What I see in different shades of gray, from behind my reading glasses
A long analysis of Elon’s Twitter
Steven Sinofsky on his experience Writing a book on Substack
Common Cog has a provocative, thoughtful piece on why Goodhart’s Law is not as useful as you may think, & some lessons from Amazon’s Weekly Business Review
John Hagel on the Untapped Opportunity of Institutional Narratives.
Benjamin Walker talking to author George P about Listening to Noise.
On GPT:
An analysis of Claude, an LLM from an OpenAI competitor called Anthropic.
ClaytonChristensen Institute’s primer for understanding the components of a solar energy system for consumers and producers.
On the origins of the phrase “Red Tape”
The London Review of Books has this fiery review of a book on consultants by Laleh Khalili.
Raymond Luk on Building a Startup in a Downturn
Nick Morgan asks Why do we deny the facts, and offers some ideas about what we can do about it.
How to change careers even when you’re super-afraid
Ray Croc: “As long as you’re green you’re growing, as soon as you’re ripe you start to rot.”
Doesn’t this usually happen when a company goes bankrupt? Twitter’s excess furniture sale in progress
Talking points for life: Ideas on how to have conversations (bonus: without long awkward pauses :))
Seth Godin: Generous and selfish
It turns out that happy people are more likely to be generous. (Which implies that generous people are more likely to be happy). Not because they get something measurable in return, but simply because abundance is a choice. And making choices celebrates our agency and potential.
Colin Newlyn offers a few reasons why organisations aren’t shifting to better ways of working?
Everything & more I didn’t know about trucking. I wonder how this translates to other countries?
The differential impact of ChatGPT
any subject area has a core / fundamental area (the science) and an applied area (use of the technique or application repeatedly towards the same or different problems)
– My assertion is that ChatGPT will impact applied area of any topic but not the core area relatively much, where understanding of the underlying building blocks is very important
Bruce Schneir on choosing secure passwords
Kurt Armstrong’s advice is to repair and remain
Sahil Bloom asked a bunch of nonagenarians what advice they’d give their 32 year old self
A Sydney startup proposes that Room Temperature Sodium Sulphur batteries can be a cheaper alternative storage mechanism.
Excel Mandelbrot? Seriously? Hui demonstrates how to on Chandoo’s blog.
Cory Muscara on lessons from meditating for 15 hours a day for six months.
Anne-Laure Le Cunff on Change Fatigue:
Change fatigue mostly arises when we feel like we’re not in control of the never-ending chaos that keeps on derailing our routines and forces us to constantly adapt. Very often, it is the case that change itself is unavoidable. What we have some control over, however, is how we react to change.
Dr. Hannah Rose explains how a family trip to Abilene gone wrong led to an observation called the Abilene paradox:
this unfortunately common situation where a group of people agree to an idea, despite most of them not fully believing that it is the best decision.
Robin Dunbar explains how the Dunbar number is more a series of numbers, or concentric circles, rather than an absolute
David Clowery, a songwriter, has a different take on the “Open” part of OpenAI.
Tom Krazit on why MS needs OpenAI & is worth the $10b price tag
AI recommendation of books on AI
I’ve received, gratefully, a mammoth data/information/knowledge/wisdom dump today, and a collection of the things, unsynthesized are here for later consumption/digestion:
On the dangers of Stochastic Parrots
Steve Blank has some advice for a B2B startup on its sales strategy: Be where your business is.
In Redefining the analytical process, the author emphasizes that while exploratory analysis takes time, explanatory analysis is the visible part and where more time must be actually spent for the message to land effectively.
Origins of the World Map (Video)
For laughs & giggles – and to try out on the next trip to the beach 🙂 Potato shaped stones are better for skimming
On the train trip to work & back today, I watched the interview on Caro & Gottlieb I linked to yesterday. Magnificent. I also discovered a 3 year old interview of Caro on DemocracyNow which is also fantastic. Robert Caro’s research, and his storytelling angles are incredibly inspiring, focusing as they do on “how power affects the powerless”.
Rands on The Seven Dispositions of Task Management.
40 ways to let go and feel less pain
I’m perturbed that I keep getting links to LessWrong: 100 Tips for A Better Life:
100. Bad things happen dramatically (a pandemic). Good things happen gradually (malaria deaths dropping annually) and don’t feel like ‘news’. Endeavour to keep track of the good things to avoid an inaccurate and dismal view of the world.
A little help to find/define/sharpen your Life Principles
Colin Newlyn writes a substack on decrapifying work (and if that isn’t a word, it should be).
on GPT:
On the YT watch list: Robert Caro & Robert Gottlieb in conversation at the New York Public Library