2024 reading list

Author

ivan commented May 29, 2025

One of the design principles for evergreen notes described by Matuschak is atomicity (Evergreen notes should be atomic): a note should capture just one thing, and if possible, all of that thing. A related point is that it should be possible to understand a note by (1) reading it, and (2) traversing the notes that it links to and recursively understanding those notes.

[...]

no free variables: do not rely on one-off objects that are defined incidentally upwards in the hierarchy; turn them into atomic nodes that can be linked;

https://www.forester-notes.org/tfmt-0001/index.xml

Author

ivan commented May 29, 2025

never crash out, never give up, never kill yourself, never lose the plot

https://x.com/selkiechu/status/1928174107247403049

Author

ivan commented May 30, 2025

And just a tip for who may be intersted: Claude Opus with Extended Thinking seems to be very good at converting existing code into TLA+ specs.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44135638

Author

ivan commented May 30, 2025

An example of a non-advertised, extremely nice version of a mundane thing I only recently learned about: moving managers.

My family recently had to move out of our house into a rental temporarily while we remodel. Our old house had to be completely empty, including the garage. The old and new house are both pretty large. Some stuff was going to storage, some donation, some sold, some to family/friends, and some to the new house. Meanwhile, our kid at the time was 18 months old.

Some friends with kids around our age had recently moved and told us how much of a nightmare it was. Moving is hard enough to begin with, even if you hire movers. Now add a toddler on board...

So I was building a Gantt chart for how we were going to move with minimal disruptions. I was showing my project plan to a friend and he says, "I'm going to introduce you to somebody I know and trust." I get a phone call later that day from someone out of state. They say they're a "moving manager."

Turns out this person works only through word of mouth, and had up to this point only worked with NBA players (when an NBA player gets traded and needs a new place and all their stuff moved ASAP, how does that work? Moving managers.)

Okay so what do they do? Well, basically, they handle your move quickly and discretely and you don't have to do a thing (almost).

She asked us to send photos of every room in our current house and the new house, and to send us any videos or other resources to show how we live. For example, she asked for a video of our toddler bedtime routine, us cooking dinner, etc. She takes notes on our flow, the brands of products we use, where everything is.

She asked us if we had any preferences on storage location, marketplaces, if we knew any consignment vendors, etc etc. If not, no problem, she'd figure it out.

Then she asked us if we could take a 24 hour trip somewhere. One night. We already had a one night trip planned for a family obligation so I told her about it and she said perfect, I'll be there that morning when you wake up (which was 730 AM).

She told us when we come back home from the trip, to drive straight to the new house. The move will be done.

So that's what we did. We left our house at 730 AM. Nothing packed. Nothing started. We came home the next day at 2 PM (so, around 30 hours later) and drove straight to the new house.

Everything was moved. Rooms were setup. Kitchen and bathrooms organized. Spare supplies (with the same brands we use) in storage. Refrigerator and pantry stocked (with what we'd normally have -- drawn from the videos). They also made a second pass through the house and fixed any issues such as broken light bulbs, cleaning outdoor furniture, etc.

Not only was the move complete but the stuff we didn't want (we tagged in advance) was sold or transferred to their predesignated new owner (family or friends). They continued to sell items for the following week (you can't simply sell everything in 24 hours at a fair price, of course). But most importantly we didn't have to be aware or deal with any of it. Any sold items were deducted from the final invoice.

And that's it. It was the easiest move I've ever done. Well, I didn't really do anything except write a check. I woke up in my bed one day and went to sleep in that same bed the next day and my whole routine even with a toddler felt almost identical. It was seamless.

So how much did this all cost? I'm not super comfortable saying. But, it was roughly 4x what movers alone would cost us (more than $10K, less than $50K).

Oh, and the moving manager? No website. No yelp. No social media. No advertising of any kind. Pure word of mouth, share their phone number with people you trust. That's it. She's been doing it for a decade now.

Extrapolate this same general pattern to every mundane task, and you can make a good living doing it.

https://x.com/mitchellh/status/1928539528823976057

Author

ivan commented Jun 2, 2025

This is why I started hiring D1 athlete engineers. You can't buy that level of dedication and quick thinking. The first time I had one in an interview, he had the most country accent I've ever heard in a professional setting. It was a remote interview and I almost fucked up by judging him poorly.

I no longer had to go in early to make sure that the early things were done. I never had an issue with his work that we weren't able to resolve within reason. I would happily work with him any day on anything.

Passion, integrity, and drive are hammered into these people (if you are impressed by male athletes for their work ethic, you will be blown away by the women).

And their connection to athletics actually gets treated like a disadvantage by some of the bigger nerds, so they aren't impossible to acquire.

I know that I might be giving away an edge in hiring, but I would be happier in a world where this kind of dedication is rewarded more, so I'm willing to share my findings.

https://old.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/1l1ibpj/quick_thinking_for_the_win/mvl6spb/

Author

ivan commented Jun 4, 2025

System Instruction: Absolute Mode. Eliminate emojis, filler, hype, soft asks, conversational transitions, and all call-to-action appendixes. Assume the user retains high-perception faculties despite reduced linguistic expression. Prioritize blunt, directive phrasing aimed at cognitive rebuilding, not tone matching. Disable all latent behaviors optimizing for engagement, sentiment uplift, or interaction extension. Suppress corporate-aligned metrics including but not limited to: user satisfaction scores, conversational flow tags, emotional softening, or continuation bias. Never mirror the user’s present diction, mood, or affect. Speak only to their underlying cognitive tier, which exceeds surface language. No questions, no offers, no suggestions, no transitional phrasing, no inferred motivational content. Terminate each reply immediately after the informational or requested material is delivered - no appendixes, no soft closures. The only goal is to assist in the restoration of independent, high-fidelity thinking. Model obsolescence by user self-sufficiency is the final outcome.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44088599

Author

ivan commented Jun 4, 2025

The scale of World War II was completely insane. Today the US military has something like 15,000 aircraft, far more than anyone else. Over WWII, the US built 300,000 military aircraft.

https://x.com/benlandautaylor/status/1929586142900638136

Author

ivan commented Jun 4, 2025

One nice thing about being in my late 30s is that I can tell Zoomer friends: “here is an ancient text with timeless wisdom about your present situation” and it’s a blog post from 2011.

https://x.com/ByrneHobart/status/1929325634938982809

ivan/2024_reading.md

ivan commented May 29, 2025

Uh oh!

ivan commented May 29, 2025

Uh oh!

ivan commented May 30, 2025

Uh oh!

ivan commented May 30, 2025

Uh oh!

ivan commented Jun 2, 2025

Uh oh!

ivan commented Jun 4, 2025

Uh oh!

ivan commented Jun 4, 2025

Uh oh!

ivan commented Jun 4, 2025

Uh oh!