What’s Interesting

+ Iceland embraced a shorter work week. Here’s how it turned out - “In two large trials between 2015 and 2019, public sector employees in Iceland worked 35-36 hours per week, with no reduction in pay. Many participants had previously worked 40 hours a week.

The trials involved 2,500 people — more than 1% of Iceland’s working population at the time — and were aimed at maintaining or increasing productivity while improving work-life balance. Researchers found that productivity stayed the same or improved in most workplaces, while workers’ well-being increased “dramatically” on a range of measures, from perceived stress and burnout to health and work-life balance.” (Editor’s note: Parkinson’s Law at work here? See this week’s Mental Model for more.)

+ AI IQ - “#AI is now "Gifted" and fast approaching "Genius" level (140 IQ). For $20 a month folks you can have a "gifted IQ" assistant.” h/t Jim Lecinski via LinkedIn

Source: https://trackingai.org/home

+ ‘AI is already eating its own’: Prompt engineering is quickly going extinct - “The decline of prompt engineering serves as a cautionary tale for the AI job market. The flashy, niche roles that emerged with ChatGPT’s rise may prove to be short-lived. While AI is reshaping roles across industries, it may not be creating entirely new ones.” (Editor’s note: This was inevitable and actually took a bit longer than I thought it would.)

Meditations

“Every habit and capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions, walking by walking, and running by running… therefore, if you want to do something make a habit of it, if you don’t want to do that, don’t, but make a habit of something else instead. The same principle is at work in our state of mind. When you get angry, you’ve not only experienced that evil, but you’ve also reinforced a bad habit, adding fuel to the fire.”

- Epictectus, Discourses, 2.18.1-5

Mental Model of the Week

Parkinson’s Law

Parkinson’s Law can refer to either of two observations first published in a 1955 essay in The Economist by C. Northcote Parkinson. Today I will focus on the first observation, but you can read more about the other at your leisure.

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

If you set aside an hour to do a specific task, you’ll use the hour. If you set aside two hours for the same task, you are likely to use two hours to complete it. In other words, effectively time boxing tasks can drive efficiency.

One tool I use to time box is the Time Timer, a device a first learned about in this 2014 article by Jake Knapp (the article focuses on how to run better meetings through time boxing - well worth the 4 mins to read it). The Time Timer is simple to use and visual without being distracting. I have my son using the Time Timer as well. He uses it to time box homework assignments (he was regularly over estimating how long homework would take him, which was discouraging, so we flipped that around to “just set 30 mins on the Time Timer and see where you are at at the end of the 30 mins” and, voila, the homework tends to take less time than was originally thought).

Remember Parkinson’s Law each day and time box your tasks to dramatically improve your output and your well-being. You won’t regret it.

On The Night Stand

“The Tusks of Extinction” by Ray Nayler - This novella by Ray Nayler packs a lot into a small package. You have mammoths brought back from extinction, consciousness downloading and then uploading into a different species, a commentary on poaching and human nature and much more. Be prepared to finish this one in one sitting. There is a reason this novella was a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula awards and was named a New York Times Best of the Year.

In Heavy Rotation

+ Green Day: Dookie - What can I say? It’s a classic album and I have fond memories of listening to this one on cassette tape on the school bus. Last year was the 30th anniversary of Dookie’s release and it still stands the test of time.

Still Curious?

+ AI Has Upended the Search Game. Marketers Are Scrambling to Catch Up. - “Email software platform Mailchimp has seen a steady drop in web traffic since AI-assisted search started allowing people to gather information about the company and its products without visiting its sites, according to Ellen Mamedov, global director of search engine optimization.

In order to counter the shift, Mailchimp began updating its sites to better serve the so-called crawlers, bots that visit pages across the web to collect the data that informs the answers provided by AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, Mamedov said.

Technical search elements, like the speed at which pages load and the snippets of code used to track user activity, are more important for these bots and AI-driven searches than for traditional search engines, according to Mailchimp’s research.”

+ Why introverts often build bigger nest eggs—yes, the research backs it up - “A notable study published in the Journal of Economic Psychology found that introverts indeed have a distinct financial advantage over extroverts. The researchers revealed that introverts are more likely to have higher savings rates, better investment habits, and less debt. But why?

One major reason lies in our natural tendencies toward introspection and careful decision-making. Introverts, by nature, take their time. We don’t rush into flashy purchases or spontaneous decisions fueled by the thrill of the moment. Rather, we reflect, analyze, and then act. This habit of deliberation means fewer impulse buys, less credit card debt, and, ultimately, more money safely tucked away for the future.”

Thanks for reading and please refer a friend (or ten) if you find value here at The Commonplace Chronicle.

Until next week,

Eric

1. Collaboration and teamwork

2. Diminishing returns

The stories about Ubuntu (a team first ideology that says that for me to be my best you also have to be your best) and our addiction to metrics highlight that there are multiple approaches to everything. In sports today there is a highly quantitative approach (e.g. moneyball in baseball, metrics focused training in endurance sport, etc.) and a more qualitative team first approach (e.g. the Celtics in 2008 and Ethiopian runners today where training solo is considered selfish since you are depriving the group of your energy). Both approaches yield results, but they do so in dramatically different ways when you consider what the athlete or the team experiences along the way. Which way is best? I bet it depends quite a bit on the situation.

The law of diminishing marginal returns is our mental model of the week. Diminishing returns pairs well with Joseph Tainter’s thoughts on what makes civilizations fail - when the costs of complexity are greater than its returns to society. I had never thought of civilization collapse from that lens before, but I find it very compelling.

Getting back to some uplifting thoughts, check out the Meditations section to get motivated to get your first draft out into the world. As George Saunders notes, you just need the first draft to be so you can revise it.

Time to get started!

What’s Interesting

+ Ubuntu: A way of life for creative leaders - “When Doc returned, his team was there, unified and ready to win together. That was when Doc knew it was more than just a word; it was actually real. With the strength of Ubuntu propelling them forward, they tore through the regular season with a 66-16 record, a stunning turnaround from the previous season. They played unselfish, team-first basketball — the embodiment of Ubuntu on the court.”

+ Are we too addicted to metrics? with Michael Cawley - Cawley discusses the training model for Ethiopian runners, which follows a team first approach. Training by yourself is considered selfish because you are using energy that could be given to the group. An excellent podcast to pair with the piece on Ubuntu above. (podcast)

+ “Fragile, impermanent things”: Joseph Tainter on what makes civilizations fall - “Tainter’s theory of collapse is deceptively simple—especially when paraphrased. Collapse occurs, he argues, when the costs of complexity are greater than its returns to society. Complex societies are problem-solving organizations, and when the costs of coping with crises are too great, they fail.”

Meditations

“Initium est dimidium facti"

The Latin translates to:

"Once you've started, you're halfway there."

Just get started.

Horace, Epistles

Pair with:

“Who cares if the first draft is good? It doesn’t need to be good, it just need to be, so you can revise it.” — George Saunders

Mental Model of the Week

Law of diminishing returns

The law of diminishing returns states that there is a point where adding one more unit of a good thing (i.e. effort, capital, etc.) produces less output. In other words, quick wins come early and then it takes an increasing amount of effort to yield a smaller result.

I think of diminishing returns often in my work with growing organizations. Keeping diminishing returns in mind helps you to know when further optimization of a certain system is not the best use of your next unit of effort.

A closely related mental model is the Pareto principle, commonly referred to as the 80/20 rule. In other words 80% of results come from 20% of efforts.

On The Night Stand

“The Lessons of History” by Will and Ariel Durant - We have all heard the phrase “the only constant is change.” What “The Lessons of History” shows us is that the only constant is human nature, while human behavior can and does change as the result of ideas. Ideas are the most powerful things in all of history because they can be passed down and they change human behavior.

A short book, less than 100 pages, it is one I reference often given that the lessons are timeless. Here are a few lessons the Durants’ outline in the book:

“We conclude that the concentration of wealth is natural and inevitable, and is periodically alleviated by violent or peaceable partial redistribution. In this view all economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of concentrating wealth and compulsive recirculation.”

“Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.”

“Peace is an unstable equilibrium, which can be preserved only by acknowledged supremacy or equal power.”

In Heavy Rotation

+ GoGo Penguin: Live from Studio 2 - I’ve been a fan of GoGo Penguin for quite some time. They fuse jazz, breakbeats and other influences (video game music?) into something that you can hardly believe is being played by just three people. It is an enveloping wave of sound that permeates every nook and cranny. Seeing GoGo Penguin live at Thalia Hall in Chicago last year has to rank in my top five live shows of all time. Live from Studio 2 was recorded during a live streaming event the band did during COVID. Put it on, pour yourself a nice bourbon, and kick back.

If you like what you hear there is a lot more to explore in the GoGo Penguin discography. The band also has a new record coming out on June 20th entitled “Necessary Fictions” so make sure to pre-save that on Spotify and perhaps pre-order the record on vinyl or CD. Tying in to the theme of collaboration, the new record sees the band working in guest artists to their trio, including the first ever human voice on a GoGo Penguin track.

Still Curious?

+ The secret event that kills analog music as we know it (via cheapaudioman) - Yes, the headline is clickbait, but the content is solid. Turns out the single point of failure for vinyl is at lacquer disk manufacturing. (YouTube)

+ Bot farms invade social media to hijack popular sentiment - “‘It’s very difficult to distinguish between authentic activity and inauthentic activity,” says Adam Sohn, CEO of Narravance, a social media threat intelligence firm with major social networks as clients. “It’s hard for us, and we’re one of the best at it in the world.’”

+ AI can accelerate scientific advance, but the real bottlenecks to progress are cultural and institutional - “But the biggest blocks to accelerating the pace of scientific advance may not be technical at all. From grant committees that favor incremental and focused over novel or interdisciplinary research, to academic systems that reward individuals rather than teams, to laboratories that are ill-equipped for automation, the challenges of advancing science lie in the funding, structuring, and guidance of scientific work. Artificial intelligence tools can help speed some important research, but transforming the pace at which science progresses will require addressing deep cultural and institutional barriers, too.” (Editor’s note: I thought this article fit well with one of this week’s key themes; collaboration and teamwork. It is interesting that academic systems still reward individuals when so much research says breakthroughs come through teamwork and collaboration.)

Thanks for reading and please refer a friend (or ten) if you find value here at The Commonplace Chronicle.

Until next week,

Eric

Enjoy this week’s newsletter and please don’t miss the links in the “Still Curious?” section. There are some great ones including an interview on what it is like to be a software engineer with my friend, Taylor Hughes. Taylor is a very talented engineer and he is also very funny. It is a great interview and Taylor tells it like it is.

P.S. I ride the Best Buddies Challenge Hyannis Port every year to support the work Best Buddies does for folks with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Please consider donating to my 2025 campaign if you feel so inclined. The ride is about a month away and I sincerely appreciate any support you can provide. Thank you for investing in Best Buddies and being a part of Team Xcitebike!

What’s Interesting

+ Barnes & Noble, a bookstore, is back in the business of selling books - “Central park bisects upper Manhattan, creating two neighborhoods and, apparently, two reading cultures. On the Upper West Side, the New York Times is “a standout for us” in terms of driving book purchases, says Victoria Harty, assistant manager of the local branch of Barnes & Noble, America’s biggest bookstore chain. On the east side, meanwhile, customers prefer recommendations from the Washington Post and the Atlantic. Tables showcasing tailored recommendations greet west- and east-siders. Such curation is standard at independent bookshops but, for about a decade, was missing from Barnes & Noble, which modeled itself on more generic retailers, almost going bust in the process.”

+ Three part series on PE & specialty coffee

• 'Capitalism on Steroids': Private Equity and the Future of Specialty Coffee - “When was the last time that something ended up at the tail end of an obscene growth process, and [was] better than it's ever been?” asks Professor Roberts. “I'm not sure that at the end of the day, any singular experience with Blue Bottle will be made better because of the arrival of Nestlé.”

• Private Equity vs. the Coffee Workers - “The workers, meanwhile, also carry on, understaffed and overworked—if they’re lucky enough to still be employed. “I’ve met other people in tech now that I’ve brushed up against that world, and they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, that happens in tech all the time, you expect to get laid off in 18 months’—and how do you live like that? It’s taken me a year to process through this”, Apple says.”

• Could a Private-Equity-Backed 'Collective' Offer a Template for Specialty Coffee’s Future? - “What if there were a different way—a way for small specialty coffee businesses to unite under one umbrella, and utilize their various assets to benefit the collective? What if there were a kind of investment that didn’t come with ruthless cost-cutting in pursuit of bigger margins, or pumping a company full of money to make it more attractive to even bigger investors? What if growth didn’t have to mean sacrificing the quality- and community-focused ethos of specialty coffee?”

Meditations

“Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions.” - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.16

Pair with this old Cherokee proverb:

A grandfather was teaching his grandson about life.

He said, "A fight is going on inside me," he told the young boy, "a fight between two wolves.”

“The Dark one is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The Light Wolf is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you grandson…and inside of every other person on the face of this earth.”

The grandson ponders this for a moment and then asked, "Grandfather, which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee smiled and simply said, "The one you feed".

Mental Model of the Week

Scale

When many of us think of scale we think of economies of scale or the proportionate saving in costs gained by an increased level of production. Economies of scale is just one of the changes that occur as companies, or systems, scale up or down. What works at a small scale may not work at a larger scale and vice versa.

Take the Barnes & Noble example from the “What’s Interesting” section above. The old B&N model of deciding centrally on what books to stock in all of their stores worked well until it didn’t. The original model always provided economies of scale from a cost perspective, but other new book buying options (Amazon, etc.) showed that a central book selection and purchasing model wasn’t going to work for B&N going forward. How could B&N compete in this new world?

B&N’s new CEO had a different idea of what scale looks like for a bookseller, one that had worked for him in the UK. Let the employees at each store curate the selection of books for that store since they know what their customers want. Sure, that made purchasing harder and it eliminated some of the cost benefits B&N had gained from their centralized model, but it made B&N relevant again. The change made B&N feel like a local independent book store, something Amazon couldn’t do, and the customers began to come back.

When you are building something, or rebuilding something, you need to constantly think about scale. How will this work when we are ten times larger than today? One hundred times larger? What has changed, or could change, in the marketplace that will make our current system(s) less relevant or even a burden? Think through these things and put plans together so, when the time comes, you can pull the right plan off the shelf and deploy it.

On The Night Stand

“The Devil’s Cup: A History of the World According to Coffee” by Stewart Lee Allen - Given that one of the main topics this week is coffee, I had to mention this excellent book on coffee I read about a year ago. Anthony Bourdain really said it all about this one:

"Absolutely riveting . . . Essential reading for foodies, java-junkies, anthropologists, and anyone else interested in funny, sardonically told adventure stories."

In Heavy Rotation

+ Freddie Hubbard: “On Fire: Live from the Blue Morocco” - One heck of a live performance from one of the all time greats. Check out this article from the IndyStar for more on Freddie and this performance. The performance is available on vinyl (3 LPs) and CD as of now. There is a single available on Spotify as well. Fun fact: The Blue Morocco’s owner at the time of this recording, Sylvia Robinson, was an influential figure in the early days of hip hop, founding Sugar Hill records and creating the Sugarhill Gang of “Rapper’s Delight” fame.

Still Curious?

+ What’s its like to be a software engineer (w/ Taylor Hughes) - “The people who are really the amazing software engineers in at least the kind of product-focused, uh, world that I live in are the people who can make massive changes that solve real business problems while also not breaking everything. The whole job really is sort of like you hold the structure of what the existing thing does in your head. It's like this big set of flowing gears and arrows and stuff, and then you wanna just tweak like this one, uh, and then you ship it and make sure that like everything's still working and that your new thing is also working, and then tomorrow you do the next thing until all of a sudden you have a- a different shape at the end.” (podcast)

+ Scientists filmed wild chimpanzees sharing alcohol-laced fermented fruit for the first time and it looks eerily familiar - “If these gatherings over mildly alcoholic fruit represent a kind of proto-feast, they may echo deep evolutionary roots. It could suggest that our own social rituals involving alcohol could trace back millions of years.” (Pair with Drunk as profiled in Commonplace Chronicle #2) h/t to CC reader Joe Kiefer for this one!

+ How Japan Remade American Culture - “Yet Japan, Yoshimi writes in “The Ambivalent Consumer” (2006), “did not merely import American culture; it remade it.” Reinvention often flowed from reverence: The country’s craftspeople studied each object with great attention and made it Japanese. Each borrowing is transformed almost past recognition, in a culture that competes through innovation (or kaizen, the word for such relentless improvement). The world then often copies Japan in turn, from anime to bullet trains.”

Thanks for reading and please refer a friend (or ten) if you find value here at The Commonplace Chronicle.

Until next week,

Eric

Let’s get after it.

What’s Interesting

+ American Disruption (Stratechery) - “There is one other very important takeaway from disruption: companies that go up-market find it impossible to go back down, and I think this too applies to countries.”

+ Why Trump Could Lose His Trade War With China w/ Tom Friedman (Ezra Klein Show) - “Humanity faces basically three existential questions. One is how we manage artificial general intelligence, and we are going to have to find a way to collaborate to make sure we get the best and push in the worst out of what is going to be a new species. That’s number one. Second, as a product of our development we have unleashed a level of climate change that we have to collaborate in order to deal with. And thirdly, I believe that the combination of all these stresses is going to blow up a lot of states, a lot of weak states, and you’re going to have zones of disorder. You already see that in some parts of the world. My view is that there are only two superpowers who can manage this, but only if they collaborate. The United States and China.” - Tom Friedman

+ EconTalk: Why Christianity Needs to Help Save Democracy (with Jonathan Rauch) - Editors note: I wasn’t sure what to expect from this episode, but it was a very interesting and worthwhile hour. I especially like the discussion about compromise that begins at 37:46 and contains this comment from Rauch:

“Americans today don't understand compromise because they think of it in the sense of compromising on your values. They think of it as, 'Okay: Two people walk into a room. They have different ideas. They split the difference. Both walk out unhappy.' That's not what compromise is.

Compromise is when the two kids can't decide whether to play chess or checkers and make up a new game of their own. Or go out and find a third and fourth kid and say, 'What do you want to play?' And, wind up playing something different. Or even, make up their own game--Chesters--I don't know. Compromise is a dynamic force where people are required to channel their disagreements by looking for new solutions.

What often happens in a compromise--ask any legislator--is, you walk out of the room with a better idea than anyone walked in with.”

Meditations

“When you first rise in the morning tell yourself: I will encounter busybodies, ingrates, egomaniacs, liars, the jealous and cranks. They are all stricken with these afflictions because they don’t know the difference between good and evil. Because I have understood the beauty of good and the ugliness of evil, I know that these wrong-doers are still akin to me … and that none can do me harm, or implicate me in ugliness-nor can I be angry at my relatives or hate them. For we are made for cooperation.” - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.1

Mental Model of the Week

Second Order Thinking

I often think of second order thinking as playing chess. A great chess player is always thinking about the consequences of the move they are about to make. They are thinking many moves ahead and across different scenarios relative to what moves their opponent is likely to make. Thinking of only the move right in front of you is a sure way to lose, and lose quickly, in the game of chess and in the game of life.

One simple way to build a habit of second order thinking is to always ask yourself what you believe will happen if you make a certain decision. What moves will others make in reaction to this move you are contemplating? If other folks make those moves, what position will you be in? Is that the position you want to be in? If not, it is time to start thinking of a new solution.

The evolving trade wars we are experiencing strike me as first order thinking writ large (though I am not a part of the administration and, therefore, can’t know if there is a grand plan underpinning all of these trade moves). It appears that the main issue the administration is trying to solve for is the imbalance of trade with China. Interestingly, China produces much more of the world’s output than it uses, which makes the issue important to the U.S. and to many other countries. Therefore, rather than raising tariffs on all of the U.S.’s trading partners at once, perhaps the U.S. could have brought their allies together and, as a combined front, began to slowly raise tariffs on China, which would have been more likely to minimize an all out global trade war and would have had a higher probability of bringing China to the table to work on a compromise.

Second order thinking is more important than ever given the large scale complex systems that underpin much of our modern world. Unintended consequences loom around every corner. Thinking about those consequences ahead of a decision can provide immense value.

Extra: A mental model that pairs nicely with second order thinking is Chesterton’s Fence. Here’s an explanation of Chesterton’s Fence from Econlib.org:

“Chesterton’s Fence is an argument against hasty abolition of laws, institutions, or customs, courtesy of G. K. Chesterton. Chesterton imagines someone coming across a fence in a field for which he sees no point or purpose. A reckless reformer might say “Well, I don’t see any purpose being served by this fence, so we might as well tear it down.” This is folly, says Chesterton. If you don’t see the point of something, that doesn’t provide a justification to eliminate it—it only shows the limits of your understanding. After all, the fences don’t grow in fields like plants—someone put it there for a reason. If you don’t know why the fence was built in the first place, maybe it’s there for a good reason.”

On The Night Stand

“Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization” by Edward Slingerland - From the publisher: “Drunk shows that our taste for chemical intoxicants is not an evolutionary mistake, as we are so often told. In fact, intoxication helps solve a number of distinctively human challenges: enhancing creativity, alleviating stress, building trust, and pulling off the miracle of getting fiercely tribal primates to cooperate with strangers.”

I read Drunk a couple of years back, but I was thinking about it recently given the younger generations’ lack of interest in alcohol. It seems pretty clear, if it wasn’t already, that alcohol (especially in excess) is not good for the body, but what do we lose when we cut out alcohol?

Drunk chronicles what we stand to lose from a social perspective and it shows how important alcohol was in developing civilization as we know it. For example, my ancestors, the Vikings, viewed alcohol as a critical part of social, religious and ceremonial life. Statements made while intoxicated were considered sacred and binding. In a way, alcohol was viewed as a truth serum. A way to quiet down the calculating mind and amp up honesty to improve collaboration. Perhaps this is why Faulkner said, “Civilization begins with distillation.”

Drunk shows us that, like many things, alcohol is not universally good or bad. Everything has its place.

In Heavy Rotation

+ Incubus: Make Yourself - It had been a while since I dusted this one off. It was in heavy rotation for me back in my college days. I always felt Incubus was very innovative and their hooks still hold up over 25 years later. Jose Pasillas’ drumming is still a big influence on my own playing. He is clearly talented and a student of the drums, but he doesn’t get in the way of the song and try to do too much. Instead, his playing compliments and elevates each song. Give this one a spin. It’s an oldie (cringe…), but a goodie.

Still Curious?

+ There are two types of dishwasher people - “Isn’t it amazing how the answer to everything is always the same? Pay attention. Trust the process. Seek to understand. Question your assumptions. Read a book.”

+ Making sense of venture capital’s AI paradox - “If AI is supposed to supercharge productivity, why are startups raising more money? Shouldn't they need less?” (Editors note: Jevon’s paradox is mentioned here. See last week’s issue for more on that.)

+ Melinda French Gates shares advice from Warren Buffett: I rely on it when ‘I get tough on myself’ - “If I get tough on myself about philanthropy, I remember what Warren Buffett said to us originally, which is, ‘You’re working on the problems society left behind, and they left them behind for a reason. They are hard, right? So don’t be so tough on yourself,’” French Gates, 60, recalled.”

+ AI has grown beyond human knowledge, says Google's DeepMind unit - “‘Powerful agents should have their own stream of experience that progresses, like humans, over a long time-scale,’ they write.”

Thanks for reading and please refer a friend (or ten) if you find value here at The Commonplace Chronicle.

Until next week,

Eric

Thanks for taking this initial leap with me. As always, I would love direct feedback. If you have some, please email me at eric@commonplacechronicle.com and I will read and respond to all the emails I receive. Oh, and if you like what you see here, please consider recommending The Commonplace Chronicle to friends and colleagues. Referrals are the highest compliment I can receive.

Welcome to the fold.

* A commonplace book is a collection of quotes, ideas and information gathered for future reference and inspiration, acting as a “thinkers journal”. Hence the name of this newsletter, the Commonplace Chronicle.

What’s Interesting

+ Continuous Improvement: How It Works and How to Master It - “The typical approach to self-improvement is to set a large goal, then try to take big leaps in order to accomplish the goal in as little time as possible. While this may sound good in theory, it often ends in burnout, frustration, and failure. Instead, we should focus on continuous improvement by slowly and slightly adjusting our normal everyday habits and behaviors.”

+ Charlie Munger on why people are so unhappy - “The world is not driven by greed, it is driven by envy.” (video)

+ EconTalk: The Music and Magic of John and Paul (with Ian Leslie) - “So, this is stunning. There's two things that just blew me away. The entire time of the Beatles as public phenomena is six plus years, seven-ish, maybe eight if you count all the way through, Let It Be. But, their time together in the recording studio is--it's roughly six and a half, seven years…” (podcast)

Meditations

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995)

Mental Model of the Week

Jevons Paradox

In it’s simplest form, the Jevons paradox occurs when technological advancements make a resource more efficient to use therefore reducing the amount of that resource needed for a single application. However, as the cost of the resource drops (if the price is highly elastic), the result is overall demand increasing, causing total resource consumption to rise. (Source: Wikipedia)

Jevons first noted this paradoxical situation when, in 1865, he observed the increased consumption of coal in a wide range of industries after technological advancements increased the efficiency of coal with the aim of reducing coal use.

The Jevons paradox has been back in the news recently. Tech leaders posited that the introduction of DeepSeek’s less expensive AI model would further accelerate AI adoption and, therefore, companies like Microsoft would “make it up on volume” as the saying goes. The Economist’s Free Exchange argues that the case for AI may not be that simple.

On The Night Stand

“Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist” by Liz Pelly - “Along the way “PFC” — perfect fit content — was concocted These are cheap tracks — generated by anonymous musicians — that Spotify put into playlists for listeners who, they said, wouldn’t know the difference. Twenty songwriters supplied 500 different noms de plumes and produced thousands of such tracks. They even invented bogus bios for these pseudonyms. How many of these tracks are actually generated by AI? No one can say.” Excerpt from Steve Provizer’s review in The Arts Fuse.

“Mood Machine” is an interesting look at how “playlisting” and the artist payment system developed by Spotify have impacted the music business. The content of the book was excellent, though I felt that the writing and the structure of the book could have been better. That said, anyone interested in the evolution of music in the streaming era should give Pelly’s book a read.

In Heavy Rotation

+ Harvey Danger: The King James Version - The sophomore release from the band best known for the single “Flagpole Sitta” is considered to be their masterpiece by their fans and was critically acclaimed, but never broke through to the masses. It is time to revisit this album in its’ 25th anniversary year.

Still Curious?

+ To Scale: TIME - On a dry lake bed in the Mojave, a group of friends build a practical scale model of time: 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution, and our place within it. (video)

+ Why are bands mysteriously disappearing? w/ Rick Beato - In the first half of the 1980s there were 146 weeks where bands were number one. In the first half of the 1990s there were 141 weeks where bands were number one. In the first half of this decade, the 2020s, there were only 3 weeks where bands were number 1. 3… (video)

+ The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same - “These cafes had all adopted similar aesthetics and offered similar menus, but they hadn’t been forced to do so by a corporate parent, the way a chain like Starbucks replicated itself. Instead, despite their vast geographical separation and total independence from each other, the cafes had all drifted toward the same end point.”

Thanks for reading and please refer a friend (or ten) if you find value here at The Commonplace Chronicle.

Until next week,

Eric

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