Friends,
I’m travelling this week so this will mostly be links.
You sunk my Battleship!
My favorite podcast series is Invest Like the Best with host Patrick O’Shaughnessy. He recently interviewed geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan, whose clients include energy and agricultural interests, universities, and the US Military. The show usually focuses on investing or business but this episode was a fun look at nation-chess without being partisan or ideological.
The podcast link is here
My own tl;dl is here
You can also listen and follow along with the transcript karaoke style.
Making the most of gatherings
If you ever host a party, organize a function, gather 3 or more people for any purpose you may find insight and helpful tips from listening to this interview with Art of Gathering author, Priya Parker. Here’s a text summary with bullets, but be warned that the notes really undersell how revelatory the conversation felt. Priya’s discoveries are more than hacks. They promise to intensify the meaning and productivity of any purposeful gathering. You may agree with me after listening that we owe our guests and ourselves an awareness of how to improve, what is ultimately, our communication.
Climb Higher
A lot my learning these days comes from audio and video. If the same holds for you, then you might appreciate apps that handle:
- Dictation. I use List Note Pro to capture dictated notes. As you speak into the app it records and transcribes what you are saying. When you pause there’s a countdown until the app stops listening. This allows you to dictate, pause, gather your thoughts then continue without needing to constantly fidget with the app.
- Transcription. I made the Zeihan transcript using Otter.ai which uses AI to transcribe conversations between multiple people, which is a different league than transcribing a single speaker. It’s not perfect but damn impressive plus it did a great job auto-tagging the content and inserting handy timestamps in the output. You get 10 free hours of transcription per month. I just played the podcast through a speaker and left the app open on my phone next to it and fell asleep.
Climb Higher
A lot my learning these days comes from audio and video. If the same holds for you, then you might appreciate apps that handle:
- Dictation. I use List Note Pro to capture dictated notes. As you speak into the app it records and transcribes what you are saying. When you pause there’s a countdown until the app stops listening. This allows you to dictate, pause, gather your thoughts then continue without needing to constantly fidget with the app.
- Transcription. I made the Zeihan transcript using Otter.ai which uses AI to transcribe conversations between multiple people, which is a different league than transcribing a single speaker. It’s not perfect but damn impressive plus it did a great job auto-tagging the content and inserting handy timestamps in the output. You get 10 free hours of transcription per month. I just played the podcast through a speaker and left the app open on my phone next to it and fell asleep.
From my actual life
- I’m in Banff checking out Lake Louise and Alberta with some friends this Memorial Day. Coincidentally, Zeihan breaks down the logic of Alberta seceding from Canada to become the 51st state. Apparently, this is a storyline that re-surfaces every few years. In Alberta, politics oppose Canada broadly in the exact opposite way in which California politics diverge with the rest of America. Californians are no stranger to secession ballots themselves.
- If you make it to Banff I highly recommend dinner at 3 Ravens. It was one of the best dining experiences I’ve ever enjoyed. The combination of exemplary cuisine and the floor-to-ceiling modern glass windows provided a breathtaking panoramic view of the snowy mountains. It’s a bit off the beaten path because it’s actually an extension of a local art school’s dining hall!
- Natural phenomenon: I was in Missouri this week and experienced the city sirens signifying a tornado warning as a cyclone had touched down north of Columbia. I learned that if it closes in on your location you head to the basement (something we don’t have in earthquake country). Then later this week while hiking Lake Louise we could hear the avalanches cracking trees and when we returned to the base were able to watch them tumble down the majestic Canadian Rockies.
- An insanely memorable quote I saw on Twitter: If you ignore your demons they go into the cellar of your soul and lift weights.