Tag: #2026-08
Writing on GPUs, LLMs, MLOps, Kubernetes — and mindset · 33 posts
Fourteen Things Table Tennis Taught Me: Skill Makes the Relationships, a Title Blocks the Growth
Fourteen principles from years of playing table tennis, and how they carry over into work and life. The structure that turns skill into an entry ticket to relationships, why playing only for fun never makes you better, a
2026-08-16 · 11 min read #mindset#growth#deliberate-practice#sports#careerWhat It Means to Be Smart: What Gets Measured and What Does Not
The word intelligence has three different things mixed into it. The general factor as a statistical regularity, CHC as the mainstream model of psychometrics, and the social usage we reach for when we size someone up in d
2026-08-16 · 14 min read #mindset#intelligence#psychometrics#expertise#evidenceThe Power of Small Habits — The 21-Day Myth, the 66-Day Median, the 18-to-254-Day Reality
The claim that a habit takes 21 days has no research behind it. That number came from a plastic surgeon's observation in 1960. The most-cited habit-formation study, from Lally and colleagues, actually reported an average
2026-08-16 · 12 min read #mindset#habits#psychology#self-improvement#2026-08How Not to Wait for Motivation — Drive Is Not So Much the Cause of Action as, Often, Its Result
Why does the plan to start once the drive arrives fail structurally? The order of action and mood as shown by a behavioural activation meta-analysis, the autonomy, competence and relatedness of self-determination theory,
2026-08-16 · 12 min read #mindset#motivation#psychology#self-improvement#2026-08Experts Do Not Know More, They See Differently
The 1973 chessboard experiment is the starting point of expertise research. Masters remember real game positions far better, but on randomly scattered arrangements most of that advantage disappears. That means pattern pe
2026-08-16 · 13 min read #mindset#learning#expertise#chunking#perceptionThe Road to Becoming an Expert: Feedback First, Volume Second
This post moves the evidence set out in the previous four posts into an executable form. Narrow the domain to where feedback arrives, build the feedback loop before you build the volume, practise under the conditions you
2026-08-16 · 14 min read #mindset#learning#expertise#deliberate-practice#careerThe Structure of Being Good — Self-Assessment, Feedback, and a Narrow Scope
The wish to be good at something runs strong, yet what being good is actually made of is a question people ask surprisingly rarely. This is a map post that lays out the structure of skill in three pillars: calibrated sel
2026-08-16 · 10 min read #mindset#growth#deliberate-practice#self-improvement#2026-08When Your Purpose Is Unclear — Clarity Is Not a Precondition for Starting
Why does the strategy of waiting until purpose becomes clear fail, in a state of not knowing what you are living for? The view that purpose is discovered downstream of accumulation rather than upstream of planning, the l
2026-08-16 · 12 min read #mindset#purpose#career#self-improvement#2026-08The Structure of Practice: Why Practice That Goes Well and Practice That Lasts Are Different
Spacing, retrieval practice, mixing things up. Three things with relatively solid evidence in learning research, set out together with their effect sizes. And then the central paradox of the field: the conditions that ma
2026-08-16 · 14 min read #mindset#learning#practice#retrieval#spacingHow Not to Lower Your Standards: A Structural Problem, Not a Willpower One
Standards do not collapse because you decide to let them go. They slip quietly through unnamed exceptions, renegotiation while exhausted, and convergence on the median of what surrounds you. This piece covers the five me
2026-08-16 · 7 min read #mindset#standards#discipline#growth#2026-08Metacognition — The Gap Between Feeling You Know and Knowing
Metacognition lost its definition as it became a buzzword. This post returns to the original definition of monitoring and control, and sets out the way the feeling of knowing is manufactured from fluency as a proxy signa
2026-08-16 · 12 min read #mindset#metacognition#learning#psychology#2026-08People Do Not Change Easily, and People Change — The Evidence and Speed of Personality Change
The statement that people do not change and the statement that people can change are both true, and that tension is the subject of this post. The rank-order stability of the Big Five that holds throughout adulthood, the
2026-08-16 · 12 min read #mindset#personality#psychology#self-improvement#2026-08English Small Talk for Table Tennis: From Online Matches to the Real Club
English phrases you can actually say while playing table tennis, sorted by situation. Greeting an opponent you met in an online match, reacting mid-rally, covering a mistake, and the vocabulary you need at a real club. N
2026-08-16 · 16 min read #english#small-talk#conversation#sports#gamingTable Tennis Talking Points in English: Sharing Matches, Players, and Gear Naturally
English phrases for keeping a table tennis conversation going. How to bring up a match you watched, how to talk about players and equipment, a structure for sharing your own week in two sentences, and how to save the con
2026-08-16 · 11 min read #english#small-talk#conversation#sports#2026-08Table Tennis Feedback in English: Giving and Taking Advice Without Bruising Anyone
English phrases for giving and receiving advice in table tennis. Why advice nobody asked for is the risky kind, the power of the single sentence that asks permission first, how to speak in observations instead of correct
2026-08-16 · 11 min read #english#small-talk#conversation#sports#2026-08Table Tennis Compliments in English: Praise That Does Not Sound Hollow
English phrases for complimenting an opponent while you play table tennis, sorted by intensity. How to stop repeating Nice shot and start naming what was actually good, what to say when the gap in level is wide and when
2026-08-16 · 9 min read #english#small-talk#conversation#sports#2026-08Table Tennis Practice Talk in English: Asking and Answering How You Train
English phrases for asking and answering questions about how you practise. How often you play, what you are focusing on, what is not working. It covers the questions that draw out the other person's know-how, plus senten
2026-08-16 · 10 min read #english#small-talk#conversation#sports#2026-08The Complete Guide to Relationship English: Conflict and Requests Are Harder Than Sweet Words
A guide to the English used between partners and very close people. It starts with affection, gratitude, compliments and the different temperatures of saying you miss someone, then spends most of its length on the genuin
2026-08-16 · 28 min read #english#relationship#conversation#communication#cultureReporting Status and Delivering Bad News in English: Conclusion First, Then Cause, Then the Ask
Get the order wrong when you deliver bad news in English and your explanation reads as an excuse. Here is the structure that puts the conclusion first, the cause second and the ask last, and the reason it works. The exac
2026-08-16 · 19 min read #english#business-english#workplace#reporting#communicationHow to Improve Your English Without the Situation: Manufacturing Real Conditions Through Simulation
If your English improved while playing a VR game, VR is not the reason. Three conditions happened to line up at once: repetition of the same situations, real-time pressure, and a low social cost for getting it wrong. Thi
2026-08-16 · 10 min read #english#learning#practice#conversation#2026-08