My Top `X` 2023 Recommendations
A list of things people got tired of me talking about in 2023
Whenever I get really excited about something, I tend to tell all my friends about it. This could range from a book or movie to an activity or something I bought. I can find a good handful of people who can attest that sometimes it gets excessive.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been slowly turning olshansky.info into the one place to find and search through my resources, but there is still a lot of work ahead, and I expect it to be a lifelong endeavour.
In the meantime, I wanted to use this post to capture a list of X things I mentioned numerous times in the last year. These aren’t failures, ideas, achievements, or goals but just things (outside of work) that I didn’t stop getting excited about and kept needing to tell everyone.
Some items here were old, while others were new. It’s also not an exhaustive list of everything. If I brought it up more than a dozen times, it is either something I was passionate about or really happy spending $$$ on after it became part of my day-to-day life.
Devices
Remarkable2 Tablet - An e-ink tablet for reading, writing, annotating and streaming that has completely replaced paper for me. It has also become my coffee, travel and thinking companion.
AutonomousAI ErgoStool - Wobble around on this ergo stool when you want to stop standing but are not quite ready to sit down.
Levels Health CGM - I have purchased the device and software but have yet to actually set it up. However, having listened to their podcast, read the blogs and investor updates, I genuinely think that Levels Health will lead the biomarker effort in the US over the next few years and become a household name.
Applications
snipd - My favourite iOS podcast app for tracking, reviewing and sharing what I listen to. The UX is as slick as double-clicking on my headphone to make a snippet, so I can share a small portion of the podcast rather than sending a full 3-hour episode to someone. It also has the functionality of exporting to notion so others can follow what I listen to via my website.
ChatGPT - I’ve tried many other models and interfaces, but OpenAI’s GPT-4 is still my go-to for when I need a companion LLM. My gut feeling is that the dataset they use in the final stages of RLHF and fine-tuning “aligns” with how I interact with these models.
Fireflies.ai - Fireflies joins our meetings at work and provides a transcript, summary, takeaways and a lot of extra features to capture the conversation. It takes the weight off of needing to take notes of everything and makes it super easy to loop others in if they didn’t attend the meeting. Only the people who actually need to be at the meeting attend, but no one misses out.
Notion - Note taking, writing, data management, organizing, collaborating, publishing, etc. We use it for everything at work, but I pay for my personal plan as well.
Todoist - I switched from any.do to Todoist about 4 years ago and haven’t looked back. This drives my day-to-day life more than my inbox or calendar, and I can’t live without it.
Books
The Art of Learning - Josh Waitzkin went from being a Chess Grandmaster to a Tai Chi champion, amongst other things. The movie “Searching for Bobby Fischer” was based on him as a child. He’s not well known in the days of “social media productivity,” but he is one of the few people in this world whom I’d want to shadow for a week, if I ever had the opportunity, to experience the joy of deep learning.
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - I’ve been a fan of Feynman for years through stories, conversations and interviews, but have never formally followed his work. This book was an extremely fun and insightful view into his life. If he were still around, I’d do anything to work on a research project with him.
The Immortality Key - A phenomenal, fascinating and eye-opening book. I anticipate it’ll take the world by storm once the documentary comes out. More than a decade of research into the Pegan Continuity Hypothesis shows that a lot of modern Christianity was based on ancient Greek psychedelic rituals. Yup, you read that right.
Blogs
Vitalik Buterin - As the co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik needs no introduction. His monthly blog posts vary from thought leadership to technical ideas or investigations. He manages to be very extensive with his writing while keeping the reader engaged. The fact that he continues to do this regularly, keeping the quality bar so high, is under-appreciated in my opinion. I still get excited every time he publishes a new post.
Mitchell Hashimoto - A co-founder and former CEO of HashiCorp, and one of my favorite engineers out there. Alongside other technical leaders like John Carmack or Greg Brockman, he shows that the best way to create great and impactful products is to just “fucking give a shit and do it.”
Julia Evans - Julia is the author of wizardzines.com which is the best example I’ve found of translating hard, confusing or complex things into simple words. She learns in public, unafraid to ask the questions we all have. Unlike others however, she puts in a ton of work into sharing her learnings through tools, comics and blogs. I’ve purchased them and recommend others do as well.
Simon Willison - An independent researcher, engineer, blogger and just an awesome online personality. As a co-founder of Django, founder of Datasette and one of the key voices around LLMs today, I’m even more excited to follow his TILs and posts today than I was 10 years ago.
Alin Tomescu - Alin is a cryptographer and a founding member at Aptos. Though he doesn’t post as often, his content is highly technical but still easy to follow. He provides examples, tips, tricks and uses different formatting and visualization techniques to make cryptography available to someone who is just technical. I consider myself grateful to have met and connected with such a humble and brilliant individual.
Newsletters
Morning Squawk - This is my quick and simple way to stay up to date on what’s happening in the world of politics, economics or anything else that CNBC deems as “Breaking News.”
TL;DR - This newsletter has become part of my morning ritual as I read through tl;drs of technological news, innovations, ideas and breakthroughs. When something catches my eye, I add it to my Todoist to catch up on it later that day. I believe it’s the easiest way to stay up to date on the 10,000 foot view of everything going on.
pointer.io - There is occasional overlap between tl;dr and pointer.io, but the latter focuses a lot more on individual experiences and anecdotes that people choose to share. It covers everything from leading projects, building teams and fostering culture. A lot of the advice is very circumstantial, but I find that I always come across at least one post that makes me question and reflect on how I can improve.
Podcasts
Founders Podcast - By far the highest quality and most underrated podcast out there. I love learning about founders, founding teams, companies, and products, but felt like I was stuck in an echo chamber of the last 30 years of tech. Steve Jobs is a fascinating individual, but this podcast goes beyond tech and touches on the history of Napolean, Thomas Edison and many others that have shaped our world today. A must follow.
RWH on TIP (The Investors Podcast) - As a very early listener of TIP, I was delighted to learn that the author of one of my favourite books will be a regular host. Richer, Wiser, Happier by William Green revolves around investing but touches on the life and philosophy of great investors much more than just their investment strategies.
Lex Fridman - Lex makes it look easy, but he fills the gap of “What would you ask if you were to meet X?” His conversations span across different spectra from challenging to educating, casual to uncomfortable, and other times just funny. You don’t know where he’s going, but somehow he manages to make 4 conversation feel like 15 minutes. He shows the power of preparation, conversation and always brings love.
Tim Ferris - Tim, author of “The 4-Hour Workweek” needs little introduction. His podcast has continued to be more of the same, and he makes every episode feel like an evergreen conversation with some of the world’s most insightful individuals. So much of how I approach life has been shaped by Tim and his guests.
My First Million - This is the podcast I recommend for just “shooting the shit while still talking shop”. It’s really fun and easy to listen to Sam and Shaan interview millionaires and see how different everyone’s story is.
Shows & Movies
BoJack Horseman - I’ve been hearing about this show for years, but a cartoon about a horse that starred in a 90s TV show didn’t quite appeal to me. After powering through the first couple seasons, the characters drew me in. The second half of the series became one of the deepest and most emotional shows I’ve ever watched. Following BoJack’s journey can be difficult and forces a ton of self-reflection as I saw parts of myself in him. It ended up becoming one of my favourite shows to date.
For All Mankind - A parallel universe of what would have happened if the space race were to continue if the Soviet Union were to land on the moon first. This is the sci-fi USSR-meets-US space-show I didn’t know I needed.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - The Spider-Verse film series is at the top of my list. Simon Willison said it best, it demonstrates “what happens when a group of creative people get together, rewrite the rules and elevate the quality bar for an entire industry.”
The Bear - This show opened my eyes to the difficulties of running a restaurant and made me appreciate fine dining. I usually don’t binge TV, but I made my way really fast through this one because the cinematography and characters kept you on your toes the whole time.
Instagram Accounts
@leo.moves - Leo Moves workouts saved me from sciatic nerve damage which prevented me from being able to tie my shoes at one point. Though I don’t think it’ll ever be back to 100%, his exercise routines have made me feel like I’m in control of my body, gave me an alternative to doing cardio as someone who doesn’t like to run, made working out fun by practicing new movements, and, best of all, I don’t need access to a gym!
@elastaboy - Elastboy has been the best source of exercise for additional bodyweight, flexibility and mobility routines. I see it as a supplement to the complex movements Leo teaches, and again, it requires little or no equipment.
Experiences
Othership.us - Othership is what happens when dry sauna meets cold plunges in a meditative group environment. It is just about the atmosphere and experience as it is about the sauna and plunge itself. As Huberman continues to mainstream hot/cold therapy, I can see Othership becoming the next Orange Theory.
Improv classes - I found an improv group on meetup.com not far from where I live. I only attended these classes in the first half of the year and felt like I had to tell everyone. It’s an awesome group of people, really forces you to think differently, and so different from everything else I do that I can’t wait to get back into it.
Videos
I’m going to leave 4 videos I recommend everyone watch.
How to think computationally about AI, the universe and everything by Stephen Wolfram