Sam Altman on Risk

While the OpenAI turmoil was happening over the weekend, I dug into Sam Altman’s archives. I read articles like How Things Get Done, How to Be Successful, and Startup Advice. Reading these posts, I noticed Sam writes a lot about risk, and specifically, that most things are not as

Review: Lalia German courses

I wanted to share my experience with Lalia since I couldn't find much information about it before I joined. I enrolled in the "Lalia: Intermediate Low 2" course in September 2023. I already had a Goethe B1 certificate from 2020. But aside from a certificate, I

You don't need to ask Google for permission to feel something

I was feeling tired and frustrated with the detailed and tedious work I am doing for a presentation. A thought came up that, "all jobs require getting into the details". The impulse to google, "is it normal to feel frustrated with tedious work" arose. Essentially, what

German Permanent Residence aka Permanent Settlement Permit for EU Blue Card Holders

💡2. May 2024 Update: For applications sent from January 2024, it seems like people are getting appointments within 3-4 months now. 💡17. Jan 2024 Update: It is now taking forever (not sure exactly how long) to receive a reply for this. I have friends who have been waiting for a

Top 4 insights from Borderless Economics

I have a friend group of expats who moved from Southeast Asia to Berlin. We call ourselves "BER Crew". We were discussing feeling slightly guilty about leaving our home countries and contributing to 'brain drain', for our self-interested pursuit of living a more comfortable life in

"Confidence, not perfection, is the goal" and other insights from Scott Berkun on public speaking

Every time I have a talk (or presentation) coming up, I review Derek Sivers’s notes [https://sive.rs/book/ConfessionsPublicSpeaker] on “Confessions of a Public Speaker”. It always calms my nerves, reminds me that fear comes with the territory, and that the audience wants to you to do well.

Monthly-ish Personal Update (Jan 2022)

Hi, this is my monthly-ish personal update to my most valued friends and allies. More info here. Guilt-free unsubscribe link at the bottom. Here’s what’s been happening since the last 'monthly-ish' update in July, six months ago (925 words, 5m46s reading time): I joined Craft Docs,

Learning SQL with The SQL Murder Mystery

I just solved the SQL Murder Mystery [https://mystery.knightlab.com/], a fun 'whodunnit' game designed to practice basic SQL concepts and commands. If you've been wanting to learn SQL, I highly recommend it! I thought I'd finally pick up some SQL skills. I

How I manage my time and energy while job hunting (and working)

If you check my LinkedIn Recommendations, people say I work at ‘an incredibly high speed’, am ‘the best organized person I know’, and am ‘somehow, always simultaneously thoughtful and expeditiously efficient.’ So I thought it would be fun and useful to share how I manage my time and energy while

My most used keyboard shortcuts in Craft

I was talking to a friend who was sharing his screen while typing in Craft. It was a little painful to see him slow his thought process down by having to use the trackpad to format his text. One of the reasons I love Craft is that my typing can