Content I Consumed: Alternatives to New Year's Resolutions

Jan 04, 2023

Happy New Year! I hope you had a restful holiday. I’m looking forward to what 2023 brings.

New Year, New Me

I haven’t spent significant time on New Year’s Resolutions in the past. I believed that if I want to make changes, I should do them right away. This year feels a little different. There are some habits (e.g. meditation, journaling) that I want to commit to more fully. I’m exploring how best to structure my goals and how I should reflect on them. Here is one piece that I found - Forget New Year’s Resolutions and Conduct a ‘Past Year Review’ Instead. Tim Ferriss uses last year’s calendar to identify the people and events that gave him the most strength.
And here is another piece on year-end reflections - Hospice Workers Conduct a ‘Life Review’ for Every Dying Patient—Here’s Why You Should Do One Now To Find Purpose and Live Regret-Free

Books + Reading

I just finished Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It’s the first book in the Final Architecture space opera. Excellent. Humans and other races struggle against each other while trying to survive threats from planet-sized aliens. I also loved his sci-fi evolution book, Children of Time.
What Are You Reading? A funny New Yorker piece on the tendency of a certain type of person to ask others what they are reading, assuming that everyone is in the midst of a deep and important book. It also pokes fun at people that keep bringing up Sapiens (a book that I enjoyed). Hits a little close to home. (No subscription? read the link in incognito mode)
A newsletter writer dives into how readers consume content. Only 25% of people click a link in a long newsletter/essay. Is it because we devote limited time to consuming articles? Do people not like links? What are the purposes of links if no one clicks them? Why Does No One Click on Links?

I watched Kaleidoscope (Netflix) on the plane back to SF. Pretty good. The most interesting part was that it was written so you can watch the episodes in any order. Kaleidoscope is a generic heist story but a fascinating experiment. I like that Netflix is trying new things. A couple of years ago they released a Black Mirror episode called Bandersnatch in which you could choose how the episode progressed. I wonder how this interactivity drives subscriptions, watch times, etc.

Misc

I know the holidays are over, but here is a list of Things to argue about over the holidays instead of politics. Some thought-provoking bullets in there. One compelling bullet - Is there a qualitative difference between drugs and music/games/video services? How addictive would a game have to be that we’d throw people in jail for making it?
Magnus Carlsen arrives 2.30 mins late for a 3 minute game - Even chess grandmasters get stuck in traffic. Pretty impressive result.
Want to learn more about the economics of skiing? Read this article Do you ski? The political economy of snow, slopes and skiing. Interesting to see how Vail resorts transferred their weather risk to the consumer via the $800 million / year Epic Pass cash cow. This article details why Vail created the data-driven subscription model for the rich and the impact of global warming on skiing.
If you assume there is a 1.17% chance of nuclear war each year, then children born today have a 60% chance of seeing nuclear war in their lifetime. Depressing. What is the Probability of a Nuclear War, Redux