Active Recall!

Podcasts, videos, and iPad art

Proof of Work and Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Blockchain x Games)

Trying to learn how blockchain works, beyond just throwing money in and crossing my fingers.

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I was watching an interview between Justin Wong and Maximillion Dood about Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (TIL there’s no legitimate way to buy the game new right now.)

They talk about when MvC2 first came out. It wasn’t something that was leaking piece by piece on the internet. It just appeared all of a sudden. (That’s how I remember it, too. Thought I’d go to the arcade to play Marvel vs. Capcom and then part 2 was there from out of nowhere.)

In those initial weeks, you had limited characters until people played and unlocked characters over a few weeks. They weren’t time released, it was all through points accumulated by everyone playing the game.

(The Dreamcast was the same, but you could go online and download save data with everything unlocked and somehow throw it on a VMU.)

Digital characters were unlocked by players in the physical world.

Proof of play.

Now, let’s say that you need to get some exact score by the time you beat the game.

You have no idea what the exact score is. You just have to keep playing the game and beating it and finding out if the score matches or not.

Then imagine every MvC2 machine is networked, and everyone is trying to get that exact score match.

Some machine in a Las Vegas arcade has people playing 24/7 so more end game scores are generated. It gets more chances to match.

At some point, one of the machines gets a match. That machine releases 6.25 Bitcoin.

A new number to match is generated.

The machines keep running. The game goes on.

Revenge to 159: 0 of 8 — Good things to continue

I hit my all time heaviest weight: 176 lbs

That was after the trip to New York and Montana for a wedding in each state. Let’s call my first attempt at the road to 159 a failure and the next attempt will be the revenge tour. Where, hopefully, I’ll be able to turn the first failure into one of those “Win or learn” failures to build off of.

Some of the bloat is coming off but let’s call the starting weight 175 lbs.

  • Starting weight: 175 lbs
  • Goal weight: 159 lbs
  • Start date: August 16 (Mon)
  • Next friend’s wedding date: October 10 (Sun)

That’s 55 days, let’s call it 56 and a nice, even 8 weeks.

This is almost 2 lbs a week, which I know is pretty aggressive. But that starting weight was at full bloat after a meal and the day after wedding feasts. (My biggest small win: not going for thirds at the prime rib station, but I thought about it.)

If I drop a bunch of water weight in the first couple weeks, this could be more like 1-1.5 lbs a week. I know, I should do a DEXA scan or something like that. Maybe for the winter revenge.

So for this first check in, here’s a retro with some steps to go forward.

Nutrition

Things that worked that I should continue doing

Keep focusing on making it easy to follow some simple rules: high protein, high fiber, veggies with every meal, no snacking

  • Eating pre-packaged salads and chicken: I tried variations but the thing that was working really well (up until the trip started) was bulk packs of pre-packaged caesar salads and pre-packaged chicken breast. Convenience is king and this really makes everything so mindless and is the right balance of healthy + tastes good. Both taste better than when I try to make them from scratch. (Will this packaging destroy the earth? Collectively, over time, probably.)
  • Minimizing snacking: I installed a 2-tiered drawer in our cupboard that has the snacks in it. It’s actually sort of cumbersome and a side effect is that I think it might be helping with reducing snacking. Unintended, but I’ll take it. I also know that basically no snacking is good because the meals more than cover nutrition. That said, when snacking I’ve been pretty good about just grabbing one of the pre-packaged chicken containers and eating that.
  • Tracking with MyFitnessPal: Earlier on, I was tracking with the Drafts iOS app. This was good for increasing my mindfulness and at least thinking about tracking. But I wasn’t really paying attention to macros and calories, just eyeballing it. While I’m decent at guessing how much any individual item is (my wife is constantly impressed with this), it’s not really a useful skill in preventing myself from making bad food decisions. I switched to MyFitnessPal in the last couple weeks and that did help me make better decisions—usually in one of these major ways (1) Oh I need more protein today or (2) Oh I hit my calorie limit, I can try to cut myself off now.
  • Using some mantras (win this fight-thru, eat like an adult, I already know what that tastes like): How you talk to yourself matters. Thinking these things doesn’t always help, but it’s worth giving them a try even if they only work like 2 out of 5 times. It feels like they’re working a little more the more I use them though so who knows. No cost to continue using them and I’ll keep looking out for any others that are effective.

Movement

Things that worked that I should continue doing

Some combination of heavy weights, bodyweight, walking, and kettlebells.

  • Lift heavy – reverse pyramid 3x a week: The double progression has worked pretty well for me in the past. The lighter AMRAP for the final set always keeps things interesting and does help with the mental “oh that felt like a workout” feeling. Which might be dumb (soreness != good workout) but if it helps with motivation then it’s a good thing. That said, I need to be careful because there were a couple days where I was sore probably in the wrong ways. So I either need to warm up better or be more careful with form.
  • Bodyweight – 3RM and 5RM fighter pull up program: I just want to get my pull-ups back up. I was listening to Pat Flynn and Dan John talking about strength standards and one listener question was about pull ups. I used to know I could bang out 5 no problem. Now 5 is a struggle, as in I’m not sure I can do 5 right now. So I want to do the 3RM sequence to get to 5. Then use the 5RM sequence to get to 10 by the time I’m headed to that October wedding.
  • As many long walks as possible: Being back in New York for a week reminded me of just how much I used to walk and how that probably kept some pounds off over the years. I averaged 5 miles a day most months in New York. It’s gone way down in San Francisco and with the pandemic. But I want to get this back up by doing longer walks with Booster, walking to the gym, and aiming for one hike with Amy every weekend.
  • Kettlebells: I want to work the kettlebells back in in some way. It might be something like doing a warm up with the kettlebells 2x a day (one before the workout and one at night as a little extra practice and movement). Or it might be doing 10 minutes of light get-ups on non-heavy days. Not sure but I miss using kettlebells.

That’s that, see you for the week 1 check in. If I’m numbering these posts right, I can do week 8 final check in on the flight to New York headed to the wedding.

Info diet check-in (August 13, 2021)

This morning, I bought a book based on Tim Ferriss’s recommendation in his newsletter to just buy it without reading the description or reviews.

Lesson: the most important part of an email isn’t the subject line, it’s the “from:”

Maybe these info diet check ins can be my minimum effective dose for writing.

    Build a bit of awareness: It might help me notice that all I listen to is My First Million and Not Investment Advice, but I already knew that. It’ll be good to capture the other things that I’m listening to or reading.
    Practice writing short descriptions: I’ve always enjoyed Polina Marinova Pompliano’s The Profile and how good she is at two core newsletter elements: curiosity in the link title + succinct descript of why you’ll want to read the full profile. Maybe I can get reps in with these info diet posts.
    Reduce churn in my own writing: I pretty much write a private version of these posts anyway, scattered across Roam, Evernote, and Drafts. It’s not too big a step to write with publishing in mind.

Okay on to these links.

My First Million: Why you need a chief automation officer (w/ Steph Smith)

Invest in yourself: Shaan and Steph acknowledge this is a bit of a cop out answer to “what do you invest in?” so she goes further into what investing in herself actually means. Buy anything education related: currently taking a Python automation course. Never look at the market. Invests in her own time.

Bike metaphor: If you’ll do a big goal, it’s a cross country trip. Lay the map out. Eliminate all the stuff that’s unnecessary. Get an electric bike. Eliminate, automate, delegate.

Underrated – job shadowing: More people should be shadowing others in their jobs. First, it’s a great way to learn how to do a job. Second, it’s a great way to identify places to automate pieces of other people’s jobs.

All in vs. side hustles: The podcast was Shan’s hobby while he was at Twitch. He doesn’t think the part time approach will work for full on businesses. He’s big on mindset, so working on something part time that needs full time conviction is a recipe for failure.

Okay I was going to write more episode notes but I didn’t expect that intro to go so long.

Next post will be after this trip, back in SF.

5 creator lessons from The Suicide Squad

“Oh so that’s what they were trying to do with the first one.”

I watched The Suicide Squad last night and saw that comment somewhere on reddit or Twitter. I really enjoyed it. So here are some lessons if you’re a generalist creator.

(Light spoilers ahead.)

1.) Just run it back!

It’s sort of a reboot, except Harley Quinn’s character continues on from the first movie. It’s hard for a story to get that kind of shot again in Hollywood.

But you’re not in Hollywood!

You’re writing threads on Twitter or making videos in a single day.

Take advantage of the medium and that you don’t need permission from a studio. Get a lot of reps in and find a way to get feedback, then get even more reps in.

2.) Do it the long way

James Gunn shared on Twitter so this isn’t a huge spoiler: King Shark rips a man in half.

Vertically, the Kung Lao way. (Or the Bone Tomahawk way if you’re familiar with very very disturbing scenes. Though that’s probably another lesson: if you want to make it stick, just give a glimpse and the thud of guts. But please don’t.)

Oh yah so back to King Shark. Gunn mentions that the body ripping was a practical effect. (Though King Shark is CG added in later.)

Gives it a different look.

Same goes for doing something by hand, like morning pages. You’ll write fewer words than you would with a keyboard. But the words will be different. Your thoughts will be different.

3.) Get focused (even if you have to kill a few darlings)

There are a couple scenes where characters die earlier than expected. Built up pretty nicely then gone the next moment. Nice way to keep the audience on their toes.

When writing, it can be tempting to add a ton of examples to support the point you’re trying to make. Each additional example dilutes the rest. Sometimes 1 or 2 will get the point across. Kill the rest. (Or stick them in a parking lot to use later.)

4.) Put an explosive in your neck (or just remove your backspace key)

In Suicide Squad, the criminals each get an explosive put in their neck. If they desert the mission, the government can blow them up remotely. It’s, of course, very effective.

You don’t need to go that far.

When doing creative work, you’ll go through diverge-converge stages: drafting to revising, clown brain to editor brain, mind map to outline.

If you’re in a diverge stage, find ways to put that explosive in your neck. (I often use Cold Turkey Writer which locks me into a draft until I hit a word count or time count.)

Stay focused and don’t turn back.

5.) Storytelling is about creating contrast

Suicide Squad is all about contrasts. Bad guys as good guys. Peace through killing. B characters as star characters. A shark on land.

Every good story has these contrasts. Matthew Dicks explains this in Storyworthy:

Contrast is king in storytelling, and laughter can provide a fantastic contrast to something authentically awful.

Without jokes and things being over-the-top, Suicide Squad would just be murderers continuing to murder other people in disgusting ways for their own freedom, all organized by a murderous government.

No contrast, just depression.

Practice building up contrast in scenes and in your overall story.

Book Notes: Mind Management, Not Time Management: Productivity When Creativity Matters

I started listening to the book this morning and am enjoying some of the reframes David Kadavy presents.

Attempting to summarize what I’ve read so far in 3 sentences: David wrote a few books and realized his best writing was done as a nomad. He travels to Medellin to work and to also try to figure out exactly why his best work is done there. He writes the book and recognizes patterns and differences between cultures that can inform how to approach creative work.

Build an understanding of the diverge-converge flow of creative work

He knows that he’ll have the best chance of finishing his daily work if it’s first thing in the morning. I liked an analogy he shared: work is similar to airports. Airports start fresh each day, so morning flights have fewer delays than later flights. Because they’re less affected by any chain reactions. Same with the mornings—they’ll be more predictable and interruption free.

But how do you use that time best? Start with divergent work (get the draft down) and then switch to convergent work (revise a draft for publishing). Whether you do this all in the morning or not, in can still be useful to sequence these on whatever time scale.

If you just diverge-diverge-diverge without a balance of converge-converge-converge then you’ll start way more work than you can actually finish.

Clock time vs. Event time

Americans tend to run on clock time: I’ll eat lunch at 12:30pm. Clock time is good for work efficiency.

Kadavy noticed people in Colombia running on event time: I’ll eat lunch when I’m hungry. Event time is good for creative effectiveness.

The rebuttal that comes to mind is that whole saying that I’ll butcher right now: I’ll write when inspiration strikes and that usually happens at 6am when I’m writing.

So it’s about balancing the two in some way. Some novel connection will hit you when you aren’t at the desk in front of a keyboard. Those things might happen on walks. But you can plan for walks and have a process ready in case that kind of connection happens.

Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, Verification

David describes the four stages of control aka the four stages of creativity.

  • Prepare at night by researching for the following morning
  • Incubate during sleep
  • Illuminate in the morning by writing a draft
  • Verify later in the morning or in the day by revising a draft

This reminds me of a few other frameworks for creative work.

Tiago Forte’s building a second brain methodology has similar steps to move from information diet to notes to intermediate packets all contributing to final projects.

Roy Peter Clark describes steps for writing in Writing Tools:

In other words, the writer conceives an idea, collects things to support it, discovers what the work is really about, attempts a first draft, and revises in the quest for greater clarity.

(Emphasis mine.)

In each of these there’s some sequence of diverge-converge.

Sleep is when short term moves into long term, you’re only working with long term in the morning

I’ll need to straighten out the science here but the idea seems to be that you have limited short term memory and only a certain amount of bandwidth for moving that information from short term to long term memory.

And it’s going to be sort of random. If you stuff your short term memory to the brim, you can add more. But something’s going to just drop off and disappear forever. It isn’t exactly going to be last-in-first-out or first-in-first-out.

“As you’re trying to connect concepts to generate ideas, it’s like you’re pulling actors onstage to act in scenes. But the more actors you have on the stage, the more difficult your scene becomes to follow. So at some point you need to send some actors offstage.”

— Mind Management, Not Time Management: Productivity When Creativity Matters by David Kadavy

Be a little more diligent about what goes in and it’ll be more predictable what gets remembered. It’ll be waiting for you in the morning.

That’s that for now. I’ll keep adding to this as I continue reading.

Info diet check in (August 11, 2021 Wednesday)

Writing this post in a Starbucks in Kalispell, Montana. Finally actually did one of those @macrobarista drinks: the killer caramel cold brew. Great account solving a straightforward problem: I’m on a diet but want to have those dessert-like coffee drinks.

The Pat Flynn Show: The Importance of Setting Goals Beyond the Gym w/ Dan John

One of my must-listens each week, along with My First Million and Not Investment Advice. MFM and NIA keep me tuned into what’s new in business, tech, and the internet. Pat Flynn and Dan John keep me tuned in on things that will still matter and be roughly the same a decade from now: stay healthy through movement and healthier eating. Technology might give us some advances, but it’s hard to imagine that working out regularly now will not pay off in the long run.

Some ideas from this episode: aligning fitness goals to something outside of the gym (working out for a specific trip has worked better for me than aiming for a general summer body), rolling dice during the paleo diet (1st roll for food quantity, 2nd roll for workout), randomness in workouts (Dan doesn’t need his workouts to be fun but understands it’s helpful for others), and the weekly kimchi purchases (1–2 gallons each week with oatmeal).

Long term, sustainable approach to eating: practice fasting (different from starving) and learn to appreciate hunger. Vegetables with every meal. Water for most hydration. And remember: it’s hard to eat it if it’s not there. (Aka don’t bring snacks into the house.)

New Teeth by Simon Rich

I’ve read all of Simon Rich’s books and will continue reading all his future books. This collection of short stories is about parenthood. Again, he does a great job of writing from different (wacky) perspectives. What if cartoon pirates raised an infant on their ship? What if a toddler was a detective? These aren’t questions that would have ever come to mind so I’m glad that Simon Rich could think them up.

Indie Hackers: 221 – How an indie hacker is competing with Buffer with Samy Dindane of Hypefury

What makes an effective MVP? Samy noticed that there wasn’t a tool available for Twitter threads. He built a tool in 3 days then shared it with a Telegram group of other builders. Didn’t have a landing page and was just manually signing people up to it. Eventually he saw that some people were using the tool more than he was. Good sign that there was something to it. He eventually added billing and got 20 customers paying $20 in the first few days (How’d it feel? “Fucking amazing man.”) Eventually looked for a co-founder to handle growth. From there they’ve grown it to $20k MRR.

Also, Courtland shares an analogy that’s making me very hungry: chicken-fried steak is not really available in Seattle even though it’s delicious—word spreads slower than you think and sometimes it doesn’t get far at all even if the product is great.