by, as each person’s life just becomes another upload into someone else’s feed. This shift will completely change how we define labor, and what it means to generations who come after us, remapping their relationship to the internet and its many resources.

https://www.wired.com/story/everyone-is-a-subscription

The difference between men and women:

Brought to life in the form of a poem by Neil Gaiman along with a pretty animated short.

Titled “The Mushroom Hunters,” lovingly addressed to Neil’s newborn son Ash…the poem went on to win the Rhysling Award for best long poem and has now been brought to new life in a soulful short film…

Read the full poem here:

The Mushroom Hunters: Neil Gaiman’s Subversive Feminist Celebration of Science and the Human Hunger for Truth, in a Gorgeous Animated Short Film

Book excerpt I enjoyed:

“Instead of running from our emotions or being swept away by their initial gusts, we should learn to sit with them, become at peace with their unique flavors, and ultimately discover deep pools of inspiration. I have found that this is a natural process.” (Josh Waitzkin, The Art of Learning)

It’s the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top:

Some inspiration from one of my favorite books.

The side of the mountain

What I was thankful for last week:

  • A note I found in the car that Vivian wrote for me the day earlier while we were sitting listening to music and waiting for Kav to get back from grocery shopping. It simply read “I love you”.
  • Reading The Naughtiest Unicorn lying in bed with Vivi after school, her with a hot chocolate and me with a cup of coffee. Can’t think of anything better to spend a late afternoon doing.
  • Got to go to Kav’s spinning class with her on Monday. Good to do something a) with just Kav and I, b) exercise other than running, and c) do it with a group which definitely brings out my competitive side.

Lastly, check out what we’re up to now.

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What I learned last week

What I learned last week (#59)

I’ve been listening to a lot of country music this week: Here are some new ones I’ve been enjoying, courtesy of Greg Vandy’s 2019 best albums list:

Daniel Norgren – Wooh Dang

Jake Xerxes Fussell – Out of Sight

No one can explain why airplanes stay in the air:

I had no idea that there were competing theories that attempt to explain how flying works. Even Einstein has had a go at it to no avail:

In 1917, on the basis of his theory, Einstein designed an airfoil that later came to be known as a cat’s-back wing because of its resemblance to the humped back of a stretching cat. He brought the design to aircraft manufacturer LVG (Luftverkehrsgesellschaft) in Berlin, which built a new flying machine around it. A test pilot reported that the craft waddled around in the air like “a pregnant duck.” Much later, in 1954, Einstein himself called his excursion into aeronautics a “youthful folly.” The individual who gave us radically new theories that penetrated both the smallest and the largest components of the universe nonetheless failed to make a positive contribution to the understanding of lift or to come up with a practical airfoil design.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/no-one-can-explain-why-planes-stay-in-the-air/

Favorite book excerpts this week:

Related to the article about flight above:

“…what exists within the area of “not knowing” is so much greater and more exciting than anything any one of us knows.” (Ray Dalio, Principles)

Potential explantation for why I don’t have a lot of close friendships at the moment 😉:

“You must have a good time meeting people if you expect them to have a good time meeting you.” (Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People)

How to not take things personally:

How to stop taking things personally

Cal Newport on the differentiation of YouTube as a platform for creatives:

YouTube, unlike its peers in the pantheon of social media giants, really can act like a platform. Though it still offers a purposefully addictive and creepily-surveilled user experience at YouTube.com (few rabbit holes run deeper than those excavated by their algorithmically-enhanced autoplay suggestions), the service also allows its videos to be embedded in third-party websites, enabling it to behave like an actual platform that can support a wide array of non-affiliated communities.

I was thinking about this the other day when visiting Tested.com, a technology-oriented web site, primarily built around original videos hosted on YouTube.

Tested.com is a cool site and an example of how smaller websites (even personal ones like this) can make a big impact by leveraging other platforms.

The Platform Exceptionalism of YouTube

A reminder that we should treat our elders, and anyone else for that matter, well:

Surrounded by smiles and good humor

Five of the world’s weirdest auroras:

I had no idea that there were so many different types of nothing lights.

Here are 5 of the weirdest auroras, including the newly spotted ‘dunes’

Handy list of icebreaker questions: From Rob Walker’s Art of Noticing newsletter.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j4rj883slFvh1zZLGedqQFM0wqCrHlIEPE62K0LkKak/mobilebasic

Something I’m grateful for:

The way Kav always includes the kids in decision making. She’s always seemingly able to use deft judgement on how and when to include the kids in decisions large and small that we have to make that effect them. They learn by example.

Lastly, check out what we’re up to now.

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What I learned last week

What I learned last week (#56)

Hand holding a paintbrush. Illustration.

Book excerpt I loved:

“The professional tackles the project that will make him stretch. He takes on the assignment that will bear him into uncharted waters, compel him to explore unconscious parts of himself.” (Steven Pressfield, The War of Art)

Some thoughts about what being the best means.

Being the best

The 2019 reading re-cap from Tim Ferriss: I am a subscriber and still missed a lot of these. I enjoyed the discussion of his process (of course) at the outset.

The Best Books and Articles I Read in 2019

I need to try Copic markers: I’ve seen these on the shelf and have never tried them. This illustraion looks amazing though, and made me put them on my wish list.

Copic Marker Challenge: Recreating Rembrandt's masterpiece The Night Watch

Some modern inspiration from a well-executed idea about un-modern tech: Primitive technology is a YouTube + WordPress site about primitive technology. From the About page:

Primitive technology is a hobby where you make things in the wild completely from scratch using no modern tools or materials. This is the strict rule. If you want a fire- use fire sticks, an axe- pick up a stone and shape it, a hut- build one from trees, mud, rocks etc. The challenge is seeing how far you can go without modern technology. If this hobby interests you then this blog might be what you are looking for.

He has millions of views on YouTube and, ironically, a really low-tech simple site.

https://primitivetechnology.wordpress.com/

Two great places to find free images: There are so many great resources for art in the public domain. Here are two more that I could peruse for hours:

  1. Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/collection?is_public_domain=1
  2. Paris Museums: http://parismuseescollections.paris.fr/en

We’re nearing the end of the open internet:

​At some point in the next decade, the Chinese government, with the support of Russia and other authoritarian regimes, will move forward with plans to establish a separate root system for their share of the internet. When the split happens, we will mark it as the end of the global internet era. When the history of that event is written, we will identify a series of seminal events in 2019 that were harbingers of what was to come.​

-from News Items.

https://www.cfr.org/blog/2019-beginning-end-open-internet-era

New tool for calendar scheduling: Calendly is great for not only scheduling meetings, but if you run a business that requires your customers to make appointments, you can embed it on your site, take payments for meetings via PayPal and automatically create online meeting links.

https://calendly.com/

Having the right materials at the right time is important: Rainy days are no match against the well-prepared art project.

Rainy day watercolors

What Will Happen In The 2020s: A short but sweet set of predications about the next decade.

What Will Happen In The 2020s

What I was grateful for last week:

  • The feeling at end of the day after a good days work. The good type of empty.
  • The brief bit of sunshine makes all the difference on a afternoon run. It changes everything.
  • The sunrise on a weekend morning.

Lastly, check out what we’re up to now.

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What I learned last week

What I learned last week (#24)

Favorite book excerpt: I finally got around to reading this and finished it last week. Great read.

We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

from Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

More thinking on right to repair and sustainability in tech: The AirPods are a tragedy offers a great perspective on where we are and what we should be thinking about. I’m also listening to music on wireless Bluetooth headphones as I write this. :/ (Thanks to Ben Tamblyn) 

Thoughts on reading, taking notes and remembering: I came across quite a few different tips for reading (non-fiction) last week, some in opposition to each other. I’m thinking about putting some of these into practice:

  1. A framework for taking notes and reviewing/revisiting them in The Top 3 Most Effective Ways to Take Notes While Reading
  2. The book How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
  3. Kevin Systrom’s system of first reading the table of contents to understand the basic structure, then reading the last paragraph of a section/chapter and the end of the book to get the basic arguments, then reading normally (assuming the interest is there). From Kevin Systrom — Tactics, Books, and the Path to a Billion Users.
  4. Naval Ravikant’s system of not taking notes, of scanning books and jumping into the parts that sound interesting, and of not worrying about finishing a book or even reading most of it, especially if it only has one main idea or is not particularly well crafted. From Naval Ravikant: The Angel Philosopher.

Men and parenting article that hits home: What ‘Good’ Dads Get Away With made me reflect on my complicities in our family dynamic. (Hat tip to Marcus Purvis)

Quote I was thinking about:

“What you do matters, but why you do it matters much more.”

Anonymous
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What I learned last week

What I learned last week (#22)

The right to repair movement: I wasn’t tracking this until recently, but Right to Repair is a National Issue.

All that unfixable stuff doesn’t disappear when we are forced to replace it. It piles up. Electronic waste is the fastest growing part of our waste stream. It is often toxic and poses grave health risks. The increase in this kind of waste is fed both by the growing number of products with electronics in them and the shrinking lifespan of those products. A 2015 study found that “the proportion of all units sold to replace a defective appliance grew from 3.5% in 2004 to 8.3% in 2012, in what [researchers] deemed a ‘remarkable’ increase.”

I love the idea of making our devices serviceable, up-gradable and longer-lasting. I wonder if we’ll look back at the last decade or so as an era of lazy design, manufacturing and business practices as a result.

New blog that I’m reading: I heard about Shane Parrish and the Farnam Street blog (https://fs.blog) from a recent Making Sense podcast and it’s like discovering Wait But Why all over again, I can’t stop reading it. One idea/model that caught my attention was Understanding the Limitations of Maps.

Bill Bryson explains in A Short History of Nearly Everything, “such are the distances, in fact, that it isn’t possible, in any practical terms, to draw the solar system to scale. … On a diagram of the solar system to scale, with the Earth reduced to about the diameter of a pea, Jupiter would be over a thousand feet away, and Pluto would be a mile and half distant (and about the size of a bacterium, so you wouldn’t be able to see it anyway).”

Maps are furthermore a single visual perspective chosen because you believe it the best one for what you are trying to communicate. This perspective is both literal — what I actually see from my eyes, and figurative — the bias that guides the choices I make

Favorite book excerpt of last week:

“…having the intention to meditate is itself a meditation. This practice encourages you to arise an intention to do something kind and beneficial for yourself daily, and over time, that self-directed kindness becomes a valuable mental habit.”

from Chade-Meng “Meng” Tan’s section titled Three Tips from a Google Engineer in Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss

Quote I’m pondering:

“Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.”

Paul Coelho

New music I’m listening too while working: GoGo Penguin – A Humdrum Star. Artist info below.

GoGo Penguin are a band from Manchester, UK, featuring pianist Chris Illingworth, bassist Nick Blacka, and drummer Rob Turner. The band’s music features break-beats, minimalist piano melodies, powerful basslines, drums inspired from electronica and anthemic riffs. They compose and perform as a unit. Their music incorporates elements of electronica, trip-hop, jazz, rock and classical music.