Dickie's Digest - Neurobiology, Pseudonymous Internet, Systems Thinking, Twitter Tips, and Blublox
Hey my friends, happy Sunday.
This week’s list of links is especially top-notch. The quality of content that is hitting my feed in recent weeks is absurd. They’re worth bookmarking, highlighting, and revisiting more than once.
I hope you enjoy these as much as I have. If you do, hit reply and let me know.
🎧💪🏼 The Huberman Lab Podcast. This week I dove down the rabbit hole of the Huberman Lab podcast from tenured Neurobiology (brain science) and Ophthalmology (eye science) professor Andrew Huberman. The tagline is “discussing science and science-based tools for increasing performance.” Each episode is ~90 minutes and he covers one topic at a time per month, spread across four episodes. I really enjoyed the episodes on how to increase focus and optimizing your brain with science-based tools.
🎧🤖 Balaji Srinivasan on the Tim Ferriss Show. I had high expectations for this podcast, but it blew them away. This nearly four-hour episode is the first podcast I’ve slowed to 1x speed in many, many months. Tim and Balaji cover everything from content creation and distribution, the rise of decentralized citizen journalism, bitcoin and ethereum, financial and social self-defense tactics, the rise of the pseudonymous internet, and the future of warfare. Give it a listen and then check out these fantastic summary notes.
🧵🧠 Julian Shapiro on how to actually use mental models. I’ve been reading Julian’s threads and blog posts for months, but this was his best yet. The clarity of his words and thinking is the Feynman Technique at its finest. This thread is a unique combination of systems thinking and mental models, describing mental models as simply ways of applying one thinking technique to many kinds of systems. I liked his point on decisions being one of two kinds: prioritizing (choosing what to work on) and allocating (choosing how many resources to put towards it). I highly recommend this one.
🎧 📊 The Unconfirmed Podcast. As I’m diving more into the crypto space, I wanted a go-to podcast for weekly recaps of everything that happened. I found it with this podcast. They’re ~40 minutes long with rotating guests and finish up with a news recap. If you’re looking to add a high-quality crypto podcast to your information diet, I highly recommend this one.
🕶💤 Blublox blue-light-blocking glasses. After diving down the rabbit-hole of blue light blocking glasses, I’ve settled on these from Blublox. This post on their website breaks down the difference between “computer glasses” (think, Felix Gray) versus actual blue-light-blocking glasses that will improve your sleep. “Firstly, let’s get this straight up out there, clear glasses (glasses with clear lenses) do not block blue light. They are not blue blockers, period. To block blue light, you need a colored lens, typically amber or red. Computer glasses, with clear lenses, are not going to help you sleep, this is fact.”
🔥 Last week’s most popular link: Writing Simply by Paul Graham.
So this thread went absolutely bonkers! My most popular thread by far. I had to delete the app from my phone to stop checking
That’s it for this week. As always, I appreciate your time and attention. Shoot anything you find interesting this week my way.
Have an epic week.
Dickie
