To make it a full New Yorker weekend, here’s a longread from Michael Pollan, best known for his book Omnivore’s Dilemma, on the reopened research on the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelics. While we’re on Pollan it’s worth repeating his advice from Food Rules, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”
Category Archives: Personal
Since it’s Valentine’s day, here’s a little humor from the New Yorker’s Hallie Cantor: What I Imagine My Boyfriend’s Ex-Girlfriends Are Doing Right Now. (That the character is named Matt is completely coincidental.)
I had the great fun the other week of hanging with Tim Ferriss on his podcast, an episode he titled Matt Mullenweg on Polyphasic Sleep, Tequila, and Building Billion-Dollar Companies. His previous guest was Arnold Schwarzenegger (!) and if you dig into the podcast archives there are some really amazing episodes, I’m working my way through them now.
Yo’s Law: “in the 21st century tech industry, satire and reality are not merely indistinguishable but actually interchangeable.”
From Jon Evans’ This Industry Is Still Completely Ridiculous, a hilarious article with a conclusion (the ridiculous stuff is worth it) I agree with.
I write novels. And with just about every novel I write, I try to do something new or different that I haven’t done before, in order to challenge myself as a writer, and to keep developing my skills. In The Android’s Dream, of example, I wrote in the third person for the first time; in Zoe’s Tale, I had a main character—a sixteen year old girl—whose life experience was substantially different from my own; with The Human Division, I wrote a novel comprised of thirteen stand-alone “episodes.”
And now? With Lock In? What new thing have I done to stretch myself as a writer and teller of tales? Well, I’ll tell you; it’s something I’m really proud of, actually:
I’ve written a novel entirely free of semicolons.
John Scalzi in Pacing Doesn’t Just Mean Wearing a Groove in the Floor.
Slack Buys Screenhero To Add Screen Sharing And Voice Chat To Its Work Messaging Platform, which I’m very excited about as a daily user of Slack (on 5 teams now) and through Audrey an investor in Screenhero and a big fan of their vision. As the article mentions, Automattic has been a Screenhero customer as well.
Find Fulfilling Work
Alain de Botton seems to be behind this fun series of videos that tries to apply philosophy to everyday life. This one I think is particularly important for founders, as I’ve seen many unhappy employees at startups because the founder was fundamentally unhappy because they were doing it for the wrong reasons.
I always like reading Paul Ford’s writing, and this one about How PAPER Magazine’s web engineers scaled Kim Kardashian’s back-end (SFW) is funny and accessible. I learned that people still use Movable Type. Also if PAPER used VIP, the story would be short and boring:
- Wake up, press the publish button.
- Watch the stats go crazy. Sip some bourbon.
- Go to sleep.
New Simplenote App Updates for iOS, Android, and Mac, some nice iterations. Update: Simplenote for Android was just highlighted by The Verge as one of the best Material design apps.
Within your heart keep one still, secret spot where dreams may go, and sheltered so, may thrive and grow where doubt and fear are not. Oh, keep a place within your heart, for little dreams to go.
— Louise Driscoll
He has been called the “superman pope”, and it would be hard to deny that Pope Francis has had a good December. Cited by President Barack Obama as a key player in the thawing relations between the US and Cuba, the Argentinian pontiff followed that by lecturing his cardinals on the need to clean up Vatican politics. But can Francis achieve a feat that has so far eluded secular powers and inspire decisive action on climate change?
The Guardian on Pope Francis’s edict on climate change will anger deniers and US churches. Definitely the coolest pope in my lifetime.
“Fasting for as little as three days can regenerate the entire immune system, even in the elderly, scientists have found in a breakthrough described as ‘remarkable’.” — Fasting for three days can regenerate entire immune system, study finds.
Harper’s had a great article on fasting a few years ago it’s not online at the moment but here’s a PDF of it. It’s also common in yoga and folks trying to live longer. I haven’t tried it myself yet, but perhaps will at some point this year — I like the idea of doing something by doing nothing.
Working on the right problem is more important than working hard. — Caterina Fake
Found via 84 highlights from The Startup Playbook by Automattician Dave Martin.
The hardest thing in the world is spending the most time on the most important things.
Yesterday’s post was a bit of a downer, so here io9 lists The Most Futuristic Predictions That Came True In 2014, including technologically-assisted telepathy, 3d printing in space, laser weapons, and landing a robot on a comet.
I think it’s good to show both sides of what a distributed organization is like, here are two essays by different Automatticians. Steph Yiu writes Still figuring it out: communicating remotely with lots of people and Chris Hardie writes on Distributed vs. In-person Teams.
Thirty One
The first year of my thirties was both incredibly challenging and incredibly rewarding. I started a new decade and a new role as CEO at the same time, and at Automattic we grew to over 300 people and raised money for the first time in a while, both of which I couldn’t have predicted five or even two years ago.
My big takeaway from the year was the importance of habits and small actions for accomplishing big things. To be productive I don’t need any fancy setups or project management software, just a well-groomed todo list and a pomodoro timer. This year on my birthday I find myself in Egypt which is an awe-inspiring place in many ways, but most striking to me has been the enduring beauty of craftsmanship with access to only the simplest of tools.
In running, which I started this past summer while in Italy, I was able to slow down to go further and without injury, and ended up putting in about 140 miles which took my fitness to be better than it’s been so far in my adult life. At least half of those miles were with friends and you can’t underestimate the importance of friends in helping you overcome mental blocks. (Also flew 425k miles in 2014, a new record. You can run anywhere and with minimal equipment — it’s a great way to explore a city.)
Reading and writing, two of the activities still most important to me, benefitted from a “just do it” philosophy of putting one foot in front of the other. I published more words on ma.tt than any year since 2007, and I find blogging one of the most rewarding pastimes in my life. It was also a year of not trying to be all business all the time: I started reading fiction regularly after a decade away and letting the topics here drift wherever my interest is at the moment. Last year I talked about balance, and I think this is what drove many of the accomplishments I’m looking back on fondly now.
I’m proud of how 2014 went, and I hope to build on that foundation to be a better person and reach even more ambitious milestones in the year to come. Here’s to slowing down to go further, and tackling big tasks with friends.
All birthday posts: 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42.
Speaking of PGP and security, this self-described best PGP tutorial for Mac OS X, ever actually lives up to the promise. Check it out, makes encrypting and decrypting things on the fly super easy.
There’s a simple, unattributed site called Decent Security which has very nice common-sense but effective advice on security. I believe it’s from the same person as behind the Infosec Taylor Swift account. It’s refreshing like reading Bruce Schnier’s blog.
“If, like me, you are a staunch pogonophile and do not believe there is a single man who cannot be improved with a beard, these are happy times indeed.” The Guardian asks Have we reached peak beard?. Also check out their take on the lumbersexual, which a closet full of plaid shirts might indicate I’m trending toward.
Munchery is Eating the Restaurant, a cool write-up of Munchery which I’ve been a long-time fan of and is an Audrey company. Whenever I’m in SF I order from Munchery.