Books I Read, October 2020

This post was first sent to my newsletter on November 2nd, 2020. You really ought to subscribe :) Nothing really exciting this month. I had lots of work and could not quite focus on reading hard books or non fiction. I needed to escape from the humdrum of life So, I read a lot of Jack Reacher. I decided to read all of the Lee Child novels featuring the character. And all of that, started because I read a book, that followed Lee Child around for a year, describing his writing process and the work that goes into a Reacher novel. It’s been fun, reading. Like meeting an old friend. Considering that he writes about one a year, I find it slightly alarming that I have now read seventeen years of Child’s work in a month. ...

November 30, 2020 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learnt from Antifragile (III)

This post was sent to my newsletter on October 25th, 2020. You really ought to subscribe :) What I Learnt from Antifragile (III) What Does Not Kill Me … Antifragility for the Collective What does not kill me makes me stronger. — Friedrich Nietzsche, Maxims and Arrows The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. — Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms ...

November 15, 2020 · Mario Jason Braganza

My Experience Learning the Dvorak Keyboard Layout

This post was sent to my newsletter on October 16th, 2020. You really ought to subscribe :) I was wondering about what kind of technical posts, I could write, since I am still learning programming and I did not want to bother you folk, with this is how I learnt to do lists in Python and this is what dictionaries do :) I then realised that it’s been slightly more than a year, I have been touch typing using the Dvorak layout. ...

November 2, 2020 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learnt from Antifragile (II)

This post was sent to my newsletter on October 18th, 2020 You really ought to subscribe :) What I Learnt from Antifragile (II) I fell sick and missed writing last week. I have to live up the name of the news letter, anyhoo. It would not be erratic without me whiffing once in a while, non? Apologies all around, anyway! The Barbell Heuristic to Taking Risks Basically a shortcut to figuring out whether you ought to do something or not, based on the risks it entails. How do we take a decision, when we don’t know all the pros and cons? How do we decide in an uncertain world? Simply put, ...

November 1, 2020 · Mario Jason Braganza

What I Learnt from Antifragile (I)

There seems never to be the right time to write or the right amount that I could learn from Antifragile, so I’m just going to take a long, rambling stab at it this morning. It will be a living document that I’ll keep adding to on the blog, sooner or later, but for now, this is just for you, my dear newsletter1 family. Here goes … While I love the way he writes, I don’t have that much a familiarity with English that, I can easily process stuff like this, every time I just want to grab a principle quickly. ...

October 18, 2020 · Mario Jason Braganza

Mountains, Holy Lands!

Help the folks, who need your help the most at this hour! Donate to Goonj, to help our daily wage earners and labourers. click to embiggen … I said to him: “Mr. Muir, someone told me you did not approve of the word ‘hike.’ Is that so?” His blue eyes flashed, and with his Scotch accent he replied: “I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike!” ...

May 25, 2020 · Mario Jason Braganza