Day: 30 September 2026

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.