“Technology” On the one hand the way the word “technology” is used is overly narrow. It refers essentially to electronic gizmos when it could refer to any kind of artcraft, including bookshelves, water bottles, RAID arrays, Markdown, magazines, keyboards, LEDs, pizza boxes, windowing systems, driveways, Bayes’ rule, door handles, languages, Occam’s razor, software, pens, lists, [...]
When I was younger, I would occasionally sit down to my computer thinking I was about to compose a masterpiece, something that would all but earn my place in the canon. I would have a peculiar feeling brewing, that I was on the cusp of a radical insight, that I was about to see the [...]
I designed my notes archive to be as easy to write to as possible, because I knew that if there were any friction in the process, I wouldn’t stick with it. So I purposely decided not to tag, label, file, or otherwise classify each note. The only bits of metadata I do have are timestamps [...]
I could be a lot more productive. I could waste less time between tasks; focus more during tasks; keep better track of time; set more concrete goals and subgoals; have higher standards; give up less easily; and work even when I really don’t want to. It comes down to being more disciplined, basically, and more [...]
The first two weeks of college are exceptional for a lot of reasons. But there’s one phenomenon that stands out. It’s as peculiar and as powerful and as rare as magic. [1] I’ll call it “social annealing” because it so resembles the process by which metals are heated—their particles freed into a loose homogenous jumble—and [...]