MNTS #3
MNTS #3
Cressey, Caro, Von Neumann, Vision Pro, Kindle [Week 22/ Year 2023]
Mainly, Notes To Self - my weekly attempt to compress everything noteworthy I read, watched, listened to, and discovered during the past week.
The Tim Ferris Show #675 - Eric Cressey
If you played baseball in So Cal in the 90s, you likely attended or were coached by a Mark Cressey School of Baseball disciple. This episode piqued my interest initially because I thought this would be Mark’s son, who had gone on to be a strength and conditioning coach working with major league ball players. It turns out that although they are both involved in major league baseball, they are unrelated. I digress. The episode was chalked full of interesting tidbits, mainly if you played baseball, as they discussed some baseball-specific injuries and movement pattern dysfunctions that were very relatable. After listening to this, I will find a local strength and conditioning specialist that will adequately assess my movement patterns and limitations.
Three things I’m stealing:
A classic example is a guy that sits at a computer all day and goes to the gym. He tries to press overhead, and his shoulder starts to bark at him. There's nothing inherently wrong with overhead pressing, but he might not have the proficiency even to get enough thoracic extension to get overhead safely. (🖐️ This is me)
Hanging from the pull-up bar and breathing three-count in, six-count out like I’m fogging up a mirror
Adding rotational, lateral, and single-leg movements into my warm-up routine
Founders Pod #305 - Working by Robert Caro
I haven’t read any of Robert Caro’s work, but that will undoubtedly change after listening to this episode. I don’t know that I’ll ever have the nerve to work on a single project with anything that approximates the intensity and tenacity Caro displays, but damn if it isn’t inspiring to learn about an individual like this. Senra is fired up; I’m
fired up. This was a timely thimble full of water on a plant that needed it. I’m looking forward to watching the documentary mentioned called Turn Every Page, about the 50-year relationship that Caro has had with his editor, and reading Working as a springboard into Caro’s writing.
Three things I’m stealing:
Excellence is the capacity to take pain.
Describing the need for ambitious people to be around other ambitious people. They bloom like dying plants given water.
Most ambitious people are starved for the sort of encouragement they'd get from ambitious peers. — Your boy is hungry
Deep Questions #250 - In defense of thinking
This podcast got my juices flowing. I’m excited to learn of another fascinating individual in John Von Neumann. I will definitely be exploring his life deeper as a result. Also, I think a lot. Like really a lot, probably too much. My wife refers to my ability to get lost in thought as being on Planet 9. I appreciated Newport arguing for more thinking and sharpening our thinking ability as a worthwhile pursuit.
Three things I’m stealing:
The knowledge sector struggles with evaluating the creative aspect of thinking, making it challenging to transform information into value. Thinking should be taken more seriously in business and rewarded. - This is one hundred percent true; if it can’t be measured objectively, most managers and leaders avoid evaluating their teams at the risk of being viewed as unfair. Amazon has the “how often are you right” heuristic as a criterion for upward mobility. I think this is smart and generally useful, but I can foresee HR, legal, and some lazy leaders and managers taking issue with such an approach.
The role of humans in algorithmic digital computation has shifted to mainly identifying essential problems and guiding programs toward solutions, devaluing individual human creativity and innovation in the process. Intelligence and original thinking have been pushed to the margins in the current work culture - I do recognize this to an extent and will be thinking about how to combat this.
Arnold Bennett's book 'How to Live on 24 Hours a Day' is an important early work on mind control, emphasizing concentration as the first element of a full existence in the face of suburban knowledge work commuter lifestyle. - This concept of our ability to concentrate or focus being under attack is something I think about and consciously work to combat. I appreciated learning that someone wrote a book on how modernity was ruining society’s ability to focus back in 1919. This shows that the older an idea is, the more likely it is to be true in the future. Lindy, AF.
Shout out to Tiago for getting a shout-out from Cal Newport. I’ve been a long-time reader of Tiagos blog Praxis (now Forte Labs) and have devoured all his free content on Building a Second Brain. I based my personal knowledge management system on Tiago’s ideas. I can’t recommend his offerings highly enough. Check out his book or new self-paced course if you are interested in the topic.
The concept of a 'second brain' to organize and analyze digital information has been popularized by Tiago Forte.
How Apple Builds the Future
I want to go on record saying that I genuinely hope that the Apple Vision Pro is not the future, super cool, but BLAH to a headset being as entangled with our every waking moment as the smartphone has become. However, this article was worth the read for the elite observational skills of Matthew Guay alone. Apple discretely incorporates new tech into existing products which is a brilliant approach to product development. The article inspired me to look more closely for these design easter eggs. I would describe what I’m looking for as an additive feature that is not being leveraged for its full capability. The example used in the article that drove this home for me was the following description of the addition of LiDAR in the iPad Pro when it launched in 2020.
“The breakthrough LiDAR Scanner enables capabilities never before possible on any mobile device.”
Yet the use cases were few and far between. It helped the built-in Measure app to take better measurements of your room, but it never seemed to be a truly needed feature on the iPad. As The Verge’s Dieter Bohn wrote at the time, you’re “paying for LiDAR you may not use.”
Please Make a Better Kindle
I love the Kindle, but man, could it be better. The keyboard UI is tragic, the OS is laggy, and highlighting with my finger is not nearly as seamless as possible. You get my point. I appreciate Dan Shipper’s ideas regarding dictionary and X-ray functionality; I frequently jump back and forth between books and find his suggestions highly useful.
Related - Why don’t book bundles exist? As someone who genuinely loves physical books and profoundly appreciates the ease of capturing insights and highlights on the Kindle, I would eagerly purchase a bundle of Physical/Digital/Audio formats. I suspect this is coming, and I’m eagerly looking forward to it.