Monthly Learning Journal 16 (7/6/2021)

(Disclosure: links marked with an asterisk * are affiliate links)

Hi RIP readers, welcome to the June 2021 edition of the Monthly Learning journal (MLJ).

This month edition is much shorter because I’ve been focusing way more on producing content  (mostly for my YouTube and Twitch channels) compared to consuming content.

While I like “create” much more than “consume” (in every aspect of my life), I will try to keep a more balanced information diet in the following months.

Well, not in June probably, since we’re going on vacation for two weeks on the beach and I’m not sure how much “digital time” I will allow myself to spend 🙂

On a side note, the production of this MLJ episode has been mostly automated thanks to a python script I wrote “in public”, streaming on my YT channel (in Italian language). A lot of formatting time saved!

This MLJ is also available in my public Roam Database, this time rawer than ever. But at least by tagging I assume the public database is building up some value for you.

Next Episode on Monday July 5th, 2021.

Enjoy!

 

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RIP News

What happened in the RIP World during last month?

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Time is so dense these days. It seems it’s passed a year, not a month since last MLJ.

What happened? I’ve been intensifying my online video presence (at the expense of my blog presence, I know).

I’ve introduced few new formats on my YouTube Channel:

• RIP Room, where I confront people with opposite opinions on controversial topics. Check the one on Cryptocurrencies and the one on Trading out. Both in Italian Language, sorry. But I do plan to produce more English (video) content, stay tuned 🙂 P.S. Tomorrow evening, at 10.15pm, I, Maurizio and Fabio will Live stream a follow up on Trading RIP Room on my Twitch channel.
• RIP Marathon, where we watch together a lot of content from a single source. Check the one on Ben Felix videos out.
• RIP Coding, where I code live. I’ve produced three live videos so far, all of them around the MLJ automation script 🙂 It’s not “high quality coding” both because I’m not coding much for work these days, and because I’ve pushed myself into heavy uncomfortable territory by coding a script (not my genre) in python (not my language) using IDLE (not my IDE) on mac (not my OS). But I had fun and I will do more content like that in the future.

I’ve also started streaming on Twitch, and I reached the Affiliate status few days ago 🙂 I plan to use Twitch for Italian Language content and Keep YouTube more English focused, but this is not decided yet. I’ll take some final decision during my 2 weeks vacation, i guess.

I’ve published a RIP Events page (and an associated Google Calendar) here on my blog. Check it out if you’re interested in following me Live. You’re more than welcome!

Ah, I was going to forget about it: I’ve been again on Swiss Television, this time on Patti Chiari. I’ve written a full post about it here.

It’s a mess. And I owe you an update on that topic. Will come soon-ish, promised.

 

 

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Main Content

The most interesting resources I consumed during last month

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Dror Poleg’s Ponzi Career (8/10)

Dror’s entire series on the future of work is very good. Start from this one if you’re interested.

In the post linked in this entry, Dror explores the concept of Income Sharing Agreements, NFTs, risk sharing economy, and “Personal IPO”, mentioning the example of Alex Masmej who sold 20k USD worth of his “personal share”:

Twitter Link

The experiment seems interesting, it reminds me when Warren Buffett (ironically?) told students he’d pay them $250k for 10% of their lifetime earnings 🙂

The difference is that in theory this is much more enforceable with Smart Contracts and DeFi… Yes, as you can see I’m doing my bet to collect ideas for a post on Cryptocurrency Part 3 – The Good 🙂

The mention of Ponzi in post title is misleading, the analyzed models are not necessary Ponzis, but could be though. Anyway, if you are pursuing a career in a “scalable occupation” why not approach it the way startups do? Offer equities in exchange for funds 🙂

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More To That about Creator Burnout

First time seeing Lawrence Yeo on camera. I devoured most of his blog, an I’m glad he decided to push some YouTube content outside of his Patreon crowd.

This piece is about Creator Burnout, a problem I’m facing these days. He mentions the constant need to push out new content, the perception that when we’re not outputting we’re not working, and the fact that following the dream of Freedom – to work on our own projects – we tend to overwork and be much more judgemental of our output compared to our “regular jobs” as employee. Going entrepreneur seems to be like having a much harder boss to please: ourself.

The constant need to produce might tax the creative quality of our output. And if we think about it, we don’t love our favorite artists because they produce a movie per week, but we love masterpieces. Quality beats quantity.

Food for thought.

Enjoy:

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OBS Ninja (8/10)

I’m getting crazy with Live Streaming on my YouTube channel. I didn’t expect to be that complicated. I changed hardware and software few times over the last 2 months.

I started doing live streaming with guests in May, and I was close to accept one of the two mainstream SaaS products in this field: StreamYard or Restream (I’m temporarily using Restream).

Then I’ve found OBS Ninja, which is a free tool, maintained by Steve Seguin, with a nerdy look that would send non tech-savvy people away.

This tool is simply awesome, and it can do whatever you want for you! Minimal latency, high quality, customizability… this is the best tool for Live Streaming with guests!

The only downside is that compared to mainstream tools this is a p2p solution, which means it’s hard to make it scale with more than half a dozen guests. Plus it’s a bit non-intuitive to use at first.

But guys… this man has done an incredible job, for free. Free as in free beer AND freedom. No upsell, no freemium, no banners… this is the internet we love, and that’s why I’m donating money to this project 🙂

Bonus: Steve Seguin’s YouTube channel, with several videos on how to use the tool: link

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Kurzgesagt what are you doing with your life? (8/10)

Nice video by Kurzgesagt inspired by a 2014 post by Tim Urban (Wait But Why, link).

I remember that post vividly, it was one of the first posts I’ve read on WBW. It generated a sense of Anxiety in me, same for this video.

Anyway, enjoy:

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Charles Hoskinson video about Cardano vs Ethereum vs PolkaDot (8/10)

In my mission to write a “Crypto Part 3 – The Good” post, I’m exploring what seems interesting and promising in the Crypto world.

I’m moving my steps into understanding what DeFi, DeX and other DeSomething mean.

I think Smart Contracts are amazing ideas, but Ethereum is a congested network and a Prototry implementation.

Promising alternatives currently available are Cardano and PolkaDot. I’m talking about projects, ideas, not tokens.

Btw, if we want to talk about tokens, I’m bullish on PolkaDot (and I’ve put 10k EUR into DOT in late April 2021 – THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE).

Cardano is a network I was already looking even before I decided to try to make steps into the dark side: it’s not just a coin but it’s a network, it’s based on Proof of Stake so it doesn’t require shitload of energy, and the founder is a nice guy.

This kind of recent video by Charles Hoskinson, Cardano’s CEO (and Ethereum co-founder), is pretty inspirational 🙂

(full interview here)

Bonus: Charles Hoskinson’s 2014 TED Talk.

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Joe Rogan Society’s Trap (8/10)

I’m a bit too old for short inspirational content, but this one by Joe Rogan is pretty good.

Society doesn’t have to work this way.

Enjoy:

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ITA – Amedeo Balbi about Terraforming Mars (8/10)

No, it’s not a video about my favourite board game 🙂

This channel by an Italian professor/Youtuber is one of the latest additions to my YouTube subscription list (thanks few of my followers for the recommendation).

The video linked above the idea of terraforming the red planet. Of course he mentioned the Kim Stanley Robinson Trilogy, and the board games 🙂

Enjoy!

Bonus: how do we discover exoplanets? (link)

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Tech Lead about Early Retirement (7.5/10)

I don’t follow much TL anymore, I can’t still tell if he’s trolling, he’s serious, he’s crazy, or he’s smart. Or all of them together. Plus, too much advertising and monetization with no ethic check.

But this video is pretty good, and it can tell you a lot about workaholism, addiction to metrics and optimization, burnout, and Arrival Fallacy.

Plus, the first 28 seconds are Amazing! I’ve rewatched the intro 20 times and I still laugh 😀

Enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FH7pqTP4tY

 

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Aswath Damodaran about Inflation and Investing (7.5/10)

Nice analysis by professor Damodaran about the impact of inflation and expected inflation on Stocks and Bonds returns, based on historical data. It’s not a matter of “inflation”, but “expected inflation”. My only complain is that returns per decade were compared to inflation with no mention to initial conditions. I.e. judging the 2000-2009 without taking into account the fact that in 2000 stock prices were bubbly is missing something.

Anyway, a good primer on impact of inflation on various asset classes (including Gold, Real Estates, and Crypto).

Enjoy

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Gavin Wood explaining PolkaDot launch process (7.5/10)

Gavin is the CEO and co-founder of the PolkaDot project. He’s also a former co-founder of Ethereum. Yeah, three Ethereum co-founders are currently in charge of the most promising (in my opinion) projects in the crypto space.

While Cardano vision seems to be more idealistic, PolkaDot is more pragmatic: we want a network that’s a much better version of Ethereum: future proof (no fork required for upgrades), multi-chain, Proof of Stake (ok, Ethereum is moving toward PoS as well), scalability, customizability… PolkaDot compared to Ethereum looks like a LAN compared to the Internet.

This 25 minutes video shows the brief history of PolkaDot, narrated by his creator.

… and PolkaDot is owned by the Web3 foundation, which is a Swiss company 🙂

… whose mission is to create a decentralized, trustless Web!

It reminds me of the “Middle out” Silicon Valley series algorithm 😀

Bonus: here’s an amazing video explaining what PolkaDot is, and it’s meant for beginner (with 1h time available).

As I said, I’m bullish on this project.

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ITA – Marcello Ascani video about Notion and Flatmates (7.5/10)

Amazing video on how Marcello is using Notion for his personal and professional projects. Especially how he’s using notion for Flatmates, his newborn influencer agency.

I’m not a huge fan of Notion but I must admit the database/table features are pretty cool, and in general everything related to productivity is much better handled in Notion than Roam.

Anyway, take a look at it, and get inspired by how Marcello uses the tool!

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J.L. Collins’s Time to Sell? (7.5/10)

I get frequently asked “aren’t you afraid of stock market high? shouldn’t we sit on cash and wait?”

I did it in August 2020, the MSCI ACWI index is +30% (plus dividends) since then.

Don’t do like me.

I’m slowly buying stocks back.

Yes, maybe the market is expensive, and there are good reasons to be bearish… but also good reasons to be bullish:

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Why Captain Sinbad hasn’t quit his day job (7/10)

Captain Sinbad is a talented youtuber int he productivity and entertainment fields, who has grown his channel to 400k subscribers and his YT revenues to 2x his current salary as an employee (in the IT world).

Despite his rapid growth and high content quality he hasn’t quit his daily job and in this video he’s explaining us why.

Spoiler: lower creator anxiety, resilience, more sources of income and a bit of fear… anyway, the Financial Independence goal is there, going all-in is int he radar. I wish you all the best Captain!

By the way, this video is very timely for me 😉

Enjoy!

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Coffeezilla about a YouTube business (7/10)

Crazy shit!

They deleted his channel on a whim, and they restored it after he appealed.

This is not human, I feel shitty for him.

And I feel shitty for having been part of “the other side”

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Ray Dalio’s Principles You Personality Test

I like personality tests, I took many of them including Myers Briggs, The Big Five, Gallup Strength Finder, and a few more.

It’s like Horoscope for nerds 🙂

I took this one immediately, and I decided to do it “social”. I recorded a video in English Language for my YouTube Channel while answering the questions. Enjoy:

Anyway, I found this test too similar to Myers Briggs (link). Not sure I’d invest the almost 2 hours it took me to complete the test if I could come back in time.

For the reference, my main archetype is Inventor, then Entertainer and Adventurer… I’m supposed to be creative, curious, extrovert but not someone who gets thing done. Mmh… Is this trying to tell me something?

Here’s the Archetype representation, as an archipelago of Islands where geometrical distance is correlated with conceptual distance

If you take the test don’t forget to add me as a friend so that we can compare the results 🙂

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ITA – Mr Reset’s first video about Personal Finance (6/10)

First video for my friend Mr Reset (in Italian Language)!

Good luck 🙂

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Coffeezilla about Elon Musk and Bitcoin (Doge/10)

Mid May has been popcorn season among Bitcoin and Crypto Fanatic Believer Enthusiast Maximalists.

You probably followed the funny Musk vs Bitcoin series, but in the rare case you didn’t, please enjoy this amazing video by Coffeezilla:

Bonus Meme:

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ITA – Salvatore Garau’s Invisible Sculpture (/10)

We’re beyond NFTs here.

This isn’t even the first”invisible art piece” sold by this artist – a genius idea though.

Essentially you’re buying a certificate of authenticity for an invisible art piece, a “physical NFT” if you need a name for it.

Kudos for “ZERO environmental impact”

Btw, in another article it seems the art piece should be installed in a 1.5m x 1.5m area with no obstacles. Got it? it’s invisible but it takes space in your home 😀

 

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Something Tweet for your brain

You gonna feed it!

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Paul Graham about Vitalik Buterin’s donation of $1B in Shiba INU Coin

Twitter Link

Paul, everybody knows how much I love you… but seriously?

This person answered in the best way possible:

Twitter Link

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Daniel Vassallo on his 2 years business adventure

I’m following Daniel since almost the beginning of his solopreneur adventure. He’s a former Amazon employee who quit to work on his projects. He released two infoproducts, one of which I’ve purchased. I love his tweets, and his openness.

In this tweet he opens his entire cashflow for the past two years, spreadsheet included! Enjoy:

Twitter Link

Bonus: “the modern world lacks inspiration much more than information. The demand for inspiration seems way greater than the demand for knowledge.”

Twitter Link
But… I just discovered yesterday (June 6th) that in December 2020 Daniel launched a membership subscription called Profit and Loss, where he shows how he’s making a living with his “small bets”… which sounds too much like “give me money and I’ll tell you how I’m making money (with your money) by telling you how I make money”

Meh, I don’t really like this.

The Cialtronmeter (Charlatan-o-meter) is detecting something off scale!

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Venkatesh Rao thread on Substack

Twitter Link
Maybe I should give it a try, as a content creator. Several people recommended it to me, but maybe I haven’t fully understood the benefits of that platform.

But if VR praises it then it must be good.

 

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FUN Stuff

Try not to laugh!

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Tim Dillon about GaryVee

I think I’m going to change the default link on m blog when I mention GaryVee from Captain Sinbad (link) to this video here by Tim Dillon 😀

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Coffeezilla about TikTok Traders

DogeCoin to the moon! It has the right pumpamentals!

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VSauce about Rickrolling on Twitter

Twitter Link

Amazing answer by Joe Hanson! I didn’t know about that study!

Twitter Link

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Astutillo Smeriglia about Movies and Relativity

Twitter Link

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ITA – Astutillo Smeriglia’s experience with Peter Del Monte

Funny (as always) article by Astutillo about his experience interacting with a director and screenwriter after having watched his movie in a movie theater.

Best passage:

I film italiani mi sembrano perlopiù dei montaggi di riprese di persone che fanno finta di fare un film. […] Mentre lo guardavo non mi è mai successo quello che mi succede di solito con i film veri (belli o brutti che siano), e cioè che mi dimentichi di stare guardando un film e mi immerga completamente nella storia.

Con Profondo Rosso mi sono ritrovato per tutto il tempo chiuso fuori dal film e intanto pensavo “ah, che bravi questi ragazzi che fanno finta di fare un film!”, e questo è quello che di solito penso mentre guardo un film italiano che mi piace, quando invece guardo un film italiano che non mi piace, penso “ah, che incapaci questi ragazzi che fanno finta di fare un film!”.

 

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Leisure Corner

We need mental challenges, but we also need Leisure time

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Wendover Production about Tv Live Streaming

Mainly focused about streaming sport event, mainly about Formula1 GPs.

Amazingly complex. now that I’m streaming Live content I can feel the pain an the complexity of the problem.

Enjoy!

Bonus: logistics of grocery stores (link)

 

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Weird Wild Web

Let’s be honest, this is the web we love

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Gary Vaynerchuk’s VeeFriends

Come on… GaryVee jumped on the NFT bandwagon and launched his own set of NFTs.

He’s produced a set of crappy images and they’re on sale for 1-3 ETF each (4k-13k USD at May 12th ETH price).

And people are buying…

What’s wrong with us? Where are we heading?

Ok, jokes apart, this is not a horrible idea: using NFTs as Access Tokens: tickets to get access to something.

In GaryVee case, that something is: attending to his conferences (actually launching VeeCon, his new conference format), having dinner with him, 1:1s with him, receiving a gift from him (for which you’re paying 4k USD today)…

I mean, the idea of Access Tokens is pretty cool (not a GaryVee idea), it resonates with the Ponzi Career mentioned above, and may be an interesting evolution for NFTs.

This is either a paradigm shift for content creator, or it’s a fad that’s doomed to disappear in few months.

Time will tell.

I’m less bearish on this crap than I used to be a month ago.

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The Ugly Volvo’s Games to Play With Your Child in Which You Barely Have to Move or Talk

This mother is a genius!

Here you have 10 amazing games you can play with your kids where you don’t have to move at all. I love the Paleontologist and the Ancient Egyptian Burial 🙂

 

 

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Science Lab

It’s not leisure, it’s not educational… it only knows what it’s not.

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Veritasium about Hilbert’s Hotel

A nice, short video by Veritasium about the Hilbert’s Hotel paradox, where you have a Hotel with infinite rooms, all of them occupied, and you can still accept a finite or countably infinite number of new guests, but not an uncountable number of new guests.

Essentially this paradox is used to explain why Real Numbers are not the same cardinality of Natural Numbers, while Natural Numbers are the same cardinality of Rational Numbers. Demonstrations are the same that have been shown in the video 🙂

Enjoy!

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Kurzgesagt True limits of humanity

This is almost a remake of an old Kurzgesagt video about the Observable Universe, Expansion of the universe, Dark Energy, and what we won’t ever reach even in the rosiest scenario (assuming the universe behave like we modelled it, which is highly unlikely we got it all right today).

The part I liked the most: 94% of stars are gone forever for us, we won’t ever reach them. What’s outside the observable universe is like a black hole from our point of view.. except is all around us! Every second, 60000 stars pass the horizon!

Enjoy!

 

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Have You Reddit?

The best of the month on (SFW) Reddit

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r/financialindependence thread about FIRE being depressing – which is actually a short thread on having a job being depressing btw… but the real gold is in the top comment:

I see this every week. FIRE isn’t Financially Independent Retire Early. It’s Financially Independent Re-evaluate Everything. You have the money to do what YOU WANT. Do that. If it’s working part time at Home Depot for free fucking lumber then so be it.

 

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Other Content

High quality resources I’ve consumed during last month that didn’t make into the main section

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Morgan Housel on Optimism and Pessimism Spectrum. Link. I think I am in the central pack. Either a probabilist, a closet pessimist, or a skeptic.

James Jani about Bitcoin. Link. Pretty basic, just about BTC history and price evolutions… forgettable. There should be a part 2 coming soon, let’s see.

Numberphile about Martingale System. Link. Funny, but mathematically inaccurate. Could have been explained in 3 minutes, with an approach based on first principle: if the game is fair (an ideal roulette with no 0s and 00s, where expected returns for each bet is the amount you put in), then whatever you do doesn’t matter, you and your cat can play the roulette and no matter your strategy you don’t have any edge. If the game is unfair (like any roulette in the world, with 0s and maybe00s, expected return for each bet is negative by 1/37th or 2/38th), then every time you bet X you’er expected to lose 1/37th (or 1/19th) of it . So Martingale is the most inefficient since it requires a lot of bets. Full stop.

ITA – Rick Du Fer against Streamers’ union. Link. Nice analysis by Rick about why a streamer is not an employee but an entrepreneur, so there’s no benefit from unionisation.

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That’s all for this month 🙂