Uri Bram on 80/20 weight loss: “Still, as with ~other entries in this series~, the people who care deeply about stuff are often unwilling to write up an 80/20 version of it, so you get me instead.” Petition for Uri to become the 80/20 guy. This is a good lane for you, Uri!
How to be good at dating <- applicable to things besides just dating! Breaking the problem down and then actually changing behavior to get different results works surprisingly well provided you’re willing to do it. Often success doesn’t come to us the way we want to receive it. I can’t remember where I read this, but somewhere someone posted about how Harry Potter ruined a generation of children because he just wakes up one day and finds out that he’s this ridiculously special wizard, when in reality it’s Hermione we should be admiring because has to work to be great. If you know who wrote this and can point me to it, come find me!
Musings
17. If you can’t say “no” easily, you can’t be trusted.
Loving this deep dive on Hyman Rickover by ChinaTalkand Charles Yang. A couple quotes:
Rickover spent an inordinate amount of time focused on interviewing personnel — he made the final hiring decision for every naval officer who applied to serve on a nuclear submarine until he retired
Another Rickoverian approach was his famous “Quaker meetings”. When disputes arose between the Naval Reactors and the contractor, or when trust had become frayed over too many disagreements and miscommunications, Rickover would send his staff and the contractor staff to a retreat location for a weekend, a week, or however long as needed. They would meet with no parliamentary procedures or formal meeting agenda and simply talk out their issues until they could “deal with each others as individuals, not as spokesman for either organization” and come to a consensus on a path forward and build mutual trust.
Some other themes that stood out:
Parallel tracking wherever there is risk (technical risk, bureaucratic risk)
A focus on consensus building
Focused on finding talent
Demanding of that talent
High trust relationships
I’m repeatedly struck by how the leadership style of the generation of Americans that lived through the Second World War. It seems more pragmatic, demanding, and less hierarchical / political.
Set in a noir version of post Spanish Civil War Barcelona where somehow everyone is one degree removed from a brilliant yet fantastically unsuccessful author.
The making of Richard Scarry. Cars and Trucks and Things That Go has been the book of the year in my house, so I loved this behind the scenes look at how the book and its author came to be. Even better that much of it was written in my beloved Switzerland.
So what are the lessons we can learn? It doesn’t always help to be right. Ideas aren’t easy to implement without the right combination of technology, attitudes, and luck. The work is what’s important, not the result. Maybe the cranks who fill their houses with cart loads of ephemera aren’t so crazy. Don’t make political trouble. Get a PR department. Have a partner who can do these things if you can’t. Be in the right place at the right time. Don’t get cynical, or as Churchill said, don’t let the bastards grind you down. Keep working. Philosophical and ethical beliefs matter a lot to what work you do and how you do it. Don’t be so pragmatic you end up being a conformist. Conventional schooling isn’t always the best approach for your children. Worry less about imaginative young people becoming lawyers. Being bored might give them the opportunity they need to have their big idea.
A great critique of Seeing like a State from Slate Star Codex. I’m like 1/3 of the way through the book and fully buying Scott’s arguments. Now I feel like someone has revealed the magicians trick.
The model is the product. I’m not sure this is correct but the hypothesis is clear and it made me think. I’m not sure I’m ready to bet against generalist scaling, but this was a compelling case that specialized models effectively are the application layer for AI.
Individual posts now have related posts at the bottom of them, leveraging the infrastructure I built for Search. I’m excited to see what serendipity this sparks. Let me know what you think!
Henrik Karlsson on Constraints. “Have you walked face-first into the wall to see if it is a chalk line?” We are all trapped in our preconceptions of what our ideal life needs to be like.
The skill of troubleshooting by Autodidacts via The Browser. A great deep dive into how to be a better troubleshooter and also a fantastic example of a meta skill that we probably all have under developed, reminiscent of Oliver Trimboli’s work on Listening. A favorite quote from the post: “Treating a system like the enemy makes it one.”
Taylor Swift's security practices around her songs before they're released are literally airgap. Ed Sheeran is one of her closest friends in the world. She didn't override anything for him. Because security is a systemic risk and he is a target.