Tinkering

The most recent episode of Mad Dogs & Englishmen1 starts off with a discussion of buying and assembling and AR-15 from scratch. It’s an interesting process, but the conversation took an even more interesting turn as they focused on the decline of a tinkering ethos in our society. The machines and devices we use are often too complex to repair, disassemble, or customize. If you open the hood of your car, you won’t be able to see or even access many of the most critical parts - you’ll most likely see a series of injection-molded plastic meant to not only protect but to discourage amateur tinkering.

Time Tracking

I tweeted this out earlier today: Insights from time tracking: I need to do more #rstats programming on Thursday/Friday afternoons. Also, mtgs suck. pic.twitter.com/14dFtGNubP — Alex Spurrier (@alspur) July 29, 2016 Why do I have time tracking charts that break down when I do certain kinds of work? A book ( Deep Work) and a podcast ( Cortex). I know that the ability to focus is important to the work I do, but Deep Work by Cal Newport helped articulate precisely why it’s extremely important to cultivate the ability to perform “deep work.

Ezra Klein interviews Yuval Levin

This is a thoughtful, in-depth conversation that covers from the thesis of Levin’s latest book, The Fractured Republic, his experience working in the Bush (43) Administration, the most interesting policy ideas on each side of the political spectrum, and more. This is the first Ezra Klein Show episode I’ve listened to - I’m looking forward to adding others to my Overcast queue.