gjenkin

Good post. Reading when you're not doing something else - this is a good mindset. I've found that the more that I enjoy a book, the more time I have "not doing something else".

The key is getting immersed in a book in the same way that you might get immersed in a movie or a genre of music or some other thing that gets you in a zone. Fall into the rabbit hole. Joining r/bookclub or some other online book discussion group helps me fall deep into the rabbit hole. In lieu of an online book discussion group, chatting with my/your preferred LLM is a good tactic. I recommend finishing a chapter, then going to your LLM and saying "I just finished chapter 1 of Heller's Catch 22" ... that's pretty much enough of a prompt to get it to give you a synopsis with some questions to help you reflect on what you read.

The dual spidey meme is cool and is correct if you understand social networks in terms of functionality and not what matters - audience. Functionality is similar although Threads does have more of a sterile approach to product branding. So yes spidey meme works if that’s your lens. But the audiences are VERY different. Those that succeed in text-based microblog platforms have succeeded on and migrated to Twitter. That audience is dramatically different to the Instagram audience which is look-at-me visual types. Couldn’t be further apart. Ben and Zuck are looking in the wrong direction when making the spidey meme comparison. This is the 2023 equivalent of Eric Schmidt saying that Twitter is just email. It’s the audience, stupid.

> One of my big issues with the 'follow your passion' advice is it almost always comes from people who are already rich

This. My sister is quite an accomplished artist who decided out of college to follow her passion. https://instagram.com/carmeljenkin?igshid=YzcxN2Q2NzY0OA==

She is not rich and has to hustle like crazy to sell her artwork while also working tables at a casino and raising a daughter. I doubt that she would advise anyone to just follow their passion without first establishing some kind of financial base.

There tends to be a difference between the kinds of parties thrown by someone who is staying in a place for a weekend versus someone who has to face their neighbors days/weeks after said party.

Parties are one problem. I'd be more fearful of theft and destruction of property... and a general discomfort in having complete strangers coming and going from my building. That said, it seems extremely rare that an Airbnb guest would engage in the kind of behavior that would generate headlines.

I was writing for a slightly different audience but yes agree that Julie is a much better writer than me. :)

FRONTLINE seems to be the only investigative journalism program of note left on television. Will be interesting to see their report on the NSA, assuming that they're working on one.

While the author makes a good case that 'confidence' and 'ability to impress' are key drivers of the tendancy to promote incompetent individuals to leadership roles, another dynamic may be that some leaders who fear exposure of their own incompetence tend to surround themselves with 'yes' men/women who themselves aren't particularly competent or skilled in anything other than making the master feel superior.

In such a situation, when the incompetent leader exits, all those who are next in line are these incompetent 'yes' people, increasing their chances of being considered for and granted promotion.

This dynamic exists in some institutions in contrast to the 'surround yourself with people smarter/better/more competent than you' philosophy of leadership. Jim Collins talked about these approaches in Good To Great, comparing Bank of America's 'weak general' promotion culture with Wells Fargo's approach of getting the most talented people into the highest organizational positions possible. You could argue selection bias, but it's interesting to compare the financial performance of the two banks over the last 10 years or so.