Welcome to my (first?) digest post! I think I’ve actually tried this before but didn’t keep up with it. I’m calling it a digest post because that’s what Freddie deBoer calls it, and also because I think the name is apt: These are the things I’ve “eaten” over the past week, and am therefore now “digesting.”
Anyway, we’ll see if it takes this time. Enjoy!
Photo of the Week
Read
Notes on Puzzles by Nabeel S. Qureshi:
If you are solving exercises that are collected in a book, it’s implicit that each of those problems has a solution. Puzzle books are a forgiving problem-solving environment in that way. It means that you can bang your head against the problem for hours, because you know that there is a findable answer, and that you will find it if you simply apply enough determination and search hard enough.
Twitter Founder Reveals Secret Formula for Getting Rich Online by Ryan Tate:
At a time when so many internet entrepreneurs are running around Silicon Valley trying to do something no one else has ever done, Williams believes that the real trick is to find something that's tried and true -- and to do it better.
Video Games are the Future of Education by Nabeel S. Qureshi:
The more you can guess at, feel, and understand without actually calculating, the much better off you are!
A Few Thoughts About the New Year by Sam Harris:
There is a freedom to be found here in recognizing what it’s like to be you—what life is actually like in each moment, rather than what you think it’s like, or hope it’s like, or fear it’s like. Meditation is simply noticing what is real, as a matter of experience, now and always—but always, and only, now.
and since i have never said ‘youth must end,’ youth will not end by Celine Nguyen:
In some situations, exploiting too early is disastrous; you’ve committed to something that wasn’t right for you. It’s useful to spend some time, especially in your youth, trying out different interests, ambitions, places, people. But exploring for too long is also risky. So there has to be some year where you decide: in this part of my life, I know what I value. I am choosing; I am committing.
How To Understand Things by Nabeel S. Qureshi:
My countervailing advice to people trying to understand something is: go slow. Read slowly, think slowly, really spend time pondering the thing. Start by thinking about the question yourself before reading a bunch of stuff about it. A week or a month of continuous pondering about a question will get you surprisingly far.
Small Functions Considered Harmful by Cindy Sridharan:
The best abstraction is an abstraction that optimizes for good enough, not perfect. That’s a feature, not a bug. Understanding this very salient nature of abstractions is the key to designing good ones.
Watched
In the Land of Saints and Sinners. Deftly and confidently directed. Kerry Condon is scary. Joffrey's in it. You know what's going to happen to him as soon as he talks about going to California. NEVER TALK ABOUT GOING TO CALIFORNIA. Especially if you kill people for a living. Speaking of killing: For a small town in Ireland, Liam Neeson's assassination business is absolutely thriving.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans. You know a movie's got a lot going on when the title contains both a colon and an en dash. This is one of those movies that feels like I dreamed it.
Listened
- Clint Tomerlin – A friend of mine! And he has a new song out called "Look Who's Coming to Town," which pays tribute to Townes van Zandt. If you're in San Antonio, look him up!
- Them Dirty Roses – Cool
- Hogslop String Band – Fun/funny
- Anderson East – Hope
- Mon Laferte – Joy
- Mary Kutter – Badass
- Larkin Poe – Also badass
That's all, folks!