3 biscuits

Moontower Munchies #80

Sep 18, 2024

Friends,

Good morning. 3 biscuits to share today. They go well with coffee.

By a barista at the FutureProof conference

1) Commodities and Careers

I’ve got a paid post lingering in my drafts with a clickbait working title “This is going to sound racist, but…”

I’m not sure when I’ll get around to it but it’s about being strategic in choosing a career. Well, my man Joel Rubano (commodity trader, author, and teacher) just published a post that captures the spirit of the one I had in mind without the provocation (he is, without question, a wiser man than I).

It’s especially timely since I talked a lot about commodities last week:

The Crowded Trade is You (2 min read)

2) Mathacademy.com

Last week I explained why I signing up for this mathacademy.com course:

Mathematical Foundations I

The Mathematical Foundations sequence is aimed at adult learners interested in pursuing advanced university courses, but lack the necessary foundational knowledge. Whether you're starting off again with the basics or just need to brush up on your calculus, this is the fastest and most efficient way to get up to speed.

I’m back to report that I have found first contact encouraging. I took the diagnostic and now have my 6th grader doing it too.

A bit on how the diagnostic works…it’s about 50 questions. The individual questions are timed but the test is not (ie you can do a few questions a day if you like). The system cares about both mastery and automaticity — is the knowledge readily accessible to be applied. The algo in the background is adjusting to you. The presentation of questions is informed not just by the interlocking web of math concepts but also by the power of spaced repetition from the cog sci literature.

Super cool approach (see the knowledge graphs and student model):

🤖How Our AI Works

I got 84% mastery on my diagnostic for Math Foundations I. This is what the output looks like that determines where I get inserted in the course:

(the darker the color, the greater the estimated level of mastery based on the diagnostic)

The system adds an element of gamification with XP points. An XP is roughly equivalent to 1 minute of focused effort by a serious, but imperfect student.

I was informed:

This is a snippet from a more detailed report on my diagnostic results. Note that slow, but correct answers are given partial credit.

3) Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself.

Blog Extravaganza: The Winners (7 min read)
Adam Mastroianni

I’ve mentioned it here before but Adam’s substack is ridiculously good. In this post, he reveals the winners of his calls for writing to encourage people to blog (he received over 100 entries and he paid the winners).

Adams pens this passage describing one of the winning entries, Rebecca Darley’s Medieval Basket Weaving:

There’s a Donald Miller quote I think about often: “Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself.” That’s what Darley is doing here. You can ruin any subject by asking the wrong questions, and you can make any subject bloom by asking the right ones; a good teacher shows you the difference. Darley’s manager, on the other hand, is like a guy who thinks peanuts are disgusting because he doesn’t know how to take the shells off.

One of my closest and oldest friends Avi and I have this almost weird shared affection for others appreciating things so deeply they are reduced to child-like enthusiasm. He turned me on to the Lost In Vegas music reaction channel many years ago where 2 hip-hop heads become enraptured with metal. The joy they emit when they’re feeling a song is so infectious I get a profound sense — this is going to sound nuts — that it contains the key to mutual love. There is something universal going on here which inches us closer to the light.

That quote above…

And as far as watching someone else love something to make you love it…well, this is how I started listening to Dio during workouts:

Stay Groovy

☮️

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