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Biweeklycast
Biweeklycast episodes
- 46: Creative Procrastination
📺 Watch this episode on YouTube.
From the discussion it is not entirely clear if Dima and Slava talk about procrastination that gets in the way of them accomplishing creative endeavours or all the creative they find to postpone working on hard and important things.
- Dima did a bit of research on "Lord of the Rings" and J. R. R. Tolkien and he came to appreciate the amount of effort and rigor that went into creation of that fantasy universe
- Dima also read "Some Desperate Glory" by Emily Tesh, the novel that won the Hugo Award in 2024, and found it a better story, but also not beyond reproach
- Slava's fall of nucleus
- Cognitive distortions that lead to procrastination and passive and active procrastinators
- Writing is (un?)surprisingly challenging for everyone
- Is procrastination are result of our mismatched expectations?
- How does one recognize they are procrastinating?
- Common theme for how procrastination creeps in: big ambiguous task is replaced with a small and easy win
- Self-help and social methods for getting oneself out of the procrastination trap
- Reassertion using positive feedback on your prior work
- Create a crystallization point to start working on a big daunting tasks
52 min - 45: Starter Villain
📺 Watch this episode on YouTube.
Dima and Slava play literary critics and discuss "Starter Villain" – a book by John Scalzi.
- Biweekly 32: We Are Bob
- All Biweekly bookclub episodes on the site and on YouTube
- Other books by John Scalzi
- Lock In series: Lock In and Head On
- Fuzzy Nation
- The Kaiju Preservation Society
- Other books Dima and Slava enjoyed
- Permutation City by Greg Egan
- Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
48 min - 44: Having Fun
📺 Watch this episode on YouTube.
Dima and Slava discuss different facets of having fun, discover the golden pentagon of productive state of mind, and nearly form a consultancy to preach that around the world.
- Theme's corner: times flies
- Is "leisure" the same as "rest"?
- Is having fun while working on something important to achieve great results?
- Slava: "Having fun is overrated." Internet: Having Fun Won’t Make You Happy
- Create space for having fun however you do that
- Here's why you should make a habit of having more fun
- How to Have Fun: 19 Ways to Enjoy Yourself & Think Positive
- Can you put having fun on the calendar?
- Some things only happen when you plan for them
- Axes of the "golden" pentagon of productivity
- Having fun – being bored
- Tensed – relaxed
- Focused – distracted
- Stressed – not stressed
- Pleasant – unpleasant
- Balance is always(?) the key
- How important is "disconnecting" to being able to "have fun"?
53 min - 43: EdTech Club
Slava shares his latest idea and initiative to create a space for EdTech companies to talk and work together on socially important projects. Dima, naturally, gets to ask questions to test the thinking.
1 hr - 42: How Minds Change
📺 Watch this episode on YouTube.
Dima and Slava have read "How Minds Change" by David McRaney and discuss how relatively diverse set of stories come (or do not come) together to give a practical framework for influencing others.
- Follow-up: do not sabotage your future self!
- A book or a collection of stories?
- Deep canvassing method appears to have connections to best practices in business communication
- We do not experience reality directly – our constructs reality for us
- Assimilation and accommodation of new infromation
- Peer pressure and our tribal ancestry
- Are face-to-face communities stronger than purely online communities?
- Is arguing an integral part of human nature?
- Psychology research and the not uncommon fakery of communication
- Problem with popular science: more popular than science
- Honest persuasion is a two-way street: both minds are likely to be influenced
57 min - 41: Distractions
📺 Watch this episode on YouTube.
Dima and Slava talk about distractions, different ways to categorize them, and discuss how to prevent any kind of distraction from derailing an otherwise productive day.
- Follow-up on Brazilian education system: Feynman was not wrong
- Theme corner: Dima's year of next
- Dima's classification of distractions
- True distractions
- Digressions
- Diversions
- Slava's classification of task
- Apples
- Broccoli
- Eggs
- Office distractions vs. home distractions
- Ideas for distraction-less note taking?
- Focus modes on iPhone are great
- Dealing with numerous chat messages
- Challenges and mysteries can be particularly offensive digressions
- Reframing unsuccessful projects as learning exercises
- Project distractions and role distractions
1 hr 4 min - 40: Are LLMs overhyped?
📺 Watch this episode on YouTube.
Dima and Slava discuss their experiences with LLMs, Slava's recent forays into trainings on using AI technologies, and prophecies about the future of AI, some of which were probably generated with the help of AI.
- Theme corner: Slava's hierarchy of themes
- AI sells. At least currently
- Large Language Model Statistics And Numbers (2024)
- Slava's AI ghost writer
- What are the use case where GenAI is most helpful?
- Are junior developers threatened by current generation of AI tools?
- Impact of technology on the field of civil engineering
- "Everything is better with Bluetooth"
- Bill Gates: "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction."
- Importance of feedback function
"Critical thinking skills are going to continue to be critical"
1 hr 8 min - 39: Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!
📺 Watch this episode on YouTube
Dima and Slava have read and now discuss "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!", a memoir by the renowned theoretical physicist Richard Feynman.
- Both Dima and Slava were impressed by style that was simple and easy going
- How true is the story is the story about Brazilian educational system? Seems legit
- Biweekly #16: Culture Map
- Feynman's foray into art and connecting hard science and humanities was especially interesting for Dima
- Slava was moved by Feynman's success as a musician
- Open mindset: "Make yourself available to interesting opportunities"
- Stories about "bar adventures" sound cringy in 2024
- Different attitude towards authorities in professional setting (there are no authorities) and amateur exercises (learning from those who had success)
- Trying different things and learning from them is really important
- The 99% Invisible Breakdown: The Power Broker
- Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci
- Cargo cult
1 hr 1 min - 38: Faster and better
📺 Watch this episode on YouTube
Dima and Slava discuss whether focusing on working faster can translate into improvements in the quality of the produced results and why or why not this may be the case.
- Podcast Focused
- Book Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
- Dima's idea of "everything can be done in two weeks"
- Are fast iterations always possible?
- Is moving fast only about iterations?
- Feedback function is important for learning
- Biweekly 36: How Big Things Get Done
- Deliberate practice (in Wikipedia)
48 min - 37: STRATsphere Talks
📺 Watch this episode on YouTube
Slava started a new podcast called STRATsphere Talks about all things strategizing. In this episode Dima and Slava discuss thinking behind this new endeavor and learning after launching first episodes of the new podcast.
- Follow-up
- The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
- The 99% Invisible Power Broker Book Club
- STRATsphere Talks Podcast
- Differences between ongoing podcasts, like Biweekly, and limited series
- "Continuity" in podcasts
- Production: how the sausage is made
- Software for recording
- Riverside
- Audio Hijack
- Dynamics of recording in studio face-to-face and remotely
- Why YouTube is important for podcasts
- Feedback is sooo important for podcasters
- Hosting a solo podcast vs co-hosting
53 min
About Biweeklycast
From the publisher's feed
Friendly discussions about life, business, engineering, and learning between Dima Malenko and Slava Rudnytskyi.