Hey all,
I find that sending out 10 links a week can be a lot. Sometimes I have 8 good links and need to find a couple to round it out. This seems like a waste of time and I should only send the links that I’m really excited about. So in the next couple of weeks, I’m going to try new things. I may decrease the number of links I send or change the frequency.
Advice
Random Life Lessons in No Particular Order has good reminders of certain life truths that we forget. It breaks down pieces of life advice by mental health, physical health, social stuff, and lifestyle inflation. One thing that I need to keep reminding myself is that “No One Is Paying Attention.” People don’t obsess about what you do, only you do.
Marc Andreesen has a new Substack, so I started looking into his old writing. I found his career planning guide particularly relevant to me. Pmarca Guide to Career Planning: Opportunity. I also enjoyed his Top 10 science fiction novelists of the ’00s—so far. On the list, I’ve read Vernor Vinge, John Scalzi, Richard Morgan. Alastair Reynolds, Charles Stross, and Peter Hamilton are already authors on my list, and I’ll explore the rest.
Matt Zoller Seitz, the editor at large at RogerEbert.com, wrote Advice to young critics. I find value in reading advice from people at the top of their field for two reasons. First, I learn more about the field from someone with deep experience. Second, a lot of the advice is transferable to other industries. For instance, Seitz advises writing two hours every day. If you can’t do that, you don’t actually want to be a writer. I think this is true of many activities and careers. Before committing to it for many years, make sure you like the day-to-day.
Books, Podcasts, and Shows
Drive to Survive is an excellent show on Netflix that dramatizes Formula 1. Season 5 came out last Friday, and I’ve already finished it. It is so successful that the producers are creating similar shows for tennis and gold. Read more in Behind the Scenes of "Drive to Survive" Season 5
On the Search for Growth podcast, we interview Kevin Blake, an outstanding Bay Area magician who has a long-running show at the Palace Theater called the Illusionist. He’s been on national TV on America’s Got Talent and Penn and Teller’s Fool Us. In the episode, we discuss the business of magic and his appearances on national TV.
I finished the second Imperial Radch book, Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie. The Imperial Radch trilogy is about a ship’s AI that gets trapped in a human body and her quest for revenge. This installment was solid and was 4 out of 5 stars for me. The first book, Ancillary Justice, is the only book to have won the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Award.