Posts

2024-11-14

Derek Sivers, in How to Live: Mastery is the best goal because the rich can’t buy it, the impatient can’t rush it, the privileged can’t inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it …

2024-11-09

Omnivore is shutting down. (This is another story in the saga Will you be able to access that file 5 years from now?.) Jackson Harper and Hongbo Wu created the Omnivore app in 2021. It was a free, …

2024-11-07

A proverb from somewhere on the Internet: Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution.

2024-11-05

Adam Grant mentions several papers on how reading regularly to children improves parenting skills, reduces stress, and builds lasting bonds.. As a father of three kids, I totally agree. There are …

2024-09-22

Seth Godin in Professionals are consistent: Authenticity is for friendships. Professionals simply show up. Especially when they don’t feel like it. There are many corollaries to "professionals simply …

2024-09-16

Wolf Tivi in Quit Your Job: True ascent beyond the kept life comes only from taking bold, determinate leaps of faith on real constructive projects. When Elon Musk pocketed his Paypal winnings, he …

2024-08-07

Don Berwick, speaking to a room full of hospital administrators at a large industry convention in December 2004: Here is what I think we should do. I think we should save 100,000 lives. And I think …

2024-08-07

From Mark Zuckerberg's announcement of Llama 3.1 405B: Beyond releasing these models, we’re working with a range of companies to grow the broader ecosystem. Amazon, Databricks, and NVIDIA are …

2024-08-06

Great reminder by Derek Sivers in Useful Not True: most of the time, you don't need the perfect tool or explanation. You just need what's good enough to get you where you need to go: Newton’s laws of …

2024-08-01

George R.R. Martin: Words are wind, even words like love and peace. I put more trust in deeds.

2024-07-25

Unlike traditional tech startups, AI startups like OpenAI and Anthropic need massive amounts of money because of the huge costs of training and running Large Language Models (LLMs). There is an …

2024-07-04

From James Clear's 3-2-1 Newsletter: I'm not the best writer, but it is a strength. I might be a 90th percentile writer. And I'm not the best marketer, but it is a strength. Again, maybe 90th …

2024-07-01

Founded by Seth Godin in 2015, the altMBA is winding down after almost a decade. In 2016, I was part of the fourth edition of the altMBA. It was a life-changing experience. The altMBA backbone was a …

2024-06-30

Right Thing, Right Now is the third book in Ryan Holiday's series about the Stoic virtues, more commonly referred to as the cardinal virtues: Justice, Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance. This book …

2024-06-23

Roger Federer is considered by many the greatest tennis player of all time. He ranked No. 1 in men's singles for 237 consecutive weeks, 310 weeks in total. He won 103 ATP Tour single titles and 20 …

2024-06-21

Seth Godin, The intentional stance: Every day, millions of people are joining the early adopters who are giving AI systems the benefit of the doubt, a stance of intent and agency. But it’s an …

2024-05-27

Neil Gailman on raising literate kids: Fiction has two uses. Firstly, it’s a gateway drug to reading. The drive to know what happens next, to want to turn the page, the need to keep going, even if …

2024-05-25

Found this quote by Seth Godin, interviewed by Dean Caravellis. More relevant than ever: I think that authenticity is a trap. No one has been authentic since they were 3 months old, laying in a …

2024-05-24

Jason Fried on X: So many things you assume will take forever only take forever because you never get around to doing them.

2024-05-22

The hardest times are when you learn the most. Don’t wish not to have them. Don’t avoid mistakes. Just make sure to reflect on them and learn from them. And write in your journal every day, so your …

2024-05-20

For a couple of years, I've been a happy user of LogSeq, an open-source knowledge management tool and note-taking app. I recently discovered, however, that future versions of LogSeq will use a …

2024-05-12

Science-fiction writer and programmer qntm about writing: Write with purpose. Do not write just because. Don't write because you love writing, because you love reading your own writing, because you …

2024-05-10

I was listening to Adam Grant interviewing Cal Newport in his podcast, and this productivity tactic mentioned by Newport stood out: Adam Grant: I'm allergic to productivity hacks. I think you are …

2024-05-08

Not using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools is like insisting on doing complex calculations by hand instead of using Excel. AI can be a game-changer for enhancing productivity and efficiency in …

2024-05-06

A quote from Johnathan Gillette, also known as _why the lucky stiff, about experimenting and taking risks, before he disappeared from the internet: I do not write tests for my code. I do not write …

2024-05-03

I spent hours playing this game...

2024-04-27

David Heinemeier Hanson (DHH), the co-founder of 37signals, the company behind Basecamp, and the creator of Ruby on Rails, the de-facto standard for developing web applications using Ruby, is a …

2024-04-26

David Heinemeier Hanson on the gift of ambition: What is ambition, exactly? To me, it's a leap of faith. A belief in the possibility of success without all the evidence to justify it a priori. A …

2024-04-24

Making good decisions is a critical skill in life and work. Even so, many times we turn a blind eye to what we know about cognitive biases, the perils of rationalization, and the experience of other …

2024-04-24

No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story. — Daniel Kahneman (Quoted in Matthew Dick's Storyworthy)

2024-04-18

From T. S. Eliot, "The Perfect Critic," in The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (1920): When we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for …

2024-04-10

Great article by Om-Malik: The Tyranny of Content Algorithms. The current prioritization scheme of content algorithms dictates that engagement comes from posting more frequently or conforming to a …

2024-04-09

"Writing is, without dispute, the best facilitator for thinking, reading, learning, understanding and generating ideas we have[^writing-and-thinking]." But for writing to help you think, you need …

2024-03-18

Al Ries and Jack Trout in The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. Companies that live by the numbers, die by the numbers.

2024-03-07

"Normal no es una persona. Es una distribución." (Lo leí en algún lado)

2024-03-06

The recent fiasco of Google and its failed launch of Gemini, its long-waited Large Language Model, has raised questions about what's happening at Google. For many people, the story is about a company …

2024-03-03

David Heinemeier Hanson—DHH on the Internet—is the creator of Ruby on Rails and the cofounder of 37signals. Triggered by Apple's announcement to kill progressive web apps on the iPhone home screen, …

2024-03-01

I'm convinced of the importance of reading as a way of standing on the shoulders of giants. I recently came upon this quote by writer, thinker and businessman Ryan Holiday: Books are an investment in …

2024-02-22

Nassim N. Taleb: Drink old wine. Read old books. Keep old friends.

2024-02-21

One quote from from Kevin Kelly's Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier: When you forgive others they may not notice but you will heal. Forgiveness is not something we do for …

2024-02-20

From David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World: Present-day methods of education still have a lot in common with their static-society predecessors. Despite …

2024-02-19

Dreams: Goals or priorities you consider important but that don't have any project associated with them. Small chance they'll happen in the short term. Hobbies: Projects you spend a lot of time on, …

2024-02-15

From Bruce Schneier's website, quoting Molly White: In fact, throughout the entire book, Dixon fails to identify a single blockchain project that has successfully provided a non-speculative service …

2024-02-13

Ex-doctor turned YouTuber, Podcaster, entrepreneur, and author Ali Abdaal about the power of perseverance: In the final live cohort of my Part-Time YouTuber Academy over 1,000 students paid $2,000+ …

2024-02-10

I'm not pro-regulation in general, but sometimes regulation makes sense. Many companies and large corporations are using GPT or some other Large Language Model to power-up their services. Thanks to …

2024-02-10

Nassim N. Taleb on X: Sophisticated minds adopt simplified lifestyles; simplistic minds are drawn to overly sophisticated lifestyles.

2024-02-08

I've always taken studies about happiness with a grain of salt. As far as I know, what people call happiness is subjective. Also, many times people jump to the conclusion that because happiness is in …

2024-02-07

From Seth Godin's post The best possible use: The next few minutes or days or months–sure, you own them, and you can put them to whatever use you choose. But just because you’ve been using your time …

2024-02-06

I was reading in David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity the chapter titled The Multiverse, about quantum physics and multiple universes. I've reread the chapter almost three times, and I'm sure …

2024-02-06

The ability to describe a situation succinctly and with precision, in writing, is one of those invaluable skills that's indispensable for working in a distributed/remote team, and for working in …

2024-02-05

Imagine a scenario you want to evaluate. Push your mind to explore possibilities and interactions. Consider potential outcomes and consequences, long and short-term effects. Iterate and refine. …

2024-02-02

Some phrases used as a prelude to a strongly held opinion, usually by the person making the decisions: This is outside my area of competence, but... In my humble opinion... Correct me if I'm wrong... …

2024-01-31

The story we tell about ourselves defines the things we dare to try. It also limits the roads we see in front of us. What we often forget is that we can change the story. Not the objective facts, but …

2024-01-30

I committed to writing every day some time ago. However, I've been posting on and off for the last couple of months. My goal was to write every day because I understand the benefits of writing. For …

2024-01-22

From Farnam Street's Weekly Newsletter (2024-01-21): Left unchecked organizations default to bureaucracy. People default to distraction. It doesn't take long for 3 priorities to become 10. It doesn't …

2024-01-21

I have settled on a simple test for judging claims (…) to have explained the nature of consciousness (or any other computational task): if you can’t program it, you haven’t understood it. (…) The …

2024-01-16

There is a difference between optimizing your environment so you can work better and postponing important work because you're waiting for the ideal conditions. Sometimes we complicate things by …

2024-01-15

An important part of working asynchronously is writing effectively. Sometimes, when we feel the urge to "move forward" with some project, the first reaction is to schedule a virtual meeting to …

2024-01-13

Herman Martinus is the creator of Bear Blog, a privacy-first, no-nonsense, super-fast blogging platform. In his article How I stay motivated as a solo creator, Herman shares some of the challenges of …

2024-01-12

From Will Durant, quoted by Matt Mullenweg: Health lies in action, and so it graces youth. To be busy is the secret of grace, and half the secret of content. Let us ask the gods not for possessions, …

2024-01-11

How will you get back up after you've lost your step? We all lose our step eventually. We fall back into a bad habit. We break our routines. We go for the easy thing instead of our long-term goal. We …

2024-01-10

This tweet by the great Alex Wieckowski summarizes many of Shane Parrish's tips for better reading books in 37 bullets. My six favorites: The person who reads one great book twice is better off than …

2024-01-09

I think that this post by Seth Godin helps in the discussion of whether remote work affects productivity or not. Someone who is enrolled in the journey doesn’t have to be told exactly what to do. …

2024-01-08

Legendary Kevin Kelly gave an excellent talk at SXSW 2023 about his vision of AI and Work. Some ideas from his talk, worth watching in full: We only call AI the stuff that AI can't do yet. For things …

2024-01-07

Shane Parrish interviewed Todd Herman in Episode 182 The Knowledge Project Podcast. Among many other topics, Herman explains the benefits of long-term thinking in your life. As an example, he …

2024-01-06

In a recent interview by Lex Fridman, Jeff Bezos explains that at Amazon, they are always working at two different levels of detail: There are big things that are really important to manage, and then …

2024-01-04

Cybersecurity is a lot about risk management. You need to evaluate how much are you willing to invest to mitigate the risk of a successful cyberattack, versus how much the successful attack could …

2024-01-03

Stripe Press has released a new edition of Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. The first edition of the Almanack was published in 2005, containing the …

2024-01-02

One of the challenges of doing something new is that you don't know the outcome for certain. Not only that, you may not be sure what you need to do to reach where you want to be. Maybe you are very …

2024-01-01

In 2023 I read 23 non-fiction and 19 fiction books. For non-fiction books, I kept to my system of reading 25 pages every day, although I had gaps several times during the year. For novels, I usually …

2023-12-31

I stole the concept of Eliminating Ruthlessly from Shane Parrish's Annual Reflection Framework: Most people attempt to do too many things. The problem is that too many priorities divide your …

2023-12-30

Hans Rosling (1948-2017) was a professor of global health at Sweden's Karolinska Institute and Cofounder of Gapminder (2005). Part of Rosling's life work can be summarized in Gapminder's mission …

2023-12-29

The end of the year is a good time for reviewing your progress toward your goals and planning for what you want to accomplish next year. Reviewing the year involves revising what you did last year …

2023-12-28

Curious and focused vs. Curious but unfocused. James Clear explains why curiosity can be either rocket fuel or a roadblock. Focus is the key. Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

2023-12-21

From Factfulness, by Hans Rosling, Ola Rolling, and Anna Rolling Rönnlund: Wrong generalizations are mind-blockers for all kinds of understanding.

2023-12-03

James Clear: "It is not too late to do what you want to do—if you stop waiting for the time to be right."

2023-11-28

I think a life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn all the time. R.I.P. Charlie Munger, a legend.

2023-11-25

From David Heinemeier Hansson, co-founder of 37signals and creator of Ruby on Rails: I feel like Stoicism has given me a good head start on contemplating mortality, though. I've had Memento Mori …

2023-11-20

It’s often said that where there’s a will, there’s a way. What we overlook is that when people can’t see a path, they stop dreaming of the destination. To ignite their will, we need to show them the …

2023-11-10

Peter Lynch is a legendary American investor, best known for being the manager of the Magellan Fund at Fidelity from 1977 to 1990. Lynch and his team turned Magellan into the best-performing mutual …

2023-11-03

Warren Buffett, the greatest investor of them all, looks for the same sorts of opportunities I do, except that when he finds them, he buys the whole company. — Peter Lynch, One Up On Wall Street

2023-10-30

Shane Parrish is the author of Farnam Street, a website focused on decision-making and lifelong learning. Clear Thinking is a book on how to make better decisions. Creating the Space to Think Many …

2023-10-19

You are not a leader unless you are guiding people through the unknown to something better than they can imagine when they begin their journey. If you know where you’re going and how to get there, …

2023-10-18

It is said that over time, you become like the people around you. One could counterargue: over time, the people around you become like you. Probably both things are true.

2023-10-11

One of the challenges faced by companies offering AI is how to cover the huge costs of running the service. For example, Enrique Dans mentions that running ChatGPT costs OpenAI $700,000 a day. This …

2023-10-10

From Seth Godin's No Thank You: Civility fades in the face of entitlement. The magic of an honest expression of gratitude is that the person saying thank you might benefit from it as much as the …

2023-10-08

About positioning and decision making, from Shane Parrish's book Clear Thinking: Time is the friend of someone who is properly positioned and the enemy of someone poorly positioned. When you are well …

2023-10-07

Great podcast episodes I've been listening to lately: The Knowledge Project, by Shane Parrish: Naval Ravikant: The Angel Philosopher (2017) (#171) How I Write, with David Perell: Marc Andressen: It's …

2023-10-05

I somehow missed this great post by Kevin Kelly titled The Propriety Path Platform. The Proprietary Path, Kelly explains in the article, is about making a living curating to a small audience— 1,000 …

2023-09-20

A month ago, I attended an event on the subject of People Management and AI. In one of the workshops, one particular suggestion raised eyebrows (at least mine). The facilitator urged us to start each …

2023-09-19

In The Rise of the Sovereign Individual, the authors predict that narrowcasting will replace broadcasting as the way people obtain their news. Individuals themselves will serve as their own editors, …

2023-09-17

Oliver Burkeman about hobbies in his book 4,000 Weeks: In an age of instrumentalization, the hobbyist is a subversive: he insists that some things are worth doing for themselves alone, despite …

2023-09-14

In complex situations, you cannot understand the problem without solving it first. The only way to get additional information is to try something and see what happens. Jorge Manrubia writing about …

2023-09-13

David Perell interviews legendary Kevin Kelly in his podcast How I Write. The whole interview is worth listening to. I found it so inspiring that I've kept coming back to it for several days to …

2023-09-12

Ryan Holiday recommends reading widely and from people you disagree with. "The Stoics believed that we should actively engage with anyone who can be a source of wisdom to us, regardless of their …

2023-09-11

As the use of ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) become mainstream tools for writing and researching, it's important to know when something produced with the help of AI can be considered …

2023-09-11

Nassim N. Taleb in How I Write: If you want to be read in the future, make sure you would have been read in the past. We have no idea of what’s in the future, but we have some knowledge of what was …

2023-09-10

Selling software, either as a service or as a product, involves assuming development costs up front. However, unlike traditional brick and mortar businesses, once development is done, serving one …

2023-09-09

The impact of our environment on our behavior is too significant to be ignored[^triggers]. And yet, when laying out plans to achieve our goals, so many times we forget about it. [^triggers]: Marshall …

2023-09-08

If something is going to be widely used in your organization, please take the time to think of a name for it. Johan Heinrich Pestalozzi was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer who began the …

2023-08-29

I read Kevin Kelly's book Excellent Advice for the Living some months ago. Using Kevin Kelly's words, the book is a compilation of "bits of advice I wished I'd known when I was younger". From the …

2023-08-24

From Alex Guzey's lifehacks: If you don’t have consistent scheduled time for your top goals, you don’t have top goals.

2023-08-23

Shane Parrish says that full attention is the sign of ultimate respect. It's worth considering what being distracted might imply. At times, it might merely indicate a lack of attentiveness, but it …

2023-08-18

Many times, we choose convenience over what would be the rational choice. For example, in many countries, WhatsApp is the defacto messenger app. WhatsApp is where you interact with your family, the …

2023-08-17

Tech excepcionalism is the believe that conventional rules, wisdom, and stats don't apply to technology. But Just wanting something to be true doesn't make it true. Cory Doctorow, in his podcast The …

2023-08-16

Sometimes we shy away from a conversation because we fear something we don't want to hear. Postponing the conversation leads to lack of information, which leads to imagining explanations for the …

2023-08-15

St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague took around 600 year to build. The current cathedral is the third building at the site, the first one being founded by Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemian. People working in …

2023-08-08

I recently heard the following statement in a meeting: in our process, before we can send a quote to the client, we must be sure that the company leadership is truly commited to follow through the …

2023-08-06

Tim Ferris on achieving great things: Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is …

2023-07-23

Nat Eliason on the importance of hard things: The ability to do hard things is perhaps the most useful ability you can foster in yourself or your children. And proof that you are someone who can do …

2023-07-13

When we hear about habits and daily routines, we sometimes imagine going through our rituals with a quiet mind and completely focused on the task at hand, going through our schedule mostly as we …

2023-07-12

I'm no fan of Meta and its monetization of user data. That said, there are some things worth noting about Threads, Meta's new social network/Twitter clone. One of the challenges of starting services …

2023-07-11

An interesting article by Maciej Cegłowski on why we shouldn't send human beings to Mars any time soon: Why Not Mars. Well reasoned and backed by data. Humanity does not need a billion dollar shit …

2023-07-09

Tim Ferris: For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks. Waiting for a good time to quit your job? The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green …

2023-07-08

From Specialist styles and strengths: Understanding ourselves and placing ourselves in teams and contexts that suit our unique strengths may be among the most important things we do.

2023-07-07

Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller is a book about the semiconductor industry from its inception to our time. The author tells the story of the technical …

2023-07-06

A great leader knows that she can't be an expert in every aspect of the business. So she surrounds herself with talented people. She looks not only for a good track record and expertise but people …

2023-07-05

Paul Graham, writing about How to Do Great Work: Since there are two senses of starting work — per day and per project — there are also two forms of procrastination. Per-project procrastination is …

2023-07-01

While reading Chris Miller's great book Chip Wars, I became fascinated by the story of Morris Chang and the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, best known as TSMC. * Morris Chang was born …

2023-06-28

Tim Ferriss: If you consistently feel the counterproductive need for volume and doing lots of stuff, put these on a Post-it note: Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate …

2023-06-26

In the June 26, 2023 episode of Sharp Tech, Ben Thompson and Andrew Sharp discuss Google selling Google Domains to Squarespace and why Google may decide to shut down a service. It's not only about …

2023-06-21

David Heinemeier Hanson on Breaking the inertia of mediocrity: The sad truth is that most of us are cowards whenever we can be. We usually know what needs to be done, but we shrink from the …

2023-06-20

In three months, Google is shutting down Google Domains, selling its assets, and transferring the service's users to SquareSpace. Domain Name registration has a straightforward business model. But it …

2023-06-17

Reddit announcement of changes regarding access to its Data API has generated heated reactions from Reddit's moderators and some third-app developers. The Verge published on June 15th an interview …

2023-06-14

At some point I added writing.fm to the feeds I follow on NetNewsWire. A peculiarity of said site is that you won't find any information about the author anywhere in the blog. I must have know who …

2023-06-13

Reddit's co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman recently announced changes to Reddit's API, including changes in pricing for accessing the API and prohibiting third-party apps from showing NSFW content. …

2023-06-10

From Shane Parrish on LinkedIn: A lot of people say they want to do something, but they don't actually want to do it. Here's a story. I have a friend who has told me they wanted to get in shape. He …

2023-06-09

During the opening keynote of its Worldwide Developer Conference 2023, Apple announced the Apple Vision Pro, its mixed reality headset. The $3,500 headset features an M2 chip, the same Apple silicon …

2023-06-06

Delaying difficult decisions rarely makes problems fade away. We sometimes wait because the situation we are trying to solve is not that pressing. We see the problem but we rationalize our lack of …

2023-06-04

From Recomendo, issue #361: You can't get it all from reading. — Which is just a reminder that everyone needs someone to call them out on their B.S. like a therapist, an accountability buddy or a …

2023-06-03

Tom Peters shares the story of an executive who was trying to decide which of two managers to promote. He said that his method was simple: Look at the careers of all the people who used to work for …

2023-05-31

A poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer stolen directly from the great blog A Learning a Day: It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of …

2023-05-30

Adam Grant, in his book Give and Take, explains that success is not about winning a competition but making a contribution. I n Grant's view, while "taking" seems like the shortest path to the top, …

2023-05-29

Many times, the only reason we are trying out a new app is because of the Shiny New Object syndrome. There is a place for exploring, just don't take it as an excuse for procrastinating. * An …

2023-05-24

Saying no to unattractive proposals is easy. The problem is saying no to good opportunities because we can't do everything we would like. Four questions to determine if something is worth doing, …

2023-05-21

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. — Aristotle

2023-05-19

Make Something Wonderful is a book published by the Steve Jobs Archive. It's a collection of Steve Jobs' speeches, interviews, and emails. I liked the book very much. Most people consider Jobs' most …

2023-05-18

Steve Jobs on creativity: To be a creative person, you need to “feed” or “invest” in yourself by exploring uncharted paths that are outside the realm of your past experience. Seek out new dimensions …

2023-05-17

Big players in tech and other industries prefer no government regulation. Second to that, they prefer a regulation that in practice becomes a moat against new entrants. A regulation that new entrants …

2023-05-15

Most goals move forward by working on them every day. Consistency is what leads to success. Part of the trick is realizing that even if you plan your days and week in detail, you cannot expect …

2023-05-14

John Dewey: Anyone who has begun to think places some portion of the world in jeopardy.

2023-05-12

James Clear: Sometimes all you need for exceptional results is average effort repeated for an above-average amount of time. As Kevin Kelly says in his book Excellent Advice for Living, five years …

2023-05-11

Everything we write may eventually become public at some point in the future. Maybe the original recipient decided to share it with someone else. Or perhaps the online services we use got hacked. …

2023-05-11

The late Clayton Chrtistensen in How Will You Measure Your Life?: The final element is execution. The only way a strategy can get implemented is if we dedicate resources to it. Good intentions are …

2023-05-10

Tim Urban explains in TED Talk Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator how he beats procrastination by putting himself against hard deadlines so that he has no alternative but to do the work. …

2023-05-09

Confidence is the belief in one's abilities and judgment. When we are confident, we are more likely to try new things, take risks, and persevere through challenges. Curiosity is about the desire to …

2023-05-08

In his book Excellent Advice for Life, Kevin Kelly writes: "Avoid hitting the snooze button. That's just training you to oversleep." I love the advice because repeatedly doing something is the way to …

2023-05-04

The late programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and hacktivist Aaron Swartz (1986–2013) wrote years ago a great essay about productivity. The whole piece is worth reading. One of the …

2023-05-03

Kevin Kelly recently published Excellent Advice for Living. Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier. It's a curated collection of the bits of advice he has been writing over the last years. As Seth Godin …

2023-05-02

Trying to plan ahead every minute may seem like the way to go at first. However, we sometimes forget that any plan needs space for the unexpected. Not only for big or complex projects, but also when …

2023-04-28

Isaac Smith writing in [The Sweet Setup](): Every Monday for the past 5 years, I’ve taken the first 15 minutes to plan the week ahead. For me, this has been my single greatest productivity routine. …

2023-04-27

Falling for the urgent at the cost of what's important is not the only kind of distraction we can face. For example, it's a difficult balance to maintain a healthy dose of curiosity while avoiding …

2023-04-26

I keep coming back to Seth Godin's post about urgency: In any given moment, an urgency that feels like an emergency gives us the permission to abandon our systems and simply dive in and fix it, as …

2023-04-25

Curiosity is an essential part of learning. Sometimes we may be so focused on "getting things done" that we forget to question and explore. From a different angle, we may be so focused on "teaching" …

2023-04-24

Many times we know the answers to our problems. We just need to untangle our thoughts. And we need to face the fear of embracing a decision that may or may not work. * Derek Sivers describes his …

2023-04-23

Richard Rumelt, in Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: It takes years for a formerly regulated company, or a former monopolist, to wring excess staff expense and other costs out of its system and to stop …

2023-04-21

I've been listening to The Joys of an Un-Optimized Life, an episode of the Tim Ferriss Show where Tim Ferriss interviews Derek Sivers. As Derek describes himself: "I’ve been a musician, circus …

2023-04-20

Sunk cost make smart people make bad decisions. We shouldn't feel like we are exonerated from this trap. The problem with sunk costs is that most people have a hard time ignoring them, even when they …

2023-04-20

Seth Godin, interviewed by LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky: I think I started my first business when I was 13, and ran a whole bunch of them through high school. In college, I co-founded the largest …

2023-04-19

On March 22, 2023, the Future of Life Institute[^future-of-life-institute] published an open letter proposing "all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more …

2023-04-18

In November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a conversational interface to GPT, their Large Language Model (LLM). ChatGPT took the world by storm, becoming the largest-growing product ever. Millions of …

2023-04-18

Nassim Taleb: I know very few people who, when they say they want to do something, end up doing it.

2023-04-11

An email from Bill Gates with a list of science books he planned to read: What's your reading list for this year?

2023-04-11

Cory Doctorow: Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. We're told that trillions of dollars' worth of crypto has been wiped out over the past year, but these losses are nowhere to be …

2023-03-31

Apple's CEO Tim Cook on changing your mind: My thinking always evolves. Steve taught me well: never to get married to your convictions of yesterday. To always, if presented with something new that …

2023-03-30

Three quotes from Tara Ploughman: "The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act." "The path from good to evil goes through bogus." "Never offer what you'd hate someone for accepting." …

2023-03-29

Kai-Fu Lee is a prominent figure in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). He has held senior positions at several major tech companies, including Google, Microsoft, and Apple. In addition to his …

2023-03-28

In an Interview with Lex Fridman, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman considers GPT "the most complex software object humanity has yet produced. And it will be trivial in a couple of decades." Not only is it clear …

2023-03-27

There is a balance between depth and width in friendship. Today, the term is still widely used. But most of us don’t naturally fall into friend pairs. Seeking them out, then, can lead to hurt—if we …

2023-03-22

Sometimes we mistake goals for strategy. Three ideas from Richard Rumelt[^good-bad-strategy] about this: [^good-bad-strategy]: cfr Rumelt, Richard. Good Strategy, Bad Strategy. "If you fail to …

2023-03-21

Some days ago I found a post on LinkedIn attacking Greta Thundberg with the occasion of her recent book The Climate Book. What was surprising to me is that most people criticizing Thundberg in the …

2023-03-20

Some days ago Microsoft announced Microsoft 365 Copilot, the integration of ChatGPT with Microsoft's productivity suite. You can watch the presentation below. (The video skips the initial fluff and …

2023-03-16

Kevin Kelly on Artificial Intelligence (AI), from an interview by Noah Smith: [R]ight now machine learning is overhyped. It is not sentient, and not as smart as it seems. What we are discovering is …

2023-03-14

Emotions are part of being human. But emotions can clutter our reasoning. When emotions get out of control, situations suddenly turn black and white. We generalize from a few cases. We become more …

2023-03-14

In his books What Technology Wants and Inevitable, Kevin Kelly explains his view of technology as a natural system, with biases that tilts in certain directions and not others. He calls the …

2023-03-07

Seth Godin, in This is Marketing: Here’s another difficult exercise, one that stretches the empathy muscle of a typical marketer: Those people who don’t buy from you, the ones who don’t take your …

2023-03-06

Rohan Rajiv, in A Learning a Day: Enthusiasm flows from optimism. And optimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

2023-03-05

From what I've seen, organizations tend to fall into one of two buckets: They are either open to feedback and are thankful to receive suggestions from their clients. They try to do great work but are …

2023-03-04

It's always worth considering things from the demand-side of the equation. Otherwise, you'll get the value proposition backwards, or don't understand while your customers don't behave as you …

2023-03-03

One of the benefits of writing and publishing often is that it allows you to test your ideas. On the other hand, I think that this is one of the reasons why many people shy away from writing online. …

2023-03-02

One of the problems of the Web3/Crytocurrencies/decentralization hype cycle of the past years was that even its most loyal evangelists had trouble finding real use cases. During the Web3 highs, there …

2023-03-01

When you can express what you do in numbers or repetitions, it becomes easy to track your progress. For example, you could keep count of how many pages you read every day. Not everything can be …

2023-02-28

From Atomic Habits, by James Clear: The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. As habits become routine, they become less interesting and less satisfying. We get bored. Anyone can …

2023-02-27

Tim Urban's recently published book, What's Our Problem, has reignited the discussion about echo chambers and what he calls idea labs. Echo chambers are environments where information and opinions …

2023-02-24

Have a point of view. Every day. Online of offline. Happy Ruckusmaker Day.

2023-02-21

From David Kadavy's Love Mondays Newsletter: This is a paradox of intelligence: Smart people are too smart to tell you you’re dumb. They know they can’t change your mind, and they’re smart enough to …

2023-02-20

Goals help us set the direction we want to go. But goals by themselves are rarely enough. As James Clear notes in his book Atomic Habits, "winners and losers have the same goals". If successful and …

2023-02-16

Cory Doctorow on Google layoffs: Just last year, Google laid off 12,000 staffers to please a private-equity "activist investor" – in the same year, it declared a $70b stock buyback, extracting enough …

2023-02-15

This article by Sacha Fast about Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman explains that Feynman kept a list of his 12 favorite problems. Whenever he learned something new, he checked if it helped to move …

2023-02-14

It seems that a new war started this month between Alphabet (Google) and Microsoft. Pundits specualte whether Alphabet needs a wartime CEO instead of the current one using analogies from The …

2023-02-12

I'm taking more pictures of everyday situations. One may think that those pictures are essentially the same. Same people, same places, similar situations, many times same background. And yet, they …

2023-02-10

It's hard to deny that Artificial Intelligence (AI) Large Language Models, and more specifically, ChatGPT, are taking the world by storm. Just two months after launching, ChatGPT is estimated to have …

2023-02-09

When we see things from the "supply side" instead of from the "demand side". The education system is caught up in the process of teaching and not the process of learning. They believe their job is to …

2023-02-08

Do external things distract you? Then make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions. But make sure you guard against the other kind of …

2023-02-08

Sometimes we fall into the trap of trying to find the absolute best way to do something. Most of the time, doing great work is not about finding the "best way" but about tradeoffs. We need to see …

2023-02-07

The problem with many side projects is that they only get marginal time. So, they stay as side projects forever or starve to death. Viewed from the outside, other people would call our effort a …

2023-02-06

I always liked Nassim Taleb's principle that you shouldn't trust the judgment of people who don't have skin in the game. Charlie Munger thinks along the same lines: responsible, reliable systems must …

2023-02-05

One of the things I remember from the university where I studied is that the bathrooms were always pristine. To keep them so, they were cleaned more than once a day. The classrooms were also always …

2023-02-04

Kindness is an underappreciated superpower. Sometimes it’s small gestures; a smile, holding the door open, a kind word or a compliment. Sometimes it’s something bigger where I go out of my way to try …

2023-02-03

A few weeks ago, Twitter announced it was shutting down all the APIs for developers. Nobody besides Twitter can create a Twitter client or integrate its software with Twitter. Apps like Tapbots's …

2023-02-02

Our culture's overemphasis on self-confidence can play against us. We may be reluctant to ask for help because it hurts our self-projected image. Other times, we may think that we know or understand …

2023-01-31

Life presents us with frequent opportunities to learn from others. To notice them, we need to be willing to learn. Try to learn from people who hold different oppinions than yours. Think of someone …

2023-01-30

From Marcus Aurelius' Meditations: When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like …

2023-01-29

John Gruber, in The Billions-Dollar VR/AR Headset Question, comments that while the appeal of all-day Augmented Reality (AR) glasses is clear, "we are obviously very far away from such devices being …

2023-01-28

A couple of days ago, after reading The Art of Noticing by Rob Walker, I tried a game with the kids. Close your eyes for 30 seconds and listen to the sounds around you. Then describe your findings. …

2023-01-27

Someone was complaining recently on Twitter that Google's search engine results are getting worse. As I wrote almost a year ago, it shouldn't surprise anyone that Google search results are getting …

2023-01-26

If you don't make deliberate choices about the information you consume, then someone else is deciding for you: a profit-maximizing algorithm, someone with a political agenda, etc. Maybe it's just …

2023-01-25

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, says that "you do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems." This in true in personal life as in business. What systems do you …

2023-01-24

We may think that having original ideas means starting from a blank slate. Or that people that have meaningful insights are somehow special. Artists used to say they were visited by a muse when …

2023-01-23

It's almost impossible for a public company to announce that they are going to reduce revenue or profits for the next quarter without taking a hit in its valuation. Short-term economic indicators …

2023-01-22

We recently bought The Earned Life, a documentary film about Marshall Goldsmith, starring Goldsmith himself. (The film shares the same name as Marshall's latest book.) The movie begins with Marshall …

2023-01-21

One aspect of long term-thinking is about not turning a blind eye to the consequences of our actions. When making decisions, if we don't consider the long-term effects, we may be missing an important …

2023-01-20

I have to recognize that until a couple of years ago, I had a hard time quitting—dropping—a book. Although I put some effort into deciding what to read next, you can never predict if a book is what …

2023-01-19

I've been following Cory Doctorow's fiction and non-fiction writing for several years now, so I knew what to expect of this book. Aside from the book's considerations about specific industries, I …

2023-01-18

In one of his recent podcast episodes, Lex Fridman interviews Jimmy Donaldson, best known as Mr. Beast. In case you don't know—I didn't, I know it now because of my kids—Mr. Beast YouTube's channel …

2023-01-17

In his post How to Make Behaviour Change Stick, Conor Neill explains that one reason why New Year's resolutions fail so frequently is that we start with unreasonable expectations. Unreasonable …

2023-01-16

We often get distracted not because we are attracted by distractions but because we don't want to face the discomfort required to do meaningful work. One way to deal with this tendency is to learn to …

2023-01-15

My wife pointed me to this HBR's article by Dorie Clark about giving a correct impression of the work you do. Sometimes—Clark explains—we may be underestimated by people we come into contact with for …

2023-01-10

Some companies seem driven by an obsessive need to maximize growth and profit whatever it takes. There are other companies, however, that are driven by a vision. Their leaders want to change for the …

2023-01-09

I'm always impressed by Seth Godin's clarity. In Blogs and Platforms and Permission, he recalls that when he started writing for FastCompany years ago, he decided that his column's goal would be to …

2023-01-08

One way of moving forward toward what is important for us is to realize that time is limited. The problem is that even knowing that time is finite, we tend to organize our hours and days as if time …

2023-01-07

I'm always surprisded when I find people being mean to others on the Internet. I follow Lex Fridman on Twitter and other media. Lex is a researcher scientist on Human-robot interaction and machine …

2023-01-06

In 2022 I read 31 non-fiction and 15 fiction books. (You can find the list of titles here.) Reading lists I didn't make a list of the books I wanted to read in 2022. Instead, I'm keeping a long list …

2023-01-05

I had been playing with ChatGPT for some time, but it was only after reading Hassan Osman's book ChatGPT for Nonfiction Authors that I started to realize its potential. For example, Hassan mentions …

2023-01-04

After finishing reading the 9 volumes of The Expanse novels by James A. Corey, today I started book #6 of Cormoran Strike's series, The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling). I was …

2023-01-03

Some weaknesses/blind spots we should be aware of: Not appreciating the struggles that other people deal with. Expecting that things get done more quickly than they actually can be done. Assuming …

2023-01-02

In September 2022 I committed to writing a post every day. With the exception of a few hiccups in December, I wrote most days. At first, I thought of writing the missing posts. But then I realized it …

2023-01-01

We only know a small part of most people's lives. In many cases, that's fine. We should just be mindful of this and not try to assume that we know everything about someone based on what we see or …

2022-12-31

Many reflections can be made on the last day of a year. For me, among other things, it's a date to be grateful for all the things that have come my way. Are you grateful for the year that's ending? …

2022-12-30

Some days ago I was walking with my wife along Malecón de Miraflores. Malecón de Miraflores is a waterfront promenade in the Miraflores district of Lima, Peru that stretches for about 5.5 kilometers …

2022-12-28

If you don't keep track of ideas, you will stop noticing you have them. Once you start keeping track of ideas, you'll get more of them. Everyone has good ideas, but few people bother to keep track of …

2022-12-22

From Annie Duke, Quit, p. 202. When the ants first get to a territory, they’re exploring it for opportunities. Once they find an opportunity, a high-quality food source, they start to exploit that. …

2022-12-21

Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort or tension that can occur when we hold two or more conflicting beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time. It can happen, for example, when information becomes …

2022-12-20

Kevin Kelly has a great talk titled The future will be shaped by optimists where he reminds us that optimism is a choice: Optimism definitely is not just a sunny temperament, a kind of a blindness to …

2022-12-17

In her book Quit. The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, Annie Duke explains a mental model that can help determine when we should quit a project. She calls it Monkeys and Pedestals. The idea is …

2022-12-16

Elon Musk seems to be having a hard time running Twitter. Depending on who you read, people may be either furious with Musk or just amused. Of course, this is not the first time people try to leave …

2022-12-15

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” ― St. Augustine

2022-12-14

Revue was a Dutch startup that offered a service for creating newsletters. It offered a generous free tier with unlimited subscribers, custom domains, and a nice, easy-to-use newsletter editor. For …

2022-12-12

There are two essential components to gratitude: a) recognizing that something positive has happened to us, and b) recognizing that there is an external source for this positive outcome. Articles …

2022-12-11

Marshall Goldsmith explains that "authentic empathy is doing your best to be the person you need to be for the people who are with you now.[^the-earned-life]" Empathy is not important because it …

2022-12-10

Every time some major political event happens, I can't help but think about Byung Chun Han's Infocracy. According to Chun Han, discursive rationality today is under threat from affective …

2022-12-09

Patrick Collison has this list of examples of people accomplishing ambitious things together. For me, it's a reminder that the time required for building something varies greatly depending on the …

2022-12-08

OpenAI realeased ChatGPT, which is as of today probably the best AI powered chatbot. (You can try it for free here.) For example: As impressive as ChatGPT output is, it strikes me that it doesn't …

2022-12-07

Again and again, people fall prey to promises of high and impossible short-term returns. It's worth noting that, even after being in prision serving sentence for fraud in 1922, Charles Ponzi still …

2022-12-06

Seth Godin recently posted on LinkedIn a great conversation with Matt Mullenweg about distribuited work and culture at Automattic. At the beginning of the conversation, Matt explains the concept of …

2022-12-05

Source: Thomas Gronfeldt on Mastodon.

2022-12-05

Gabriel Wyner proposes a method for learning languages that he developed for his profesional needs. Besides language learning, this book is great as a guide for training your memory and for that …

2022-12-04

A commercial is just a commercial. But this video from Apple about accessibility is just amazing. It's easy to forget how many things we take for granted.

2022-12-03

Some days ago I was explaining to someone about a peer advisory group I'm part of. The part of advice and support in a non-competitive, confidential environment all resonated with him. However, the …

2022-12-02

Now and then I find an article on why I should use to-do list manager X instead of Y. Many popular sites publish reviews of the best to-do list managers, comparing features in detail and choosing …

2022-12-01

Speaking of starting a blog, this is a great guide on how to get started: GetBlogging.org.

2022-12-01

Ben Hunt from Epsilon Theory explains Gell-Man Amnesia with a great quote from Michael Crichton, who coined the term: Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the …

2022-11-30

One of the reasons that overanalysis doesn't help too much for launching products or services is because of the uncertain nature of our world. We want certainty that things will work before making a …

2022-11-29

One positive, unintentional thing about Elon Musk's intent to rebuild Twitter by first demolishing everything and being the star of his own media show is that, for the first time in a very long time, …

2022-11-28

Shawn Blanc on motivation and meaningful work: Our emotional and motivated state is just as important (if not more important) as our finances, tools, work environment, and overall creative freedom. …

2022-11-28

Writing is an essential skill to acquire. Even if you don't plan to publish anything, writing is important because it helps you to clarify your thinking and discover weak spots in your reasoning. …

2022-11-27

The Mastodon social network is composed of individual Mastodon instances that connect to each other using a common protocol (ActivePub). As I wrote yesterday, one downside of this approach is that …

2022-11-26

One important difference between Mastodon and Twitter is that Mastodon doesn't have a business model. Mastodon is not a business. It's a microblogging software that runs on servers that connect to a …

2022-11-25

One of the reasons why many New Year's resolutions fail a few weeks after January 1st is that there is nothing inherently special about New Year that makes it easier to make change last. It's a good …

2022-11-24

Procrastination is one of the greatest enemies to producing meaningful work. The first step to beat procrastination is to show up every day. You can start small, aiming at consistency and then expand …

2022-11-23

Perpetual motion machines are impossible. They violate the fundamental laws of Thermodynamics: energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed from one state to another; some energy is always …

2022-11-22

Bending Spoons has acquired Evernote. I really hope they bring Evernote to a new level. This is a good moment to make sure our information is future-proof.

2022-11-21

From the great Alex & Books on Twitter:

2022-11-21

From Lawrence Cohen's book Playful Parenting: We don't want our children to be afraid, so we say, “There's nothing to be afraid of; don't be such a baby.” Or we say, “You don't have to go in the …

2022-11-21

Matt Mullenweg, cofounder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic and Tumblr, announced that they'll implement ActivityPub in Tumblr. ActivityPub is the protocol Mastodon's servers use to interconnect to …

2022-11-20

How FTX built a house of cards is a great article by Om Malik that nails most of what I think about the FTX scandal.

2022-11-20

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has recently invested twice in Adam Neumann's Flowcarbon and Flow, making the latter an instant unicorn when they haven't even started operations. It's not that Flowcarbon …

2022-11-19

One form of passive learning is reading what everybody else is reading. The same just-released books, the same news and posts curated by your favorite social network's algorithm. You'll learn what …

2022-11-18

Many people are considering alternatives to Twitter. While Mastodon has been on the news, let's not forget about Tumblr. Tumblr was founded by David Karp in 2007, and was acquired by Automattic in …

2022-11-17

The Earned Life, by Marshall Goldsmith Marshall Goldsmith has been recognized as one of the Top Ten Business Thinkers in the World and the top-rated executive coach at the Thinkers50 ceremony. The …

2022-11-16

One way to know if you have a boss or a leader is this: if they don't take feedback, they are bosses, not leaders. Adjust your expectations.

2022-11-16

Many times we see a thread on Twitter (or your favorite social network) from someone who has made a significant amount of money writing online or through a newsletter offering the perfect recipe for …

2022-11-15

In his book The Earned Life, Marshall Goldsmith explains the concept of accountability. Accountability is our response to expectations we impose on ourselves. Accountability can be private or public, …

2022-11-14

Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite fantasy writers. I've probably read most of his books. One thing about Brandon is that he's a writing machine. He can work on two or three books …

2022-11-13

Our minds try to extract patterns and explanations from everything. But don't forget that the world is complex and in many aspects impossible to understand. For example, can you be certain of how …

2022-11-12

What you measure is what you get. But what happens when important factors cannot be easily measured? After the pandemic, many companies have returned to normal in a version of hybrid work. Employees …

2022-11-11

Thanks to the recent Twitter drama, some users have migrated to Mastodon. Mastodon is a social network founded by German developer Eugen Rochko that runs on open-source software. Because of this, …

2022-11-10

When Microsoft went public in 1986, it used to be an article of faith that a company couldn't go public until it turned a profit. Not a path to profitability but profit. Then, massive investment …

2022-11-09

Are you a maximizer? Maximizers exhaustively seek the best, compare decisions with others, expend more time and energy. Also, according to this study, maximizers are unhappier with the outcomes. The …

2022-11-08

One of the most underrated tools for advancing your goals is committing to deadlines you set for yourself. Once you set a deadline for shipping something, the other pieces of the puzzle fall into …

2022-11-07

For the last few weeks, I've been watching my daughter and her 9-10 years old classmates play basketball against other schools. These are friendly matches and the level of the teams is not even. One …

2022-11-06

You won't get rid of fear, but this may help you dance with it and avoid paralysis. Sometimes you need to make a decision but you are afraid because of the uncertainties. You know that good decisions …

2022-11-06

"Assuming that “the other side” is stupid, evil, ignorant, hateful, or any other label, only proves that you have forgotten the person on the other side is just that... a person." Source: Jesse …

2022-11-05

After 10 years, Twitter still doesn't know how to turn a profit. By definition, companies should turn a profit in the long run. Sometimes these profits can come very late in the life of the company. …

2022-11-04

Maxims for Thinking Analytically by Dan Levy is a book about the teachings and wisdom of legendary Harvard professor Richard Zeckhauser[^richard-zeckhauser]. The book is structured around 19 maxims …

2022-11-03

From James Clear's 3-2-1 Nesletter In some areas of life, value is unlocked by starting. Even a five-minute workout or a short walk can reset your mood and benefit your body. In other areas, value is …

2022-11-03

Maps are tools that convey information about a complex reality in a simpler, more approachable way. While you can’t expect a map to represent reality's every single detail, it can be extremely useful …

2022-11-02

Big bets have their place. Sometimes the stakes are high and to be bold and go all-in, you need to think things through and plan accordingly. However, sometimes you are stuck because you are trying …

2022-11-01

'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?' 'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. 'I don't much care where–' said Alice. 'Then it doesn't matter …

2022-10-31

I don't remember exactly when I deleted the Facebook app from my cellphone, but it was probably in January 2019. I didn't delete the account, though. I just wanted the app out of my phone. On my …

2022-10-30

Naval Ravikant, interviewed by Tim Ferris in Tribe of Mentors, makes the point that nowdays knowledge is widely available: The genuine love for reading itself, when cultivated, is a superpower. We …

2022-10-29

If you improve by 1% a year on a skill, it will take you seventy years[^seventy-years] to double on that skill. If you improve by 1% every day, that's around 37% a year. Difficult, but not …

2022-10-28

One of the things that struck me while reading about Google shutting down a customer account is that nobody is shocked that Google regularly scans the photos on your phone. It's not easy to grasp …

2022-10-27

Jason Fried, the co-founder of 37signals, recently wrote a post titled Do you have to love what you do? He doesn't buy Steve Jobs's affirmation at Stanford in 2005 where jobs says that "the only way …

2022-10-26

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Cybersecurity is not only important for companies and governments. It's also important for families and individuals. For example, many online services offer …

2022-10-25

Every time I receive an invite for an online event that I'm interested in, I sign up, don't attend the broadcast, and listen later to the recording. Listening to the recording later has many …

2022-10-24

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman used a four-step method for learning: Pretend that you are teaching what you want to learn to a child. Identify the gaps in your explanation. Go back to …

2022-10-23

In a few days lots of kids will go crazy about their costumes, and all the candies they are going to collect and eat. Please, don't buy cheap chocolate. * * * One key ingredient of …

2022-10-23

All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem. It may be a problem of where to obtain the facts or how to organize the material. It may be a problem of approach or attitude, tone or …

2022-10-22

Inversion is a mental model that helps us analyze situations and make better decisions. Instead of aiming directly at your goal, you use inversion to think deeply about what you want to avoid from …

2022-10-21

Debbie Millman, in Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferris, p. 26: Busy is a decision. (…) If we use busy as an excuse for not doing something, what we are really saying is it’s not a priority. Simply put: …

2022-10-21

Shane Parrish writes that to achieve great results it's the small details that matter. "One more revision. One more edit. One more look. One more walk-through. One more rep. One more hour. One more …

2022-10-20

Clarity about the problem we need to solve is the first step toward making a good decision. This is obvious. Many times, however, the discussion turns around some aspect that is not the real problem: …

2022-10-19

Seth Godin on writing daily: The secret to writing a daily blog is to write every day. And to queue it up and blog it. There is no other secret.

2022-10-19

I've been writing on and off on this blog since 2005. I probably started a couple of years before, but those posts are lost. 30 days ago, on September 19th, I committed to writing a daily post. I've …

2022-10-18

In his book Infocracy, Byung-Chun Han writes about–and criticizes–the Behaviorist theory of information. Byung-Chun calls the proponents of this theory "dataist". "Dataist" think that digitalization …

2022-10-17

Talking about the role of AI in Meta's offerings in a recent interview on Stratechery, Mark Zuckerberg explained his vision of what people want when using social apps: You have a few minutes and you …

2022-10-16

Organizing your day around your Most Important Task (MIT) is not an original concept. The idea is simple and effective. Each day, define the task you need to get done to advance your goals and work …

2022-10-15

Are you eager to work remotely using a VR headset over your face full-time? Probably not. Even if you got the new $1,500 Oculus headset for free, you would probably use it for a few days, until the …

2022-10-14

Byun Chun Han in Infocracy: Digitization and the Crisis of Democracy about how the information society makes rational decisions difficult: Rationality is also time-intensive. Rational decisions …

2022-10-14

There is a tendency to surround ourselves with people who approve of how we think or behave. We seek acceptance and confirmation, we have a need for belonging. Especially if there is the possibility …

2022-10-13

Some days ago, during Meta Connect Keynote 2022, Meta announced a partnership with Microsoft to bring Teams, Office, Windows, and Xbox to Virtual Reality. It's no secret that despite Facebook's …

2022-10-13

From an excellent article by Rohan Rajiv of A Learning a Day: I’ve observed two trends in our history. The first is that the interval between transitions has gotten smaller and smaller. The last …

2022-10-12

If Google decided to cancel your Google account, you would lose access to Gmail and all your email, your YouTube account and any video you've uploaded. You would lose any app or content, either free …

2022-10-11

Regardless of what you think about climate change, there is no excuse for not going deep enough into this subject to gain an independent understanding of what's really going on. Make a list of the …

2022-10-10

Critical thinking is one of those areas where we can always improve, especially considering the abundance of information that reaches us every day. Albert Rutherford, in his book Lessons from …

2022-10-10

From The Carbon Almanac, p. 35: People tend to underestimate the most impactful climate actions like voting for leaders who are prepared to fight the climate problem, while overestimating less …

2022-10-09

It only takes a few minutes every day to think about what you're grateful for in life. We may sometimes forget that Gratitude is a habit. There are many things we take for granted we should be …

2022-10-08

If you want to make serious progress, measurement and accountability are the proven way to go. "Measurement is the truest indicator of our priorities—because what we measure drives out what we …

2022-10-07

According to the theory of learned helplessness, if we learn through an experience or other means that outcomes are independent of our response--that nothing we do matters--then we will generalize …

2022-10-06

From XKCD: Bigger Problems:

2022-10-06

How do you feel when you meet with friends for a coffee or a beer and they put the latest top-of-the-line cell phone on the table, while you put your trusty three-years-old model? Would you pay an …

2022-10-05

Just as the environment influences our choices, the tools we use influence what gets done and how. I've never been able to quite engage in journaling. I realized recently that part of the problem is …

2022-10-04

In 2016, Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired Magazine, wrote The Inevitable, a book about 12 technological forces that according to Kelly will shape our future. One of these forces is Accessing. …

2022-10-04

David Peril wrote 28 pieces of life advice in his Monday Musings Newsletter. My two favorite: n. 3 If you want to explore a new skill, don’t just consume information. Do the thing too. If you want to …

2022-10-03

Two years and a half after unveilling its video game streaming service Stadia at Google's Developer Conference, Google announced on September 29 that Stadia is shutting down. Phil Harrison, VP and …

2022-10-02

A good explanation and commentary by Rohan Rajiv about Patagonia's Founder Yvon Chouinard move to donate Patagonia's profits to climate change: Understanding the Patagonia Move.

2022-10-02

How do you value your time? Naval Ravikant, the entrepreneur and investor co-founder of AngelList, took this literally and put a mental hourly rate on his time, so he could have more clarity when …

2022-10-01

In an episode of the How I Build This podcast, Guy Raz interviews WordPress' founder Matt Mullenweg about the early years of WordPress. WordPress powers around 25% of the websites on the Internet. In …

2022-09-30

There is no magic formula for starting a business. There is always risk and things that might not work. But our brain--or maybe our lack of confidence--tries to see patterns and extract fail-safe …

2022-09-30

Source: BonkersWorld

2022-09-29

Some considerations about podcasting as an industry, mostly for my own future reference: As of 2022, there are around 2 million active podcasts, and 48 million published episodes. According to the …

2022-09-29

Two short videos of Steve jobs on The Secrets of Life and Failure. (The owner of the content has disabled playback outside of YouTube, so you'll actually have to click on the links and go to YouTube …

2022-09-28

Podcasts are a great way of learning from the experience of others. Through conversations, you get access to the thinking of people that you normally would not have access to. Podcasts can also be an …

2022-09-27

Askinosie Chocolate is a small-batch chocolate company that sources 100% of its cocoa beans directly from farmers in Ecuador, the Philippines, and Tanzania. It also shares company profits with those …

2022-09-26

In a recent event in September, Apple introduced a new iPhone lineup--the iPhone 14--, a new AirPod model, new Apple Watches, updates to some of their streaming offers, and new versions of its …

2022-09-25

What makes a decision great is not its great outcome, but that it's the result of a good process. Many complex situations in life and business are complex. They are in the realm of the "known …

2022-09-25

From a post from Dean Caravelis on LinkedIn: I asked Seth Godin about who is the most outrageously remarkable person he has ever met? His response was sage advice and worth sharing: "I think it’s …

2022-09-24

Commitment makes all the difference between good intentions and progress. Lex Friedman has a great interview with Tim Urban of Wait But Why fame. At one point the conversation turned to how to read …

2022-09-24

From The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, by Eric Jorgsen: Value your time at an hourly rate, and ruthlessly spend to save time at that rate. You will never be worth more than you think you’re worth.

2022-09-23

I've been blogging since 2005 at least. For several years I hosted this site on my own server instance. There are more efficient ways to have a presence on the web. But running your server has many …

2022-09-22

As part of LinkedIn Speaker Series, Rohan Rajiv from A Learning a Day had a great conversation with Seth Godin. The idea was to discuss the biggest lessons from The Carbon Almanac, a global movement …

2022-09-21

When facing a problem, it's critical to spend time finding better solutions than the ones you already have. "Your biggest problem is a lack of a truly great idea, and you must solve that rather than …

2022-09-21

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law Source: Hofstadter's Law, Wikipedia.

2022-09-20

Some time ago, I made the decision to keep most of my documents and data in formats that would survive the passing of time. Products get killed. That document created using an old version of …

2022-09-19

Don't be passive about what reaches your brain. Passively consuming information means someone else is curating your information diet. (Someone else, or someone else's algorithm...) Some questions you …

2022-09-12

Seth Godin, Who cares: No one cares. That happens rarely. Someone cares. That happens all the time, and it’s at the heart of our work. Everyone cares. Almost never. Someone is enough. In fact, …

2022-09-10

In 2005, Steve Jobs gave a commencement address at Stanford University. I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. …

2022-09-05

Shane Parrish interviewing Gary Klein in The Knowledge Project Podcast, #144: How do we identify the difference between people who know what they’re talking about and not? And to this point, one of …

2022-09-01

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2022-09-01

Values are just words on a page/wall until we use them to make decisions that cost us money, time, or something else that we consider valuable. That process transforms a value to a virtue – an idea …

2022-08-14

Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross about self-improvement in Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World: If a person improves, say, only 1 percent a year in terms of …

2022-08-11

Farnam Street has a very good article explaining some of the techniques used by Nobel Laurette Richard Feynman for evaluating information. The topic is relevant as ever. A large part of wisdom is …

2022-08-01

Enrique Dans about what TIkTok is about: Some people spend all day creating something stupid, and others spend all day watching them (oh, sorry, it can be used for other things… in 0.05% of cases). …

2022-07-31

In The Art of Reading: How to be a Demanding Reader, Shane Parrish writes that "reading a book, for any reason, is essentially an effort on your part to ask the book questions (and to answer them to …

2022-06-30

Marshall Goldsmith, in his book The Earned Life, writes that it took him decades to understand why otherwise intelligent people could hold values and believes that didn't make sense to him: If you …

2022-06-23

This is the secret of living an earned life: It is lived at the extremes. You are maximizing what you need to do, minimizing what you deem unnecessary. From The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose …

2022-06-14

In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, …

2022-06-12

How should we think about technology? How do we know if some technology is going to have an impact, or just pass away like many of them before? How do we anticipate its uses and side-effects? Kevin …

2022-06-08

From xkcd's False Dichotomy:

2022-06-07

One critical skill that gets a lot of attention is the ability to take things from idea to reality, to make things happen. There is no silver bullet for doing this. In order to be a 10x performer at …

2022-06-02

Imaginable by Jane McGonigal is a book about the future. More precisely, a book about engaging with possible futures. Why should we engage in a simulation of the future? What's its use? The future is …

2022-05-29

Donald Knuth on pursuing a PhD: A PhD is awarded for research, meaning that the student has contributed to the state of the world's knowledge. That's quite different from a bachelor's degree or a …

2022-05-23

Dorie Clark is the author of The Long Game, a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, and teaches executive education at Duke's University Fuqua School of Business and at Columbia …

2022-05-18

Taylor Pearson writing about how company culture and how It Can Be Worth $150 Million: After AirBnB closed out their Series C raising $200 million in a round led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, the …

2022-05-09

Hugh Jackman on The Tim Ferriss' Show: If you tell most, sort of, A-type athletes to run at their 85 percent capacity, they will run faster than if you tell them to run 100 because it's more about …

2022-05-09

Wordpress is... Wordpress is steadily gaining marketshare. As of January 2021, 32% of all websites in the World use Wordpress, the runner-ups being Shopify with 4.3%, and Wix with 2.3%. being Joomla …

2022-05-06

The frames our minds create define—and confine—what we perceive to be possible. Every problem, every dilemma, every dead end we find ourselves facing in life, only appears unsolvable inside a …

2022-04-17

An unedited conversation between Elon Musk and the always outstanding Chris Anderson at TED2022.

2022-04-09

There is a fascinating chapter in Imaginable where the author, Jane McGonigal, explains the effect of the timeline set for thinking ahead, setting goals, or even day-to-day work[^imaginable]. On a …

2022-04-07

Urgent Optimism as defined by Jane McGonigal in Imaginable (p. 32) Urgent optimism is a balanced feeling. It’s recognizing that, yes, there are great challenges and risks ahead, while also staying …

2022-04-06

By definition, a sunk cost is a cost that has already been incurred. One of the essentials of decision-making is realizing the need to ignore sunk costs and consider only what is going to happen in …

2022-04-01

Warren Buffet, quoted by Peter Bevelin in A Few Lessons for Investors and Managers: Watch out for managers who seduce me with fancy predictions. A few of this managers will prove prophetic--but …

2022-03-28

David Kadavy on his Love Mondays Newsletter: The difference between pro and amateur creators: Amateurs expect everything to work. So, the amateur leaves in their wake a trail of half-finished and …

2022-03-13

If you'd like to do something bold with your life, you will have to choose to do something bold on a specific day. There is no perfect day. There is no right time. For the trajectory to change, there …

2022-02-25

If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it. And someone who never writes has no fully …

2022-02-19

Three quotes about the difference between working like an amateur and being a professional: Seth Godin, in This is Marketing: If you need to be authentic to do your best work, you’re not a …

2022-02-03

Things rarely go according to plan. Getting off course is part of the journey. This may be obvious, but somehow we keep forgetting about it. Even so, planning is important. "Not ending up where we …

2022-01-27

Three quotes about commitment: Commitment and motivation are closely related. Leo Babauta, Zen Habits: When I’m truly committed, there is a deeper feeling, in my gut, that there is no way I’m going …

2022-01-26

Tim Urban: Feed a man a fish, feed him for a night. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to reason from first principles, he can teach himself to fish. Then he can invent a …

2022-01-24

Today I finally ditched Google for my personal domain's email. Google has announced that on May 1, 2022, it's ending the free tier I've been using for more than 10 years to host my domain's email. I …

2022-01-24

The history of ideas is a history of gradually discarding the assumption that it's all about us. Paul Graham, See Randomness

2022-01-22

Google has announced it is closing G Suite free edition. Current users have until May 1, 2022 to upgrade to one of Google's paid service, or move their mail to another provider. Google Suite, …

2022-01-20

You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act. Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life, p. 101

2022-01-20

Our ego gets in the way of capitalizing on the margin of safety that is produced by knowing more than you need to. Often we learn enough to solve today’s problem but not enough to solve tomorrow’s. …

2022-01-19

You don't need to play tennis to read this book, although you must be aware that some parts contain detailed descriptions of tennis games and techniques. This book promises to teach the mental side …

2022-01-17

One of the things I'm always looking to improve is note-taking. Taking notes, by itself, improves retention and understanding of what you read. The real benefit, however, is that in the long-term, …

2022-01-16

Explanation settles issues, showing that matters must end as they have. Narrative raises issues, showing that matters do not end as they must but as they do. Explanations sets the need for further …

2022-01-16

Three reasons you may be falling behind in personal side-projects: Fear of failing, masked behind over-analysis or the search for an impossible certainty of success. Specially if those projects are …

2022-01-15

As one achieves focus, the mind quiets. As the mind is kept in the present, it becomes calm. Focus means keeping the mind now and here. Relaxed concentration is the supreme art because no art can be …

2022-01-14

Money and habits are not the only things that benefit from the law of compound interest. So do losses, errors, and vices. From James Clear's 3-2-1 Thursday Newsletter: Sometimes in life, you will …

2022-01-11

Last year I read this article by Derek Sivers. What he proposes is to ignore arbitrary calendar dates if they don't make sense. We are on the second week of 2022 and I have a bad feeling in my …

2021-12-27

People don't deny the obvious because they "have a cogent argument about why it's wrong." They deny it because they think it will make their life better, even if there is strong evidence that they …

2021-12-24

I read 28 non-fiction books in 2021. Here is what I learned this year: I made a list of the books I planned to read at the beginning of the year. Making a list of the books you want to read gives you …

2021-12-13

Shane Parrish interviews Seth Godin on The Knowledge Project Podcast. A 6-minute clip of the interview.

2021-10-22

Courage is calling is the first in a book series by Ryan Holiday about courage, wisdom, justice, and temperance, the four cardinal virtues. As C.S. Lewis explains, "courage is not simply one of the …

2021-10-22

The short version of Chesterton's Fence is to never take a fence down if we don't know the reason why it was put up. The long version, by the great G.K. Chesterton, is worth reading: In the matter of …

2021-10-17

Without enchantment and fantasy, we face no mysteries, only static things we have not rationally explained yet. Without mystery, there is no humility; and when humility shrinks, societies rot from …

2021-10-02

No one can tell you that your plan will succeed. No one can tell you what their answer to your question will be. No one can guarantee you'll make it home alive. They can't even tell you how far down …

2021-09-30

It's hard to convey knowledge. While books are a great way of standing on the shoulders of giants, reading a book by itself is not enough to absorb the author's teachings and content. You need to …

2021-09-02

In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn't read all the time—none, zero. You'd be amazed at how much Warren reads—and at how much I read. My children …

2021-08-24

With emacs and gnus, one must serve a long penance, after which shit still doesn't quite work but you've achieved a deep symbiosis with your editor/mailer and can tailor it to your very precise …

2021-08-17

The quotes, talks, and speeches presented here are rooted in the old-fashioned Midwestern values for which Charlie has become known: lifelong learning intellectual curiosity, sobriety, avoidance of …

2021-08-03

When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - When you see …

2021-08-01

Kevin Kelly's Should I work on this? flowchart

2021-07-10

Steve Wozniak speaks on the right to repair your equipment.

2021-06-27

I wouldn't want to work on anything I didn't want to take over my life. -- Paul Graham, A Project of One's Own

2021-06-24

In social networks, the function of 'friends' is primarily to heighten narcissism by granting attention, as consumers, to the ego exhibited as a commodity. -- Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, p. …

2021-06-15

The concept of nation-states as we know today is fairly recent[1]. According to James Dale and William Rees in their book The Sovereign Individual, thanks to the Information Age the nation-state may …

2021-06-13

Hace unos cinco años escribí No son estúpidos, ni malvados, un artículo sobre lo difícil que puede ser la empatía con personas que tienen puntos de vista distintos al nuestro en temas importantes o …

2021-06-05

Jakub Zaiste interviews Henrik Lissner, Doom Emacs creator.

2021-06-05

If you’re a writer or an activist or anyone else engaged in critical synthesis, then the news-stories, ideas, sights and sounds you encounter are liable to tug at your attention: this is a piece of …

2021-05-26

What seems like a difference in talent often comes down to a difference in focus. Focus turns good performers into great performers. Two keys to focus are saying no to distractions and working on the …

2021-05-18

Marshall McLuhan was one of the best technology theorists of the 20th century. Whenever he evaluated a new technology, he asked: 'What does the new medium, when pushed to its limits, reverse or flip …

2021-05-14

Una de las reglas propuestas por Jordan Peterson en su libro 12 Reglas para vivir dice: Da por hecho que la persona a la que escuchas puede saber algo que tú no sabes (Regla 9). Peterson comparte un …

2021-05-13

One of the rules proposed by Jordan Peterson in his book 12 Rules for Life says: Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't (Rule 9). Peterson explains a simple rule …

2021-05-12

The final type of conversation, akin to listening, is a form of mutual exploration. It requires true reciprocity on the part of those listening and speaking. It allows all participants to express and …

2021-05-04

2021-05-03

Circumstances change, so can you. Positive feedback loops, adding effect to effect, can spiral counterproductively in a negative direction, but can also work to get you ahead. That's the other, far …

2021-04-30

Part of the attractive of this book are its authors. Jake Knapp spent 10 years at Google and Google Ventures, co-founded Google Meet, and among other products worked on the Gmail team. John Zeratsky …

2021-04-29

Sometimes, you have to make a decision that implies choosing between two negative outcomes. This is called the lesser evil principle. How do you make the best decision in this context? Some ideas …

2021-04-28

A veces hay que tomar una decisión que implica escoger entre dos opciones malas. Es lo que se llama decidir por el mal menor. ¿Cómo llegar a la mejor decisión en este contexto? Detallo a continuación …

2021-04-21

The casino operator said: "What I love is the risk. Some nights we make money, and other nights we make more money 1." Peter Bevelin, Seeking Wisdom. From Darwin to Munger, p. 152  ↩

2021-04-21

2021-04-19

Democracy is not majority dictatorship.

2021-04-15

Lives of the Stoics is a collection of short biographies. Like other books about Stoicism written by the authors, Lives of the Stoics does not pretend to dive deeply into the philosophy of the Stoics …

2021-04-14

It's remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent. There must be some wisdom in the folk …

2021-04-13

Warren Buffet on why even smart people get bad results, quoted by Peter Bevelin in Seeking Wisdom. From Darwin to Munger (p.36): It's ego. It's greed. It's fead. It's mindless imitation of other …

2021-04-10

A book given. A book read. Such a simple exchange, but done between the right two people at the right time—as it was here—can be enough to change the world. -- Ryan Holiday, Lives of the Stoics

2021-04-08

Doom Emacs uses spell-fu as the default highlighter for spellchecking. spell-fu can use several options like aspell, hunspell, enchant, etc. for the actual spellchecking. I prefer to use Hunspell. …

2021-03-25

According to Venkatesh Rao, MacLeod's Company Hierarchy is the cornerstone of The Gervais Principle, which supersedes both the Peter Principle 1 and The Dilbert Principle 2. Laurence J. Peter, states …

2021-03-13

Remember, always, that everything you know, and everything everyone knows, is only a model. Get your model out there where it can be viewed. Invite others to challenge your assumptions and add their …

2021-02-15

Ellen Ochoa's questions about every launch and important operational decision at NASA: What leads you to that assumption? Why do you think it is correct? What might happen if it's wrong? What are the …

2021-02-13

Adam Grant on challenge networks: The first rule [of the Good Fight Club]: avoiding an argument is bad manners. Silence disrespects the value of your views and our ability to have a civil …

2021-02-04

Efficiencies are for robots. Opportunities, on the other hand, are for humans. (...) The problem with trying to measure productivity is that it measures only how well people can do the wrong jobs. …

2021-01-14

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill--the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill--you …

2021-01-04

Picking what books to read is always challenging. Time is limited, and even the fastest reader can only read a handful of books in her lifetime. Through the years I've collected some criteria for …

2021-01-02

Facebook hace dinero recolectando información sobre sus usuarios y vendiéndola como publicidad cuidadosamente segmentada. El 2019, Facebook tuvo ingresos por 55,838 millones de dólares, de los cuales …

2021-01-02

Facebook makes money from collecting data about its users and selling it as precisely targeted advertising. In 2019, Facebook reported a total revenue of 55,838 Million Dollars, 98% of which came …

2020-12-23

Reading science, math, and philosophy one hour per day will likely put you at the upper echelon of human success within seven years. -- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

2020-12-07

The most interesting and the most important form of leverage is the idea of products that have no marginal cost of replication. This is the new form of leverage. This was only invented in the last …

2020-11-05

Solvable problems are usually solved by surprising, non-trivial alternatives. If an obvious solution from an obvious source could have provided an answer, it would have happened already. Instead, …

2020-10-13

Fron Ray Dalio's Principles: Life and Work, p. 195-198: Closed-minded people don't want their ideas challenged. Open-minded people are more curious about why there is disagreement. Closed-minded …

2020-10-09

En la década de los 50, Thomas F. Carter inventó el Carterfone, un dispositivo que, mediante un acoplador acústico, conectaba un equipo de radio de banda civil a un teléfono normal. Una vez …

2020-10-06

Patagonia's Dean Carter at i4cp 2020 Conference.

2020-09-24

If you’re like most people, you have no clue how other people see things and aren’t good at seeking to understand what they are thinking, because you’re too preoccupied with telling them what you …

2020-09-22

Un tema frecuente durante la pandemia es que los chicos se conecten a sus clases virtuales por Zoom. Por algún motivo que desconozco, el colegio de mis hijos envia cada semana un PDF con el horario …

2020-09-19

Amazon Kindle's ecosystem lets you buy an ebook and begin reading seconds after purchasing it. However, as most of Amazon's book are DRM-protected, you cannot make a backup of your library or convert …

2020-09-04

Apple is positioning itself as a company who cares for your privacy. (Not necessarily for your budget, though...)

2020-09-01

2020-08-31

I believe in “earning” any best-in-class tools; start out cheap and move up through use. -- Kevin Kelly, Recommendo Issuue #215, August 23, 2020.

2020-08-30

2020-08-08

We need to remind ourselves often that we don’t know everything. The Dunning Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that states that when you lack knowledge or expertise, you’re not in a position to …

2020-07-31

Good educators ensure we remember and apply one core idea they shared for the rest of our lives. Great educators make us fall in love with the subject. Outstanding educators – a rare breed – make us …

2020-07-17

Talking Heads was a great band from 1975 to 1988. Their lyrics were evocative and mysterious specific but vague and made you wonder what they were really about. David Byrne, the main songwriter of …

2020-07-01

Seth Godin on Stolen ideas The internet is a copying machine. Ideas morph and change and spin as they move from one end to the other. Ripping ideas off wholesale and violating intellectual property …

2020-06-16

(...) consider Whole Earth Catalog creator Stewart Brand’s idea that significant, impactful ideas will require at least five years of focused action to complete. Subtract your current age from …

2020-06-12

Frederick P. Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month", 1972: The sheer joy of making things... the fascination of fashioning complex puzzle-like objects of interlocking moving parts and watching them work in …

2020-06-10

"Storytellers do not convert their listeners; they do not move them into the territory of a superior truth. Ignoring the issue of truth and falsehood altogether, they offer only vision. Storytelling …

2020-06-08

David Perell, in 50 Ideas that Changed my Life: Competition is for Losers: Avoid competition. Stop copying what everybody else is doing. If you work at a for-profit company, work on problems that …

2020-06-08

Celeste Headlee at TEDxCreativeCoast, talking about 10 ways to have a better conversation: Many of you have already heard a lot of advice on this, things like look the person in the eye, think of …

2020-06-06

James P. Carse in Finite and Infinite Games: Because infinite players prepare themselves to be surprised by the future, they play in complete openness. it is not an openness as in candor, but an …

2020-05-27

Matt Mullenweg in Gradually, then Suddenly: (...) the illusion that the office was about work will be shattered forever, and companies that hold on to that legacy will be replaced by companies who …

2020-05-11

Ben Thompson writing about Aggregation Theory: Aggregation Theory is a completely new way to understand business in the Internet age. Business schools suggest that with the right frameworks, an …

2020-05-08

Don't let the limited idea of intelligence that permeates some schools define your child's intelligence: One of the deep problems in education, which should concern you as a parent, is the limited …

2020-05-05

Seth Godin, writing about Self, Community and Motivation, explains that in the short term, you can get people to do what's needed by replacing a "rational, generous, community mindset" with "an …

2020-05-03

If you decide that it's important for you to stop complying and start creating, the first thing to do is change your framework, the worldview you bring to your work. The framework changes what we see …

2020-05-02

Damien Newman's Design Squiggle

2020-05-01

Writing for The Economist about COVID19, Bill Gates explains that life will not return to normal until most of the population is vaccinated. People have a natural aversion to exposing themselves to …

2020-04-29

How to identify what a good path-forward is for you, career-wise? How do you find your life’s work? Two parts, second part first. Your life’s work is the work you did over the course of your life. …

2020-04-20

2020-04-18

Shane Parrish trabajaba como experto de seguridad en la principal agencia de inteligencia de Canadá, cuando los sucesos del 9 de setiembre de 2001 hicieron que cambiara su mundo. Fue acelerado por …

2020-04-18

An ignorant mind is precisely not a spotless, empty vessel, but one that’s filled with the clutter of irrelevant or misleading life experiences, theories, facts, intuitions, strategies, algorithms, …

2020-04-15

Shane Parrish was a cybersecurity expert at Canada’s top intelligence agency when the world suddenly changed on September 11, 2001. He “was thrust into a series of promotions for which I had received …

2020-04-14

Jimmy Fallon, Sting, and The Roots singing The Police's Don't Stand so Close to Me. #COVID19

2020-04-12

Daniel Pink: The surprising truth about what motivates us.

2020-04-05

I like this Nike commercial because the message of the hero is not just a powerful “I can”. It’s not pure voluntarism. Her obstacles are real. And her goal is a goal that would be difficult even …

2020-04-05

Me gusta este comercial de Nike porque el mensaje de la héroe no es solamente un poderoso “sí puedo”. No se trata de un voluntarismo vacío. Sus obstáculos son reales y patentes, y la meta que se …

2020-04-04

The key to better understanding the world is to build a latticework of mental models. -- Shane Parrish, The Great Mental Models, Vol. 1

2020-03-25

What we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original — if you’re not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost …

2020-03-23

In the absence of continual external reinforcement, we must be our own monitor, and quality of presence is often the best gauge. We cannot expect to touch excellence if “going through the motions” is …

2020-03-22

In 2002, 400 of the world’s most talented jeans makers were suddenly put out of work when their employer outsourced denim production overseas. Overnight, 10 percent of the population of Cardigan, …

2020-03-18

From Wikipedia: In April 2010, Kevin Kelly cited the phrase "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution", and called it the "Shirky Principle".

2020-03-16

Any sufficiently advanced technology is equivalent to Magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke AI is being applied to tasks. Anything task related in your job will probably be automated. Either because your …

2020-03-16

Absolutely true.

2020-03-12

Amazon acaba de anunciar que licenciará su tecnología de tiendas sin cajero a otros operadores de retail y de tiendas de conveniencia bajo el nombre de Just Walk Out. Just Walk Out es tecnología que …

2020-03-11

Amazon just announced that it is licensing Just Walk Out, its cashier-less convenience store technology, to other convenient stores and retailers. Just Walk Out is a technology that relies heavily on …

2020-03-03

A short video from Matt Mullenweg about distributed work.

2020-02-14

I don’t want to optimize for work, and I don’t want to optimize for family time. I want to optimize for life. I get one life and I don’t want to look back at 90 yelling I regret doing or not doing …

2020-02-09

It’s never been a better time for self-motivated people. Anyone connected to the internet has the education power of a university and the distribution power of a media company at their fingertips. …

2020-02-08

Todo el mundo tiene ideas. Pocos las ponen en práctica. Kevin Kelly, en su libro What Technology Wants, citando a Jay Walker: "Puede haber decenas de miles de personas que conciben la posibilidad de …

2020-02-08

Everybody has ideas, few put them into action. “There might be tens of thousands of people who conceive the possibility of the same invention at the same time. But less than one in ten of them …

2020-02-06

This article by Ryan Holiday offers a comprehensive and at the same time practical take on journaling: The Timeless Art of Journaling: How To Start Journaling, Benefits of Journaling, and More

2020-02-04

En una de las sesiones de la reunión anual del World Economic Forum de este año (2020) en Davos, Yuval Harari habló de los peligros de la disrupción tecnológica. Harari es autor, entre otros, del …

2020-02-04

Yuval Harari is best known for his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos this year (2020), he focused his talk on the dangers of …

2020-01-31

Han pasado ya más de 20 años desde la fundación de Google, y el negocio de publicidad sigue siendo la fuente de ingresos más importante de Alphabet. (En 2015, Google creó Alphabet como un holding que …

2020-01-29

More than 20 years after its founding, Google’s advertising business remains the largest source of Alphabet’s income. (Alphabet is Google's parent company.) While 2019 results have not yet been …

2020-01-14

Seth Godin: Here’s something to consider: the world doesn’t get better when you spend more time engaging with mass media. That’s pretty clear. But it does get better when you spend more time doing …

2020-01-14

Naval: (...) technology is everything that doesn’t work yet. Technology is around us everywhere. The spoon was technology once; fire was technology once. When we figured out how to make them work, …

2020-01-09

Encontré esta cita releyendo las notas que tomé cuando leí Deep Work de Cal Newport el 2017: Dos habilidades claves para destacar en la Nueva Economía: La habilidad de dominar rápidamente temas …

2020-01-09

I read Deep Work by Cal Newport on 2017. I found this quote rereading my notes: Two Core Abilities for Thriving in the New Economy The ability to quickly master hard things. The ability to produce at …

2020-01-07

In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro. -- Thomas a Kempis Everywhere I have sought peace and not found it, except in a corner with a book. Each of us needs to put …

2020-01-06

As I've written before, we live in an age where self-learning becomes more relevant every day. As less people read books, reading becomes a real competitive advantage. It’s a very effective way of …

2020-01-06

Como ya he comentado antes, vivimos en una época en que el autoaprendizaje es cada día más relevante. En la medida en la que menos gente lee libros, leer se puede convertir en una ventaja competitiva …

2020-01-05

James Clear on goals: You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Your goal is your desired outcome. Your system is the collection of daily habits that will get …

2019-12-20

Cada tanto me vuelvo a encontrar con unos comentarios de Ira Glass sobre el trabajo creativo 1. Traducido libremente, Glass viene a decir que cuando uno está empezando, tiene la visión de lo que …

2019-12-14

Ryan Holiday, in How To Digest Books Above Your “Level” And Increase Your Intelligence: (...) in an age where almost nobody reads, you can be forgiven for thinking that the simple act of picking up a …

2019-12-06

The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life: a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, …

2019-11-25

Paul Graham writing about great work and genius in The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius: (…) the most exciting implication of the bus ticket theory is that it suggests ways to encourage great work. If the …

2019-11-14

I was reading an old article by Y Combinator's founder Paul Graham titled Microsoft is Dead, written in 2007. His point was that in 2007, nobody --meaning nobody in the startup scene, or nobody who …

2019-11-06

I love Python, so I maybe somewhat biassed about this article on Dropbox’s Blog: Thank You, Guido

2019-09-19

From James Clear's 3-2-1 newsletter: If you want to be in the top 1% of a particular domain, then you can’t take your cues from and follow the social norms of 99% of people. This is harder than it …

2019-09-18

Four reasons why, according to The Economist's article Why WeWork doesn’t work yet - Daily chart, investors are unsure about WeWork's parent company IPO: Lack of Profits. Recesion: $47B in lease …

2019-09-09

Tyler Cowen, in Reading and rabbit holes: Follow the questions, not the books per se. Don’t focus on which books to read, focus on which questions to ask. Then the books, and other sources, will …

2019-09-05

Seth Godin, in The room where it happens: The best way to be in the room where it happens is to be the person who called the meeting. Things rarely happen on their own. Everyone is waiting for you to …

2019-09-01

Ryan Holiday writing about anger, What If I Said No? (And Other Questions to Consider Daily): You gave them very careful instructions, which they disregarded, leading to costly consequences for you …

2019-09-01

Cory Doctorow, writing about Boing Boing in Information doesn't want to be free: From the beginning, Boing Boing (and even bOING bOING) has been a labor of love. I write it because it's my major way …

2019-08-28

From time to time I watch this video by Elizabeth Gilbert again. And every time I find inspiration and clarity.

2019-08-28

Learning complex thinking is uncomfortable. Complexity is, after all, the realm of unknown unknowns. The Cynefin Framework is a conceptual framework created in 1999 by Mary E. Boone and Dave J. …

2019-08-27

Runner's World tells the storie of Ellie Pell, who won the overall first place in a 50K Ultra Marathon. The organizers of the event had assumed that the overall winner would male. While there was an …

2019-08-19

Online security is more relevant than ever. News from hackers breaching massive number of user accounts from an online service no longer surprises anyone. Two important things that you should do …

2019-08-17

Cory Doctorow and the urge to write: I’m the coeditor and co-owner of a website called Boing Boing, and I’ve spent the past ten years writing about ten blog posts a day, every day. I often find …

2019-08-15

Neal Stephenson writes speculative fiction. In his books, he explores subjects such as mathematics, cryptography, linguistics, philosophy, currency, and the history of science. Writing novels is …

2019-08-13

Stephen King advises that you designate someone you know, you trust, and whom you think represents the audience of your work to act as “The Reader.” Then, write for that person. They don’t even have …

2019-08-11

Cal Newport, in his book Digital Minimalisn, explains that there are two forces that encourage behavioural addiction when using social networks. The first force, intermittent positive reinforcement, …

2019-08-09

A difficult aspect of facing technological innovation is the decision to change your business model in ways that disrupts your current business. It's not easy to leave the safe shores of what works …

2019-08-08

They joined Facebook to stay in touch with friends across the country, and then ended up unable to maintain an uninterrupted conversation with the friend sitting across the table. -- Cal Newport, …

2019-08-07

There are several good options for publishing content online. Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Medium, and others offer a convenient and cost-free way to publish content and, potentially, …

2019-08-06

Keeping a journal of your thoughts on anything (not just the daily details of your life) or engaging in good online conversations are great ways of learning how to write with freedom and immediacy. …

2019-05-30

Wars are often fought to win over strategic resources. Huawei is the #1 telecom supplier in the world 1, and the #2 smartphone maker 2 after Samsung. It’s also a major player in next generation 5G …

2019-04-22

If you have experience in something, it can be difficult to explain it succinctly to other people. This may seem counterintuitive. Doesn’t experience give you the advantage of understanding how …

2019-04-17

Several companies have recently announced new subscription-based services: gaming (Google, Apple), video streaming (Apple, Disney), and news (Apple News). On a different plane, software is definitely …

2019-03-27

Kristiansen and Rasmussen have been deeply involved in the Lego Serious Play method since its inception. Lego Serious Play is a facilitation methodology created by the Lego Group, available since …

2019-03-05

As time remains constant and information becomes abundant and ubiquitous, the question of how to read things that lead to meaningful knowledge becomes ever more relevant. Some people are worried …

2019-02-26

As Facebook continues to raise scandals about the way they record, store and sell their user’s data (and not only their user’s data), you may wonder why people continue to use Facebook at all. I …

2019-02-12

For several years, as part of my end-of-year review, I take a look at my reading 1 and make plans for the year to come. I've written down some ideas from my process that you may find useful. Of …

2018-12-14

I recently finished reading It doesn’t have to be crazy at work, by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson 1. Jason and David are the co-founders of Basecamp, a project manager/real-time …

2018-12-12

I do most of my reading either on my Kindle device or on the Kindle app on my laptop. Highlighting and adding notes is an essential part of my reading process. It somehow replaces the marking of …

2018-12-06

Seth Godin recently shared the audio version of Stop Stealing Dreams in Akimbo, his weekly podcast. Next, he dedicated a whole episode to answering questions, mostly about education, and then …

2018-12-06

Ted Kramer is the founder of Six4Three, a company that relied on Facebook granting access to their users' friends data for their business model to work. His company has an ongoing lawsuit with …

2018-11-13

Having a repository for the things you learn is more relevant than ever. Facts can be easily checked using the internet. However, the process of connecting ideas, and formulating relevant questions, …

2018-11-05

I can't remember exactly when I learned to program, but I'm almost sure that at the end of 1981, at the age of 12, I was already programming in BASIC. Before 1981, my experience with computers was …

2018-11-04

A quote about leaving things for later: Later is where excuses live. Later is where good intentions go to die. Later is a broken back and a bent spirit. Later says “all-nighters are temporary until …

2018-10-25

A quote from Brandon Sanderson's novel Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds: Psychology-as-superpower is a recurring theme in my works. I’ve always believed that the personality traits that make …

2018-10-23

In his book Mastery, Robert Greene writes about social intelligence and its importance when working with other people. In human behavior, says Greene, we can detect patterns that transcend culture …

2018-10-13

US-CERT on the August/September 2018 ATM hacks which affected several nations: (...) all of the compromised switch application servers were running unsupported IBM Advanced Interactive eXecutive …

2018-10-01

I played lot of Infocom text games when I was a kid. I remember drawing maps by hand, and inmersing myself in the stories. (There was no internet, so cheats came only from friends.)

2018-09-19

Fred Wilson, commenting on how diversity happens: A few years at our annual CEO summit, Scott Heiferman, founder and CEO of Meetup, told a room full of startup CEOs that you have to build diversity …

2018-09-09

Coherence, the quality of forming a unified whole, is about our actions matching what we think and what we say. Pablo Ferreiro and Manuel Alcazar, in their book Managing People, refer to lack of …

2018-09-06

Daniel Goleman, writing about his father Irving Goleman, philologist and professor: Irving’s signature course, “World Literature: Autobiography of Civilization,” extended beyond the standard cannon …

2018-08-23

After using Todoist for managing my task list for more than a year, I've decided to change systems again 1. There's nothing wrong with Todoist. It can organize tasks into projects, and tag them with …

2018-08-22

Showing up every day, and doing your work, even though it may not have the quality you expect, will lead you to producing better work. Austin Kleon quotes this story from David Bayles and Ted …

2018-08-06

Frameworks and procedures make us feel secure. They excel when execution and efficiency are crucial. However, when we hit a wall, or when we are stuck with a problem; when we hear an explanation that …

2018-07-26

Some time ago I compiled some notes about habits in the form of a mindmap. The sources were, among others: The Habit Guide by Leo Babauta The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg Transform Your Habits by …

2018-07-25

Success The next time you feel screwed that you haven’t gotten your big break, or watch as some potential life-changing opportunity to level up escapes your grasp, ask yourself if that’s really the …

2018-07-19

Why are habits important, and why should you try to acquire habits? It's easy to get seduced by articles offering shortcuts for success. "The 5 things successful (whatever success means) millionaires …

2018-07-09

Excellent article by Ryan Holiday about succesful people and their mentors, manipulation, and power. How to Be a Professional Son (or Daughter). Seth Godin on fear of failure and fear of actual risk: …

2018-07-09

We like to believe that things will go as planned. We should know better. One of the keys to accomplishing a goal is to focus everyday not on the goal itself, but on the routines and systems needed …

2018-07-03

Some people associate learning with formal education. They unconsciously regard other ways of learning as less serious or not worth. Of course, attending a good college or university can be an …

2018-06-27

When thinking of a new product or service, it's normal to make some assumptions about our potential customers and their needs. Feedback from real customers is essential at this stage because it …

2018-06-18

How good are we at considering information or opinions that don't agree with what we think? I recently attended a conference by a world-renowned speaker. For context, the talk was in Lima, Peru, …

2018-06-13

There is so much written about the importance of focus to achieve your goals, that it can be distracting. It's easy to deceive ourselves by thinking that working hard all day long means working in …

2018-06-08

Every now and then something happens that calls our attention about platforms and content. For example, the recent Facebook/Cambridge Analytics scandal. Or some time before, Medium enforcing a …

2018-05-15

I will write content that will stands the test of time. I will write about what’s important to me and not based on metrics. Outline. Then Write it. Then make it beautiful. Then make it shorter. Then …

2017-09-26

From Taylor Pearson's book Purposeful Productivity: If there were no limitations or consequences, what would your perfect day look like? (...) (...) I find there’s something particularly elegant …

2017-09-06

James Clear has published his keynote speech at ConvertKit's Craft + Commerce Conference ( link). After introducing the concept of "Aggregation of marginal gains", he explains why we should aim for a …

2017-08-22

From Ryan Holiday's Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts: People claim to want to do something that matters, yet they measure themselves against things that don’t, and …

2017-08-17

One of my goals for 2017 has been to read two non-fiction books and one novel per month. Inspired by Shane Parrish's suggestion, my plan has been to read 25 pages a day. As of August 2017, I've read …

2017-07-06

What’s your approach to problem solving? There are several frameworks available which you could use to give a better structure to your problem-solving process, but that’s not what I’m referring to. …

2017-04-27

Cal Newport is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University, who specializes in the theory of distributed algorithms. According to Newport, the unprecedent growth and impact of …

2017-03-30

Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter for The New York Times. In The Power of Habit, the author proposes a framework for understanding the importance of habits and how habits work. …

2017-02-21

2017-02-15

I've just started reading Carol Dweck's book Mindset. Dweck has been studying for years why it’s not just our abilities and talent that brings us success– but whether we see them as fixed qualities …

2017-01-04

Marshall Goldsmith is a world-renowned business author, educator, and coach. He's considered by Thinkers50 the most influential leadership thinker and coach. Forbes considers him one of the five most …

2016-12-27

alt: This year I've read 14 non-fiction and 10 fiction books. I'm not too happy with the numbers. For 2017, my goal is to read 2 non-fiction books per month, and one novel per month. I'm planning to …

2016-12-10

I wanted an archive page for my book reviews that showed, for each book, its front cover and an excerpt of the review. <?php /* Template Name: Book Reviews Template * Description: Used as a …

2016-10-31

Para crecer y aprender hay que salir de nuestra zona de confort. Hay que intentar cosas que pueden o no funcionar. Por eso, aprender haciendo algo nuevo siempre implica el riesgo de fallar. Hay mucho …

2016-10-31

Growing and learning new things implies stepping out of our comfort zone. True differentiation and growth is achievable only if you are willing to dive into new areas 1 and try things that may work …

2016-10-07

2016-09-07

Sam Altman interviews Jessica Livingston, co-founder of YCombinator and author of Founder's at Work. Stories of Startup's early days. The interview is great, and you should watch or read it in full …

2016-09-05

Ante una situación hipotética, la mayor parte de nosotros probablemente diremos que respetamos la posición de otra persona aunque ésta no opine como nosotros. En la práctica, esto rara vez sucede. …

2016-09-03

In a hypothetical situation, most people would say that they will respect other people's point of view even if they don't agree with it or don't understand it. In practice, however, this is hardly …

2016-08-30

This article by Paul Jun helped me realize why I crave for writing, and why it helps me so much. Worth reading.

2016-08-18

YCombinator is one of the world's top startup school. Stripe, Dropbox, AirBnB, Reddit, Weebly are some of the companies that have emerged from YCombinator. They provide seed funding for startups, and …

2016-07-23

alt: Enrique Dans writes about [the phenomenon of apps to eat out at private …

2016-07-19

2016-07-19

2016-07-14

Paul Jun escribe sobre la importancia de tener modelos a seguir, lo que en inglés llaman role model. Su conclusión da en el blanco: conscientemente o no, todos tenemos aspiraciones y modelos a los …

2016-07-14

Paul Jun writes about the importance of having a Role Model. His remark is right on point: consciously or unconsciously, we all have role models and aspirations: More than ever, we own the …

2016-06-28

Paul Jun reflexionando sobre el libro The Talent Code ( La clave del talento), de Daniel Coyle: La verdad fundamental es ésta: si cuando nos fijamos en personas talentosas nos sentimos abatidos …

2016-06-28

Paul Jun reflecting about Daniel Coyle's book The Talent Code: The fundamental truth is this: when we look at talented people and feel battered by the fact that we may never live a life like that, we …

2016-06-24

2016-06-23

No voy a escribir una reseña de este gran libro de Austin Kleon porque hay muchas buenas reseñas disponibles (por ejemplo, esta en español, o esta otra en inglés). Roba como un artista elimina parte …

2016-06-22

Feedback is important. Most people will agree on this. But how often do we ask for feedback? My guess is that not very often. More frequently, we ask for advice. But asking for advice is a whole …

2016-06-22

Casi todo el mundo estará de acuerdo en que el feedback es importante. Pero, ¿con qué frecuencia pedimos feedback? Probablemente no con mucha frecuencia. Sí, por supuesto, pedimos consejo. Pero pedir …

2016-06-12

I found (again) this quote by Ira Glass of This American Life thanks to Tom Chandler of The Writer Underground. Ira talks about taking creative work from good enough to great. (You can watch the …

2016-06-05

Lifehacker has an interesting article about Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), the Serbian-American inventor. This description of his visual thinking process caught my attention: My method is different. I do …

2016-03-05

Nassim N. Taleb, author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility, has this concept of silent evidence. That is, we tend to make decisions mistakenly taking a limited subset of …

2016-02-24

A few weeks ago some friends and I were having a nice conversation, and the topic drifted toward our favorite iPhone apps and other similar geeky stuff. But to my surprise, when I mentioned some of …

2016-02-16

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, explains why punctuality is so important for him: If you want to be more productive, then start at the start: get there on time. Whether it is a meeting, a …

2016-02-15

How many books did you read last year? How many do you plan to read this year? Reading books is in decline. Taylor Pearson 1 writes that "in a 1978 survey [US], 42% of adults had read 11 books or …

2016-02-08

Micromanagement kills ownership. Shane Parrish quoting Michael Abrashoff describes the problem when top performers become managers but continue to focus on individual contribution instead of on real …

2016-02-01

This is interview is from 2008, by I've just re-read it and thought it was worth linking for my future reference: John Gruber: A Mix of the Technical, the Artful, the Thoughtful, and the Absurd.

2015-12-17

Great RSA animation about Carol Dweck's research about Fixed Mindset and Growth Mindset.

2015-12-13

2015-12-12

Seth Godin on business ethics: It comes down to this: only people can have ethics. Ethics, as in, doing the right thing for the community even though it might not benefit you or your company …

2015-10-29

Fair use of copyright, from the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit’s ruling in Authors Guild vs Google Books: The ultimate goal of copyright is to expand public knowledge and understanding, …

2015-10-29

Sobre el uso razonable o legítimo del copyright, de la sentencia de la Corte (Norteamericana) de Apelaciones del Segundo Circuito en el caso Authors Guild vs Google Books: La finalidad última del …

2015-10-21

Great piece by Seth Godin about Infrastructure. The ignored secret behind successful organizations (and nations) is infrastructure. Not the content of what's happening, but the things that allow that …

2015-10-17

Working from home and working remotely have been getting more attention from companies in the past years, as can be seen from articles published in business magazines like Harvard Business Review and …

2015-10-08

Are you interested in improving the loading speed of webpages on your mobile device by 4x, and generating savings of 50% on your data plan, on average? Get an ad blocker. Crystal, Purify, Adblock …

2015-08-25

Great article by Seth Godin: The Interim Strategy. This interim strategy, the notion that ideals and principles are for later, but right now, all the focus and resources have to be put into the …

2015-08-11

Buy from Amazon Manuel Alcázar García, autor del libro Cómo mandar bien: consejos para ser un buen jefe, es profesor del Área de Gobierno de Personas del PAD --la Escuela de Dirección de la …

2015-07-20

From Conor Neill's article When you lead there is no such thing as a trivial act: What do you know that is “wrong” but tolerate? What behaviours annoy you, but you don’t address them? If somebody …

2015-06-18

Seth Godin on perfection as a defense mechanism: It's possible you work in an industry built on perfect. That you're a scrub nurse in the OR, or an air traffic controller or even in charge of …

2015-06-11

I recently found this [great] 2013 course on Creative Writing by Brandon Sanderson (!!). I'm posting it here for future reference.

2015-05-18

Según Mark Suster 1, Amazon es el tipo de empresa disruptiva que derrota a sus competidores en actividades "detrás del telón" como distribución, logística, manejo de inventario, almacenaje, soporte …

2015-05-18

Amazon business started by selling books online. But for Jeff Bezos, selling books was just the starting point. Once Amazon had its infrastructure in place, it extended its business from books to …

2015-05-05

Mark Zuckerberg, creador de Facebook, defiende en un video reciente el modelo freemium que sigue Internet.org. Internet.org es la iniciativa de Facebook para cubrir la 'brecha de conectividad' y …

2015-05-05

In a recent video, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg defends Internet.org and its freemium model. Internet.org is Facebook's initiative to bring the Internet to the two thirds of people in the world who are …

2015-04-27

Conflict. Authenticity. Audience. Three elements of good storytelling. I discovered this great Kevin Spacey's closing keynote at the 2014 Content Marketing World Conference thanks to Connor Neil's …

2015-04-27

Conflicto. Autenticidad. Público. Tres elementos de una buena historia. Descubrí esta presentación genial de Kevin Spacey en la 2014 Content Marketing World Conference a través del website de Connor …

2015-04-23

Desde hace tiempo que sigo con interés lo que pasa en la industria editorial. Los libros tienen gran influencia en las personas y en nuestra cultura. No de casualidad, la invención de la imprenta por …

2015-04-22

Book Publishing is a topic I've been following for sometime now. Books always have had enormous influence on people and in culture. One of the big revolutions in history was Johannes Gutenberg's …

2015-03-11

Two years ago I wrote an article comparing Mega to Dropbox, two file sharing services. The point of the article was that Mega was not a Dropbox killer. Mega had just launched, and maybe because all …

2015-03-11

Hace un par de años escribí un artículo en inglés comparando Mega con Dropbox, dos servicios para almacenar archivos en la nube. Mega acababa de lanzar y, quizá por todo el bombo que había en ese …

2015-03-03

Procrastination is one of those words that is difficult to translate to other languages. The English definition for the verb to procrastinate is to delay or postpone action; put off doing something. …

2015-03-03

Procrastination es una de esas palabras en inglés difíciles de traducir. Una definición de procrastinate es dejar las cosas para más adelante. Es el verbo de los vencidos 1. Cuando me siento delante …

2015-02-26

Two excuses can keep you from giving clear, unambiguous feedback: the fear of falling out of favor of your boss, and the desire to be liked by your peers or reports. There is a great example of the …

2015-02-26

Hay dos excusas que te pueden inhibir de dar feedback con claridad y sin ambigüedades: el miedo de perder el favor de tu jefe, y el deseo de agradar a tus pares y reportes. Hay un excelente ejemplo …

2015-02-25

Es fácil, es divertido, y te garantizo que funcionará. (Salvo la parte que dice que es fácil, divertido y que va a funcionar, todo lo demás es cierto.) Del nuevo libro de Seth Godin, What to Do When …

2015-02-25

It's easy, it's fun, and it's guaranteed to work. Of course you can do it. (All of that is true except for the part about easy, fun and guaranteed.) From Seth Godin's new book What to Do When It's …

2015-02-17

Buen artículo de Mark Suster sobre marca personal. Nuestra marca persona es una de esas áreas en las que no podemos tener una actitud pasiva. (Mark Suster es un emprendedor e inversionista ángel, y …

2015-02-17

Good article by Mark Suster on personal branding. Personal branding is one of those areas you cannot be passive about. (Mark Suster is a 2x entrepreneur turned VC.) To this day I still tell people …

2015-02-14

As Seth Godin writes, maybe you don't care enough to give constructive feedback. "We might be rejected, or scolded, or made to feel dumb. And of course there's the risk that we'll get our hopes up …

2015-02-13

2015-02-10

Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automattic (the company behind the WordPress publishing platform, used by 22% of the web), shares Automattic's creed: I will never stop learning. I won’t just work on …

2015-01-29

Peter Diamandis is an engineer, physician, and entrepreneur. Among other things, he is: The founder, Chairman and CEO of the XPRIZE Foundation, whose mission is to bring “radical breakthroughs for …

2015-01-28

You can agree or not with Bill Gates' view on what the world's greatest problems are and how to solve them. But you can't but admire Bill's ability to think big and set world-scale things in motion. …

2015-01-15

2015-01-13

Achievers have an eye for the essential. They have acquired the habit of aligning their long-term goals with their day-to-day actions. They are aware that while they can decide to do whatever they …

2015-01-10

From The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller: "Highly successful people choose to live at the outer limits of achievement." Answers to big problems …

2015-01-09

People whose work involve managing other people, evaluating their work, or somehow passing judgment about other people, know that soft skills, attributes, and people's behaviors in general are hard …

2014-12-20

Finally one of the Big Five publishers is trying an alternative business model for selling e-books. In the coming weeks, Macmillan will test the subscription model for e-books, probably through third …

2014-12-17

Matt Gemmell on the classic question How do you get your ideas, or the relation between reading, writing, and the idea-flow: The corresponding answer is usually something like “they just come to me”, …

2014-12-01

2014-11-25

2014-11-25

In pasts months, a number of startups have closed 1. These companies raised money, launched good products, gained attention from the press... and then closed. It's not my intention to judge the …

2014-11-20

From an interview with Victoria Livschitz, serial entrepreneur, a founder of Grid Dynamics and more recently, a technology start-up Qubell[1]. Chess, like any other complex intellectual activity, …

2014-11-20

The definition of a Startup, according to Paul Graham: A startup is a small company that takes on a hard technical problem.

2014-11-11

Emailcharter is a page with ten short and practical rules to better email writing. As stated in the first rule, the underlying principle is to respect recipient's time: The onus is on you to minimize …

2014-11-05

2014-11-01

2014-10-22

Amazon has closed a multi-year deal with Simon & Schuster, covering both e-books and printed media. Negotiations only took three weeks. As David Gaughran points out in his article Amazon and …

2014-10-13

Take a break from your connected day... and remember the important things in your life.

2014-10-08

In his essay Before the Startup, YCombinator's founder Paul Graham explains that because startups are counterintuitive, you can't always trust your instincts when starting a startup. Then he gives a …

2014-10-07

Short PBS video on creativity. The creative process is relevant not only to artists but to anyone who must solve complex problems. Julie Burstein explains her view on the creative process and …

2014-09-19

Shortly after Apple's iPhone 6/6+ launch on September 9, IDG announced that the print edition of Macworld is shutting down. Jason Snell, Macworld's lead editor for more than ten years and who has …

2014-09-08

2014-08-26

Quote from Warren Buffet's 2011 interview taken from Farnam Street's article What makes Warren Buffett a great investor? Is it the intelligence or the discipline?. The good news I can tell you is …

2014-07-31

Dim Sum Thinking on writing: We have so much bad writing in us. We need to keep writing until we get that writing out of us. You have to make time to write every day. Really. The same applies to …

2014-07-01

Some weeks ago, we needed to hire a designer --not a web designer-- for a job. We had a list of names with good references and recommendations from other people. As expected, we searched for them on …

2014-06-25

Professionals, unlike amateurs, spend their time carefully. They prioritize because they know they can't put their best effort on everything. Businesses put it like this: focus on the 20% that makes …

2014-06-17

Great piece from John Grubber about Apple's keynote in last week's WWDC. Among other things, he reflects about how Apple's device-centric approach and owning platform, devices, and services allows …

2014-06-16

Down-to-earth advice from Taylor Pearson about growing your business.

2014-06-13

It's frequent to see friends and colleagues overwhelmed by how much there is to do everyday. A common advice you will hear is that you should spend some time thinking on how to manage your time, and …

2014-06-04

Five ideas 1 by Conor Neil about delegating vs. managing, from his article about the power of delegation: You don't delegate tasks, you delegate responsibility. (...) Delegation requires that you …

2014-06-03

British novelist, essayist and short story writer Zadie Smith accepted the 2014 Moth Award at the annual Moth Ball Gala in NYC. A quote from her remarks: I don't make up marvelous travels. I only try …

2014-05-25

Matt Gemmell writes about some challenges he faced working from home as an independent consultant. Interesting article even if you only work from home occasionally.

2014-05-23

Steve Blank talks about innovation at ESADE's Business School Commencement Speech. Worth reading if you are interested in innovation and how to innovate inside companies. An excerpt: So how does a …

2014-05-21

Some time ago, after two years of sustained growth, a company's management decided to invest in a fabrication facility by means of a significant bank loan. This company's clients depended heavily on …

2014-05-09

To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time. (...) Give yourself tight deadlines. Derek Silvers, The Meaning of Life.

2014-05-04

Interviews to Apple's Senior VP of Design are unfrequent. Worth reading. Objects and their manufacture are inseparable. You understand a product if you understand how it’s made. I want to know what …

2014-04-30

Everybody manages her or his time somehow. Even people that may never formally have thought about time management have some implicit system. And yet, many people are not happy with how they deal with …

2014-04-19

Do you wait for inspiration to come? Amateurs wait for inspiration, professionals sit down and start working. It is amazing how often inspiratiobn decides to come to me when I demonstrate that I am …

2014-04-18

Guy English and Rene Ritchie interview Miguel de Icaza in Episode 31 of Debug. I liked the interview very much, specially from minute 20 on when Miguel talks about functionality and implementation …

2014-04-13

2014-04-11

Interesting and well written article by Tim Harford of Financial Times: Big data: are we making a big mistake?. Among other things, Hardford explains with several real-world examples one of the risks …

2014-04-11

Some days ago, talking about work climate and engagement with a colleague, he told me that a frequent complain among employees at several companies he knows is about not being properly recognized for …

2014-04-10

Andrew Chen has written an interesting article titled How to design successful social products with 3 habit-forming feedback loops (2400 words). If you are interested in social networks/social …

2014-04-08

"Science is about what is. Engineering is about what CAN be." (via PhD Comics)

2014-04-03

2014-04-03

Some quotes from an article by Dave Morin about innovation and Super Normal thinking in Startup Notes: When you set out to create a new product, you usually do not start by trying to think of …

2014-03-28

Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder and CEO, interviews Matt Mullenweg, founder of Wordpress and CEO of Automattic. They talk mostly about online publishing, but around minute 26 Matt talks about …

2014-03-27

Matt Mullenweg (co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic) and Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn co-founder) share their thoughts about the future of online publishing (among other things).

2014-03-25

Good read from Stanford Closer Look Series: Corporate Governance According to Charles T. Munger. (Charlie Munger is Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, and partner of Warren Buffett.) A lot of …

2014-03-24

Mod is a paper notebook that syncs to the cloud. Once you have filled your gorgeous moleskin-style notebook, you can send it back to Mod and they will have it digitized for you in five days. You can …

2014-03-21

Seth Godin, talking about the need of business to change their clients: You can understand Apple Computer if you understand them as a company who wants to give their customers better taste. Apple is …

2014-03-19

Just finished watching Simple Made Easy, a talk by Rich Hickey, creator of Clojure, at The Strange Loop 2011 conference. Recommended (1 hour). Simple has a core meaning, an understanding of which is …

2014-03-18

On April 14, 2014, App.net initial backers will have to decide whether to renew their accounts for $36 a year or downgrade to the limited free version. For background, App.net is an ad-free online …

2014-03-18

The One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC) is closing, according to OLPC News. This was probably a good intentioned initiative. There are several factors about OLPC and its failure that I won't discuss …

2014-03-17

The Rolling Stone magazine interviews Bill Gates.

2014-03-17

Enrique Dans writes about Popcorn Time, the great movie application created by a group of Argentinean hackers that allowed users to search and view torrent movies, according to Time, in an interface …

2014-03-13

Seth Godin about Pricing (The New Business Toolbox): The only reason to be cheap is because you have figured out how to do something cheaper than anyone else. If you haven't, being cheap is a race to …

2014-03-11

2014-03-10

According to a study of 1500 CEOs, 8 out of 10 expect the business enviroment to grow in complexity. The CEOs see a lack of customer insight as their biggest deficit in managing complexity. (...) …

2014-03-06

In the past months, several apps like Secret or Whisper have appeared. These apps let you publish anonymously to friends in your circle or to the whole internet. Others, like SnapChat, let you send …

2014-03-04

I somehow missed The Making of Templar, a free ebook by Jordan Mechner, LeUyen Pham, and Alex Puvilland. Jordan Mechner is best known as the creator of great games like Karateka (1984), Prince of …

2014-03-04

Matt Mullenweg on why people are scared of free software.

2014-03-03

Good non-anecdotal analysis by Om Malik 1 on how exceptional WhatsApp is that it is worth $19 billion to Mark Zuckerberg. Among other interesting data in the article, two interesting facts: WhatsApp …

2014-02-22

Some people consider visibility crucial to their carrer. In this mindset, being visible at work is seen as highly important, and lacking visibility the direct path to career stagnation 1. It's not …

2014-01-30

Clay Shirky writing about The End of Higher Education’s Golden Age. Shirky is always worth reading. The reason to bet on the spread of large-scale low-cost education isn’t the increased supply of new …

2014-01-11

Shane Parrish on making other's opinions our own and skipping the thinking: It's easy to take other's opinions and make them our own. This isn't hard. (...) We read but often we don't digest. Reading …

2014-01-07

2013-12-18

Good article by Shane Parrish on Parkinson's Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. But what I enjoyed most of the article was the sample meeting exemplifying …

2013-11-05

Recognition is important and has its place. If you have responsibility over people you should be giving proper recognition when recognition is due. However, if you want highly motivated people in …

2013-11-03

Asymco's Horace Dediu commenting on The Globe and Mail's article Inside the fall of Blackberry: How the smartphone inventor failed to adapt: The iPhone was not a low-end disruption. It was exactly …

2013-11-03

Shane Parrish citing Yvon Chouinard: Managers have short term vision, implement strategic plans, and keep things running as they always have. Leaders take risks, have long term vision, create the …

2013-10-22

Suggestive video from RSA Animate about work. It assumes the dominance of the corporation as the primary organizer or work, but it's nonetheless suggestive. Tools are importante, but it is trust in …

2013-10-15

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s right-hand man at Berkshire Hathaway, says about reading: In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time -- none, zero. You'd be amazed at …

2013-10-13

Jeff Bezos agreed to the acquisition of the Washington Post for $250M on August 5, 2013. As it is known, the numbers of The Washington Post are not encouraging. In the first half of 2013, The Post …

2013-09-03

These three 1 questions are pretty obvious. That's why it's amazing how many times we forget to ask them when one of our reports is having performance problems, or when we want to help someone …

2013-09-01

Steve Jobs's commencement Speech at Standford on 2005 is famous for promoting the idea that working on what you love is a condition for doing great work. You've got to find what you love. And that is …

2013-08-24

Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX, has released the alpha version of Hyperloop, a proposal for a high-speed train connecting Los Angeles-San Francisco. The Hyperloop would cover …

2013-08-23

Asymco's Horace Dediu, quoting Apple's CEO Tim Cook from three years ago: We can put all of our products on the table you’re sitting at. Those products together sell $40 billion per year. No other …

2013-08-12

Cal Newport writing about Woody Allen and Value Productivity. (In contrast to task productivity.) There’s a lot written about task productivity (the ability to organize and execute non-skilled …

2013-08-11

Just finished reading Inside An Amazon Warehouse about Amazon's warehousing systems, an 2012 article by Dave Smith. (Via Cory Doctorow.) Also worth reading is Amazon - leading the way through chaos …

2013-07-30

Seth Godin, Q&A: What works for websites today?: The only reason to build a website is to change someone. If you can't tell me the change and you can't tell me the someone, then you're wasting …

2013-07-22

Great article by Paul Graham about the initial user base of startups.

2013-07-22

Printed magazines like Harvard Business Review, Wired, The Economist, and others offer an electronic version of their publications, be it as an application for Apple's Newsstand 1 or through …

2013-07-04

Doug Engelbart died July 2nd, 2013, at the age of 88. Who was Doug Engelbart? As Bret Victor explains in his article A few words on Doug Engelbart, it is important to reflect not only about what …

2013-07-03

Just finished re-reading this article by Jason Fried of 37signals.com, which included this 30 min. talk by David Heinemeier Hansson (cofounder of 37signals and creator of Rails) at Startup School …

2013-06-05

Susan Cain writes in the New York Times about the contemporary view which holds that creativity and achievement come from teamwork. As Cain explains, research strongly suggests the contrary: people …

2013-06-04

Jack Cheng is a Shangai-born, Michigan-bred, Brooklyn-based writer, as he describes himself. His recently published novel, These Days, sells on Amazon, the iBook Store, Barnes and Noble and Kobo. The …