#15 - Feeding Frenzy

Feeding Frenzy is a weekly round-up of reading, listening, or watching that is worth your time. These posts will act as a weekly boost of signal above the noise that you can chew on over the week!

Worth Listening

#1385 – Paul Stamets | Joe Rogan Experience

Paul Stamets is a mycologist. I find how much we are learning about mushrooms and their natural properties to be an endless source of fascination. Mushrooms like Lion’s Mane, Chaga, Reishi, and Cordyceps all have positive benefits for humans. In this episode, Paul explains how they benefit bees as well in providing immunity to diseases and much more.

Learn about Bee and Mushrooms here!

Check out Paul's Company Host Defense for Mushroom Supplements

I currently use Four Sigmatic Mushrooms - Current favorite is Lion’s Mane Elixir. (Not sponsored but wanted to provide full disclosure on what I've used.)

Cognitive Benefits of Lion’s Mane

Worth Reading

The Generalized Specialist: How Shakespeare, Da Vinci, and Kepler Excelled | Farnam Street

"Do we want to be like a raccoon, able to survive anywhere, although never maximizing our potential in a single area? Or like a panda, unstoppable in the right context, but struggling in an inappropriate one?"

The world seems to elevate the position of the specialist to the nth degree. I've always wondered why this is the case. Let me use an example from the gym, you can be the person who has the most massive chest possible, but by doing so, you let your legs become weaker. The result is a deficiency, an upside-down triangle if you will. Here to me is how we teach many people today, and to stray outside the "path" is to shoot yourself in the foot professionally. My gut has always thought this was strange because the more you can extract general information from your experiences, the better able you can better solve new problems when they arise. I am not saying it is not wrong to specialize by any means; we all will specialize at some point. (I am currently pursuing the specialization in podcasting and interviewing if you will.) What I am saying is look for the patterns and evergreen skills that seem permeate any problem you solve.

For more on this topic check out the book Range by David Epstein

Man-Computer Symbiosis by J.C.R Licklider

"It seems reasonable to envision, for a time 10 or 15 years hence, a "thinking center" that will incorporate the functions of present-day libraries together with anticipated advances in information storage and retrieval and the symbiotic functions suggested earlier in this paper."

If I were ever part of an engineering class or technology start-up, I would make this required reading. I find this paper so valuable in understanding what "visionary" looks like. Also, how to think about the human and technology as a partnership. This paper was written in 1960 and yet still holds conceptually to this day. It's mind-boggling to think of how someone could envision what computers could be like without ever seeing a computer as we know it and the possibilities of how it will change how we interact with the world. J.C.R Licklider (everyone who knew him called him Lick) is one most fascinating people in history that you probably never heard but has had a massive impact on the how computers and internet were developed.

Find out more about this in The Dream Machine by M Mitchel Waldrop

Worth Watching

ADL International Leadership Award Presented to Sacha Baron Cohen at Never Is Now 2019

This video was shared with myself and Joe Jackowski by Nick Buegel, who asked us what we thought of the video. The premise of the video is that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc. are causing harm through the discourse they allow. Sacha gives some thoughts to help begin a conversation on what the government and these companies can do to regulate the 'product' they provide.

Worth Pondering

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
— Ancient Chinese Proverb

This week is a wrap and plenty to chew over for this week! Feel free to let us know any thoughts and suggestions that may contribute to these posts. It may pop-up on Feeding Frenzy or develop into a full-fledged post of its own.

Stay curious, and have a great week!

Previous Feeding Frenzies: #1, #2 , #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14