Learnings 2024

James included in category Consumption and Media

2024-01-14 2024-07-13 5345 words 26 minutes

Contents

General Life Improvement

Anterior mid-cingulate cortex correlates with willpower. It grows by doing things you don’t want to, especially physically, such as going for a run in the rain or taking a cold shower, or not doing things you want to, like eating the cookie. It doesn’t grow by putting in effort, such as a hard run that you actually enjoy. It’s a possible predictor of life duration. [1]
How to improve your life in 2024 according to science: minimise pre-sleep light; fidget; get cold; get dirty; talk to strangers; be scared; learn skills; exercise; breathe; make friends; forgive; eat colours; drink coffee; have a hobby [2]
Have:want ratio for happiness - you can increase haves (works temporarily) or decrease wants (works permanently) [3]
Always have a top three goals, not an infinite list (for day, month, year; for a project; etc) [3]
Sabbaticals are essential (minimum 6 weeks; one example, simply read incessantly); build habits: obvious (in sight in mind), easy (start small), attractive (pick the exercise you enjoy most), satisfying (reward) [3]
Instead of New Year’s resolutions, have New Year’s anticipations - what am I looking forward to? [5]
Build a Strategic Life Strategy using organisational principles (purpose, visions, benchmarks, etc). Strategic life areas including relationships, body/mind/spirit, community/society, job/learning/finances, interests/entertainment, personal care. Plot importance vs satisfaction. [4 - images]
Change your state (low to high, e.g. through exercise) before trying to fix things [26]
Your “waiting room” of things to do, projects to tackle, opportunities to address, people to see, and ideas to pursue will always be full. You will never make a dent in it—and expecting otherwise will only serve to create anxiety. [28]
Motion vs action. Planning feels like action, but it’s only motion. [31]
Action over goals [62]
Passion and obsession are the most powerful traits. Next, optimism and curiosity. [42]
Most important personality trait: Obsession; going all in. [54]
Persistence and rejection [85]
Perfectionist often a) focus on the wrong things (the things they can control) and b) don’t take risks (to avoid imperfection) [47]
Intuition cannot be explained, so don’t ask someone to; instead, judge how much experience in the situation they have, and use that to value their intuition. [72]
Spontaneous trait transference: Traits and emotions are associated with those in proximity, not those who are directly related to them. The messenger is often shot because the it is provider of the bad news that is most closely associate with the negative emotion. Those who complain, even about genuine issues such as climate change, are viewed negatively, as they incite the negativity. Those who are positive, flatter and praise, are seen as nice purely based on their words and not their actions. You love everyone after you’ve gone for a run (because of the endorphins), and hate everyone after being stuck in traffic. You’re thinking about your work problems at home in the evening, and you get annoyed with your family not because they caused the problems but simply because they are there. [89]
Chalkboard decisions: The maths makes the decision “obvious”, but ignores unknown unknowns. A mortgage example: if the mortgage rate is 2%, it’s better to invest in the stock market at 6%. But what if there’s a pandemic, and the market drops 20%? And then your mortgage rate increases to 8%? Suddenly those chalkboard gains are losses. [91]

Lists

Productivity techniques: 2-Minute, Twice, Rule 0f 72, 5-Second, Highlight, Hell yes, WHO, Procrastination, 90/90/1, 12-Week, Prime Time, 80%, Frog, Parkinson, 80/20, ABCDE, Auditing, Chain, Energy, Zeigarnik, Pomodoro, Batch, Slice, Visualization, 25/5, Feynman, 5 WHYs, Stacking, Rest, Quality, Say NO, Blocks, Theme, Decisions, Routine, Detox, Future Self, Spotlight, Ulysses, Plan, Notebook [33]
Some of the most important realisations I’ve come upon: 1. You are not your thoughts.; 2. Action is the antidote to anxiety.; 3. Loneliness is a kind of tax you have to pay to atone for a certain complexity of mind.; 4. Your weirdness is your competitive advantage.; 5. Joy has to be found today, not tomorrow.; 6. Never lie.; 7. Keep promises to yourself.; 8. Most problems are easily fixed.; 9. You are the sky, everything else is just the weather. [59]
40 Life Lessons I Know at 40 (That I Wish I Knew at 20): 1. Your relationship with others is a direct reflection of your relationship with yourself; 2. The only way to feel better about yourself is to do things worth feeling good about; 3. The only failure is not trying; 4. No one is coming to save you; 5. Be the partner you want to have; 6. The most valuable things in life compound over a long period of time; 7. The most sexy and exciting things in life are the opposite; 8. If you’re not turning down things that excite you, then you’re not focused enough on what matters; 9. Taking responsibility for all of your problems alleviates more suffering than it creates; 10. You give power to who you blame; 11. If you have to tell someone you’re that, then you’re not that; 12. Motivation is not the cause of action, but the effect; 13. Love is not the cause of commitment, but the effect; 14. Passion is not the cause of good work, but the effect; 15. The person you marry is the person you fight with; 16. A happy life is not a life without stress. It’s a life of meaningful stress; 17. Don’t view exercise as an exchange for something; 18. Trust people; 19. There’s no such thing as a life without problems; 20. Growth is rarely accompanied by joy and celebration; 21. Fuck being normal; 22. If you can’t say no, then your yeses mean nothing; 23. Be careful how you define yourself; 24. Don’t make assumptions about people; 25. No one thinks about you as much as you think about yourself; 26. Confidence does not come from an expectation of success. It comes from a comfort with failure; 27. Develop a willingness to be disliked; 28. You cannot be a life-changing presence to some people without also being a complete fucking joke to others; 29. Floss and wear sunscreen every day; 30. Extraordinary results come from repeating ordinary actions over an inordinate amount of time; 31. Choosing a partner is not about romance; 32. Don’t overestimate romantic love; 33. Trust is the currency of all relationships; 34. If all of your relationships have the same problem…; 35. There’s no such thing as a bad emotion, only a bad response to an emotion; 36. Go to bed and wake up early; 37. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, including yourself; 38. Life advice is like clothing; 39. Nothing meaningful in life is easy, nothing easy in life is meaningful; 40. It’s never too late to change [60]
Brutally honest career advice to my younger self: 1/ It’s okay to feel lost; 2/ Take more swings; 3/ Be the hub; 4/ Document your learning online; 5/ Learn copywriting; 6/ Master the art of the cold email; 7/ Mentors are overrated; 8/ Build independent income streams; 9/ Give way less fucks about other people; 10/ Have more patience that it will work out; 11/ Practice positive self-talk; 12/ Don’t jump ship too early; 13/ Don’t let work consume your life; 14/ Peer up the career ladder; 15/ Your network DOES matter; 16/ Read more biographies; 17/ Keep a journal; 18/ You’re gonna be okay [61]
Psychological traps: Ostrich effect; Inability to close doors; Contrast effect; Chauffeur knowledge; IKEA effect; Curse of specificity; Spotlight effect; Halo effect; Reciprocity; Self serving bias; Diderot effect; Anchoring effect; Negativity bias; Sunk cost fallacy; Paradox of choices; Framing effect; End of history illusion; Pygmalion effect; Consistency effect; Planning fallacy; Confirmation bias; Bandwagon effect; Dunning Kruger effect; Loss aversion; Decoy effect; Availability heuristic; Gamblers fallacy; Hindsight bias; Reactance bias; Action bias; Survivorship bias; Unity principle; Zeigarnik effect; Bystander effect; Ambiguity effect; Curse of knowledge; Illusion of averages; Endowment effect [66]
Stop gathering more information and start acting on the information you already have; Stop expecting immediate results and start embracing delayed gratification; Stop complaining about things you can’t control and start taking ownership over the things you can; Stop focusing on being impressive to others and start focusing on being impressive to yourself; Stop fearing the regret of action and start fearing the regret of inaction; Stop saying yes to everyone else and start saying yes to yourself; Stop worrying about what others are doing and start focusing on what you’re doing; Stop waiting for the things you want in life and start acting to make them a reality; Stop hoping for luck to strike and start moving to create your own; Stop treating rest as a reward and start treating it as a critical part of your high performance routine; Stop tolerating people who tear you down and start spending time with people who lift you up; Stop chasing things that can be bought and start prioritizing things that must be earned; Stop treating your body like shit and start treating it like a house you have to live in for the next 50 years; Stop allowing constant stimulation and start embracing boredom; Stop blaming others for your situation and start taking action to change it; Stop seeking the safety of comfort and start forging yourself in the fire of discomfort; Stop relying on motivation and start leveraging discipline; Stop focusing on what you don’t have and start expressing gratitude for what you do have; Stop taking everyone else’s advice and start taking your own; Stop worrying about the opinions of haters and start stacking evidence to prove them wrong. [96]
1. Go where you don’t belong; 2. Self-awareness is a cheat code for life; 3. Focus on game access first, game selection next; 4. Find your Foxhole Friends; 5. You’d rather have one sharp knife than 1,000 dull ones; 6. Being interested is a rare and powerful trait in the modern world; 7. If you want to unlock new insights, you need to find your garden; 8. Complexity may sound sexy, but simplicity usually wins in the long run; 9. Surround yourself with people you’d want to spend your last day of life with. [97]
1. Never avoid hard conversations; 2. Stress and anxiety are the result of the lack of a plan to bridge the gap between your expectations and your reality; 3. Adaptability is the single most powerful trait in life; 4. Don’t complain about anything; 5. Ambition is nothing without direction; 6. You can get pretty damn far in life by just being someone that people can count on to show up and do the work; 7. Cherish the truth tellers in your life; 8. Always default to kindness; 9. Spend more time with people who make your eyes light up; 10. Embrace the friction of hard to live an easy life; 11. The regret from inaction is far more painful than the regret from action; 12. Don’t follow your passion, follow your energy; 13. Talent and skill are great, but they are nothing without self-awareness; 14. Delayed gratification is the key to the life of your dreams; 15. Accountability is a rare and powerful trait in the modern world; 16. You are capable of achieving anything, but only if you’re willing to put in the work; 17. Be a Darkest Hour Friend; 18. Closed mouths don’t get fed; 19. Always remember that no one has it all figured out; 20. Life is more fragile than you think (even when you account for that statement). [98]

Culture and Travel

Chinese doesn’t have a way of writing foreign words; they use their character sounds but ignore the underlying meaning (whereas their language is typically more about the meaning than the sounds). When speaking Korean names, they use the hanja behind the meanings and pronounces them in the Chinese way, so in some situations they sound quite different. [6]
Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice [17]
Japanese has the fastest speaking rate, but French and English have the fastest information rates [19]
Transport for London gets ~70% of it’s money from fares. Most major cities globally are ~70% funded by governments. Hence why London public transport is so expensive. [21]
A theory: North Korea was always used by Russia and China - it needed them to survive, but they didn’t care about it. NK thought getting weapons that could hit mainland USA would finally get the West to listen to them, and potentially, through negotiations and deals, be treated like any other country - and escape from being under China/Russia. However, their olive branch was rejected; they achieved nothing. Now, with again increased tension between the West and China and Russia, once again NK may give up on trying to join the global economy and return to working closely with Russia and China. [50]
More sex = more boys (at the population level). Getting pregnant earlier in a female’s cycle slightly increases the chance of a boy, and the more sex a society is having, the higher the chance of early-cycle sex occurring. [56]
Taesong (대성) village in Korea’s DMZ: Free rent, no tax, lots of farmland, and being able to hear (but not see) North Korean soldiers singing - although everyone is leaving, and only ~100 people are left. [69]
Ever wondered how old a building in London is? Or what architectural style? Or what it’s used for? [86]
The English language is incredibly weird - more noises, question formation, meaningless do, phrasal words, and of course pronunciation [90]
There is a town in Korea full of ex-Soviet State Russian-speaking ethnic Koreans. [95]

Relationships and Personalities

Sharing bed with partner has mixed results. Possible solution: two duvets. No food within 3 hours of bed was the best for males and females. Melatonin and yoga had mixed results. [10 - image]
Who is disproportionately attractive to you? [23]
You want your partner to be an experience good i.e. gets better with more time, more experience. If they instantly seem perfect, there may be a lot of competition [23]
Men like to solve tension, whereas women like tension - it’s why they like dramas and romcoms. If you listen to their problems, you’re relieving their tension - which turns them off. You need to add some tension to their life - add some dominance and submission, some uncertainty. [30]
Do you want to be helped (solutions/practical), heard (rant/social), or hugged (emotion) [45]
Dating apps start off well, then some users abuse them through lying, so genuine users lose trust and leave. Other services fix misuse through reviews, but that isn’t really compatible with dating. [49]
Deep questions: feelings over facts e.g. instead of “what did you do today?”, ask “what was the best thing that’s happened today?” [58]
Fathers also have large hormonal changes post-birth and can also get post-natal depression. Women naturally get attached; men, the more time with their baby, the better. [73]
A statistical analysis of astrological signs against 37 different life outcomes showed no correlation (an r value of 0) [13]

Work and Career

You need great colleagues to do great work. One way to know: do they inspire you to work hard, to do your best? [12]
What do other people hate that you like? [23]
What feels like play to you that feels like work to others? [27]
Create the content you want to consume. Writing online enables serendipity at scale. You never know who’s reading. [24]
Spend as much time as possible with people with the “right” mindset (e.g. learn, earn) [27]
Do exciting work with exciting people [27]
Job success: Stand out; create a brand; write a newsletter, work on important projects; solve a paper cut problem; have a connected/driven manager; find the most interesting people; have a good vidcall setup to look professional [38]
Recruiters get paid for placing candidates. Befriend a recruiter and have them mentor you into getting the job. [42]
Productivity ≠ activity. In the past (agriculture, manufacturing), business = output. Now we live in the knowledge economy, where thinking is important. [43]
A lot of productive activities do not look so. A conversation over dinner can lead to insight. Walking in silence enables thinking. Often large companies stifle creativity due to employees having to look busy. [44]
Best negotiation tactic: give your offer, say nothing. The one who can handle the awkwardness best often wins. [84]
Find what you can get good at, or just work extra hard. [85]
Your employer’s success is your success. Your manager’s success is your success. [85]

Entrepreneurship and Business

BRRT: [b]uy a cash-flow business in a [r]ecession-resistant industry then [r]aise prices with inflation and value adds then add [t]ech [14]
PROMISE: [p]rofit / protected margins, [r]ecurring revenue, [o]nline presence, [m]outh to mouth marketing (referrals), [i]nterpersonal relationships, [s]ales tiers and subscriptions, [e]xpectations (reviews) [14]
Market Command Matrix: mindshare (how well customers know a company exists) vs resources (funding/capability) [32]
Customer service: Be angrier than they are about the problem. Only one person can be angry. [37]
Raising prices can result in more sales. Experiment. [40]
Buy a cashflow-positive business then improve (with tech, marketing, operations, …) [42]
A founders job is not to build the product, it’s to build the team to build the product. [48]
Pick the underserved market before the product [48]
Before you write (especially sales copy), think: What do you want the audience reaction/emotion and action to be? What is the one-line takeaway? [52]
Learn to write, and warm up, through copywork - find someone else’s writing/style you like, and simply copy it. It’s what we do for music, for cooking. [52]
Positioning as adding value instead of saving time. e.g. Status quo: 200 leads in 2 days. Your solution = doubling: 400 leads in 2 days OR 200 leads in 1 day. The former, you can charge for 200 leads and their existing cost. The latter, how do you price 1 day in time saving? [53]
To be rich, own your own business (especially a boring business) [63]
A bunch of idea generation tips, including tools such as Keywords Everywhere, Subreddit Stats, Anvaka’s Map of Reddit [75]
Best entrepreneurs: lots of ideas, great at networking, quick decision making [77]
Tiers of marketing: sell a product → solution → lifestyle → emotion → identity (although personally I think 3 and 5 are similar) [84]
Is the product a hair-on-fire, a hard-fact, or a future-vision one? Which one it is will vary your challenges and opportunities. I think I naturally most align with hard facts. [93]
You don’t need to spend half your budget on sales and marketing if you instead invest it in building the best product on the market. [99]

Economy and Financial

The mean year the S&P returned 10-20%, followed by 0-20%. One year, 40-50%, three years +40-50%. [7 - image]
Enshittification: As Governments weakened their anti-competitive stances, companies have gained huge amounts of power, through buying competitors and becoming monopolies/oligopolies. Through this, companies have been able to control regulation, in turn stopping users from blocking the dark patterns used by companies to maintain their control and custom. Network effects (as many large tech companies benefit from) also make it harder for consumers to change companies/suppliers. Workers of these companies were originally bribed with huge salaries and perks to not complain, then were made disposable as the supply of skilled employees skyrocketed (due to the salaries and perks). [41]
Good banks: Nationwide, Tandem. Bad banks: Most of the others (including Chase, HSBC, Barclay’s, Santander…) [82]

Science and Technology

Top 23 scientific and tech developments of 2023: 1. The implosion of Oceangate’s Titan submersible; 2. Canada’s Record Wildfires; 3. ‘Apocalypse’ wildfire in Lahaina, Hawaii ; 4. Rising UFO discussions in government; 5. Upcoming Northern Lights to be the strongest in 20 years; 6. COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai; 7. Surge in demand for Wegovy weight-loss drug; 8. AI’s growing influence; 9. India’s Chandrayaan-3 Moon Landing; 10. Next-gen microelectronics from Berkeley Lab; 11. The launch of the Autonomous Lab (A-Lab); 12. Bacteria that can ‘gobble’ up our plastic problem; 13. Ötzi the iceman’s new ancestry revelations; 14. Discovery of an ‘Einstein’ Tile; 15. Earth’s inner core reversal; 16. A 310-million-year-old ancient spider fossil; 17. Orcas break rudders and sink ships in the Strait of Gibraltar; 18. A mysterious undersea civilization; 19- JWST observes massive kilonova explosion for the first time; 20. Development of a supercapacitor from ancient materials; 21. Scientists record shockwaves in the cosmic web for the first time; 22. Japanese researchers find a simple and affordable way to store hydrogen; 23. Discovery of exoplanet twice the mass of Jupiter [8]
If the world stopped spinning: >1500kph winds, the air and the water blend, 6 months of day and 6 months of night [9]
Take any four-digit number, using at least two different digits (leading zeros are allowed). Arrange the digits in descending and then in ascending order to get two four-digit numbers, adding leading zeros if necessary. Subtract the smaller number from the bigger number. Go back to step 2 and repeat. The answer will be 6174. [16]
Knowing the maths behind pop-up tents makes them far easier to stow away. Saving this for later! [20]
0-100kph in <1 second. How? Break it down to first principles (power, grip, strength) and improve all - plus find a loophole in the rules. [22]
An autonomous machine that drives around fixing cracks in roads before potholes appear. [25]
Until 2010, social media and social networking had equal search volume. Since then, social media has taken oven - along with the shift from these sites being about community and connection to being about influence and eyeballs. What else happened in 2010? The movie The Social Network came out. Did it accidentally cause the shift? [29]
This was why I initially decided to study engineering - control systems were always my favourite. A cube that can self-balance on its corner - and even rotate and jump about! [34][35]
How to use LLMs: Give them as much details as possible (in prompt and uploads - or you can ask it to ask you the context); Speaking is better than typing; Use multiple LLMs as if they’re multiple friends, and ask them what they think of the responses of others; Interactive and iterative (ask for 10 ideas, then 10 more, then pick the top 5 and ask for 10 more like those 5); Simple test: Ask about an emotional, human decision, ask it to ask you 3 to 4 questions about the problem before giving recommendations. [65]
Fire is cool. Fire travelling in a loop is even cooler. [78]
An entire first-person adventure game from the browser. Super cool. [79]
Due to the cylinder/firing configuration, the pitch of a V10 is a major third, which is nice to our ears. That’s why they sound so damn good! [80]
Britain needs to return to the era of crazy engineers. Incredible. [81]
Dogs seem to sense earthquakes hours before they happen. A smart collar that measures a dog’s biometrics will attempt to use dogs to predict earthquakes. [87]
Expensive tyres typically are worth it - last longer, stop quicker, and more fuel efficient [92]

Health

Low-carb (lower calories, lower GI) rice cookers exist [3]
Oral health: Enamel can be remineralised, dentin cannot; alkali good, acidic (carbs, tea/coffee) and dry bad. Rinse mouth after acid. Don’t constantly be drinking tea/coffee. Toothpaste with hydroxyapatite. Commercial mouthwash is bad (especially alcohol-based); brine is better. [39]
To improve sleep, finish eating early (e.g. before midday) so your digestion has finished by the time you sleep [46]
Norwegian 4x4 Protocol: 4mins as fast as you can sustain (typically ~80% max heart rate) followed by 3m recovery, x4 [55]
60s intense throughout day e.g. air squats, burpees [55]
Min 2 seconds per strength rep e.g. 1s up 1s down [55]
Eat protein/fat 30mins before carbs [55]
Stress doesn’t come from hard work. Stress primarily comes from not taking action over something that you can have some control over. [Jeff Bezos]
Not a big surprise - suncream is overused, and, because of this, most people suffer health consequences from lack of sun exposure. And that’s ignoring any consequences of the chemicals themselves. We’re animals who evolved in the sun; sun is good. Getting burnt is bad, though. Basal cell carcinma (the common skin cancer) is effectively harmless too. [100]

Nature

“Mouse filmed tidying up man’s shed every night” Does it know what it’s doing? Why is it doing it? Was Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy correct? [11]
Orcas and humans used to work together to hunt whales… Until humans got greedy. [15]
“Fluffy”, the alligator snapping turtle. [36]
Humans don’t have tails and don’t lay eggs, and it’s possible being tailless and giving birth to live young is actually a disadvantage. So why did we lose our tails and stop laying eggs? There isn’t a survival-of-the-fittest explanation; it’s likely it’s arbitrary, it’s luck, it’s a mistake. [51]
Bird mimicking police siren at Bicester station [74]
The 36 skin colours [88]

Misc

Incredible six-hour conversation detailing years of fraud [18]
Another life story: The Pacific odyssey of a runaway rebel - Ruth Shaw spent years on ships and islands, trying to outrun her past [57]
Dishwashers use less water and energy. Eco settings clean prioritising enzymes (over a longer time) than higher temperatures. [64]
North Korea TV censors Alan Titchmarsh’s trousers [67]
The least random random number is 37. The median second prime factor of all numbers is 37. It’s also many other “types” of prime. The marriage secretary problem: How to pick the “best” option if you don’t know the value of options in advance? Test the first 37% of options, then pick the next option which is better than any you’ve seen so far. This gives you a 37% chance of success. Put another way: Want to get married in 10 years? Test for 3.7 years, then pick the next best person. [68]
Motorbike armour is… Basically useless. Remove it and be comfortable, and/or wear an airbag. Or… not? [70][71]
The trolley problem is a false dichotomy - break the trolley! [76]

Contents

Learnings 2024

General Life Improvement

Lists

Culture and Travel

Relationships and Personalities

Work and Career

Entrepreneurship and Business

Economy and Financial

Science and Technology

Health

Nature

Misc

References