What if across your lifetime, you could only choose one book to read?
You can only read so many books in a lifetime. I mean, part of me thinks we’d be better off picking one book and never reading another book, and just getting through that one book very well.
The Cultural Tutor. 48:46
Which book would you choose?
For readers, it would be challenging to only read one. Dipping in and out of books is proven method for determining what to read. But the idea of rereading for a deeper understanding is invaluable.
See philosopher/entrepreneur Johnathan Bi‘s careful reading approach:
One of my smartest friends only reads 3-5 books per year but rewrites every page in his own words as he goes through it. Then, he summarizes the entire book once he's done. He reads only the best books, but very carefully. This is the kind of reading we should be encouraging.
Taken over its entire history, Guinness may just be the most successful company Ireland has ever produced. In 1930, it was the seventh largest company in Britain or Ireland. It is one of our oldest companies of note. Considering that it predates the Bank of Ireland and the State itself, it could even be said that Guinness is the longest-running successful large institution in Ireland.
The Irish brewing company has relentlessly innovated on multiple fronts.
Workplace benefits
Annual leave
Free meals (today would be a company cafeteria)
Family trips
Healthcare
Pension
Housing!
The creation of a Guinness Research Laboratory
The Easy pour system (1959) – Invented by mathematician Michael Ash. Allowed lesser skilled bartenders to serve a quality pour.
Project ACORN (1969) – Advanced. Cans. of. Rich. Nectar. The first attempt to improve the can or bottle pour.
“widget” – a gas filled, tennis table sized ball at the bottom of the can that releases a gas that creates bubbles. This greatly improved the taste of home-served pints.
Branding – Guinness is good for you, Guinness is bad for you, The Guinness Book of Records, producing a Nigerian action film.
Guinness is proof that companies who endure, innovate across multiple areas of their business over an extended timeline. Innovation doesn’t pause.
A must read piece if you’re interested in history, economics, marketing, or beer.
Inspiring. Picture Fermat coming home from the office and working on maths after dinner, for fun. What’s your after dinner fun?
Interesting how ambition can fluctuate between people, but success occur. Colossal Descartes. Modest hobbyist Pierre de Fermat. Both with immense contributions to mathematics. Descartes inventing analytic geometry, and Fermat the “founder” of the modern theory of numbers.
J.A. Baker studied the biology and etymology of falcons
Baker took interest in the language of falconry and its history. At one point in the Peregrine he wondered whether the phrase taken by surprise came from hawking. He might well have been correct: many of these terms from falconry have crossed into everyday use and lost their hawking roots. ‘Disclosed’, for example, comes from an Old French word that described a hawk that just hatched. ‘Reclaim’, also from Old French, meant ‘to make a hawk tame, gentle, and familiar’, or to call it back to the glove. To ‘make a point’ in an argument, say, comes, too, from hunting: used of dogs but also of hawks, it describes the action when a hawk throws herself up into the air above the spot where her quarry has been driven into a covert.
The falconry terms Baker studied aren’t obscure, or restrained to a specific discipline. Phrases like “Make a point” and words like “disclose” often appear in office conversations and emails. Considering how old falconry is, these could be considered the first sports cliches.
More from the picture books are underrated category
We do not know why we are born into the world, but we can try to find out what sort of world it is
Edwin Hubble*
Edwin’s spark toward astronomy started with his Grandfather, who bought him a telescope for his eighth birthday.
Edwin Hubble’s astronomy studies didn’t begin right away. He started at the University of Chicago. Then studied law at Oxford in England. Later he returned to the University of Chicago to finally begin his Astronomy studies.
Edwin Hubble coached high school basketball?!
Two of Edwin Hubble’s most important discoveries:
Galaxies move away from each other.
The farther away a galaxy is from Earth, the faster it moves away from it.
Last week the blog Marginal Revolution celebrated it’s twentieth anniversary.
Can a blog change the direction of your life?
TABARROK: To see people who began reading us at a younger age and then turn into a Vitalik or something like that — that’s one of the biggest thrills Tyler and I can possibly have. I mean, it’s incredible. We’ve had students at George Mason who come and, “I’ve been reading you since I was 12.” Now they’re getting their PhDs. That’s mind-blowing.
– Alex Tabarrok
Yes.
What have I learned from Marginal Revolution?
Ambition is ok.
Have a moonshot. If your interested in an idea or subject, pursue it. Don’t wait for permission.
A little bit of work every day adds up.
The key word is “every day”. You have to do your work everyday. Ditto Paul Graham
What you do is more important than what you say.
Even after posting every day for twenty years, the example Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen have lived out in their careers is probably as important, or more important than MR itself. Their list of projects is astounding: Emergent Ventures, Marginal Revolution University, Project Warp Speed, the textbooks, their moonshots. Fast grants. General teaching. Graduate student funding. Their work at the Mercatus Center…
They are without peer when it comes to setting the example of just do it. Don’t wait. Do it.
Normally the world is organized around dull people. Most power is controlled in this world by people who are straight and narrow. Where as the personal and professional eclectic person like Oppenheimer, the maverick, this kind of person is treated as unsound and is held at a distance. And only at special moments the world seems to be able to use these people.
When this kind of maverick was brought in to influence and around himself created an organization three thousand or six thousand interesting people, and you can imaging the kind of people who would rally around his recruitment efforts. When he would reach out and make the phone calls to people all over the world, what kind of people would he attract? He would look for the clever ones. He would not look for the obedient ones. And that’s how they did this amazing thing called the Manhattan Project. And then after the war ended the state did not need him and then you got back to the worst instincts of the people who start complaining that oh this guy is unsound in so many ways and do you know “x” about his personal life. And did you know he went and studied Sanskrit, and he takes interest in Hinduism and things like that.
To perfect the art of becoming such a reliable person, Franklin wrote out a “Plan for Future Conduct” during his eleven-week voyage back to Philadelphia. It would be the first of many personal credos that laid out pragmatic rules for success and made him the patron saint of self-improvement guides. He lamented that because he had never outlined a design for how he should conduct himself, his life so far had been somewhat confused. “Let me, therefore, make some resolutions, and some form of action, that, henceforth, I may live in all respects like a rational creature,” There were four rules:
It is necessary for me to be extremely frugal for some time, till I have paid what I owe.
To endeavor to speak truth in every instance; to give nobody expectations that are not likely to be answered, but aim at sincerity in every word and action–the most amiable excellence in a rational being.
To apply myself industriously to whatever business I take in hand, and not divert my mind from my business by any foolish project of suddenly growing rich; for industry and patience are the surest means of plenty.
I resolve to speak ill of no man whatever.
Happy Fourth of July!
If you were to write your own Plan for Future Conduct what would it be?
But the steam car is now again on its way. The engine will probably be hermetically sealed, requiring no lubrication, no makeup water. Its condenser will operate with a vacuum. It will use diesel oil as fuel, and will cause very little pollution. It will be quiet, flexible, powerful. It will get off from a cold start in 30 seconds. It will contain so little water that the danger of explosion will be made negligible. It will have a fire, in a furnace instead of inside cylinders, but this will be so shielded, in the manner of a miner’s lamp, that it will not present a fire hazard in the garage. The engine itself will be so light that one mechanic can pick it up in his arms. It will last for years without attention. When in full production, it will be cheaper to build, and to operate, than present cars. The steam car will not be built by the present automobile industry unless some unit of that industry suddenly sees a great light, or public pressure or foreign imports force the decision, or government orders subsidize a new unit in the industry. It will have competition, as I will discuss later. But in fact, if I were disinterested, and had to bet, I might bet on steam.
I’m surprised Vannevar didn’t bring the steam car to market himself. He speaks of its components with such clarity. It’s like he’s reading off the cad files.
I wonder why the steam car idea never persisted? Why were battery powered cars realized instead? Will the steam car idea revive if the demand for batteries increases?
Bush, Vannevar. Pieces of the Action. San Francisco: Stripe Press, 2022. (see pgs. 229-230)
Floodlights and Goalposts 