Observations

What I'm Reading, March 2021 Edition

Apoorv Upreti -

You can find the Feb 2021 edition here.

Books

Working in Public, Nadia Eghbal. About how the community behind open-source software works. Enjoyed it, although the target audience was people who are unfamiliar with open-source and large software projects in general. If you've used Github and made a few open-source contributions most of the content will be familiar.

Making Things Happen, Scott Berkun. A book about project management by an ex-project manager from Microsoft. Despite having read quite a bit on this subject I still learnt a few things.

One idea that stood out: it's ok for a lot of time to be spent on planning and testing. In fact the author's says 33% of your time on a project will be spent planning, 33% implementing, and 33% testing. My takeway was that I probably spend too little time on planning for my projects.

Also read more Agatha Christie:

  • The Secret of Chimneys. Bad 1/5. International spy thrillers are not Christie's forte. The plot was wildly implausible.
  • Black Coffee. Good 4/5.
  • Murder in Mesopotamia. Ok 3/5.
  • Three Act Tragedy. Great 5/5. Unpredictable till the end.
  • Mrs. McGinty's Dead. Ok 3/5.
  • The Moving Finger. Good 4/5.
  • Appointment with Death. Ok 3/5. Good overall but the ending is a disappointment.
  • Lord Edgware Dies. Great 5/5.
  • The Thirteen Problems. Good 4/5, and also a unique style: this is a series of short stories, delivered within a large story (in the style of the Arabian Nights).

Essays

Birds, Brains, Planes, and AI: Against Appeals to the Complexity/Mysteriousness/Efficiency of the Brain, Daniel Kokotajlo.

Creating super-intelligent AI may not require figuring out all the details of how the brain works. After all, we still don't understand all the details about how birds fly, but we can create artificial flying machines without any trouble.

Things You're Allowed To Do, Milan Cvitovic. Hire a research assistant. Run a medical trial on yourself. Treat fines like payments. These among others are things that most people with a little discretionary income could do, but rarely consider doing.