Perspectives

Daily Reads:

Joan Westenberg: No matter how hard you try, your job will not love you back

I’m glad to see CommonCog evolving and learning in public. The recent announcement is all I’ve had time to read, but it looks very relevant to my next few steps. Learning in Ill-structured domains, with cases as a way of recognising patterns without going to BSchools for the credentials, is a sensible way of learning (and saving money & time both) for many people, including me.

Matt Webb: It takes a while to figure out technology

Where are the godmothers of AI, asks Luba Kassova. Where are they, indeed? Timnit Gebru, Emily Bender, and the other women who spoke up have been scoffed at, laughed about, and generally been treated so poorly.

Two posts by Seth Godin: Generosity and gratitude A gift doesn’t diminish the giver. Sharing creates connection, possibility, and energy. The other, "After the meteorite" asks, now what?

This by Tracy Durnell is inspiring. "Finding enough together"

Paul Ford: A grand unified theory of buying stuff Reading this makes me very uncomfortable because I recognise myself in the category of buying stuff for my stuff. George Carlin will agree from wherever he is.

QOTD:

We have three fundamental ways in which we may deal with surprise:

• we may suppress it
• we may ignore it
• we may adapt to it
  – Steve McCrone

Music:

Mozart vs Beethoven, the Masters of Classical Music

It was the last day at work for me today, after my role was made redundant a few weeks ago. The day afforded no chance to do any reading or listening to any music.

The stories I heard today and over the last few days have left me wondering how pervasive is the toxicity of work, perhaps even the conditions deliberately employed by ‘work’.

Daily Reads:

Codie Sanchez on the James Altucher pdocast "How to build wealth buying boring businesses"

I haven’t got a chance to do much reading today, and tomorrow will be similar.

QOTD:

To seek understanding before taking action, yet to trust my instincts when action is called for. Never to avoid danger from fear, never to seek out danger for its own sake. Never to conform to fashion from fear of eccentricity, never to be eccentric from fear of conformity.
– Steven Brust, novelist

Music:

Leonard Cohen: Happens to the Heart

Daily Reads:

Amidst the shitshow that is the OpenAI saga, I came across this TED talk called The Exciting Perilous Journey towards AGIgiven by Ilya Sutskever a few weeks ago.

Huberman podcast on writing to improve mental health

QOTD:

What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?
– George Eliot (pen name of Mary Ann Evans)

Music:

John Hartford/ Glen Campbell cover of Gentle on My Mind by Toni Lindgren & Reina del Cid

Daily Reads:

I’ve just started listening to Lenny’s podcast with Hari Srinivasan from LinkedIn after listening to Merrick & James a couple of times.

QOTD:

Every man is guilty of all the good he didn’t do.
– Voltaire

Music:

Vivaldi – Complete Cello Concertos, Raphael Wallfisch

Daily Reads:

Ash Maurya shared a 3 step process for building better products at JustProduct2023. The ideas that Bob Moesta speaks about in his books Learning to Build and Demand Side Sales are both referenced in oblique ways. Prof. Clayton Christensen’s Jobs To Be Done Theory is an explicit callout.

I’ve been listening James Altucher’s conversation with Merrick Furst on repeat.

Between these three, I have enough insights and frameworks to work full time on the program that really was a side project for the last few months.

McKinsey’s advice to CFO’s on GenAI has this zinger: two-thirds of respondents reported that their functions were digitally connected and using data for the basics such as visualization in dashboards.

QOTD:

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
– Athenians after annihilating the adult men on Melos

HT: Paul Orlando’s Unintended Consequences

Music:

Leonard Cohen: Come Healing offers a solace from the horrors of the world around me.

Daily Reads:

Sir Ken Robinson speaking at TED: Bring on the learning revolution

Alan Blackwell: Oops, we’ve automated bullshit

Ewan Macintosh: Brutal simplicity is brutally hard to achieve

Erika shares her Effective Annual Reflection Process

Danilo Campos: The average AI criticism has gotten lazy and that’s dangerous

QOTD:

Language is not just a medium of communication, but a means of constructing reality. Words do not simply describe the world, they create it. Our language shapes our thoughts, our perceptions, and our spirit. They provide us with the categories by which we think and the sounds we use to express our thoughts.
– Wade Davis, The Wayfinders

Music:

Morgan Wallen – This Bar

Daily Reads:

This is a really fun video about negotiation

Discovered these folks who run a ‘fractional business leaders‘ for hire business.

Charlie Stross on science fiction & technology bosses

James Somers in the New Yorker: A coder considers the waning days of the craft.

Merrick Furst in conversation with Cal Fussman and on the podcast with James Altucher have messed with my head. It’s fascinating because it’s a contrary point of view. Furst has a book out called "The Heart of Innovation"

QOTD:

It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.
– Agatha Christie

Music:

Lev Weksler must have fingers of steel – Flight of the Bumblebee on the double-bass! It’s only a minute long but a breath-taking performance.

Daily Reads:

I’m claiming blog bankruptcy again this week. Physical books take precedence. I didn’t get home until early this morning, driving through a torrential storm took far longer than I expected.

I did watch a fantastic 40 minute video from the treasure that is Julian Treasure titled Audio Affects. His compelling claim is that audio is an underinvested marketing tool. His examples speak (pun intended) for themselves. Julian’s TED talk titled How to Speak So People Want To Listen is one of my favourite talks of all time. And come to think of it, TED has its own ‘earcon’ along with its ‘icon’.

Henrik Karlsson: Notes on energy and intelligence becoming cheaper The possibilities – or dystopia – that could be when renewables becomes the dominant, economic source of energy across the world (it already is happening) and AI is accessible to everyone! HK sees parallels to, and takes solace in, CS Lewis’ remarks about the atomic bomb. Great read.

QOTD:

Through others, we become ourselves.
– Lev Vygotsky, psychologist

Music:

Ricardo Buzzurro performs Indifference waltz. A different feeling with this one.

Daily Reads:

Began reading Bob Moesta’s Demand Side Sales, and continuing reading Presuasion.

QOTD:

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

Music:

Donovan & Pete Seeger Colours