As I mentioned before, I'd like to keep track of all the books I've read and of the book(s) I'm reading now.
This list is meant to be exhaustive and in alphabetically order. Hopefully I remember them all...
100 Things You're Not Supposed to Know by Russ Kick A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins
Bite Me by Christopher Moore
Bright Side by Kim Holden
David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell
Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Friars Club Encyclopedia of Jokes by Friars Club
Gus by Kim Holden
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Holes by Louis Sachar
How Children Succeed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
How to Develop Self-Confidence and Influence People by Simon and Schuster
Investing in your 20's & 30's for Dummies by Eric Tyson
Mastermind by Maria Konnikova
Mastery by Robert Greene
Mutual Funds for Dummies by Eric Tyson
Practicing the Jhanas by Stephen Snyder and Tina Rasmussen
Rock Breaks Scissors by William Poundstone
Super survivors by David B. Feldman and Lee Daniel Kravetz
That's Not What I Meant! by Deborah Tannen
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
The 50th Law by Robert Greene
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
The De-Textbook by Cracked.com
The Humanuare Handbook by Joseph C. Jenkins
The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Think Smart by Richard M. Restak
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Winning Body Language by Mark Bowden
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
I'm currently reading Think like a Freak by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, the same authors who wrote Freakonomics. Freakonomics was a good book, albeit a bit random. In it, the authors talk about many seemingly unrelated topics of economics (both macro and micro), with things like; athletic corruption, the dynamics of large scale drug dealing, real estate and much more. The main premise of the book shows the reader that many things are not caused by what may be the most commonly held beliefs.
One example, was the decline of crime in the early 1990's. Many people thought this decline was due to smarter policing, more police, the age of the criminals increasing (and crime therefore decreasing), etc. One of the real reasons crime declined so rapidly was the legalization of abortion in America. This allowed many low-income, low educated socioeconomic groups to not have kids who would undoubtedly grow up to become criminals (most criminals and drug dealers come from a family of low education and low income).
Recap of today
Today has been pretty productive so far. I've gotten a lot done, although I haven't worked today like I was supposed to. It snowed like crazy this morning therefore many schools, businesses and banks were closed for the day due to weather.
1. Didn't get any work done on the house. The next step is to make sure the roof isn't leaking, and if it isn't, to wait for a good day to buy and apply a roof coating.
Current: Roof not coated
Goal: Coat roof before January
2. Haven't gotten to work on those yet. I usually use work as a means to improve/practice, and I didn't get to work today.
Current: Not practicing everyday
Goal: Get into practicing everyday for at least 10min
3. I played the piano for less than an hour today. I'll have to go practice some more. The practice I did do, however, went really well. I'm still practicing on memorizing the notes of all the keys.
I've noticed the beginner's curve has slowly crept up on me; I love that phase of learning. In the book Mastery by Robert Greene, Greene talks about a natural progression in one's journey towards mastery. He says that one improve quickly, then meet their first plateau. After serious practice, one gets to their next improvement, then plateaus for a longer period. The progression looks like this:
I don't necessarily notice the improvement then slight depression as this chart shows, but it's adequate.
Current: can play Mario Theme Song moderately
Goal: Be able to play MTS well
4. I finished Rock Breaks Scissors by William Poundstone today. It was a good book, although most of it was "you can't exactly predict anything with enough accuracy, but you can improve your odds slightly". The author gave tips to improve one's odds in things like; the game rocks-paper-scissors, pool betting (basketball, baseball, football, etc.), the lottery, real estate timing, and the stock market.
The author gave some good tips on how to improve your odds in the stock market, which I found particularly useful. He talked about a man named Robert Shiller who created what's called the price-to-earnings ratio of the S&P 500 to predict if the stock market will fall, soon, or climb.
Robert Shiller claims that if you follow the S&P 500's price-to-earnings ratio (PE), found here, on a monthly basis, and bought stock if the PE dropped to 15 or below and sold if the PE rose to 24 or higher, you'd be able to side step some, if not most, of the markets crashes. I'd suggest checking out the website with the link provided to read more.
Current: Reading about a book per 5-7 days
Goal: Read a book every 5 days
5. I still have stock in Robinhood (the free stock trading app), which haven't been doing so well this week. I started the app with $100, rose to about $105 (that's a 5% rate of return, which, after inflation, is about 2% which isn't bad!), then dropped down to $99.84 today. I have 3 shares of a new company named Atlasssian, and one share of Western Union (they pay dividends).
So far it's going well! I can't expect to make record gains every day (or even week or month for that matter), so losing a couple of cents here and there isn't bad. Another key point to this is I'm prepared to lose $100. I also have a lot of money in a S&P 500 index, which I won't get into right now.
Current: $99
Goal: $110
6. I learned quite a bit about electricity yesterday and today.
Although, there aren't many clear resources to learn precise things related to electricity so I've been left to my own devices to figure it out.
Amperes(amps): amount of electrons flowing through a certain point per second. Think of electricity like a water hose: amps would be the volume of water leaving the tube.
Voltage(volts): pressure or force of electricity. With the water hose analogy, this would be the pressure of the water hose.
Watts: I don't understand watts yet. What I do know of watts is that it's a measure of power, energy flow. 1 watt is equal to 1 joule per second.
One can calculate any of these by using the following equation: volts X amps = watts. Of course if you're given watts and not volts, you can do some algebra and have the following: volts = watts/amps, etc.
Current: Don't understand electrical basics
Goal: Understand and fully grasp electrical basics
7. I am currently working on the characteristic of speed. I enjoy being able to do things quickly, especially read!
I timed myself to see how quickly I read and I calculated that I read about a page a minute. I also realized that I can read more/faster if I can focus longer. I didn't think, but my focus definitely needs some work.
Current: 1 page per minute
Goal: 1 page per 45 seconds
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