This book by Sam Quinones is a sequel to Dreamland in the way that a history of Weimar Germany is a sequel to a history of The Great War. It was not intended, no plot threads were left intentionally dangling. But the perpetual nature of history ("Nothing ever ends,
"We're 4 hours from home, and you want to adopt a cat?" The second half of 2019 was a bit of a blur. In July we'd gone to Washington, D.C. for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. When we got back,
The only way to be wholly content and happy doing something is if you have considered your alternatives and decided that doing this thing, right now is the highest possible use of your time. Skipping the consideration spoils it. Harboring resentment spoils it. Feeling forced to do it spoils it.
It's not very much weight on the bar. But, still. It's weight on the bar. When ego tells you "Just quit. This is beneath you." Don't listen.
It's natural that learning to do something yourself gives you a greater appreciation for those that have already done it. Building your own bookshelf makes you realize all the non-obvious challenges of carpentry and gives you respect for everyone else that has undertaken the same challenge before you.
Problem to be solved The reloading workbench is 24 inches deep, but I have just been using 12" milk crates to store things, and lost track of anything that got pushed behind them. The crates slide surprisingly poorly on the concrete, and don't hold that much stuff.
Replace contempt with condolence. If they knew better, they would do better.
When you experience discomfort, your natural response will be to ask "How can I stop this most quickly?" Instead, challenge yourself. "What would it take for me to reach my limit of this? Am I already at it? Can I go five minutes without showing a sign
I spent the better part of an hour today in a Slack discussion with coworkers about how to implement a feature ticket. We went back and forth, and fundamentally saw the issue two different ways. I didn't really see any way we could reconcile the two views. Either
Part 1 I was talking to a friend recently, and discussing the fact that he's managed to stick with one hobby (learning Japanese) while having another hobby that used to consume much of his time go untouched for years (recording music). What I realized as we talked, and
In 2004, Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article which, among other things, explores why there are hundreds of varieties of mustard, but only one type of ketchup. (I first encountered it in the printed collection "What The Dog Saw" which is, I think, Gladwell at his finest. Freed from
Today is my birthday. I've had a few of them before, but for some reason this one feels different. Of course, this is the first birthday I've had since becoming a father, but this feeling, I think, is larger than that. The best way I can
Eric Hoffer's The True Believer was published in 1951, six years after the end of World War II and two years before Stalin's death. Yet it presaged the current moment of identitarian tribalism (both on the woke left and the MAGA right) better than anything else
Essay
Re-reading the notes I wrote while reading Skin In The Game a few years I came across this, in response to something in the first chapter: Roman emperor charging into battle to face certain death is meaningful only in a setting of honor and institutions. It is folding your current
Essay
After finishing About Face by David Hackworth, my friend Gary renewed his recommendation of A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan. (I ended up with a copy that appears to be the first paperback edition, printed in 1989, with a sticker in the
It's becoming increasingly clear that infinite-scroll, algorithmic social media in its current incarnation is harmful to both the users that over-indulge, as well as countries filled with obsessive users. For an overview of some evidence, here's a snippet fron Jonathan Haidt's interview with Joe
Listening to Moxie Marlinspike on JRE, around 1h39m: "In a sense, I'm glad those things [social media] exist, because they're sort of what we wanted, but I think we underestimated how important the medium is, like the medium is the message kinda thing. What we
There is a type of humility, an admission of limitations, that is as rare as it's ever been on the internet. But for some reason, I'm finding it standing out to me more and more. It sounds something like, "Here's what I think
Imagine two people meeting for dinner at 6 at a restaurant neither of them has been to before. Harry is a busy man with a calendar full of meetings. Google Maps says it's a 27 minute drive to the restaurant. At 5:31 he gets in his car,
Eric Hoffer insisted that everyone needed time to think while your body was otherwise occupied. He famously wrote The True Believer, published in 1951, while working his job as a longshoreman on the docks of San Francisco. Unloading ships, mowing the lawn, or walking, whatever you do, you need quiet
A moment of contempt is like a cigarette. Each one is a buzz. But it's the accumulation of them that kills you.
Aphorism
The only way to an empty mind is not to push everything else out and decree silence. It is only by being open to every thought and allowing them to arise until they slow to a trickle. This may take a while, but it is quicker than the other option
There is a strange irony of difficult times like the current moment, when everyone expects everyone else to be tense and short-tempered. The podcasts, newsletters, and smartphone notifications say the world is coming apart at the seams. People expect bad things to happen. The result is that the slightest moment
I'm not sure what you were planning to do with the next 24 minutes (16 if you watch at 1.5 speed like I do with most talking-heavy videos) of your life, but I have a good suggestion: Smarter Every Day's video about building a supersonic