2023-11-09

Daily Reads:

The OpenAI Keynote from a couple of days ago is indeed interesting.
Dharmesh Shah CEO of Hubspot is an investor in Open AI and this post about building a defensible AI business – or rather any defensible business is interesting reading

This is wonderful writing about a horrid man.

QOTD:

The magic you’re looking for is in the work you’re avoiding.
– Chris Williamson

Music:

Mark Knopfler and Ruth Moody: Wherever I Go

2023-11-08

Daily Reads:

Emotional labelling is an art form. The most empathetic people I know seem to be able to read quick changes in facial expressions, and respond to them.

There’s been breathtaking commentary about the OpenAI keynote from yesterday, and all the features launched. Ben Thompson’s take, a day after is an interesting, thoughtful read.

QOTD:

Your voice dries up if you don’t use it.
-Patti Page, singer

Music:

And here’s Patti Page, singing Tennessee Waltz

2023-11-07 Links

Out of social commitments and back into more sensible hours from tomorrow. I’ve been able to do a bit of reading today on my commute today.

Daily Reads:

Jose Gilgado: The beauty of finished software

Tendayi Viki: When should an innovator quit their job?

Colin Newlyn: I canna hold her, Captain

Charles Handy in conversation

QOTD:

A leader shapes and shares a vision, which gives point to the work of others.
– Charles Handy

Music:

Watchhouse (erstwhile Mandolin Orange) perform Golden Embers Live

2023-11-04 Links

I’ve just started reading Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini, & Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. Several life events happening around me, and I’m the designated driver and logistic co-ordinator so I’ll be back to this when I can.

Rajesh Setty’s post from 2014 re-surfaced for me today – How I learned to make 300+ introductions per year

The quote on Wordsmith caught my attention:

The sons of torture victims make good terrorists.
– Andre Malraux, novelist, adventurer, art historian, and statesman (3 Nov 1901-1976)

2023-11-02 Links

I claimed feedreader bankruptcy today – over 500 unread subscriptions. Rather than feel overwhelmed, I decided simply to start afresh tomorrow. No FOMO – I trust that anything I should know about will come my way.

Daily Reads:

Prof Aswath Damodaran is a master craftsman of the stories of valuations (aren’t valuations compelling stories after all?) The third edition of the Tesla story

QOTD:

Our cemeteries are full of people who prayed to live.
– Annie Laurie Gaylor

Music:

The Doobie Brothers: Long Train Runnin

2023-10-31 Links

No other reading besides the Daily Stoic until late this evening. I did find time to browse a book store in the city, and get my own copy of Robert Cialdini’s "Pre-suasion" Cialdini’s other book, Influence, has been such an influence on the way I think 🙂

Daily Reads:

Cassie Robinson’s post about Kinship Discovery – Guiding Principles at the Paul Hamlyn Foundation resonates strongly. Centering the possibilities and opportunities, not the money is a heading that caught my attention, because that articulates how I’m viewing my current employment situation.

QOTD:

"The Human Being is born with an inclination towards virtue."
– Musonius Rufus

Music:

White Horse Guitar Club’s version of Townes Van Zandt’s song "If I Needed You"

2023-10-30 Links

Daily Reads:

BCG report on how people can create – and destroy – value with GenAI People seem to mistrust the technology in areas where it can contribute massive value and to trust it too much in areas where the technology isn’t competent.

Cal Newport’s podcast (I’ve not heard it yet) includes this statement: what habits you can put in place now to ensure you’re satisfied 5 to 10 years in the future

Why do we not hear much about AI from Apple? Fanlad John Gruber speculates

QOTD:

The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation.
– Ezra Pound

Music:

Perfect Fourth – Take Five Harmonica Cover
Joy!

2023-10-29 Links

Daily Reads:

QOTD:

Nothing pleases people more than to go on thinking what they have always thought, and at the same time imagine that they are thinking something new and daring: it combines the advantage of security and the delight of adventure.
– T S Eliott

Music:

2023-10-28 Links

Daily Reads:

Persistence and luck – Laura Stewart is the grand-daughter of Geoff Stewart, founder of North Flinders Mines. The thrust of this article is how success in businesses is rarely linear (not a surprise for anyone paying attention), that businesses are made up of people (hah, tell that to some execs!), and the benefits of holding high conviction investments through difficult times can be substantial, especially over a multi decade period.

What does it mean when ‘part of a rainbow is missing‘? A beautiful explainer about the wonders of spectroscopy.

A David Bowie story from Neil Gaiman

Churchill’s Never Give In speech from 82 years ago on the 29th October 1941. The link is from Bob Ewing’s post on Churchill’s pile driver idea: “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever.  Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again.  Then hit it a third time—a tremendous whack.”

An American Teacher – I have no idea who wrote this
HERO OF THE WEEK: AN AMERICAN TEACHER 
Every Friday afternoon Chase’s teacher asks her students to take out a piece of paper and write down the names of four children with whom they’d like to sit the following week. The children know that these requests may or may not be honored. She also asks the students to nominate one student whom they believe has been an exceptional classroom citizen that week. All ballots are privately submitted to her.
And every single Friday afternoon, after the students go home, Chase’s teacher takes out those slips of paper, places them in front of her and studies them. She looks for patterns.
Who is not getting requested by anyone else?
Who doesn’t even know who to request?
Who never gets noticed enough to be nominated?
Who had a million friends last week and none this week?
Chase’s teacher is not looking for a new seating chart or “exceptional citizens.” Chase’s teacher is looking for lonely children. She’s looking for children who are struggling to connect with other children. She’s identifying the little ones who are falling through the cracks of the class’s social life. She is discovering whose gifts are going unnoticed by their peers. And she’s pinning down — right away — who’s being bullied and who is doing the bullying.
As a teacher, parent, and lover of all children — I think that this is the most brilliant Love Ninja strategy I have ever encountered. It’s like taking an X-ray of a classroom to see beneath the surface of things and into the hearts of students. It is like mining for gold — the gold being those little ones who need a little help, who need adults to step in and teach them how to make friends, how to ask others to play, how to join a group, or how to share their gifts with others. And it’s a bully deterrent because every teacher knows that bullying usually happens outside of her eyeshot — and that often kids being bullied are too intimidated to share. But as she said — the truth comes out on those safe, private, little sheets of paper.
As Chase’s teacher explained this simple, ingenious idea, I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “How long have you been using this system?” I said.
Ever since Columbine, she said. Every single Friday afternoon since Columbine.
Good Lord. This brilliant woman watched Columbine knowing that all violence begins with disconnection.  All outward violence begins as inner loneliness. She watched that tragedy knowing that children who aren’t being noticed will eventually resort to being noticed by any means necessary.
And so she decided to start fighting violence early and often, and with the world within her reach. What Chase’s teacher is doing when she sits in her empty classroom studying those lists written with shaky 11 year old hands — is saving lives.
And what this mathematician has learned while using this system is something she really already knew: that everything — even love, even belonging – has a pattern to it. And she finds those patterns through those lists — she breaks the codes of disconnection. And then she gets lonely kids the help they need. It’s math to her. It’s math.
Chase’s teacher retires this year — after decades of saving lives. What a way to spend a life: looking for patterns of love and loneliness. Stepping in, every single day — and altering the trajectory of our world.

QOTD:

“Churchill mobilised the English language and sent it into battle.”
– Edward R. Murrow

Music:

Bob Fulghum has this poem, which to me counts as music for today, with Paganini’s guitar compositions in the background:

YOU ARE READING THIS POEM
You are reading this poem
because you are looking
for something.
Like walking up a dry creek bed
in September looking
for something.
Looking for what the flash floods
of August have
washed down:
Smooth stones, polished sticks,
feathers, bones, seeds
You are walking up the dry bed
of this poem looking for something like that.
To keep, to have, to hold onto.
Stop. Turn back.
Come again when it storms.
Wait here while the flash flood tears through.
Stand in the water as deep as you dare.
Stay until you know what water is.
Keep that.

2023-10-27 Links

Daily Reads:

A day in Pompei – a full length animation of what happened in 24 hours when Mount Vesuvius emptied its bowels.

Ben Werdmuller: Journaling in private with my friends Not everything has to be about building a brand or a following. It can just be about reflecting, or sharing something with your friends. Private spaces allow us to be weird, unvarnished, and vulnerable in a way that’s harder for most people if they think the world could be watching.

Ness Labs: The Science of Brainstorming Particularly enjoyed the language around creativity types (combinatorial, exploratory and transformational) and the examples in each.

Ethan Molick: The best available human standard for AI argues that in many cases the AI is competing with no-one available to do the task. AI is also better than most humans at brainstorming.

QOTD:

Simple acts of generosity, of spirit as well as wealth, have a more lasting impact on us than any amount of marginal consumption. It is to be found in simple acts of noticing what is around us, and our deep relationship to it as our unconscious forces insight to the surface of our conscious in the hope that we might pay attention.
– Richard Merrick

Music:

John Mayer & Ed Sheeran Slow Dancing in a Burning Room