97 / 100 :: Holy cow, this book. It's almost an expose on the predatory practices of the comic industry but it's also fun to read which should be mutually exclusive. And yet, Pulitzer prize. Story of Joe Kavalier a Jew from Prague and his cousin Sammy Klayman in NY who go into comic business together. Create the Escapist (Mr. Miracle) and thier strange real life parrallel with the comic life. 1930's golden age comics, escaping from and punching Nazis, WW2, failure and setbacks, boundless energy, Sammy is gay, Joe fathers a boy with Rosa and returns 12 years after WW2 and all sorts of drama. Great book. Also covers the swindling of all the early creators by the publishers.
The Whalebone Theater
2 Aug 2023
97 / 100 :: Great. Well written by Joanna Quinn.
Cristabel, Flossie/The Veg, Digby are 3 kids living in Chilcombe Manor in the 1920s thru 1945. Jasper Seagrave and eife have Cristabel, then mom dies. Book opens with new mom Rosalind arriving. Jasper and Rosalind have Florence/Flossie/The Veg. Jasper dies. Rosalind has Digby with Jasper's dashing brother Willoughby. Parents all sad sacks, alcoholics, WW1 vets with problems. Kids raise themselves. At age twelve (Crista) they find a beach washed up on the shore near their ancestral home. A Russian artist and his partying retinue find it and the party is invited to stay at Chilcombe. They take the carcass and put it in the field and use the ribs to create a theatre. Crista puts on Illiad and Shakespeare. Becomes a locally famous landmark. Elders drink and throw lavish parties. Kids do plays. Then WW2 ruins everything. Terrible ending. A book where nothing happens plot-wise. Kids grow up, things occur. But utterly heart-breaking.
Senlin Ascends
2 Feb 2020
96 / 100 :: Very good. Thomas Senlin, recently married headmaster, takes wife Mayra to the Tower of Babel for honeymoon. They get seperated in the market and he must find her. Travels through the levels of the Tower while turning from J. Alfred Prufrock to hero. Well written and fast paced page turner. Great world building and great start to a series.
The Black Company
21 Dec 2020
96 / 100 :: Took a few paragraphs to settle in to the style, but this was really well done dark fantasy.
Good and gritty military ops in fantasy land. Jack Raecheresque. Written in 1984 and apparently set the tone for the genre. Craoker is Black Company physician/chronicler and tells us about the adventures. Short and punchy, moves fast. Seems like the real adventures of normal humans in a world of gods and minor magic. Out of their depth and terrified but soldiering on.
When Breath Becomes Air
6 Jan 2025
96 / 100 :: Good. Chopped some onions at the end. Paul Kalanithi writes about dying from cancer as he dies from cancer. Lucy his wife finishes the book. 36 year old brain surgeon gets diagnosed during last year of residency and lives another 22 months. Great doc, great person, great book.
Code
24 Nov 2024
95 / 100 :: Good. Didn't get to finish but great intro to how a computer works from morse code and binary to JK flip flops and all the gate types. Purchase maybe.
Ben Franklin Autobiography
9 Jan 2013
95 / 100 :: It's B-Money Franklin. Of course its good. Ben spends his free time battling sophistry and moral depravity from Boston to Philly, with sound reasoning, clever word play, and an indominatable work ethic. A real American proto-man. And a terrible father and husband. Yep, that tracks. Great men soaring in society and failing at home. Sorry Ms. Franklin and Ben junior! We benefit from your suffering.
...these disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs.
They get victory sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them. (noted, but not implemented)
The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forc'd by the occasion.
He that would thrive, must ask his wife. (aware of Irony?)
There are croakers in every country, always boding its ruin.
Such a one then lived in Philadelphia; a person of note, an elderly man, with a wise look and a very grave manner of speaking; his name was Samuel Mickle.
This gentleman, stopt one day at my door, and asked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing-house.
Being answered in the affirmative, he said he was sorry for me, because it was an expensive undertaking, and the expense would be lost;
for Philadelphia was a sinking place, the people already half bankrupts, or near being so; all appearances to the contrary,
such as new buildings and the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge fallacious; for they were, in fact, among the things that would soon ruin us.
There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name, with whom I was intimately aquainted.
We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputations turn, by the way,
is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice;
and thence besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, perhaps enmities where you may have occasion for friendship.
Liberation Day
8 Jul 2023
95 / 100 :: Good. Saunders collection of short stories. Adult son Mike and the singing human choir. Love Letter, My House, A Thing at Work, Sparrow, A Mom of Bold Action, all great. Ghoul ok, skipped Elliott Spencer.
The Permanent Portfolio
22 May 2013
95 / 100 :: Great. Another book that could have been a pahmplet, but a solid concept that has born out through monte carlo simulations and regression testing. Dead simple and does what it says on the tin. Preserve capital.
25/25/25/25 allocation in stocks bonds cash and gold
4 states of an economy: prosperity (stocks/bonds), recession (cash), deflation (bonds/cash), inflation (gold)
STOCKS -- VTSMX / VTI (ETF) / IWV / FSTMX / SWTSX
BONDS -- (best to buy and hold directly) TLT
CASH -- SHV / FDLXX / BIL
GOLD (best to own physical) IAU / GLD / SGOL
Diversify risk between multiple brokerages and multiple funds
Dividends and interest go into cash
Rebalance at 35/15 bands -- total value of portfolio divided by four gives new allocation amount. Sell the 35+ and spread profit to get every one to the new baseline.
Add money to cash until 25% then add to worst performing current asset up to 25%
The Most Dangerous Game
6 Aug 2019
95 / 100 :: Excellent short story. Man falls overboard from yacht, swims to "Ship-wreck Island" where he finds a chateau and stays the night with general Zaroff. Zaroff owns the island and hunts people. Rainsford wont' participate though Rainsford is a gifted hunter who was on his way to Brazil to hunt jaguars. Zaroff has hunted every animal and now captures people to hunt. So begins the 3 day hunt of Sanger Rainsford. he makes traps, evades, runs, but Zaroff is better. Catches him every day but because he is so bored hunting dumb sailors he lets Rainsford go each time because its so much fun to have good sport at last. Third day Zaroff's pack of hounds push Rainsford off a cliff. At night Rainsford is waiting in Zaroff's bedroom and they fight to the death. R wins.
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
29 Apr 2021
94 / 100 :: Six short stories by russian authors and explained by george saunders. Good sotries, good explanations.
Dead Beat
26 Jan 2020
93 / 100 :: Dresden files 7. Good story. Fast, relentless, strong. Strong verbs everywhere but wasn't tiring. Follows his own formula. good pulp.
Harry Dresden has burnt, useless left hand after previous adventure. Half-brother vampire lives with him now. Harry gets summons to his own grave where dispatched vampire spirit tells him to find Word of Kemmler. So begins sluething, lots of necromancy on Halloween. Deals with demon that now lives within him from some other adventure. Becomes warden for final fight and animates T Rex to dispatch zombies, saves day, etc.
The Fantasy Fiction Formula
1 Dec 2018
93 / 100 :: great and dialed in for it's genre.
Story opening needs to contain hook in 1st sentence,
introduce protag and story goal, introduce story quesiton, establish viewpoint,
set up story situation as it stands right now, introduce an immediate antagonist (maybe not THE antagonist), and give conflict
Hook can be question, a strange character introduction, immediate danger, sinister happenings, action, etc
Introduce protag doing something or saying something to develop them as person
SPOOC - situation, protagonist, objective, opponent, climax
situation -backdrop of trouble and threatening change in circumstances that force protag to action
protag - person most affected by situation, most interesting person
objective - goal. something sought to rectify the story question/problem
opponent - person(s) stopping protag from reaching objective
climax - protag is tested in direct conflict with antag. all seems lost, etc. resolves the situation
SPOOC is 2 sentence plot equation. First 3 parts of SPOoc in 1st sentence, last 2 elements (spoOC) in 2nd sentence phrased as quesiton
When his daughter is kidnapped(situation) King Bilbo(protag) vows to get her back(obj).
But can he bring her home when the evil wizard(opponent) demands the King's soul as the daughter's ransom(climax)?
Scenes are designed to remove protag's options, make life harder. About conflict and change
Scene goal -- what in this specific moment/time is the protag trying to accomplish
Scene conflict -- when 2 or more characters are in direct opposition over a goal. It advances the story and shows us character. Adversity is just bad luck.
As soon as protag makes goal clear, it must be challenged. Combat, verbal disagreement, interrogation, evasion, bickering
Protag must be worried, stressed, suffering, to elicit change. Novels open with change and progress through change to climax.
Action/reaction unit -- cause and effct in one simple package. Drop glass, glass breaks. Keep it clear and logically ordered
Don't dive for cover when/as something happens, instead have the thing happen then dive for cover. Don't info dump between A/R units...unless...
it's a complicated A/R unit and then you can dive into character viewpoint so we understand a reaction to an action.
"Hello," he said. She threw a knife at his head. doesn't make sense unless...
we spend some time in her head where she knows that he cheated on her and she now hates him and how dare he walk in here and casually say, "hello."
Feeling/emotion first, then thought, then action, then dialogue.
But don't have a character react to their own dialogue before the other has responded.
Scene Resolution -- complete or partial failure for the protag in every scene goal.
Four options:
1 Yes (bad)
2 No, (meh)
3 Yes but, (good)
4 No and furthermore (great, but used sparingly)
Sequel - a chance to breathe from the scene above. After the setback form the scene, protag needs time to internalize, emote and plan.
Show the reader why protag is doing what he's doing.
Emotional aftermath - the overwhelming raw feeling after the terrible thing that just happened
Analytic thought - after the feelings ebb the protag must analyze. This shows type of person. How will they manuever through the setback.
Review of previous events - Weigh options - Decide - Reiterate story goal. Why is this important to protag. Protag must DO something, and always chose to forge on.
Take action - leads to new scene by forming the next scene's goal
For weak middles increase suspense, plant threats or have them come true from seeds planted earlier, use plot twists, make the danger real, chase, ticking clocks, etc.
Endings must be psychologically fulfilling, dramaticaly thrilling, and emotionaly satisfying.
All conlfict brought to a head, all subplots ended, answer the primary story quesiton, prove the protag worthy and antag deserving of defeat
Tests the inner flaw of the protag, shows change/growth from beginning.
Decides to sacrifice, free choice to do so.
Takes action followed by dark moment (all is lost).
Reversal. Must come from growth of character, something learned/gained along the journey.
Reward and punishment for protag/antag.
Resolution. New world/new hero.
Kiki's Delivery Service
23 Feb 2024
93 / 100 :: Good - different than movie but still good. No drama/conflict just cozy delivery tales. More about becoming your own person and then revisitng home as a new/same person. Movie had stuff about self-confidence and losing magic powers due to lack of confidence, the book is just a series of deliveries through her first year away from home as a 13 to 14 year old. Good stuff.
Spinning Silver
26 Feb 2020
93 / 100 :: Good modern fairy tale. Miryem the moenylender's daughter in a psuedo russian village freezes her heart to collect debts her soft father is too polite to chase after. This causes the Staryk king to give her three tasks to turn his silver coins to gold coins. She makes a ring, a necklace and a crown selling each for more gold than the silver used to make them. For payment for this service he takes her as a queen and takes her to his parallel fairy world of ice and winter and makes her turn three storerooms of silver into gold. This causes the real world to freeze. But the tsar is possesed by Chernobog a fire demon who wants to eat the winter king. Drama enues between Miryem, the tsar's wife Irina who bought the ring, necklace and crown of fairy silver, and Wanda, a girl from Miryem's village who was her helper in order to pay off her father's debt. Miryem ends up following the persephone script of some time in winter land and some time in real land. Wanda and siblings live with Miryem's family in magic hut on teh edge of twilight and Irina is safe now that the demon is gone from the tsar.
Black Company 2: Shadows Linger
30 Dec 2020
93 / 100 :: Black Company part 2. Still good, still fast paced, still punchy. Black Company breaks with the Lady after battle with castle that is the portal/part of the Dominator. Heavy losses but new purpose. Find Darling and rebel.
All the Skills
28 Sep 2023
92 / 100 :: Good. LitRPG with playable/useable cards that have powers/abilities. Best written so far. Interesting system. A dragon lets the hero kid keep a legendary card for some reason?! but then story starts. Kid uses it to gain power. Gets powerful but nowhere near top tier by end of book. Doesn't know anything about world outside of village so lots of learning but handled better than most LitRPGs without as many info dumps. Author can write.
He Who Fights With Monsters
7 Sep 2023
92 / 100 :: Good. LitRPG crack. Isekai Jason gets sent to antoher planet and has crazy new powers and a cocky attitude and edgelord vibes. He adventures and levels up. Well written, plot heavy, but hero is so annoying in an attempt to be funny? relatable? edgey? that I can't even book 2.
Piranesi
16 Nov 2021
92 / 100 :: Mind games. Occultist discovers path to other world where ancient knowledge resides. Primitive man once held this knowledge but it left and created this flooded world of great halls and statues. Occultists students learn of it and travel there and one student does what his mentor did and captures people and forces them to live in the world/prison that drives them mad. He studies them? Uses them? Piranesi was a journalist who went to interview this student and gets captured and lives in this world. Good stuff, super fun. Plus 2 bonus points for the Piranesi reference.
The Sisters Brothers
22 Nov 2020
92 / 100 :: Good western writing. Modern western so it's faster paced.
Eli and Charlie Sister are hired by the commodore to kill Hermann Kermit Warm. Many vignettes and asides lead the brothers to Kermit who has befriended the Commodore's spy sent to track him. The pair are using a secret formula made by Hermann to find gold in 1850's Frisco rivers. The formula works but is also a poison. The two die but the brothers, who have also joined the pair, don't. The formula dies with Hermann and the brothers return to their home. Eli kills the Commodore to end their life of being mercs and the brothers move in with mom.
Fairy Tale
21 Jul 2023
91 / 100 :: Good. Stevie King tackles a fairy tale. Not horror, maybe YA or MG? Simple, plot holes, loose ends, but fun once the story finally started on page 117 of 600. Boy is seven when mommy dies on a bridge. Daddy becomes alcoholic. Boy raises daddy for sevenish years until he sobers up thanks to AA. (Lots of AA stuff) Then boy and dad are good. Now story starts. Boy hears dog howling at old stereotypical victorian crumbling mansion. Boys races to help grumpy old man who fell off ladder. Old man has nobody but boy and dog while he heals. Boy grows to love dog and old man. Old man tells boy about magic hole in shed that leads to fairy tale world. Boy enters because there is magic there that can make old dog young--man is now dead but rode the wheel a few times. Boy travels through storybook tales to magic city to fountain of youth wheel. Does it. Then captured and must escape with gladiator pit slaves and fight evil in land that is turning everyone into featureless grey rock automatons. Boy is chosen one. His brown hair and eyes turn blond and blue and he strikes down evil prince, rescues princess. Returns to our world, turns brown again and never goes back into hole.
How We Got To Now
24 Feb 2024
91 / 100 :: Good - Six innovations that helped shape our modern world: glass, cold, sound, clean, time, light. Also the idea of the possible adjecent, you can't invent a phonograph until the building blocks for understanding sound and how it works are in place. This is why you have simultaneous inventions of the same thing once a few key pieces of the puzzle solved.
Glass - Discovered in saharah after meteor strike and used in egypt as prized bauble, Romans figured out how to make it. They made cloudy glass until 1204 and fall of constantinople led Turkish refugees to Venice where they continued their glassmaking arts. Glassmakers always burned down buildings so Venice relocated them to the nearby island of Murano. Murano glass made because all the glassmakers in one place sharing and copying ideas. One guy used ash from seaweed high in magnesium to make clear glass. Now glass jars/vessels showed people how gritty the wine was so wine makers had to make cleaner wine. Monks used half sphere paperweights to magnify texts, glassmakers put them onto frames and thinned them into lenses (lentils) but it was the printing press that made everyone want to read and then discover they were farsighted. So lens makers had to grind lenses that magnified for so many more people they became rich and experimented with magnifying until...microscope which led to animacules and microbes. Then fiber optics.
Cold - Frederic Tudor 1850s? went to bahamas with bro and realized it's hot. Didn't like it because from Boston Mass. Spent summer usually at farm where they had an ice house and hung out by big blocks of ice. Decided the people of the islands needed ice. Figured out how to keep ice from melting and shipped it down. People didn't know what to do with it. Had a hard time but after 10 years or so was selling winter ice cut from Mass lakes all over the world. A doctor in a malaria clinic in FL used ice from MA to cool feverish patients, but it sometimes was delayed due to storms. Decided to make ice using new discovery of air and gasses in air. Compressed then expanded them through tubes to draw heat out of air. Worked. A/C but nobody wanted it. Smear campaign from Tudor saying it was filled with germs. But stockyards in Chi liked it to pack meat and so Chicago grows and ships meat. Modern food and birdseye flash freezing change Ag industry and how we eat. Eventually AC catches on and after WW2 people buy AC units and move to places you couldn't live before. So many people move south and west that it shifts political lines and forces the electoral college to shift toward CA FL TX.
Sound - Recording and playing back the human voice by Edison and Bell was a reversal. It was done first by some other guy who forgot that once you recored the voice it needed to be decoded. Ooops. Edison thought people would use record instead of mailing letters and Bell thought the phone would be great for listening to live music. Criss-cross. But shows how you can't predict the outcome from the inputs. Once we could record and or amplify our voice we could hold rallies for good or evil. It changed our musical tastes since limiting tech made classical music sound awful during broadcast but was fine for the more limited range of jazz/pop/rock.
Clean - The story of lifting Chicago to install a sewer line. Jack screws FTW. But dumping your waste into the place you get your drinking water is not smart. John Snow mapped cholera but it was Leal who chlorinated the water in Jersey without permission but reduced water brone disease by 43% and child moratility by 73%. All due to glass being able to see pathogens and also advances in measurement so Leal could add small does of sodium hypochloride and not kill the patient but get the bugs. Changed urban planning and increased life expectancy. Began the hysteria of cleaning everything from you to your home from GERMS. Spurred the ad industry.
Time - Dennison watches democratized time. Made watches cheap enough that most people could have one. But it didn't change much since Galileo watched lamps swinging in the Duomo and thought about making a mechanical clock. Most cities still had their own time. Once trains connected towns and you could travel faster than the sun across the sun dial you noticed the chaos and unsynched nature. So standarized zones. As things move faster we need more precision. Quartz better than mechanical, cesium better yet.
Light - Edison didn't invent the light bulb. Had been around for about 40 years. Nobody had electricity in their homes to power one. Just a curiosity. Edison made them better by using bamboo (from japan, which opened up more trade with east) in a vacuum and they lasted years. Now you could see at night in a way candles wouldn't allow due to cost/fumes/lumens. Saved the whales. Caused modern issues with sleep and productivity. Now you could work at night and not just relax and read by your single candle. You could stay up and do things.
Save the Cat! Writes a Novel
9 May 2019
91 / 100 :: how to write to spec. well done.
A hero has a problem (a flaw that needs fixing), a want (a goal to pursue that hero thinks will solve the problem), and a need (a lesson to learn that actually solves flaw).
The hero has a shard of glass buried deep that has wounded them and made them flawed. They chase the wrong thing(s) to get it out until the end. Then they can overcome/change/grow.
The A story is the main plot/adventure (collect the Easter eggs in the video game) and B story is the internal story of a shy kid learning to trust/make friends in order to complete the A story.
B Story needs/goals for the life lesson need to remove the shard:
Forgivness of self or others
Love of self, others, or group
Acceptance of self, circumstances, or reality
Faith in self, others, world, society
Fear to overcome, finding courage
Trust in self, others, unknown
Survival, finding will to live
Selflessness including sacrifice, altruism
Responsibility including duty, cause, or destiny
Redemption including atonement, salvation
ACT 1
1. Opening Image - 0-1% - A before snapshot of hero and world. Set tone, style, mood
2. Theme Stated - 5% - Statement made by character (typically not hero) that hints at what hero's arc will be. What the hero must learn/discover for the story to end. Life lesson.
3. Setup - 0-10% - Exploration of status quo of hero's life. Learn flaws, meet supporting characters and primary goal. See hero's reluctance to change and learn what will happen if he doesn't.
4. Catalyst - 10% - Inciting incident/life-altering event that happens to hero. Sends them to new world or new way of thinking. Action beat here. Prevents life as normal from continuing.
5. Debate - 10-20% - Reaction beat where hero decides. Should I go? Should I...?
ACT 2
6. Break into 2 - 20% - Moment hero accepts call to action, leave comfort zone, try new thing. Decisive action beat that sends hero into upside-down Act 2 world.
7. B Story - 22% - Introduciton of new characters who help hero learn theme. Love interest, mentor, nemesis, friends/ally...
8. Fun and Games - 20-50% - Promise of the premise. Hero in new world loving it or hating it. Charlie is in the chocolate factory, detective sluething, adventurers adventuring, etc.
9. Midpoint - 50% - Fun and Games culminates in false victory or false defeat depending on how #8 went. Here stakes are raised to push hero to real change. Fun is done.
10. Bad Guys Close In - 50-75% - If midpoint was false victory, then downward spiral for hero. Things fall apart. If false defeat in #9, upward path. Regardless hero's deep-rooted flaws prevent meaningful change toward theme stated #2.
11. All is Lost - 75% - Lowest point. Action beat. Something happens to hero that combined with internal flaws pushes hero to rock bottom
12. Dark Night of the Soul - Reaction beat where hero processes story to this point. Darkest hour before dawn. Wallows in defeat.
ACT 3
13. Break into 3 - 80% -AHA! moment when Hero realizes what they must do to fix Act 2 problems and also fix internal flaws. Arc almost complete. Plan out victory.
14. Finale - 80-99% - Hero proves he's truly learned the theme and delivers on plan from #13. Bad guys vanquished, flaws conquered, lovers reunited. World saved and better than before. Hero too.
A. Gather the Team - Make amends to allies. Gather Tools if lone hero.
B. Execute the Plan - Action! Plan is crazy but it's working. B Story sacrifice. allies sometimes sacrifice here.
C. High Tower Surprise - Another twist to stop 14B from being too easy. Plan doesn't work or new info makes twist/failure to 14B.
D. Dig Down Deep - Reaction beat. Hit rock bottom again, but something is down there now. Hero decides to do something they never would have at beginning of book.
E. Execute New Plan - Shard of glass removed. Now they can triumph on thier own (alone usually).
15. Final Image - 100% - Mirror of #1 Opening Image. After snapshot of tranformed hero in the new old world.
GENRES:
1. WHYDUNIT - Mystery to be solved by hero (maybe is a detective) during which shocking things revealed about dark side of human nature
A dectective/hero who is personally involved in solving the mystery
A secret that when revealed reveal a dark truth about humanity
A dark turn when the hero is so deep in the mystery that their own values are compromised. The hero must do something that threatens who they are as a person
2. RITES OF PASSAGE - Hero must endure pain and torment brought by life's challenges to become full person
A life problem or universal challenge
A wrong way to attack the problem that makes it and the hero worse off
An acceptance of the hard truth that leads to a real solution and a change in the hero
3. INSTITUTIONALIZED - Hero enters or is already member of certain group, institution, establishment and chooses to join/stay, escape, destroy or change it
A group or family or organization that is unique/interesting in some way
A choice resulting from a conflict to join group or not, or remain in group or not and the stakes for the hero's decision
A sacrifice leading to result of joining, burning it down, escaping, or staying/changing it or one's self
4. SUPERHERO - Extraordinary hero in ordinary world must come to terms with being special or their special destiny
A power bestowed on hero even if it's just to be a "good" person or do "good" ( a mission...possibly from god)
A nemesis who directly opposes the hero and possess equal or greater power, but is self-made and not the chosen one who just "has" the power
A curse for the hero to beat as the price to be paid for who they are and makes hero relatable
5. DUDE WITH PROBLEM - Innocent, ordinary hero finds themselves in extraordinary circumstances and must rise to the challenge to live/survive/change
An innocent hero who is dragged into the mess without asking for it, but has buried skills to overcome problem
A sudden event that thrusts innocents into the problem and comes without warning
A life or death battle that threatens the continued existence of hero, an individual, group or society
6. FOOL TRIUMPHANT - Underestimated, underdog hero is pitted against some kind of establishment and proves a hidden worth to society
A fool whose innocence is their strength adn gentle nature makes them ignored or downtordden by all but a jealous insider who knows all too well
An establishment the fool comes up against either in their world or the new world. Mismatch creates conflict
A transmutation in which the fool becomes someone new
7. BUDDY LOVE - Hero is transformed by meeting someone else
An incomplete hero who needs another to be whole
A counterpart who has the missing pieces
A complication (misunderstanding, physical challenge, event, societal disapproval, etc) that keeps the two apart but eventually welds them together
8. OUT OF THE BOTTLE - Ordianry hero is temproarily granted powers or cursed and must learn lesson about appreciating and making most of reality when power/curse fades
A hero deserving of the magic. They need this specific boost to overcome something
A spell that gives them their wish/pwer
A lesson that teaches the hero and ultimately allows hero to fix inital problem without powers
9. GOLDEN FLEECE - Hero and/or group goes on road trip adventure in search of something to discover...themselves
A road spanning distance and/or time so long as it demarcates growth and tracks progress of the story/hero
A team or buddy to guide the hero along the way. Usually it's those who have what the hero lacks. Skills, experience, wisdom, morals...etc
A prize that is primal and sought after, getting home, treasure, freedom, reaching a new/forbidden place, a birthright, that once obtained does little since hero grew/changed on journey
10. MONSTER IN THE HOUSE - Hero or group must overcome supernatural monster/horror in an enclosed setting and find that someone is responsible for creation of monster
A monster with powers and is evil
A house or any limited space that traps hero and monster together
A sin that is revealed to show someone (hero) created monster or invaded monster's house. The transgression relates to the theme the hero has to learn
LOGLINE: On the verge of a stasis=death moment, a flawed hero #6 (accepts CTA); but when #9 (midpoint reversal/twist) happens will they learn the stated theme before all is lost
STORY SYNOPSIS :
P1 - Setup, flawed hero, and catalyst
P2 - Break into 2 and/or fun and games
P3 - Theme stated, midpoint hint and/or all is lost hint that ends in cliffhanger
Small Things Like These
16 Mar 2025
91/100 :: Good. Short, fast, well-written. Literary fiction about a Magdalene Laundry and Bill Furlong, a dude who cares and delivers coal. And all of it just in time for St. Patrick's Day no less. Good stuff.
The 80/20 Principle and 92 Other Laws
18 Mar 2021
91 / 100 :: Good review of science concepts and how they integrate with business as biological organism.
Evolution - Vary, invent, multiply, vary again. Always evelove products/services and try them in market. Evolve teams, don't settle with it works. Disrupt yourself before competitors do. Occupy all areas of niche. Create a new product and then all the variations of that product that your competition would make. Expose your ideas to competition. Without it you will weaken. Drive a sucess to endpoint fast and hard. Always listen to market. Diversity works.
Differentiate and specialize. If oyu are different from competition then pu tall energy there. Create niche. Increase difference from competition. Get out of business where competition can invade your space but you can't take theirs. Look for opposite opportunity. Don't live in a space where you co-exists with competition. Stability doesn't work.
Listen to criticism/markets. Let 2nd and 3rd impressions beat 1st impressions. Take more risks where upside, value x probability, is greater than downside. If in doubt do it anyway. Only caveat is to not take risks when things are failing. Cut losses and move on. Don't draw attention to yourself. Don't be emotional. Act confident at all times. Lead at all times until someone in authority says you can't. MAnage your impression - speak loud and fast to appear dynamic, wear tweed suits and glasses to apea smart. Be freidnly and warm. Don't criticize. I agree with you but...is only way to push back. Build alliances in other departments. Be profligate with status rewards.
Cooperate with best cooperators. Withhold cooperation from those who won't/don't until they do. Best long term strat is cooperation so work toward it. Build rep as someone who creates value for others. Always cooperate on first instance until proven otherwise.
Avoid competing directly with competitors. Competition exerts downward pressure on margins. Concentrate resources on blue oceans, places where there isn't competition. Everything will be copied but in blue oceans it will take competition a bit to catch up. Use time and space to expand and control. Move in opposite directions from competition.
Reduce time it takes to deliver product/service. Customer, client, competitors perspectives will always differ. Listen to customer, make their changes and do it fast. Help guide their choices too.
Try both/and not either/or. Try thought experiments before comiiting to path. Think how competition will react and your reaction to their reaction.
Grab first mover advantage. Spot patterns in markets. Be flexible and have strategies, not just one. Adapt fast.
Start with 50/5 analysis then 80/20. What is the bottom half of my product line, worst half of clients/customers...then drop those. Then do 80/20. Focus energies on the 20 that produce the 80. Own little, be simple, control much.
The Dutch House
19 Feb 2020
91 / 100 :: Well written tales of terrible people being terrible to each other.
Intergenerational family drama in Jenkintown/Elkins Park. Terrible father gets rich in realestate and buys wife a mansion (DutchHouse) which she hates and now has to live in with her 2 kids. They have house help and it drives her crazy becuase she wanted to be poor or a nun. So she abandons family. Kids wrecked. Idiot father keeps building realestate empire and remarries fairy tale evil step mother who has two daughters of her own. They move in and original brother/sister suffer. Dad dies. Step wife inherits empire. Kicks kids out. Maeve makes Danny go to columbia med school to bleed trust fund dry. He hates being doctor, wants to build real estate empire like dead dad. Finds out mother is still alive and in NY. Things fall apart, everyone dies or is unhappy. Beautiful book.
20 Master Plots and How to Build Them
17 Aug 2021
90 / 100 :: Good. It's a keeper.
Antifragile
18 May 2013
90 / 100 :: A great concept stretched into a novel. Spends a lot of time talking about how awesome he is because the main idea is a sentence. The support for the main idea is a paragraph and a few examples. This book could have been a pamphlet, but it's such a good idea. Or is it just hormesis repackaged?
Antifragile things gain from disorder/volatility/shock/randomness, fragile loses, robust doesn't care
Fundemental asymmetry is when you have more upside than downside (antifragile)
You can't predict black swans (by definition) so make sure you are exposed to everything with the biggest upside and least downside
1/n rule - when you are choosing between a group of funds divide money evenly between all (doesn't work with stocks/specific things)
Rational flaneur makes a decision opportunistically at every step. revises continuously based on new information. Looks for optionality
Barbell Strategy - bimodal, put the money you don't want to lose in cash, place a small portion in ultra-speculative ventures.
Downside is you lose only a tiny fraction of money if it tanks (you still have cash/gold/something safe) and you are exposed to the upside if it explodes
Trial and error are antifragile if the errors are small and you can use them to iterate and they don't have a huge downside
Hormesis - a harmful substance/stressor that in small quantities makes one more robust to the harmful effects of the substance/stressor (vaccination, weight lifting)
Via negativa - figure out what is not/zero/necessary and work up from there. Start with nothing and then figure out what to add to the situation to help.
Start with no intervention then decide what to do that will have the biggest upside/smallest downside. Prevent interventionism/iatrogenics.
Mother Nature/Time is best stressor/tester of theories/ideas/things/processes therefore what has endured is inherently antifragile (lol?)
so if something is "natural" or has been around for a thousand years then you have the burden of proof for showing something "new and improved"
is actually "new and improved" and has NO downside with bigger upside then what's currently used.
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
26 Oct 2019
90 / 100 :: Not because it's so good, but because it's so crazy. Memoir of a pyscho parent. The dad doesn't exist because he is too weak.
Authoritarian Chinese American mother tells us the business of child rearing. Western parenting soft/weak. Chinese system best. Yell at kids to do what you say. Parents set path/expectation for child. Then make child walk the path or die. Willing to bully to get results. Don't give a shit about self-esteem, feelings, etc. It's about the end goal. Kid will be a doctor. From an ivy school, so getting into an ivy needs brutal coaching. Every kid can do it, if you yell enough. (Must be true since the results don't lie - Asians are killing it). No creative thinking, follow rules. Win the competitions. Crush other kids so you are 1st then ivy will choose you. Then golden life. Yell at fat daughter to eat less. Western parents dance around it and talk about health but kids still have eating disorders. Just bully them, call them garbage. Make them practise all the time. Five hours a day of music. Homework. No sports, drama, and other time wasters. No sleepovers. Study, practise, sleep, repeat until ivy school. If child doesn't follow rules, make them. Yell until you lose your voice. Threaten to burn toys. Take kid out of school during gym, lunch, art, and other time wasting classes to go to music lessons. Then back to school. Hates stupid western schools with themed weeks like "medieval week" and "passport-around-the-world" week. Kids don't learn anything in these stupid theme weeks. Western parents weak and stop at first push-back. Want child to find themselves. Want kid to have a passion for a thing. Expose them to many things instead of doing what you need to to get into ivy school. (which seems to be homeschooling at current data points). It's absolutely insane and brutal and I love seeing inside all the Asian homes in my neighborhood. She isn't lying. Exagerating a bit, but not lying. And who can argue with results? Empirical reasoning at it's finest. Asian's are a small percentage of the SU population but dominate in academics and then in medicine and tech. How? Are they all gifted? No. So is it the Tiger style that produces these results? I tend to agree. Will I do it to my kids? Nope. But fun to watch. Because she's stil fighting the last war.
Beyond the Tiger Mom
29 Oct 2019
90 / 100 :: A balanced East/West approach to parenting from a mom who has lived in China, India and the US. She taught and has been part of all those systems and isn't a raging psychopath like the Tiger Mom lady. Far more useful advice and less yelling at about how weak Westerners are. Instead she takes the good from each and Frankenstiens it together. Asia wins at math, US wins at language arts. No screens, instead books. Practise, practise, practise, memorize, then practise more.
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
25 Mar 2020
90 / 100 :: Great book. Billy Lynn and Bravo company have done medal winning heroic deeds in Iraq and are pulled from combat after fox news shows footage of them doing said deeds. They are at the end of a two week patriot tour of USA and now are in Texas Stadium for the Cowboys/Bears Thanksgiving game. Billy and Bravo Company are paraded around before the game meeting various fans, important people, etc who all congratulate them with Texas level craziness and Billy is dying inside. He meets a cheerleader during a photo op and they fall in lust. The halftime show featuers Beyonce and Bravo is forced to participate in her show. Billy dies more inside because he's a bitter, cynical Holden Caufield type 19 year old who sees the crap in the world, never the good, only he knows pain and suffering, only his experience is real and meaningful and everything else is empty and stupid but boy does he see it with Ben Fountain's brain. Incredible insights and poetic words and thoughts and powerful feelings. Hard to match with how Billy Lynn talks. Billy Lynn talks like a 19 year old Texan white trash kid, but thinks like a New York Times editor at large with 40 years of experience under his belt. Perhaps it's Ben Fountain talking for Billy?
Changeling
5 Apr 2020
90 / 100 :: Great story about trolls taking babies. Takes place in NY/Queens but magic world is parallel. Red string from brazil, things in basements, the story of norwegian settlers bringing a troll with them who needed fed by generation of knudsen men bringing it babies. Apollo and Emma's boy brian is taken away and they go on a search. Emma turns out to be a witch. Apollo turns out to be normal. They kill the trol land recuse baby Brian. Good story.
Department of Speculation
2 Mar 2020
90 / 100 :: 5 bonus points for being so short. This is how you write. Not many people have 500 pages of memoir in them but still they force it out. If it's 100 write a hundred and call it. She does just that.
Crazy woamn's dairy of relationship with boyfriend to husband to mother to almost divorce. Great quotes and snippets, but she cRaZy. CRAZY. Good book.
Hamlet
6 Jan 2013
90 / 100 :: This Shakespeare guy is on to something. He's not the worst writer. The whole thing is quoteable but I picked these for some reason:
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
MacBeth
18 Jan 2013
90 / 100 :: Another Shakespeare full of zingers and quips. For some reason I only wrote these two down. Because everybody else quoted the rest?
Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it;
And you all know, security is mortals' chiefest enemy
Seneca: On the Shortness of Life
13 Nov 2022
90 / 100 :: Good. Life is long if you don't waste it. Marcus Aurelius gets all the credit becasue it's easy to read and trite, but Seneca beats the living shit out him.
Senlin Ascends 2 - Arm of the Sphinx
8 Mar 2020
90 / 100 :: Senlin Ascends part 2. Good story. Fast and well written. He's now a pirate floating about the tower chasing the ghost of his wife. The ragtag crew meet teh sphinx and each goes on an adventure. Senlin cured of Chrom addiction. New contracts with the Sphinx and leave off chasing after wife in new ship.
Black Company 3: White Rose
1 Jan 2021
90 / 100 :: Good. Conclusion of all 3. Ultimate evil stymied. Good/med evil wins.
The Book of Goose
21 Dec 2023
90 / 100 :: Good. Might have been sad at the ending if I had cared about the characters. But so well written. Maybe it's an art piece that I don't understand. Agnes and Fabienne are two french girls growing up post ww2 in the country. Agnes is a vacant house and Fabienne is a clever fox and they have each other in this terrible world. They want to be together, maybe romantic love?, but can't because...reasons...so Fabienne plays games. She plays with people in their small town, manipulative, abusive, insulting and with animals physically abusive (pets dogs, then kicks them, coddles birds then wrings necks). What a great character. And Agnes loves her for it. Fab decides to write a book and they do, Agnes scribing, and they give it to the postmaster of the town to edit. He gets a Parisian publisher to publish it and it's a hit. Agnes is named the author because Fab is such a rebel she doens't want fame. Agnes is picked up by british finishing school lady to be made from peasant to society girl. Doesn't last 5 months of the year contract. Runs home and Fab and Agnes grow apart. Agnes ends up in US and gets a letter that Fab died during child birth. Yay? Two people who ruined other peoples lives so that the two girls could build a "real" world together but failed anyway. Not sure I'm missing something because the two girls suck. A dummy and a sociopath. But good writing.
The Writer's Journey
12 Feb 2019
90 / 100 :: Really good. Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey for writers.
ACT ONE
Ordinary World
Call to Adventure
Refusal of the Call
Meeting the Mentor
Crossing the Treshold
ACT TWO
Tests, Allies, Enemies
Aproach the Inmost Cave
Ordeal
Reward (Seize the Sword)
ACT THREE
The Road Back
Resurrection
Return with the Elixir
Heroes are introduced in the ORDINARY WORLD where they receive the CALL TO ADVENTURE.
They REFUSE THE CALL, but are encouraged by a MENTOR to CROSS THE THRESHOLD to the special world where they encounter TESTS, ALLIES, ENEMIES.
They approach the INMOST CAVE, crossing the 2nd threshold where they endure the ORDEAL.
They take possession of the REWARD and are pursued on the ROAD BACK to the ordinary world.
They cross the 3rd threshold by experiencing a RESURRECTION and are transformed so they can return with the ELIXIR to the ordinary world.
ARCHETYPES
HERO - The ego within us. Heroes give the audience a window into the story by allowing us to identify with him/her. Must have flaws. Should grow (overcome, learn, shed beliefs).
Should be active/action person. Heroes show us how to deal with death/transcend death through rebirth. What makes a hero is the ability to sacrifice themself.
Willing/unwilling Hero - hero is gung-ho about call to adventure or not. If not must get rid of doubts at some point so doesn't remain passive.
Catalyst Hero - doesn't change much during story, changes others. Jack from Titanic doesn't change much, but allows Rose to bloom
Anti-Hero - honorable person who withdraws from society. Rebel/outlaw amy use the tactics of the bad guys, but for good. They have our sympathy, but can't be part of our world
Tragic Hero - Anti-hero who can't overcome inner demons and succumbs
Loner Hero - western/drifter. Lives alone, pulled into our world (his special world), then has the option to return to solitude in act3 or stay with society
Group Hero - Deals with process of removal from tribe, ordeal in special world, then reintegrate with society at end
MENTOR - The higher self within. What the Hero can become. Substitute parent. Teach and/or train. Give gifts or earn gifts. Kind or strict but fair.
Motivation for Hero to accept call/cross threshold, esp w/unwilling hero.
Dark Mentor - Misleads the hero. Bad advice. Tries to steer Hero to dark path. Could be a threshold guardian.
Fallen Mentor - A has-been hero fallen from grace. Must often pull themself together. Dispenses cynical wisdom
Continuing Mentor - Give assignments to get stories started. Alfred in Batman. M in Bond. Police captain who gives cases in detective novels.
Many Mentors - Hero trained by many people in specific skills.
Shaman Mentor - Healer and guide esp of special world.
Inner Mentor - Code Hero has that guides him. My father/mother/sergeant/teacher used to say...and then use wisdom to solve issue.
THRESHOLD GUARDIAN - Not the main villain, but a servant, or ally in disguise. Functions as nueroses, true antagonist is pyschosis. Purpose to test hero. Puzzle, feat, quest, etc...
Can simply be people who don't want you to change. Change is needed to overcome Threshold Guardian.
HERALD - Call for change. Provide motivation. Urge the Hero from the comfort of the ordinary world.
Inner call, external development, character (sometimes villain or ally), or force (storm/quake/etc)
SHAPESHIFTER - Shows the hero the hidden opposite buried within
SHADOW - The supressed monsters of the inner world. Represents repressed feeling in hero. Guilt or trauma. Serves to challenge/oppose hero and force hero into catharsis.
External shadows must be vanquished by the hero. Inner one must be overcome.
ALLY - Companion, partner, sparring partner, conscience, comic relief. Ally provides support (physical/emotional), advice, warnings, or challenges with new ideas/thoughts/methods.
Can also serve as stand in for audience. Allows us to see hero through "normal" eyes. Provides a conduit to explain things/special world to readers with.
TRICKSTER - represents mischief and change. Used to cut big egos (hero and villain) down to size. Provoke hero and audience both.
Tricksters can be heros, often catalyst heroes who change allies for the better and provoke villains toward defeat.
Make the ordinary world as different as possible from the special world. Set up foreshadowing in ordinary world. Set up the dramatic question. Will hero achieve goal? Overcome flaw?
Learn lesson needs to learn? Will Dorothy get home from Oz? Will hero defeat villain/evil?
Set up inner and outer problems. Outer: will hero slay dragon? Inner: Will hero learn to trust others?
Make entrance through action/doing. Esp action that shows heros good/bad qualities. Let audience identify with hero. Show the hero's lack of something (parental love, confidence, etc)
Establish what's at stake: What will hero gain/lose from adventure? What are consequences for hero/society/world if hero succeeds or fails?
Establish theme: Love conquers all? You can't keep a good man down? Together we are stronger?
True Grit
22 Aug 2023
90 / 100 :: Good. 150 pages of cowboy justice. Mattie Ross sets off to avenge her father and hires Rooster Cogburn to pursue Tom Chaney into Choctaw territory. Texas Ranger LaBeouf tags along. Yokels and idioms abound.
Unsouled 2 to 12 - Cradle / Waybound Series
6 Jul 2023
90 / 100 :: Good. Finished all 12 of the Cradle series about Wei Shi Lindon and his rise from unsouled to Abidan dreadgod killing Monarch. Progress fantasy apparently, not really but kind of litRPG but not. Every book he gets stronger and trains more and grows until he's 97% god and can bend space with his mind. Total unredemptive literature, but so plot heavy and so good with what happens next that I couldn't stop reading them. Like reading a good manga.
Walden
27 Mar 2013
90 / 100 :: Good book. Holds up well. Insightful. Some quotes:
It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. (think)
In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.
(owning makes you the servant, material or animal)
It is not worth the while to go round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar. (useless travel when wonder is at your doorstep)
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Our life is frittered away by details.
House $28.12 and .5 cents
Farming 14.72 and .5
Food 8.74
Clothing 8.40 and .75
Oil 2
Total expenses 61.99 and .75
Earned 36.78 selling veggies and some day labor.
lived there 1846-47 / published 1854
Watership Down
3 Apr 2020
90 / 100 :: Good story. The Odyssey with rabbits. Rabbits abound. In fact, exclusively. Hazel and Bigwig leave sandleford warren to make their own place in the world after listening to Fiver's prophecy of doom for sandleford. Adventures ensue. Rabbits die. Hazel et al succeed.
Wild Problems
16 Apr 2024
90 / 100 :: Good. We can't reduce wild problems to utilitarian functions or cost benefit analysis. Tame problems, sure. Gather data, weigh it and decide. Wild problems resist measuring. Whom to marry, kids or not, career 1 or 2? Like the vampire problem you can't know if kids are for you until you try it, then once you do you can't go back. Plus having kids, like becoming a vampire, changes your ruleset, values and how you see life so you can't make an informed decision from behind the wall of ignorance. Asking vampires/parents will only inform you of what it's like to cross over. Carrying the robot baby shows you the cost but none of the benefits. So what to do? Privilege your principles. Does this decision reinforce who I am or want to become? Optionaility is good, reversible decisions good. Test drive it if possible, don't rely on reviews. Sunk costs are sunk so quit. Grit over-rated. Be open to serendipity and readjust plans as you go through them rather than create them top down form the get go.
Wizard of Earthsea
1 Sep 2021
90 / 100 :: Good
Wizard of Earthsea - Farthest Shore
10 Sep 2021
90 / 100 :: Good finish to the first earthsea trilogy. Ged and Arren fight back the darkness and chosen ones are chosen. Ged is powerless. Tehanu is a dragon. Brokers peace with other dragons to leave on the other wind. Finish deal with the dead and Cob. The wall that seperates living dead crumbles and the earthsea mage spirits are allowed to be reborn in the cycle of life like the Kargard people and dragons and other animals.
Cotswold Privies
30 Dec 2019
89 / 100 :: Stories of privy use from middle ages to publications date (~1970s). Some humorous stories, although light on hsitorical data, but plenty of local yokel stories of folks falling in and getting stuck and even a few drowning in what must be the most ignoble of deaths. How they were built, why, and where. What was planted around them. What happens when they inevitatbly reach capacity?
A few historical pet names of privies: Boghouse, Comfort Station, Garden Loo, Little House, Nessy, Place of Easement, Reading Room, The Chapel of Ease, The Ivy House, The Necessary House, The Thinking Room
Same As Ever
25 Feb 2024
89 / 100 :: Good. What will remain the same over time rather than what will change. Human nature, poor thinking, bad estimating, greed, envy, fear, panic, etc. Save and plan like a pessimist, but be an optimist for the future long term. You have to spend enough time in a domain to see the trend line. That can take decades but it usually improves. Progress, tech, medicine, health, crime, etc whereas the day to day is variance. Don't forecast or predict from that. Don't forecast at all except for those human things that never change. Risk is what's left over after you plan for everything. You'll never see it coming so be flexible (optionality) and adapt. We are very good at predicting the future except for surprises and surprises are all that matter. The only rule for happiness is low expectations. People who think about the world in unique ways also think in ways youdon't like. People want certainty not accuracy. They want comfortable lies. The best story wins. Facts don't. Calm plants the seed of crazy. The world is driven by unmeasurable forces thus we never see "it" coming. (Pandemics are known to exist, but who would guess one would actually happen here in the USA??!?!)A good idea ramped up to 10x is a bad idea. Tragedies occur overnight, success is built over decades. People move out of the way of decline so no friction on the way down, the way up is all headwinds. Miracles occur once a month. Large numbers rule but we con't understand. Lottery winner 2x in NJ had a 1 in 30 chance, not her but overall odds. Be a little imperfect. Slack saves. Things worth pursuing are hard and cause pain, the trick is to not mind the pain or even enjoy it. Get your job to 50% enjoyable. Keep running said the red queen. All competitive advantages die. Once you make it to the top you can't stop. Incentives can motivate anyone to do anything. What you experience is the most persuasive. There are no points given for difficutly, just success. Wounds heal scars last. 9/11 is all cleaned up (wound) but now every airport makes us undress to get on a plane (scar).
The Ten Thousand Doors of January
15 Dec 2020
89 / 100 :: Good. YA? Seven year old january find a door in the wilds of kentucky that leads to another world. Then she's 17 and tries to find more doors after ten years of being Mr. Locke's ward (gasp?) and in the process she discoveres a book that tells her a story about doors written by her dad that also tells his and her moms origin story.
Black Swan Green
20 Nov 2020
88 / 100 :: Fast, compelling, well written.
Jason Stammering Taylor is bullied in 1982 Worchester. Holden Caulfield 2.0. Woe and persecution and eventual spine growing but no vengeance. Parents suck, sister sucks, kids at school suck, teachers suck, the world sucks and it's all designed to torture self-posessed Jason Taylor who does nothiing to help others and nothing to help himself. Many characters give him ways to solve his problems but alas, poor Jason is too busy being a victim.
Deep Work
3 Dec 2018
88 / 100 :: Fantastic if you are in a position to do it. Does anyone really get away with checking email once a day? When you're a worker monkey you can't pull this off, but good idea.
You have 4-5 hours of deep work ability per day before hitting limits of attention/focus. Most do well with 3 sets of 90 min on task 90 min off.
Focus on the wildy imprtant. Act on lead measures, things that will effect the future, not looking at past reports to determine where to go (a lag measure)
Cut off internet. Take breaks from focusing, not breaks from distraction. Keep a score that is motivating, not just logging.
A goal needs to be supported by key activites (the wildy important). Make a list and follow it.
Create a place that allows for deep work. Blocks of time and solitude.
Off load or delegate shallow work. If not then do it in batches outside deep work time.
Schedule every minute (or minute sized block/chunk of time) on a deep work day.
Don't Make Me Think
25 Aug 2023
88 / 100 :: Good. Bought. UX testing how to and why with some whats. Design for users looking at billboards going 60mph on the highway. Simple fast choices with little thinking. Tell user but not too much. Ok to have many clicks as long as each one makes sense and is easy. Want your product to be effective efficient and effortless. Build mobile first. Run usability tests early and often.
Excellent Advice For Living
7 Jun 2024
88 / 100 :: Good. Kevin Kelly writes his tips into a book. Many old chestnuts and some good new ones. Purchased.
The Business of Being a Writer
15 Jan 2020
88 / 100 :: Don't be a writer. Just don't. Good info on what actually happens for trad publishing path. 2018 copyright. Semi up to date and depressing. How to do all the query, bio, marketing, web, social synopsis, agent-getting tasks of a writer. And why you will fail and what's the point. But good info for pursuing the trad path, but makes it clear you will fail and die. The business is incredibly predatory because it's highly inefficient. The publishing companies have no idea what book will be a best seller (the oft quoted Harry Potter was passed over and rejected 13 times?). Since they are so inept at their own job of picking good books despite a 100 year history of being in business and they have the advantage of being able to actually read the manuscript and judge it and yet they still fail...what do they do? They go wide, publish a bunch of books and pray. Oh they actually take 90% of your money. Since one book might sell incredibly well, it subsidizes their continual failures. The odd of you being successful are slim. 2021 or 2022 only 2% of published authors earned out their advance. 98% failure rate is pretty bad. Like emabrassingly bad. Like maybe amazon self-publishing is the way?
Three Parts Dead
21 Feb 2020
88 / 100 :: Good book. World of living gods and mages. Magic is law/contracts and gods feed power to faithful except the lawyers who are athiests and use god powers in their own right and not through god mediator. Kos the Ever Burning is dead and a law firm is taksed with figuring out what is owed to whom (creditors) and in so doing they uravel a mystery and defeat bad guy lawyer. Cool system.
Wild Life
23 Sep 2021
88 / 100 :: Why to not send your kids to Shipley. Keena is the daughter of monkey/baboon reseachers and grows up in Africa. Part of the year she goes to Shipley with Nat. People treat her like crap, Nat too, but she does well. Tough to read about the trials of school, fun to read about the trials in Africa.
Wizard of Earthsea - Tombs of Atuan
6 Sep 2021
88 / 100 :: Good but not as good as book 1
Atomic Habits
16 Feb 2019
87 / 100 :: Good science. Actionable. Heard most of it before but some nuance I wasn't aware of.
MAKE IT OBVIOUS / INVISIBLE
Write down EVERY habit (wake up, brush teeth, shower, etc) and become aware of them
Use implementation intentions: I will [BEHAVIOR I WANT] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]
Use habit stacking: After [CURRENT HABIT] I will [NEW HABIT]
Design environment to make cues for good habits obvious and visible (put hair treat out night before for AM reminder. Put gym shoes by bed night before for AM jog)
--Reduce exposure for bad habits. Remove cues from environment.
MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE / UNATTRACTIVE
Use temptation bundling. Pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do.
Join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior
Create a motivation ritual. Do something you enjoy immediately before a difficult habit.
--Highlight the benefits of avoiding the bad habit.
MAKE IT EASY / DIFFICULT
Reduce friction. Decrease number of steps between you and your good habit.
Prime the environment to make future actions easier.
Optimize small choices that deliver outsized impact.
Use 2 minute rule. Downscale habit to a two minute routine. (Meditate for 2 min, then 3, then 4...)
*Automate your habits. Invest in tech and onetime purchases that lock in future behavior.
--Increase friction. Add steps between you and bad habit (unplug router each night to make internet hard to get)
--Use a commitment device.
MAKE IT SATISFYING / UNSATISFYING
Use reinforcement. Give immediate reward when completing habit.
Frame the not doing of a bad habit as a benefit
Track habits and create a streak of doing the good habit that makes breaking it feel bad
Never miss twice. Get back on the horse immediately.
--Get a partner to shame you when you do a bad habit/hold you accountable
--Create a habit contract that makes the cost of a bad habit public and painful
3 LAYERS OF BEHAVIOR CHANGE
OUTCOMES: What you get. Lose weight, bench 315, run 5k in 19:59, publish book, etc. Often called goals
PROCESS: What you do. Habits and systems. A new routine at the gym, a new workspace to write, a new diet
IDENTITY: What you believe. I am a person who works out/is healthy. I am a writer. I am a kind person. This leads to habits/systems and then goals. Change starts here.
Postitive self talk. I am a person who is/does...and prove it with small wins. Reinforce new identity.
1% better every day
Small changes take time to cross a critical threshold (expotential returns). Be patient
Don't make goals, make systems. You don't rise to goals, you fall to systems
Self-control is a short-term strategy. Remove you or thing from environment so you don't have to use self-control
Anticipation of reward, not fulfillment, spikes dopamine, forming a habit feedback loop.
Most effective form of learning is practice, not planning. Focus on action not "being in motion" (planning/learning...they don't produce a result/make the thing. Do the thing instead)
Make a good choice at any decision fork. Overcome bad choices with good ones.
*automate habits by locking in future behavior. One time purchase of best mattress locks in good sleep. Auto savings plan locks in savings rate...etc
CARDINAL RULE: What is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.
EXPLORE/EXPLOIT: Find a game where the odds are in your favor. If you are winning, stay and exploit, if not explore until you win at something.
What feels like fun to me but feels like work to others?
What makes me lose track of time?
Where do I get greater returns than the average person?
What comes naturally to me?
Work hard even when bored. That makes the all the difference.
Pros stick to the schedule. Amateurs let life get in the way.
Downside of habits is failure to pay attention to little errors. Things become automatic and we don't notice drift. REMAIN AWARE.
Get Better at Anything
23 Jun 2024
87 / 100 :: Good. How to learn - See. Do. Feedback.
See by watching others. Copy them. Imitation leads to innovation. Find worked examples that explain all the steps and all the thinking that lead from start to finish. Learn enough basics so the examples are understood. Success leads to more success, learning from failures is overrated - limited ways to do right, infinite ways to do wrong, hard to learn. Small wins lead to more attempts. Masters can't teach what they've pruned. Can't talk through the thinking, mostly intuition from experience.
Do by practicing. Must be hard enough to challenge but not overwhelm. The mind is not a muscle so practise what you want to do. Flight simulators work initially when you know nothing, but provide little learning after you've flown ~25 flights. They are a model of the thing you are supposed to be practicing. Vary the practice after you have mastered the content. Jazz after classical. Play with different people. Less sturctered problems as you progress. Drill to work out problem areas but they do whole-task practise to put compnents together not in isolation. Quality comes from quantity. Be prolific.
Feedback. Keep score and track performance. Wild environements can be tamed with data. Find the base rate. Calculate. Practice must be real (flight simulators). Improvement is not a straight line and sometimes regresses. Conduct after action reports since the brain is focused during the action and can't critique. Make a brain trust.
Mindset
11 Jul 2023
87 / 100 :: good. Nothing new but at least this is from the horse's mouth. Growth mindset vs fixed. Fixed is bad so switch to growth. You can, anyone can, everyone can. You can do everything all the time if you just keep at it and think of everything as an opportunity and a challenge to grow. outcomes don't matter, just effort and growth. Apply yourself and only praise effort and work. Uses examples of people who had great outcomes to highlight the power of growth mindset, even though judging by achievement is a fixed mindset.
Overshoot
1 Jan 2020
87 / 100 :: Ecological explanation of future death of mankind. Great book for how systems work and the finality of math. No actionable items because it's not something you can do anything about. Ecosystems work one way and die one way, we are no different and thinking we can escape the laws will only compound our collapse.
Carrying Capacity - maximum permanently supportable load. The ecosystem can only replace its materials at a bio/geological pace. All ecosystems are limited by the least numerous necessary thing.
Drawdown - stealing resources from the future.
Overshoot - growth beyond an area's cappying capapcity.
Crash - die-off.
The concept of ghost acreage where a nation uses food/sea/petro resources from elsewhere on the planet to offset its own shortcomings gives the illusion of abundance.
The Gift of Failure
5 Feb 2021
87 / 100 :: Good. Let your kids fail. Don't overparent. Help them cope but don't fight their fights. Build competence, mastery, autonomy, intrinsic motivation. Self-reliance feels great.
Successful people love learning, seek challenges, value effort, and persist in the face of obstacles. Desirable difficulties allow kids to fail in low stakes environemnts. Praise effort, hard work. Go for growth mindset. Don't rescue children from the consequences of their mistakes.
Controlling parents give unsolicited advice: wash the plates before you load them. Let them learn to wash first after they have to scrub off the dried on food.
Controlling parents take over: Let me do it, just go play.
Controlling parents offer extrinsic motivators: money, candy, rewards. Keep them to a minimum, spaced out and really worthy of the effort.
Controlling parents provide solutions before kid has really struggled with answer. Let them sit and suffer with it for a bit.
Controlling parents make decisions: Do math, then reading. Let kid decide and learn what works.
Good parents guide toward solution: Since 3x5=15 then 4x5 must be...
Good parents allow mistakes. You broke the glass. I'll show you how to clean it up. What can you do to prevent this in the future?
Good parents value mistakes. I'm proud of you for sticking with it even though it didn't work out.
Good parents acknowledge feelings. I know it's frustrating when it doesn't work. Happens to me too. The best we can do is to...
Good parents give feedback. Check your shoes. Something seems off. Can you figure it out?
Set expectations and accountability. Step away and hold your tongue. Let kid define goals and then take care of everything. Once a child has shown competence let kid take over everything and just check in. Kids can do more around the house than we expect. Amish kids. Have them be part of the family. Give them a role/purpose.
The Puzzler
13 May 2022
87 / 100 :: good. interesting history of some famous puzzle genres. chess problems, crossowrds, puzzle boxes, rebus, riddles, etc. puzzle contest with book cipher. some interesting facts/trivia.
The Sparrow
3 Jul 2019
87 / 100 :: Jesuits in space. Team of impossible academics hears radio broadcast and puts together a trip to alien planet where everything falls apart. Emilio is the only survivor and returns to earth to make his case. The Jesuits think he is responsible for many crimes but the truth comes out in the last 50 pages. Rape and torture because alien customs are cool. Well written, some nice sentences, but nothing stunning. Written by an anthropologist and it shows. Less tech, more one culture discovering another with religious consequences for the survivor.
All the Skills 2
30 Sep 2023
86 / 100 :: Good. LitRPG cards start to get out of hand. Another dragon lets hero off the hook otherwise story would end then and there. Power creep starting. Not super powerful but hero is so smart and creative with current cards that he's nearly undefeatable. Gets Legendary dragon who is totally obnoxious and not funny in any way. Stopped series because of tiny dragon. So annoying because it's a well writtne book with a good system, but the buddy cop adventure is ruined by the dragon. Quit.
D&D Monster Guide
16 Mar 2020
86 / 100 :: Well met, Nerdy Nerdington the 3rd of Nerd Hollow. Would you like to have a playdate where you pretend to be someone, but not just anyone? A specific someone with stats. Would you like your fantasy to have guardrails? Guardrails with stats? Stats that limit what you can and can't do? Enjoy nerding out. I love/hate D&D so much.
Official book of almost every monster or type in D&D with guide for creating your own and standard stat blocks with variants. A-Z beastiary. Good stuff.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
8 Mar 2025
86/100 :: Good read. It's the script of the play, and I'm not sure why it's a play (what about the story needed it to be told on a stage) but it's still a solid, fast story. Harry P et al have grown up and now are parents dealing with their miserable teen kids. Hijinx ensue. Because of time travel which works perfectly in every book with time travel. There are a million little tedious issues, but who cares. It's a fun read.
How to Raise an Adult
29 May 2023
86 / 100 :: good - stanford dean says things. don't helicopter parent. The world is safer than ever, let kids do things on their own alone. They learn from failure. Don't protect them from it. Don't put blinders on your kid and ride them. "These are the good hobbies, schools, careers, do them and do them now. Let them decide and support them. Give them chores that matter. Support them when they fail but don't fix it for them. Family centered life not kid centered. Give them unstructured time. Teach them real life skills, how to think and how to work hard. Then let them chart their own path. Do not guide them, support them.
Raising Human Beings
23 Jun 2019
86 / 100 :: A decent parenting book. Hard to implement during the moment but good strategies none the less.
Create a collaborative partnership with child. Use Plan B to help them solve unresolved issues. These are expectations parents/world has for them that they have trouble meeting. When it's not a tense time sit down and talk about ways for them to solve the issue.
STEP 1: Empathy - I've noticed it's been difficult for you to [UNRESOLVED ISSUE]. What's up?
Child says somthing. Use reflective listening (summarize what they just said...I don't like the new coach. "So you don't like the new coach. How so?" Ask clarifying question who what when where, but not so much why. Why forces a guess on their part as to underlying motives. Ask about situational variability. Sometimes child can do well, other times not. Help me understand why you can do it sometimes. Ask what child is thinking (not feeling) during midst of issue. Summarize child thoughts/concerns and ask if any others. If not move on.
STEP 2: Define Adult Concerns - The thing is...My concern is that...
STEP 3: Invitation to Solution - Let's think about how we can work that out...Let's think about how we can solve this problem
Let child go first. Make sure solution is realistic (both parties can actually do it) and it's mutally satisfactory. Don't swoop in with answer.
Sea of Tranquility
4 Aug 2023
86 / 100 :: Good. Fast at least. David Mitchell stories nested through time 1920 to 2400. The guy from 2400 who appears in the other timeline stories was the glitch--gasp. Doesn't work beacuse of bootstrap loop, but at least it was fast. Also not as well written as whalebone. Flat recording of things that occured. We leave every time period so no connection to characters, but at least it moved fast.
Senlin Ascends - The Fall of Babel
4 Jan 2022
86 / 100 :: Good book. 4 of 4. Senlin reunites with Marya aboard the top of the tower which was a ufo that is now flying through space and will arrive somewhere in 2 years. Adam and Voleta are pilots. Sphinx dead with Marat. Edith and Byron and Iren and Ann on State of Art assuming new duties as sphinx with Marats old wakemen. Still with the stopping of the story to tell a story from the past that links the present moment to a feeling or thought they had back then. After 2300 pages of 4 books I don't need the continual stopping, I need the plot to continue. It doesn't set the stage, it makes it tedious. Good book, not great ending. So many unknowns and whyfors. What a way to end such a great series. Still worth reading, but to end with a spaceship? After so much steampunking? Almost silly.
Wisdom of Psychopaths
20 Jan 2020
86 / 100 :: Fun because of the subject matter but mostly anecdotes and some studies but nothing new. Was written in 2012 so heard it all before. Psychopaths rise to top as CEOs, lawyers, surgeons, police, politicians. Not docs, teachers, aides, nurses, aka jobs that help people. Psychos focused on short term gain. Laser focus, will do anything to win, only show emotion when necessary to massage favorable outcome. Can cry better than normie in front of jury. Exceedingly stoic/cool under pressure because they don't feel the pressure. Cobras not pit bulls.
It Was The Best of Senteces, It Was The Worst of Senteces
6 Nov 2020
85 / 100 :: Good info on how to write clean, clear sentences. Lots of grammar lessons, but many examples of edited setences. No story structure, character arc stuff, just how to write well.
Blue Ocean Strategy
16 Feb 2021
85 / 100 :: Create your blue ocean for business instead of competing in the red ocean. A blue ocean is a new market that doesn't have any competition because you just made it, so you own it. Easier said thean done. Neat idea, but it only covers the companies that tried and won. There are thousands more that tried and failed.
1: Look across alternate industries instead of focusing on your own - A CPA, pen and paper, and accoutning software all do the same thing. But restaurants, movies, theater all do different things, but compete with what you do with a night out. They are alternatives not substitutes like CPA and accoutning software. NetJets sells fractional shares of private jest to corporate clients. Instead of booking each exec on a first class plane trip or instead of just buying a corporate jet it combines the best of both. You pay a fee to have 50+ hours of flight time to be used anytime. The charter jets go to more airports so you don't need to have multiple flights and stay at hotels. The charter jets are faster since no TSA and lines. They taxi to the right gate so you can get a cab and leave.
2: Look across strategic groups within industries - Curves takes the public health club and makes it a private/group experience for those who are turned off by being a large gym. Their clients don't need saunas or juice bars or 100+ machines of exotic origin. Curves combines the home workout wiht the gym. At home you find an excuse not to, at the big gym it's too scary and intimidating.
3: Look across the chain of buyers - Novo Nordisk makes insulin for diabetics to use. Pharma had been selling to doctos/influencers and not considering who the end user is/was. Novo made easy-to-use injectors that took our the hassle of vials and syringes and put it all into a self-dosing pen that you could take anywhere. They moved past teh gatekeeper/influencer doctors and made a product for patients. Other pharmas were busy tring to make pure insulin becasue that's what the docs wanted. The users didn't care past a certain %.
4: Look across complimentary products and services - You can't go to the movies without a baysitter. Look at how the product is used. Cities want buses that are cheap. NABI looked at the life cycle of a bus and saw how much $$$ is putinto maintenance and gas and repairs. They made fiberglass buses that didn't corrode and were easy to repair and maintain. They cost more, but over time they were cheaper and greener sicne a fibergalss bus is 35% lighter and uses less fuel. Philips electric made a tea kettle with lime scale remover built in so people could drink clean tea. Dyson got rid of vacuum bags because people don't like changing or empyting them.
5: Look across functional vs emotional buyers - Ford made the model T. GM amde a new car every year with new designs to appeal to people who wanted more than a mechanical horse. It was pretigeitm. Fashion. Quick Beuaty in Japan changed teh hour long hair cut process with towles and tea and washing into a functional, quick, pragmatic experience. They went the other way and offered fast cheap haircuts for busy folks.
6: Look across time - Apple saw illegal downlaoding and noticed people only wanted a song or two or three. It wasn't going away so they made iTunes store where you can buy a song at a time instead of the whole album.
Flow
18 Jan 2020
85 / 100 :: The Flow state where one harmonizes with the spheres requires: an overall goal and as many sub goals as feasible, ways to measure progress in terms of the goal, focused attention on task making finer distinctions in the challenges involved in the activity, develop skills necessary to capitalize on opportunitues available, keep raising stakes when things plateau.
Autotelic person makes challenges out of anything and everything. Never bored. Puts ego aside and focueses attention on task. Work has 4x mroe flow than liesure because free time is unstructured.
Flow teens have families that are CLEAR on goals, CENTERED so the teens feel parents are interested in what they are doing presently, not what college or job they will have. CHOICE: Teens feel their parents provide them with choice enough to decide for themselves, even flouting rules understanding the consquences. COMMITMENT: Teens are comfortable enough to lower defenses and become whole-heartedly involved in task. (Part of flow is putting aside what other's think and own ego of what you will "get" and focusing on just doing the damn thing). Challenge: Parents provide increasingly complex opportunities.
Front Desk
24 Sep 2024
85 / 100 :: Good middle grade book about Mia the chinese immigrant who, with her family, gets abused by society in SoCal while running an immigrant owned motel. Her family is exploited by the immigrant owner of the motel as well as...everyone else. Mia makes friends with some folks who live full time at the motel and they support her and her family in this new world. She is a SJW and a good role model. If half the stories are half true then Kelly Yang the author had a rough childhood and was a scrappy kid for standing up to and arguing every racist adult. I spent most of my childhood trying to mimimize contact with adults and maximize video game time, but not Mia/Kelly.
Just wish Mr. Yao suffered more for what hdidto her family. So many stories of Chinese exploiting other Chinese immigrants. I would have bet on ex pat communities supporting each other...?
Get Better at Anything
23 Jun 2023
85 / 100 :: Good. How to learn things. See. Do. Feedback.
See by watching others. Copy them. Imitation leads to innovation. Find worked examples that explain all the steps and all the thinking that lead from start to finish. Learn enough basics so the examples are understood. Success leads to more success, learning from failures is overrated - limited ways to do right, infinite ways to do wrong, hard to learn. Small wins lead to more attempts. Masters can't teach what they've pruned. Can't talk through the thinking, mostly intuition from experience.
Do by practicing. Must be hard enough to challenge but not overwhelm. The mind is not a muscle so practise what you want to do. Flight simulators work initially when you know nothing, but provide little learning after you've flown ~25 flights. They are a model of the thing you are supposed to be practicing. Vary the practice after you have mastered the content. Jazz after classical. Play with different people. Less sturctered problems as you progress. Drill to work out problem areas but they do whole-task practise to put compnents together not in isolation. Quality comes from quantity. Be prolific.
Feedback. Keep score and track performance. Wild environements can be tamed with data. Find the base rate. Calculate. Practice must be real (flight simulators). Improvement is not a straight line and sometimes regresses. Conduct after action reports since the brain is focused during the action and can't critique. Make a brain trust.
The Longevity Project
30 Apr 2013
85 / 100 :: Loved the nuance and how far they drilled down past platitudes like "people with friends live longer". Only if they help out in their friends lives, meaningless friends don't count toward your total. Good to see.
The conscientous (prudent, persistent, organized, dependable) live the longest
Married men live longer but no effect for women / How happy the man is with the marriage predicts health of both partners / nuerotic men do better after wife dies /
women who don't remarry after husband dies do better / happy people tend to stay married
Being social is important but it's the quality of friends that matters / having a large group of friends can be a risk factor if they engage in bad behavior /
helping friends and family is more beneficial to long life than just having a bunch of friends that you never interact with or only take from /
social ties are more important than sociability
Religion only helps insofar as it provides a social network of usually good people to interact with
Cheerful happy optimists didn't live as long / worriers spent more time concerned with doing the right things for their health /
being healthy made most people happy, searching for happiness is different from living a fulfilling life and being happy as a side effect /
catastrophizers worried too much and died
Starting school early isn't the best idea
Divorce is worse than early death of parent / stress of disolving relationship between parents is bad for kids /
those who have healthy marriages despite parental divorce became resillient to the bad effects
The risk factor is not the disease: physical activity is associated with good health, yet increasing activity to extremes doesn't necessarily create better health /
the 10k hours you spend jogging don't buy an additional 4 years of life...you may be healthier at the end...
...but if you didn't enjoy jogging for those past 40 years you should have found a moderately active hobby that you did enjoy
Job stress doesn't kill unless you have no meaning or never gain from the job / accomplishing goals, striving to get ahead, receiving recognition and awards in your job
all outway the stress / if you have bad realtionships with bosses or coworkers the stress is bad /
matching career to personality doesn't always work either, some careers exacerbate bad personailties/behaviors
Social ties to family, friends are the most important / having meaningful relationships with spouse, children, family and friends increases life span and quality
Women outlive men but masculine women and masculine men die first / being feminine protects men and women from all cause mortality
Midnight Line
30 Nov 2020
85 / 100 :: It's a Jack Reacher book - blazing fast, punchy and vapid, and utterly escapist entertainment.
Did you know that Jack Reacher is super tall and always alpha? Lee Child will remind you every 6 pages. Reacher finds a west point class ring in a pawn shop and tracks it back to the women who sold it which leads him through a a web of opiate dealers/systems that go all the wya to the top. Or at least a marine full bird. Typical Reacher stuff, but not as many beat downs as in the past. Skipped some opportunities to crack skulls. Also the climax was weak how they stole from the 10 dealers picking up at the drop site. Meh. But still good. Fast. Sentence fragments. Phrases. Repition because readers are dumb.
On The Shortness Of Life
13 Mar 2024
85 / 100 :: Good. How many times have I read this? Seneca complaining about what not to do and then a few senteces about what to do. Life is long if you know how to use it. Most people do this and that and it's bad and I'm right to judge them and they also do this and that and here is why they are wrong, and you should never waste your time since it's so precious. Seneca, shut up and quit wasting my precious time. What should I do? UHM, study philosophy not trivia, be concerned with the present and focus on what you can do, not what could happen. Don't put off life until the future but be prepared somehow but don't think about it too much.
Outliers
1 Apr 2013
85 / 100 :: He's good at his job. Pop science at it's best. Perhaps even an outlier himself. This horse has been beaten to death in the intervening years but it's still solid enough.
Roseto town of italian immigrants died of old age because they had strong community bonds
Matthew Effect - great hockey players are mostly born in Jan/Feb/Mar because the sign up cutoff is Jan 1st.
Boys who turn 10 on Jan 1st spend all year playing against kids who are still 9.
They get a small advantage early (being 8-12 months older than their peers) and then get more time playing, more time playing with better kids
(promoted to traveling teams) more attention from coaches. Same thing happens in US baseball and other things with arbitrary cutoff dates.
Success is way more luck/random than hard work would account for.
10k hour rule - beatles played in hamburg for 8 hours a day. Motzart, Bill Gates, Bill Joy, Steve Jobs, all put in 10k hours into their field as youngsters...
...so by early 20's they were expert level and way ahead of the game. 10k hours holds in every field.
Measuring IQ doesn't count divergent intelligence or many other factors of success. Chris Langan IQ of 195 hasn't done much due to poor social skills.
Random timing accounts for success too - Joe Flom is top NY lawyer (corporate takeovers) due to being Jewish and born in 1930 (best time for Jewish lawyers).
Jewish kids coming out of law school in 1955 still couldn't get into top firms and had to hang their own shingle. Corporate takeover law was just starting and was ugly work.
The big firms wouldn't touch it so the Jewish kids did it all. In the 70's and 80's it exploded and they already had 20 years of practice (10k hours)
so they became exceedingly wealthy.
Best time to be entrepreneur was to be born in 1835 in USA (Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller). Tech guru, 1955 USA (Bill Gates, Bill Joy, Steve Jobs). Lawyer, 1930 (and Jewish)
Asians good at math due to language being better suited to explaining concepts. 12 is one-ten-two, 15 is one-ten-five, 73 is seven-ten-three so it makes sense. (or maybe it's just more hard work)
Three fifths is "out of five parts take three". Asian culture also enforces a tough work ethic due to rice farming.
Rice farmers work 3k hours per year (constant water maintenance, flooding, weeding) whereas EU peasants in Medieval times worked about 1200
(plant, wait, harvest, winter). Rice farming also has a 1 to 1 correllation with effort/reward.
Farming is speculation after you plant--will it rain or not? disease? locusts? hail? etc. Higher work ethic translates into more scholastic success.
Students who learn over summer loose less ground to those who vacation.
Geert Hofstede cultural power/individuality/masculine distributions
Play The Forest School Way
12 Dec 2022
85 / 100 :: Good. Activites to do outdoors. Lots of group games but some uselfull things for scouting/survival and being aware of nature.
Range
10 Nov 2023
85 / 100 :: good. Explore then exploit in novel form. Wrote sports gene so lots of sports stories. Tiger Woods as a child prodigy is the unique story that we all love, but it is more common for an athelete/scientisit/high achiever to NOT have specialized as a kid or teen but rather spent those years playing around in many different areas. Then at some point it all clicks together and they can synthesize across domains. Also stop domain thinking, learn how to apply fundementals from area of expertise to all areas.
Senlin Ascends 3 - The Hod King
23 Dec 2021
85 / 100 :: Good book. 3 of 4. Senlin runs around has things happen to him. Meets wife who pushes him away. Sent on black trail and joins marat luc. Joins Hod King trilobyte and inner circle of marat's people. Long, losts of flashbacks to tie into current moment: Edith stepped out on the ledge...when she was 10 her father once took her to a cliff...3 more pages of her as a ten year old, then tie in how that moment was similar or different to the current moment that we just spent 3 pages NOT READING ABOUT. Such a good series but man when writers/directors interupt a scene to start a scene you better have a damn fine reason. 9 times out of 10 it wasn't damn fine. Do editors not care about pace? Pro tip: Everything should read 90 miles an hour all the time.
Seventh Son
9 Oct 2019
85 / 100 :: Good middle grade fantasy about a witch hunter apprentice. Two books in one. Now on Netflix and is terrible. But the book is good and moves quickly, is clear, and tells a plot driven story.
Tom Ward is 7th son of 7th son and can see things we can't. Taken on as apprentice. Kind heart gets him in trouble (plot devices) but he ends a witch in book one and a Bane in book 2 that was the curse of Tom's master. Alice the young witch who could go either way good/bad stays with Tom and Master in their cottage and tries the path of light. Good folksy stuff, salt, iron, silver, minor ghosts, fairy tale stuff rather than high fantasy. Maybe for 11 or 12 year olds?
Top of the Class
23 Jan 2020
85 / 100 :: How Asian parents raise high achievers...tiger mom basically but less crazy. The secrets are:
1 Instill a love of life long learning - nothing works without this rule. Show kids how parents are always learning. Be enthused about learning.
2 Instill a sense of family pride - we are a team. Success is shared and failure too, because family.
3 Instill a desire for delayed gratification - short term rewards for some things but over arching picture of how all this leads to good outcomes.
4 Clearly define kids role as a student - job #1 is learn. job #2 is same as job #1.
5 Cultivate a respect for elders and authorities
6 Play the other teacher in your kid's life - parent's job is to teach kids. work on their homework, learn with them, teach always.
7 Develop your kid's individual talents - find the way they learn and go for it.
8 Set clear short and long term goals
9 Teach child to value academic success over status and popularity - make friends with kids who have same values. popularity doens't last a lifetime, achievement does
10 Reward good school performances and devise plan to correct poor ones - work with teacher. Have monthly meetings. Identify areas to improve.
11 Forget "do whatever makes you happy" and find a financially secure profession - nobody is happy who does what they want for a living but can't pay their electric bill.
12 Keep money in check - don't provide safety net. Make them pay for college, work and earn everything.
13 Limit extra curricular activites that interfere with job#1 - one sport and one art
14 Promote healthy competition - life is competition, expose them early so they learn losing isn't the end of the world. Losing helps identify weak spots and plan better strategies.
15 Surround kids with similarly minded friends and role models
16 Help kid see America as land of opportunity
17 Accept responsibility for kid's school failures
Understanding Show Don't Tell
23 Apr 2020
85 / 100 :: Solid. Don't tell unless you have to. People don't need as many info dumps and backstory as you think. If they do, then show it in a way that ties it to what's happening now/why it matters now and have the POV character do it. To stop telling have a close narrative distance (inside POV head) and realize the events/thoughts/actions through their frame of mind. Don't jump in as the author and explain things. Appendix has red flag words: knew, realized, felt, thought, when, as, while, could see, was, were, had, have, has, did, had been, wondered, thought, hoped, considered...etc.
Strong verbs help: walk cautiously or slink/sneak/tip-toe/etc
Unsouled
29 Mar 2023
85 / 100 :: good - litRPG but without menus. Chosen one has no talent, therefore has all potential talent. He will fight gods in book 10, but now he scampers around and lives because he's so weak the strong don't feel it's worth there time or honor to engage with him. This is the soft style of litRPG where its all eating pills and meditating to level, not getting XP from battle. Not my style but this one wasn't nearly as bad as most litrpg fanfic trash. The author can write well which puts him in the top 5% for the genre. Invested enough to see what happens next.
Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strats
6 Dec 2018
85 / 100 :: solid stuff
01. Begin sentences with subjects and verbs. Make meaning early, then let weaker elements branch right.
02. Order words for emphasis. Place strong words at the beginning and end.
03. Activate your verbs. STRONG verbs create action and reveal the players.
04. Use passive verbs to show the victim of the action. It happened to...
05. Adverbs bad.
06. Ease up in the -ings words.
07. Use a long sentence every now and then.
08. Establish pattern, then twist.
09. Let punctuation control pace and space.
10. Cut big then prune.
11. Simple words over technical.
12. Don't repeat key words so they remain distinct.
13. Play with words.
14. Dig for concrete and specific details.
15. Names are important.
16. Reject cliches, make original images.
17. Free associate.
18. Set pace with sentence length.
19. Vary length of paragraphs.
20. Number of elements matter. One is solitary/power, Two is conflict, Three is harmony, Four is list.
21. When topic is serious understate, when comic, exaggerate.
22. Go up and down ladder of abstraction. Thing to thought to idea to notion back to thing.
23. Read out loud what you wrote.
24. Plan your plot.
25. Stories are experiences, not reports.
26. Dialogue is action. Don't write what readers skip anyway (blocks of exposition).
27. Show characteristics whtrough action/dialogue.
28. Put odd things together for contrast.
29. Foreshadow. Plant clues early.
30. Use internal cliffhangers to propel readers to next sentence, chapter, the end.
31. Build story around key question. The engine propels.
32. Put gold coins along path to lead readers.
33. Purposeful repition links pieces.
34. Write from differnet angles. Like cinematic camera.
35. Write scenes and order them well.
36. Mix narrative modes.
37. Don't waste space in short writing.
38. Favor archetypes, not sterotypes. Use subtle symbols not crashing cymbals.
39. Write toward the ending. Forward always.
40 - 50 are productivity tips...
23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism
17 Jul 2023
84 / 100 :: good. does what it says on the tin.
1 - There is no such thing as a free market - planned
2 - Companies should not be run in the interest of shareholders - too short term of an owner
3 - Most people in rich countries are paid more than they should be - immigration makes services cheaper higher pay retains workers
4 - The washing machine has done more than the internet - liberated women
5 - Assume the worst about people and you get the worst
6 - More macroeconomic stability has not made the world more stable
7 - Free market policies rarely make poor countries rich - they need to develop to rich standards first, then go free (industrialize through protectionism)
8 - Capital has nationality
9 - We do not live in a post-industrial society - still need to manufacture, can't eat ideas
10 - The US does not have the highest standard of living
11 - Africa is not destined for under development
12 - Making rich people richer doesn't trickle down
13 - US managers are over payed
14 - People in poor countires are more entrepreneurial than richies
15 - Governments can pick winners
16 - We are not smart enough to leave things to the market
17 - More education does not make a country rich
18 - What is good for GM is not always good for the US
19 - We still live in planned economies even if not communist
20 - Equality of opportunity may not be fair - no headstarts means little to people running with weights
21 - Big government makes people more open to change - safety net allows risk
22 - Financial markets need to become less efficient - finance moves money faster than production can use it
23 - Good economic policy does not require good economists
My Unbelievably True Life Story
17 Dec 2023
84 / 100 :: Good. With a title like that you know you're not being lied to. Arnold Schwarzzenflercker tells how he took over the world all on 5 hours of sleep. The politics parts was boring but the childhood and bodybuilding rise was good. The movies part was ok. He's a relentless promoter and saleman of everything he's doing. That's the secret. He works like a dog and sells what he's doing the whole time. Intensity, focus, drive. Plus luck. And ego. And never dwelling on mistakes. Push the positive and march on. Indefatigable confidence and an ability to gaslight yourself are the keys to success.
Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t
26 Nov 2022
84 / 100 :: Good. War of Art guy Steven Pressfield tells his story/career as advice for how to write so that people will wnat to read your sh*t. Follow Save the Cat and 3 act structure, Inciting Incident, All Is Lost, Villain Speech, etc. Hook, Build, Payoff.
What is the Concept- unique framing device for the genre
What is the Theme - what is the story about. what question does it ask and answer
What is the Climax - start at end and then build everything to it - do not take the climax out of the hands of the hero
Who is the hero - embodies the elements of the theme
Who is the villain - embodies the anti-theme
What are the stakes - the hero wants/needs with life and death passion a Thing or Outcome
What is the jeopardy - the hero's hold on or quest to attain the thing from the stakes gets ever harder to grasp, ratcheting peril
Everything moves the sotry forward, otherwise, cut.
Psych 101
30 Mar 2023
84 / 100 :: good - important concepts from the birht of psychology to today. Bios of the people who created the theories/concepts and brief overviews of what they are. Often with counterpoints and critcism. Solid 101 style book.
Sprint
1 Sep 2023
84 / 100 :: Good. How to do a product sprint in 5 days. Start with a big problem. Get decider + facilitator and diverse team. Pick a room you can use for five days so you don't loose data.
Monday - start at end. pick the thing long term goal you will measure. Diagram the issue. Interview team and other experts. Choose a target for prototyping.
Tuesday - Look at old ideas and solutions. Sketch new solutions seperately.
Wednesday - Vote best solutions without groupthink. Sticker vote working parts. Storyboard the prototype
Thursday - make prototype with keynote or build it. Divide team into parts and assemble at end of day
Friday - test with 5 people/customers. Follow interview script and stream it to team. Find the patterns that emerge and plan to fix for next iteration.
The Old Money Book
3 Aug 2021
84 / 100 :: Good life advice framed as how the elite families have done it for generations.
Health - Take care of your health. Derp.
Education - Education is paramount. Ivy league. Private schools that are rigorous academically. Music and sports as extra cirriculars. Hire a tutor to button up weak areas. Move to a good district and rent if need be. Expect good grades.
Work Ethic - work hard. Success is on the other side of hard work.
Etiquette and manners - learn them
Financial Independence- achieve it. use CPA and money managers not financial advisors. Preserve capital.
Family and Marriage - don't divorce. marry old money.
Privacy - keep mouth shut. Don't talk money.
Buy at brooks brothers and sotheby's Christies auctions for clothes and furniture.
Volo's Guide to Monsters
12 Mar 2020
84 / 100 :: Are you a nerd? Are you the type of nerd who in their free time pretends to be a magical nerd who spends that nerd's free time studying the lore of the nerd world they pretend to live in? Well met.
D&D supplement with in depth history of 6 races: Giants, Goblinoids (Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears), Kobolds, Gnolls, Orcs, Soemthing else. Stat blocks and stories.
What Works on Wall Street
27 Aug 2023
84 / 100 :: Good. Many skippable tables, could be updated with actual results in plain english with simple formulas, but I sloshed through. P/E is ok to value a stock (low, under 20), P/B better (less than 1.5), and Price to Sales the best (1 or less). Then they have a 2 factor analysis that combines "best one year price performance" + Low P/S to get amazing results. Best 1 yr perf = 5yr earnings per share growth rate exceeds compustat mean, profit margins exceed compustat mean, earnings higher each year. That's growth model. Value is PB 1.5 or less, div yield exceed compustat avg for any given year, P/E below compustat avg for any given year. Then they split the portfolio 50/50 with growth and value metrics rebalanced yearly.
H is for Hawk
27 Mar 2020
83 / 100 :: Well written, smart. Helen's photojournalist dad dies and in her grief she buys a goshawk. Talks much about T.H.White's book "goshawk" and about THWhite and their parallel journey dealing with tempermental goshawks. Much 17th century advice on raising hawks, little advice on dealing with grief. She gets depressed, becomes a hawk, "conjures the creature as she cuts the jesses," and literary nonsense. Turns out she's selfish and self-absorbed. Her life is crap and her dad dying shows it by how she cuts herself off and focuses on her hawk instead of her mom and brother who maybe, just maybe, could also be grieving too. But no. Let's talk about hawks. For 400 pages. Like Moby Dick and his whaling info but this time all throughout the novel so you can't skip it. She gets on anti-depressants and gives the hawk to an aviary to molt after 9ish months of training it. Then she learns that she should spend more time with people. Derp? Also her dad sounds like a kick ass guy, THWhite sounds like a pedophile and she spent 10x more time on White than her own father...but yeah it's all about her. And Mabel her damn hawk.
Outlive
17 May 2023
83 / 100 :: good - peter attia tells us how to increase healthspan (?) and lifespan but mostly healthspan. Exercise, diet, sleep and stress. Exercise is the biggest lever. Do it every day. Weights, cardio VO2max and zone 2 but don't hurt yourself since you need to preserve joints to be able to do it into your 80s and 90s. If you don't, you will rust. Diet isn't as critical, but still important. Eat real food (mediterainian after being a keto freak) and don't fast if you are already metabolically healthy. Continuous glucose monitor will show you what food spikes you, avoid them forever. Sleep 7-8 hours a night in a black cold room. Being in bed !=quality sleep. Manage stress, don't have old man blood. Why live long if you hate evrything?
Mostly stuff covered in his podcasts and interviews, spends a lot of time talking about what kills you when and how. Less time about tactics because he wants you to have an individualized plan, so he can't recommend a cure all for everyone. Still though...he could...eat veggies, lift heavy weights, sprint a mile and ruck for an hour, sleep like a log, CBT for anger/stress. That will cover 95% of the population.
Sum
11 Aug 2023
83 / 100 :: Good. Fast, 108 pages. 40ish stories of what happens after you die. 2-4 pages each. You die and...then...here's what the afterlife actually is. Vignettes, ideas, some creative, others variations on a theme. Not great writing, but fun ideas and fast to read so bonus points.
The Opposite of Spoiled
13 Feb 2020
83 / 100 :: How to raise money literate children.
Talk about money. Include kids in making money dicisions, especially giving. Show kids how money works in grocery stores. Talk about value in buying items and the thinking behind the decision.
3 Jars - Give, Save (invest), Spend. Kids get 50 cents to $1 x current age each week. Let them decide how to allocate resources. Let them fail with $6 per week now instead of at $60k as young adults. Don't link chores with allowance. Chores are part of being in the family. Let them discover problems that they can solve and pay them if they want/need extra cash. Leaves in the back yard? Negotiate a rate to rake. Dirty car? Negotiate a rate to wash. Let them be entreprenuers.
Some parents set a limit on a budget for something (clothes) and then let kid spend as pleases. Bought a nice jacket? Now you have no money left for new shoes. Let them work out how to overcome shortfall. Other parents set a limit on what quality they will buy (land's end) and if the item costs more then the kid makes up the difference with their own cash.
How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method
1 Nov 2020
82 / 100 :: Good and detailed method for spec writing. I happen to admire spec writing and the writers who write spec.
Outline your book and then some. Goldilocks wants to write a novel but doesn't know how. She goes to a conference and takes a class from Baby bear who teachers her the snowflake method after Papa Bear and Mama Bears methods fail. Outline and seat of pants respectively. Big Bad Wolf is an agent and is framed for the murder of little pig but it was the nephew whodunit. But the actual Snowflake method once you remove the story is:
Step 0: Know your category and taget audience. Delight them. Answer the following:
My category is -
This is the kind of story I will write -
This story will delight my target audience because -
Step 1: Write a one sentence summary
In one hour summarize your novel in 25 words
A thriller about a pro assassin hired to kill the president
A coming of age fantasy about a boy learning who he is in the wizarding world
A sci-fi epic about a farmboy who rises up to overthrow the evil empire
An epic fantasy about a group of heroes who defeat a great evil
A romantic suspense about a woman in nazi france who falls in love with an injured US saboteur who has to blow up an ammo dump before D Day
Step 2: Write a one paragraph summary
One hour to expand the sentence to five sentences.
Explain the setting and the story backdrop. Introduce the lead(s)
Summarize Act 1 ending with 1st disaster. Lead commits here
Summarize first half of Act 2 ending with 2nd disaster. Lead changes thinking from false moral premise to true one. Lead commits to new thinking/plan
Summarize 2nd half of Act 2 ending with 3rd disaster. Lead and villain are commited to final confrontation
Summarize Act 3 leading up to showdow with success or failure. Ending
Step 3: Write a summary sheet for each character
For each important character spend 1 hour describing:
Role (Hero/heroine, mentor, villain, ally)
Name
Goal - what character wants, concrete
Ambition - abstract drive behind goal
Values - Nothing is more important than...telling us the core that creates the ambition which creates the goal
Conflict - Why no goal achievement
Epiphany - What will char learn by end of story
1 sentence summary - 1 sentence story of personal story/arc
One paragrpah summary - 3 acts of personal story/arc
Step 4: Write a 1 page synopsis
One hour to expand the summary into a page. Each sentence becomes a paragraph. Only for your eyes to help you expand the story idea
Step 5: Write a character synopsis for each character
One hour for each character. Backstory and role in main story. A half page each roughly. One page for hero/villain
Explain why each character is the way they are, what they want from life now and how they fit into the story.
Step 6: Write a 4 page synopsis
Two hours to expand the one page into 4 or five. Each paragraph becomes a page. This can be cut to 2-4 pages of plot synopsis required for submittal
Step 7: Write a character bible for each character
A few hours per character to go deep. This is where the details live.
Personality type. Sense of humor, religion, politcal beliefs, movies, books, food, etc.
Environment, home, work, education, past jobs, family, friends male/femle, enemies
Psych info - best/worst memories, one line characterization, strong/weak traits, biggest hope/fear, life philosphy, how they see themself, others see them
Step 8: List of all scenes
A few days to write every scene. Proactive and reactive with conflict in each one. POV character for each scene, timestamps, etc.
Step 9: Write a plan for each scene
Five minutes for each scene. List of characters, setting, dialogue snippets, conflict, etc.
Proactive - goal, conflict, setback
Reactive - Reaction, dilema, decision
Step 10: Write the novel
Principles
2 Jan 2019
82 / 100 :: Good but could have been shorter. Like this review.
Embrace reality as hyper realist. Be radically open-minded and transparent.
Look to nature for how reality works (test models). Weigh second and thrid order outcomes.
Have clear goals. Focus on the 20% that matters, not 80%.
Identify and don't tolerate problems. Get to root cause of problem, don't treat symptom.
Design a plan and push to completion
Look at markers through time. Improvement percentages mean nothing if it won't get you to your target by the deadline.
Must-dos before like-dos
Trash at the beginning before its built. Do worst case outcomes, plan for it to fail and figure out what made it fail.
Show Your Work!
30 Mar 2021
82 / 100 :: Good, short book on how to build a following:
Don't be a genius, find a scenius. A group of like-minded folks that you all work together to make things. Inspire each other and goad to greater heights. Be an ameteur and show what you're learning. Show what you're doing. Add value by teaching what little you know on your path up and onward. Share the process, don't worry about the product. Give away your secrets and process for free. This will build trust and community with people who like your work/you. Then you can offer products. Keep an email list. Ask for donations, but give most things away for free and add value by helping others. Take others behind the scenes and share something every day. It won't be a finished work but it builds trust. Share a part of yourself. Turn flow into stock. 90% of everything you make is crap but if you keep at it you will build enough flow (daily updates, posts) to turn into stock. Don't hoard. Don't overshare/spam. Give attribution when you find other things interesting and share them.
How to attribute: What is it, who made it, when, why do we care, where you found it, and where can I get more of this.
Work doesn't speak for itself. You have to tell the story. Follow narritve structure because people like things with stories far more than without. Tell the struggle, the idea, what changed and what you learned along the way.
Swipe to Unlock
30 Aug 2023
82 / 100 :: Good. Overview of tech and business origin stories/models. How does google work? Page rank plus algos. How does cloud work? Rent servers. Why can't I buy photoshop? SaaS. Why did Facebook buy Instagram? All kinds of good info. MapReduce = send out many folks to gather data in local areas, then aggregate. Use bots, also how original us cencus was conducted.
The First 20 Minutes
12 Dec 2018
82 / 100 :: advice for working out for those who wouldn't know or want to try it this way.
walk 150 min per wk in any possible breakdown
frequency, intensity, duration the 3 ways to overload training
HIIT of 30 sec max effort, rest 30 sec, repeat 9 times is same as 90-120 min moderate cardio. HIIT also builds more mitochondria.
No stretch, light warmup of parts you are about to use. 5-10 min get blood flowing, contract and relax muscles groups a few times.
Weight lifting does same as moderate cardio. Lift 2x wk, 150 min moderate cardio a wk
No NSAIDS, no ice, no massage. NSAIDS blunt prostglandins, slowing healing and increasing risk of injury.
Drink when thirsty, eat when hungry.
Body will reach homeostasis.
Wants to be the weight it wants despite calorie restriction. Will make you rest more to gain back lost calories. Use pedometer to prevent this.
Balance training prevents injury. Stand one leg while brushing teeth. Hold 2 min each foot. Then try eyes closed.
HR 105 - 134 fat burning zone but at that rate you'd have to walk all day to burn enough calories to match what you burned in 30 min of fast jogging.
Work out fasted before breakfast.
Intensity still the best bang for buck.
Run Fartleks. Jog, sprint, jog for recovery, sprint, etc
9 min mile women / 8 min mile men is good indicator of death 40 years from 40.
Core training doesn't matter for athletic performance. no crunches
16 push ups / 27 for 40 yo women/men
box jumps good.
keep kids fit too.
humans made to be active.
The Learning Game
25 Jan 2024
82 / 100 :: Good. Nothing new but good. Some summaries of other work like Range and James Clear and Think Again. How and why school is bad for kids, then some things to do about it. 90/10 split of trouble/solution. Video games are ok if under 3hr per day (try 2) and they spend 1/2 the time not playing strangers online. You play with them so they have acutal interaction with humans. Play first then study or study will be bad. Don't play to escape, play for fun and learn. How to help: stop overinstructing kids. Give them time and space to think it over. Reframe learning so kids aren't scared to fail. Another chance to try again. Give effort feedback, process focus, be specific. Give kids choices for autonomy and accountability. Let them do their own projects. Measure progress outside grades/tests. Distance traveled. No extrinsic motivators. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Dwell in confusion. Question everything. Why to everything. Teach stoicism. Don't memorize Googleable things. Times tables but not state capitols. Help them play to their strengths. Range of exposures so they can find their niche. Good thinking is a collection of skills and mindsets for wide angle perspectives. Build a toolbox of mental models. Gameify learning but don't make it pointified (empty of meaning). Deeply engage with their learning don't off-load it. Don't overprotect or helicopter, kids can handle much more.
Learn when to quit and when to grit. It's hard isn't a good excuse. I want to do this other thing is. Quit if the sequel is bad, if the book is slow, if it doesn't grab you and get another book. Don't quit a sport or hobby because it's too hard. That's a skill issue.
What We Owe the Future
12 Oct 2022
82 / 100 ::good. most of the future of humanity is ahead so we should consider what we do now in regard to them. AGI, bioweapons, climate change greatest threats. Most we can do is do good collectively, Clean Air Task Force is one of the charities mentioned that works well and high ROI on donations to results. Also, be happy - the world is better with happier people - and have more people. Philosophical arguments support the previous assertions, I agree with them generally not specifically, but still it's a better start than most. If you accept the initial premise...that we owe anything.
Dissonance
18 Sep 2023
81 / 100 :: Good. LitRPG Isekai hero gets beat up on yacht and sent to other world where he levels like a game because...um...system? He is reincarnated as some long vanished race and power creeps to high levels by end of book 1. Lots of pain and pushing through pain and enduring. But much better writing, just tired from reading after so much pain. Four adjectives in a row telling me about the MC's suffering. But litRPG crack...
Lessons in Chemistry
4 Apr 2023
81 / 100 :: good - Elizabeth Zott and Calvin Evans are chemists with complicated lives. But will they defeat the dark lord before book club? It's a total Book Club book, but it's good. A bit much but still solid. Maybe even a perfect example of a book club book?
The Dip
20 Jul 2021
81 / 100 :: Don't quit except when it's smart to quit. How does one know? If you can become the best in the world then go for it. If not, quit. People only want the best: best surgeon, book, movie, cake, so be the best. But the best in the world is only defined by customer. You don't need to be the best organic produce market in the world, just Tulsa or where you live. If you write books, then you need to be the best in the world since anyone can go online and buy the "best" book. So find a niche and exploit it. Don't quit when things are tough, that's the filter to keep others from the market. Once you are the best in your niche make a big dip to keep others out. A cul-de-sac is being mediocre. Don't cope or conform or be good enough. The rewards for best are worth pushing through the dip. Don't quit the marathon at mile 25.
Children's Homer
29 May 2024
80 / 100 :: Good. Retelling of Homer's epic from 1910 by Paidric Colum with illustrations by Billy Pogany. Good language especially for kids. Would put it at advanced middle school today. Not sure what grade level they meant it to be 100 years ago.
For the Love of Books
19 Jan 2020
80 / 100 :: Gorgeous coffee table book of personal ibraries in rich homes. Beautiful book displays. Well lit with light strips, use of texture on back panels of book cases/shelves. Author of book and owner of juniper books creates bespoke libraries for rich folks. He custom wraps each book in its own sleeve making art of the spines. Neat idea but not for us. Good to see books on display in various ways. Text was 90% pretentious about the craft of building a custom collection and how important certain editions of books are to you and the people who come over and ohh and ahh over your shelves. But still beautiful to look at.
HumanKind
27 Jan 2022
80 / 100 :: Humans are good creatures at baseline ala Rousseau not Hobbes. Stanford Prisoner Experiment faked. Guards were told to act mean on purpose. Some guards quit before the experiment due to what they would have to do. Interesting take, never heard that before. Did they really? Why does no one mention this when citing the often cited Stanford PRisoner Experiment? Milgram experiment also fake news. Every participant refused to shock the "learner" after a certain point but the lab coat guy coerced/bullied them into continuing. So you could coerce them under extremem duress (some were crying as they shocked the person) so in a sense it "proves" people will obey, but they had to resort to screms, threat, etc. Loses some of it's power under that light. Instances of noble savages, anti lord-of-the-flies, christmas peace in WW1 was everywhere and in many wars. The fire rate of soldiers was 15% until WW2 because people don't want to shoot. Be nice, assume good intentions, golden rule, look for win/win, etc.
Linked
18 Mar 2013
80 / 100 :: Solid overview of how systems work, or don't.
Nature distributes according to bell curves and power laws (pareto 80/20)
Networks are centralized, decentralized and distributed
Web is decentralized, hub based, scale-free and modular
Centralized are the most efficient and rigid (Ford factory producing ONE type of car very effeciently, must close down to re-tool for a minor change)
Decentralized, scale-free, hub based networks tolerate errors much better but if several of the big hubs go down
(air traffic hubs like Chicago, Atlanta, LA, NY keep the system from collapsing if one goes down...but if three go down it overloads the remaining hubs, cascading errors)
Distributed networks are the most fault tolerant
(roads in the US - if one closes in Montana, no one notices...if a major highway in DC closes it causes backups but doesn't crash traffic nationwide...
if all the major roads in all the major cities close traffic will redistribute. This tends to be the randomized netowrks found in nature, cells, ecosystems)
Making Comics
20 Feb 2021
80 / 100 :: Scott McCloud tells about how to make comics. Nothing new, but solid anyway. Will Eisner has a lot of overlap with this.
Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes
30 Apr 2020
80 / 100 :: I wish I had a book of foes. I wish I had foes. Anyway, good compendium. History of demons/devils and their Blood war, Elves/Drow, Dwarves/Duergar, Githyanki/Githzerai, Haflings, and Gnomes.
Story Genius
5 Nov 2020
80 / 100 :: solid advice.
A story is about what the protagonist feels/does based off of mis-informed prior beliefs/values.
Each scene card has an alpha point, subplot point(s), the plot for the scene (cause/effect), the thrid rail (why it matters/the realization), and so what?
Alpha point - The key role the scene plays in the external cause/effect arc. It answers why is this scene necessary. Concrete.
Subplot(s) - how other characters effect protagonist and what protagonist will do about it
Plot cause - external events happening in 1st half of scene
Plot effect - external consequences of what happened in this scene, not forthcoming consequences
3rd rail why it matters - why what is happening in cause matters to protagonist given his agenda
3rd rail realization - the internal change triggered by the event that leads to action.
And so? - shift in game plan
Every scene produces hard won change, externally and internally. Everything internal/external must connect/ Why is this happening? Why this, why that.
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
29 Nov 2022
80 / 100 :: Good. Some stuff didn't pan out, other stuff is contradictory or mutally exclusive but most of the laws are sound. Be first, be first in the mind of the consumer, associate your brand with a word (Volvo=safety ), if you can't be first in a market or first in mind, create your own niche and be first there (Amelia Earhart was 3rd to cross atlantic but 1st woman). DON'T DO LINE EXTENSIONS! If you are second be honest, candor can qork but quickly spin the negative to your unique positive. Marketing is all perception. You don't have to have the best product or service, just associate your good/service with something that solves a consumer problem. Emotions beat truth, perception beats reality.
The Count of Monte Cristo
11 Feb 2023
80 / 100 ::Good, not great. Soft revenge by ruining his victims, because they deserve more than death. Not really and also ruining them wasn't so dramatic. Of course back then maybe it was worse than death but I still don't see it. Also he gets a hot 20 year old greek princess instead of the woman he loved at the beginning of the book. She aged so he needed new tail. Much of the revenge followed from things the Count didn't set up. He used past sins as leverage but it felt weak since the whole point was that the Count was the architect of his enemies' downfall yet if they hadn't had all these past trangressions...then what? He seemed not active as a force of vengeance.
Words for Pictures
16 Apr 2020
80 / 100 :: How to write comics/be a comic maker by Brian M Bendis.
Advice: Make a web comic or publish an indie and then submit it. Cold submissions don't really work anymore and especially not with the company's IP (no spiderman pages to Marvel, no batman pages to DC, they can't legally look at them). So research an editor or better yet meet one at a con and give them a copy of your graphic novel or business card with website so they can read your web comic or see your samples.
Write a short script. Put a cover letter on it addressed to the correct editor. Be polite and professional. Don't pester, but be persistent. Don't send in the same thing each time (writers), make new stories. Lots of talent rotation at marvel (maybe elsewhere?) so every job is a pitch for you and might be your last (only as good as last job/work). Negotiate your contract, fight for rights, be an LLC or somesuch. When you get a contract settled don't overcommit. Your first job becomes your last.
The Dog of the South
28 Aug 2023
79 / 100 :: Meh. Funny, but looser plot after readign his True Grit. Man chases wife and her new lover from Arkansas through Mexico to British Honduras. Adventures of a simp. Spineless guy getting kicked around by life solves no problems, but funny. Unsatisfying end but well written.
Farsighted
5 Mar 2024
78 / 100 :: Meh. Not as good as How We Got to Here. A few good points and 200 pages of anecdotes, mostly Collect Pond Washington's Battle of Brooklyn and Obama's bin Laden raid. The point is how to make decidsions, but better. Could have been a third as long. Map, Predict, Decide.
Mapping- The first step in making a complex decision is to map out all the variables and potential outcomes. This involves gathering as much relevant information as possible and understanding the different paths a decision could lead you down. Have divergent views because you can't think of what you can't think of. Mixed groups do better. I can try to think of a female perspective or we could have a female actually think of a female perspective. Shocking! Full spectrum so you don't fall dow a narrow band rabbit hole of deciding based off money or environmental impact or social upheaval, etc.
Predicting - After mapping out the decision landscape, the next step is to try to predict the outcomes of each option. This involves not just considering the immediate effects of a decision but also its long-term impacts. Johnson stresses the importance of looking beyond the immediate consequences and considering the broader implications of a decision. Second order thinking but no mention of Conterfactual Regret Minimization. Run simulations, ask for confidence at all intervals.
Deciding - With the map laid out and predictions made, the final step is to make the decision. Johnson suggests that this often involves integrating different types of reasoning and judgement, including both rational analysis and intuition. He also highlights the importance of diversity of thought in the decision-making process, suggesting that a group of decision-makers with diverse perspectives can help ensure that different aspects of a decision are considered. Novels allow you to peer into other minds as well. But in the end it comes down to your gut to pull the trigger because your models from step 2 will have various upsides/downsides with varying risk associated so it's all a crap shoot in the end. Yay?
Project Hail Mary
9 Jul 2022
78 / 100 :: good. Can you be a bad writer and still write a fun book? Is that mutally exclusive? This book proves it isn't. Poorly written novel with a main character that doesn't fit the dire situation, but the story keeps moving well. Problems always solved easily, too easily so no real danger, but still curious what next. Astrophage show up and eat our sun. Earth sends crew of 3 best astronauts (main character is one of the 3 best, yet he's barely got a room temp IQ) to Tau Ceti to find out why that sun isn't dying from astropahge. Rest of suns locally are dying. Only hero survives journey but at Tau Ceti he meets Rocky alien in another ship studying same problem. Spider crab rock alien that speaks in music. They work together to find amoeba that eats astrophage and take it back to respective homeworlds. But Tauphage gets loose and causes problems, hero sends care package to earth with info on how to solve problem then turns around and saves alien friend. Now lives on alien planet in special atmosphere. Finds out earth was saved by his care package and instruction. Might consider 16 year journey home but has a school class to teach first on his new homeworld of spider rock aliens.
The Art of Comic Book Writing
11 Feb 2021
78 / 100 :: Good. How to write for comics, make loglines, synopsis.
The Good Ancestor
21 Aug 2021
78 / 100 :: How to think of the future. 7th gneration thinking, acorn brain as opposed to marshmallow brain. How to do things today that have a positve outcome on the future/unborn. How could you know though? Legacy thinking, cathedral thinking, ecological economics, citizen group democracy. Basically we're screwed because political and economic systems have ZERO incentive to think of the future. So it's up to us and we have no power and the laws favor short-termism. So the future is screwed. Plant trees and be a vegan?
The ONE Thing
31 Jan 2019
78 / 100 :: Some good ideas. Again, should be a list or pamphlet.
Focus on the ONE Thing. Clock off 4 hours at least to focus on the ONE Thing.
What is the ONE Thing I can do such that by doing it everything will be easier or unecessary?
Narrow your focus. Get the TODO list down to ONE thing and do it.
Don't be disciplined. Be obsessive. 66 days to form a habit. Once a habit is formed being disciplined isn't part of the equation. Willpower won't factor in anymore.
Choose what matters most and give it all the time it needs. Life won't be balanced.
Make obscene goals to make you shoot for them. Like 10X rule below.
Put all your eggs in one basket and then watch the basket like a hawk.
Ask big and specific questions to get better answers: What can I do to increase sales 20X in the next 6 months gives better feedback than increase 2X in 30 years.
Set goals at the edge of possibility, not doable, or stretch. Like 10X below.
Find purpose and priority.
What's the ONE Thing I want to do someday >> What's the ONE Thing I can do in the next 5 years >> What's the ONE Thing I can do this year >>
What's the ONE Thing I can do this month >> What's the ONE Thing I can do this week >> What's the ONE Thing I can do today >> What's the ONE Thing I can do now?
Time block your ONE Thing, then protect your time block...If you erase it from your calendar, replace it on your calendar.
Time block your time off, then block the ONE Thing, then block your planning time (Sunday used to plan for week, night used to plan for next day...etc)
Follow the path to mastery. 10k hours, deliberate practise, etc?
Move from Entrepenurial thinking to Purposeful thinking. Don't do the thing the best YOU can do it, do it the best it CAN be done.
Be accountable. Find the reality, find the solution and move on
Psychology of Money
24 Nov 2023
77 / 100 :: Good. Lots of anecdotes but still good. Manage your money so you can sleep not maximize gains (unless that makes you sleep). Increase your time horizon to decades. Things will go wrng often, don't worry, it can still work out. Use money to buy time not things. Save all the time. Define success to you and pay the cost for it. Make room for error - hedges that keep you in the game. Avoid extremes. No ruinous risk. Even if it's russian roulette with a 1000 round pistol don't play because one loss ends the game immediately. Take risks that won't kill.
Seed to Harvest
7 Sep 2020
77 / 100 :: Four stories about a bunch of folks who are all slightly connected. Begins in Africa with a spirit possesed man who can body-hop who finds a woman who can fix any injury including her own, therefore making her immortal. The spirit man, Doro, has been around since ancient egypt breeding people with telepathic/kinetic powers. Takes healer to his village in colonial america and breeds and body hops while healer hates him. Then it's the 1980s? and Doro has bred tons of telepaths who remain hidden and he uses them, for food and also is looking for a soulmate. Mary is one of his promising seedswho ends up connecting mentally with other telepaths and becomes the first patternmaster. She uses their mental strength to kill Doro after he's bred people for 4000 years. Now it's the future and a spaceship returns to earth with a microbial disease that makes people nearly immortal by enhancing their senses and healing them, but also making them want to kil land infect anyone who doens't have the disease. And when you have babies after getting the disease the kids come out like sphinxes. Now it's even more in the future and the clayarks (diseased people) have overrun everything except for some enclaves of telepaths. They war against each other. The current pattermaster is old and one of his sons is coming to take his throne...
So much incest, so little sci-fi. So disconnected. Seems like she had a contract to make four connected books and tried really hard. The ideas are sort of cool, but Octavia Butler focuses on the realtionships (not a sci-fi staple) and the breeding. Everyone bones everyone else. I don't care. I want to know how th eworld has chnaged. Also Doro and Emma form the first two books just die and thats that. Now here are two new books. See? We never learn anything about Doro or how it started.
The True Believer
8 Nov 2022
77 / 100 ::Good. How mass movements start and end. Fantatics, disgruntled, frustrated, rich and poor and how they contribute to revolution. Revolution hates the present and overvalues the future through hope. Hope of better tormorrow creates an idea that people attach to instead of themselves. Mass movements need an enemy or scapegoat to unite against, more than they need a positive vision to strive for. Identifying a common enemy gives followers a sense of purpose and belonging. "The fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure. He cannot generate self-assurance out of his individual resources — out of his rejected self — but finds it only by clinging passionately to whatever support he happens to embrace. This passionate attachment is the essence of his blind devotion and religiosity, and he sees in it the source of all virtue and strength. Though his single-minded dedication is a holding on for dear life, he easily sees himself as the supporter and defender of the holy cause to which he clings." The psychological needs driving people to join movements are often more important than the specific ideologies of those movements. This explains why people sometimes switch between seemingly opposed movements. Pre-Hitler germany could have just as easily been communist, but they went nazi instead. Healthy societies encourage personal development, exposure to diverse perspectives, critical thinking, and civic engagement to make people less susceptible to the allure of mass movements. Interesting insights from 1954.
Too Soon Old Too Late Smart
26 Apr 2024
77 / 100 :: Good. 30 tales of wisdom from a psych who lost his oldest to suicide and youngest to leukemia. Your children owe you nothing. You brought them into the world now you are resonsible for raising them. You can do little to affect their path so show them love and support and that you can be happy in an unjust world. Model the behavior. Love is putting the other person's needs on par or above yours. It's not obsession. The person who cares least in a relationship controls it. The statute of limitations has expired on most childhood traumas. We are what we repeatedly do. Feelings follow behavior. (Or action). Why and why not are the two most important questions you can ask, but the situation matters. Your job is to age gracefully and with tact. Bad things happen in an instant, good takes time. Do not lie to yourself. There is no perfect stranger out there who will meet all your needs. Illness provides people with an escape from responsibility. Take action. The past wasn't rosy or perfect, stop thinking about it. Laughter is theraputic. Parent's have a limited ability to shape kids, except for the worse.
168 Hours
6 Jan 2019
76 / 100 :: Another pamphlet in book form, but a good point. Don't just schedule work.
We have way more time than we think.
Schedule free time like work so it doens't fritter away down rabbit holes of tv/internet
Minimize/Ignore/Outsource things that aren't core competencies.
Find core competencies (the high priority things for you) and spend as much time doing them as possible.
List of 100 dreams. Do them to see what core things you really enjoy
Make it happen
A Manual of Writer's Tricks
22 Jan 2024
76 / 100 :: Meh. Some good points briefly stated, but not much new.
Rework
22 Oct 2023
76 / 100 :: Good. Anti silicon valley business advice from basecamp 37 signals people. Ignore real world advice from naysayers. Learning from mistakes is overrated don't fail fast and early, win and learn. (Good point, there are infinite ways to fail, but few to win, so learning from failure doesn't really help reorient toward success as well as winning helps keep you on track) Planning is guessing, humans can't predict the weather or guess ahead on anything. Don't grow stay small. Don't be a hero workaholic. Start making something. Don't have a mission statement. Don't take outside money. you don't need much to start. Don't build to flip it, make a business not a startup. Build half a product not a half assed product. Ignore details early on. Decide today don't wait. You can change tomorrow. Edit. Meetings are toxic. Good enough is good enough, quick wins. Long lists don't get done. Make tiny reversible decisions. Don't copy. Say no often. Build an audience by out-teaching the competition.
Blueprint How DNA Makes Us Who We Are
25 Jan 2025
75 / 100 :: good. not sure of the scientific rigor but the premise is that you are your DNA. It is who you are, but not who you can be, although you can't be too much off from your DNA. Twin studies and adoptive parents/kid studies show kids are who they are no matter the home they are raised in. Polygenic scores for height, weight, BMI, all psychological pathologies and school achievement are knowable at birth and don't vary. A kid with a polygenic score in whatver percentile will maintain that score throughout life no mater how many different families were to take a shot at raising the kid. Somewhat defeatist but somewhat liberating upon reflection. You are who you are with slight variance. Extroverts don't become introverts because they were raised in a bookish home of introverts. You can't do anything other than you, DNA wise. Seems to be that this is easy to refute upon further googling.
Creating Character Arcs
12 Nov 2020
75 / 100 :: If you need to make a character have an arc, enjoy. Character arcs follow plot arc. Follows standard plot formulas (3 acts, inciting event, doorway of no return, etc) and what is happening internally at each point for positive character arcs, flat arcs, and negative arcs.
The Happiest Baby on the Block
22 Mar 2013
75 / 100 :: Ha! I hope it works on your baby.
The cuddle cure is the 5 S's:
Swaddle - tight with no wiggle room. Arms at sides. Shouldn't come loose after hours.
Side/Stomach - Lay on side or stomach
Shhhhh - white noise louder than baby's cries
Swing - Jiggly/vibrating movment, not huge arcing motions. Replicate shock waves of brisk waling inutero. Mimic Jello jiggling.
Suck - pacifier
Need to progress through all five until baby calms down. Stick with it. Match intensity to baby (volume of Shhhh)
Make Time
29 Mar 2021
75 / 100 :: How to make time on what matters. Simple process covered in one chapter with 100+ tactics for execution. Nothing groundbreaking. Deep Work is more intense.
Highlight - pick one thing to do today. Triage an urgent task, pick something that will bring satisfaction (exercise, learn), or joy (play game, read). Make time to do it. Make sure it's not too big or small of a task. 60-90 minutes is good.
Laser - Cut out all distraction and focus. AM or PM or whenever but block yourself off from the outside world.
Reflect - did your highlight work? How was your focus? Energy level? What worked and didn't? What can you try next time? What thing were you thankful for?
More Than Happy
24 Oct 2019
75 / 100 :: I love the Amish. Sort of. But what an interesting take on a parenting book. Anecdotal but fun.
Amish kids. Good overview into Amish society, all observational anecdotes of author's friends in old order community in Ohio. Kids are wonderful and perfect because God. Lots of God. Also huge social pressures to conform. But as that is the only frame of reference it is the norm and therefore everyone is impossibly well-adjusted. You have seven children spread from 22 to 4 and they all help out around the house/business raising the young ones. Reduces burden on nuclear families. Also families are always together, also always visiting. Cousins, aunts, uncles they all eat and meet with everyone several times per week. Gives sense of child's place in community. Grandparents live in accessory unit attached to house. Natural flow and order to things (god's will). Expectations are to be a valuable person. Achieved by being included in every aspect of house/farm/business. Kids are industrious. Age 4 they collect eggs, take care of hens. Age six they mow and bridle ponies. Age 7 or 8 they can cook an entire meal for the family and wash dishes and clean and sew clothes and work in the fields. At 14/15 when done with 8th grade they apprentice somewhere and learn a trade. Continue on until married (18~22) then buy own farm. With money saved by parents because all paychecks are given to parents to hold until they are "of age". Then they can buy farm from parents or get own land. When teenagers they can keep 10% for spending, 90% to parent. Parent holds for them. Courteous, kind, caring, thoughtful and social. Social, social. Everything together, family first. Everything done for family so they are together. They are always working, making things together and side-hustling. Selling eggs, rabbits. Open a bakery and then build a porch so customers stay and eat on porch. Sell the hand-made furniture from the porch. Make more. Sell quilts. Store grows from bakery to everything and a grocery store...etc.
So Good They Can't Ignore You
6 Aug 2019
75 / 100 :: All in all, not as good as deep work. But sound advice fr thbulk of the book.
Don't follow your passion. Instead build career capital to exert control over your mission.
Career capital is the skill set you've built over years of deliberate practice.
Make the skills rare and valuable
Make yourself an expert in a niche
Make sure the skills are something someone is willing to pay for
Use deliberate practice to hone the skill
Deliberate practice involves immediate feedback, peer review, coaching, pushing yourself beyond the plateaus. Tackle the hardest thing.
Adopt the craftsman mindset - focus relentlessly on what value can I give the world
Winner take all -or- auction marketplace
Winner take all is where you are judged on your product (artists, writers, musicians, etc. No one cares about degrees or unique experiences insights)
Auction is where you assemble a unique profile/skillset to make yourself valuable
Once you've acquired sufficient career capital you can turn down promotions and leverage your skills for jobs you want
There are two traps in seeking control of your job
One is that you don't have enough capital and no one listens
Two is that you have so much they won't let you go to do what you want
Mission is the second trait of a compelling career after control
Don't create mission first, just like don't go after passion first
Push yourself to the limit of your field. At the edge you will find the adjacent possible to hop toward
Once you have a mission make little bets, concrete, immediate feedback to keep you next to the curve
Too many examples of people who ARE following their passions, but chapter 1 says not to. Yet they all are to soem extent or they wouldn't be doing it...no? Kirk French, Giles Bowkett, the bluegrass kid all sound like people who pursued a passion and didn't have a plan and got LUCKY. The examples of failures that didn't work were UNLUCKY. But he never mentions it.
The 10X Rule
3 Feb 2019
75 / 100 :: Good point. Why do when you can over-do? Massive action and over reaction
If someone tweets 2x per day, tweet 48. (Math?) Whatever your competition is doing don't just beat them slightly. You'll never be noticed. Crush them.
Don't compete in a market, dominate a market.
Set unrealistic goals and try to hit them. In doing that you will be forced to come up with a plan for massive action. That will be your success.
The Great Mental Models
9 Aug 2021
75 / 100 :: Good. List of mental models vol. 1 of ?
The Map is not the territory - models are imperfect aproximations of what you are trying to figure out. Use it as a guide not as law.
Circle of competence - Know what you really know and stick close to that circle. Don't think you know more than you really know. Delegate to others who do.
First principles - Argue from the core truths of a matter. Understand what are the underlying immutable laws and work up from those if this, then thats. Don't fight reality.
Second Order thinking - what are the consequences of this good and bad. How will this thing/idea if it works or is true affect things down the chain. Slippery slope and hard to do right, but important. Britian paid a bounty for dead cobras in India. So Indians began breeding cobras to kill for the bounty...
Inversion - yep.
Probabilistic thinking - Bayesian thinking. Take your priors into account and re adjust everything as new information enters.
Occams' Razor / Hanlon's Razor - simplest explanation is best / Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.
The Woods
3 Jun 2021
75 / 100 :: Murder mystery in the woods. Detective detects and figures out that his mother was murdered by his father and his dead sister is alive. Or something. Fun and forgettable.
You Carry The Tent I'll Carry The Baby
1 Feb 2025
75 / 100 :: ERE man hikes PCT with wife and kid. It's neat. Sometimes preachy. But neat.
Neuromancer
26 Nov 2020
74 / 100 :: No I did not like it. Even though by law I must.
Case is a cowboy in a bladerunner/cyberpunk future. Cowboys jack into teh matrix and hack things. He's been hired by an AI to run a a heist that will allow the AI to merge with its counterpart and thus be freed of the Turing protocols. Must have been bleeding edge in 84 but now its a little stilted. Confusing and pointless ending.
Before and After the Book Deal
4 Feb 2020
73 / 100 :: More pain about publishing. Solid advice, but so depressing to hear the success stories where the successes sound like wounded people. Overworked, under-represented, under-protected and all for 5-15% of whatever you make for the publisher. Reinforces why self-pub is so disruptive. It gives you 4x the money for the same problems. If only there was a way to fix the other problems...
Profit by Investing In Tax Liens
13 Aug 2022
73 / 100 :: Good but risky. PA is tax deed state so you get the property and all encumbrances. Yay? Or you wait until it doesn't sell then by it free and clear at the Judicial sale and discover it's an unusable lot. Good info for every sate but I'd do DE before PA or get an attorney. You are also competing against sharks and whales with reps who can outbid you and have pockets deeper than the...something deep.
The Art of Living
12 Mar 2024
73 / 100 :: Good. Stay the course. Regardless of what is going on around you make the best of what you can control and take the rest as it occurs. Stoic silliness but in bit sized chunks so easier to swallow. What is within my power? If I exert myself could I control more? Of course, but should I? They don't answer that, just give things to the will of nature and such.
Lifespan
17 Jan 2020
72 / 100 :: We can live to be 1 million and be healthy the whole time. Or maybe 100-120. NMN 1 gram, Reservetrol 1 gram, and Metformin 1 gram, with sometimes rapamycin. Fast, eat veggies and exercise. Fast 5 days every quarter or do 16/8 or do calorie restriction to 80% recommended. Eat veggies, broccoli, cabbage and avocado have highest amounts of NR a precursor to nmn. Exercise HIIT not too often and/or do light exercise the rest of the time. 45 yo male should do 25 push ups...huh? Is he sick? Sit stand test-legs crossed on floor and stand up without arms. Get cold and or hot, but mostly cold. More research on that. Goosebumps, teeth chattering. It won't kill you but kick in the survival mode and clear out senecant cells and create brown fat.
A bit polyanna about future (tech will save us, pills will save us) where we are all old and running marathons in a world where we've solved resource issues and equality problems, but still interesting.
When
29 Dec 2018
72 / 100 :: some people are this way. Other people are that way. Sure. Maybe? But timing matters, just "when" does it matter?
All people gain energy for a few hours after waking (larks and owls and 3rd birds), followed by slump, then second peak, then sleep.
For larks it's the afternoon. Nap for 20 minutes or less. Longer creates a lag (fog) upon waking.
Or if no nap then walk. Lunch the most important. Eat with friends, don't talk about work.
Midpoitns are hard in projects (or the afternoon of a day) so break tasks into smaller chunks. People more motivated at beginnings and ends.
Go to surgery 1st thing in the am. Same for court. Judges more lenient, doctors make fewer mistakes.
Hidden Potential
23 Dec 2023
71 / 100 :: Good. Pop psych drivel, but I'm addicted. Anecdote after "neat" study after unreproducable study. When college students are given a sugary beverage they perform...ZZzzzz...anyway the lessons are (soon to be refuted by the next pop psych book, be a sponge, soak up info from many experts and mentors. Many. Be an imperfectionist. Make mistakes and make them today. Don't wait to start. Do no research, just dive in head first and buy commodities on margin. Derp. Build character skills. Become ok with discomfort. It will never be easy or a good time. If it hurts it's working. Love the process not the goal.
Medallion Status
23 Mar 2020
71 / 100 :: Funny but once it's not funny you realize you've spent time hanging out with a neurotic shallow manchild.
John Hodgman talks about getting medallion status on beloved airline while talking about how much he enjoys leaving his family to hang with famous people but he really isn't one of the famous people just a low grade satellite in their orbit and it means the world to him and status is everything. But he's funny. But perhaps a starfucker and not ironically.
Work Clean
7 Dec 2022
71 / 100 :: ok - profiles great chefs and how organized and meticulous they are then tries to show you how to use their practises in your office life. It doesn't translate well because kitchen work is discrete, finite, compartmentalized, and repeatable. Make this dish this way 23 times tonight. Then again tomorrow night and again. Office work is sometimes creative, but one can still benefit from applying chef practices to some parts of life. Plan, organize, do things now to save time later, clean while you work, communicate all the time in clear concise fashion, etc. More interested in the stories this time than the application of organizational skills.
Atlas of Finance
15 Feb 2025
70 / 100 :: Great infographics, with a light overview of some key concepts. Where does money go? How does a SPAC comapre to an IPO? Nice to look at and gives a 30,000 foot view of the major ideas.
Born to Run
23 Mar 2013
70 / 100 :: Sure. Neat. Specious reasoning. Maybe made to walk. We're actually not great runners either. Did you know we're better at thinking? That's why we can write books about running.
Run barefoot like Tarahumara
Eat chia seeds (nativeseeds.org) / pinole
Emil Zatopek Czech runner set records in 5k 10k marathon, gave away olympic gold to rival, cleaned toilets
Evolved to run / mammals only 1 breath per stride, humans many--allowed effecient cooling while pursuing/persistance hunting / tendon to keep head level / only animal in history to be bipedal without a tail
NYC Marathon times - men get faster from 19 to 27 then decline in speed. At 64 finishing times equal that of 19 year olds. (humans made to run)
Don't Sweat The Small Stuff (It's All Small Stuff)
5 May 2024
70 / 100 :: Goodish. 100 short points about life, but really 40 points. Some quality, some repeats rephrased, and some silly. Be nice, kind, forgiving, and compassionate. Take a breath before you speak, think of the other person's view, make peace with imperfection-there are no happy perfectionists, don't interupt others, do nice things without the need for thanks, life isn't fair and that's ok, life isn't an emergency, everyone here now will be gone in 100 years, listen better, choose your battles, be humble, don't criticize, count to ten, quiet the mind, be happy here and now, problems are teachers-accept them and learn, you don't have to catch every ball thrown your way, catch your stressed feelings winding up before they are out of control.
I don't buy the "relax you'll be dead in 100 years" because it can lead to YOLO behavior. Life is an emergency sometimes, so notice when it is and act appropriately. If you have a test to get into an accelerated program, treat it as an emergency and pass it to change the course of your life for the better.
Eat That Frog!
20 Jun 2019
70 / 100 :: A good point back by science that could have been reduced to a pamphlet.
The ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your most important task, to do it well, and to finish it completely is the key to success. Then you must triage to find your most important task, learn to do it really well, and focus until it is done. Eat the frog first, everything else will be easy. If you have two frogs to eat pick the biggest, ugliest one first. If you have to eat a frog don't stare at it for too long. This was followed by 21 ways to do the afrementioned. Much like Deep Work, and very similar to The ONE Thing. Identify you talents, pick the task that by doing it now has the greatest impact positive or negative and do it.
Enduring Love
20 Oct 2021
70 / 100 :: Erotomania. Good thriller but the author (or the main character) can't tell a story without stopping seventeen times to tell you everything else. But compelling enough to finish. Smart guy, good writing, but god does he stop and start a thought and go on before he gets back to the plot.
The Global Achievement Gap
2 Jul 2019
70 / 100 :: Education is broken in its current state. New model requires project based interdisciplinary learning. STEM leaning, STEM schools.
Seven fundemental principles:
Critical thinking and problem solving
Collaboration Across networks and leading by influence
Agility and adaptibility
Initiative and entrepreneurialism
Effective oral and written communication
Accessing and analyzing information
Curiousity and imagination
How does this hold up? Can't wait to find out in 25 years when we realize we did it wrong. Or right.
The School for Good Mothers
15 Mar 2023
70 / 100 :: Man this could have been good. But the inciting event caused by the main character is unrelatable.
Liu the mom leaves Harriet her 18mo old daughter home alone for 2 hours. Reported to CPS. Daughter taken and given to ex who has new hippie girlfriend. Mom is sent to school to learn to be good mother with robo doll emmanuelle. robo doll records everything as mom learns the 7 types of hugs, how to sprint out of a burning house and how to be constantly vigilant. Can't tell if this is a farce or a Margaret Atwood Handmaid tale. It could happen, but it couldn't. The blurbs talk about the patriarchy a lot but Frida/mom doesn't really deal with it, it's a system, mostly female that is doing the terrible things to her. Then again she SUCKS as a mother. Who in the FUCK leaves a kid alone for 2 hours at 18 months old? A mother who needs dystopian levels of re-education. And guess what. She has 15 months to fall in love with the doll and be a good mother. She FAILS. HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU? Your kid you claim to love is on the other side of this stupid school, so check the boxes and jump through the hoops you worthless shitbag. Don't fuck with Tucker. The pink lab coats tell you exactly what you need to do and you still fail...fuck you then. Also the ending blows. She kidnaps her daughter knowing she'll get caught and sent back to school. Yeah you really stuck it to the patriarchy and are making your daughter grow into a healthy person. You clearly suck balls and deserve to have Harriet taken away. Frida is weak and won't fight for her kid. Not a hero we can get behind. The situations, sure, the person, never. Here's a better ending Jessamine: Harriet dies under Gust and Susanna's care. The real crime and shitty parenting was with the ones the state thought fit to care for your daughter. They aren't punished, you are for having one bad day. Irony. Maybe you go back to school and emmanuelle is wiped clean and you have to start over with her. Or you take her home and try to mother the doll. Pyschotic break. Way better ending, objectively.
In Pursuit of the Pale Prince
25 Apr 2019
68 / 100 :: not to bad. And short which gets bonus points.
Arestus dad dies. Uncle comes to find treasure the dad had hidden. Sick mom tells Arestus to flee uncle to hidden island. On island meets people fleeing to new land. One stays behind to guide Arestuts to Pale Prince. (Treasure was kept by island people and Arestus decides to give to prince to unite north against south instead of throwing treasure/crown into ocean). Mild adventures ensue and crown is delivered, uncle's southern rebellion thwarted.
Money Magic
25 Apr 2023
68 / 100 :: Ok - book by economist misses many things since everything is done from 1st principles and theory instead of testing tactics and strats for empirical results. Also every decision is reduceable to $ since you can't measure other stuff then you disregard it in any calculation. Leads to robot behavior and maximizing things that don't make sense.
1 - pick your job from the gov database based on salary and training. Docotors and plumbers make the same over a lifetime (Bullshit)
2 - never retire, you're leaving money on the table, not maximizing SS and retirment funds and lowering your lifetime average spending floor - so? you get back 20 years of life?!
3 - take SS as late as possible. SS offers 113 benefits, know them all
4 - Move to a tax free state.
5 - downsize your house after high school. move to state with low cost of living to maximize gains - look out arkansas, here we come!
6 - don't borrow for college. You're taking a bad loan that HAS to be repaid (can't bankrupt yourself to escape) to maybe get a chance at maybe getting a job to repay it. Pick a good career path and do college research. Don't pick just because of prestige or high rank if your department is not good. contact department heads and talk with them.
7 - invest in ibonds and TIPS, get out of market--too risky, but diversify over everything in the world: stocks, bonds, reits, cash, gold, bitcoin, every investment vehichle. don't understand this chapter.
The Me, Me, Me Epidemic
18 Feb 2020
68 / 100 :: Decent enough parenting book that gives some tools to prevent kids from thinking the world revolves around them:
Ignore undue attention: kids don't need us 24/7. When they are whinging for attention, back away.
Sail out of the wind - don't be where the tantrum storm is. You can rage while I'm away, then we can talk
Asked and Answered - "Did you ask me this question before? And what did I say? Am I the type of person to go back on my promise?
Make them independent
Take time to train - spend time showing age appropriate tasks then let them handle it
Family Contributions - chore list
When / Then - When you have completed task that you hate, then you can do thing that you like
Empathize and Appreciate
Empower kids
Decision rich environment - you can have this or that. Or maybe more choices if kid can handle it. You can make dinner tonight or tomorrow night.
What is your plan - "I see you playing, and know you haven't done your reading...what's your plan to get it done?"
Cooperate - "What can we do to solve this issue?"
Convince Me - "You want to camp at a friends house...convince me why. Then respond with your concerns and let them convince you why.
What can you do - What can you do if a kid won't let you cross the bridge at the park?
Family Meetings - allow kids to offer things to do/plan for family
Suffering
Natural consequences - you forgot your lunch? Sucks to be hungry. Don't I told you so, empathize and plan for next time.
Logical consequences - can't let cavities be the natural outcome...create logical one: respectful, related to crime, reasonable, revealed in advance, then they Repeat it back
Decide what you will do - I am cleaning Thursday, if your room is picked up I will vacuum, if not then you will clean it Saturday.
No rescue policy - you didn't do your paper and it's due in 48 hours....work on solutions, but you will do nothing other than ideas.
The Omnivore's Dilema
4 Mar 2023
68 / 100 :: Ok. Written in 2006 so some things were already in the sea of knowledge by March of 2023. I'm a little late to th eparty. Lots of talk about corn and feedlots. Another New Yorker article novelized. Some interesting things but not much about the ominvore's dilema. Since we can eat anything (alomst) what should we eat and why? Very little philosophy for such a philosophical question. Mostly "fun" adventures about how he visits farmers and ranchers and gatherers and we get to go with him as he travels up and down the food chain. Weeee. But never wants to say this or that, just mention a stance but never take it firmly. Joel Salatin is the closest he comes to saying how thinkgs ought to be if we farm. And maybe we should hunt and gather more so we're connected to our food instead of removed from the process. But that's unsustainable just as the feedlots and monoculture farms are...soooo...? A 400 page new yorker artcicle. All fluff wrapped in a neat story that lulls you through to the end...but there isn't much to say. Empty calories.
Number9Dream
2 Dec 2023
66 / 100 :: meh. Well written and smart author has us follow a loser for 400 pages as the 19 turning 20 weak willed loser notices things in Japan. He notices and thinks and feels lots of things but fails every day in his attempt to find his unknown father. We learn a lot about his tragic life but not really why he needs to find daddy so much and why now. Eiji Miyake lets everything in the story happen to him. I don't think he initiated one single plot point. He reacts weakly to every story moment and every story moment is forced on him. He makes no choices and never moves the plot forward through his own actions. Complete loser. Everyone around does things while he sucks his thumb and watches and notices and comments internally with poetic turns of phrase. He finally meets daddy and it's a total anticlimax. Meeting mom is lame. Maybe his girlfriend will turn out to be...sorry giant earthquake and book is now over. The yakuza parts were good. Because they did things and created stakes for our weak hero and added motive force. This author can write, but why do I have to sit through a 400 page character study of someone I wouldn't talk with for 4 minutes?
Automate the Boring Stuff With Python
6 Mar 2025
65/100 :: Good book, but 5 years old which in the age of vibe coding with Bolt/Claude/AI/Cursor makes it borderline useless. Having the skills and knowledge is good, but is it necessary? Will kids 10 years from now need to know programming basics? Most likely no. Do I need it now. Not really. It's helpful, but a person with zero python knowledge can still create python apps/games/sites without this book. It's a good book, but...AI. I am thankful for all the people who put their knowledge into book form, but it seems in this area AI has eclipsed the need.
Daily Rituals
8 Jan 2019
65 / 100 :: Neat trivia. Not actionable but fun trivia.
List of daily routines/habits of famous artists/writers/playwrites/composers etc
Nothing special. Some were larks, others were owls.
Some did drugs, some stuck to rigid schedules. Not much to learn.
Manual for Living
29 Mar 2020
65 / 100 :: Epicitus's stoic stuff, nothing new but it gets points for being an actual manual at 88 pages instead of 288 like Marky Marcus Aurelius. The issue with stoics (except Diogenes) is that they are rich. It's easy to be stoic when you are a powerful person. When your thought experiements are only thought experiments and not your reality. Dump a stoic in a life raft and leave them in the middle of the ocean and I doubt they will remain stoic. Also they repeat themselves ad naseum. One point, 8 examples. Another point, sightly different and 8 more examples.
The Effective Executive
22 Feb 2021
65 / 100 :: ok.
1. Know where your time goes - Eliminate, Consolidate, Delegate. Track time. Cut leaks.
2. Focus on outward contributions - Why are you on the payroll? How do you help?
3. Build on strengths -
4. Concentrate on areas where superior performance produces outsized results - First things first. Triage. One thing at a time.
5. Make effective decisions
Slipstream Time Hacking
30 Nov 2021
63 / 100 :: OK - Time is relative so measure your life in distance. How far have you come/how far can you go? Fit a life into a day/week/month by packing in time. Ex: Marry rich and you move from a 25 year old at the start of a career to a 65 year old at the end (you have tons of money). You are retired now and while your friends are working you don't have to. Now you can do other tings because you found the slipstream/wormhole for money. Do it for other things. Long on What/Why/Woo and short on how. The only examples he gives that accelerate time are marrying rich and getting a mentor. You can learn from their 40 years of experience in a handful of years. Wormhole to the future by avoiding their mistakes. Great concept (mentoring that is) but what else?
Defiance of the Fall
15 Sep 2023
62 / 100 :: Meh. LitRPG with plenty of adverbs. "He suddenly actually" is used more than once on the same page where he says, "He really actually". My god. This is the why litRPG is a joke. Yet something about the inane concept is like crack to me and I can't stop with these trash books. System comes one day while hero is out camping and collecting firewood and kill severyone but him. He wins a 1 in 100k dice roll and gets to start the game with extras that lead to such power creep by the end of book that 1 that he's number 1 in the world. Game system/leveling. Some lame town building. Solid progression and adventure/quests, ridiculous wins that make no sense and aren't fought for, and overall bad writing. Stopping, really actually. Gerund, adverb, adverb.
Ishmael
11 Feb 2020
62 / 100 :: Sapiend light. Easier to read but dumber overall. Which still makes it better than Sapiens.
Ishmael the gorrila telepathically teaches the hero how to drop the scales from his eyes. Socratically. Over 200+ pages. Overshoot covered this more clearly and with science, not story. Also some science issues with this one and its age shows (1992?).
So we have evil Takers who started agriculture 10k years ago and started murdering the peaceful Leavers who were hunter-gatherers and pastoralists. Cain (the Takers) murdered Abel (the Leavers) to get their land because with more land you can grow more food to feed your growing population. Leavers don't have growing populations because...not really covered but something about not having too many women and understanding balance in the Force. The Takers think the world was created for Man and the Leavers believe that Man was created for the world in the same way that jellyfish and ticks were created for the world. Man is only special insofar as it was the first specie to become aware of this and now we can "Leave" everything alone and stop dicking with the world and let dolphins and chimps continue along their evolutionary paths or destroy the world trying to control it.
Good points, but Overshoot had less moral outrage and just the biological implications of a predator species dominating its environment. Spolier: Death.
The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking
23 Aug 2021
62 / 100 :: Be a Stoic and or a Buddhist. Take the negative path not the optimistic one. Premeditate your evils.
3 Body Problem
18 Jan 2023
60 / 100 :: Meh. Not worth the hype. Bad translation or just clunky writing. China communicated with an ET civ on Alpha Centauri and now they are coming here in 450 years to take over. Their world has 3 suns and wipes out their civilazation at unpredicable intervals. So they want our stable orbiting planet. In the meantime they've sent 2 protons with super computers folded inside in smaller dimensions to earth. Those protons will find our particle accelerators and sabotage them with chaotic results. This will destabilize our understanding of science and keep us from progressing/advancing until the tri-solarians arrive in 450 years to wipe us out. Also a fake video game that models their solar system for people on earth to play so we can solve their orbiting issues and get them to stay on their world.
Aside from that asinine plot nothing is resolved. We're screwed, they're coming, humanity will die because one person responded to their message and they found where we live. What happens with the game? what happens if we solve the 3 body problem? Doesn't matter, they launched the ships and won't turn back. Cultural differences or bad writing but the book is not built to us standards of fiction. And stupid anime level plot. But it won a Hugo, so I'm wrong.
Charlie Munger's Almanack
16 Feb 2023
60 / 100 :: OK. Lots of advice but could have been edited to half. In fact it has by everyone on the internet. Nothing new inside and nothing worth expanding upon. Spends so much time repeating himself. Man with a hammer tendency is mentioned 647 times in 300 pages. Also he makes up his own psych terms even though they have actual names from legit researchers. Makes things difficult for himself. Just point to the correct theory instead of inventing a new name and trying to explain it. But yeah, mental models. Study the core concepts of math, physics, psych, economics, chem, biology, etc and build a framework for thinking...so you can...think better.
Fair Blows the Wind
13 Oct 2019
60 / 100 :: Hero shipwrecked in outerbanks in 1590's. Savages abound. Another group of shipwrecked spaniards abound. Hero spends 60% of book explaning how he got into this situation, and it was more compelling than the curent story until he tied it all together at end. Hero bests his arch-nemesis Rafe in sword-fight and makes it home to ireland to rebuild his burned estate and marry one of the spanish women. After 10 years of being on the run in England (as a dirty catholic irish bastard) prisoner in spain and all the while showing his noble character and refined learning and of course mastering everything he puts his mind to, like swordsmanship or making money writing short stories or becoming literally the greatest swordsman in the world. And he found buckets of treasure in the outer banks too. Still good though.
Super Thinking
6 Aug 2021
60 / 100 :: Book of mental models. Not much new but easy read.
Kid Confidence
20 Jun 2022
59 / 100 :: Connection - Competence - Choice: Low self esteem kids need all three. Connection to family and friend group, not always one friend but a cohort. Competence at sports, school, hobby, etc. Good at life skills. Feels in control of events. Choice of how to manage self and time.
Don't over praise low self-esteem kids, they feel they can't live up to your high expectations. Give them future focused things so they don't ruminate on the past. Get them out of their own heads and into the world helping others.
Thinking in Bets
23 Apr 2024
59 / 100 :: Ok. Life is poker not chess. Probabalistic thinking. Assign percents to your forecasts. But how would you even begin to guess at them? Backcast from future success to present decision moment, how did I get there from here? Premortem by working back from negative outcome to present moment, how did I get there? I can imagine limitless possible outcomes positive and negative but they can't really be followed back through a decision tree to now. Imagine future you and make good choices for them. Bet to learn how confident you are of a possible future/outcome. Create a group of people who follow CUDOS Communisim - all data is public to the group. Universalism - apply same standards to all claims/data regardless of source. Disinterestedness - guard against potential conflicts that could influence evaluation. Organized Skepticism - reward dissent/devils advocate to iterrogate ideas. Concepts are fine but no real breakdown of how to use them. Where do I find percentages for possible outcomes? How do I begin to forecast from all possible futures to likely ones? sMoOtH brain vs quantum brain?
Dopamine Nation
21 Nov 2023
58 / 100 :: Meh. We are overstimulated. Stop it. Pleasure makes us more sensitive to pain so we can balance it out. Experience pain but don't get addicted to it. Abstain from what gives you dopamine. Be honest and accoutable. Follow AA principles for addiction basically. Push in to the world instead of finding ways out/avoid.
Be Useful 7 Tools for Life
28 Feb 2024
58 / 100 :: meh. Seven ways for Arnie to talk about his life story. Tips are fine enough high level stuff but padded with examples of how he implemented them.
Have a clear vision - know where you are going so you can see if what you're doing aligns with the vision
think big - write down your goal, scratch it out and make it bigger
work your ass off - you have 16 hours a day to spend doing what?
sell sell sell - everything is sales
shift gears - reframe failure, think positive
shut your mouth to open your mind - becurious and always learn from everyone all the time
break your mirrors - give back to others stop staring at yourself
Oxymoronica
18 Nov 2023
57 / 100 :: Meh. Short small book of oxymoron quotes. Yogi Berra is a genius. Oscar Wilde is smart and GB Shaw and Ben Disraeli too. But Barlett's already exists.
Chip War
12 Jun 2024
56 / 100 :: Meh. History of transistors and semiconductors with light biographies of important people involved. The war part was mostly cold war with USSR which was lopsided and new one with China which nobody has any insight into. Tedious, but informative, but tedious. Also china will kill us all.
Think Again
27 Nov 2023
56 / 100 :: Meh. Question your beliefs? Not sure what the tagline is of this book since it's typical pop psych which means 95% anecdotes with "neat" study data. "But after the study students were given a choice of prize and if they read the mean article 40% took thingA and if they read the nice article 57% took thingB" Wow. Neat. Who cares? How is this relevant? How can I take action? Luckily the 250 page book has a 25 page conclusion that explains the book making the first 225 pages a waste and proving once again that almost all books could be pamphlets.
- Think like a scientist - test your beliefs opinions etc.
- Define yourself by values not opinions
- Seek out contrary evidence/views
- Don't get stuck on Mt. Stupid
- Embrace being wrong, it means you are learning
- Build a network of people who challenge you not just support
- Don't shy away from constructive conflict. Task argue, not relationship argue
- Listen to others with empathy, not just waiting your turn
- Question how not why - why causes defense, how creates an explanation
- Ask how they got that idea/opinion
- Find common ground
- Fewer points and less data in an argument
- Have myth busting sessions often with kids
- Invite kids to do multiple versions/drafts
- Don't ask what they want to be - it reinforces that your value is your job which forms an identy too soon (see Range)
- No best practises
- No 10 year plan
- Schedule time to think again
177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class
13 Aug 2021
55 / 100 ::Good advice but nothing new. Over 177 pithy quotes there are plenty of contradictions. Tip #82: The World Class focus on the fun of the thing. That's what motivates them. Tip #134: The World class are in it for profit. If they can't win they don't play...but don't they do it for fun? Still some good quotes from people other than the author but not anything ground breaking.
Fluent Forever
13 Dec 2022
55 / 100 :: Meh. Learn 625 to 1000 to 2k frequent words in a language. Use flashcards/anki, but put pictures on back not answers: el gato on front, image of significant meaningful cat on back. More paths to connect. Play Taboo in foreign language which prevents you from translating every word back to native language first. Learn pronunciation first. Get the accent down, listen and talk with native speakers all the time. Accent gets the person to keep working with you instead of stepping back into english.
Striking Thoughts
25 Mar 2023
54 / 100 :: meh. Everybody loves Bruce Lee, but as an actor, not a philosopher. This is Bruce Lee's eastern woo. Way too much, way too empty. I can't teach you what I know because to teach you would give you a system and protocols which would trap you in my thinking, therefore figure out wisdom for yourself. ok? Then why write a book? Also most of the stuff written down is a system and rigid. And it contradicts. So much it could be a drinking game.
DIY Solar Projects
23 Jun 2022
53 / 100 :: Meh. Some elctric info but not much useful since it's 5 years old. Tech has advanced far. Buy a kit and try to light up some bulbs, but solar ovens and heaters and water heaters are so inefficient to build. Also it get comically complicated when you do whole house, catastrophic surge switch, emergency cut off, inverter, micro controller, battery monitor, solar production meter, ac disconnect, critical load panel...jesus...just bundle all parts together like dell did with home computers so I don't have to source every part.
$100 Million Offers
22 Mar 2023
52 / 100 :: ok - make offers so compelling that the customer feels stupid saying no. Many ways to set this up, but first focus on market, then offer, then sales skills. They supercede each other in that order. You don't have to have a good offer or be a good salesperson to make money selling hotdogs to drunks outside a bar at 2am. So pick a market that way. Hard to do though, so you'll mostly end up with a decent market. Therefore focus on grand slam offer. Ways to package things, gaurantees, pricing, time all matter. Try to solve a problem others are solving but faster. People pay for speed. I want it and/or the result of it the moment I pay. Reduce pain/effort. I don't want to diet and exercise for 6 months, I want 6 hours of plastic surgery and one month recovery. Lots of the stuff is covered for free at acqusistion.com.
Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Me
4 Dec 2022
52 / 100 :: Meh. Cognitive dissonance and self-justification. We never back down from a mistake, we double down. The answer is to admit we were wrong with no qualifications, just plain wrong. We fool ourselves and are fooled by others. Repressed memories, false confessions, conspiracy beliefs and when faced with truth we move the goalpost or explain why your truth is fake and ours is real. You can't ever admit to being wrong so the cycle continues.
Teach Like Finland
3 Dec 2023
52 /100 :: Meh. How does finland get such amazing results from their educational system? Homogeneous population with low gini coefficient? For educators in a traditional setting but some personal lessons. Schedule brain breaks 45 on 15 off. Learn on the move, take walks and talks, don't sit all day. Recharge after school. Simplify the space, not too much clutter. Breathe fresh air. Get into the wild. Keep the peace. Play with students. Buddy up. Banish bullying. Start with freedom. Offer choices. Make it real. Give all autonomy/responsibility and then adjust. Accountability is fear based. Teach the essentials. Mine the textbook for core pieces. Coach the kids, not sage on stage nor guide on side. Not all the things but some. I guess, but easier said than done.
Our Missing Hearts
8 Dec 2023
51 / 100 :: Meh. 48 pages to start, then better, then bad ending. Bird is half asian kid with mother in hiding because she wrote a poem that the rebels use as a rallying cry in dystopian america. After the PACT act is signed in response to the Crisis america basically legalizes racism and child removal from unpatriotic homes, especially asian homes. Because the Crisis was most likely caused by China. So Bird lives with white dad in Harvard and lives mopey dopey life and never speaks of rebel poet mother. Then gets letter from her on 12th birthday. Uses clues to find her. Since she ran away 3 years ago she's been fighting in the resistance in NY and all over. Her big final plan is to make a bunch of speakers and broadcast the secret stories of the kids who were taken by the Feds. All of NY will hear her and then...profit? Overturn the PACT act? Save the world? Well mommy talks too long on the microphone and they triangulate her position and she gets arrested. Oops. Dumb mom. It's hard to identify with her stupidity because I'm not stupid. Her friend tells her to make a recording and broadcast it. Nope, I have to read it. Ok well read a few and run before they find your secret spot you are broadcasting from. Oops I read too many stories for too long and got caught and screwed everyone over. I'm in jail as a traitor and now my kid and husband will never see me. I can't help the lost kids either. Dummy. She screwed herself and her family because she couldn't stop talking, or her values/principles were misplaced. or she's an asshat? Not a great hero. The hero sacrifices their life for something greater, not getting arrested.
A Mind for Numbers
30 Dec 2024
50 / 100 :: Meh. Take the course on coursera. Better than th ebook. Chunk htings. Focus then diffuse to let the mind wander over what you studied. Pomodoro. Don't procrastinate. Mind palace to recall things. Don't fall victim to illusions of competence or overconfidence. Don't reread material to learn. Skim the chapter/section/whatver, just pictures and captions and graphs/tables, bold headings and chapter titles. Then read. Then close the book and recall it yourself. Then go back and see if your recall matched reality. Quiz yourself at spaced intervals.
Becoming Brilliant
26 Jan 2024
50 / 100 :: There are six essential skills that children should develop to become successful adults: (1) Collaboration, (2) Communication, (3) Content, (4) Critical Thinking, (5) Creative Innovation, and (6) Confidence.
Collaboration: Encouraging children to work together and develop interpersonal skills is crucial. Learning to collaborate helps them understand different perspectives, negotiate, and work towards common goals.
Communication: Effective communication skills are vital for children to express themselves clearly, listen actively, and engage in meaningful conversations.
Content: While it is important for children to acquire knowledge, it is equally crucial for them to link that knowledge across different domains and apply it in practical and creative ways.
Critical Thinking: Children need to develop the ability to think critically, analyze information, and solve problems. This involves asking thoughtful questions, considering multiple perspectives, and evaluating evidence.
Creative Innovation: Encouraging creativity allows children to think outside the box, come up with innovative ideas, and take risks. By embracing imagination and curiosity, they develop skills for adapting to change.
Confidence: Fostering a sense of confidence and belief in one's abilities empowers children to take on challenges, persist in the face of obstacles, and develop a growth mindset.
Collaboration:
Encourage teamwork through group activities, like team sports or collaborative projects, where children must work together to achieve a common goal.
Model and discuss empathy and perspective-taking to help children understand and cooperate with others.
Communication:
Engage in conversations with children, encouraging them to express their thoughts and listen to others. Storytelling and reading together can also enhance communication skills.
Practice non-verbal communication skills, such as understanding body language and facial expressions.
Content:
Foster a love for learning by exploring a variety of subjects in fun and engaging ways. Visits to museums, nature walks, and science experiments can spark curiosity.
Encourage questions and provide resources for children to find answers, thus promoting a habit of self-directed learning.
Critical Thinking:
Involve children in problem-solving activities. Games that require strategy or puzzles are great for this.
Discuss current events or stories and ask open-ended questions that encourage children to think critically and express their opinions.
Creative Innovation:
Provide opportunities for unstructured play, as this allows children to use their imagination and come up with creative solutions.
Encourage artistic activities like drawing, writing, music, or dance, which allow children to express themselves creatively.
Confidence:
Give children opportunities to try new things and face challenges, supporting them in both success and failure.
Praise effort, strategy, and progress rather than just outcomes to build resilience and a growth mindset.
Die with Zero
19 Feb 2022
50 / 100 :: Do you have too much money? Try spending it!
The guy had Natalie Merchant sing a private concert for him and his family/friends on his 45th birthday. On the island that he lives on. In the two beachfront hotels he rented to pay for the occassion. This is not FIRE or ERE, this is boggleheads on steroids. The idea that you have windows of opportunity in your life is sound. You can't climb Mt. Everest at 99 so do it now while you have your health. But he takes it to an exterme because he has so much money it has shifted his baseline of what's naormal a few orders of magnitude into crazytown. Also all his experiences that he buys with money are just consumption. Travel, concerts, travel, travel. The guy can't think past traveling to spend moeny. You can also learn skills, buddy. You could buy art or, heaven forbid, make art. You don't need to buy for entertainment or consume experiences. The idea of windows of opportunity is good and so is giving your inheritence away now so you can see its effects, however there are wings of a hospital you could name after yourself or a library you coul dbuild instead of having Natalie Merchant sing happy bday to you and yours. Right now some applied materials science lab is trying to write a grant proposal that would kill for your 100k...
How to Get Rich
12 Jan 2019
50 / 100 :: Pop business advice.
Don't be scared to do it. Be bold, blah blah, rah rah. Search for the thing to do. Use inclinations, aptitudes, and fate/luck?
Don't chase luck, make it. Luck is prepartaion meeting opportunity (Seneca)
Ownership isn't the most important thing. It's the only thing. Own the thing, don't sell shares, retain control at all cost. Be Gollum.
Don't negotiate, it means you've already lost half.
Never give up. Ever. But know when to give up. (if only I knew when...)
Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl. Ben Jowett
Delegate
I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did
19 Apr 2019
50 / 100 :: Skimmed. Not much new, but still good to know/review. Everything online and especially social media is designed to capture information about us. This is used to target advertising but can be useed for more insidious purposes. Many stories of people being screwed by their online presence and how little there is that can be done about it. Law is decades behind tech. Disparity creates injustice. Don't go online.
Main Street Millionaire
14 Dec 2024
50 / 100 :: Meh. Codie Sanchez videos now in book form. Buy boring boomer businesses for pennies on the dollar because they want out. But you want in even through they so desperatley want out that they sell at 50% off?! Well of course, because you have secret weapons the boomers don't know about. Online presence! Or maybe they just want to retire and sell at a deep discount. But don't buy a job you silly goof, make sure it cash flows $200k so you can hire some other dope to run the business for $100k while you keep the rest and use it to buy another distressed business. It's easy to find people to pay $100k to run your business. They're everywhere. Even Codie Sanchez doesn't have problems finding these operators for her portfolio of companies. It's not her #1 problem so it won't be your problem either. Wait, I'm lying. It is her biggest problem. This is the real estate get rich by leveraging every property into the next one playbook, but with businesses. Like real estate books it's mostly useless advice about "getting out there" and "knocking on doors" and "working hard". There are, however some good things at the end when she lists what tools she uses to run her private equity firm that she started after she quit working in private equity (because private equity is gross and predatory, but not when you do it), and some procedures for after you buy some limping along boomer business. After you buy, implement her magic protocols and they will always work and never fail and if it does fail it's because you were lazy and didn't try hard:
Raise prices 5-30%, create 3 tiers of pricing, try upsells to existing base and subscriptions or recurring revenue (you will lose no customers)
Hire operator to do the job(s) (these folks are everywhere and they want to run your business so you can focus on finding the next dying boomer)
Respond to sales calls in minutes with oursourced team (correct)
Get customers to leave 5 star reviews (pressure them, bribe, and cajole them. ethics are for losers)
Clean up website (correct)
Offer $ for refferals customers and employees who stay past a certain point (correct)
Buying example: Buy laundromat that cash flows, then add vending machines, then put vending machines in other stores in strip mall you are in, then buy competing laundromats in area, then buy new machines with bigger and better capacity, then offer delivery/wash fold, then buy commercial grade soap mixer and make own soap to sell to customers, then sell soap to other laundromats, the buy the entire strip mall your laundromat is in. tada. see how easy?
Exit Strategy: To sell have simple finances, more SOPs than a pilot, low employee turnover, not run by you the owner, P&L and tax return matches (no add backs) no customer makes up more than 15% of revenue, sales team not person. tada.
=== Actually useful advice from me: Take the money and buy VTI. Become a millionaire. To get a business that cash flows $200k per year you would be paying $600k plus. This means 10% down (60k) and an SBA loan of $540k. The cool thing about SBA loans is that if you are one of the 85 out of 100 people whose business fails you still owe $540k. They will sell your business but you can't file for bankruptcy. If the asset sale doesn't cover the $540k, then they sell your personal assets to get the money. Goodbye house and cars. Still not enough? Then they sell your spouse's stuff (if you still have one) because you thought it'd be clever to put everything in someone else's name, but that dog don't hunt. SBA loans are a legal and binding contract with Satan. If you put $60k in the market and it crashes you're out $60k. If you put $60k into a business you are out $60k plus the loan amount ($540k), plus time, stress, and all the work you put into the business for 3 years as you limped along power washing houses and driveways only to finally die. But what do I know?
=== Actually useful tools:
deel.com - hiring payroll HR in one
jobber.com - quote invoice schedule
bench.co - accounting
openphone.com - makes alt #s for your phone
google workspace - email
notion.so - document everything SOPs
slack.com - inhouse communication
upwork.com - outsource work to 3rd world nations
trinet.com - business insurance
zapier.com - automate workflows
loom.com - record your meeting and broadcast
superhuman.com - respond to emails 10x faster better
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers
15 Nov 2020
50 / 100 :: meh. Be mindful of Show vs Tell, characterization and exposition, POV, Proportion, Dialogue rules, Read it out loud, Interior Monologue, Easy Beats, Breaking up large chunks, Say it once, Voice.
Team Human
8 Feb 2021
50 / 100 :: Meh. Everything is bad. Social media corrupts, capitalism kills, AI dominates. We've become isolated individuals instead of the tribal participants we used to be. But it's not technology that is inherently evil its just that we don't do anything but obey it after we release it. We invent cars and unleash them. We try to improve them but we never question why we redesign our cities to accomodate cars first, people second. We make youtube, then people make content that fits youtubes algorithms. We make ourselves fit the machine. Lots of doom. The answers are that the way out is through, like white-water rafting. Co-ops where corporations don't extract value from here and send it to shareholders there. Permaculture that doesn't destroy the land. Trust and tribes of humans not tech. But using tech. Meh.
The Abundance of Less - 15 Feb 21
15 Feb 2021
50 / 100 :: Interviews of people living in rural japan with 8 year follow ups. ERE light with feelings. Connect with nature, embrace the spiritual, reject materialism. Be a dirt-bag hippy. No real insights after ERE and nothing of note if you understand permaculture. I feel like I should have told all those folks about permaculture and half of their issues would disappear. Too much of the writing is self-indulgent New Yorker wannabe: "I met Akira at a small tea shop at the base of a mountain buzzing with late night cicadias. Akira wore a woven tunic over his spare but vigorous frame..Just tell me the info.
The Art of Discarding
1 Jul 2019
50 / 100 :: Meh. Marie Kondo before there was a Marie Kondo. Throw stuff out right away. Don't be attached; toss. Don't save for later. Later never comes. Until it does and you need to use your tile saw but after you refinished the basement you thought when am I going to need a tile saw again, and then 4 years later you need to reset the flagstones on your patio and you wish you had your tile saw...oh wait, you do have it because you're not a Buddhist monk and actually keep things around even if you don't use them for four years because you're attached to your tile saw.
To Raise a Boy
19 Feb 2023
50 / 100 :: Meh. Boys have it tough (they do, but do they?) and here are a bunch of horror stories and some lame advice about how times are changing so it'll be better in the future but we have to work toward it. Yay? Sports rape in the locker room and on the sports bus, hazing rape, date rape, sexual abuse from peers and pressure to stand out by being ultra-male. Are teen boys really that rapey? Anyway, now what? Well some schools use programs to teach boys a new set of rules and masculine expectations. These kids do somewhat better. Cool. But not much I can do except talk about it at home and hope.
You Have The Right To Remain Innocent
22 Nov 2022
50 / 100 :: Good advice but jesus, this is the poster child of a pamphlet turned into a book.
James Duane is the best lawyer ever. Spent 119 pages to tell me 4 words: "I want a lawyer." That is all you ever say to police. NEVER TALK TO THEM. If they ask you questions ask for them to write them down and you will write your responses back under supervision of your lawyer. Don't be mute or give silent treatment. Don't plead the 5th or exercise right to not incriminate yourself. All WILL be used against you. NEVER SAY ANYTHING...except... "I want a lawyer." Say it over and over. If a cop approaches you he has the right to know 1) your name and 2) what you are doing right here right now. Not what you did or are palnning to do. Once you answer those questions you say: "I want a lawyer." Just don't talk to cops ever. Cops tell their kids the same thing. There, that's the whole book.
Designing Your Life
29 Jul 2021
49 / 100 :: Design your life with purpose using fundemental design thinking. Solve issues with objective clarity using external measures not what you're good at necessarily. Invite feedback, critique, approach with design mindset.
Mark these 4 lief design meters from 0 to full: Work, Play, Love, Health
Write a 250 word piece about your workview and lifeview: Why work? What's work for? What does work mean? How does work relate to society? What define worthwhile work? What does money have to do with it? What gives life meaning? What makes your life valuable? How does your life relae to others/society? What do money, fame and accomplishemnt relate to life?
Track your activities for a month. Write down what you did that was engaing and energizing. Or neither. Engaging is flow state high or low. Energy is pos or neg giving you energy or taking it from you.
Use the things that bring you flow/energy and mind map out fake lives. Plan oyur fake hollwood movie future starting today and over the next few years. See if any sound plausable. Or just do it even if not.
Imaginable
19 Jun 2022
49 / 100 :: Meh - imagine the crazy future but do it in granular sensory detail. Then you can decide how you'll act. Not much good other than for groups now, plan now, imagine now. Alpha Gal tick born meat allergy was good, global sperm bank, climate refugee visa prgram/reparations, charged for your waste, all interesting ideas but you can't know the future (no matter how hard you think it through) the same way you can't prove a negative.
The Comfort Crisis
24 Nov 2024
48 / 100 ::Meh. Nothing new, just the old appeal to nature fallacy (which is unironically mentioned) that we need to move and do and be and nature oursleves back to primal hunter gatherer health and perfection. A men's health journalist goes to alaska to hunt and be primal and sprinkles in all the pop health BS you can swallow but nothing cutting edge because books trail youtube by a factor of 3 years. Written like a men's health article for 100 IQ folks. only good point: the concept of misogi's. A misogi is an odd personal challenge that you create, unique to you and your crazy imagination where you don't train for this strange challenge you just go for it/send it and the challenge should be structured such that you have a 50/50 chance of achieving success. This will test your edges.
On Writing Well
17 Jun 2019
47 / 100 :: Some solid advice mixed with plenty of opinion.
Write well. Master the language and the craft. Be good at writing. Follow these rules but not those rules...seemed like a book of opinions by an editor/writer who held deep beliefs that he confused with truths. The slash in the previous sentence would have enraged him but who cares? All the tired rules of cutting out adverbs, reducing adjectives, letting the verbs speak and having them speak with force. Nothing new but plenty of art critic-type advice about how "things should be done".
The Secrets of Happy Families
15 Feb 2020
46 / 100 :: Another pamphlet in book form.
Agile families: Adapt to new things. Don't be rigid. Create a system that has flexible processes
Talk all the time about everything: Ongoing conversations, not just a talk about something and then done. Talk about family history. Create a narrative about overcoming setbacks and celebrating sucesses.
Go out and play: Make traditions, do goofy things. Rituals. Happiness is an activity, it occurs while you do things. It is not a goal or end point to strive for.
5000 Words Per Hour
10 Aug 2021
45 / 100 :: Meh. Type fast and do writing sprints. See?
Block off a time and space where you won't be disturbed or distracted. Cut off internet. Only write. Start with 5 min and see how many words you get. Work up longer sprints. Do it every day. Plan your scene and write with no editing. Just get the scene on paper. Edit later first content, then proofing. Track progress so you can see how awesome you are. Connect with other writers and engage in sprints with them. Write down what your life will be in 5 years after you've succeeded in everything to help think big and expand your limiting beliefs. Derp.
Raising Happiness
6 Aug 2019
45 / 100 :: Meh. Another pamphlet with a few ideas stretched into a book. Here they are:
1 - Put on own oxygen mask first. Happy parents do better. Make time for self/spouse. Be happy in relationship. Kids will model.
2 - Build village. Dinnertime is great opportunity to invite people over. Help cook/clean. Talk. Let kids feel part of something bigger.
3 - Expect effort and enjoyment, not perfection. Growth mindset. Fixed (you're smart) prevents kid from taking risks to ruin image of self and image in others.
4 - Choose gratitude, forgiveness, optimism. Teach empathy.
5 - Raise EQ. Talk about feelings, give kids vocab to explain emtions. Practice being in other's shoes.
6 - Form happiness habits
7 - Teach self-discipline. Preempt misbehavior. Keep kids engaged. Be attentive. Encourage self talk.
8 - Enjoy present moment, Mindfulness matters. Walk through the sensation of eating a raisin. Talk about the now of it, not where it came from, or a science lesson
9 - Rig their environment for happiness
10 - Eat dinner together
Punished By Rewards
4 Dec 2023
44 / 100 :: Meh. Pages upon pages of dense text explaining why behaviorism and skinner boxes don't work. They do work, but not for the right reasons. They train for external motivation. We need to be intrinsically motivated because punishments and rewards need to continue forever and increase forever to continue to get the behavior we want. But we can't do that so rewards fail and harm in the long run because now the person won't do the things because...no stickers for a good job, they are only for a great job. So at the end he says heres how to solve the problem...um I don't know how. !!! He wants us to be intrinsically motived somehow when the entire system of school (grades) and work (pay) are based on external rewards/validation and punitive measures. Some of his weak advice actually mirrors Teach Like Finaland about school. Involve kids in grading, planning coursework, give autonomy and trust, take away pressure, etc. Sounds nice but impossible to implement outside of a cult. Collaborate, Content, Choice are his 3 Cs for success. Which has 2 Cs.
Biography of the Dollar
4 May 2021
43 / 100 :: Meh. Journalistic/New Yorker-ish style interviews of people involved with the production of money, trading of currency and fed bank. "It's 5:32 am when Tim, a tall man wearing a black mackinaw jacket, sets foot into his office. But he's not here to do paperwork. He hangs up his jacket and heads to the printing floor to oversee the presses. His babies, he calls them. The building had to be expanded to accomodate the custom machines and once they were put in they haven't stopped printing in 27 years. Tim runs a hand through his thick white hair and lets out a sigh." Shit like that. Instead of information, a story. Because people need a story to frame information because people are stupid. Except sometimes they are smart and just want facts.
What Should I do With My Life
28 May 2022
43 / 100 :: Still not sure. 100+ interviews of interesting people but no advice, just "neat" stories. Intentional but not very self-helpy. I guess the thread was look inside and listen to the whispers, follow them and stay true to yourself. Then you'll end up doing the thing you are supposed to be doing. Ok. What if your thing is killing people in the military? Follow that? Sure.
12 Week Year
13 Jun 2019
42 / 100 :: Sounds neat. Then reality sets in. Unless of course you can set your own schedule or don't have a spouse or kids.
Fit a whole year of productivity into 12 weeks. Create a sense of urgency by compressing time. Create 3 blocks for a working day: Buffer for dealing with trivial
stuff, emails, calls, etc (1 hour maybe twice per day), Strategic for doing the important task (this is the work that is aligned with your vision--the most important
thing(s) you can do to get you where you are supposed to be), and Breakout is time away from work (3 hours spent doing an unrelated/non-productive activity to recharge)
Effective execution consistently applied over time. Stay focused. Do the work.
On the whole a terrible book covered better by Deep Work, 168 Hours, Atomic Habits, When, 10x Rule, The ONE Thing...etc.
APE
17 Nov 2020
42 / 100 :: Meh. Standard and becoming outdated advice for self-publishers. Don't skimp on covers or editing. Use blogs, vlogs, and other social media platforms to get yourself out there. Promote and market using lists and emails...bleh.
Naked in Death
10 Aug 2022
42 / 100 :: Meh. JD Robb writer (Nora Roberts) has Eve Dallas solve a series of murders. Except she doesn't, everyone else gives her clues and puts things together for her while she tries to figure out if Roarke the handsome billionaire is the culprit or just totally into her. Because every guy is totally into her. Also, some incest to liven things up. Yay?
How To Raise a Boy
22 Feb 2023
41 / 100 :: Meh. Boys have it tough for 250 pages and 25 pages of what to do about it, but you can't really do anything...
Advocate - take a stand for your boys by understanding the pressure they are under to be a toxic male. Offer other options. Normalize the struggle. Empower them to stand up against the pressure.
Offer relationship - Our connection as parents reinforces a sense of self in the kid. Build a strong one. Kid first. Accepted. Common interest. Don't offer advice unless they want it. Be patient and open.
Encourage emotional expression - silence the inner monologue and listen with all attention. The point is to teach them that a parent's attention is pleasant. Build trust. Don't give advice.
Exercise authority - emotional acceptance, you can get angry but not in violent outbursts or threats or bad language. Behavioral containment. Pro-social guidance.
Promote autonomy - They can use own judgement and intiative. Don't take over after a mistep or mistake.
It's ok to cry and be hurt.
The Energy Paradox
19 Dec 2021
41 / 100 :: Diet for energy. Mitochondria are jammed with sugar all day and from non resistant starches (breads, pastas, etc) that can be metabolized immediately like table sugar. Answer is OMAD and/or 18/6 IF plus veggies and some meat. Fruit only in season and moderation. No grains and no beans unless pressure cooked...? Meh. Do weird kids with weird eating habits grow up to become nutrionists?
Epictetus Discourses
21 Nov 2022
40 / 100 :: Psuedo-macho Stoicism. Seneca is better or better translated. Nothing new but ok. Anytus and Meletus can kill me but they cannot harm me - Socrates. He quotes that 17 times. So...just read Socrates, don't need Epictetus. He claims nothing is good or bad just or perception of the event/curcumstance that makes it so. Feel like Seneca said this too. Keep yourself in line with nature, whatever that means, and all will be right if you do the will of nature/god?
How High We Go In The Dark
30 Oct 2023
40 / 100 :: Bad. Ten plus chapters of mild sci-fi about plague death. In 2031ish some frozen virus from the neolithic age is thawed in siberia and infects the world. Every chapter is a different person who is affected by the plague in some way. Only one person dies, the others all have a loved one die. Sad sack city. Everyone is broken. Everyone is sad and mopes. Boring. No sci fi shit, just sadness. Then it turns out earth was seeded by an alien who's job is to build/seed worlds. She lives through millions of years on earth and finally around 30k bc has a daughter who is the girl they found the virus in around 2030. The virus is from the alien and kills her daughter and bunch of people in her tribe. Then...everyone freezes or new ice age or something not explained stopped it from spreading in 30k bc? Now it's the future 2031 and the alien is still alive and cures the virus around 2040. WTF were you doing in the meantime? Hoping the virus stayed frozed? You dropped the ball and waited 32k years to pick it back up? But so many lame stories about people dying and being around the dying and sick and suffering from the loss of the dead.
How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen and Listen So Your Kids Will Talk
9 Aug 2019
40 / 100 :: More of the same. Empathize first, don't offer advise, let kid solve problem/struggle. You guide but not too much. Don't say that must be hard for you. Say that it is a difficult task so they don't feel they suck at it.
Internal Time
10 Jan 2019
40 / 100 :: not for me. Didn't finish
Not much to report. Larks and Owls...sync with the sun/natural time...?
Martin Edger
16 Jul 2024
40 / 100 :: wonderfully written account of sea dunce who wants to better himself for girl. reads books and becomes sMrT! but wastes life in the process. Could have been a 40 pager instead of 400 pager. Good writing, good lesson, too long. Jack London can write a powerful short story, this could have been one.
SCAD Fundementals of Sequential Art
10 Feb 2021
40/ 100 :: Meh. The author was an inker before SCAD prof, so four chapters on inking, none on coloring or lettering, or writing. Drawing fundementals then inking techniques. Not much about layouts, composition, breakdowns, pacing, and all the other facets of visual storytelling. Mostly a drawing/inking 101 course. Not much about sequential storytelling.
The Compound Effect
27 Mar 2023
40 / 100 :: meh - james clear's habits but a few years earlier and way more salesy. Choose good things/habits and the effects of being consistent will compound over time. Remove bad habits and the postive effect gained will compound over time. Yep. There you go. The whole book. All the content. How did he make it so long? Not sure. One ok idea is taking the morning/evening routines and using them as bookends to plan the day, plan the next day, remove yourself from the things that happened that day or get ready for them. Those are the two bookends of time you control since life interferes with the rest. So use them well. Maybe even fill them with small, good habits that compound over time using consistency.
The Dip
10 Apr 2024
40 / 100 :: Bad. And I read it twice apparently. Seth Godin tells me to keep pushing through the dip for great rewards on the other side. Unless of course there isn't anything on the other side. Then it was a cul-de-sac and I should have turned around and quit immediately upon realizing. Right...? Isn't the point not that you should stick through worthy things and quit worthless things, but rather how to tell them apart? For which he gives little advice. He says - Is the pain of the dip worth the light at the end of the tunnel? Well wouldn't that be nice to know? For some endeavours you need to get to the end to find out that it wasn't right after all. He opens with the lady who becomes a supreme court clerk. She pushed through the dip. But what of the 47k lawyers who also tried and failed? For them the dip turned out to be a cul-de-sac. And the only way to learn was to try and fail. So...should they have quit in year one of law school and moved to greener futures? Don't take life advice from a marketer.
The Good Gut
17 Mar 2022
40 / 100 :: Meh. Eat lots of fiber. 50 grams a day. 100 is better. How though? No red meat, no saturated animal fats, yes fruits and veg, yes fermented food, no sugar. Kefir and fermented foods should be from refrigerated section otherwise they really aren't fermented with bacteria (pasturized or made with vinegar). Play in dirt and with pets, don't wash hands so much, only from contact with other people and when in public places, not natural places (unless chem/pesticides).
Vagabonding
10 Feb 2021
40 / 100 :: Vagabonds are permanent travelers. They don't have plans or iteneraries as such, just curiosity. This makes them better than tourists who just show up to see what they paid for. Not experience a culture like a vagabond. The tourist doesn't teach english for 3 months in Japan to fund a trip through the hostels of southeat asia and india. That's real and true and everyone else sucks. The poeple who plan vacations are sheep and cows trying to escape from life, but like they could just escape right now with $5k and hitchhike across asia and europe. That makes vagabonds superior.
A book about how cool vagabonds are and about how much everyone else sucks. Rich travelers don't count because they're buying their experience. Tourists are scum becasuse they don't travel, they take trips. Poor Kerouc Dharma Bums are the real deal because they work then travel with no destination except to permanently contribute nothing to society.
The irony is that they worship Thoreau and Emerson and Whitman, but Throeau said you can travel around the globe without leaving your front door. They skipped that part and use his quotes to justify being a hostel hippy.
simply living well
27 Aug 2021
39 / 100 :: How to DIY your own cleaners and poltices and herbal natural remedies. Some good ones for cleaning, the rest are meh. Alternatives for platic disposable things but nothing new. Just a few good cleaners/scrubs.
Mythmakers
26 Jan 2025
38 / 100 :: Meh. Biography of the friendship between CS Lewis and Tolkien. They both lost mothers at a young age and loved myths and then met at Oxford and became friends. Comic and text, well done, just not an interesting story. Their work is more compelling then their friendship no matter how well the panel layouts and colors are done.
Profit First
20 Aug 2022
38 / 100 :: Meh. Same guy as Toilet Paper Entrepeneur but better. Instead of Sales-expenses=profit make it sales - profit = expenses. Basically pay yourself first and then figure out how to run the business with a percentage of the sales "missing" in a profit account. Set up 5 accounts: Income, Profit, Tax, Owner's compensation, operating expenses. Put a percentage of every incoming dollar into each bucket.
The Algebra of Wealth
4 Aug 2024
38 / 100 :: Meh - How to be rich book. Spend less than you make. Save aggressively when young and follow your talent not passion. Pick good career but don't get trapped making doc money because taxes are rough. 400k home is 200k home same as 2mil home is 1 mil home...after tax. Be stoic, be focused, be in the market for a long time in passive total market ETFs. Diversify to different asset classes. Don't pay taxes more than necessary. Not much new.
Twelve and a Half
14 Nov 2022
38 / 100 :: Meh. The novelization of Gary V. Gary V talks about how to be awesome. Be kind, have empathy but don't pull punches. Here's how to use his 12.5 traits in real world scenarios...meh.
Gork the Teenage Dragon
26 Apr 2020
37 / 100 :: [26% - 100pgs] Gork the Terrible is terrible. He's a teenage dragon on a sci-fi dragon planet in his senior year trying to get a hot dragon chick to mate with him in their spaceship so they can conqueor and colonize a planet. After reading Show Don't Tell I see this book is 90% info dump. Gork has a strong voice so the info dumps are in close POV but if you don't like his voice, then you won't be able to stand this book because Gork spends all his free time explaining to you why this is like that and how this and why those and his spaceship is like this and the Necrojocks have these rules and the datalizards are thought of this way and the multishifters are like that and jesus christ he literally stops mid-run in pursuit of his mate to tell me how the security gate operates, then runs another few yards and stops again to tell me who is working the security gate, then runs and stops to tell me the reader what's going on ahead and why it might be difficult. And the author has won so many awards its mind blowing. Yet the book sucks.
Life Without Plastic
24 Aug 2021
37 / 100 :: Plastic is evil and everywhere and here is how to get rid of some of it. Go to the store we started and consume consume consume. Appendix has good list of other brands/stores/suppliers though. 50 washes is how long fire retardants/added chems roughly last in a piece of clothing. Wash cloth grocery bags every week or 2.
Meditations
19 Mar 2024
37 / 100 :: Bad. The worst of the Stoics. Bite sized stupidity. He seems a nihilistic child trying to explain an unformed thought. Incredibly repetiive. Why does he rewrite the same idea 17 times in 17 slight variations? Not good.
The Everyday Parenting Toolkit
27 Oct 2019
37 / 100 :: Meh. Another be nice, listen to your little adult child and meet them in the middle. Very opposite of Tiger Moming. Another pamphlet stretched into a book.
Create the behavior with ABCs.
A - Antecedant: Priming. Set the stage. Upbeat tone and face. The five minute warning thing.
B - Behavior: Positive opposite. Say what you expect and positivley reinforce each occurance. 100%. Not effusive, but genuine. Baby steps though. Reinfoce a 90% tantrum when it's not a 100% tantrum. If they only swore at you say good job for not also hitting me. WTF? Really?
C - Consequences: Point charts. Punishment is weak, use sparingly. Time outs ok but stern looks are best. Take things/privleges away but only a day or two, don't go overboard. Give kid chance to correct behavior first. Explain what will happen, then at 2nd occurance do what you said. Consistenly.
Poor Richard's Retirement
23 Nov 2022
36 / 100 :: Meh. Libertarian/republican rant about modern society. You can retire off $500k (based on what?) and here's how to do it on less. Promotes not buying junk, crap, homes, cars, etc like typical american. Then you'll have more $ and be spending less therefore you can retire off $12k per year or $300k total. Based on...what? No data to support theory, but I approve of spending less. Then he goes nuts and wants women back in the home raising kids and a return to 1950s.
Homeschooling Patchwork of Days
7 Aug 2021
35 / 100 :: 30 stories of a day in the life of homeschool families from 1996. Meh, but some things like chores (choreganizer) and some programs.
I Will Teach You To Be Rich
17 Aug 2019
35 / 100 :: Meh. Nothing AI couldn't tell you for free. This guy has been around for years and finally got popular and wrote a book. Same PF advise. Basic 101. I guess if you are new to PF this is fine, but if you already know the basics it's a waste of time. Max credit cards for rewards. Invest in 401k, use target date funds. Use conscious spending to pay $ for what you want and cut mercilessly things you don't care about. Swendsen portfolio only new idea.
Pumpkin Plan
3 Sep 2022
35 / 100 :: Meh. Same guy as Profit First and Toilet PAper Entrepeneur. To grow a great business kill your worst clients. Then prune the mediocre. Focus on the top clients. Ask them what they want and deliver. Pick an Area of Innovation (engineering triangle) and go with it. Be niche. Tap the vendor well. Interview clients about what sucks in their industry and yours. Do same with your top client's vendors too. Solve the problems. Everything will work perfectly. 80/20 and sendit.
Four Thousand Weeks - 18 Apr 22
18 Apr 2022
34 / 100 :: Meh. We have about 4000 weeks before we die, how will we live? Spends 240 pages talking about how things aren't right or working and how we should be more buddhist, but no actionable items. then at end he finally lists 10 ways to manage your time...which was a waste of my time. But here is the entire book in 10 points:
1. fixed volume for productivity - you can't do it all. make 2 lists, one for catching everything and then filter important/must-do ones to the big list. Do those.
2. serialize - do one project, finish then start #2. don't start several and bounce back and forth
3. decide where to fail - when on a big project let other things go, messy house, overgrown lawn, pick your battles
4. focus on completed work - keep a done list so you don't get overwhelemed by all the next steps
5. consolidate caring - pick a few things to give a crap about and be passionate toward. shrug away the rest
6. single purpose tech - remove social media apps, use the computer to write or code but not for other activities. use phone for X but nothing else.
7. seek novelty in mundane - pay attention to the small recurring things so the years don't blur together
8. research relationships - adopt an attitude of curiousity toward others
9. insant generosity - act on impulse right away to be generous, don't overthink, or even think
10. do nothing - stay quiety in your own chamber, pascal
Recursion
16 Jul 2024
34 / 100 :: oh no, time travel alert...except this time you time travel through memory. !?!? You remember something in the time/memory machine from your past then die in the machine then wake up in the memory/past. So many conceptual issues, because time travel.
Raising Critical Thinkers
15 Mar 2022
33 / 100 :: Meh. Question things, sources, authors, info, benchmarks, etc. That's about it. Have conversations and talk about things. Look for other sources. Basic stuff. Creator of Brave Writer homeschool program.
The Hacking of the American Mind
24 Aug 2024
33 / 100 ::Meh. Rant about sugar since his last book was about how evil sugar is. He reduces all brain chemistry to dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine is a quick high that crashes creating pleasure which we shouldn't pursue. Serotonin is a long mellow that produces contentment that we should pursue. The end advice is good, but the path there is silly and medically overstated. Don't eat sugar and processed food. Cook whole real foods and share them with friends and family and connect with your community and boom. Serotnin and lasting contentment. Perhaps for a person in an italian village but in the real world...just eat plants, exercise and have healthy social friendships.
The Gardener and the Carpenter
17 Aug 2023
32 / 100 :: Bad. No. How to parent but no. Be a gardener not a carpenter. A gardener creates a safe, rich, stable, supportive environment for kids to grow without worring about how they will turn out. A carpenter has a blueprint and builds the child into what they should be. Gardening is healthy but carpentry is bad because, um, well, see, don't look at all the tiger moms and their incredible results. Who needs doctors, amIrite? Many interesting studies about kids and how they learn and grow with no actionable advice. Be nice? Be loving and supportive? Not even sure if she said that or I missed how to be a gardener. As if you should support your adult child in his quest to live stream his life on twitch. Or he could be useful?
100 Side Hustles
21 Nov 2022
31 / 100 :: Meh. The same author as $100 start up. Two page interviews with 100 successful side hustlers who got lucky. Didn't interview the 10,000 people doing the exact same thing who don't make any money. Be a reseller, turn your hobby into a micro business, use what you already know...ok.
A Monk's Guide to Cleaning House and Mind
8 Feb 2021
30 / 100 :: Be simple and pure like a zen buddhist. Cleaning things cleans your heart. Not much new. Have a few things of high quality. Use everything, waste nothing. Take care of what you have. Quit buying stuff that you then have to keep, organize, and clean.
The Intelligent Investor
13 Jan 2019
30 / 100 :: too dense. It's not this complex. Here: Diversify, DCA, buy when P/E Ratio is 15 or less. Tada!
Sapiens
12 Jan 2019
30 / 100 :: I just can't do this book. Three times and no luck. The past was perfect, if only we hadn't farmed, then everything would be...? Please stop. Farming won. Hunting and gathering lost. I'm trying to think of a hunter-gatherer society that really excelled at anything. They only worked 2 hours a day (which has been shown to be false) so what did they do with the remaining time? Develop art? Culture? Written language? Science? Or just sit around and "be happy?" You can see artifacts in any museum showing what hunter gatherer societies achieved...or didn't. Also, it's only because of farming that he is able to write a book about how much farming has ruined the world. From an air conditioned house full of surplus calories and modern medicine. Thinking errors all the way down. But if only we could go back to the Eden times of pre history. Sure. Women would love it.
Toilet Paper Entrepeneur
19 Aug 2022
29 / 100 :: Bad - All cheerleading no substance. Could have been a pamphlet which he non-ironically accuses other business books of needing to be. Focus on one thing from the engineering triangle and do it well. Don't offer other things, just focus. Sure.
Mastering the Market Cycle
18 Sep 2021
28 / 100 :: Everything is/moves like a pendulum/oscillates around a trend line. It is the act of moving one way that causes the reversal. So buy at crashes and sell during bubbles? Not sure because he never said anything. He just talked about why his ideas were important.
The Day of the Jackal
27 Feb 2019
28 / 100 :: not worth it. Too much like a journalist's report of the assassination of Charles DeGaulle.
Not a thrilling narative, just a list of events that happened...yawn
Zero Waste Home
29 Aug 2021
28 / 100 :: Bea Johnson talks bout zero waste. Her TED talk is shorter, thus better. Opens with stuff is bad and the world is terrible, here are some DIY detergent recipes. Here are some food bags. Buy in bulk. Good luck finding bulk places. Heres how to stop junk mail, good luck.
100 dollar start up
16 Nov 2022
26 / 100 :: Meh. Here are a bunch of people who started a business with less than $1k. Hobbies turned profitable through sheer luck. No studies of those who didn't make it, like the other 99.997% who tried and failed.
The Art of Simple Living
9 Feb 2021
25 / 100 :: Be a Buddhist monk and you'll be awesome at everything. Don't attach to thinkgs or people, but care about things and people. Enjoy the contradiction but don't actually do anything. Typical Buddhist nonsense. If you don't get it you're not enlightened and therefore don't live in a temple of ONLY MEN and do nothing to help the world like a truly enlightened Buddhist does. They're so good at being enlightened that they do nothing but clean and tell other people how to do it. Do they run hospitals? Feed the poor? Comnfort the dying? Teach a homeless child? Nope. They live in a temple and clean the floors and learn to leave their ego behind. To what end? Enlightenment. Which occurs within ONE PERSON. Which means self-centeredness. Which proves they didn't leave their ego behind.
It was 100 tips on 100 pages so that was a plus. Simple and to the point. Just a shitty point.
The Nine Tailors
16 Jan 2019
25 / 100 :: didn't finish
Lord Wimsey was too much. Too much about bells, no murder by page 60.
Nothing happened but being introduced to many characters who were all the same local yokel
They all liked to prattle and self interrupt with asides, that is to say, things like, well this, wherein they talk (or should I say verbally meander) and give too much useless info.
How to Do Nothing
10 Feb 2022
24 / 100 :: Pretentious art student writes pretentious crap. How to resist the attention economy is a pamphlet but she managed to make it a book by quoting other artists, activists and herself. So many stories about how great she is for noticing things. This is not a how to manual but a how to think manual except that it isn't. It's nothing new, but she said it so it must be great. The message was unclear and buried under everything she said. I don't even know what the message is other than you have to do more than get off social media. Which you can't because you have to join Mastodon or patchwork or scuttlebut where the cool kids are and do intentional things that cause people to question relatioships and other vague art shit. Never be a doctor or nurse. Don't actually help people or do real things like fix someone's toilet. Do art and then have people gather around so you can talk about your art and then they can talk about how smart you are. Edge lords are amazing people. Wait, was this satire and I missed it?
The Bullet Journal Method
23 Feb 2019
24 / 100 :: not for me.
Daily log all thoughts, tasks. Monthly log, Future log. Collections. Confusing to write about, confusing book.
Risk Less and Prosper More
20 Sep 2021
22 / 100 :: Equities are not riskless even over long time horizons, plus the only time horizon that matters is yours. So sequence of returns risks matter. Inflation matters. Advocate buying IBonds and TIPS and Annuities. Only good advice was in part 3 of 3 the rest was a waste of time reading.
Omensetter's Luck
15 Jan 2019
20 / 100 :: didn't finish
Brackett Omensetter comes to town and brings his good luck and happiness with him. Town minister hates him.
Conflict ensues with difficult to read unquoted text like Cormac McCarthy but worse
The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking
12 Sep 2019
20 / 100 :: I have no idea why I read this. Seems like woo. The whole failing thing has been proven to be a waste of time. Failing has infinite varieties, success very few. It's hard to learn from failing when you have so many options and way sto fail. You could spend your life failing and only learn 6734 ways that don't work. But there is only 1 way that does. Find that way and learn what worked. But anyway here's the entire book:
Earth - understand fundementals. Deep understanding. Understand connections not facts/trivia/memorization. Know why things happen/are connected how they work at the basic level
Fire - Fail and learn. Do your best, fail and understand why. Or fail on purpose to test ideas quickly. Fail early and often. Fail with little downside.
Air - Constantly question. Assumptions, why this and why not that. Invert and ask quesitons. Take things to absurd conclusions. Shift lenses. Ask the right question.
Water - Look back and forward, predict, guess, understand flow of ideas.
Quintessential - Change, always. Open mind, always learn.
Rule Makers Rule Breakers
10 Mar 2022
17 / 100 :: No. Some people/companies/schools/countries/cultures are tight, others are loose. Tight follows rules and values strong social norms, loose favors being yourself and creative and not seeking permission. Authoritarian/Permissive reboot with the exact same conclusion: be in the middle.
The Book on Rental Property Investing
16 Oct 2023
12 / 100 :: Bad. Biggerpockets podcast guy gives free advice for the price of a book. Nothing new or insightful that hasn't been said 100x before in every other get rich with real estate book. Outlandish numbers but the real issue isn't the numbers it's how fast and loose he is. Closing will be about this much so you should make about this much...so many rounding errors and compounding errors that any example he gives will be off by 50% in the real world. Bad advice for novices. Dangerous even with being over leveraged. You can go broke in RE, but you can go broke faster on margin...??!!!
Winners Take All
15 Oct 2021
12 / 100 :: Corporations influence think tanks and/or make their own and fund the people who think they can change the world for the better using capitalism. Business can solve problems in markets so why not solve government? Solve democracy, solve everything using business/capitalism principles and free markets? Because it doesn't work. People, not profit, are the basis for democaracy and things have to go through people not corporations. Free markets incentivize strange things. Not always who solves the problem the best, but who solves the problem the cheapest or with the most conveniance. That is not how you want an institution that governs all people to be run.
You Can Negotiate Anything
26 Jan 2024
8 / 100 :: Bad dad gives slimy tactics for winning at life. Dent the floor model then complain about it for a discount?! I'm sure he's joking, but he also put it in print.
Actual advice that is less slimy:
You have 3 things: Info, time, power. So does the opposition. Whoever has a larger sum wins. Power is perception. Prep beforehand for info. Don't be in a rush. Think, wait, fast like Siddhartha. Look beyond positions to interests. Why is it this price? Then go for win-win once you understand their position.
Enhancing Perceived Power:
Expertise: Demonstrating knowledge or expertise in the subject matter can enhance your perceived power. For example, showing that you have a deep understanding of market trends can give you an edge in business negotiations.
Confidence: Displaying confidence, through body language or verbal communication, can make you appear more powerful. For instance, speaking firmly and maintaining eye contact can project confidence.
Information Control: Controlling the flow of information, such as being the one to provide data or updates, can increase your power in the negotiation.
Alliances and Networks: Showing that you have support or backing from others, especially influential individuals or groups, can increase your perceived power.
Diminishing Perceived Power:
Playing Down Your Power: Sometimes, it's strategic to underplay your power or expertise to make the other party feel more comfortable and open. This tactic can encourage more collaboration.
Asking Questions: Instead of asserting your points, asking questions can lead the other party to talk more and reveal their interests and weaknesses.
Empathy and Understanding: Showing empathy and understanding towards the other party’s situation can make them more amenable to your suggestions.
Making Concessions: Strategically making small concessions can make the other party feel more powerful and may lead to more significant concessions from their side.
Good Guy/Bad Guy: in a sales negotiation, one salesperson might insist on sticking to a high price, while another might then offer a discount, appearing more reasonable and sympathetic.
Making the First Offer: Cohen suggests that making the first offer can be advantageous because it sets the anchor point around which the negotiation revolves. For example, if you're selling a car, offering a specific price first can anchor the subsequent negotiation around your preferred price range, even if the final price is lower than your initial offer.
Black Leopard Red Wolf
7 Apr 2020
7 / 100 :: Skipped [16% - 100pgs] Well written book about boy/man hired to track down missing kid in africa. African myths and cultural references. Very raw, plenty of gore and homo erotica but also some light pedo/rape/beastiality shit. Plus the author makes every sentence so meaningful it becomes impossible to read. "I walked until the moon was fat and the river grew hungry." Just tell the story edgelord. Seemed more interested in trying to shock everyone with how raw he could be instead of telling the goddamn story. Which started on page 100. Of a 600 page book which is 1 of 3 books. Also the book opens with the ending: "The child is dead. You don't need to know anything else." So we cool? Oh, was that supposed to be your hook? Try harder.
The Personal MBA
25 Nov 2024
2 / 100 :: BAD. Activley terrible. skipped. distilled and watered down business advice from pop business books with no insights. aggregate the aggregators? also the tone makes it seem like he knows secrets and we'd be wise to shut up and listen.