Author: obsidian_ns

Daily Reads:

Molly White: AI Isn’t Useless …I’m glad that I took the time to experiment with AI tools, both because I understand them better and because I have found them to be useful in my day-to-day life. But even as someone who has used them and found them helpful, it’s remarkable to see the gap between what they can do and what their promoters promise they will someday be able to do. The benefits, though extant, seem to pale in comparison to the costs.

QOTD:

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.
-Clarence Darrow, lawyer and author (18 Apr 1857-1938)

Music:

Mark Knopfler: One Deep River, the album

Daily Reads:

Ewan McIntosh: Design for the trickiest customer on the worst day. Think like an engineer, not like a shrewd accountant. Test the assumptions of what’s being done today.

Colin Newlyn: You are not your job. You are infinitely more than that.

Complement Colin’s post with Stowe Boyd’s "May No New Thing Arise" the executives who are so strongly motivated to undertake change initiatives — because it sends signals of action to shareholders and markets — are unlikely ever to cast themselves as an accounting clerk or an engineer, being made into mincemeat in the grinder of the newest grand change scheme.

QOTD:

Companies do not transform. People do.
-Rishad Tobaccowala

Music:

Mark Knopfler: From the new album One Deep River Tunnel 13. MK has a knack for making history accessible through verse and tune.

Daily Reads:

Dan Gilmor shares What’s next for him: I am absolutely convinced that journalism’s most essential role at this critical moment goes far, far beyond what it’s doing. The status quo in political (and related) coverage consists of sporadically noting that gosh-maybe-there’s-a-problem, while sticking mostly to journalistic business as usual. The status quo is journalistic malpractice.

Jillian Hess has a fantastic blog about Rachel Carson’s field notes for Silent Spring. Like Jill, I’m fascinated by how people take notes, and particularly the masters who have gone before us.

QOTD:

“If we continue to hold on to a dream for something in the future, we lose the present moment. And if we lose the present, we lose everything.”
-Thich Nhat Hanh

Music:

Paul Moseley does some thumb picking. Stunning work!

Daily Reads:

I should really call this section "Daily Consumption" 🙂

HT Marty for this link: Death of the Follower and the Future of Creativity on the Web, by Patreon co-founder Jack Conte at SXSW 2024.

Dave Snowden: How to create flow in complex environments in Part 1, Part 2

QOTD:

There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
-Booker T. Washington

Music:

Mark Knopfler: Two Pairs of Hands is a new song that dropped today!

Daily Reads:

More podcast listening today – Cal Fussman asks Big Questions of Alan Stein Jr., a basketball coach turned keynote speaker.

Daily Reads:

More podcast listening today – Dr Marianne Roux on Leadership Fit for the Future of Work on a podcast I’ve just started to listen called Phronesis. I’m not sure how to feel/think about this yet, but there’s an episode with Dr. Margaret Wheatley that I’m keen to listen to.

Matt Abrahams on Lenny’s podcast on "How To Speak More Confidently and Persuasively"

QOTD:

I am only one, But still I am one.
I cannot do everything, But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
-Edward Everett Hale, author (3 Apr 1822-1909)

Music:

Willie Nelson: It Gets Easier

Daily Reads:

I’ve just finished listening to James Altucher in conversation with Gladys McGarey on "Discovering Life, Love, and Laughter". Dr. McGarey is 103 years old, and this was refreshing on so many levels, not least of which was the perspective of someone who’s lived a long life.

The other podcast that I have listened to today was Hidden Brain’s special tribute to the wonderful Daniel Kahneman who passed away on 27 March 2024.

QOTD:

Make no judgments where you have no compassion.
-Anne McCaffrey, writer

Music:

Steve Goodman, concert at the Capitol Theater, 1976

Daily Reads:

Helmets have always been a good idea 😃

John Donohue – the first three minutes of this talk at Greenbelt send shivers up my spine

Tracy Kidder features a young man from Burundi – "Strength in what remains". Here is Deo doing a Talk at Google

Tallis Scholars – Allegri: Miserere

Ewan McIntosh Stop thinking about what you want and start thinking about "Who you are now, and where do you want to be"

QOTD:

[!quote] Howard Zinn, Historian
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. Human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.

If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Music:

Tallis Scholars perform the Allegri: Miserere. Divine!
Backstory, from a comment on the video: _this composition was banned from being published and that choral groups passed the score to the next group to perform. Mozart, when an early teenager, heard a performance within the Sistine Chapel. He went back to his lodging and wrote it down from memory, all 12+ minutes for all singers!! He went back to another performance in the Sistine later that week and found, "no adjustments needed"!! This major church in Rome was built based on a dream by an early pope who had a dream that an angel spoke "Build a church where it will snow tomorrow".! Well this was early August in Rome where snow is unknown in August!! Well it did and this church was built in the late 400’s AD!! _

Daily Reads:

Ray Suarez: It’s a long way down a sobering read about ageism in the workplace.

Ed Brenegar: When the Right Answer is the Wrong One

🧈 Seriously – there’s an emoji for butter!

Sketchplanations: Vitamins and painkillers

Driving opportunities for women in Bogota, pun intended

Bob Ewing’s tribute to Daniel Kahnemann

Charles Duhigg in conversation with McKinsey on supercommunicators

Jurgen Geuter Smashing Frames: Like Deja-vu but worse

QOTD:

"Figure out what you’re good at without trying, then try."
-Isabel, author

Daily Reads:

Richard Merrick strikes again! This time tackling something that I’m working with directly – the GROW model

_But what if we looked at it backwards; what if we used the W.O.R.G model instead this morning?
Will -What is it that the quiet voice, which has not and will not give up on you no matter how many times you ignore it, is asking of you this morning? What might you contribute in your astonishingly brief time here? What is it that your spirit, your soul, or other embodiment of choice is calling out for?
Options—What could you do today that will move you in the direction that voice is asking of you? What if there were no rules, and your coach lent you their officially issued magic wand to remove impediments to exercising your abilities and talent?
Reality – Back to the real world. What are the constraints that are stopping you? How many of them are real, and how many are just convenient? How might you harness them? Which are you going to take on?
Goal—OK. Now, let’s talk about your goal—not the “performance monkey” one, the one that matters to you, not to HR, your line manager, or your shareholders. I can guarantee that pursuing that goal will be inefficient, hard, time-consuming, and one hundred per cent human.
And it will matter.

Ness Labs: We got Ikigai all wrong
Instead of pursuing a grand life purpose, optimize for wanting to wake up in the morning. Live a life of curiosity and connection. Trust that success will be a byproduct of the meaning you find in daily experiences.

Carlota Perez: A long delayed golden age (from June 2022) makes the case as to why it’s taken so long for the "installation period" for ICT last so long, unlike previous revolutions.

Who knew tying shoelaces could be fun? The Double Helix Lacing Tutorial by Prof Shoelace

[!quote] Ideas
Ideas rot if you don’t do something with them. Don’t hoard them. Blog them or otherwise tell people.
-Ed Dumbill

[!quote] What Matters..
What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.
-Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Interconnected: Who will build new search engines for new personal AI agents? A scary promising new world awaits.

Ewan McIntosh: Avoid launching your next big idea. At all costs. When you know who you’re talking to, their needs and desires, it suddenly becomes quite simple to communicate clearly with them.

Benedict Evans: The Problem of AI Ethics, and laws about AI

I’d never heard of nor read this story by Kurt Vonnegut: Harrison Beregeron