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title = "Build a Second Brain - Tiago Forte"
date = "2024-06-06"
author = "John Costa"
toc = true
tags = ["books", "productivity"]
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Now more than ever, people have to manage incredible amounts of information, and recall it at a moments notice.
The cheer amount of data that most of us consume in our work and lives is the highest in human history.
Tiago Forte's book _Building a Second Brain_, explains the need for a second brain, as well as guides into how you would implement your own system.
# What is it?
A second brain is not a thing but a system. It is the collection of tools you use to store, organise and recall information from. It is also the information stored on those tools.
# Why do you need it?
The famous quote from David Allen (Author of Getting Things Done) _'Your mind is for having ideas, not storing them'_. You should not have to store all the information you deal with in your everyday life in your head, you simply won't be able to.
So we need to come up with a system to help us keep track of all the information, so that we can build on it and produce work from it.
# The Second Brain Methodology
## CODE (Capture, Organise, Distil, Express)
Forte explains that the process you should take when using your Second Brain, is the following:
## Capture.
Write down things that you _vibe_ with, things that catch your interest or things that you think will be nice to look back on at a later time.
Forte mentioned _The moment you first encounter an idea is the worst time to decide what it means_. This stayed with me because it is very true, you often encounter things, make the decision that it is not important, and then move on with your life. Just to think about it in a week's time and having no idea where you found it.
You should capture things that make you stop and thing slightly. They will come back and be useful at some point.
Forte mentions an idea from Richard Feynman, who said he keeps around 12 interesting problem floating around his head. Forte encourages you to sit down and think about what these problems are, and when you see something that loosely relates to one of them, you should capture it.
Here are some of my interesting problems.
- How can I work after my day job, without being tired or unmotivated?
- How can I be the best engineer I can possibly be?
- How to spend quality time with friends and family.
Perhaps mine are a bit too specific, but they are specific to my life, you might want to consider more broad problems instead.
## Organise. The PARA system.
PARA (Projects, Areas, Resources and Archive), is the _folder_ system Forte recommends.
### Projects
A folder containing all your active projects, from all areas of your life. This serves the main place in your second brain that you interact with day to day because it contains the most _actionable_ information, as well as actual pieces of work.
### Areas
More high-level than projects, these serve as things in your life that you actively thing about but aren't projects. Some examples are:
- Finances.
- Hobbies / Sports (For me this is Judo).
Although these are not projects, they are things you probably think about quite frequently, and therefore deserve to have a folder to contains various bits of information.
It is also often from here that projects spawn from, as you develop a more specific interest or goal from one of these areas.
### Resources
Reference material. Information that you don't think about but information that needs a place to live. You can store pretty much anything here, as long as it is somewhat relevant to your projects or areas, or you think it will in the future.
Here are some of my resources:
- Books and Authors
- Restaurants
- Quotes
- Daily Notes
It is very general, and what I found myself doing is going through the folders inside _resources_ for inspiration, and thinking about how I can _distill_ this information into an interesting piece of work, or how I could use it in my current projects.
### Archive
Everything you don't need to look at, probably ever again. However, you _might_, so it is important to not delete it, just in case you need to look back at some stuff.
It is also important because it gives you motivation to keep going. All your finished projects will end up in the Archive, and if you are ever feeling down or unproductive, you can look back in your archive to see how far you've come.
The archive is also where I started my more structured second brain. I dumped every file I had in the Archive, and slowly took things out, and realised how many things I did not need to have lying around.
## Distil
The previous two sections were fairly familiar to me, even if I didn't use the PARA system, I had _a_ system.
But what my previous system was very bad at was enabling me to _Distil_. The process of distilling something means looking at current information and breaking it down into smaller, more easily consumed chunks, so that your future self can look back and not have to do much work.
Forte offers a technique called _Progressive Summarisation_, where you highlight a bit of raw source material (let's say a Wikipedia article), and you highlight the bits that are relevant, and then do it again. Until you have a very concise sentence of two which captures the entire article.
## Express
Take your work, and create something presentable out of it. It is interesting to me that Forte choose to add this step as part of the process and not as a side-effect. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.
Expressing your work is a crucial part of learning. One of the best ways to become better at something (at least for me), is to teach it to someone else. Not only that but other people might have incredibly valuable insights into your work and will help you make it better.
There is only so much you can do when working alone, so it is important to share your work, and help others, and get help from others.
# My Own System
I've talked about the book as a whole and the key lessons I have taken from it (although I have omitted some). I will now show you what my own system looks like.
## [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md)
This is the champion of the entire system. I use other tools but this contains most information.
![Obsidian Menu](/obsidian_menu.png)
There are two reasons why I choose Obsidian, not only as the best option, but in many ways _the only option_.
### 1. My Data
Obsidian works on Markdown files (.md), which is a common, plain-text format. It has enough features to create rich text, and it is light enough so that it doesn't annoy me.
But the important thing is that these are my files, and they are no one elses, I have ownership over them, and can at any point transfer them to another app if I wanted to, of even edit the raw files themselves, I am not stuck to Obsidian, which in many ways is why I choose to use Obsidian.
The other side of this is that I setup my own syncing solution using [Syncthing](https://syncthing.net) so that my laptop, tablet, desktop, phone and server all have the same files.
### 2. Community Plugins
The eco-system around Obsidian is increbible, and the plugins turn Obsidian into a complete solution for your second brain system.
Here are some that I use.
- [Dataview](https://blacksmithgu.github.io/obsidian-dataview/)
- [Mapview](https://github.com/esm7/obsidian-map-view)
- [Checklist](https://github.com/delashum/obsidian-checklist-plugin)
A really powerful thing you can do with Dataview, is bringing tasks from across various files.
![Tasks](/tasks.png)
This alone means that I no longer need a todo app or a project manager, because this is plenty for me.
Mapview is also really useful so I can store all the places I have been to, and check what I thought about them. Here is an example from a recent trip to Barcelona.
![Map](/map.png)
## [Raindrop](https://raindrop.io)
This is my bookmark manager. Whenever I go on a web page that I find interesting, I bookmark it to look back on later.
Whilst Obsidian acts as my box of information for more abstract things, Raindrop is the system I use to store websites and links.
It is very useful to then look back on them later, and mostly I organise and sort through my Raindrop when I'm out and only have my phone to keep me entertained. There I can read things I saved for later and sort links into certain folders.
## Physical Notebook
Along with all the digital tools, I also use an A5 notebook as my day book. Every day I write the date and day on the top of the right hand side page, and use that page and the one on the left, to keep notes about the day, more important tasks and anything I find cool.
This is a life saver during workdays, because I often have to juggle a lot of information, so it's good to keep a physical list I can look at.
It is also very useful to look at the previous days, to check what you got through.
## Other Tools
There are many others I use to get work done, but they are less specific.
- GitHub - Keeps all my code.
- OBS - Software for screen recording and streaming.
- Arch Linux + KDE - My OS of choice, most of the defaults here are sensible and I find myself using KDE apps for a lot of things (PDFs, screenshots, etc...).
- Syncthing - For keeping Obsidian in sync.
# Conclusion
This book was extremely useful. It not only explains the need for a good system, but it is an incredible guide as to how someone can build this system.
Forte is a very good writer, with many practical chapters focused directly at getting your work organised, with just the write amount of more abstract chapters to discuss the concept of a second brain.
I highly recommend you read it yourself, even if you skip a bunch of chapter to just look at CODE, this is the best resource to learn about it.
Rating: 8/10. e

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title = "Dune 2 - Review"
tags = ["movies"]
date = "2024-03-03"
author = "John Costa"
toc = true
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Dune 2 shows us Paul Attreides rise to power, fulfilling the prophecy that a voice from the outer world shall come to Arrakis, and lead the Fremen. We witness Paul's development and triumph over the Emperium, in an epic, stunning and near perfect movie.
This review is overwhelmingly positive, I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I am a big fan of the Dune books and its universe, so naturally I had very high hopes for the movie, given that the first one had stuck to the source material pretty well.
# Overview
## Paul's Development
Paul starts his journey to become a Fedaykin (a fighter) for Sketch Tabr, under Stilgar. We witness him crossing the desert by himself, interacting with other Fremen and learning their ways. This part of the movie ends with Paul riding a sandworm, in one of the coolest scenes in any movie I've ever seen.
I'm not sure how I felt about this early part of the movie, I liked it, but the pacing felt wrong, almost too slow at parts. I can't quite describe why I didn't _fully_ enjoy this part of the movie, but I wouldn't help the feeling that something was off.
## Feyd-Rautha
Holy shit, this was incredible. The depth of this character was just breathtaking, it took what I knew about him from the book and made it 10 times better. Incredible character.
The home world of the Harkonnen _Giedi Prime_, perfectly depicts the cruelty we know and expect from them. A completely flooded, uncreative, dystopian city, with big buildings towering over the population, not to mention the lack of any plants and colour, to drain the very soul of anyone present. Incredible work. Honestly, this kinda of stole the show, it was so good.
## The Speech
When Paul goes South, he truly becomes the _Lisan Al-Gaib_, leading the Fremen into battle, not by choice but by duty, showing every aspect of House Attreides in him.
## The Battle
Just so sick. They nailed the story (apart from The Baron's death! I mention it later...), this is very close to the way the book ends.
Just amazing, when I first read this fight in the book, I did not even dream of this level of epicness.
So that's a little overview of the whole movie, fairly short I know, I don't want to bore you too much.
Here are some other aspects of the movie I felt worth it to mention.
# Visually
Stunning movie, absolutely stunning. They made Arrakis (Dune) look so much better than I imagined it looking. The mix between medieval customs and what I believe is Islamic inspired architecture used by the Fremen, was simply stunning. I have no doubt this was what Herbert (The author), had in mind when he wrote the book.
The worms were still incredible, they nailed their size and ferosity. The scene where Paul first solo rides a worm really immersed me in the experience, as if I was going through exactly what Paul was, that third person angle they used through a chunk of the scene was incredible.
The explosions from the attacks on the harvesters were very good, the tenacity of the Fremen on full display here, as well as the industrial scale at which Arrakis is being harvested.
The **Atomics**. That was so sick. The explosion near Arraken, was just so good. With the following battle with the sandworms. I don't need to say anything, I've never seen something quite like it.
The way they completely nailed the _scale_ of things in this scene is something we don't fully appreciate, but the size of the emperors troops, and the destruction caused by the bombs, on point.
# Sound
This made the movie for me, sitting in a cinema and having the epic music shake the entire room, just made the experience so good. Hans Zimmer delivers once again.
# The Story
Ok, I had some thing sto say about this. I'll preface by saying that I'm a massive fan of the Dune books, and therefore am biased to having Frank Herberts story told closer to the source material. I think most people who aren't as into the books, or haven't read them at all will probably not agree with me.
## Religion
This part was nailed by the movie, in a way that even the book didn't make me think this deeply about it. How deeply religious the Fremen are, and how they live their entire lives waiting for the prophecy (which we know is Bene Gesserit tosh), really makes you appreciate the grand scheme of the universe of Dune. Hundreds of years the Fremen were sold lies, such that they could be controlled, in a fate of dramatic irony, the Bene Gesserit are the ones who suffer from their own doing, as Paul, assumes his position perfectly and counters the Status Quo of the sisterhood.
The divide between Northern and Southern Fremen was also displayed very well here, with the fundamental south being much more extreme, even wanting Paul to slay Stilgar just so he could speak, as was tradition.
## Presciense
This word isn't mentioned in the movie (AFAIK), but it is the ability to see possibilities of the future, as well as being able to see the past clearly through genetic memories. (To be fair, this isn't massively explored in the first dune book, I feel like I mostly understood what this meant in the third book "Children of Dune", so really, can I fault the movie?).
Paul's abilities are shown throughout the movie, but the _threads_ of future possibilities is mentioned once, after Paul takes the _Water of life_, and is talking to Jessica about his mind being open. Could they not have made a bigger deal about this? I feel like even the southern sietch scene, where Paul perfectly describes the past of a few Fremen, is a tad confusing if you aren't told more about this principle. We don't really see the past, as Paul saw it, which I feel is my biggest disappointment from this movie (don't get me wrong, this movie is incredible, just listing a thing that made me feel a bit cheated).
I really wished this ability of Paul's was further explored, and why it's such a big deal to the Fremen, and to the Bene Gesserit. We hear the words _Kwisatz Haderach_ being thrown around, but... show me the past as Paul can see it! Show us Paul splitting the future! Show him eliminating possibilities! Show us! (Am I out of touch here?)
## Alia
Ok, I'll admit. If the movie had added Alia (who in the books is born before the war), most people would probably be very confused as to why a new born (who very quickly becomes a 4 year old), is there? How do you even translate that into visual medium? So, I'm not complaining about it really.
I will say two things:
1. The fact that Alia is preborn is shown well in the movie, Jessica can clearly talk to the daughter. What isn't shown very well, is how Jessica and Alia can talk to past reverend mothers, and have their memories. The scene where Jessica drinks the _Water of live_, could have explored this more, as well as why it's a mistake to do it if Jessica is pregnant (_Abomination_).
2. Alia kills the Baron, not Paul. Yes, a 4 year old with the mind of a 20 year old and many past lives living in her brain, uses the _Gom Jabbar_ (poison needle we see being used by the Reverend Mother on Paul in the first movie, and later with Feyd-Rautha), to kill the Baron Harkonnen. I would have loved to see it, I get why they didn't do it (how would you even do it?).
## The Ending
The book ends with Jessica telling Chani not to worry about Paul taking Irulan for wife, because Jessica herself was a concubine not a wife, the marriage is purely political. I think they did Chani dirty with this, the book ends with positive note on their relationship.
The movie explained the defiance of the Landsraad extremely well, and shows the reason why Paul start a Jihad, that takes the universe by storm, to cement his position as Emperor.
Maybe you could do a bit more on _why_ the Landsraad don't invade Dune, Paul says they have nukes pointed at the spice fields (is this accurate?) but why is that a big deal, and why does the Spacing Guild refuse to let anyone come down to the planet. Because they are _blind_ without the spice! And Paul can see all of this! Paul can see them with his Prescience powers!
# Conclusion
Amazing movie, almost perfect, I just like the book a lot and would have preferred to see some of the more intricate details from the story, but I get it - it probably would have made for a worst movie, so I'm not upset about it. (Although I sound it).
## Rating: 8.8/10

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title = "Extreme Programming Explained - A Review"
author = "Kent Beck"
date = "2024-03-04"
tags = ["books", "software"]
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# A brief summary
Extreme Programming is a way of writing software as a team. It's main goal is to reduce the risk of changes, by building the entire framework around allowing change.
No one knows what a software project should actually do at the start of its development. A client could sit for weeks and still be wrong about requirements. This is natural. You can only see what you actually need once you start making it.
Instead of imposing harsh rules on new requirements, XP embraces new requirements as part of the process.
## 4 Variables a team can adjust
1. Cost
2. Time
3. Quality
4. Scope
### Cost
A little more money can make things go faster, but too much can be a problem. 10 Engineers? Good. 100? You might be shooting yourself in the foot
### Time
More time = More quality and increase scope.
### Quality
Other methodologies might sacrifice quality (take shortcuts, no tests), but you only save yourself time in the very short term, in the long run this will _always_ come back to hurt you. XP doesn't negotiate on quality.
### Scope
Which features do you actually need?
Scope comes directly from requirements, knowing which features to build and how flexible they must be.
## 4 XP Values
1. Communication - Talk constantly between developers and client, so work out scope of features.
2. Simplicity - The code that exists served the current scope and no more. Complexity is the enemy.
3. Feedback - Between developers, clients and managers.
4. Courage - To change what needs to be changed and speak up about problems, even if they are unconfortable.
## Development in XP
### Pair Programming
Beck says that any production code should be done with two programmers at one machine. Beck claims this creates a very high level of software because the programmers will hold each other accountable to writing good tests, writing them before the code, and writing just enough code to make the tests pass.
I'm not sure I agree this is correct, I've been in many pairing sessions where we both look guiltily at each other before writing some _bad_ code we know we will have to fix later, just to meet a deadline.
I don't disagree with Beck, but I don't agree _all_ production code should be done by pairs. Some? Sure. But individual contributions are still great. That being said, I would gladly spend 30% of my development time pairing.
### Testing - Full TDD
No code before tests. No more code than the code needed for the tests to pass.
This creates robust software, that is just as simple as the scope requires it to be.
I completely agree with this, often writing tests is about me as a programmer writing a specification, not so much testing a feature works. This also creates a self imposed restriction, I'm just going to write code to make tests green, I'm not going to write more. Whereas if you don't have tests, then you might get carried away writing code.
### Constantly Refactor
If the system ever becomes more complicated than needed. Change it. This is possible because of _testing_ being done thoroughly throughout the project. Without these tests to aid refactoring, it would not be possible.
The presence of good tests means you can change the entire architecture of the system, and still be satisfied that it will work.
### Constant Integration
Your code should never sit for more than a few hours without being checked against the rest of the code in the project.
As a way of writing software, I love XP. I think it nails it, when it comes to writing quality software. I mentioned I didn't fully agree with the _pair programming_ take, but I don't completely disagree with it either, I can see why (specially pre-2000s), this was such a good idea.
Overall I think Version Control, and messaging platforms (discord, slack...) have gotten so good, that there isn't a need to even be in the same physical location (Beck even mentioned this in a recent blog post).
But I see the need for present, interaction with other programmers.
There are other attributes that relate to development in XP, such as:
- Collective ownership - Everyone can change everything in the project.
- 40-Hour workweek - A tired programmer is a bad programmer.
- Accepted responsibility - Tasks aren't given, they are accepted.
## Planning with XP
Beck refers to this as _the planning game_. Where business people and programmers play a back and sort on what needs to be done, and what can be done
### Business
- Scope
- Priority
- Composition of releases
- Dates of releases
### Programmers
- Estimates
- Consequences
- Process
- Detailed Scheduling
The programmers will push back on business, specially on scope, and make business aware of the consequences of having certain features or not. This way everyone can come away happy, if both parties give some way to the other, the best possible sofware will be built.
### Small Releases
XP wants systems to be in production ASAP. A system in production is vastly different from one that is not, you simply cannot gather as much information if you are not in production.
Because XP has a very high code standard (testing, refactoring), you can happy to make very big changes even _after_ you have released to production.
# Thoughts
This was a very brief overview of this book. Beck goes into detail about many other aspects of this methodology, but I think this mostly covers it.
It is interesting how much of this is mainstream now. Constant Integration for example, I don't see a project _without_ it. What more projects need is the focus on testing and refactoring.
It's a hard sell for most, because in the short term it does slow you down, but overtime it speeds you up magnitudes. And in high-stress environments (which are most software jobs), a programmer is going to cave, and just not test or refactor code. This is both a management problem and an individual problem.
I think XP isn't so much a methodology to follow strictly, but a base for your own systems. It provides guidelines as to how you should plan your sprints (it does insist on sprints of 1-3 weeks), but how you plan them can be up to you. What doesn't change it the discussion between business and development, and the constantly communication between programmers and the customer, so that we can incorporate any changes the customer might (will) want to make, into our sprints, without any risk.
Really that's all XP is about, not preventing change, but being ready for change, so that the risk of making a change is the same no matter when it's made in the development process (or at least a very slow increase over time).

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title = 'Books'
date = 2025-07-22T15:15:00Z
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title = "Deepwork - Cal Newport"
date = "2022-08-16"
author = "John Costa"
toc = true
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This review is a little different because I wrote it down on paper, here are the pages:
![DeepworkPart1](https://johncosta.tech/static/DeepworkPart1.jpg)
![DeepworkPart2.jpg](https://johncosta.tech/static/DeepworkPart2.jpg)
![DeepworkPart3.jpg](https://johncosta.tech/static/DeepworkPart3.jpg)
![DeepworkPart4.jpg](https://johncosta.tech/static/DeepworkPart4.jpg)
![DeepworkPart5.jpg](https://johncosta.tech/static/DeepworkPart5.jpg)
![DeepworkPart6.jpg](https://johncosta.tech/static/DeepworkPart6.jpg)

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title = "Digital Minimalism - Cal Newport"
description = "A book review"
tags = ["books"]
date = "2022-09-05"
author = "John Costa"
toc = true
+++
The author of the very popular "Deep work", is a book describing a problem, which is our digital addictions and malpractices, and also how we can adopt the philosophy of "Digital Minimalism", in order to make us use technology in a healthy, and productive way.
The book opens up by talking about how many of us feel trapped by technology, we have developed unhealthy habits of constant connection and constant scrolling. There have been many articles written about this, and many people have this feeling that technology isn't working for them, but it seems that we are the slaves to it. This is good business on the side of giant technology companies such as Facebook (Meta), which make money from our attention, it is only natural they want us to be constantly attached to our phones.
Before reading this book, I had thought about this - specially when it comes to short form content such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, you name it... I was extremely concerned about my own well being, because I had never felt such a pull from a piece of social media, I always used it fairly sparingly - but when Instagram Reels came out, I was hooked, pulling around 1 - 2 hours a day just on these short videos, and it showed. I couldn't concentrate on my online lectures, I couldn't learn as quickly as I had done before, nor could I concentrate for as long, so I stopped it. The first step came a while ago, but I used to text my partner on Instagram DMs, and I asked if she would mind switching to Telegram, and the simple act of not opening the app slashed my screen time in half. I am rambling let's get back on track.
## Digital Minimalism and Digital Declutter
Digital Minimalism as Newport describes it is:
> Digital Minimalism is a philosophy towards technology which prioritises digital use to a small number of deeply thought out and efficient activities.
He backs this up with the following points (I won't go into too much detail here).
- Clutter is costly
- Optimisation is important: Each tool should be finely tool to help you get your work done / have proper leisure.
- Intentional is satisfying: Doing things because you want to them is by itself satisfying.
Newport suggests that we undergo a 30 day digital de-clutter where we remove all non-essential digital technologies from our life. This includes Netflix, most apps (excluding work), TV, and most importantly: Social Media. Newport then suggests that after the 30 days we start to reintroduce some technologies, but we do so with every intention of using them properly, therefore we apply the principles of Digital Minimalism. Newport claims this is important because it shows us what we need and what we don't in our lives.
I think this might be slightly extreme, I think you can see problems in your current tools and act accordingly, however I haven't had a huge problem with technology - perhaps someone with a greater addiction would benefit from the complete de-clutter.
## Practices of Digital Minimalism
### Spend time alone
With the rise of modern technology, we have almost completely removed solitude. Think about it, when was the last time you were truly alone? No music, no TV, no work, just you? This was a scary realisation for me because the answer was none. I am either always surrounded by friends or see them on social media, or I am listening to music or watching netflix when I'm alone, this means I have spent very little time alone.
There are great examples that Newport gives in the book about why Solitude is important, but my favourite is that we have very complicated social circuits in our brain, and they are not meant to be on all the time, but they are now a days, constant notifications, alerts, pings, etc...
Spending time alone can benefit your mental health and it gives you time to realise the person you want to be and actually have a chat with yourself, something I believe (and so does Newport) to be of the utmost importance.
### Don't click like
Clicking the like button on social media makes you more committed to social media, interacting with in any way makes you more invested in it, and in recent times we have all heard the odd family member say "Why didn't you like my post?", as clicking twice on a piece of glass shows that I really care for them.
Social media companies know this, that we now have a certain contract between each other to like and comment on each others posts, and this makes us waste more time online, scrolling to endless posts and double tapping, for most of us it is probably muscle memory, which is just horrifying.
The reason I read this book WAS because of how social media affected my mental health and how often I was spending on it, after reading the book I uninstalled all social media from my phone and I message my closes friends on WhatsApp or Telegram (or god forbid SMS). And most people will say that they "cannot do it", YES YOU CAN, just try... you'll realise that you don't even care about 90% of the people on social media and all you've been doing is distancing yourself from the relationships you actually want to maintain. Focus on the 10% of people you actually care about, go see them, call them, sending a "heart" on Instagram every once in a while is no way to maintain a relationship.
### Reclaim leisure
The one I struggle with the most.
> Prioritise demanding activity over passive consumption
Our leisure habits, most often consist of scrolling through Twitter or watching Netflix. This stuff is fine but it has to be kept in check, if this is all we do then it is not okay, you need to have a proper leisure activity, a club or anything really to keep you busy when you are not working, something you really enjoy doing. These also have the benefit of being extremely satisfying compared to just watching Netflix.
> Seek activities, that require real-world, social interaction
I, just like many others, love working remotely and love playing some video games with friends (or even by myself) however this cannot replace the leisure you have from playing chess over the board, or going to a badminton club where you have to socialise with your doubles partner. Social interaction in leisure is extremely important.
### Join the attention resistance
Many giant social media companies are fighting for your attention, that is their business model, they need your eyes, on your phone, to sell you ads. Don't give it to them.
Easier said then done but Newport does suggest a couple of things to get you started:
- Delete social media from your phone (check it on your computer instead).
- Use social media like a profession (use it to check on your friends, message someone, don't waste time scrolling).
- Embrace slow media (long articles, something that really requires your full attention).
- Dumb down your phone (I will go into this last one).
Your phone, is the closest object to you, maybe the closest object humans have ever had. We are rarely 1 meter from our phone. Phones are amazing inventions, everything you could ever know is just at your finger tips on a device many times more powerful than the moon lander.
However, it can also be extremely addictive to just stare at the screen for hours, so I (and Newport) suggest you dumb down your phone. For me, I installed Niagra launcher (I have a OnePlus 8 running Android 11), this is a super simple launcher that lists your favourite apps, and the rest are hidden, that's it. This means when you open the phone you go straight to the app you want, you don't scroll for no reason. Something else this has helped me with is removing the apps I was somewhat addicted to (Instagram and YouTube), and put them out of sight, making me less likely to open them.
## Conclusion
Digital Minimalism is a great book that I think most people should read, it really exposes our addiction to technology and social media, and how it just isn't okay we spend so much time on it. It helped me form better, healthier habits with technology and in turn I am much happier, more productive, and spend more time doing more meaningful things - But I won't like, I still binge netflix from time to time, I still watch YouTube a TON, but this book has made me much more cautious about this, I can make sure that at least I don't use social media, or that I am aware of how much time I am spending on my phone.

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title = "Sedated - By James Davies"
date = "2024-06-02"
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Sedated is a book about mental health, and the increase is mental illness in recent years - and with that the increase in anti depressants and other psychoactive drugs.
The books revolves around a question. 'If we have increased anti-depressant usage, why are we seeing an increase in mental illness?'. Davies has two ways of answering the question.
1. Anti-depressants are not effective at treating depression.
2. Our economic system increases the amount of people with mental illnesses.
# Are anti-depressants a lie?
Davies presents some very convincing sources, coming up with the conclusion that long term use of anti depressants is almost always detrimental to the user, and even short term use is more often harmful than helpful. The withdrawal from these drugs is also a lot more brutal than the pharmaceutical companies states.
> So why do we use them so much?
## The expansion of mental illnesses.
There is a book called **The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders**, it contains all the known mental disorders. Interestingly, the researchers who approve new entries onto this book are often funded by pharmaceutical companies - not only that but the bar required to constitute a mental disorder is really low.
Almost every aspect of human personality can come down to a distorter, every single aspect of a persons emotions can be described by this book in some form of _disease_. From this we can conclude a few things.
- We have expanded the definition of mental disorder, to a point where it no longer means all that much.
- People with perfectly normal personality traits will now be described as mentally ill.
And who wins with all the over-diagnosing?
## Big Pharma and privatised suffering.
We live in a Neo-liberal society, the Chicago School of thought. We allow markets to do what they want with minimal government restriction. Because of this freedom, companies were able to privatise suffering.
We can now buy anti-depressants, to cure the suffering and therefore making money if people are worst off mentally.
Not at all surprisingly, most research that promotes the use of anti-depressants, come out of the research sponsored or conducted by the very companies that manufacture the drugs. The research is often very shaky as well, if not just outright wrong.
This is not to say that the use of anti-depressant is never justified, it is simply stating that many powerful companies benefit if we constantly consume the drugs, for a long time, therefore lowering the barrier to entry is an important goal for them (even if they'll never say it is).
## It is your fault.
This book doesn't just talk about mental illness, it talks about the economic situations which give a rise to not just mental illnesses, but the expansion of this umbrella.
If a person is stressed at work, or suffering from workplace dissatisfaction, it must because because they are not good at managing their time, socialising with co-workers, or doesn't champion the mission of the company. It seems that, today, it is simply not good enough to say that you are dissatisfied with your work, there must be something wrong with you.
- You must be suffering from depression or anxiety.
- Your attitude is incorrect and must be medicated and changed.
- It is simply, your fault.
We don't dare question the atmosphere around us, we don't ask. Is it that the workplace is toxic? Is it that the work feels meaningless? Is the commute not too long? These questions go unanswered, and to _cure_ you, you are medicated, to restore some mythical balance.
Anti-Depressants have become a quick fix to get workers back to work, to allow people to bare the work they do, and it can never be the jobs fault, it must be the individual's fault.
This is one of the reasons for the rise of a type of therapy called CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). Although I appreciate this type of therapy, and it is useful in helping reshape negative thought patterns, it however shifts the blame to the individual. It's your thoughts that are wrong, it's you who is at fault and who must change and be medicated.
The author made this point extremely well, I started noticing this pattern in many places, from government mental health policy, to NHS therapy. It is really quite concerning that individuals are no longer considered in the mental health debate, but only their usefulness as an economic contributor.
# Conclusion
I am quite concerned about the statistics. The number of adults in the UK who have taken anti-depressants in the last year is 25%. And this is not likely to slow down any time soon.
How long can we go before we have people permanently our of work because they've had enough? And their body simply cannot take anymore?
The rise in the number of people who do not work due to physical and mental disabilities has risen a lot in the last few decades, and I not in any way think that people have become softer, I think these are genuine cases of people becoming disabled because of a very harsh situation that we all go through.
I don't think that Anti-Depressants are bad, or that we are prescribing them to give money to Big Pharma, no. It is a quick fix, a get healthy quick scheme, but one that is extremely short sighted, the long term risks of constant consumption of these drugs will be much worst than the short term positive that people can get back to work.
The book has made me question how we think about mental health, and generally I think we are moving in a _better_ direction, and being more open about it, specially in the workplace. But we must do more. We must stop prescribing anti-depressants as if they are candy, and use them only _after_ therapy has been tried. Therapy has been shown to be extremely effective when done for a few months. But therapy is more expensive than a few pills. I truly don't know what the answer is.
Gloomy conclusion, but a needed one. The world can be harsh, but we are richer than we have ever been, now more than ever we can tackle these problems now that almost everyone's basic needs have been met. We can move on to solving these _first_ world problems.
Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.
## Rating
I would give this a good 7.5/10.

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title = "The book of five rings"
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date = "2024-02-19"
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A book written by a famous samurai, what a selling point.
The amount of thought that went into Musashi's thinking is impressive, and speaks volumes of this older culture.
Separated by 5 main chapters - Earth, Water, Fire, Wind and Void. Each with their own teachings, Musashi presents the important of mindless and balance, and most importantly, the mental discipline needed in every area of life in order to be successful.
# Earth
Much like the literal Earth, this scroll provides a solid foundation for the rest of the book.
The more important takeaways for me in this scroll are:
- Know your tools well, and have no preference for any. This highlights the importance in which Musashi's places balance.
- Know your own skills and limitations, as well as the people around you, and your enemies.
- Understand and practice your own field tirelessly.
This is very sound advice. My favourite passage from this chapter is perhaps
> Don't do anything useless.
# Water
My key takeaway from this part of the book, is the importance of adaptability and fluidity in all things. You can't get too accustomed to one tool (or in his case - a weapon).
He also goes on to mention that most confrontations happen in the mind, where you must be prepared to think, before you are prepared to fight.
# Fire
This scroll talks a lot about direct confrontation (hence the name), and namely how you must seize opportunities when they arise and you mustn't let go of them until you have achieved what you want.
Some fairly brutal messages such as.
> "stomp" with a sword in such a way, that the opponent cannot make a second move.
It does still mention the need for stillness and calmness of mind in all things, even when _attacking someone with a katana_.
# Wind
Here, there is big emphasis on the analysis and practising of other schools of thought. You shouldn't get stuck in your own way of thinking, even if you know it is better. You should actively venture out and learn from others.
Having said this, he also mentions you should learn their weaknesses, and ultimately, why your way is superior. If you end up concluding your way is not superior, then maybe you have some more serious thinking to do.
There is also the idea of "no mind" in this chapter. (And throughout the book really).
"no mind" is a state of eliminating exterior distractions as well as inner thoughts in order to focus on the task at hand. He highlights that this is incredibly hard to do, and takes a lot of practice - he supports this with a lot of Buddhist references, a theme throughout the book.
# Void
A very small epilogue about his Zen influences, and how important it is to train the mind.
# Thoughts
I really enjoyed this book, it highlights a slightly different way of thinking about problems and distractions. Most books I have read about similar topics comes from Stoic writers, all from Europe.
This more Zen way of thinking is very similar, yet quite different, and it has a much bigger emphasis on the understanding of oneself from within, whereas Stoics tend to live through their actions. Both are good.

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title = "The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel - A review"
date = "2022-11-15"
author = "John Costa"
toc = true
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This book contains 19 chapters, all with a small bit of wisdom about money, all quite useful. Much of what the book covers sounds like common sense if you are already somewhat money savvy, however getting the refresher or the introduction to these topics, is something this book did very well for me.
A big theme I found in this book was simply: Patience.
## Patience: Compounding
Chapter 4 talks about compounding interest, and how wealth is not build over night, but instead takes years and even decades to accumulate, through the power of compounding, this - I believe, is the most important lesson that the book has to teach. It doesn't matter if you invest £1000 today if you won't do anymore for the rest of the year, it is all about continual investments month after month after month, and leaving it. Just leave it, it will grow.
Housel further proves this point with the beautiful statistic: If you invest over a 20-year period in the US Stock marked, based on historical data you are 100% guaranteed to make money. Even if you bought in the worst possible moment, and also sold in the worst moment, because of the amount of time your money had to grow, it is (historically) impossible to lose money, unless of course you withdraw it early.
## Patience: Staying wealthy
In the chapter 5, Housel goes on to discuss the different between getting wealthy, staying wealthy. And similarly to compounding it is about patience.
It is about being happy with your circumstance and not blowing all your wealth in unnecessary things, and instead, enjoying your wealth reasonably (maybe don't buy a Ferrari, but maybe you can afford an AMG), and continually investing - to make sure you STAY wealthy.
## Patience: Lifestyle
Throughout the book, Housel hints at the fact that often people change their life-style depending on how much they make, so even if you make millions, if you are spending millions you are not really wealthy, because you're not accumulating and making money work for you. This relates to the overall theme of patience, as a person must be calm and reasonable about their lifestyle, and very careful about raising it. Because it is easy to go forward, but very difficult to bring down the expensive bills.
I find it quite interesting how the entire book, doesn't so much talk about making money, or what to do with money, but more so about how people behave with money.
## Other themes
The book explores other themes, such as how people think about different assets depending on factors completely unrelated to those assets, for example:
- People living in 1970, saw the S&P500 Boom, and therefore will for the rest of their lives, believe that is it a good way to invest money.
- Someone living during the 2000s .COM crash, might not think the same.
- Or if you work in Tech, you are likely to be Bullish on Tech
There are various factors, but the book showed me that I must think about my own biases, and listen to advice in a reasonable way, instead an emotion, or self-conforming way, because these are dangerous traps, and the short-term suffering of finding out you are biased and forcing yourself to make better decisions, is definitely better than investing in something because you personally think it will work.
People will also listen to facts, that fit the opinions that they have before, but this is another massive topic which Housel describes quite well (you are more likely to listen to financial advisers that confirm your beliefs). This topic I should write something about.
All in all, this review was quite rambly, and I didn't cover all the aspects the book talked about, but mostly the ones which I found to be more eye opening in a way. Housel talks about a series of other topics such as:
- Different goals from other people
- Always leaving room for error
- Never think something is impossible
- Don't be taken by current event, let the markets do their thing
All of which were really important for me to read as a young person who now actually has some money to start investing into my future. Very good read, and would definitely read more books from Housel - He put complicated topics in a very easily digestible format which I enjoyed.
8/10

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# A summary and review
**Disclaimer: This book has some fairly rough topics, I'm simply writing a summary and a review**
## Context
The Republic was written by Plato in 375 BC, many years ago. In was written in Greece, when the country was made up of various states who were at constant wars with not only each other but with the Persians at the time. This does explain some of the ideas in the book, which would be seen as extreme in any sense of the word.
This book was written by Plato in the form of a dialogue between Socrates and various other people, however this might be a made up dialogue, it is obviously very hard to confirm whether this is Socrates' thoughts or Plato's, but most likely it is Plato's.
Plato came from a long line of powerful Athenians who were very involved in politics and were obviously very wealthy, however this was not the path that Plato choose for himself, he would rather become a philosopher and open his famous Academia, which has produced some of the ideas that structure our world today, by producing pupils such as Aristotle, and even Alexander the Great, who went on to shape the world as we know it.
This should all be kept in context when reading this book as to, understand why Plato thought such extreme ideas were not only true but the best for both the individual and the state, this is extremely important to keep in mind.
## What is Justice?
The book basically starts with this question, of what justice is and whether the just man is really the best, happiest and most well of than the unjust man, views challenged by his opponents in the dialogue.
To solve this question Socrates goes on to describe a city which contains many rules and extreme ideas, this state would be considered a near fascist regism in today's world, but with the failing democracies in Athens, and many starving people in Greece due to poor leadership, we can see why Socrates/Plato think this is the best way to form a city.
The reason a state is describes is because Socrates tried to compare the individual to the state, and therefore if the state is just, the individual is also just, furthermore if the state is a good one then we can also assume that its people are good. This ideas doesn't quite hold completely in today's world, but there are some parallels to be drawn. For example countries with better education will produce citizens which pollute less, are less likely to be racist amongst other things, although even these assumptions are not always correct.
So what are these rules? Well we must trace Socrates train of thought as it is the easiest way to understand this topic. Firstly, when forming our state each person will do what they are best at; the example given is that of a show maker, who Socrates claim will produce better shoes if he only focuses on shoe making. This means that our very basic state will consist of farmers, miners, builders and other basic professions.
However this state is hardly permanent, because it is natural for a state to want to expand, another characteristic of the state drive by individuals. Because of this the state must be ready for war to take over land, this means that we must add to our state, not only do we have regular professions we must also have warriors.
And this is a big deal, because warriors are obviously more powerful than the regular citizen and therefore Socrates claims that there warriors or as he calls them "Auxiliaries", are restrained in two ways.
- Education, they are brought up with extensive education and only the best will be able to become part of this Auxiliary class.
- Rulers, this is a sub class of the Auxiliary class within the state, the best of the Auxiliaries group will be able to become the rulers of the state, which will command the Auxiliary.
There is a lot to unpack but starting with education, Plato claims that much of what they are exposed to must be censored; This means that only certain art can be shown or certain poetry can be read. This is an element which is obviously present in our current education systems, we do not expose children of certain things for their own sake, whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is the base for much heated debate and it would be quite difficult to discuss this completely. All I can say is that this book was written many many years ago and therefore is not in line with what we view as a good way of life. This is the reason that Plato saw this censorship as a good thing.
It was essential for this class system to only work on the basis of whether the individual fits into a certain group or not, therefore Plato comes out with another idea which is very out there. No child should meet their parents and vice versa, they are children of the state which would mean they grow up, loving the state. Again, an idea which could hardly ever be realised and Plato is very aware of this, many passages in the book state that this state is purely one of the mind and will never (really) exist.
There are a few more rules to bring up, starting with the fact that in this state, private housing is simply banned. People should live together with groups of people who do similar things they do and are of the same class, this brings an idea of collectivism, or as many critics of this book call it: Communism.
And similarly to private housing, wealth is also not allowed. This is for a number of reasons but most is to prevent people from taking action for personal gain, which is definitely a big problem in modern politics today. This was actually challenged in the book by one of the other characters, because it states that this state could not form any allies because it did not have any gold. Socrates is quick to shut it down by saying that the state has the best soldiers, and does not want wealth, therefore if other states allied with this one, they would keep all of the looting and gold from the enemies.
## The family
Plato describes in this book that women are different from men, we can all agree on this. However he did not see any difference in their capacities to be rules, an idea thought to be completely wrong at the time of writing. This is obviously something we all relish, the ability for anyone, regardless of gender or colour to take any job with the only restriction being their own ability to carry out that job (or at least it should).I obviously completely agree with this part of the book, it is perhaps the only part I completely, 100% agree with.
However, moving on to family, because children do not meet their parents, children are made in "Mating rituals" where the state picks pairs of people, basically to breed the best possible citizens, and eventually the best possible rules. However, very important to note that the citizens are not aware that the pairing are done, to their knowledge they simply won a "lottery", another part of censorship in our state.
## The ruler
Plato states that "philosophers should be kings", he also states that this does not happen in the world because those who are most suited for ruling, are the ones less likely to get into politics. Which is argued against but we can see where he is coming from. Philosophers who's only goal in life is to seek the truth, are not interested in politics of the state because it contains too much unmoral activity, campaigning, tactics and other things. This means they are likely never to rule.
Our state fixes this by having the best performing children, those who are seen to seek good and truth, to be our rulers.
This is pretty much impossible to achieve in the modern world, or in any world for that matter because it is obviously very hard to describe who is the best and it also begs the question, is the education system proper and a million other questions.
## Failed states
Plato talked a lot of failed states, and I feel these were very directed at particular states in ancient Greece. He also states in the Republic that these states would originate from the society he described n the following order
Timarchy --> Oligarchy --> Democracy --. Tyranny
Going from least bad to most bad, and each deriving from one another. Plato gives very intresting examples of the kind of person that would live in each one and how they came to be, as their parents represented the prior type of state. This does depend on assumptions made earlier that the state is made of people and therefore the two are very much linked.
It is worth describing what each of these societies are and a real world example of each.
Starting with Timarchy, this is the most similar to our state but a few elements started to slip, for example private property is allowed, but most importantly, glory and honour are the leading principles of the state, instead of intelligence and the love for the truth. He gave Sparta as an example, a state which Plato seems to admire, because it is not far from the one he describes in this book. I won't give any real world examples because frankly this was not discussed in great length in the book and I do not know enough about the subject to categorise a single country in the modern world into a Timarchy (However, I believe that WWII Japan might have come close).
Oligarchy happens when a very small amount of people have control over the state because of huge amounts of wealth, it reminds me of most countries today to some extent, specially the US due to their extensive neo-liberal views, and the huge influences of billionaire donators to political parties, many more countries could be partially categorised as an oligarchy though. Plato said this derived from a Timarchy because of the ever expanding wealth of the political powers in a timarchy.
Democracy, rated very poorly by Plato, most likely because of Athens, which was a democracy. However Athens was still quite corrupt, and their execution of Socrates probably meant that Plato despised the city, we must also remember this is where he grew up, and witnessed first hand the corruption happening within the state. Democracy then derives from an oligarchy when the poor, which compose the majority of the state finally take over in a sort of revolution. A democracy values personal freedom above everything else and therefore people have a say as to who is in power. This can be a bad thing because populism exists and is described in the Republic (not by that name but as a simple description of it). It is also said that many laws won't be respected because of the personal freedom everyone has in this state.
This then leaves a Tyranny, and this one is the most interesting one. A Tyranny comes from a democracy because one populist leader is elected who then becomes a tyrant. This is rather interesting because in the dialogue, Plato comes to the conclusion that the tyrant is the least happy man, and also the most unjust. He argues this because he is always looking over his shoulder and fears that injustice happen to them, the reasoning is slightly unclear to me but he arrives at this conclusion.
Okay so this has gone on to long I would just like to finish my thoughts up.
The republic is an excellent book to read, it is interesting and logical, it is a window back into ancient Greece and into a way of thinking which is a little different to us today. It is a book which carries some weight and describes some complex topics in a conversation which is very interesting to me, obviously the book suggests a pretty extreme state which does demonstrate its age, but I still think it is very important to look at ways of thinking from the past. I like how many ideas in the book actually have a lot of relevance in today's world, for example Tyranny and the rise of populism which Plato said would happen from a democracy, this has happened all over the world with populist leaders such as Saddam Hussein.
I also find it interesting how, Plato who lived more than 2000 years ago describes women as being no different then men men when it came to ruling, and it took us so long (up until very recently), to finally see this and allow women in power.
Overall this book was a brilliant read and very informative in some ways, obviously I disagree with a lot of it, but that does not mean it was a bad book at all, I actually credit most of these disagreements to the age of the book and how different things were 2 millennia ago.