Ben Mann Monthly Mar 2024

Kauai, med updates, credit fraud, Cleanshot

Purpose

• An index for my memory

• A menu of topics for my next conversation with you

• A faster way to share what I’m excited about without the barrier of writing a complete blog entry on it

• A skimmable way to spread content I found valuable

Photos

Experiments and experiences

• Kauai

  • We left Euda with my parents and spent 5 days in Kauai as a babymoon. We had a great time! Can't wait to go back with Euda.

  • Poipu beach, Sleeping giant, Na Pali coast, surfing Hanalei Bay, snorkeling at Puipu, Waimea canyon.

  • Hung out with Diana's manager who lived in a rural part of Kilaeua and goes surfing most days with his wife. It's a very different life from the one we've chosen. When we surfed together at Hanalei, I asked, "does it get old? Do you stop seeing how beautiful this place is?" "Nope, it's fucking gorgeous mate." Something to look forward to when I'm 55 😅.

  • This might be my new favorite Hawaiian island, but recency bias.

• MAOI start & stop

  • Stopped taking phenelzine Mar 27, 2024 due to consistent low-grade headaches, dry mouth severe enough to make my spit foamy and yellow in the morning, consistently dry and bloodshot eyes, sudden poor mood despite initially feeling good. Didn't have any trouble with blood pressure according to the cuff. It's been about 10 days and the side effects are almost gone.

  • Psychiatrist recommended TMS. ACX suggests it works well, but is also a big time commitment that I'm not sure I can commit to at the moment.

  • Considered bupropion again since I gave up after only 3w last time but looked up the stats and lots of people had dry mouth, increasing with dose.

  • Thinking about therapeutic ketamine again. Prescription + compounding pharmacy seems like a good option to try, or maybe mindbloom.com

• Fraud alert

  • Someone tried to open a credit card in my name again (last time, successfully). I finally froze my credit with all 3 bureaus. I only have one card so it's not a big deal to freeze it. Highly recommend doing this! It probably took me less than 20 minutes.

• Discovered Cleanshot for Mac

  • Worth every penny! Favorite features: scrolling screenshot, annotations, and videos with my face in the corner. These are little things but they end up making a big difference. Apple should buy them and integrate it into the OS.

• Acarbose update

  • Last month I lost 10 lbs in 2w (190 -> 180). Since then, I've been stable at 182 for the whole month and feeling good. I stopped taking acarbose with every meal, now 1-2 meals/day, and probably depleted my glycogen stores, which can be up to 5 lbs including associated water weight for my weight. I haven't been keeping to my exercise goals.

• Fun fact: turtles can hold their breath for 8 hours

Life updates

• 📖 Started reading Outlive

• 💼 Starting new team

• 🏃 Ran 7 miles for the first time in a while. Felt great, want more.

• ⚽️ Euda's first soccer class

• 🎳 Euda's first bowl for Em's birthday

• 🧚 Fairyland in Oakland

• ∴ Started watching 3 Body Problem

Content

5 point Likert ratings for “I would recommend this content to a friend”, sorted

• Banana pudding, Beef stew 5/5

  • Excellent but very high effort. Diana: "You know you can buy this in a can right?"

• Henry Sugar 4/5

  • Wes Andersen becoming even more himself. Despite the artifice, excellent acting and characters; scratched my effective altruism itch, though they should know "earn to give" is so 2010 😜.

• Laura Deming 80k 4/5

  • I'm familiar with most of the research she talked about already, and she only spoke about it at a fairly basic level, but I still felt inspired by her insistence that we shouldn't give up on aging as a problem, and that we've only recently gained the tools with which we can start to make real progress. Exciting!

• The Whale 4/5

  • Woof, this was hard to watch. Brendan Fraser makes a comeback playing a morbidly obese man confined by both his weight and his grief to his apartment. The director did an incredible job making the tiny set feel interesting enough for a feature length film.

• Poor things 3/5

  • While I appreciated this film for its world building, interesting characters, and novel plot, I found it too uncomfortable to watch in many ways. Maybe I'd describe it as type two fun.

  • I enjoyed the first 30 minutes in which Emma Stone acts like a baby just because of how perfectly she captured so many things Euda does, even down to the strange toddler walk.

• The Creator 2/5

  • Watched first hour on a plane. Felt like there was a lot they could've done with the world-building here that was mostly spent on action sequences and running around.