muizz
@ayokanme
We come and go, like ripples in a stream
muizz
ayokan.me
Not sure if anything changed my approach to work and engineering in the past five years more than this passage from @Lethain, written in the context of staff engineering but much more broadly applicable.
The thing that no one ever tells you about your calling is that it’s boring. Oh, everything is interesting if you’re interested… shut up. Yes, it will be exhilarating and fun and fluid and and natural and meaningful. It will also be tedious. It will hurt. You will encounter obstacle after obstacle until you feel like you’re in a video game with... See more
People who live in large cities have larger egos because at night they can't see the stars
Dylano | Essayfulx.comThe 4-Hour Life
lindynewsletter.beehiiv.com
How much of a constraint is consistency space on agency?
The 4 hours aren't always 4. The energy you have in those 4 hours isn't always the same.
In payoff space, you can focus your energy for bursts of effort. Or you can focus your recharge/recovery times around your work.
The availability of rest after work likely affects how hard one is able/willing to work. The allure of rest is likely different.
Rest as an escape from work vs Rest as a place to prep for work
Athletes will perform differently in teams depending on if the system is built around them or they are recruited for the system; if the level of pressure is suited to their person; and if the coach is willing to be patient for them to adapt to their situation.
I'm reminded of that Mourinho press conference:
“Look at how they play, where they play, if they play”
Lots to ponder…
And it's much easier for the mind to wander these days. Algorithmic feed, so many random opinions and forms of content/news all in your palm
2020 Letter to Shareholders
aboutamazon.com
To go with the flow is to seek equilibrium.
Excerpt from a remarkable final shareholder letter:
“Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at. Left to itself – and that is what it is when it dies – the body tends to revert to a state of equilibrium with its environment. If you measure some quantity such as the temperature, the acidity, the water content or the electrical potential in a living body, you will typically find that it is markedly different from the corresponding measure in the surroundings. Our bodies, for instance, are usually hotter than our surroundings, and in cold climates they have to work hard to maintain the differential. When we die the work stops, the temperature differential starts to disappear, and we end up the same temperature as our surroundings.”
When the first steam engines were introduced, the owners had a really hard time finding people to operate them who wouldn't get drunk in the middle of the day, fuck up, and wreck the machine.
Ben Landau-Taylorx.comTechnological change is only possible with societal (behavioral) change
To use databases, you need to be able to think about your data in a structured way. The people who could do that gained most of the leverage from using databases. The folks who made it easy for people to transition to databases (ERPs and Co) captured the rest.
AI systems are fundamentally scalable decision making engines. And data is the oil required to power it. If you want to properly leverage AI, you need to make sure you're fueling it with the best refined data.
Otherwise, you're no different than the drunk trying to reliably operate complex machinery. The only repeatable part of that is injury.
and he was yet again correct just one year later