I sometimes work on my laptop until I have less than 5% battery remaining. At this point, the laptop is sluggish because it’s using every last bit of power to keep the machine on. It doesn’t care about app speed. It’s in pure survival mode.
If I want proper performance, I need to plug it in.
If I don’t want my laptop to ever be sluggish, I need to charge before it’s necessary.
It works for laptops, as well as humans.
Maru and I are flying out to India today. We’re travelling there for a wedding, and are both super excited to experience India for the first time.
When we went to Poland a few months ago, I asked for Krakow tips and it worked a treat. Especially discovering food and coffee locations!
Prior to the wedding, we’ll have 5 days in Delhi. We have little planned so far, so if you have a favourite spot or experience in Delhi, please send them my way!
We’re also going to be here for when India and New Zealand play each other in the Cricket World Cup Semi Final. If you have a suggestions on where to watch the match, let me know!
“To be alive is to be present in the unfolding of life.”—James Low
This quote resonated.
Life unfolds one day at a time. If we’re too focused on the future, we miss the joy of being alive right now.
At any point in time, there is likely to be one thing that’s either more important, higher leverage, or more impactful that should come before everything else on our to-do lists.
The question is, did we start there this morning, or did something less important find its way on to our plate first?
I try and read Steven Pressfield’s ‘The War of Art’ at least once per year.
I was reminded of the book today, and I remembered that I had previous written about my annual Pressfield reading tradition.
I checked my past posts, and was surprised to find my last reading was almost 1 year ago to the day.
Some texts have such a profound impact that it’s no surprise they find their way back into your life at the precise moment you need them.
Think of the best question you asked this past week.
Perhaps it was to a friend, colleague, or mentor.
Now ask yourself: could I have asked a better question?
There’s almost always a better question.
The goal isn’t to ask the perfect question though, it’s to ask a slightly better question each time.
There’s an interesting phenomenon that happens with Kraft cheese vs. Heinz ketchup in the United States.
If you put up the price of Kraft cheese, people choose to buy a different brand.
However, if you put up the price of Heinz ketchup, people still buy the ketchup.
This is a great example of the economic principle of price elasticity in action. The more elastic a product is, the more responsive a market is to a change in price—they purchase more when the price goes down, and less when the price goes up. The more inelastic a product is, people will continue buying the same amount even if the price goes up or down.
Whatever it is, Heinz has found the secret (inelastic) sauce.
The airport cafe was quiet.
Travellers huddled at their tables; patiently waiting for their flights.
A sports team walked in. They too talked in low voices as they sat down at a group of nearby tables.
Ten minutes later, the hooting and hollering started.
I peaked over the top of my booth and saw the sports team laughing and teasing each other over an in-progress game of cards.
Cards are a universal language. They can bring out joy and competition between friends, help strangers find something in common, and provide a form of entertainment that almost anyone can participate in.
It’s amazing what a pack of cards can do.
I make enough terrariums to start documenting them here.
A bit of background: long time readers may remember I started growing an oak tree back in 2019. I had bought the beautiful acorn vase from Ilex Studios, and documented the journey from first root, to sapling, to planted tree. Sadly, the oak tree didn’t take to soil and ultimately died.
For 3 years, the acorn vase sat lonely and unused. That is until I had the idea to turn it into a terrarium.
I had never attempted to make a terrarium with such a small opening, which made it a challenge to build. However, with some patience and perseverance, I managed to cram in rocks for the drainage layer, activated charcoal for purification, a substrate barrier, sphagnum moss, soil, a couple of plant cuttings, moss, springtails, and a little figurine that looks like Spock.
It sits on my desk next to me with a glass marble sealing the top of the vase; ensuring it remains a moist and closed ecosystem.
It’s been a month now, it’s doing well, and I’m super happy with the result. I’ll try and post more of my terrariums as they’re made and as they grow.
It’s an opportunity to tinker.
To try something fresh.
To bet a little, but not the whole farm.
And to see if a new approach can beat the old way.
Everything is an experiment.
Always be experimenting.
When I’m sharing a piece of work, or an idea, with other people, I always ask three questions:
I find that with those three questions, more 90% of errors, issues, or bits of faulty thinking can be uncovered.
#1 is relatively easy. It’s not too difficult react to what is on the page, and then to inconsistent logic or numerical errors.
#3 is also straightforward. With training and practise, one can learn how to communicate with clarity.
But #2 is unquestionably the hardest task out of the three. Seeing what’s not on the page is hard. It’s difficult to imagine, consider, and articulate what is missing. And to do it well requires great skill and judgement.
When you find someone who can see what isn’t there, and help you spot issues before they arise, they’re a keeper.
I’ve likely written more than a dozen times over the past 4 years about momentum.
A lesson I continually learn and re-learn is ‘momentum begets momentum’.
Little actions, performed repeatedly, add up over time. And the small successes and habits eventually snowball into bigger ones.
It’s something I try and remind myself of both when times are easy and good, and when times are tough and trying.
It’s good to sit with a problem and try to think your way out of it. You learn a lot about yourself, and a problem, by following this method.
However, there comes a point of diminishing returns, where each additional unit of time invested has a lower and lower probability of bringing us to an answer.
At this point, it’s better to ask for help.
In my teams at work, we ask each person to set a threshold in their own mind for how long they’re willing to stay stuck on a problem.
Asking for help after 15 minutes sub-optimal. But so is asking for help after being stuck for 3 days.
We don’t set a hard ‘stuck threshold’, but we generally encourage people to try solve a problem for themselves, and if it isn’t resolved in a reasonable period of time—within which they’re tried and exhausted most reasonable options—then it’s time to seek the help and advice of someone else.
Set a stuck threshold, and don’t be afraid to pull someone else in for help.
I loved this video by Peter Whidden. It’s a primer on Reinforcement Learning—a branch of Machine Learning—but explained in a simple way using the classic Pokemon Red Gameboy game.
Reinforcement learning uses an AI-driven system to “learn through trial and error using feedback from its actions”.
In this video, Whidden has the AI play 20,000 games with over 5-years of simulated game time. The feedback that Whidden provides the AI is a reward for certain actions in the game, such as exploration, catching a Pokemon, or defeating an opponent. Because the inputs are simple: Up, Down, Left, Right, Button-A, and Button-B, the AI learns over time how to adjust it’s inputs to get to the reward faster.
What makes this video so excellent is Whidden’s editing. He visualises the journey of the 20,000 simulations in a way that makes it really easy to understand how reinforcement learning works.
Pokemon Red was my first ever video game, and it’s one that has a lot of personal nostalgia. It was awesome to see it used to explain reinforcement learning in a clear and simple way.
“Play long-term games with long-term people.”
—Naval Ravikant
This Naval quote has stayed with me since hearing it 4-5 years ago, and I believe it will stay with me for life.
Implicit in this quote is a belief in playing in spaces that aren’t zero sum games, in investing in things that compound, and working with people who have a strong moral compass and possess a bold vision for what the world should look like.