When a botanist looks at a forest they may focus on the ecosystem, an environmentalist sees the impact of climate change, a forestry engineer the state of the tree growth, a business person the value of the land. None are wrong, but neither are any of them able to describe the full scope of the forest. Sharing knowledge, or learning the basics of the other disciplines, would lead to a more well-rounded understanding that would allow for better initial decisions about managing the forest.

I think I first learned about the concept of mental models a couple years ago from John Siracusa, and I had it tucked back in my brain to one day find a list of mental models that I could study.

Fast forward to this article which was resurfaced recently in the excellent Farnam Street email newsletter.

I think I’ll be reading and re-reading this post several times in the years to come.

Nathan Barry of ConvertKit fame shared this post on Reddit a few weeks back, and I have read it a half dozen times since then.

If you are at all interested in taking the leap into being an entrepreneur, read this. It’s more insightful and inspiring than 90% of the business books I’ve ever read.

It's well understood by good parents that life should only get so exciting for a baby.

After friends have come around and brought presents and made animated faces, after there's been some cake and some cuddles, after there've been a lot of bright lights and perhaps some songs too, enough is enough.

The baby will start to look stern, and then burst into tears, and the wise parents knows that nothing is particularly wrong, though the baby may by now be wailing.

It's just time for a nap.

The brain needs to process, digest, and divide up the wealth of experiences that have been ingested.

Boy, this hit home. It's a short video, but I kept finding myself saying "hmm, that sure makes an awful lot of sense."

I particularly liked the bit about needing to have 10 minutes to digest an hours worth of activity. I think that's why I love going on walks so much.

Speed in software is probably the most valuable, least valued asset. To me, speedy software is the difference between an application smoothly integrating into your life, and one called upon with great reluctance.

I’ve tried articulating this notion to my clients, but now I’m just gonna send them this article.

If you manage a software project, or are interested in software development, Craig’s thoughts are a must read.

First of all, this podcast featuring FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel is one of my favorite shows as of late. The commissioner interviews women in tech, typically somehow involved with policy making or in the public sphere.

I particularly liked this episode with Senator Tina Smith, not just because she's my senator, but because they got into a good conversation about rural broadband.

My wife and I keep talking about moving out to rural Wisconsin to be closer to her family, so this topic of making sure all Americans have access to high speed internet is particularly important to me.

Never did I once contemplate the fate of the man who wrote “The Monster Mash.”

The Memory Palace is an incredible podcast, and they did a wonderful job telling this man’s story.

And the thing about surfers? They don’t seem to regret all that time they don’t spend standing on boards and riding waves. Not only are they surfers all the time, they are, it seems to me, happy all the time.

Friends came for dinner. A public-interest lawyer, noticing I was bigger, asked what I’d been up to.

“I'm really into lifting weights right now,” I said. “Trying to get strong.”

The lawyer’s wife, a marathoner and family therapist, appeared startled, as if concerned about my emotional state. She looked me in the eye and said, “Why?”

I’ve been trying to motivate myself to join a gym lately. My goal is to get a six pack. I’m aware that this is typically accomplished through diet, but lifting weights would make me look well rounded, not malnourished.

This article spoke to me as someone who has identified as a marathoner for the past 10 years (and continues to do so). While I may secretly want to look like a professional wrestler, I also don’t need to gain 50 pounds of muscle.

Just like basically everything else in life, there is a spectrum between cardiovascularly fit yet scrawny, and strong beyond belief yet can’t run around the block.

In total, Winegard estimates that mosquitoes have killed more people than any other single cause—fifty-two billion of us, nearly half of all humans who have ever lived. He calls them “our apex predator,” “the destroyer of worlds,” and “the ultimate agent of historical change.”

When our troop would go to a week-long Scout Camp in northern Minnesota, we always chose to stay in the Voyageur side of the campground. It was the most rugged of the offerings, where we had to cook our own food and sleep in military-style, open flap tents.

These green mesh tents were essentially a giant World War 2-era parachute string across a structure of three connected pieces of wood.

Part of our responsibility as scouts was to bring mosquito netting.

I spent many summers in my early youth across the lake at Family Camp with my mom, sister, and cousins. One year, though, I was just about old enough to stay with the scouts, so my parents had me back a bag for an overnight excursion.

I grabbed whatever supplies I could find in our camping closet, including the mosquito netting, and embarked for the trip.

As I was in the camp ground setting things up, I pulled apart the netting and realized that it was full of holes. They weren’t too big, I assumed, noting that they ranged in size from quarter-shape to softball-shape.

That night was one of the worst nights of my life.

In the silence of night, all I could hear were mosquitoes buzzing in my ears. Tormenting me. Biting me.

I must’ve spent half the night swatting at the air in vein, desperately trying to fall asleep and get some relief from all the bites.

It got so bad that I opted to climb under my tent mate’s netting and sleep on the tarp rather than my cot with a mattress and sleeping bag.

I say this with zero hyperbole: I hate mosquitoes more than anything on this planet. Even more than people who flick their cigarettes out of their car window.

My mindset has always been that life is a series of things you Have To Get Right or face the consequences of being a Big Failure. That has led me to put immense pressure myself and on many of my individual decisions, including minor ones. As a consequence, I ended up with unreasonably high expectations for myself and others.

My neck hurts from nodding along so aggressively with this self-analysis.

This article has some solid advice if your neck hurts too.