https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/models-a-summ...
Alright, it's not really a blog post about dating, per se. It's more of a blog post about becoming the kind of person who maxes out their dateability, no matter what their starting physical/mental/spiritual condition.
It's hard to explain what reading this post did to me. There are a few times in my life where I consciously decided to switch life trajectories radically and become someone entirely different. First age 8, when I vowed to become an idiot. After reading this was the second one, age 24, where I vowed to become a sexy idiot. I printed it out at the college library and reread it every day at breakfast - a strategy I highly recommend to my fellow nimrods. And, voila, age 25 when I, the jester, moved countries with no passport, no job lined up, and no plan, to go live with the woman who I would eventually call my wife.
Now I'm her sexy idiot. Progress!
* Industrial Society and Its Future by Ted Kaczynski. The first half I reread often because it is a short critique of technology/technique and the effect that it has on our life. Though not original, it touches on this feeling that we are enslaved to our tools. It also reminds me that "no, i'm not crazy" this world is totally absurd and the way we live makes no sense. Obviously, if you take this philosophy to its natural extreme you need to go live in the woods and suffer. Which is kind of larping.
* This is Water by David Foster Wallace. I reread this and hand out copies of this book to people all the time. For me it speaks to the part of me that knows that it is important to choose wisely what you focus your thoughts on, because if I don't the automatic monologue in my head will take over. It will start with complaining. It will continue with painting everything black. It will make me misrable and incapable of enjoying the beauty in life.
I am trying to break out of these two book being so influential because I feel like to grow I need to evolve a new understanding and have new ideas to toy with.
Anyone have recommendation?
This article made me question if the author was describing my life rather than their own, so I went and got checked for ADHD. 2 years, a diagnosis, and a medication regime later, I'm absolutely fucking slaying it and it was this article that sparked the change.
I count Ravikanth as one of my gurus. From working as a professor in a medical school to starting up a small microSaaS, I attribute it all to Ravikanth who condensed everything one needs to know into a few tweets, followed by its expansion on his podcast.
Now, I preach seeking of Specific Knowledge to all my students and the principle of leveraging bots through programming as well as learning marketing no matter which field you belong to.
Like many young developers, I once aspired to be a game developer. But then I read a public letter by somebody at Origin Systems (possibly named Bill Armintrout?) who explained what a grind it is to work in the game industry and how [humorously] maybe he should just get a job working on boring business software instead.
I might have the details wrong; this was probably 30+ years ago! But it did make me aware that doing the thing you love for a day job can kill your love for that thing, which I have also seen happen to other people. So I focused my career on intellectually fulfilling work in a different industry, leaving me free to happily tinker with game development as a hobby in my spare time.
https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html
Highlights how short our lives actually are. This in turn is what gives our time value.
Made me realize that it's ok to be a slow thinker, and there is nothing wrong with me. It has it's own strengths and weaknesses. Whatever genetic lottery gave me I have to play with it
https://www.pbs.org/johngardner/sections/writings_speech_1.h...
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/03/06/a-quick-battle-field-g...
Less about the specifics of the battles being mentioned, but rather:
1. Battles can be real even if they don't involve actual physical fighting. If I, like the author of this post, am a pacifist, it's best if I try to stay disengaged or uninvolved.
2. Many people play a certain role in a battle, and it's helpful to understand what role a person is playing as you interact with them. That is, are they a soldier, a general, or a diplomat?
https://medium.com/raymmars-reads/7-reasons-why-you-will-nev...
Finally, reliable and valid summaries of nutritional science — with links to the actual research so you can fact check and decide for yourself.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/apr/20/cant-sl...
I'm so grateful for it.
EDIT: Originally this article was a blog post here (that's where I first read it): https://web.archive.org/web/20190703083843/http://www.oliver...
This made me realize I didn’t want to run the company I was running anymore. That my unhappiness was due to my company.
It also lead me to find 80,000 hours, explore jobs on techjobsforgood.com, and generally be more aware of myself.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230614053908/http://bookofhook...
This changed me from being lazy smartass to the very productive team lead.
https://www.datapacrat.com/Opinion/Reciprocality/r0/Day1.htm...
[1] https://autotranslucence.wordpress.com/2018/03/30/becoming-a...
What kind of life should it be that it is easily changed by random opinions of some random people...
Unless it is a blog post with a password to a huge Bitcoin wallet :)
We are collectively mentally ill
This book have all the knowledge one might need to understand distributed systems to a certain level. Many of the topics I refer from this book as and when I want to use those in real life applications. Recent one being 2 phase commits.
A primary literature review on the thesis that AI and capitalism are teleologically identical
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
It introduced me to the idea that most employees are "economic losers" who are "people who have struck bad bargains economically – giving up capitalist striving for steady paychecks." (At least in the early - middle life cycle of a company).
It encapsulates this as "The Gervais Principle":
Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves.
(The terminology is quite specific to the article - i.e. not sociopaths in the movie-cliche view).
I won't attempt to summarise the article here. Suffice to say it altered my thinking about future roles. Search HN for many prior discussions here of that post.