MNTS #16
[Week 35/ Year 2023] Augustine of Hippo, Marchese, Senra, Armstrong, Moon Tower, Ferrazi, Culture Tutor, Akin, Sutherland, New Music, Tortilla Chips
Mainly, Notes To Self - my weekly attempt to compress everything noteworthy I read, watched, listened to, and discovered during the past week.
No new posts again this week, but I have a few drafts in the works and will be working on tidying those up and hitting publish soon. Onward!
Reading
The City of God by Augustine of Hippo I only made it through book five of ten before the Other Life meeting. However, it wasn’t for lack of time spent with the book. I found the book so good that, on multiple occasions, it provoked me to set it aside and start writing on the spot. I’m still working through some of my arguments, but I’ll be publishing them here in some form. I fully intend to finish reading, so highlights and notes will follow.
How to Live a Happy Life, From a Leading Atheist by David Marchese
“There’s no polite way of asking people to consider whether they’ve devoted their life to an illusion, but sometimes you have to ask it.”
Scientists Say New Device Can Scrub 99.9 Percent of Microplastics From Water This sounds too good to be accurate, but one can hope.
12 ideas from Don Valentine (founder of Sequoia by David Senra
There are two things in business that matter, and you can learn this in two minutes- you don’t have to go to business school for two years: high gross margins and cash flow. The other financial metrics you can forget.
The Internet Demands Greatness by Evan Armstrong
The inverted question this poses is crucial for startups and technologists: if nothing matters and no one cares, then how do I build things that matter? How do I make people care about them?
What’s the equivalent of “practicing scales” for other creative work?
Use Breaks To Bring Candor Into Meetings by Keith Ferrazzi
World-class teams embrace candor, do not tolerate backchannel conversations, and never throw their peers under the bus. They have shifted to an agreement to care enough about each other's success that nothing will be withheld from the team that might stand in the way finding the best solutions. When it comes to problems, world-class teams know that sunlight is the best disinfectant.
SITALWeek #408 by Brad Slingerlend
We appear to be in an ouroboros moment for the Fed, whereby their data delay is blinding them to the fact that their inflation-fighting policies are causing inflation. But, don’t hold your breath for the Fed to realize that, instead of catching the inflation bogeyman, they've sunk their fangs into their own tail end.
Areopagus Volume LXI by Culture Tutor - specifically section three on Hasui Kawase (Painter) and section four Anatomy of a Bavarian Street (Architecture)
Akin’s Laws of Spacecraft Design by Dave Akin - 45 broadly practical considerations and bits of wisdom.
Listening
Podcast
Since reading Sutherland’s book Alchemy, I’m always keen to hear what he’s up to (hat tip to m48257l for the book rec). This episode does not disappoint. I’m 2.5 hours in and have 30+ highlights to process. Side note: I can’t get over how good Rick Rubin’s podcast is. I feel as if I’m the intern sitting off to the side, getting to overhear two highly interesting, thoughtful masters of their craft talk shop. Lots of insights to be gleaned for certain.
Music
An unusually high volume of new music I’m excited about this week, in no particular order.
Random
I’ve been having fun making different types of salsa recently and testing different varieties of tortilla chips. These Siete tortilla chips are exceptional and quite possibly even better than what you can pick up from your local taqueria. The ingredients are squeaky clean to boot.
Until next week.
Stay spirited, stay resilient.
Andrew
No pressure, but this newsletter always compliments my Sunday morning latte. I'm definitely going to listen to that Sutherland episode. Appreciate you!