Andrej Karpathy posted a short guide on X recently about how to read language-model output as the models take on more of the work. His first tip is a writing constraint: ask the model to explain the topic in ASD-STE100. ASD-STE100 is a controlled language from the aerospace and defence industry. It was built for maintenance documents, where a wrong reading can cause a wrong action. Writers use an approved word list. Each word has one meaning. Sentences stay short, usually und

Moderation is the quiet discipline that keeps a body from wearing itself out. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna puts it plainly in Chapter 6, Verse 17: One who is moderate in eating and recreation, regulated in effort at work, and balanced in sleep and waking - for that person, yoga becomes the destroyer of sorrow. The Sanskrit line yuktāhāra-vihārasya yukta-ceṣṭasya karmasu, yukta-svapnāvabodhasya yogo bhavati duḥkha-hā is not a call to austerity. It is a call to proportion. Hea

Inspired by Martin Meadows’ Daily Self-Discipline In Daily Self-Discipline , Martin Meadows makes a compelling case that physical excellence is not just about aesthetics or fitness-it is a foundational discipline that shapes every other area of life. Exercise and nutrition, when approached deliberately, become powerful training grounds for building willpower, resilience, and long-term consistency. One of Meadows’ key insights is that regular physical activity is a keystone

In Clear Thinking , Shane Parrish explores why intelligent people still make poor decisions. The answer lies not in lack of knowledge, but in hidden mental defaults-automatic patterns that hijack rational thought. Parrish identifies four key enemies: emotion, ego, social pressure, and inertia. The emotion default arises when feelings override reasoning. In moments of anger, fear, or excitement, we tend to react rather than respond. Decisions made in emotional spikes often ig

Life is full of change. The ancient wisdom of the Gita gives us a practical map for dealing with that flux - not by resisting, but by engaging from the right place. Here are five key take‐aways that speak straight to our everyday hustle and heart. 1. No situation is permanent. Whether you’re riding a high or sitting in a pit, the Gita reminds us: both joy and sorrow are fleeting. The world is in motion. Recognising this helps you stay grounded when things change - because cha

Have you ever noticed how the world seems to mirror back how you treat it? In The Great Mental Models volume on physics, chemistry and biology, Shane Parrish invites us to think of our interactions as forces in nature: push something out, and a reaction ripples back. Think of reciprocity - the social version of “equal and opposite reaction” in physics - as a low-activation-energy model: if you give first, that low effort triggers something much bigger in return. When you do g

Relativity is the concept that our perceptions, judgments and beliefs are not absolute but are shaped by our unique vantage-points and frames of reference. As the blog on Farnam Street reminds us, this model highlights that our experiences are subjective and our interpretations of events are filtered through our personal context. Each one of us lives inside a particular web of experiences: our upbringing, our culture, our education, our social network - and all of these shape

In a world that’s constantly changing, the most reliable investment you can make is in yourself —specifically by embracing the habit of continuous learning and building what Charlie Munger called a latticework of mental models . He said: “You’ve got to have models in your head. And you’ve got to array your experience – both vicarious and direct – on this latticework of models.” What does this mean in practical terms? First, it means never stop learning. Whether you’re readin