I just wrapped up a 60 day streak of learning Mandarin everyday, using the LingQ method (i.e. reading and listening to authentic content, in my case a TV series.) Here s the most important data point: reading speed. It went from 10 words per minute to ~40, which is a 4x increase. The reason I looked up this data is because today, after finishing my reading for the day, I realized that I ve already…
It s time to celebrate my first 30 consecutive days of learning Mandarin. In the first 30 days, I have been able to do just one full pass of one episode of [机智 的 上半场], an interesting Chinese TV show I found. I will continue to read and listen to the episodes. Over time, the number of days taken per episode should drastically go down. My stats say I know 2363 words , but that is mostly an error —…
This is going to be my third attempt at learning Mandarin. My first attempt was in 2014-15, and the second one, I don t even remember. I ve also decided to revisit Japanese and go for another breakthrough. If you re unfamiliar with my history, I basically did a 12 month challenge back in 2022-23 and achieved fluency in everyday spoken Japanese. I moved to Tokyo, where I still live. But I lost the…
This is a short letter to my younger self. I know you re determined. I know it s hard. I know you feel weak. I know you feel behind. I know you think that having that black belt around your waist will give you proof that you are not so weak, that you have excelled, that you have accomplished something. I also know that you don t want to feel like a fraud. I also know that you d rather be a…
I m trying the biggest experiment I ve ever done with regards to managing my ADHD: Set a floor of only 30 minutes per day of deep, focused work on your most important project. This is to enforce no zero days. Protect the streak. Even a small drip of activity, if it s constant, can enable you to build great things over time. Yes, in the end, math is math, but overall, the tortoise wins. And it has…
My company currently has only 2.5 months of runway, and we need to rebuild the product from scratch: A new scientific network that blows everything that came before it out of the water. And as per tradition, I ve decided to dedicate a Hikikomori Sprint to this: I will mostly sleep in the office in Tokyo until the thing is done. Deadline: May 30th, 11:59pm It means the platform is DONE, tested,…
Progress Update After being stuck at 95kg for 3 whole months, my deadlift is finally back on track. The bottleneck was my bodyweight, which was also stuck around 67-68 kg. (I m very lean at 5 10) As soon as my bodyweight went up and stabilized over 69 kg, I was able to rep out 95kg deadlifts. A week later my weight went up to 70 kg, and I was able to jump straight from 95 to 100kg (this morning I…
Once I get past these obstacles, I will be able to get on and live my life. No. The obstacle IS your life. The bigger your obstacles, the bigger your life. Life is right here, in the now, waiting for you to show up. Want to change your life? Increase the size of the obstacles in the way. A reminder to myself. Thanks to Graham Weaver for the inspiration for this post. The post The obstacles are…
I love history, and I often wonder what life would be like if I was born in a different time and place. In pre-modern Japan, for a thousand years, Buddhist pilgrims would travel long distances wearing homemade straw sandals named waraji (草鞋). A pilgrim would typically walk 40km per day in these for weeks or months, traversing all kinds of terrain and climate in solitude, going through 3-4 pairs…
Here s an interesting, obvious fact: Every single sTaRt-Up that ever failed (i.e. went to zero), had a page in their slide deck showing a big juicy market size with billions of dollars that they failed to capture. Every single sTaRt-Up that ever had some mediocre level of success (i.e. lived for a decade and didn t go to zero), also had a similar page with similar billions of dollars as their…