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Health and Wellness

March 2024 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

March 2024 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

Why you, personally, should want a larger human population

Resources are not static. Historically, as we run out of a resource (whale oil, elephant tusks, seabird guano), we transition to a new technology based on a more abundant resource—and there are basically no major examples of catastrophic resource shortages in the industrial age.

Why Americans Suddenly Stopped Hanging Out
Something’s changed in the past few decades. After the 1970s, American dynamism declined. Americans moved less from place to place. They stopped showing up at their churches and temples. In the 1990s, the sociologist Robert Putnam recognized that America’s social metabolism was slowing down.

Ancient Greek antilogic is the craft of suspending judgment
In Syracuse, 2,500 years ago, there was a famous teacher of rhetoric named Corax. This new discipline was in high demand: mastery of persuasive speaking, it was hoped, led to fame and wealth.

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February 2024 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

February 2024 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

Scientists Destroy Illusion That Coin Toss Flips Are 50–50
“We can be quite sure there is a bias in coin flips after this data set,” Bartoš says.

What happens to the brain during consciousness-ending meditation?
There’s a meditative state described in ancient Buddhist scriptures that is hard to imagine because it is not something – but nothing. Referred to as nirodha-samāpatti, it roughly translates as ‘the cessation of thought and feeling’, and it is the highest meditative state possible in Theravada Buddhism

This vibrating diet pill may trick the stomach into feeling full
Device cuts food consumption in pigs by 40%, but some experts say it’s unclear whether it will work for humans

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January 2024 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

January 2024 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What Will Happen In 2024
As we enter 2024, the capital markets have found their footing and are moving higher. The Fed has taken interest rates as far as they want at this time and inflation has come down. It seems that a “soft landing” is likely. That is good news for the innovation economy because healthy capital markets are a necessary support system.

Ice baths boost sex drive
A group of 17 male and 8 female Czech Army soldiers who participated in 2 min freezing cold water immersion, followed by light exercise for rewarming, reported improvements in sexual satisfaction, reduction in waist size, and reduction in anxiety, compared to controls.

Master of Change: How to Excel When Everything Is Changing – Including You
From social disruptions like economic recessions, pandemics, and new technologies to individual disruptions like getting married, career transitions, and becoming a parent, we undergo change and transformation—both good and bad—regularly. Change is not the exception, it’s the rule. Yet we endlessly fight it, often viewing it as a threat to our stability and sense of self.

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November 2023 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

November 2023 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading:

Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results
Rationality is wasted if you don't know when to use it. What I've learned from watching real people in action is that, just like the angry CEO, they're often unaware circumstances are thinking for them. It's as if we expect the inner voice in our head to say, "STOP! THIS IS A MOMENT WHEN YOU NEED TO THINK!" And because we don't know we should be thinking, we cede control to our impulses. In the space between stimulus and response, one of two things can happen. You can consciously pause and apply reason to the situation. Or you can cede control and execute a default behavior.

Why a Failed Startup Might Be Good for Your Career After All

Go ahead and launch that venture. Even if it fails, the experience you gain will likely earn you a job that's more senior than those of your peers, says research by Paul Gompers.

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July 2023 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

July 2023 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading:

Scientists Reconstruct What You're Looking at by Enhancing Reflection in Your Eye

Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed an eerie technique that can reconstruct 3D images from the reflections in your eyes, by building on a neural network model called neural radiance fields (NeRF).

Astronomers detect largest cosmic explosion ever seen

The explosion is more than 10 times brighter than any recorded exploding star - known as a supernova.

The Impact of Stress on the Well-Being of Startup Founders

Startup Snapshot's insightful and provocative research sheds light on the big picture of founder mental health needs and solutions.

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June 2023 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

June 2023 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading:

Octopus time

“We humans are forward-facing, gravity-bound plodders. Can the liquid motion of the octopus radicalise our ideas about time?”

For when someone says “I’ve seen this before, it didn’t work”

“If you’re a founder you’ve probably heard someone say “oh, I’ve seen this idea before - it didn’t work” or “isn’t this just like that other thing that person/company X tried?”

As a founder, I heard this dozens of times. It’s likely to come from investors, but you hear it from other founders, potential employees, advisors, customers, even family members. Like it or not, pattern matching is strong.”

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May 2023 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

May 2023 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading:

Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently

Perception is the foundation of human experience, but few of us understand why we see what we do, much less how. By revealing the startling truths about the brain and its perceptions, Beau Lotto shows that the next big innovation is not a new technology: it is a new way of seeing.

In his first major book, Lotto draws on over two decades of pioneering research to explain that our brain didn't evolve to see the world accurately. It can't! Visually stunning, with entertaining illustrations and optical illusions throughout, and with clear and comprehensive explanations of the science behind how our perceptions operate, Deviate will revolutionize the way you see yourself, others and the world.

With this new understanding of how the brain functions, Deviate is not just an illuminating account of the neuroscience of thought, behavior, and creativity: it is a call to action, enlisting readers in their own journey of self-discovery.

April 2023 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

April 2023 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading:

The secret history of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and OpenAI

After three years, Elon Musk was ready to give up on the artificial intelligence research firm he helped found, OpenAI.

The nonprofit had launched in 2015 to great fanfare with backing from billionaire tech luminaries like Musk and Reid Hoffman, who had as a group pledged $1 billion. It had lured some of the top minds in the field to leave big tech companies and academia.

But in early 2018, Musk told Sam Altman, another OpenAI founder, that he believed the venture had fallen fatally behind Google, people familiar with the matter said.

And Musk proposed a possible solution: He would take control of OpenAI and run it himself.

Altman and OpenAI’s other founders rejected Musk’s proposal. Musk, in turn, walked away from the company — and reneged on a massive planned donation. The fallout from that conflict, culminating in the announcement of Musk’s departure on Feb 20, 2018, would shape the industry that’s changing the world, and the company at the heart of it.

Don’t Cry for Me, Jamaica

Don’t Cry for Me, Jamaica

The story of the first (and only) time I ever smoked pot.

Designated Driver

All through my high school years, I had avoided ever doing drugs of any kind. Maybe I drank a little here or there, but never drugs—basically because my parents scared the crap out of me with horror stories of people who did drugs and became homeless, or got addicted, or went crazy, or just straight up died. 

For better or for worse, this approach worked for me, and I never felt the desire to go out on a limb and smoke pot with my friends (that was about the hardest stuff any of them did). I was the reliable designated driver type: clean, sober, and happy to keep it that way.

March 2023 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

March 2023 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading:

The Art of the Good Life: 52 Surprising Shortcuts to Happiness, Wealth, and Success

The Art of the Good Life is a toolkit designed for practical living. Here you'll find fifty-two happiness hacks -- from guilt-free shunning of technology to gleefully paying your parking tickets -- that are certain to optimize your happiness. These tips may not guarantee you a good life, but they'll give you a better chance (and that's all any of us can ask for).

Crazy Train

Semper Augustus Client Letter 2022
PROFITLESS PROSPERITY; INVESTING IN FLATION; AND – BERKSHIRE: GETTING BETTER ALL THE TIME 

The Munger Operating System: How to Live a Life That Really Works

It’s such a simple idea. It’s the golden rule so to speak: You want to deliver to the world what you would buy if you were on the other end. There is no ethos, in my opinion, that is better for any lawyer or any other person to have. By and large the people who have this ethos win in life and they don’t win just money, not just honors. They win the respect, the deserved trust of the people they deal with, and there is huge pleasure in life to be obtained from getting deserved trust.

December 2022 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

December 2022 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading:

Bear Market Investing Strategies
“Harry Schultz has been identifying bear market warning signals and teaching people how to prepare a profitable survival portfolio in light of these signals for over thirty-five years through his highly acclaimed newsletter, The International Harry Schultz Letter, which reaches subscribers in over ninety countries. The 1960s' classic book Bear Markets has been fully updated and revised to reflect the unprecedented changes taking place in today's volatile economic environment-making it extremely relevant to the current financial market. This book provides the necessary tools for investors to construct a portfolio that will allow them to protect and grow their money under the most severe bear market conditions through technical analysis and models of numerous bear market variables. Bear Market Investing Strategies offers practical and approachable strategies that every investor needs today.”

How scientists want to make you young again

“Research labs are pursuing technology to “reprogram” aging bodies back to youth.”

Old Frugal Habits Die Hard: Why I Force Myself to Spend More

“Why enjoying your money is so damned hard!”

November 2022 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

November 2022 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading:

Scientists are using AI to dream up revolutionary new proteins
“Huge advances in artificial intelligence mean researchers can design completely original molecules in seconds instead of months.”

The Crypto Story

“What follows is his brilliant explanation of what this maddening, often absurd, and always fascinating technology means, and where it might go.”

How to complete an impossible challenge

“There’s no need to hide under the bed covers – with the GOD principle you’ll be able to achieve your goals, big or small”

September 2022 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

September 2022 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading:

Five Things I Know about Investing

In this essay, Dartmouth finance professor Kenneth R. French explains five investment principles that he uses as the foundation for a holistic approach to portfolio design.

The Key to Behavior Change is Identity Change

Use the psychology of self-image to transform your habits for good.

How Unboxing Elaborate Packages Became an American Pastime

American consumers can’t resist the lure of a well-designed container.

What I am Watching:

Who made these circles in the Sahara?Deep in the Sahara, far from any towns, roads, or other signs of life, is a row of markings in the sand. There are dozens of them stretching for miles in a straight line in central Algeria, each consisting of a central point surrounded by a circle of 12 nodes, like numbers on a clock. And when we started making this video, no one seemed to know what they were.

July 2022 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

July 2022 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading:

How to Understand Things“what we call 'intelligence' is as much about virtues such as honesty, integrity, and bravery, as it is about 'raw intellect”

The Benefits of Optimism Are Real“Having a positive outlook is the most important predictor of resilience.”

Why Talking to Strangers Is the Best Thing You Can Do for Your Mental Health

“If we can only break through the awkwardness barrier, striking up conversations at random is the cheapest form of therapy there is.”

Fecal Transplants Reverse Key Signs of Aging

“Scientists from England’s Quadram Institute and the University of East Anglia have found that transplanting fecal microbiota from young mammals into older ones may help reverse key signs of aging in the gut, brain, and eyes.”

More….

What’s Luck Got to Do With It?

What’s Luck Got to Do With It?

Playing to Win in the Game of Love

At the age of thirty, I was starting over in the dating world, and looking for the total package: someone smart, pretty, easy to be around, and definitely someone with whom I would have great chemistry. That’s a tall order, even under the best circumstances. But when you’re running two companies, and have next to no free time? Practically impossible! So I decided it was time to use my aptitude for innovation on a totally new subject: myself.

A Year of Insanity

By the time I hit my early 30’s, I had been living in New York City for my entire life. The years had been full of highs and lows, both personal and in business. There was my father’s passing, when I was only a kid. My mom’s struggle with chronic health conditions and building a business to support us. The typical ups and downs of middle school and high school. Falling in love with nightlife at the very young age of 14, and staying in love with it through high school, college, and beyond. Working like crazy to get into med school, only to realize that it wasn’t for me, and dropping out to join the dot com boom (and bust). And of course, the all-consuming task of building Joonbug into a juggernaut that effectively brought the nightlife industry into the digital age.

More ….

August 2021 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

August 2021 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading

The Power of the Marginal
“If you really want to score big, the place to focus is the margin of the margin: the territories only recently captured from the insiders. That's where you'll find the juiciest projects still undone, either because they seemed too risky, or simply because there were too few insiders to explore everything.”

The Tacit Knowledge Series
“Tacit knowledge is ‘knowledge that cannot be captured through words alone’.

This series explores how expertise is tacit, why the research around extracting tacit knowledge is more important than the literature on deliberate practice, and how to go about acquiring tacit knowledge in the pursuit of skill acquisition.”

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July 2021 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

July 2021 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading

Interview: Marc Andreessen, VC and tech pioneer
“M.A.: Don’t follow your passion. Seriously. Don’t follow your passion. Your passion is likely more dumb and useless than anything else. Your passion should be your hobby, not your work. Do it in your spare time.

Instead, at work, seek to contribute. Find the hottest, most vibrant part of the economy you can and figure out how you can contribute best and most. Make yourself of value to the people around you, to your customers and coworkers, and try to increase that value every day.

It can sometimes feel that all the exciting things have already happened, that the frontier is closed, that we’re at the end of technological history and there’s nothing left to do but maintain what already exists. This is just a failure of imagination. In fact, the opposite is true. We’re surrounding by rotting incumbents that will all need to be replaced by new technologies. Let’s get on it.”

4 Rumi Quotes That Will Boost Your Confidence

“You are searching the world for treasure, but the real treasure is Yourself.”

Zoroastrianism And Persian Mythology: The Foundation Of Belief

“Zoroastrianism was the main faith of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Attributed to the prophet Zoroaster, this Persian religion was a key influence on both Christianity and Judaism.”

What I am Watching:

The Explainer: Solving Problems by Starting with the Worst Idea Possible

Sometimes wrong thinking can lead to the right answer. 

Bionic Eye Cures Blindness
“First Bionic Arms- Now Bionic Eyes! Last week the FDA gave approval to the Argus II, a bionic eye that could potentially cure blindness in 15,000 people in the US. The Alpha IMS, a new implant in early testing, has cured blindness in eight people so far. Anthony gives us a sneak peak at this amazing new tech.”

Muppet Babies
My four year old son can’t stop watching and I’ve been strangely captivated by watching it too.  I guess it’s because I loved watching The Muppets so much growing up.  We’re now saying “Waka Waka” after every joke we tell just like Fozzy the Bear 🤣!

What I am Listening To:

ROLL ON:

CASE STUDIES IN MENTAL FORTITUDE: THE IRON COWBOY & MINNEAPOLIS MAYOR JACOB FREY

“Success in all forms demands mental fortitude—a capacity honed through consistently placing yourself beyond comfortable confines. When practiced with daily rigor, an increasingly sturdy mindset becomes a superpower—and the foundation for the purpose-driven life you aspire to inhabit.”

June 2021 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

June 2021 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading

Why Start-ups Fail
Most start-ups don’t succeed: More than two-thirds of them never deliver a positive return to investors. But why do so many end disappointingly? That question hit me with full force several years ago when I realized I couldn’t answer it.

The Tail End
What I’ve been thinking about is a really important part of life that, unlike all of these examples, isn’t spread out evenly through time—something whose [already done / still to come] ratio doesn’t at all align with how far I am through life: Relationships.

Curiosity Is the Secret to a Happy Life

What exactly does it mean to be curious? “If you go by the typical dictionary definition, curiosity is simply a desire to seek out new knowledge or experiences,” Kashdan says. While this definition is a useful starting point, he says curiosity also involves a willingness to engage with complex, unfamiliar, and challenging concepts or endeavors.

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March 2021 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

March 2021 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To

What I Am Reading:

The Ultimate Guide to Liars and Lying: Everyone Falls Into These 4 Types
“There are various ways of classifying lies: by their consequences, by the importance of their subject matters, by the speakers’ motives, and by the nature or context of the utterance.
Perhaps the most useful way to classify lies is by to the people who tell them. Understanding lies and liars can help us avoid getting duped as well as protect us from drifting into dishonesty ourselves.”

Corn Mazes and Mental Models
“We habitually view the world through a series of mental models that shape our understanding of our circumstances, our relationships and ourselves. [2] And while these mental models are essential tools in allowing us to navigate through life, they can easily lead us astray. Philosopher Alford Korzybski said "A map is not the territory it represents," and a mental model is not the reality it seeks to depict. [3] But we can easily mistake our mental models for reality and apply them inappropriately.”

'Smallest reptile on earth' discovered in Madagascar
Scientists believe they may have discovered the smallest reptile on earth - a chameleon subspecies that is the size of a seed.

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