Some Interesting Links
Over time, I've saved up a handful of links that I think people should read.
Over time, I've saved up a handful of links that I think people should read.
Career and Game Theory
Negotiating Your Salary: Our society has a taboo against employees talking about their compensation. It has kept wages low and given bosses leverage. At the end of the day, you're the entrepreneur of the one-person startup that is your career. Know your value and advocate for what you deserve.
Big Companies vs Startups: If you're debating between working at a large company and a startup, don't delude yourself about the tradeoffs. These are two distinct jobs, and you'll find that one might be a better fit depending on your interests. Be careful of joining a startup just for the money: the math doesn't work out!
To Build a Better Ballot: This election wasn't the first time we've heard pleas to abolish the electoral college. Before you preach about how your election scheme will save America, it might be worth examining the different voting systems and noticing how they all have strengths and weaknesses.
Self-Improvement
James Clear on Habits: Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. If you wish to be better, it's best done as small incremental changes. James Clear's newsletter also provides remarkably high value-to-word ratios.
Systems Versus Goals: Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert) has been known to assert that "goals are for losers" and pioneered the idea of using systems over goals. Pursue a good life strategy, and you'll find better long-term results compared to mustering up temporary bursts of motivation and willpower.
Roam Research: I use Roam Research to take notes daily. The tool has become my second brain. Roam lets you form links between different items in your notes, effectively emulating how the human mind stores and processes information.
Strength Training and Fundamentals: The fitness industry is full of noise. It's especially confusing to those getting started. Remember the fundamentals. Basic barbell lifts, consistency, and incremental improvement will take you far.
Jim Steel
Philosophy
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: Naval is a thought leader when it comes to building wealth and creating happiness. His ideas on happiness were key to lifting me out of a long rut, and I'm forever grateful for that. The "Navalmanack" compiles many of Naval's philosophies into a single source.
Nassim Taleb's Incerto: Nassim Taleb is a former options trader, statistician, and general polymath. He's redefined how we should view risk in the real world with his Incerto series. The link discusses antifragility, the concept of systems gaining strength from randomness.
Life is Short: You're going to die. Therefore you should understand how much time you actually have left and how best to spend it. You don't want to be on your deathbed wondering where all that time went.
View all posts by Tim Urban →
Killing Time: David Perell reflects on how life goes to waste when we get lost in the distractions of the modern world. If you burn time and find no fulfillment throughout your days, you'll end up with a life thrown away.
Personal Finance
The Bogleheads Investment Philosophy: John Bogle was the founder of Vanguard and pioneered the philosophy of buying and holding low-cost index funds over a long period of time. This mindset has allowed many to become financially free.
Graham Stephan's YouTube Channel: Graham is a former real estate agent who rose to fame as a popular finance YouTuber. I agree quite strongly with his fundamentals on financial independence and frugality.
Software Engineering
Undifferentiated Heavy Lifting: In a keynote Jeff Bezos gave about AWS, he notes that software businesses pay a large but undifferentiated tax of "heavy lifting" in order to function. (Setting up servers would be a canonical example.) A former Netflix director later posts popular slides detailing key lessons for startups. One of these is to outsource your undifferentiated heavy lifting.
Jeff Barr
The Morning Paper: This email list sends you a summaries of interesting computer science research papers. It's a great resource for those looking to identify meaningful spaces within the research world and those who struggle to digest research papers from scratch.
Adrian ColyerOh My Zsh: As an engineer, a fair chunk of my working time is spent in the terminal. Investing a small amount of time to configure your development environment can pay large productivity dividends down the road. This is one of the many tools that I use.
A New Transport Layer for the Internet: Those familiar with the OSI model may have heard of TCP or UDP, but there exist more obscure methods of transporting IP traffic. One such protocol involves using delivery pigeons to transfer data. (It hasn't gained much traction due to performance issues.)
