Kevin Habits - podcasts, crypto, AI, NFTs, personal bible

It takes just 10 generations to turn a wild animal into a pet

silver-fox

One of the many many 🤯 bits from James Scott’s Against the Grain which I’ve mentioned before:

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By selecting the least aggressive (most tame) from among 130 silver foxes and breeding them to one another repeatedly, the experimenters produced, in only ten generations, 18 percent of progeny that exhibited extremely tame behavior—whining, wagging their tails, and responding favorably to petting and handling as a domestic dog might. After twenty generations of such breeding, the percentage of extremely tame foxes nearly doubled to 35 percent.

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So in 10 generations – which is just 10 years in fox time because incredibly, it takes a fox just 10 months to reach breeding age – almost 1/5 of offspring become pet-like.

And then I think about human reproduction, and the power of culture and institutions to selectively breed us (I’m not saying such behavior is fully conscious or purposeful, but it certainly is interesting!)

Pixar’s 22 rules of storytelling

pixar-movies-collage

Thanks to my friend Jason’s tweet, I re-discovered this resource. Just wanted to highlight some of my favorites — and it’s always interesting how your favorites will change with each review or re-reading. Hope you find some favorites too!

Rule #3: Trying for theme is important. However you won’t see what the story is about until you’re at the end of the story. Got it? Now rewrite.

Rule #11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

Rule #12: Discount the first idea that comes to mind. And the 2nd, and the 3rd and 4th and 5th. Get the obvious ones out of the way. Surprise yourself.

Rule #17: No work is ever wasted. If it doesn’t work, let go and move on. It’ll come back around and be useful later.

Rule #20: Exercise: Take the building blocks out of a movie you dislike. How’d you arrange them into what you do like?

Which type are you?

Found this interesting short story (almost a parable but not quite) in Haruki Murakami’s new essay collection.

I remember reading a book when I was a boy about two men who travel to learn what there is to know about Mount Fuji. Neither of them has ever seen Fuji before. The smarter of the two men sizes up the mountain from several vantage points at the foot of its slopes. Then he says, “So this is the famous Fuji-san. Now I see what makes it so special,” and heads back home, satisfied. His way is efficient. And fast. The less intelligent man can’t figure it out like that, so he stays behind to climb the mountain all the way to its summit. This takes a lot of time and effort. By the end he has used up all his strength and is completely pooped. “So that’s Mount Fuji, huh?” he thinks. Finally, he has understood it, or perhaps grasped its essence at a less conscious level.

It got me thinking — in most areas of my life I’m definitely the first guy — whatever is easiest, fastest, most efficient, most superficial. But there are some crucial and specific areas where I’m closer to the second guy. Areas like writing, and perhaps crypto, and maybe podcasts. And I think that’s worth paying attention to.

Perhaps for some people, it’s the reverse. Where they are inclined to do-to-understand, instead of think-to-understand. Something like this.

What’s good, a year in review: Good books, Good quotes, Good blogs, Good good good

Turning 39, wanted to look back at the year’s media consumption & production – blog posts, podcasts, books, quotes, etc, and just share some favorites.

Some good quotes:

Whatever your idea is you’ve got to do more of it than anyone else — a task that’s easier if you structure things so that you like doing them. Since doing more almost always leads to greater accomplishments, in turn you’ll have more fun. And then you’ll want to do even more because of the rewards. And so on. – Bloomberg

The effort is the reward

Addiction is a progressive narrowing of things that bring us pleasure – Huberman

I would say being able to stay present in the work…is probably the most important part of it. – Rick Rubin

A great life is a string of great days – John Malone

A vibe is an emotion pretending to be an explanation – Venkatesh Rao

A good writer will almost always discover new things in the process of writing. And there is, as far as I know, no substitute for this kind of discovery. – PG

How am I supposed to fight someone whose me? Sages have struggled with that question for an eternity

Trust your instincts. Don’t think, just do. – Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick

Some good books:

(most of them are noted here)

Children of Men by Adrian Tchaikovsky

J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise

Breath by James Nestor (it influenced me so much, I wrote about it here)

**as I reviewed the books I’d read / finished, a thought occurred to me: I miss playing video games. I was having some fun times playing PS games like Elden Ring and Sifu — need to restart!**

Some posts I’m glad I wrote:

22 learnings from 2022 including:

…even up against powerful prescription medications like Adderall and Modafinil: sleep and all sport categories are in the top-10 for every metric, weightlifting and low-intensity exercise are ranked 1st and 2nd for “probability of having a positive effect”, and weightlifting is ranked 3rd for “probability of changing your life

Matt Ridley on the lab leak hypothesis 🧐

Steadily adding to my Personal Bible (and Rafa’s memoir is just 🤯)

Wise advice from an experienced meditator in Hacker News comments. The internet remains undefeated:

There is a huge difference in effects, between a casual practice (a few minutes, some of the days) and a robust practice (long sessions every day).

Obligatory bitcoin post, but seriously, Wences is the best

Some fun use cases for ChatGPT: studying Jay Chou song lyrics, and rewriting my podcast show notes

More AI, podcast notes from Sam Altman + Lex Fridman

And the SHOWS, SO MUCH GOOD TV: starting with SUMMERTIME RENDERING

Some good TV / movies:

I am an addict, seriously.

Perhaps the highlight was Summertime Rendering as noted above. Anime.

But also:

Arcane (which I’ve watched multiple times now)

Cyberpunk Edgerunners

Last of Us

Physical: 100

Ok that’s it. I had ambitions to do a more thorough and comprehensive review (including books which I sorta update monthly here), but I lost the desire to finish this properly and will just end here. Share your good stuff with me too :-)