Derek Sivers

I follow him occasionally on his blog for about a decade, and I'd say that his need to write is greater than his frequency in contributing something insightful. YMMV.

(Of course even more people could say that about me, that is, if they knew me enough to care!)

That said, he used to write some great posts in the past (e.g. https://sivers.org/kimo ), but for the past 5 or more years it's like he just writes because he feels some compulsion to write a post.

He does seem like a nice guy to have beers with though, and he did had an interesting adventure building his startup back in the day. And the podcast is a totally different medium, so all bets are off, he could very good there!

To contrast, I'm not a hardcore fan of PG, but he has been consistently interesting/insightful in his posts even in topics that I don't care about (though he sadly has stopped).

> The editing brought out the best for the home viewer, the people at the show were probably still laughing however, which naturally does not have the editing

Yes, that's why specials are almost always film the same routine twice with the space hair and makeup for each show. It's better after editing. Anfter editing you cannot talk about any big findings on timing of laughs in the routine because you are only talking about the timing of the editing.

> As a side note when you're calling something stupid you come off as not thinking it through https://sivers.org/ss

Derek Sivers is an actual idiot. He didn't know you could write a macro to control a desktop UI and also write a mock WAV file to CD-ROM driver for Mac OS. The guy is lucky, not smart https://sivers.org/itunes

He also hates paying taxes so he can fuck right off

Similar to this post, Jack Kinsella has written how he used Spaced Repetition Software to learn and keep programming knowledge in the following articles:

http://www.jackkinsella.ie/articles/janki-method

https://www.jackkinsella.ie/articles/janki-method-refined

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JCHkqVoX598Ob_111khrGoJ5cpeh_ahU/view?usp=sharing

Derek Sivers also has written on memorising a programming language using SRS software: https://sivers.org/srs

One important thing in the original article is about flow, or the feeling of being in the state of flow if you don't need to remove yourself from the task for looking up documentation. I think that is a worthy goal to aim for but I am amazed at the amount of cards he has created, nearly 10,000 over a period of three years. He has put in lot of effort and reaped the reward.

I believe his point is that although it is useful to analyze someone to see what they're doing wrong (so that you don't repeat the same mistake), it would be more useful to study what they are doing right so that you can apply those lessons to your situation. The former is quite easy to do and runs the risk of lulling one into complacency and a false sense of security, while the latter exercises your brain and demands greater effort and a more impartial assessment of the situation.

http://www.aaronkharris.com/presumption-of-stupitidy
https://sivers.org/ss

In the grandparent commenter's case, he is saying that everyone is focusing on the negatives of Chinese research when there are some useful lessons regarding regulation that could possibly be ported to the US.

Its encouraging to be reminded that still not everyone who uses Apple hardware runs MacOS exclusively.

https://sivers.org/openbsd

http://www.sacrideo.us/openbsd-on-macbook/

However I have not heard any reports of anyone running an alternative OS on iPhone or iPad hardware.

With every passing year I continue to think it would be interesting to observe how users would choose if Apple hardware and Apple software were sold separately.

Would all users choose Apple software?

Expecting to take a little karma subtraction from the thought police for daring to entertain such a nonpermissible idea. Par for the course here and well worth it.

Fantastic list, and thanks for the links.

Personally, I would put "Sapiens - A brief History of Humankind"[0] in the list rather than it's successor "21 Lessons for the 21st Century".

While some people have some gripes about The 48 Laws of Power and Robert Greene's other books, in my opinion, they serve as a really valuable tool for understanding how most medium and large companies work. And for anyone interested, a great way to dip your toes into it is by having a look at Derek Sivers' book notes - https://sivers.org/book/48LawsOfPower

[0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapiens-Humankind-Yuval-Noah-Harari/dp/0099590085