flâneur

Ashwin Samudre

2 followers · 25 following · 568 views

on the atlas — 40

highlights — 30

  • And that anything is possible when you’re having fun.
    Why Did why the lucky stiff Quit?
  • Across time, tenderness still remains true to its earthy roots: in its daily practice, it is self-eviscerating and becomes ordinary.
    Intro notes on Tenderness
  • Studying science changed my entire outlook; nature was not this ‘all-knowing’ power, but a series of relentless, foolhardy attempts at something greater. Nature felt fearless, which in turn, made me feel fearless too. Life became far more interesting and fabulous and fun as I my created a toolset to understanding the world around me. I learnt to hold two important truths — biology needs to be studied and felt.
    Why do we look out the window when we think? | by Ella McCarthy-Page | Dec, 2023 | Medium
  • Some things seem to offer both both fascination and comfort, like an impeccable garden, or a grandparent’s farmhouse that seems to house not only the territory and people but also a deep well of memories.
    Familiarity and Belonging - by Simon Sarris
  • Once you are able to cast off the feeling that wherever you are living is somehow temporary, wherever you are living will begin to feel like home. To do this requires a kind of love.
    Familiarity and Belonging - by Simon Sarris
  • What creates strong friendships are repeated, tiny, and unplanned interactions.
    Familiarity and Belonging - by Simon Sarris
  • transitioning from school to adult life is hard for boring external reasons like money, roommates, job, routines. it’s also hard for internal reasons. i’m scared of not being enough, growing creatively, learning, becoming better, meeting that person i trust more than anyone, finding personal peace still, most of the cool and inspiring work in the world is done outside of universities and big institutions. most friends are by chance as well.
    Your Smile
  • constantly ask yourself, “What’s more out there? How this can be done better? How this can be done differently? Are there similar books/courses on this topic?”
    Why Curiosity Is Better Than Being Smart? - Durmonski.com
  • The difference between smart and curious people and only smart people is that curiosity helps you move forward in life.
    Why Curiosity Is Better Than Being Smart? - Durmonski.com
  • I’d submit that reading papers is actually, in isolation, a potentially dangerous activity. Sure, it’s better than doing nothing. But papers are generated in a rich social context that you don’t have, with important subtext you might completely miss.
    Understanding biology, quickly -
  • Like most mathematicians, Riemannian Geometers look for theorems even when there are no practical applications.
    What is Riemannian Geometry?
  • In that respect the Cold War teaches the same lesson as World War II and, for that matter, most wars in recent history. Don't let a ruling class of warriors and politicians squash the entrepreneurs. The same recipe that makes individuals rich makes countries powerful. Let the nerds keep their lunch money, and you rule the world.
    How to Make Wealth
  • The problem with working slowly is not just that technical innovation happens slowly. It's that it tends not to happen at all. It's only when you're deliberately looking for hard problems, as a way to use speed to the greatest advantage, that you take on this kind of project. Developing new technology is a pain in the ass. It is, as Edison said, one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Without the incentive of wealth, no one wants to do it. Engineers will work on sexy projects like fighter planes and moon rockets for ordinary salaries, but more mundane technologies like li…
    How to Make Wealth
  • For most people, the most powerful motivator is not the hope of gain, but the fear of loss.
    How to Make Wealth
  • If you look at history, it seems that most people who got rich by creating wealth did it by developing new technology. You just can't fry eggs or cut hair fast enough. What made the Florentines rich in 1200 was the discovery of new techniques for making the high-tech product of the time, fine woven cloth. What made the Dutch rich in 1600 was the discovery of shipbuilding and navigation techniques that enabled them to dominate the seas of the Far East.
    How to Make Wealth
  • All you need to do is be part of a small group working on a hard problem.
    How to Make Wealth
  • We have a phrase to describe what happens when rankings have to be created without any meaningful criteria. We say that the situation degenerates into a popularity contest.
    Why Nerds are Unpopular
  • In almost any group of people you'll find hierarchy. When groups of adults form in the real world, it's generally for some common purpose, and the leaders end up being those who are best at it. The problem with most schools is, they have no purpose. But hierarchy there must be. And so the kids make one out of nothing.
    Why Nerds are Unpopular
  • individuals swimming upstream. They couldn't fix the system.
    Why Nerds are Unpopular
  • Life in this twisted world is stressful for the kids. And not just for the nerds. Like any war, it's damaging even to the winners.
    Why Nerds are Unpopular
  • In a large enough pool, even the smallest minorities can achieve a critical mass if they clump together. Out in the real world, nerds collect in certain places and form their own societies where intelligence is the most important thing.
    Why Nerds are Unpopular
  • When you tread water, you lift yourself up by pushing water down. Likewise, in any social hierarchy, people unsure of their own position will try to emphasize it by maltreating those they think rank below.
    Why Nerds are Unpopular
  • My current theory on why friendships usually develop fairly slowly is that people generally don’t want to give too much ammunition to someone without some symmetry. Over time, the information and power people have over each other can be used as a kind of collateral to ensure cooperation between them
    Friendship Is Countersignaling | Slate Star Codex
  • FRO concept is primarily that it gives credibility, structure, and a name to a particular class of organizations which was previously nameless.
    Three learnings about Focused Research Organizations
  • the time-limited aspect of the FROs has generated more concern than I had expected from potential FRO founders, who see the time limitation as a hard rule rather than as a default.
    Three learnings about Focused Research Organizations
  • The world is filled with good quests that require massively leveled heroes to complete: semiconductor manufacturing, complex industrial automation, natural resource discovery, next-generation energy production, low-cost and low-labor construction, new modes of transportation, general artificial intelligence, mapping and interfacing with the brain, extending the human lifespan. These future-defining problems are hard to recruit for, difficult to raise money for, and nearly impossible to build near-term businesses around, which is why they are exactly the types of problems we need the most well-…
    Choose Good Quests - by Trae Stephens and Markie Wagner
  • But today there are more people "helping the builders" than actually building, fighting one another in a zero-sum game for allocation in competitive deals.
    Choose Good Quests - by Trae Stephens and Markie Wagner
  • Quests that are easy for certain players are nearly impossible for others: Olympic runners will regularly run sub-5 minute miles during training, even though this would be an incredibly ambitious goal for most people.
    Choose Good Quests - by Trae Stephens and Markie Wagner
  • History is the record of top players completing good quests.
    Choose Good Quests - by Trae Stephens and Markie Wagner
  • Starting [at a young age] he’s read everything that he could find about business. The subject that interests him, he’s read newspapers, biographies
    Curius / Onboarding