The Storyteller

This is a book from “That guy from Nirvana”. Nirvana was the first music that I got really into it. Nevermind was the first music cassette I ever bought. I have always followed the music taste from my brother, it was the only influence I had, but Nirvana was the first one of my choice. I still love the heavy metal and techno that listened because my brother.

At some point, I stopped listening to Nirvana because I didnt want to over do it. And to be honest, I have even never be curious enough to research the story of the band. Nirvana was a huge change in the music scene, a new style of music: grunge.

I knew Nirvana was short-lived, and that the battery formed a new group, but that was some years later, once I got some fame. Still I was never fan of Foo Fighters.

Just after COVID started opening up, I remember watching a video in youtube of one of the first concerts from FF in Madison Square Garten, and I really liked it. I was surprised about the energy of Dave, the dont stop the music, etc etc…. and noticed that the band has been going for nearly 30y!

So this summer took the chance to see their concert. As I thought this was going to be the closest thing to see Nirvana.

I really enjoyed it, the energy was great, and see parents bringing their kinds was really cool

So I decided to read Dave’s book. This is not an actual autobiography, it is more about music, and his relationship with it. I was quite surprised that he learnt drums, guitar, etc by his own. He was just obsessed. He says he had some talent, but I am pretty sure he put a lot of hours into it. He took his chances from early age, and the book looks a pretty happy journey, apart from the deaths of his best friend and Kurt. The book was written just after COVID, so Taylor’s death is not cover. It was weird that the part of Nirvana was quite short in the book but I noticed, the goal of the book was music and not gossip or things that are not really useful.

His early career was the typical one from an artist, poor/hungry but happy. Then the success came, and got enough money for food 🙂 and for a family.

In general, it looks like a very charismatic character, he loves music, he has done everything for it, and he fells very lucky to be part of Music history.

And yes, everything is about storytelling. Even I always say my live is boring to everybody, but it always depends on how you tell it (and to who)

Scarcity Brain

I liked this ebook. I didn’t know what to expect but I learned many different things. I would like to have it in paper so I could take notes.

I didn’t know the middle east had a drugs issue. He visited Irak.

The idea of scarcity is a system that kept us alive in our early days as humans in the sabana, when we were hunter-gatheres. Everything was scarce. We had to find food everybody. We need something internal to keep pushing to find food, shelter and reproduction.

The problem, our environment has evolved so fast that our psychology hasn’t caught up. We have plenty of all. The scarcity loop causes problems with every type of addiction: gambling, alcohol (like the author), drugs, food, sex, consumption, information, etc

The book starts in Casinos of Las Vegas and ends in a Benedict Monastery, that nearly summarizes all the issues and how the Rules of Saint Benedict based on pray and work (ora et labora) and full daily routine keeps people happy.

When buying thing: it is gear or stuff?

A person stuck in a scarcity loop only stops for three reasons:

  • The opportunity goes away
  • The rewards stop trickling in
  • The repetition slows down

Feel Good Productivity

I am a bit obsess with productivity, trying to always produce more. This is another approach. He became Doctor via discipline but things started to fail when working as a junior Doctor. The idea is to move from discipline to joy. I find it difficult in general. I think I am not bad at discipline, but still got a pit paralysing when hitting the unknown, and splitting things in small chunks is helping me.

Energise:

Find/add the concept of “play” in what you do (sense of adventure and take things less seriously)

Find empowerment, choose how you work on things (most of the times you can’t choose on what your work…. so you know) You can choose the process and your mindset.

Surround yourself of the correct people that lift you up instead of suck up the energy. Think of giving help, it is not always getting.

Unblock:

This part focus in procrastination and the most important for me

Clarify: Think about what is blocking your mood, ask “why” you want to do something, then figure out “how”. For the “what” use NICE (near-term, input-based, controllable and energising) and then set the “when” you do things. Add “clues” to trigger the action (create an habit)

Fear: understand what you are afraid of? will that matter in 10 minutes, 10 weeks, 10 years? And very important, most people are not thinking about your, they are too busy worry about what the others are thinking about them.

Start: This is for me the most important part. Find the friction, what it is stopping you to start, how can you remove them? You dont have to get everything figure out, so “just do it” (do something). Be kind to yourself, analyze what you do, correct and move on.

Sustain

This is part is about burn-out. It can over-work, it can be boredom. Focus in doing less but better. Focus on “Fuck yeah or not” to decide things. Control the distractions (noise, youtube, etc) and take breaks where you do nothing.

You need to learn to recover and disconnect: have a hobby, try to be in nature (walk to a park)

Discover misalignments: you spend time on goals that dont align with your values.

Zero to One

This is a book from investor Peter Thiel. I am focus in the investment side and not in the political, that reminds me to Musk….

The idea from “zero to one” is to create something that doesnt exist, that is where the big profit can be created.

Mentions that is very important the personality of the founder and the size of the management team (the smaller the better) and how much is the founder paid itself (should be less than others to set the mood). All these is important for the success of the startup.

He talks about Paypal and the merge with X.com (Musk). He want monopolies because competition reduce profits, this was funny because from “Chip Wars” it was the contrary, you want competition and mass market to be profitable. Although the idea of his monopoly is a progressing one, not one that stops the development. The idea is “nice” but I dont see it happening… there are humans involved…

He talks about the PayPal mafia, that most of them afterwards found multibillion companies.

Chip Wars

It is an interesting read about the the evolution of microchips development in a non-technical point of view.

Everything started with investment from the USA military. Transistors were meant to replace vacuum tubes, and make systems more reliable and efficient. Then the companies wanted to scale because the military didnt produce enough profit and then the competition to produce transistor at scale really created the boom.

During the cold ward, URSS only copied chips and was always behind, they didnt have the market to develop the technology and always stated behind.

The move of manufacturing to south-east Asia was meant to empower allies and stop China. The success of Taiwan (TSMC) and South Korea (memory) is based on the constant government support in providing low interest credits via banks and control of the currency to make exports cheap.

I didnt know that initially the manufacturing was focus in memory. Intel started to lose the battle and then moved to CPU… and was a huge success until the lost the mobile market (said no to iphone)

I was surprised of the role of Sony at the beginning and then the fall of Japan, and havent recovered. And how the sanctions crashed Huawy but now it is evolving and pushing China to be more reliant in its own product, although USA still have the last voice because in any part of the production change has a grip (laser technology for UEV, tools for designing chips, influence in Taiwan/TSMC)

And the history of ASML and the development of UEV. Super interesting.

In general, really good read to understand the political-economical of microprocessors in our world

Columnar Storage, Spider Silk, Hormuz, LR4

Veritasium Spider Silk: Always read about spider silk being stronger than still but never seen proofs and the problems of trying to commercialize it

Columnar Storage for Observability: This is not my field but curious about it.

Mark Mason: Hormuz I can’t stop laughing so good and so true!!!!

  • Diversify your energy sources: Dont create a choke point of validation
  • Don’t negotiate with crazy: evacuate!
  • Become emotionally energy independent

7 Habits after 30s:

  • Dont break the routine (x): consistency beats intensivity
  • Defaulting to “No”: You need to focus in what matters. I have a very strict routine: climbing, german, dancing, baking, reading, studying. And I should add dating. I have enough if I add work and sleep. I would like to do more things, yes, but dont have time. Although I feel sometimes a slave of my own routine. No means to focus in what matters to you. Time is finite.
  • If you think of somebody, reach out to them: I dont have many friends, but they are really good one, I am happy for that. I need to make the effort to reach out more often.
  • Quit drugs and alcohol: This is a no brainer. Doesnt need much explanation.
  • Buy your time back: I agree with this, and it is difficult. Learn how to spend your money. For me, it is repairing my bike. I realize that just being able to repair a puncture and changing the breaks it is enough. More means, buying a lot of kit and still need time. And likely more things.
  • Have fewer opinions
  • Stop complaining: Amen. If you do, have a plan of action.

Optionality Addiction: We have to many options, we dont focus. When you do, you have grief from the options lost. Committing means to do less. Freedom is the enemy of focus. Deliberate practice = tolerance boredom. Discipline = remove choice

Self-Defeating excuse: Take advantage of the opportunities given

LR4: I am not an expert in optical networking but it is an interesting read.

MPTE: Interesting the author point that even in a RNG (Random Network Graph – AWS) still is traffic engineering needed MPTE (Multipath Traffic Engineering). He makes his point based on AI environments.

Chocolate Babka

Based on this video

Ingredients:

Dough:

  • Warm milk – 160 ml
  • 2 large eggs
  • All-purpose flour – 400g
  • Active dry yeast – 6g
  • Granulated sugar – 50g
  • Unsalted butter, melted – 60g
  • A pinch of salt

Chocolate Filling (keep it in fridge so it is easy to chop)

  • Unsalted butter, softened: 45 g
  • White chocolate – 100g
  • Milk chocolate – 100g
  • Dark chocolate – 100g

Brushing & Topping:

  • Milk + softened butter – for brushing before baking
  • Chopped chocolate – reserve some from the filling for topping

Process:

  • Mix milk, yeast, sugar.
  • Add eggs, pinch salt, melted butter and mix
  • Add flour shifted and mix
  • Then manually knead until smooth
  • Rest for 1h
  • Chop the chocolate
  • Dough should be double, diflate and roll it in a surface with flour. Make a big rectangle
  • Brush melted butter apart from one side so you can seal it when rolling
  • Trim edges if needed
  • Spread chocolate evenly across the whole surface. Press with the rolling pin
  • Roll the dough tightly up. Be careful
  • Pinch the edges and the seal.
  • Cut the log in half, lengthwise.
  • Braid the two halves.
  • Move the log to the loaf pan (with baking paper)
  • Rest for 20 minutes
  • Brush it with the butter-milk mix.
  • Bake at 180°C for 30–35 minutes, or until beautifully golden brown. Dont use the grill
  • Brush it again with butter-milk so it shines.

This is my result:

It doesnt look as nice as in the video but it was tasty. And it is not actually difficult. I made mistake as using the grill and I think I should have tighted the roll better and use the rolling pin to press the choco chips. I was surprised how easy was to knead it.

Think Again

This book is about the value of rethinking (mental flexibility). This is a path to learning more and living with fewer regrets. This can be hard because it means abandom parts of oneself. The process is based always in the scientific method, formulating a theory and trying to find counterexamples.

The process of learning is not to affirm our beliefs, it is to evolve them. And being (too) smart can be counterproducent because narrows our mind to what we dont know. I liked the example from the iphone, when Steve jobs was adamant of the product because would kill the ipod money making, or stubbornness from Blackberry to evolve. So in this case, you need a balance between confidence and competence.

These are the mental models that need to rethink

  • Cult leader: I am always right!
  • Politician: We are right, they are wrong!
  • Preacher: I am right
  • Prosecutor: You are wrong.

I like the references to the “impostor syndrome”. It always keeps you on your toes and push you to grow because you never know it all.

Who you are should be about your values and not your believes. That way we can be flexible. For example, when making a forecast, make a list of conditions that should hold true and other list of conditions that should change it. This makes you honest and detached from an opinion/believe.

This can produces discussions. But need to see it in the positive way, intellectual chemistry is enjoying disagreements. We learn more from people who challenge our thought process than those who affirm it (focus is in your thought process and not in you as a persona, that is a totally different matter). These conversation are focused in the “how” instead of “why”. Giving too many facts about are reasoning make the other part defensive (coming too strong). As well, we need to be open to change ours, find common ground. This is from the debate between IBM computer and Harish. As well you dont change people’s opinions, they do themselves, and based on “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” So if the other person says there is nothing that would change its mind, then…. So it is around asking questions, be invested, like a dance and not a war (it is called motivational interviewing: examples like vaccines ) To be honest, I struggle to ask questions to people, like I am not curious (or it is a way to hide… but when people ask me, I talk….)

There is a part about applying to a jobs and using an example where the person didnt hide its shortcomings, just ack-ed in the paper and then went with the reason why it should be hired. I need to apply that to myself.

Some topics are difficult. Just acknowledge the complexity, show the range of perspectives: gun control, inmigration

Regarding learning, the best way is to teach it. And the active learning (more than the lecture type). Repeating is good = “jack of rough drafts, master of crafts”. So education should be more than gathering information, but develop the habits to revise our drafts and keep learning. I think this matches the IT culture of continues intergration/delivery, error soon and often, etc This creates the culture of growth and rethinking instead of sticking to “tradition/best practices” (examples from the NASA accidents) This takes too humility (improve better than proving oneself)

Another good one: Sunk cost (difficult to turn around when you are deep in something, and you can’t stop carry on with it) / Grit. Gritty mountaineers are more likely to die on expeditions. “There is a fine line between heroic persistence and foolish stubbornness. Sometimes the best kind of grit is gritting your teeth and turning around” I think the whole book goes around to when to do exactly that.

In general, explore (action) and then dig. And save time for a couple of times a year to do check-ups and rethink what you are doing.

The book finishes with the “take action” speech from Roosevelt in 1932. Accepts uncertainty, ack errors, learns from others and rethink plans

The book gives a different view from other sources, where they tell you to get grit, no plan B, etc etc. This proves there is no solution for all. So I take it as another tool.

Lifespan

This was another summer reading. Quite interesting because the author takes ageing as an illness and not as the last part of life.

I have come to realise that yes, we live longer, but not healthier… and I think there is an interest for that so you are hook to some medicines (always business). Personally, I dont see the point to be old and not being able to do anything for myself. Even worse, when your brain starts to fail… you dont even notice.

The first part is mainly the research and why the author says ageing is an illness. If shows how organism have evolved based on reproduction and repair. He explains it as “The Information theory of ageing” The DNA is digital but then the building process are analogical and that is where the information leaks and the problems starts. I can’t really explain all the biological details but it is an interesting theory.

How to live longer? He recommends many things, from fasting, eating less meat, exercise, cold/hot endeavours, avoid toxic materials and obviously there are pills you can take. To be honest all the recommendations look nothing special, I think they are sane, and is something good because everybody can do it.

The last part is the ethical / philosophical part. This is the hardest because that changes may things in our world. There will be more people (we need to produce more food! consumption – capitalism), people will work longer so less opportunities for young generations, politically we will be in a much more conservative (politically – super-rich want to stay…) world, how religion will handle people leave longer?, how people will handle to live so long?, will people want to die? It is interesting.

The author wants goverments to fund research in ageing because that can have more benefits and will solve problems like cancer or brain illnesses.

Video Interview

Poor Charlies Almanack

This is a book about different speeches from Charlie Munger

It is a bit psychological / philosophical about how to trade, live or just making decisions. Life is always changing and one must adapt and always keep learning/reading.

The main thema is the multidisciplinary so one can different mental models to discover a pattern. He gives a lot of stick about how badly is psychology taught in schools and universities (although he has only read a couple of books!) It mention the importance to have check-list (like pilots, surgeons, etc) and practice your mental models!

Their investment has been always long-term and based on compound-interest and rarely in Tech companies. I think their strategy is very different from Investment banks, Hedge Funds, etc. But I wonder if that model is going to carry on working in a market where those long-term investments are going to be still valid.

Anyway, I will not be rich or good investor (not my goal) but interesting the focus in keep learning/reading and having different models in your head to try to understand the world.