I have a lot of ideas for blog posts - so many that they’ve begun getting lost in my notes. I figured I’d put them up on here. I’ll be very happy if you steal these ideas, I likely won’t get around to writing many of these.
- Summary of the Power Broker. I loved this book and I would love to write a great summary since I know many people who would enjoy it but don’t have the time for so long a book. This would be a great candidate for an “expandable” style, where certain themes could be expanded by the reader, leaving the core summary fairly short, but with additional and optional detail for areas of interest. I’m thinking of making it theme based rather than a narrative style. See below for Dominic Cummings’ request as well.
The Power Broker, Robert Caro. About Robert Moses’s grip on NYC. Someone should run a prize for the best 10,000 word essay summarising the fundamental lessons of this book (which I haven’t read in full, just skimmed, because of time not a judgement). Ditto for the Johnson volumes (I’ve not read) when Caro publishes the last. While some lessons are specific to time/place (e.g how the Senate works in 1950) the most important lessons from all such books are quite abstract and common and I assume this will be true of these classics.
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A Reading Guide to Shannon’s “A Mathematical Theory of Communication”
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Issues with the Double Loaded Corrider - how it ruins American apartment buildings. There are a few articles online but they’re all relatively architect focused and not for the layman.
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Guide to Healthy Work From Home. I’ve been working on improving my health a lot recently, mostly related to my posture, but not exclusively, and I’d love to do a write up of what I’ve learned. I’ll quote my links post here.
I’ve been considering my remote work setup a lot recently. I think I’ve diverged somewhat from societal consensus on this, which is interesting, but it means I should probably post my thinking publicly to ensure my contrarianism isn’t bullshit. I’d like to write something more comprehensive, but for now -
You shouldn't sit on a chair
You need to be active very frequently, with eye breaks, every 20 minutes or so
Stretching doesn't work, neither does actively correcting your posture
Posture has mental components which need to be addressed
To fix posture, strengthen your body in the correct way
Varied motion and sensory input is key <br> Associated content - Nutritious Movement, The book Deskbound by Kelly Starrett (some parts), Kneesovertoesguy
- Summary of Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. I haven’t seen much mention of this guy’s work on twitter but I’ve found it useful in my own pursuits. The value comes through in reading someone who’s at the top of two athletic fields who is also in the top 20% percentile of both introspection and writing. Uniquely, he can both do, and explain what he’s doing.
