Bakunin > Recent Status Updates

Interesting.

A litte too many details on the environment and not enough on what makes the Swedish poet Fröding tick. Other than that... I like it!

Interesting facts about what makes us human. Neurologist David Bäckström explores how humans percieve the world and how our ability to imagine shapes our identity. He claims that colors are biologically hardcoded and that if we for example just have 4 words describing color in a certain language - those colors must be black, white, red and either green or yellow. Have to double check that.

Interesting perspective. Taleb believes among other things that the invention of the nation state led to more wars by centralizing power/bureaucracy (this goes against Kissinger views among others). His view is that one should try to decentralize in order to avoid Black swan events.

Antifragile is an interesting concept (order which becomes stronger by integrating disorder). I just have a had time with Taleb is he is sometimes too much of a contrarian, and tryint too hard to sell this concept. I'm not looking to be sold something, just looking to find out whats true.

Finally a biography of Gauguin!

Very readable! I find L'amour to be immensely inspiring as an author and autodidact who went his own way. L'amour also manages to paint a portrait of the lifestyle of itinerant hobos during the early 1900's.

Not as funny as I would've imagined but interesting nonetheless.

Very funny.

McGilchrist is a polymath who is famous for expanding an interpretation of how the two different consciousnesses (our left- and right hemispheres) have shaped civilization. This book feels like one has taken a whole bunch of shrooms and tried to assimilate all the knowledge in ones library into one book.

I am a little disappointed by the author. I've read his other works and found them to be a valuable guide to how to build important routines. They helped me clarify my thinking on certain issues. Here Cal is attempting to discuss burnout and how the idea of productivity as busyness is the reason for burnout. Instead one should do fewer things, work at a natural pace and obssess over quality. This seems a bit trite.

I am struck by Bergmans incredible work ethic and how he from very early on (when he was 20) already started directing theatre plays which got reviewed in a national newspaper. Bergman later became a theatre manager which makes highly practical demands on a person. According to Timm, Bergman wanted to play all sorts of plays in order to please as broad an audience as possible. He even directed children's plays!

We only read stories of successful startups but rarely do we hear the psychological stress which is incurred in the process of creating something entirely novel. I now realize the ex-CEO and VC Ben Horowitz intention here is similar to what the ancient greeks attempted to do with theatre i.e. to portray the psychological difficulties in choosing between a rock and a hard place.

Great (as always with Paul Graham) but I wish there were more essays on society rather than just hacking. Paul is a contrarian who has started companies and been pivotal in the startup scene. His thinking is often concise and outlines novel (and big) ideas which are well worth reflecting on.

So far interesting. It does provide a summary of common problems that founders go through (based on a sample size of 10,000 startups). I read this book to find inspiration for a creative project I am working on.

So far great!

Interesting portrait from a sons perspective. Tage Lindbom was an eccentric thinker in Sweden. He became an influent member of the socialdemocratic establishment in the 40s but became disillusioned by certain strands of socialist thought. He eventually converted to islam and became a religious conservative.

Interesting but too long. Too many details. The author should cut to the chase.

Prokofievs memoir gives the reader an insight into how he was taught and also his early musical intuition. I also found it interesting that he was homeschooled for so long.

Her characters complain an awful lot. Some of these short stories are more memorable but I wish that the characters would adopt a more stoic demeanour.

Interesting hypothesis. States did not spring up automatically after human adopted a more sedentary life. The author tries to upend the traditionally enlightened view of how society evolved.

I don't know what the fuss is all about. I must be missing something in my reading of Borges.

Funny but not as interesting as I would've hoped.