Ben Mann Monthly September: dance, BreatheBot, human body clamp, backpacking, active reading
Purpose
An index for my memory
An 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
Inspired by Gwern, a way to spread content I found valuable
It’s meant to be skimmable. If there’s anything you want to see more or less of, please let me know!
Experiments and experiences
Black tie Sunday With 7 friends, dressed up and went to Pakwan, which is not a fancy place. We brought electric candles and a tablecloth. Felt special and had a great time!
Ecstatic dance in SF and Oakland
Free for all dance party where everyone has plenty of space to move any way they like! The Oakland version felt less playful and more intense than the SF one. SF is at Church of 8 Wheels, which used to be a church. They don’t build ‘em like they used to.
Young Urban Zen @ San Francisco Zen Center
I enjoyed it and learned something! 30 mins meditation, 30 mins lecture, 30 mins discussion. This time the lecture was part of a series on the Noble Eightfold Path covering mindfulness. They decomposed mindfulness into 1) bodily sensations, 2) judgments of pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant, 3) aversion or craving in the mind, and 4) thoughts, and ideas.
BreatheBot demo
I published BreatheBot for Android, the easiest way to build a mindfulness habit. Open the app, place your phone on your desk, and occasionally look at it. It will display an animation to encourage you to breathe mindfully for just two breaths, then shut off for an hour. Given the sentiment in user testing, I will stop working on this project.
I’ve been wanting to try reinventing the desk chair for many years. I theorized that if I clamped myself in a memory foam mattress, I’d get the metabolic boost of standing and the comfort of sitting. Adam Reis and I built a prototype in a single day. It turns out it’s difficult to distribute the weight properly and some slippage between body and clothes makes it tough to stay in for extended periods. Worth the $50 of materials it took to test.
CO2 monitoring using Netatmo
Inspired by Scott Alexander, I decided to monitor the CO2 levels in my room. It typically rises from 400ppm to 2-3k ppm. 3k is the average on nuclear submarines, but has also been shown to slightly impair decision making ability. The next step is to correlate sleep quality with CO2 levels with the window open vs closed.
After reading Michael Nielsen’s “Long Term Memory” post, I realized my long term retention for the articles I read is pretty bad. I also sometimes mix my reading list with my todos, which makes me feel overwhelmed. Housemate Jason Benn inspired me to try Pocket. I’ve found the highlights are great for recording the nugget from the piece, but the app leaves something to be desired. I’m working on making something better!
Huel + modification
I bought Huel because it’s one of the only Soylent competitors that comes unflavored and unsweetened. Artificial sweeteners like sucralose upset my stomach. I found that 15g of sugar and a dash of pumpkin pie spice per 67 grams of Huel makes it edible.
3 day backcountry trip in southern Utah’s Cayote Gulch
Cayote Gulch requires many many river crossings. I wore trail running shoes instead of boots and it was great! Excellent rock protection, but drained quickly after going through water. I brought 12,000 calories of Huel to eat, but my friends packed way too much normal food, so I ended up eating almost none of it. This trip was an exercise in accepting reality as it was rather than as I wished it to be. Yes, walking on sand takes a lot of extra energy. Yes, you’re carrying your friends extra food weight. But look at your beautiful surroundings! Appreciate the privilege of taking time off and being outdoors!
Hip hop class at ODC
Two years ago, I tried a beginner hip hop class at City Dance. The teacher began by saying “Everyone would say I’m crazy to teach these moves to a beginner class, but you all can handle it right?” To which everyone but me said, “Yee!!” No! I’m at a beginner class for a reason! I could hardly do any of the moves, let alone keep up when we strung them together. I decided to embrace beginner mind and try again. It was much much better! It was tough, but I didn’t give up and ended up enjoying it.
General life updates
NBC filmed my house, to be aired Oct 11
Idea sprints
Going well, though I spent longer on BreatheBot than I would’ve liked. I started working on other ideas in parallel. Killed CBT distortion labeler journal idea due to small TAM, high friction.
Brainstorming
a collaborative, active reading experience like Hypothesis for mobile web
language learning based on word frequency tables
a fake, ML-generated webcam of your face for when you’re teleconferencing and want to eg., eat a sandwich without suspiciously turning off your video feed. If someone asks you a question, says things like “Good question! Let me think about that for a moment,” to buy you time.
Jaw surgery will put me out of commission Oct 9-19. Not allowed to fly or exercise for 1 month. 5 more months of braces after that.
Content
So Good They Can’t Ignore You summary
Passion comes after mastery, not before. Self Determination Theory: motivation comes from autonomy, competence, relatedness. "Attempting to seek control is... an invitation for resistance.” <- Definitely happened to me many times. This is why I’m trying to start a company!
In a completely dark room, an hour-long, purely sonic experience. Some natural sounds, some synthesized. It was interesting, but won’t go again. NPS 5/10.
A beautiful film based on the book. I found the story interludes a little distracting but Liam Neeson’s performance was excellent. My tears flowed like rivers.
When deciding how to live your life, looking at others you respect can be an informative lodestar. I’m working on a post in this format.
Playful, stylish, funny, and full of the crisp cinematography Wes Anderson is known for. Unique mixture of untranslated dialogue. A reminder that what you’re looking for isn’t necessarily the thing you need.
Even the people famous for not taking VC money… still took VC money. When you don’t raise, you’re taking 100% of the risk yourself.
How I Built This: Southwest, Chipotle, Compaq, Reddit
Inspring, fascinating first-hand accounts of the founding of major institutions. These guys jumped in even when the industries were known to be horrible (airlines, restaurants) and did better than everyone. Southwest: profitable every year since 1972; bought their planes so debt didn’t kill them in a bad season. Reddit: selling after just a year, then coming back to save it. Compaq: almost getting crushed by IBM, but producing anyway and staying ahead of the demand; CEO burning out and wanting to be pushed out by the board.
The Joe Rogan Experience: Elon Musk
Still incredible how Musk is just bursting with ideas and drive after all he’s done. Rogan asked “How do you manage to do everything you do?” and “For the Boring Company, who do you go to when you have the idea?” Seems like both answers are “Just do it.” Musk knows the physics, the markets, the tech. He goes back to first principles, he proves to himself it’ll work, and he finds people he trusts to carry the torch forward.