Commonplace Notes

Richard Branson:

To be honest with you, I had never heard of the ‘Virgin Islands’....I had been madly trying to come up with a way to impress a girl I had fallen for, so I rang up the realtor, and expressed my interest. We were still in the early days of Virgin Records, and I by no means had the cash to buy an island.

Richard Branson bought Necker Island for a mere $180,000, despite its $6 million asking price. You would think it's all due to his negotiation skills, and I agree he must be quite the negotiator to reach such heights in business. But what struck me most was his confidence in making that first call.

Imagine seeing a $6 million price tag when you can only afford $100,000. Instead of walking away, he picked up the phone, arranged a visit to the island, and boldly offered his limited budget.

I wish I had that kind of confidence.

For example, I run a podcast and sometimes spot the perfect guest. Yet, I lack the courage to reach out to them on Twitter, LinkedIn, or email. But Branson's story teaches me the value of taking that first step.

Coming back to Branson's story, a year later, the island's owner hadn't received any better offers and called Branson again. This time he could offer more - $180,000 - and sealed the deal. The lesson here is clear: have the confidence to act even when there's a gaping chasm between what you can give and what's asked for.

I want to embrace this boldness in my own life. Maybe I won't always succeed in negotiating, but at least I'll have given it my best shot.

Paranoid is ok; Paralysis is not ok.

David Crawshaw :

I followed this curiosity, to see if a tool that can generate something mostly not wrong most of the time could be a net benefit in my daily work. The answer appears to be yes, generative models are useful for me when I program. It has not been easy to get to this point.

Good to see David laying this out in open. As technologist we need to be curious and press along beyond the "easy" part to extract benefits of a technology.

He uses LLMs in three ways:

1. Autocomplete. This makes me more productive by doing a lot of the more-obvious typing for me. ... This is the place to experiment first.
2. Search. If I have a question about a complex environment, say “how do I make a button transparent in CSS” I will get a far better answer asking any consumer-based LLM, o1, sonnet 3.5, etc, than I do using an old fashioned web search engine and trying to parse the details out of whatever page I land on. (Sometimes the LLM is wrong. So are people....)
3. Chat-driven programming. This is the hardest of the three. This is where I get the most value of LLMs, but also the one that bothers me the most. It involves learning a lot and adjusting how you program, and on principle I don’t like that....

Tools like Windsurf and Cursor can operate in agentic mode and generate as much code as possible and even test them. I have found them to be ok when you start a fresh project. But in an existing codebase they are a mess. At least so far.

There are tons of insight from Hackernews discussion of the blog. Some interesting ones:

dewitt

One interesting bit of context is that the author of this post is a legit world-class software engineer already (though probably too modest to admit it). Former staff engineer at Google and co-founder / CTO of Tailscale. He doesn't need LLMs. That he says LLMs make him more productive at all as a hands-on developer, especially around first drafts on a new idea, means a lot to me personally.

gopalv

If you are good at doing something, you might find the new tool's output to be sub-par over what you can achieve yourself, but often the lower quality output comes much faster than you can generate.

namaria

As we keep burrowing deeper and deeper into an overly complex system that allows people to get into parts of it without understanding the whole, we are edging closer to a situation where no one is left who can actually reason about the system and it starts to deteriorate beyond repair until it suddenly collapses.

Though this comment was made with respect to economy, this is true of a large code base. You need to learn to reason about the whole system to debug its parts. It is also true as you grow in your career to the top levels. As CXO, you need to understand and reason about different parts of your business to see how your business unit can be effective.

mhalie

communication skills are critical in extracting useful work or insight from LLMs. The analogy for communicating with people is not far-fetched. Communicating successfully with a specific person requires an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, their tendencies and blind spots. The same is true for communicating with LLMs.
...querying LLMs has made me better and explaining things to people

highfrequency

They dramatically reduce the activation energy of doing something you are unfamiliar with. Much in the way that you're a lot more likely to try kitesurfing if you are at the beach standing next to a kitesurfing instructor.
While LLMs may not yet have human-level depth, it's clear that they already have vastly superhuman breadth.

WhiteNoiz3

don't use it for something that you aren't able to verify or validate.

Rajesh Jain

Set a threshold below which one will not waste thinking time – the answer should be a Yes. For me, that threshold is $100 (Rs 7,500). This simplifies decisions like buying a book, booking a better seat on a flight, going to a better restaurant for a business meeting – the answer is always Yes. The same applies in business also – the decision threshold can be higher. Always look at the benefits and the delta, rather than the absolute.

He gives another example of this "Delta Dollar Decision"

As he says, don't spend mindlessly. Have few categories (self-improvement, education ...) where this becomes default.

every small spend adds up – but there are some categories where the delta needs to be seen on the large spend base, rather than as an integer by itself.

Sigal Samuel on Vox so eloquently talks about the challenges of codifying morality and optimizing it. You should read the whole article — it is so well written.

Here are the parts that resonated with me. I clipped these to think a little more deeply:

Optimization requires you to have a very clear and confident answer to the question “What is the thing you should be optimizing for?”

When you grow up as a kid, you almost always optimize for what your parents and the culture you grew up in value. It could be money, fame, or education. If we’re lucky, we get to figure out what really matters to us. And if we’re truly lucky, we get to build our lives on those values and cherish such a life.

What the “right” thing to do is will depend on which moral theory you believe in. And that’s conditioned by your personal intuitions and your cultural context.

Since there is one holy book, one would assume all Christians would agree on what is "right." Far from it. Even on larger theological questions, there’s no consensus. Can women teach in churches? Should we celebrate Christmas, even though it’s not in the Bible? I think the answers are "yes" and "no" to these questions, respectively, but there are many other questions for which I don’t have clear answers — even though I’ve thought deeply and tried to understand different points of view. One lifetime won’t be enough to come to an understanding of what is "right."

The moral view endorsed by a majority of people? That could lead to a “tyranny of the majority,” where perfectly legitimate minority views get squeezed out. Some averaged-out version of all the different moral views? That would satisfy exactly nobody. A view selected by expert philosopher-kings? That would be undemocratic.

Sigal so eloquently put forth the conundrum of morality. It’s "yes" and "no" to all three questions at the same time. That’s the paradox we navigate in our daily lives. We should have the freedom to choose to go with the crowd or to stand alone in our own choice. Not everyone has the ability to do so — not always, not every time, but that is part of being human.

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger in Alabama in 1955, she did something illegal,” they write. Yet we admire her decision because it “led to major breakthroughs for the American civil rights movement, fueled by anger and feelings of injustice.

Christ broke many "laws" that were established until that point in time. Breaking "unjust" laws is one of the unwritten rules of the New Testament. That unwritten rule has inspired many activists to bring about social reforms across cultures and through time.

Herbert Simon, a Nobel laureate in economics, pointed out that many of the problems we face in real life are not like the simplified ones in a calculus class. There are way more variables and way too much uncertainty for optimization to be feasible. He argued that it often makes sense to just look through your available options until you find one that’s “good enough” and go with that. He coined the term “satisficing” — a portmanteau of “satisfying” and “sufficing” — to describe opting for this good enough choice.

I don’t remember where I first learned about “satisficing,” but ever since, the concept has stuck with me. It seems like a wise approach to life in general. I approach almost all decisions with a “satisficing” filter — asking myself, "Is this good enough for the current situation?" Be it a car, a city to live in, or a job to work at, this filter has made life easier and more fulfilling. It’s allowed me to build a life I genuinely enjoy. Ironically, “good enough” is often the optimal way to reach a state of continual happiness in life.

We would, in a sense, be held hostage by the moral architecture of the world. But nobody can prove that. And so we’re free and our world is rich with a thousand colors. And that in itself is very good.

From a Christian perspective, God has revealed His mind through the Bible, but he has also given us the agency to choose one way or the other. If we were toys or robots with a codified moral code, there’d be no need for final judgment.

Below are my notes from Continuous note taking with Obsidian by Nicole van der Hoeven. I watched the video, picked up transcript via tactiq, fed into local LLM to give me the highlights. Then I cleaned up to make it useful for me.

Key Takeaways from the video:

• Notes help with learning, building knowledge, and showing your worth to others!
• Old "notes for school" style = Useless in real life
• Take notes the way our brains work - interconnected & evolving
• Notes should be CI/CD of learning
• Notes are "low stake, high value" life hack

Intro

• Nicole (speaker) → Dev Advocate at Grafana Labs (but not a dev!).
• Got into tech & testing roles w/ no tech background (econ major!) – succeeded by learning & taking notes.
• Notes helped her land jobs + show skills that weren’t "official" at first.

Challenges in Learning Tech

• Tech = SO MUCH to learn, moves crazy fast; can’t keep up with everything.
• Old way of taking notes (like in school):
  • Separated by subject → No overlap or links between topics.
  • Static → Write once, never update.
  • Focus: Passing the exam, not real learning.
  • Temporary → Forget it all after exam or when topic’s done.

The New Way of Taking Notes

• Take notes the way our brains work – everything's connected & always evolving.
• New system = 4 big changes:
  • Interconnected: Link notes together (ideas, opposites, examples, whatever!).
  • Evolving: Updates as you learn or grow – keep notes alive.
  • Abstract + Contextual: Notes for your immediate needs, but also find big-picture patterns over time.
  • Future-ready: Use formats/tools that won’t disappear; searchable, shareable, and easy to use later.

Continuous Note-Taking

• Taking notes like CICD for software development (iterative process).
  • Idea: Learn something → process it → take notes → share → get feedback → tweak → keep going.
• Notes = Never "done." They evolve + improve continuously.
• Helps you stay sharp and build long-term knowledge!

What’s Obsidian?

• Obsidian = Note-taking app → "Your brain, but external."
  • Think of it as your own personal Wikipedia, not like Google Docs.
  • All notes = markdown files (plain text → future-proof).
• Cool features:
  • Local-only: Your notes, fully owned by you. Back ‘em up however you want.
  • Links system: Easy to connect ideas between notes (explicit + implicit links).
  • Graph View: See a map of how your notes/ideas relate. Nerdy, but cool!
  • Plugins: Super customizable → add new features (from the community, too!).

How to Use Obsidian

1. Daily Notes to Start:
   • Kick off each day in a daily note → Jot down meetings, tasks, random thoughts.
   • Use [[brackets]] to link keywords to other notes.
2. Auto-Linking Magic:
   • Whether you make a link or not, Obsidian tracks mentions of your notes! (Linked + unlinked mentions).
3. Graph View:
   • Fancy visual graph shows connected ideas.

How Nicole Uses Obsidian

1. Logging Stuff (Notes While Working)
   • Logs all her testing/learning experiments (e.g., trying tools, approaches).
   • Adds tables for results, code snippets, links to dashboards/docs. Super casual, yet useful.
2. Learning Made Easy
   • Turns those "logs" into clean, polished notes later (e.g., step-by-step guides).
   • Examples: Installing tools, learning git/Python, or testing notes → Her own little reference library!
3. Sharing & Learning in Public
   • Uses earlier notes as foundations for blog posts, YouTube vids, or talks like this one.
   • Takes messy notes → Polishes them → Teaches others → Gets feedback → Learns even more!
4. Content Creation
   • Even this presentation was written in Obsidian using a plugin (Markdown → Presentation!).
5. Collab via GitHub
   • Obsidian is perfect for team docs! Can open GitHub repos as folders → Write docs w/ linking/search built in.
6. Publishing Notes
   • Shares polished notes using Obsidian Publish or static site tools like Hugo.
   • Example: Her Python, git, testing notes are all public → Makes her learning process visible to others.

Why Continuous Notes Are Awesome

1. Learn Faster: Writing for future you forces deeper understanding.
2. Small Wins Add Up: Each note might feel "meh," but over time → you build massive knowledge.
3. Never Start Fresh: Notes = backups for your brain. Always something to riff on!
   • E.g., Needs to write about "performance testing"? Search notes → Tons of starting points already there.
4. Learning Exhaust: Share iterative drafts/notes → Helps others, builds your rep, invites feedback.

Nicole’s Personal Note-Taking Wins

• Her Obsidian vault = 10,000+ notes, all interconnected w/ visual graph view.
• Employers LOVE it – It shows her knowledge/skills in a tangible way.
  • Before notes? Had a hard time "proving" worth for jobs.
  • Now? Notes = Portable proof of expertise and projects!

Final Takeaways

• Notes = Life hack for learning faster + showing your skills to others (current/future you included).
• Start thinking of note-taking as an evolving, living process (not a "write it and forget it" thing).
• Tools like Obsidian make it easy to build this system → Super worth it for long-term success.

Resources: Nicole’s slides + blog post available on her site: nicolevanderhoeven.com.