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2024_reading.md

Things I might read in 2024.

  • Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Richard Howard (translator) - The Little Prince
  • (Translation by) Sam Hamill - Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems From the Chinese
  • Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori (translator) - Convenience Store Woman (via)
  • Jorge Luis Borges - Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (in Labyrinths)/ printed (via)
  • Franz Kafka - The Metamorphosis (via)
  • William Olaf Stapledon - Star Maker/ audio, go to 12m35s to skip past the introduction spoilers
  • The Heart of Innovation: A Field Guide for Navigating to Authentic Demand/ audio (via)
  • Peter D. Kaufman - Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger, Expanded Third Edition
  • Lia A. DiBello - Expertise in Business: Evolving with a Changing World (in The Oxford Handbook of Expertise) (via)
  • Joël Glenn Brenner - The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars
  • Elad Gil - High Growth Handbook/ audio
  • W. Edwards Demming - The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education/ audio
  • W. Edwards Demming - The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education/ the PDF or ebook
  • Henrik Karlsson - Escaping Flatland/ including the posts I SingleFile'd
  • the relevant-looking posts on benkuhn.net/posts
  • Commoncog Case Library Beta
  • Keith J. Cunningham - The Road Less Stupid: Advice from the Chairman of the Board/ audio
  • Keith J. Cunningham - The 4-Day MBA/ video
  • Cedric Chin's summary of 7 Powers
  • Akio Morita, Edwin M. Reingold, Mitsuko Shimomura - Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony
  • Nomad Investment Partnership Letters or redacted (via)
  • How to Lose Money in Derivatives: Examples From Hedge Funds and Bank Trading Departments
  • Brian Hayes - Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape
  • Accelerated Expertise (via)/ printed, "read Chapters 9-13 and skim everything else"
  • David J. Gerber - The Inventor's Dilemma (via Oxide and Friends)
  • Alex Komoroske - The Compendium / after I convert the Firebase export in code/websites/compendium-cards-data/db.json to a single HTML page
  • Rich Cohen - The Fish That Ate The Whale (via)
  • Bob Caspe - Entrepreneurial Action/ printed, skim for anything I don't know

Interactive fiction

unplanned notable things read

unplanned and abandoned

  • Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga - The Courage to Be Disliked/ audio
  • Matt Dinniman - Dungeon Crawler Carl/ audio
  • Charles Eisenstein - The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible/ audio
  • Geoff Smart - Who: The A Method for Hiring/ audio
  • Genki Kawamura - If Cats Disappeared from the World/ audio
  • Paul Stamets - Fantastic Fungi: How Mushrooms Can Heal, Shift Consciousness, and Save the Planet/ audio
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ivan commented Aug 29, 2024

Reference - a great read - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine

This book is so good. It's about building early computers but it feels just like tech does today in the way it's described. Which make it feel like this bigger context you're reading into. That even before computers were mainstream, there were still those who tinkered.

Two things are especially memorable to me. One is a casual remark in the book that they found the best way to get things done is to pair someone very experienced and cynical with someone very inexperienced and naive. Combined they would get lots done together compared to either alone. I think this is still true today.

The other thing is the intro. It's about the head of the project getting a group together and renting a sailboat on vacation. On the sailboat the get tossed and at times feel like they barely survived and it ends with someone saying "if this was his vacation...what did this man do for fun!?"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41167615

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ivan commented Aug 29, 2024

The psychology of your users is everything. If you're not laser-focused on what makes them feel good (productive, confident, relaxed, etc.), then you're going to lose.

https://x.com/exojason/status/1436835489814773761

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ivan commented Aug 29, 2024

My biggest recommendation is to listen to Simon Critchley’s Apply-Degger. He’s a new school prof and does an amazing job breaking down Heidegger’s jargon.

Tbf, Heidegger is writing about concepts that are so fundamental even the written language does a poor job representing the ideas. I think it’s the combination of attempting a new way of communicating an idea (common for philosophers to disrespect language), and the difficulty of the idea.

Hegel’s PoS literally feels like I’m on acid.

https://old.reddit.com/r/heidegger/comments/1f3p3k8/heidegger_hurts_my_brain/
via rsaarelm

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ivan commented Aug 29, 2024

I'm not overly impressed with the Google pipe syntax. They talk a good game in the paper. They sound really convincing. But once I started actually looking for use cases and messing with it, I, for one, lost interest in their design. I have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of queries in the Fossil implementation which I went trolling through, and I didn't find any that would be improved by Google pipe syntax over just having FROM-first queries. Maybe Google is more focused on analytical queries against big data. Maybe the pipe syntax works better for really gnarly analytical queries. It doesn't seem to help for the kinds of queries I do in Fossil using SQLite, though, at least not that I've seen.

https://sqlite.org/forum/forumpost/5f218012b6e1a9db

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ivan commented Aug 29, 2024

My favorite is when they do bold by duplicating and slightly shifting the letters. Bboolldd. PDFs are hell.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41347188

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ivan commented Aug 29, 2024

an indicator that chimpanzees are adapted to recognize each other by their rear ends

https://www.thecut.com/2016/12/scientists-think-your-face-evolved-to-resemble-an-apes-butt.html

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ivan commented Aug 29, 2024

In my opinion this experiment is missing a key element of designing for UI density: typography.

These screens use a fixed-width font at a single size. It’s a retro 1980 text-mode UI look, and it’s fine if that was the design constraint they wanted.

But you can squeeze a lot more information on screen if you can have a proper hierarchy of typefaces and sizes.

(As a basic example, the “About” box now consumes almost a quarter of the screen on a phone. A change to a smaller proportional font could fit this information in half the space and still remain readable on a phone.)

If you look at the works of an accomplished information designer like Edward Tufte, he often obsesses about getting the typography right. His books use many typographic elements and scales even for the body text, outside of the visualizations.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41088013

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ivan commented Aug 29, 2024

As a concrete example, a few weeks ago, I invited my dad to my tailnet with the intent of using remote desktop into his machine to help him fix something. He accepted the invite, and then I couldn't ping his machine despite it appearing in my TS domain web interface.

I don’t know if it’s the same issue, but the problem I ran into is that I misunderstood how it works for families who just use gmail addresses. It’s quite counter-intuitive. The organization stuff isn’t for you - instead each person creates their own tailnet and you connect them. See:

tailscale/tailscale#10731

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41080991

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ivan commented Aug 30, 2024

"Let's make the icon weird so people post it all over social media."

"No one is stupid enough to take that bait."

https://old.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/1f4nydl/whats_happened_to_duolingo/lkn4qnw/

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ivan commented Aug 30, 2024 •
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There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you

[...]

Vajrayana rejects and inverts renunciation. It celebrates beauty, pleasure, involvement, freedom, power, mastery, and—explicitly—the aristocratic ideal of nobility

https://meaningness.substack.com/p/you-should-be-a-god-emperor

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ivan commented Aug 30, 2024

on the longest Fuji trail they've acknowledged that nobody wants to descend more than 7k vertical feet of switchbacks so there's something called the Big Sand Run (大砂走り) instead

https://x.com/ftlsid/status/1826447333330223415

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ivan commented Aug 30, 2024

i only read books by people who have done things other than writing

https://x.com/imperialauditor/status/1499059146896904195

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ivan commented Aug 31, 2024

In all I liked the book, however the authors' lack of South African military doctrine is glaringly obvious to anybody who served during our Bush War. I cannot help but think that he has attempted to flesh out scraps of conversation he had with Nick Du Toit, and trying to do this he fails miserably, add to this his failure in pronunciation of Afrikaans phrases was a major irritation

https://www.myanonamouse.net/t/91973 (James Brabazon - My Friend the Mercenary)

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ivan commented Aug 31, 2024

They say never judge a book by its cover, but in this case you'd be spot on. 800 pages of non-stop alien-on-human rape. Tentacle rape, roofie rape, mind control rape, impregnation rape, this book has it all. Very much a fetish thing. One of the main plot lines is about an alien that is so horny that it will literally die if it doesn't get to rape any humans. It's also bad in more conventional ways - weak characters, weak plotting, all sorts of holes and inconsistencies, not to mention extremely shallow treatment of the ideas about genetics, hierarchy, transhumanism, etc. In retrospect I have no idea why I kept reading to the end.

https://fantasticanachronism.com/2021/01/18/the-best-and-worst-books-i-read-in-2020/

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ivan commented Aug 31, 2024

Context: I’ve been seeped into GTD and seeking improved productivity and ease of task management from the beginnings of 43folders and being deep into the ethos from David Allen’s work since the early 2000s. I am a....moderately successful professional that spends a lot of my time in executive-level meetings and running half of them at a Fortune 50 company, so I am the exact target audience for GTD. I am the “overwhelmed” worker that the system should help. Not bragging, just giving context of what my day can look like for 12 hours a day, in however you can imagine that.

I can see the writers points. GTD is not for everyone but can seem like the panacea to productivity issues.

Allen will openly talk about how lazy he is and the system is designed to embrace that, to an extent.

The ultimate goal is having a better grasp of projects and tasks that doesn’t require you to hold everything in your head. I don’t find anything disputable within this concept.

After years of working at it, starts, stops, fails, successes, short term glory, long term struggles, here’s what I’ve found (I am no longer in IT so agile or scrum or ITIL or other development cycle does not apply to the below comments, just like architecture is not compatible with these reflections) —

Post it notes and to do lists fail. What everyone needs is a structured and organized system that works for them in their environment. The goal is whatever works, but that is not just a running list that’s as long as a mile, where nothing gets done.

I’ve found that a goal driven system, with a list of projects tends to work best for me. With a project list with minimal tasks, you and mentally track to what to do next. Combine the project list with a set of notes that logs progress and you can always find your bearings.

Example: you have to launch a training module that involves multiple teams. You set the first meeting, and come away with action items. - take notes at the meeting - log your action items - decide when to do each of those, assuming the best. Be flexible if the date does not work - complete your timely actions, and move on to the next project repeating the process

While this is overly simplistic, I’ve found this works well. I would drown when I spent more time in omnifocus or things organizing and sorting perfectly to achieve maximum efficiency, and exhaust all of my energy organizing, rather than actually executing on tasks. Do enough to organize and log action items such that you know what you need to do, commit a certain but controlled brain cycles to remember enough details that you can be flexible, and spend a dedicated amount of time actually completing tasks.

GTD has flaws in being resentful of work. Embrace your functions, but be mindful of how you intake new asks, and take notes that will help remind you what the hell you’ve committed to. Let email sit after you’ve decided what to do with it. If you chase “inbox zero” you’re committing to a goal that’s so hard to hit you’ll be regular set back and feel like your efforts are a failure. Spend less time on aesthetics in tasks and spend more time executing and not having to worry about organizing piles of information and tasks.

https://old.reddit.com/r/gtd/comments/jxcp4e/the_rise_and_fall_of_getting_things_done/

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ivan commented Aug 31, 2024

Sorry, your submission has been removed due to inadequate account karma.

https://old.reddit.com/r/ChatGPTCoding/comments/1f51y8s/a_collection_of_prompts_for_generating_high/

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ivan commented Aug 31, 2024

Nah this is madness - anyone can connect to this device at any time. It's crazy. I've been woken up in the middle of the night before by some random stranger connecting to this device. There is no way for you to turn off bluetooh for this device. Isn't that crazy? $450 speakers and you don't have a function to not allow bluetooth connection? Lazy engineering.

https://www.amazon.com/Vanatoo-Transparent-Speakers-Bluetooth-Control/dp/B0CCGFYPG3/ref=sr_1_9?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.3YxjTDhkkvoqM2FfDIYxWfG60TA2Cgm9T-tHJ9QG7iqjZHu01_fUcql__6Xa5KeEvlmSzzCYozmTNwoWzRrwlDivfgOV_jHZ7fTj4grUOUUT7FH33ULCa7lfGh4vs_xqLkGw5b-ZRwf9c0NcWEg2p9E_6WOvRhGthsbNZxNgRAK9TlAHqHw6PLbEe3jopErmqb9kr21ALjCLm9g3AAb39CmcOfCL5nMz_GsCmPXt-qo.5TDI2nfbmYc-C8qI_em8f6G9k0eCFFMFWi6cJonRqH4&dib_tag=se&keywords=computer+speaker&qid=1725132736&refinements=p_36%3A42000-&sr=8-9

I purchased Vanatoo to about 2 months ago and I've been loving them ! I connected them to my dac/amp stack and control the volume from the amp.

The problem started happening yesterday. I live in a huge apartment building and to my surprise, T0s are always in Bluetooth pairing mode. Some random music started blasting from them late at night. It took me a while to figure out what was happening. It turns out some kids in my building are able to pair their device to the speakers. I read the whole manual and the only thing I found was pressing the button in the back to disconnect the all Bluetooth devices, but that doesn't prevent kids from repairing immediately.

So basically, every time I'm not using my speakers, I need to unplug them (which is not ideal) because I don't want kids to blast music from them and it doesn't look like you can turn off the automatic pairing on the speakers.

https://old.reddit.com/r/BudgetAudiophile/comments/ngyorn/vanatoo_t0_i_need_help_with_bluetooth/

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ivan commented Aug 31, 2024

Building great software is about relentlessly removing obstacles. Adding that new feature should be a breeze, but it rarely is. What's slowing you down? What's toilsome? What are you scared of? Those are obstacles. Notice them, get mad at them, remove them.

Building a great company is also about relentlessly removing obstacles. The day you stop getting mad at obstacles, become blind to them, transmit that helplessness to new hires ("this is just the way things are") – that's the day decline sets in.

https://x.com/alangrow/status/1826344757272211938

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ivan commented Aug 31, 2024

okay man i dont thing we've got enough irl mutual goodwill built up to compensate for how consistently tiresome i find our twitter interactions

https://x.com/goblinodds/status/1826386299584184358

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ivan commented Aug 31, 2024

i think a lot of guys miss the fact that girls, even ones who arent thinking abt having kids, are typically hard-wired with some deep expectation of being incapacitated for long periods and legit relying on someone else for help

https://x.com/goblinodds/status/1825946798223143235

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ivan commented Aug 31, 2024

da2b6db5-95ca-47c9-adb5-6f5ca85c92f0_2418x1602

https://www.thonking.ai/p/what-shapes-do-matrix-multiplications

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ivan commented Sep 1, 2024

cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so that there is no time at all to confront the real issues

https://x.com/forthrighter/status/1825969819604168753/photo/1

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ivan commented Sep 1, 2024

  1. Employing gaslighting tactics – such as history re-writing, reality denial, misdirection, baseless contradiction, projection of your own foibles onto others, repetition, or off-topic rambling – to destabilize a discussion by sowing doubt and discord.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gaming_the_system#GASLIGHTING
via https://www.piratewires.com/p/how-wikipedia-launders-regime-propaganda

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ivan commented Sep 1, 2024

Webcrack to unbundle Webpack bundles

https://github.com/jehna/humanify

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ivan commented Sep 1, 2024

Author of HumanifyJS here! I've created specifically a LLM based tool for this, which uses LLMs on AST level to guarantee that the code keeps working after the unminification step:

https://github.com/jehna/humanify

For each variable:

1. It asks the LLM to write a description of what the variable does

2. It asks for a good variable name based on the description from 1.

3. It uses a custom Babel plugin to do a scope-aware rename

This way the LLM only decides the name, but the actual renaming is done with traditional and reliable tools.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41389185

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ivan commented Sep 1, 2024

Is your Library Discarding? Deaccessioning? Weeding? Deselecting? Managing Patron Donations?

https://services.betterworldbooks.com/libraries/

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ivan commented Sep 1, 2024

The theme of Brian's talk was that the conventional wisdom about how to run larger companies is mistaken. As Airbnb grew, well-meaning people advised him that he had to run the company in a certain way for it to scale. Their advice could be optimistically summarized as "hire good people and give them room to do their jobs." He followed this advice and the results were disastrous. So he had to figure out a better way on his own, which he did partly by studying how Steve Jobs ran Apple. So far it seems to be working. Airbnb's free cash flow margin is now among the best in Silicon Valley.

https://paulgraham.com/foundermode.html

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ivan commented Sep 1, 2024

I've decided a while back that I will never work with these kinds of "professional" liars ever again. The lies will always accumulate and ruin every goddamn thing. I'd rather be unemployed and barely scraping by than worry if some psychopath is going to piss away 10 years of my hard work.

I think truth seeking is more important than any particular mode of operation. Founders are more likely to do this because they genuinely want to win the entire game, not just Q3.

I think I've already seen a few managers walking around in founder's garb. Again, these people are professional liars. They're going to be hard to spot unless you're looking for it.

My next venture will probably involve unconditional dictatorship with hair trigger termination policies for deceptive behavior. Until then, I'll be working smaller contract jobs and otherwise scraping by.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41415723

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ivan commented Sep 1, 2024 •
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  • How am I feeling right now? Why? Where is it coming from?
  • Are there any narratives I've invented in my head that might be leading me in the wrong direction?
  • What's really bothering me? What are the problems?
  • In what ways am I causing those problems? How am I contributing to them?
  • How many different problems are there? Are they related?
  • Is there a root cause underneath them all?
  • Is anything going well? What? Why?
  • What am I trying to accomplish? Where am I trying to get to? How will I know if it's worked?
  • What are my options?
  • What are the tradeoffs of those options? Are they worth it?
  • What hard lessons am I learning right now that might help me do better next time?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTpBFiW5PBo&t=10m Jack Conte

Our specific problems and solutions require our personal investigation and analysis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTpBFiW5PBo&t=14m40s Jack Conte

We asked more questions to help us figure that out:

  • What are we doing that isn't helping us hit these goals?
  • What could be simpler?
  • What could save us time?
  • What feels draining?
  • Where is our time going? How can we categorize our hours?
  • Which categories of activities and time are getting us close to those goals?
  • Which are holding us back?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTpBFiW5PBo&t=25m20s Jack Conte

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ivan commented Sep 1, 2024

Say who you are. Really say it in your life and in your work. Tell someone out there who is lost, someone not yet born, someone who won't be born for 500 years. Your writing will be a record of your time. It can't help but be. But more importantly, if you're honest about who you are, you'll help that person be less lonely in their world.

Charlie Kaufman
via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTpBFiW5PBo&t=31m Jack Conte

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