Books notes and what I learned from reading “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson.

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

221b: Curiosity, Phonautograph, Money, Bureaucracy, History

Book notes takeaways from reading Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday

Perennial Seller by Ryan Holiday

A high-level overview of how I built my blog.

How I Built my Blog with Next.js and Notion with Custom React Components in Blog Posts

221b: Edison, Einstein, Pursuit, Gödel, Rest

Be prepared for the disaster to be worse than before

Check all kinds of unusual things

3 books that I read and loved in December.

What I Read in December

A few funny things about time

‘Done is better than perfect’ isn’t the whole saying.

Just get something on the page

The best thinkers are ‘wonderers’

An anthology of ideas on history, science, philosophy, and more.

221b: Time, Moonshots, Artistry, 26.2 Miles, & Genius

Practical ideas and insights about how to live on just 24 hours a day (and be satisfied).

A Practical Summary of How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett

5 interesting ideas that stoke your curiosity.

221b: Writing, Detectives, Libraries, Leadership, Reading

Why I Wake Up at 5:00 am

How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett

Book notes: The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

221b: Droste Effect, Rules, History, Work, Death

A write-up of the various tools I’m using to stay focused and work on things that matter this year.

My Analog and Digital Productivity System for 2023

Book notes on The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Reflections on Calculus

American Moonshot by Douglas Brinkley

Not Long Ago in a Galaxy Not Very Far

Thinking About Blogging

getStaticPaths in NextJS Explained (Simply)

How to time travel

A captivating book about the African American women who helped send a man to the moon.

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

What I Read in November

What the founding president of Stanford has to say about the care and culture of men


David Starr Jordan on Life, Education, and Politics

Though The Washington Post touted this book as "The most fully faceted portrait of Hemingway now available", I was unimpressed.

Ernest Hemingway by Mary V. Dearborn

From a 1955 article written by von Neumann titled, "Can We Survive Technology?"

John von Neumann on how to safely progress with technology

People who spend their time debating others online are throwing their precious hours of human existence into a pit they'll never retrieve them from. It's the most useless act someone can partake in, even more so than playing video games or watching 

On Ribbonfarm's Portal and Flags

Killers of the Flower Moon opened my narrow mind to a new (for me) genre of writing: narrative non-fiction. I highly recommend.

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

I could not have been happier with the few hours I spent reading this book. How da Vinci's life ebbs and flows through his curiosity is a whirlwind of unbelievable stories.

Leonardo da Vinci

I have a deep admiration for Feynman's beliefs on life, knowledge, and science, but that admiration went deeper still as I followed the stories of his life told by the man himself. This is a small collection of a few of those stories.

Adventures of a Curious Richard Feynman

A collection of his speeches from the founding president of Stanford University.

The Care and Culture of Men by David Starr Jordan

The author's enthusiasm for dinosaurs and the mysteries of Earth 66 million years ago is contagious.

The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs by Steven Brusatte

1. Determine between observation and opinion. 2. Be concrete.

2 habits for a better intellectual life

Viewquakes - An insight or discovery that drastically changed your worldview.

On Viewquakes

Why I Read

What I Read in October 2022

Kevin Kelly's 103 Bits of Advice, Expanded

The greatest things in life have something hidden inside that's not.

Beware of the curse

I have a deep admiration for Feynman's beliefs on life, knowledge, and science, but that admiration went deeper still as I followed the stories of his life told by the man himself.

What Do You Care What Other People Think? By Richard Feynman

The overexposure to a powerful concept has watered down a powerful idea, the idea that you, and only you, control your life. This book brings the idea back into reality.

Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday

I know I'm a Guess Culture participant. I do so because it's easier to manage my inconvenience than someone else's. Is this the right way to act?

On Being an Inconvenienced Guesser

The following passage comes from *What Do You Care What Other People Think?* by Richard Feynman. It's a collection of stories from his life and curious adventures.

Make learning a reality

A brief history on the institution of the library and a fascinating look at the history of books.

The Library: A Fragile History

Knowing the name of something doesn't mean you understand it.

The Mountain of Knowledge (And Why Dumb Smart People Never Escape It)

Books and articles that I read in September.

What I read in September 2022

My Manifesto

Do unconscious reminders of God influence people's willingness to comply with norms of impersonal fairness?

God-primes and Social Behavior

Otium: "An abstract Latin term that has a variety of meanings, including leisure time in which a person can enjoy eating, playing, relaxing, contemplation and academic endeavors."

Deliberare Otium

A descriptor of what's going on in the world today.

Book Review and Summary: Revolt of the Public

On Writing Well by William Zinsser

Leadership by Henry Kissinger

New Ideas Suck

This book explores the life of a time-traveler. Someone who theorized, pondered, and invented tools that would create the lives of some and destroy the lives of many.

The Man From The Future

Dulcius Ex Asperis

A never-ending list of questions I have for the universe.

Some Questions

Plan for Future Conduct

There are two forms of intelligence we draw on when making decisions: instincts and reason. I wanted to know which is a better strategy to rely on and why? Or, is there a better strategy? Perhaps instinct and intelligence are two sides of the same coin working in tandem with one another.

Which is better: instinct or reason?

The foreword to this book, written by Ben Reinhardt, puts it well by saying, "I went into this book with little more than a name and came out with the closest thing to a mentor someone you've never met can be."

Pieces of the Action

Through teaching, students not only discover who they are, but who they want to become. It's important we get this right.

What It Takes To Be a Great Teacher

Political Parties. Interesting...

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Gather intellectual scraps to shape ideas of your own

Being a genius is simple: Never complete what you say you're going to and spend years perfecting every intricate detail of your work. Easy, right?

Book Review: da Vinci

Creative procrastination

Documenting what you do

Why you feel stuck in life

Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, and the Birth of the Modern World.

The Clockwork Universe by Edward Dolnick

Life in a world where everything was the same, but no one had the capacity for love.

An attempt to understand the Kolmogorov Complexity of human values

The value of niche secrets

Ubi Caritas

Revolt of the Public

The person versus situation conversation is a long-held debate in psychology. My hypothesis is that personality creates behaviors and circumstances bring those behaviors out.

Personality creates behaviors. Circumstances reveal them.

In 1955, Richard Feynman gave a famous lecture on the value of science. In it, he outlined three ways science is of value to us all. In this essay, I reflect on those points and attempt to understand what they mean–67 years later.

The Value of Science 67 Years Later

The passage of time

An ode to celebrating the small things you learn in life, daily.

On Celebrating Tiny Learning Milestones

John von Neumann and the birth of game theory.

Where the term "zero-sum" comes from

The best system I've read for synthesizing knowledge

What I do when someone asks to borrow a book

You can't go there by doing that

Sometimes your room for error, isn't enough

On Physiognomy

How to Increase the Chances of Becoming a Genius

Learning in public and using the Feynman technique to teach myself.

Building a Custom React Form Hook

Society has deemed it "the right thing" to become life-long friends with every acquaintance you have. This can lead to too much emotional burden and shallow friendships. Instead, we need to advocate more for season-long friendships. 

Season-Long Friendships

Thursday's Assorted Links

"If, by whiskey" arguments are used whenever the speakers position depends on the listener's opinion. It's a great way to take a position on something without really taking a position.

If, By Whiskey

Looking like a fool at first leads to mastery at last

Thursday Assorted Links

Moravec's Paradox

Wednesday Assorted Thoughts

Reading advice from Tyler Cowen

Where Dead Cells in the Body Go

A dense book packed with tangents that (mostly) lead to some interesting insights.

Hi, I'm Dalton

Recent Posts