english on PotHix

english on PotHix https://pothix.com/tags/english/ Recent content in english on PotHix Hugo -- gohugo.io en <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY-NC 4.0</a> Mon, 16 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Using a 10yo phone (Nexus 5) https://pothix.com/10phone/ Mon, 16 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/10phone/ I decided to change my phone to a newer hardware. While changing hardware, I would have to do a little dance of devices: Move whatever I have in my phone to another device Do a factory reset on my current phone Give it to my wife Get her phone and do a factory reset before sending it for a battery change That means I would need a third device while I don’t have my new hardware. StrangeLoop 2023 https://pothix.com/strangeloop2023/ Thu, 12 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/strangeloop2023/ I’ve been following the StrangeLoop conference for about 10 years now. Watching some of the talks online, talking to friends who had the chance to attend in the past, and following the news from time to time. This year’s edition would be the last one. When a friend of mine told me that, I decided to make an effort to participate. It is a long trip to get to St. Louis (~16 hours, door to door), but it would be worth it. Choosing my first car https://pothix.com/firstcar/ Mon, 06 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/firstcar/ I don’t really care about cars, but I had to buy one and I’m going to describe the process I used to find the one. The Why Until my 30’s, I couldn’t care less about cars. I didn’t know the brands that well, didn’t like discussing them, and had no plans to have one. To me it was just a sink where you would throw money in maintenance and insurance. Rome https://pothix.com/places/rome/ Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/places/rome/ In July 2022 I spent 3 days in Rome and quite enjoyed it. The only problem was the extreme heat and crowded city, but other than that, things went great. Stay I stayed on a BnB called CityLife Rome. I booked it on booking as I was traveling with my wife and sister and was looking for a place for 3 that was affortable and had a great location. This place is quite close to the Roma Termini, giving you access to the lines A and B and a lot of flexibility to use the Metro. Florence https://pothix.com/places/florence/ Mon, 27 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/places/florence/ As part of a 1-week trip through Italy 🇮🇹 in 2022 (2 days) and had the chance to do a 1-day trip in 2023. I had the chance to spend 2 days in Florence with my wife and sister. Stay I got a Hotel 3-star hotel with an amazing location, right in front of the main basilica. The hotel is called Hotel Bigallo. The place is good enough for what we wanted. Venice https://pothix.com/places/venice/ Fri, 24 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/places/venice/ As part of a 1-week trip through Italy 🇮🇹 in 2022, I had the chance to spend 2 days in Venice with my wife and sister. It was right after the Doist retreat, and I was feeling quite tired in the first day of the trip, but the mood changed quite fast after the first day. 😀 Stay We decided to get a Penzione with a room for 3. The name of the place is Penzione Guerrato, and it is near the Rialto bridge. Review of Speed Up Your Python with Rust: Optimize Python performance by creating Python pip modules in Rust with PyO3 https://pothix.com/pythonwithrustbook/ Fri, 10 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/pythonwithrustbook/ Book: Speed Up Your Python with Rust: Optimize Python performance by creating Python pip modules in Rust with PyO3 by Maxwell Flitton. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I got this book from Packt in an exchange for an honest review, so here it is. It’s not news to anyone that I’m a big fan of the Rust programming language. I’ve organized conferences, did the initial work to contribute to the compiler, Organize local meetups in my city, and even have my own book on how to start with Rust (in pt-BR). How typing speed influences our life https://pothix.com/typingspeed/ Sat, 05 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/typingspeed/ It’s not the first time I have an argument with someone about typing speed, so I decided to write this small post to make my point clear. The discussion usually starts with the following argument: I don’t have to type fast to be a good programmer. Programming is not about typing, but thinking about the solution. Yes, that’s true! The whole job of a programmer is not to type, but to solve problems. Review of Brave New World https://pothix.com/bravenewworldbook/ Sun, 05 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/bravenewworldbook/ Book: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. People usually mention Brave New World along with 1984, so I had this one in my list for a long time now. Now that I read it, I can totally understand why both books are “related”, even with complete different plots. Brave New World is about a dystopian future where humans are created to be happy. Things are engineered, so people will not feel unhappy and stability of the society as a whole is maintained. Review of How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion https://pothix.com/howtolivebook/ Tue, 23 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/howtolivebook/ Book: How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion by Derek Sivers. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐⭐️. Another great book. I really like the content Derek produces on his blog and books. It’s usually dense and full of meaning, there are almost no fillers. The proposal here is cool: there are many ways to live, you don’t have to choose one, you can pick many! All of them are valid ways to live a meaningful life. Review of Software Engineering at Google https://pothix.com/softwareatgoogle/ Tue, 28 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/softwareatgoogle/ Book: Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time by Titus Winters. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It was a great book to read. It’s not the kind of book you read and start applying stuff at your current job. We all must remember we’re not Google, and many things mentioned there are great, but only applies to their context. With that said, I quite enjoyed the book. I was curious about Google’s structure, and it’s mind-blowing the amount of problems specific to that scale. 3D printing the Dactyl-cc case https://pothix.com/dactyl3/ Wed, 22 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/dactyl3/ This is another post of my dactyl series. This time I’m going write about the process to make the 3D printed case, and prepare it for the keyboard. Unfortunately, the process of assembling the keyboard is taking much longer than I anticipated. Being a parent of twins takes a lot of energy, and my predictions were very distant from the truth (for a change!). For this reason, I’m posting a step by step of what I’m doing with this dactyl project. How to read Tolkien, in my experience https://pothix.com/readtolkien/ Thu, 26 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/readtolkien/ I’m a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, and It’s not the first time friends ask me about how to read Tolkien books. I even discussed this on Twitter because of some misconceptions people have about some of his book. To make things clear, I decided to write this with my opinion on the topic. Do not pick a book at random Tolkien has a long list of published books, some of them he published in life, but most of them were published postmortem, edited by his son Christopher Tolkien. Review of The Dark Tower Book Series https://pothix.com/darktowerbooks/ Wed, 25 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/darktowerbooks/ Last month I finished the final book I wanted to read about The Dark Tower Series. I wrote reviews for all books, but I also want to write one single post about the story as a whole. I will try to not write spoilers here, especially for the main plot, but I may touch some points that I feel are quite interesting and you may want to experience yourself, especially in the Song of Susannah, so be warned. Review of The Sleep Lady's Good Night, Sleep Tight https://pothix.com/sleepladybook/ Tue, 24 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/sleepladybook/ Book: The Sleep Lady’s Good Night, Sleep Tight: Gentle Proven Solutions to Help Your Child Sleep without Leaving Them to Cry-it-Out by Kim West. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This is not a book I read because I was excited to read it. It’s a book I read to make my nights less bad and try to understand how to improve the life with babies. I read this after a friend mentioned it had sections on how to deal with multiples. Review of Polished Ruby Programming https://pothix.com/polishedruby/ Tue, 17 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/polishedruby/ Book: Polished Ruby Programming: Build better software with more intuitive, maintainable, scalable, and high-performance Ruby code by Jeremy Evans. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I got a contact from Packtpub about this book. The deal was to receive the book for free in exchange for an honest review. Here I am, just finished the book and will write about it. The book is quite good, there’s a lot of good information there, and I would totally recommend to someone investing in Ruby. A book inside a book https://pothix.com/bookinsidebook/ Wed, 21 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/bookinsidebook/ This is a post I’m postponing since 2016. 😅 I built a case for my Kindle using a book with a nice cover that a friend gave me “for sacrifice”. The process was simple and the result is great IMO. I will describe the step by step here in case you want to do one for yourself. This is the book I got: The first step is to glue all pages. Review of The Little Sisters of Eluria (The Dark Tower, #0.5) https://pothix.com/darktower0/ Fri, 09 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/darktower0/ Book: The Little Sisters of Eluria (The Dark Tower, #0.5) by Stephen King. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s a fun story for those who are into the Dark Tower series. It’s a short story actually, and brings a bit more about Roland’s early adventures, happening a bit before “The Gunslinger”. It doesn’t add much to the whole story other than just showing a bit more of a random place in the Mid-World, but it’s still an enjoyable story. Review of The Wind Through the Keyhole https://pothix.com/darktower8/ Wed, 07 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/darktower8/ Book: The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I wish I have read this book in chronological order. The book is not bad, but reading it right after finishing the series just because it was released afterwards was not a good call. On the other hand, I’m wondering if I would have enough motivation to continue reading the series if I read this book right after book 4. Review of The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, #7) https://pothix.com/darktower7/ Tue, 29 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/darktower7/ Book: The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, #7) by Stephen King. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Último livro da série, também lido (ouvido!) em Português, então vamos ao review em pt-BR. Eu estava bem curioso com o fim da história e como as coisas se resolveriam com a torre, o ka-tet, Mordred, o Rei Rubro, etc. Também estava preparado para muita coisa, dado que é um livro do Stephen King. A forma que o King construiu os personagens foi fantástica e me deixou bem apegado a eles. Review of The Lottery https://pothix.com/thelottery/ Tue, 29 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/thelottery/ Book: The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I decided to read The Lottery after reading The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, #3. They mention the book because of a situation happening in Lud, and they call it “Shirley’s nightmare”. I took some notes about it and added this short story to my reading list. It’s funny how random the situation is in Lud when the plot is revealed, but their case was much more complicated 😅. Review of The Masque of the Red Death https://pothix.com/reddeath/ Tue, 29 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/reddeath/ Book: The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I decided to read this book after reading Song of Susannah (The Dark Tower, #6). This book was mentioned because the “Red Death” was described there too, so I was curious to read the original story. It’s all about a prince defying the disease by locking his people inside their castle walls with enough supplies and goodies. They do “masked parties inside. Audiobooks as podcasts https://pothix.com/audiobookaspodcast/ Fri, 25 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/audiobookaspodcast/ I love to listen to audiobooks (article in pt-BR), and I’m was an Audible subscriber for many years, just pausing my subscription because I have way too many books (~150) already and need some time to clear the queue. 🙂 Audible is the best service to listen to audiobooks, no doubts here from my side, but sometimes I get audiobooks from other medias. As an example, I have 3 books from Pragmatic Programmers downloaded as mp3 files and I must find my way on how to listen to them. Fixing Logitech mouse MX Master 2 problem https://pothix.com/mxmasterfix/ Tue, 22 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/mxmasterfix/ This is a quick post for any Logitech MX master 2 (any version, really) owner having problems with their mouse. If your mouse is not moving at all but buttons are still working, there’s a good chance your problem has an easy fix. There’s a video (in pt-BR) about that if you prefer doing it more interactively, but in summary: The [hidden] thumb button is the problem. It gets stuck and messes up everything. My 2021 Productivity Workflow https://pothix.com/workflow2021/ Wed, 12 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/workflow2021/ This post is the updated version of the one I wrote in 2019. Instead of changing the previous one, I decided to create an updated version based on that. From time to time, I receive questions about my productivity workflow and I think it will be useful to have it written down somewhere. This post will describe how I’m dealing with it in 2021. Tool As you probably know, I work for Doist for some time now, and I’m a Todoist user since 2007, so the my tool of choice is quite obvious. My knowledge base bootstrap https://pothix.com/knowledgebase/ Sat, 01 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/knowledgebase/ Note-taking is my current obsession, so it’s time to talk about it here. 😃 How it started Last year I was talking to my friend Diego Eis about his note-taking workflow. I knew he was doing that for a long time but I couldn’t get the advantages of doing this. He described his workflow but I was still not convinced it would be useful for me at the time. When January came, I saw a post by Caffo talking about Roam Research and how he was using it to build his blog. Review of The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, #2) https://pothix.com/darktower2/ Wed, 21 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/darktower2/ Book: The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower, #2) by Stephen King. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. What a surprise! I enjoyed listening to this book. I have the whole series of books (printed version) here and decided to listen to the first one some years ago. I was not very impressed by it and decided to put the who series aside for some time. Last month I decided to give the second book a shot. Review of The Life‑Changing Magic of Tidying Up https://pothix.com/magicoftidyingup/ Sun, 11 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/magicoftidyingup/ Book: The Life‑Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I like the book and there are very few things I disagree with the author. I think it’s too much to talk to objects, but I understand where this is coming from. In my opinion, just holding the object is enough, even if you don’t talk to them. I don’t think it’s a good idea to remove all objects from your bad/purse every day. Password managers https://pothix.com/passwordmanagers/ Tue, 02 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/passwordmanagers/ After many years using LastPass, I decided to make the switch to 1Password. I’m going to describe here why I did this and how was my process to choose. LastPass I’m using LastPass for many years now. A lot of people say that LastPass is not a good password manager, it has bugs, it’s ugly, it has too many trackers, yada, yada, yada. I was always the guy who said: “Yeah, it works for me”. 2020 Year in Review https://pothix.com/2020/ Tue, 23 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/2020/ Brace yourselves, like any other stats post, this one will be HUGE If you’re following my blog, you know that I sometimes mentioned things were too hard and I couldn’t sit down and write. Looking back now, I have a good laugh for my past self. ☺️ I can say for sure that 2020 was a complicated year and a lot of things change in my life. The biggest change is that I’m now a father of twins. Books https://pothix.com/books/ Sun, 14 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/books/ If you want to see all my reviews, not just the small list of recommended books (still WIP), I suggest you to check the books tag. Here I describe the list of books I recommend to people. The recommendation also links to my review here, in case you want to have more information about it. Now let’s start with my recommendations. 💪 Tolkien: A biography It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of J. Movies https://pothix.com/movies/ Sun, 14 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/movies/ It’s been a while since I wanted to write down the movies I recommend. There are so many great movies to recommend that I will never be able to reply from the top of my head. This is a list of the movies that I really enjoy. Hopefully, they will be great for you as well. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (200[4,5,6]) - Extended version It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of J. Thoughts on group chats https://pothix.com/group-chats/ Sat, 13 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/group-chats/ I’m a big fan of group chats. The current app I use the most for group chats (and direct messages as well) is Telegram. I even created some group chats for topics I like (mechanical keyboards, note taking and productivity, Books and audiobooks, Money and investing, etc.). I take group chats (and communities) more seriously than I should and I make sure chats are moderated and following their topic, otherwise, it wouldn’t make any sense to have chats split by topic. Magic The Gathering https://pothix.com/mtg/ Tue, 09 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/mtg/ Some context I’m a big fan of Magic The Gathering (or MTG) since the first time I played it in 2004. Even before 2004, I remember seeing some cards a friend had and being totally amazed, even without understanding how the game worked. I couldn’t play much when I was a kid because these cards were (and some still are) very expensive. In 2007 I found some people to play and I bought some new cards (cheap ones). Review of Tolkien's Ordinary Virtues book https://pothix.com/tolkienordinaryvirtues/ Thu, 28 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/tolkienordinaryvirtues/ Book: Tolkien’s Ordinary Virtues, by Mark Eddy Smith. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I’m a big fan of Tolkien (if you follow me or my blog, you probably already know that) and decided to give a chance to this one even knowing it was totally related to religion and it’s not my thing anymore. The book is about Christian comparisons between The Lord of the Rings and some virtues shown in the Bible. I know talking took his Catholic religion very seriously and was even raised by a Priest after his mother passed away, so it would be nice to see the book again through these lenses. Chrome: Invalid HTTPS in development https://pothix.com/thisisunsafe/ Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/thisisunsafe/ It’s not the first time I had to use HTTPS for local development and had to do the whole setup of self-signed certificates. It’s a painful process that doesn’t have a good ROI for the developer. One day, after being sick of doing this every time, I decided to do some research for an easy way to workaround this. That was when I found the thisisunsafe hack. If you’re using Chrome (or chromium) you can type thisisunsafe when you access your development app complaining about HTTPS certificates. Review of Daily Rituals: How Artists Work https://pothix.com/dailyrituals/ Wed, 16 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/dailyrituals/ Book: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I just read the book When and it mentioned this book. The idea was so interesting that I decided to give it a try. What first caught my attention was the pattern of the peak, through, rebound everywhere. It’s not everywhere because we’re just mentioning artists here. I believe a similar pattern tends to emerge whenever people have control over their time. GitHub CLI (a.k.a gh) https://pothix.com/ghcli/ Tue, 15 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/ghcli/ The GitHub CLI is been a major time saver for me. I was skeptical about its usage in the beginning but it proved to be very useful. Cloning When I want to download a new repository, instead of typing the whole URL or going to the browser to find the repository, I just type: gh repo clone name-of-the-repository It works out of the box if the repo is mine. If it’s from someone else, I have to specify the user: Rust, LotR, and focus https://pothix.com/lotrfocus/ Tue, 01 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/lotrfocus/ 💡 Quick thought post. A bigger tweet but on my own platform. I’m co-authoring a book about Rust and was reviewing an example about enums. My plan was to use some sort of reference to J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy world (because I really like it). I was considering using something like this: enum Race { Elf, Dwarf, Men, Hobbit, Ent } PS: I’m only considering the free-peoples of middle earth for this enum. Testing a promicro https://pothix.com/dactyl2/ Mon, 09 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/dactyl2/ A lot happened since my last post and all parts are already here! 😃 It was expected that I would not have that much time to work on the keyboard when all the parts arrive, this will be a long journey. The only thing that I wanted to do as soon as possible was to check if the products were in a good condition. These are cheap parts coming from China in a month-long journey, so it’s important to check if they are working as expected while I still can open a dispute with the seller if something is wrong. Review of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing https://pothix.com/when/ Sat, 24 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/when/ Book: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, by Daniel Pink. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I read this book two times. The first time I had no context and was just looking for something to improve myself. The second time I read it to review everything I used and implemented so I could quote the book when writing an article about how to manage your energy to be more effective. The book provides amazing insights if you like to base your decisions on scientific research. J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography https://pothix.com/tolkienbio/ Wed, 21 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/tolkienbio/ Book: J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, by Humphrey Carpenter. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s not a secret to anyone that I’m a big fan of J.R.R. Tolkien. I have 3 versions of this book. A translated version (pt-BR), the original version in English, and the audiobook. It’s no news that it would be a 5 star book to me. I just listened to the Inklings book by Humphrey Carpenter, so it was the best time to also listen to this one (yes, I went for the Audiobook). Review of The Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Their Friends https://pothix.com/inklings/ Sat, 05 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/inklings/ Book: The Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Their Friends by Humphrey Carpenter. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I’m giving it 5 stars because I enjoyed it a lot and it came at the right time for me. For most people, it will probably be a 4-stars book. I’m a big fan of J.R.R Tolkien and also the concept of the Inklings. I have my own spin-off of this group with some friends but instead of discussing literature, we just take some time to have some deep conversation about anything. Dactyl keyboard - Part 1 https://pothix.com/dactyl1/ Fri, 28 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/dactyl1/ After build the Iris keyboard I decided to start a new quest to build a Dactyl-cc (as I mentioned at the end of the Iris post 😉) Dactyl is the keyboad I wanted to build from the start but I certainly didn’t have the skils to do it. I decided to first build a “portable kinesis”, so I could take it with me when I was traveling and Iris seemed like a great fit for this and not that hard for a first project. Review of Programming Rust: Fast, Safe Systems Development https://pothix.com/programmingrust/ Tue, 11 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/programmingrust/ Book: Programming Rust: Fast, Safe Systems Development. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This is a great book for sure. I started reading it in 2017 but never find the time to read it. Now, thanks to having two babies at home, I have enough time to read while waiting for them to sleep. :) There are many things I like about this book. The first is the comparisons with C and C++ since both authors are/were C/C++ developers. Assembling an Iris Rev4 https://pothix.com/iris/ Thu, 23 Jul 2020 09:48:21 -0300 https://pothix.com/iris/ It’s been a while since I’m looking for a keyboard that would be great to take with me when I’m not working from home for some days. I finally found the Iris keyboard that seems to be exactly what I’m looking for. The need I currently have a Kinesis Advantage at home. The keyboard is great, probably the best keyboard I used so far, but it’s far from what we can call portable 😅. Review of Nonviolent Communication https://pothix.com/nonviolentcommunication/ Fri, 22 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/nonviolentcommunication/ Book: Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Great book! It’s short and straight to the point. In summary, we should emphasize more with other people and understand what they are really trying to say. Sometimes we don’t communicate well and it’s up to someone to find out what is the problem and raise the right questions. This book feels even more important now that we have more people working remotely. Review of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking https://pothix.com/theantidote/ Fri, 15 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/theantidote/ Book: The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It was a suggestion from a friend when I published the review of Don’t Panic: Taking Control of Anxiety Attacks, as he found the content to be complimentary. I liked the book overall. It’s interesting how the author shows some scientific facts of the “positive thinking” which contradicts the current collective thinking. I don’t have anything against positive thinking, but I’m sure positive thinking alone will not do much. Review of Don't Panic: Taking Control of Anxiety Attacks https://pothix.com/dontpanicbook/ Tue, 07 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/dontpanicbook/ Book: Don’t Panic: Taking Control of Anxiety Attacks by R. Reid Wilson. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. A good book and exactly what I needed, thanks for the recommendation, Rafael Rosa! Some people said it seems like a Rust programming language book because of the word “panic” but it’s actually related to panic/anxiety attacks. It’s not the first time I suffer from anxiety but it’s the first time I felt the panic attack symptoms, so I decided to read more about it. Review of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less https://pothix.com/essentialismbook/ Mon, 09 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/essentialismbook/ Book: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Nothing outstanding, but a good book overall. I like listening to books like this one from time to time as it helps me to again think about what is essential. This topic is something we tend to forget and having a reminder is nice. Sometimes we have so much noise around that it’s hard to find what is really essential to us. Review of The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness https://pothix.com/couragetobedisliked/ Thu, 13 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/couragetobedisliked/ Book: The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I love these kinds of dialogues where both sides know how to win something. Currently, there are not many good dialogues on our society, especially with the advent of social media (🙄), but I would not go into detail here. The whole idea of Adlerian psychology is very interesting. 2019 Year in Review (full of metrics!) https://pothix.com/2019/ Sun, 26 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/2019/ Brace yourselves, like any other stats post, this one will be HUGE My year in review for 2018 was never posted because I could never finish it. I don’t want to let the same thing happen this year, so here I am. The end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 was quite hard for me and me just didn’t have the energy to sit down in front of the computer during the weekends to write my monthly reviews. Review of On the Shortness of Life https://pothix.com/shortenessoflife/ Thu, 26 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/shortenessoflife/ Book: On the Shortness of Life by Seneca. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. A short and good book. After reading Letters from a Stoic, I got the recommendation of this book as well and it was worth listening to it. This book makes me think about the way I’m living my life and how I’m using my time (not focusing enough?). If you want a quick and meaningful book, pick this one. :) Review of Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World https://pothix.com/digitalminimalism/ Fri, 20 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/digitalminimalism/ Book: Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I’m a big fan of the Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World book and this is another great book by Cal Newport. This one is not life-changing as Deep work was for me, but it brings great insights into technology in general. I’m not a big fan of social networks in general, they are mostly a waste of time in my point of view. Review of Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success https://pothix.com/peakperformance/ Sat, 07 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/peakperformance/ Book: Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success by Brad Stulberg. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. A great book. I felt like it’s a compilation of some good books I read in the past years. It was not a life-changing book for me but it was great to review the important info I collected in the past years. I would totally recommend this book as the first book for someone looking for performance improvement. Review of Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life https://pothix.com/bornstandingup/ Sat, 23 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/bornstandingup/ Book: Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I got a recommendation for this book on Quora. I don’t even remember what was the question about, but I usually mark some books to read when I get these “books you should read” questions. I had low expectations about this one and it surprised me. :) It was great to follow Steve’s career from a broke comedian to a famous one. Contributing to Rust https://pothix.com/rust-contrib/ Fri, 22 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/rust-contrib/ I’m involved with the Rust community for a while now. I’m one of the main organizers of the Rust meetup in São Paulo and also the Rust conference in Latin America (Rust LATAM) for more than one year now, but did not contribute to Rust source code yet. This post will show the step by step I did to submit my first pull request to the Rust compiler. If you want to go straight to the step by step, without any introduction, jump to My step by step to the first contribution. Review of How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life https://pothix.com/howtobefree/ Sat, 16 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/howtobefree/ Book: How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life by Epictetus. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. A good book. It seems like a summary of the whole enchiridion. After reading Seneca, I decided to try Epictetus. These books are usually very dense and require some time to think about, so I decided to not go with the long form of the enchiridion. I do not regret it; it was a good reading/listening. Review of Letters from a Stoic https://pothix.com/lettersfromastoic/ Fri, 08 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/lettersfromastoic/ Book: Letters from a Stoic by Seneca. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I was expecting a bit more about this book but I’m sure it is just a problem with my expectations. The book is a collection of letters from Seneca to Lucilius, and that’s exactly what you should expect from it. Seneca was a wise man and these letters contain great pieces of advice. Many of these advices are still valid today, but some makes much more sense when you consider the whole context in which Seneca was at the time. Review of So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love https://pothix.com/sogoodtheycantignoreyou/ Fri, 25 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/sogoodtheycantignoreyou/ Book: So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This is the kind of book you read and think: “I would love to have read this when I was starting my career”, as you have seen a lot of what he describes during the past 10 years. I’m glad that I did most of what he mentions here, and I can say it works. Review of Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World https://pothix.com/utopiaforrealists/ Sat, 19 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/utopiaforrealists/ Book: Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World by Rutger Bregman. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. A good book that I will recommend to many people. I was between 4 and 5 stars for this one and decided to go with 4. If there was a 4.5, I would totally go for it. I don’t agree with all the ideas presented here but I enjoyed thinking about them and seeing some different perspectives on them. My 2019 Productivity Workflow https://pothix.com/workflow2019/ Thu, 15 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/workflow2019/ From time to time, I receive questions about my productivity workflow, so I decided to write it down here. Keep in mind it’s a living thing and may change with time, but what I’m documenting here is what I’m using right now. Tool As you probably know, I work for Doist for some time now, and I’m a Todoist user since 2007, so the my tool of choice is quite obvious. Review of Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything https://pothix.com/moonwalkingwitheinstein/ Tue, 13 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/moonwalkingwitheinstein/ Book: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I like this book. Learned many things and enjoyed listening to it as a story. I don’t think it’s life-changing for me, but it brought good insights and some curiosity about how I can improve my memory. I saw some people mentioning that “this is not a book to teach you how to improve your memory”. Review of Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams https://pothix.com/whywesleep/ Thu, 04 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/whywesleep/ Book: Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Amazing book! It has the potential to be life-changing for me. When I started reading it, my review was around 3 stars. This book is not easy to read and sometimes (especially in the beginning) it feels boring. It took me some time to engage in the topic. I think I felt the same when reading Deep Work. Review of Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day https://pothix.com/maketimebook/ Mon, 24 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/maketimebook/ Book: Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day by Jake Knapp. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s a good book but maybe it’s not for me. They mostly talk about their personal experiences and how they helped them to get better. There are some interesting experiences, especially because they were working for Google in the past and the culture of meetings is really strong there. I already knew many things exposed here, so it was not life-changing for me. Review of Norse Mythology https://pothix.com/norsemythology/ Mon, 24 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/norsemythology/ Book: Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This book was in my reading list for a while. After an exam that requires pupil dilatation, I decided to go for the audiobook as it would not require any notes. :) It’s interesting to see the influence of Norse Mythology in some things. I particularly noted that Ragnarok mentions the coldest winter, which is also mentioned in ASOIAF as something the is near to the end of the world. Review of Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility https://pothix.com/powerful/ Wed, 29 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/powerful/ Book: Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s a good book but I was expecting more from it. I think it happened because I had the chance to attend a workshop with Patty and it was very good. My feeling is that the book was not bringing that much news for me. I part I like the most about this book is how Netflix “considers their employees as adults”. Review of Remote: Office Not Required https://pothix.com/remotebook/ Thu, 23 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/remotebook/ Book: Remote: Office Not Required by David Heinemeier Hansson. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. The interesting part of reading this book is that I’m currently living most part of it in the past 2 years. :) The book itself is a little bit outdated as it was written in 2013 and we had a very different scenario then. They mention it in the first chapter, BTW. I found it to be a little repetitive as well, they are not very pragmatic about the content and decided to mention things over and over again so you can open the book in any particular chapter and use it as a reference (at least that’s what I felt). Review of The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide: How to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify Your Life https://pothix.com/joyofless/ Mon, 20 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/joyofless/ Book: The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide: How to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify Your Life by Francine Jay. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This is a book I can see myself writing. I would say that around 80% of the things said here regarding a personal organization I already practice since I was a child. The ones about decluttering I learned many years ago when my home was robbed and I decided to get rid of [almost] everything that was left. Review of The Coming Storm https://pothix.com/comingstorm/ Tue, 14 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/comingstorm/ Book: The Coming Storm by Michael Lewis. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. A nice and informative book. It’s not outstanding but I found it to have great information about how data can change the way we live, especially in this case where human lives may be in danger. The whole thing about the way the U.S. government deal with their data department is weird, but at least they have one. 🤷‍♂️ Here are my notes for this small book: Review of Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow https://pothix.com/homodeus/ Sun, 12 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/homodeus/ Book: Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This is a great book that made me pause many times think. This is the kind of book I love to read. I heard some criticism about Yuval’s books and they are mostly related to his way to connect things that he is not an expert about. For me, it’s the best part of the books because it also makes me consider the connections and think about them. How was Rust LATAM 2019 https://pothix.com/rustlatam2019/ Sun, 21 Apr 2019 14:02:54 -0300 https://pothix.com/rustlatam2019/ For those who don’t know, I’m a proud core organizer of the Rust LATAM conference. 🎉 The conference happened on March 29 and 30, and this post describes how it was to organize the whole thing. Even with the small problems we had (as any other big conference), the feedback we received so far were very positive. We were able to bring amazing speakers to the conference, which brought high-level content even for beginners. Review of Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones https://pothix.com/atomichabits/ Fri, 08 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/atomichabits/ This is an amazing book! I’ve been reading about productivity and habits for a while now and I think this book does a great work of gathering everything together and presenting it in a nice form. I think I liked it even more because I already apply many of the tips written here and I can assure (at least to myself) that it actually works. I have to say that it was really great to hear confirmation of what I’ve been doing for years. Review of 21 Lessons for the 21st Century https://pothix.com/21lessons21stcentury/ Tue, 29 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/21lessons21stcentury/ Book: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I just read Sapiens and I don’t think this book is so good as Sapiens is, that’s why I decided to go with 4 stars. I like the way Yuval brings some topics to the discussion. This book made me think about many things I usually don’t think about. Religion is a topic I like to read/listen to from different angles, for example. Review of The Servant: A Simple Story about the True Essence of Leadership https://pothix.com/theservant/ Tue, 29 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/theservant/ Book: The Servant: A Simple Story about the True Essence of Leadership by James C. Hunter. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This book was a big hit in Brazil for a while and of course, I heard about it in the past. I’m a bit skeptical about books that became a hit, so I didn’t pick this one. My sister asked me to buy this book for her as a gift and I decided to buy one for me too so we could discuss it. Review of Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results https://pothix.com/radicalfocus/ Thu, 20 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/radicalfocus/ Book: Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results by Christina Wodtke. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. This one is hard to rate. I’m not sure if I liked it or not, and it’s probably related to the structure of the book. It starts as a non-fiction/business book, as I expected it to be, but out of nowhere, it became “a novel” (big quotes here). This “novel” part was not too bad, I liked it in the end, but it was totally unexpected. Review of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind https://pothix.com/sapiens/ Thu, 20 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/sapiens/ Book: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. One of the best books I ever read. The amount of information here is huge. There are many things I did not know about the history and some possible explanations about where we came to the current state. I really like the way the author says “we don’t know this yet”. Sometimes, we just don’t have the answer but we have many proposed theories, so he talks about them and lets you reach your own conclusions. Review of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You https://pothix.com/21lawsofleadership/ Thu, 20 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/21lawsofleadership/ Book: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I was between 3 and 4 stars and decided to go with 3 for this one. It’s a good book, I don’t have much to complain about it. Some “laws” seem to be fillers to me, but many make total sense. I would recommend it to someone, but reading a summary first would probably give you 80% of the value the book can bring. Review of Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living https://pothix.com/meetthefrugalwoods/ Mon, 26 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/meetthefrugalwoods/ Book: Meet the Frugalwoods: Achieving Financial Independence Through Simple Living by Elizabeth Willard Thames. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I follow their blog for a while now and like it a lot, but I didn’t have the same feeling with the book. It was interesting to read that they felt themselves to be privileged when comparing to the rest of the population. Financial independence is not for everyone but frugality can be and that’s what they tried to say, IMO. Review of The Power Of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential https://pothix.com/powerofless/ Mon, 12 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/powerofless/ Book: The Power Of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential by Leo Babauta. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s a good book. It’s repetitive and a bit outdated (I heard Google reader somewhere) but all the hints here are still valid. To summarize: the focus is everything. Chose something you want to do and do it. Remove everything else that’s not moving you toward your priorities and do what you have to do. Flashing a different firmware for the Atreus keyboard https://pothix.com/atreus-firmware/ Mon, 22 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/atreus-firmware/ I just bought an Atreus keyboard and I’m now configuring my own firmware. To do that, I’m using the qmk_firmware. I’m adding a new file as a layout (link here) and I have to change tmk_core/common/avr/bootloader.c to be able to compile it: -uint32_t reset_key __attribute__ ((section (".noinit"))); +uint32_t reset_key __attribute__ ((section (".noinit,\"aw\",@nobits;"))); After that, I just had to get the keyboard to the reset mode via fn + ESC (to change the layout) and then pressed the RESET button. Review of It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work https://pothix.com/crazyatwork/ Sun, 21 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/crazyatwork/ Book: It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. What a great book! The best part of this book is that there’s nothing so out of this world there, they are just talking about what we should be doing. Hey, it’s true, it doesn’t have to be crazy at work. We can still do our best and deliver an amazing product without making ourselves miserable working like crazy to meet some made-up numbers used as “goals”. Review of Principles https://pothix.com/principlesbook/ Fri, 05 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/principlesbook/ Book: Principles (Summary) by Ray Dalio. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I was between 4 and 5 stars for this one. I would say I would rate it with 4.5, but when I was editing my notes I realized the big number of notes I had and decided to go for 5 stars. There are many good ideas in this book and many of the things I see here are logical. If you’re a logical person (instead of an emotional one) you will understand many of the strategies he describes in this book. Review of 1984 https://pothix.com/1984/ Thu, 20 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/1984/ Book: 1984 by George Orwell. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I was between a 4 and 5 stars for this book and decided to go with 4. The ideas behind this book are amazing, especially when you read a little bit about Orwell and the political scenario of the time. It is a criticism of many things but it’s still an interesting construct of what may happen in a very extreme scenario. The whole idea of creating a language to limit how people describe things and how they think is a really interesting concept. Review of The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun https://pothix.com/aotrouanditroun/ Wed, 29 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/aotrouanditroun/ Book: The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun by J.R.R. Tolkien. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s an OK book if you’re a Tolkien fan. For those who like Tolkien and everything he researched, it’s an interesting book to read. I would not recommend this book to someone who’s not into Tolkien. There are three poems in this book and it tries to tell a story about how Tolkien wrote the final poem. None of them are that great alone but together they show one particular part of Tolkien’s style of writing/researching. Review of Tolkien and the West: Recovering the Lost Tradition of Europe (The Modern Scholar) https://pothix.com/tolkienwest/ Sun, 22 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/tolkienwest/ Book: Tolkien and the West: Recovering the Lost Tradition of Europe (The Modern Scholar) by Michael D.C. Drout. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. A great book if you are a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien (like me). I read 10+ J.R.R. Tolkien books already. I really like the descriptive way of writing and the whole fantasy world he created. I also read some other books that are not related to middle earth. With that said, it was amazing to me to find so much that was not explicit in the story. Review of A Brief History of Time https://pothix.com/briefhistoryoftime/ Fri, 20 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/briefhistoryoftime/ Book: A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Nice book but not that simple for those who are not engaged with physics. That’s not a problem with the book, IMO, physics is complicated. The pacing of the book is really good. He starts with the basics of physics and how paper after paper it is changing. It’s interesting how Stephen Hawking puts himself as part of that story, not the center of it. Review of The Introvert's Edge: How the Quiet and Shy Can Outsell Anyone https://pothix.com/introvertsedge/ Sat, 14 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/introvertsedge/ Book: The Introvert’s Edge: How the Quiet and Shy Can Outsell Anyone by Matthew Owen Pollard. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I bought this book because I wanted to understand a little bit more about introverts, so I can improve myself and understand others better. In the end, this book is totally related to sales, and part of it was not so interesting to me. I have to say that his method seems to be really good. Stats for Jun, 2018 https://pothix.com/jun2018/ Sat, 14 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/jun2018/ Guess what!? Yes, metrics for June! 📊 Books I usually don’t count how many books I read, I just track and check at the end of the month. When I saw that I read five books read this month, my face was like 😱. All of them received a 4-star review, so the result is quite good. Managing Oneself: This is a great book. It’s not life-changing, but there are many great tips to improve your life. Review of Fast Focus: A Quick-Start Guide To Mastering Your Attention, Ignoring Distractions, And Getting More Done In Less Time! https://pothix.com/fastfocusbook/ Fri, 13 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/fastfocusbook/ Book: Fast Focus: A Quick-Start Guide To Mastering Your Attention, Ignoring Distractions, And Getting More Done In Less Time! by Damon Zahariades. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s a good book overall. I was between 4 and 5 for this one. It shares some great insights with [b:When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing|35412097|When The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing|Daniel H. Pink|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1502223427s/35412097.jpg|56779991][b:When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing|35412097|When The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing|Daniel H. Review of Managing Oneself https://pothix.com/managingoneself/ Sun, 01 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/managingoneself/ Book: Managing Oneself by Peter F. Drucker. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This book is not life-changing but it’s small, straight to the point, and has many terrific bits of advice for your career and life. I would totally recommend you to read it since it’s not expensive and quick to read/listen to (around 1 hour on Audible). Here are my raw notes about the book: Feedback analysis: whenever you take a crucial decision or action take note of the results you’re expecting. Review of A Filosofia Explica as Grandes Questões da Humanidade https://pothix.com/filosofiaquestoes/ Tue, 26 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/filosofiaquestoes/ Book: A Filosofia Explica as Grandes Questões da Humanidade by Clóvis de Barros Filho. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Um livro bem interessante para aqueles que querem pensar sobre algumas coisas mais “profundas” mas sem precisar adentar em um idioma mais complicado. Os autores comentam de forma simples sobre algumas questões interessantes (e as vezes complicadas) da filosofia. Se você já conhece muitas delas mais a fundo, provavelmente esse não seja um livro para você. Review of The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers https://pothix.com/hardthingabouthardthings/ Mon, 18 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/hardthingabouthardthings/ Book: The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s a good book overall, especially if you are (or want to be) a CEO. Some (many?) ideas are not aligned with the way I would manage my own company, but there are many useful insights into hairy situations one may be faced during his CEO time. Sometimes the author contradicts himself, IMO. Review of Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made https://pothix.com/bloodsweatandpixels/ Mon, 11 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/bloodsweatandpixels/ Book: Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Good book overall, I did not take notes because it seems like a fictional book. :P If you like this book I would also recommend you to read Masters of Doom and some chapters of Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution where they tell some game companies stories. I would also add Indie game: the movie (also available on Netflix) to the list of complimentary content. Review of Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future https://pothix.com/zerotoone/ Fri, 08 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/zerotoone/ Book: Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s a good book. There are some good insights, some things that only work for a particular context, and some others that I disagree. I have to highlight one item of my notes: “Even working remotely should be avoided because misalignment can creep in whenever colleagues aren’t together full-time, in the same place, every day” Stats for May, 2018 https://pothix.com/may2018/ Fri, 08 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/may2018/ It’s May, and it’s time for metrics! 📊 Books Two books read this month, but both received a 3 stars review: Wait, What?: And Life’s Other Essential Questions: Exactly what the author says in the beginning: It’s a lecture that became a book. Not bad, but OK-ish. Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work: More political views than I was expecting and the pacing is not so good. Review of Wait, What?: And Life's Other Essential Questions https://pothix.com/waitwhat/ Fri, 25 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/waitwhat/ Book: Wait, What?: And Life’s Other Essential Questions by James E. Ryan. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I bought this book as an Audible daily deal. For the price and size of the book, it was ok. The book is exactly what the author says in the beginning: It’s a lecture that became a book. It can be summarized in less than 10 lines. Please read the other reviews and you will know the whole book. Review of Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work https://pothix.com/shopclasssoulcraft/ Thu, 17 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/shopclasssoulcraft/ Book: Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I was between 3 and 4 stars for this review but decided to stick with 3. The book has some interesting insights and the whole motorcycle thing resonates a lot with me, but in general, I found myself bored by the pacing and abstraction. Here are my raw notes about the book: Stats for Apr, 2018 https://pothix.com/apr2018/ Sun, 13 May 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/apr2018/ It’s time for April metrics! 📊 Books Note: I write a review for each book I read. You can find them on my Goodreads account. Again, just one book this month, and again, a 5 stars one! A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. This book was on my reading list for many months now. After reading it, I realized I’m practicing a fraction of Stoicism for many years. Review of A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy https://pothix.com/guidetogoodlife/ Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/guidetogoodlife/ Book: A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William B. Irvine. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Great book if you’re curious about stoicism and its practices. After reading this I found that I’m practicing many techniques of stoicism for many years without knowing it. The book starts with the history of stoicism, the first stoics, and the context of their time. The beginning is not pragmatic as I was expecting but when I finished the book, I decided it was a good thing. Stats for Mar, 2018 https://pothix.com/mar2018/ Fri, 13 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/mar2018/ March is gone, and it’s time for metrics! 📊 Books Note: I write a review for each book I read. You can find them on my Goodreads account. Just one book this month, but a 5 stars one: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. This book is about optimization based on time and energy. What is the best time to do some action based on statistics? I found it to be amazing and could confirm many of the assumptions with my data. Stats for Feb, 2018 https://pothix.com/feb2018/ Wed, 07 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/feb2018/ February time! Let’s see what we can get from my metrics. 😀 Books Note: I write a review for each book I read. You can find them on my Goodreads account. I’m quite satisfied with my reading list for this month: Five books read in a month and a 4.6 average rating. That’s what I call a good reading month. The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence. Review of The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence https://pothix.com/artoflearning/ Tue, 27 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/artoflearning/ Book: The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence by Josh Waitzkin. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Nice book. I first heard of Josh when listening to Tim Ferriss show and then I got a recommendation (tks, Amir!). The author is the guy from “Searching for Bobby Fischer” movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108065/). He was a chess prodigy as a kid and a Tai Chi Chuan champion as an adult. The links between the learning of martial arts and chess are really interesting. Review of The Richest Man in Babylon https://pothix.com/richestmaninbabylon/ Sat, 10 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/richestmaninbabylon/ Book: The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I just read “rich dad poor dad” before reading this one and I think it ruined my experience. After reading that book first, this one looks like a puzzle you already know the answer. This book is a series of parables of the “richest man in Babylon” (as you expect) and you need to read the parables understand the context and translate it to your life if you want to get something useful from it. Review of Rich Dad, Poor Dad https://pothix.com/richdadpoordad/ Wed, 07 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/richdadpoordad/ Book: Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. The first part of this book was truly amazing. I really enjoyed the way he was showing the difference that both dads tell him how to live life and invest in his future. It was really great to take children for that because some things just don’t make sense for a child and are really easy to explain to the reader without having to rely on his current knowledge. Stats for Jan, 2018 https://pothix.com/jan2018/ Wed, 07 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/jan2018/ I’m excited to write this post about my performance for the first month of the year. I think I will have some great news at the end of this post, related to my expenses. Let’s get started! 😀 Books I decided to listen to my podcasts this month, so I did not hear that many audiobooks. The only book I read this month was a physical book: Hiding in unnatural happiness is a book I received from a monk in York. Review of Anything You Want https://pothix.com/anythingyouwant/ Tue, 06 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/anythingyouwant/ Book: Anything You Want by Derek Sivers. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Amazing book! It’s worth 5 stars. I listened to it on Audible, and it’s around 1h30 of audio, straight to the point. He is not theorizing about what should be right or what you should do to be successful. Instead, he is talking about his experience and what he thinks were the goods and bad choices he made. This book was concise enough and with tons of valuable information to earn this 5 stars review. Review of The Art of Invisibility: The World's Most Famous Hacker Teaches You How to Be Safe in the Age of Big Brother and Big Data https://pothix.com/artofinvisibility/ Tue, 06 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/artofinvisibility/ Book: The Art of Invisibility: The World’s Most Famous Hacker Teaches You How to Be Safe in the Age of Big Brother and Big Data by Kevin D. Mitnick. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It is not new to me that we have a lot of security flaws everywhere. Yes, it’s scary, but that’s what you sign for when you decide to use the internet. He shows some things you can do to be anonymous but it’s tough and you usually don’t need it to live a normal life. Review of Hiding in Unnatural Happiness https://pothix.com/unnaturalhappiness/ Sun, 28 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/unnaturalhappiness/ Book: Hiding in Unnatural Happiness by Devamrita Swami. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I received this book from a monk while walking on the streets of York (UK) last year. I gave a small donation, and he told me to keep the book, so I decided to read it. He said it was about meditation, but it’s about yoga in general (not the physical practice). I was not aware of anything related to Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, or anything like that, so it was an enjoyable reading for me. 2017 Year in Review (with metrics!) https://pothix.com/2017/ Mon, 15 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/2017/ Brace yourselves, this post will be HUGE TL;DR: It was a great year and I’m really glad to see the metrics and notice everything I accomplished. I don’t remember the last time I posted my yearly review publicly but as I’m doing monthly posts of my stats, it makes sense to do an annual review as well. I do yearly reviews since around 2005 but I never post them publicly. I also write down my goals for the next year, so I can review them in the last week of the year (like I did some weeks ago). Stats for Dec, 2017 https://pothix.com/dec2017/ Sun, 07 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/dec2017/ Came back from a travel last month and just packed my stuff to travel again this month. Let’s see if it affected my performance. Books I was traveling this month, so as usual, I’m not reading/listening to audiobooks because I prefer to focus on the place I’m visiting. For this reason, I did not finish any book this month. With that said, it is the first time I have 4 books on my reading list at the same time. Firefox Quantum ctrl-q https://pothix.com/firefox-ctrlq/ Tue, 05 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/firefox-ctrlq/ This will be a quick post to help people that are doing the same search as I was doing some minutes ago: “firefox disable ctrl+q”. I’m using Firefox Quantum for some weeks now (will probably post about it in the future) and the ctrl+q “feature” really annoys me. It’s not the first time that I hit ctrl+q by accident just to see the entire browser and tabs being closed without warning. Stats for Nov, 2017 https://pothix.com/nov2017/ Tue, 05 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/nov2017/ Came back from a travel last month and just packed my stuff to travel again this month. Let’s see if it affected my performance. Books Read three books this month. My first book of H.P. Lovecraft, called At the mountains of madness was one of them. It was an interesting experience to read it. I also read about minimalism just to realize that I’m a minimalism since forever. If you like minimalism I also recommend to listen to their podcast and read their website. Review of At the Mountains of Madness https://pothix.com/mountainsofmadness/ Fri, 17 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/mountainsofmadness/ Book: At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. The first H.P. Lovecraft book I read/listen and now I understand what people say from his descriptions. It’s interesting how he keeps the suspense until the last 5% of the book. The bad part is that it becomes boring sometimes. You want to understand was is there and why he doesn’t want to talk about it but he keeps describing icy mountains and large rooms. Review of Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life https://pothix.com/minimalismbook/ Wed, 08 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/minimalismbook/ Book: Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life by Joshua Fields Millburn. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I was expecting more from this book. I listen to their Podcast and read some articles on their website. This book looks like a list of pointers to their website. I would just recommend it in case you want something to start your journey in minimalism thinking, so you can buy the audiobook and listen to it in your spare time before diving deep into their articles. Stats for Oct, 2017 https://pothix.com/oct2017/ Sun, 05 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/oct2017/ This month was very unusual because I was traveling through Portugal and Spain for work and tourism, so it will probably affect my stats a lot. With that said, let’s see how it is. 😄 Books I read some pages from Elixir in Action, but unfortunately did not finish any book this month. I usually don’t read that much when traveling, so it’s sad but expected. 😞 Articles As usual, I’m using that same export file from Pocket and the same script to calculate the amount of articles I read: Review of On Power https://pothix.com/onpowerbook/ Thu, 02 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/onpowerbook/ Book: On Power by Robert A. Caro. Rating: ⭐️⭐️. Not that much to learn from this “book”. It’s really small (almost two hours of audio) and looks like an abridged version of a collection of other books. I’m not American, so I’m not part of the context or his target audience and maybe it also plays some role here. The whole thing about the electricity was a reality for my mom (and for me when I visited my grandparents as a child) in Brazil, it may be shocking to people living in New York nowadays but I already knew all of that in my own context. Stats for sep, 2017 https://pothix.com/sep2017/ Tue, 31 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/sep2017/ It’s already the end of October and I could not manage to post my stats from September but I have a good reason for that (which you will read about in the next month 😉). Books What Doesn’t Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength is a book that describes what the human body can do if trained for it. The writing process is not so good for my taste, sometimes it looks like a memoir, sometimes it’s non-fiction… but the message it passes is really interesting. PotHix ❤ Doist https://pothix.com/doist/ Mon, 30 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/doist/ TL;DR: I’m working on something I really believe is good at Doist and I feel great. As I mentioned on this post (in pt-BR) I left the company I was working for the last year to join a new company. The new company is Doist and I’m working for them since July. Some time ago a friend asked me why I joined Doist and I realized it’s kind of a love story so I decided to write the post. Review of What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength https://pothix.com/wimhoffbook/ Thu, 14 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/wimhoffbook/ Book: What Doesn’t Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength by Scott Carney. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It was 3 stars most part of the book but I actually learned some stuff and added some pointers for further research, so it deserves a 4. The good part of this book is to convince you, or at least inspire you to research a little bit on the topic, that we can be more than what we are now. Stats for Aug, 2017 https://pothix.com/aug2017/ Thu, 07 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/aug2017/ September is here, time to review my stats for August, 2017. Books This is my personal record of books read in one single month. 7 freaking books. 😱 Let’s start with two small books I read. Cesar Millan’s Guide to Audiobooks for Dogs and Cesar Millan’s Guide to Bringing Home a Shelter Dog. These two books were free on Audible for Dogs, so I decided to give them a try. They are ordinary books but I would recommend for dog lovers. Review of Rendezvous with Rama (Rama, #1) https://pothix.com/rendezvouswithrama/ Thu, 31 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/rendezvouswithrama/ Book: Rendezvous with Rama (Rama, #1) by Arthur C. Clarke. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I tend to not read much science fiction but this is a great book. I’m a big fan of J.R.R. Tolkien because I love the way he used to build his world. I found Rama an amazing place where things work in a different way but following most of the same laws we have. Arthur C. Clarke writes in a nice way, adding the exact number of details you need to feel immersed in the story without adding too much information. Review of My Favorite Universe https://pothix.com/myfavoriteuniverse/ Wed, 23 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/myfavoriteuniverse/ Book: My Favorite Universe by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. A good book to introduce physics to common people. Neil deGrasse Tyson is great at explaining complicated topics in a simple way. The explanation of dense objects using hot chocolate and cream was really nice for me (no spoilers, read it! :D). Did you watch Cosmos? Do you like to (or at least used to) follow Discovery Channel space documentaries? In case your answer is yes to any of these questions, you probably already know most part of this book. Review of Cesar Millan's Guide to Bringing Home a Shelter Dog https://pothix.com/bringinghomeashelterdog/ Mon, 21 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/bringinghomeashelterdog/ Book: Cesar Millan’s Guide to Bringing Home a Shelter Dog by Cesar Millan. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. Nice book for those thinking about adopting a shelter dog and did not research it yet. I adopted my dog from a local shelter, he was abandoned at the shelter door with his brothers as a puppy. He was 2 months old when we adopted him. I had to do some research in different sources and buy some e-> Review of Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity https://pothix.com/radicalcandorbook/ Sun, 13 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/radicalcandorbook/ Book: Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Malone Scott. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. A book every boss should read. It helps to create a culture of giving and receiving honest feedback and create great teams. It has many truths, you will notice many of them if you’re working for a big company. You may not agree with some parts of it depending on how you see work and people but if you really care about people careers and the performance of your team it makes a lot of sense. Stats for Jul, 2017 https://pothix.com/jul2017/ Mon, 07 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/jul2017/ Okay, here we go for the first full month working in my new job. :) Books This month I read Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman, which was recommended by the other Doisters. It’s a great book by the guy who built the company Patagonia, a bootstrapped company, from scratch. Their way of thinking looks a lot like the way we think at Doist. The second one is Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better. My Archlinux setup https://pothix.com/archlinux/ Sat, 05 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/archlinux/ I was playing with Archlinux in the last 3 or 4 years and last year I decided to reboot my configuration files and start using Xfce. Talking to Fabio Akita about my Archlinux tunning, I heard that I should be posting about that. That’s true, so I decided to start writing it. I wrote in March and it was in draft form since then, so it’s time to release it. :) Review of Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box https://pothix.com/leadershipselfdeception/ Thu, 03 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/leadershipselfdeception/ Book: Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s a good book. Good information in a good narrative form. This is a short book with an easy to follow narrative about leadership. There are not so many notes about this one, but here they are: See People as people, not objects Self-betrayal is an act in contrary of what I feel I should do for another person. Review of A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1) https://pothix.com/gameofthrones/ Fri, 28 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/gameofthrones/ Book: A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1) by George R.R. Martin. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s a great book. I know ASOIAF from the TV show “Game of Thrones”. This book was the first one I bought at Audible but decided to not start with it (33hs of content). As the 7th season of the TV show started, I decided to gather more information about the whole plot. Review of Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better https://pothix.com/practiceperfectbook/ Wed, 12 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/practiceperfectbook/ Book: Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better by Doug Lemov. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. A good book with lots of advice. The structure is not so good, but it’s OK. As the title says, it shows 42 rules to improve yourself and practice in the right way. It an introduction, 42 tips on how to get better at getting better, a conclusion, and the appendices. The structure looks like a to-do list of “rules”, so it’s not so comfortable to read. Stats for Jun, 2017 https://pothix.com/jun2017/ Mon, 10 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/jun2017/ I’m ready to review my stats for June and share them with you! Are you? Hope so! :D Books Last month I read Deep Work again because I was preparing to work for a new company. The new company is Doist, but this is a topic for a another post. It proved to be a great asset, as they also recommend reading it. From their reading list I also took The score takes care of itself and Start with Why. Review of Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman https://pothix.com/letmypeoplegosurfing/ Thu, 06 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/letmypeoplegosurfing/ Book: Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman by Yvon Chouinard. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It was 3 stars until 70% of the book but the ending deserves 4. This book is the story of Patagonia and how its founders deal with business, people, and the environment. Their way of life resonates a lot with what I think is a good way to live. Maintain a sustainable business, hire people you trust and give them enough freedom to live a good life while giving their best to make the company grow, thinking about the environment, grow only when you have to grow (to supply your demand), live a minimalistic life, and so many other stuff. Review of The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership https://pothix.com/scoretakescareofitself/ Thu, 29 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/scoretakescareofitself/ Book: The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s a great book on leadership. I confess that I was really bored in the first 15% of the book. The beginning is boring for those who don’t give a f*ck about football but keep reading, it worth the journey. Bill Walsh took the San Francisco 49ers from a really bad performance (2 wins/14 losses) to an amazing one (13 win/3 losses) 2 years later. Review of Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action https://pothix.com/startwithwhy/ Thu, 22 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/startwithwhy/ Book: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I always thought we must first have a reason to create something and this book shows some companies that are famous for doing that and how they did it. Here are some notes about it: Most of what we have now is marketing by manipulation Fear is the most powerful manipulation of all. A good example is the insurance commercials talking about guns or heart attacks. Review of The Secrets of Story: Innovative Tools for Perfecting Your Fiction and Captivating Readers https://pothix.com/secretsofstory/ Wed, 14 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/secretsofstory/ Book: The Secrets of Story: Innovative Tools for Perfecting Your Fiction and Captivating Readers by Matt Bird. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. A great book on how to write books. 4.5 stars. The book goes through many problems and misconceptions behind writing a fiction book. In the book blog, you can find a big checklist with many questions your book has to answer: http://www.secretsofstory.com/2014/09/the-ultimate-story-checklist-raising.html There are many examples around each of these topics throughout the book. Wordpress to Middleman, to Hugo using github-pages and HTTPS https://pothix.com/hugo-https/ Tue, 13 Jun 2017 13:54:49 -0300 https://pothix.com/hugo-https/ Yes, it was a journey. I decided to chance my blog engine again. But this time I decided to post about the whole transition, since I started my blog, back in 2008. I needed a blog at the time but could not spend time creating something, I just wanted to “buy a blog” and write. Dreamhost was an awesome service for that. In one hour I bought a domain, installed a Wordpress via one click install and set up my own email via Google apps (at the time it was free). Stats for May, 2017 https://pothix.com/may2017/ Wed, 07 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/may2017/ Here we go again for my stats for the last month. :) Books I will start a in a new company this month, so I decided to re-read Deep Work (I really recommend this one). This book is just great for everyone who wants to focus and do the hard work. It has everything to do with my new work schedule. The book about Elon Musk was a good reading as well, this guy has some great ideas. Review of Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning https://pothix.com/louderthanwords/ Mon, 05 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/louderthanwords/ Book: Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning by Benjamin K. Bergen. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. A good book, but maybe it’s not for me. I really like books that have a lot of research behind it, this is one of them. For almost every assumption made, the author reveals research done to support his point. This book made me realize that our words do not give meaning to something. Review of Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World https://pothix.com/deepworkbook/ Wed, 31 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/deepworkbook/ Book: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. re-reading 2017 I will work on a new project and this book will be a perfect fit for the new work environment, so I decided to revisit it. I wrote my book (Desconstruindo a Web: As tecnologias por trás de uma requisição using Deep work and it was an amazing experience. Embrace boredom is the most difficult practice from this book. Review of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future https://pothix.com/elonmuskbook/ Thu, 18 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/elonmuskbook/ Book: Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s not a life-changing book but it’s cool to understand Elon Musk path. Here are some few sentences I like and some comments on them: The best minds of our time are working to make users click on ads That’s really sad. Elon has a great vision of the future and you can feel like him when reading the book (at least I can). Stats for April, 2017 https://pothix.com/apr2017/ Mon, 08 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/apr2017/ This was not a good month. I spent most of the time sick, recovering from what may be a Labyrinthitis. I still have to confirm that, but I’m in slow motion for a while. But anyways, let’s go to the collected data. Books Books for this month: “Einstein no Brasil” (Einstein in Brazil) is a physical book I borrowed from a friend and The Art of The Lord of the Rings I have in my shelf (as a good LotR fan). Review of The Power of Broke: How Empty Pockets, a Tight Budget, and a Hunger for Success Can Become Your Greatest Competitive Advantage https://pothix.com/powerofbroke/ Sat, 29 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/powerofbroke/ Book: The Power of Broke: How Empty Pockets, a Tight Budget, and a Hunger for Success Can Become Your Greatest Competitive Advantage by Daymond John. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. An ordinary book. 3 stars are good enough. The whole book discusses how to do business when you have no money. Daymond is the man behind Fubu and a TV show called Shark Tank. His story is really interesting to follow because he raised his entire business out of nothing, following the power of broke principle. Review of Spaceman: An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe https://pothix.com/spacemanbook/ Thu, 13 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/spacemanbook/ Book: Spaceman: An Astronaut’s Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Mike Massimino. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Great book, 4.5 stars. Mike does a great job describing how is the life of an astronaut. Listen (yes, I used an Audible audiobook) to his story was like living it with him. I could feel how was to be waiting for the NASA phone call after so many years trying to be an astronaut. Review of Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business https://pothix.com/smarterfasterbetter/ Mon, 10 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/smarterfasterbetter/ Book: Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It is a good book. I almost gave 3 stars, but it is still a Mastery effect. It deserves four. Each chapter in the book is devoted to a specific area: Motivation, Teams, Focus, Goal setting, Managing others, Decision making, Innovation, and Absorbing data. My notes on each topic: Motivation Motivation is feeling in control. Review of The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien https://pothix.com/artoflotr/ Fri, 07 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/artoflotr/ Book: The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien by Wayne G. Hammond. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This is one of those books for Tolkien fans. I do not recommend it if you did not read other books by Tolkien. It is nice to read if you already read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. This book shows a lot of details that Tolkien used as a guideline to write the book. Stats for March, 2017 https://pothix.com/mar2017/ Tue, 04 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/mar2017/ Back to work this month. :) After one month vacation, I got back to my routine and got some good results this month. Books Added three more books to the list: I have to note here that Mastery is one of the best books I ever read. Both Mindfulness in plain English and The Urban Monk are about meditation and how to live a minimalist life. Articles I’m still trying to find a way to track the articles I read. Stats for February, 2017 https://pothix.com/feb2017/ Mon, 03 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/feb2017/ February was an atypical month because I was on vacation. :) Much of my stats will reflect my travel around Europe. But no coding was done during this trip. Books Continuing my goal to read 30 books this year, I read two books this month: I had plans to visit Amsterdam and Oxford during my travel. Because of that I decided to read the story of Kullervo, which mention a lot about J. Stats for January, 2017 https://pothix.com/jan2017/ Sun, 02 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/jan2017/ This is the first post of a series that will show all the data I’ve been collecting during the month. One of my goals this year is to track everything possible. These posts will help me to analyze all the data and may extract something for me. This is not a new idea, I’m inspired by posts like this from Matthew of truevalhalla.com. Books My goal is to read 30 books this year, so I must have an average of 2. Review of Mindfulness in Plain English https://pothix.com/mindfulnessplainenglish/ Wed, 29 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/mindfulnessplainenglish/ Book: Mindfulness in Plain English by Henepola Gunaratana. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I was expecting some more but after reading the description again it seems to deliver exactly what it says. The whole book is about meditation and I would say 50% of it is about focusing on your breathe. The chapter about loving kindness is also interesting. There are some quotes of Buddha that are really great. Here are my raw notes about the book: Review of The Urban Monk: Eastern Wisdom and Modern Hacks to Stop Time and Find Success, Happiness, and Peace https://pothix.com/urbanmonk/ Fri, 24 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/urbanmonk/ Book: The Urban Monk: Eastern Wisdom and Modern Hacks to Stop Time and Find Success, Happiness, and Peace by Pedram Shojai. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. The author was a Monk for 4 years, is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine and studied Kung Fu and Tai Chi for decades, this is what you will get from the book. There are some chapters with a lot of meditation techniques and some tips about sustainability. The idea is to help you to live like a monk in the urban landscape. Review of Mastery https://pothix.com/masterybook/ Sat, 18 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/masterybook/ Book: Mastery by Robert Greene. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. One of the best books I ever read. This book goes through the life of various masters of our history. Some of them I did not know and decided to look after their life, which was a great experience as well. If you want to be a master of something, be prepared to use a huge amount of time dealing with it and practicing. Oxford for Tolkien fans https://pothix.com/oxford-tolkien/ Fri, 10 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/oxford-tolkien/ TL;DR: When traveling to Europe, I decided to take 2 or 3 days to visit Oxford. I will describe how was the experience of a J.R.R. Tolkien fan there. I’m a big fan of J.R.R Tolkien. Have read most of his books, the ones released when he was still alive and other edited by Christopher Tolkien. After attending FOSDEM I decided to travel around some countries in Europe and UK. The most expensive part, the airplane tickets (Brazil -> Europe), were already paid, so… why not? FOSDEM survival guide https://pothix.com/fosdem-guide/ Mon, 06 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/fosdem-guide/ TL;DR: It was my first time at FOSDEM and it took some time to feel comfortable, this post may help newcomers. As I mentioned in my previous post, I spoke at FOSDEM this year. It was my first time there (in the whole Europe, btw!) and it took some time to get used to the way the event goes. This post will show some tips that may help FOSDEM newcomers and maybe some veterans as well. My presentation at FOSDEM 2017 https://pothix.com/fosdem2017/ Sat, 04 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/fosdem2017/ This year my proposal to speak at FOSDEM was accepted and I spoke at the Desktop devroom! :) It was my first talk in English, so I decided to do as many rehearsals as I could. I was 8 in total, but as expected, it was still a little bit faster than expected. :P I had 30 minutes to present and I did it in 26. I usually speak fast and this presentation was made to be fast because I had a lot of content to show in 30 minutes. Review of The Diary of a Young Girl https://pothix.com/annefrank/ Wed, 01 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/annefrank/ Book: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I decided to read this book one month before visiting the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam. My plan is to use the whole context of the book to have the full experience when visiting the museum. The book is OK. Most part of it is just what you expect from a diary of a 14 years old girl, even with the whole context implied. Review of Outliers: The Story of Success https://pothix.com/outliersbook/ Mon, 23 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/outliersbook/ Book: Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It was a good reading. I would review this book as 3 stars but at the end, I was convinced that it made me think about many interesting things on successful people in general. The key point of this book is: what makes successful people is a match of many factors. Some of those factors were not clear to me. Review of The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory https://pothix.com/memoryillusion/ Wed, 18 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/memoryillusion/ Book: The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of False Memory by Julia Shaw. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. The whole point of this book is to show that our memories are not reliable. We can’t be sure that something happened because a lot of things may influence our past memories. The good argument in favor of this book is its references. There are many references for academic studies. The bad part is that it is not so comfortable to read, the language is not that good. Review of Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions https://pothix.com/algorithmstoliveby/ Thu, 29 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/algorithmstoliveby/ Book: Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions by Brian Christian. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This is that kind of book that does not answer questions, it just creates a lot more. :) I tend to not implement algorithms just for the sake of learning a new one and this is not a good thing. When you read these kinds of books you understand why it’s so important to know which kinds of algorithms already exists and which problems they solve. Review of Programming Elixir: Functional |> Concurrent |> Pragmatic |> Fun https://pothix.com/programmingelixir/ Fri, 16 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/programmingelixir/ Book: Programming Elixir: Functional |> Concurrent |> Pragmatic |> Fun by Dave Thomas. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s not the best Elixir book I read but it’s a good book. I started with Programming Phoenix for a more practical learning. This book feels like the other “Programming language book”. You will find how to split a string, or how you can deal with regex. In case you’re looking for the methods for many types, it will be for you. Review of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life https://pothix.com/artofnotgivingafuck/ Fri, 09 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/artofnotgivingafuck/ Book: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. It was good at the beginning but the end was too self-help for me. I learned good things in this book and that’s what matters for me. Here are my raw notes about the book: Give a fuck about things you already have, not only what you want. We have a limited number of fucks to give, choose yours wisely. Review of TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking https://pothix.com/tedtalksbook/ Fri, 02 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/tedtalksbook/ Book: TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris J. Anderson. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. There are some cool tips in this book but it’s not so straight to the point if you’re just looking for speaking tips. If you like to speak at IT events (like I do) I really recommend http://speaking.io. This book shows the way to deliver a presentation that earns a standing ovation at the end. Review of Will It Fly?: How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don't Waste Your Time and Money https://pothix.com/willitfly/ Sun, 13 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/willitfly/ Book: Will It Fly?: How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don’t Waste Your Time and Money . Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I like this book and have a bunch of notes to share. Here are my raw notes about the book: Grab a piece of paper and divide it into four sections. Then, identify the four most important parts of your life. Your categories might be, for example, Family, Career, Well-being and Money. Review of The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure https://pothix.com/10xrule/ Fri, 11 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/10xrule/ Book: The 10x Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure by Grant Cardone. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I really like this book. I would recommend it if you are the kind of person that wants to make a difference in the world and want to be remembered in the future generations. The book will not give you that but if you follow a methodology like it recommends you will get closer to your big goals. Review of Einstein: His Life and Universe https://pothix.com/einsteinbio/ Thu, 27 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/einsteinbio/ Book: Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This is the first biography that I read and I found it amazing. I knew that Albert Einstein was a genius but it was not just that. He was extremely devoted to what he did. I had many quotes from this book and one of them shows what I just said: “As long as I am able to work, I must not and will not complain, because work is the only thing that gives substance to life” Review of Programming Phoenix: Productive |> Reliable |> Fast https://pothix.com/programmingphoenix/ Sat, 15 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/programmingphoenix/ Book: Programming Phoenix: Productive |> Reliable |> Fast by Chris McCord. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It is a great book for web developers learning Elixir (yeah, not just Phoenix). I’m on the path of playing with Elixir and was looking for a book to amplify my knowledge. I first started with Programming Elixir, from Dave Thomas but I was looking for something more practical. I decided to try Programming Phoenix and found that it shows everything I need to know about Elixir to build a web application. Review of The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win https://pothix.com/phoenixproject/ Wed, 05 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/phoenixproject/ Book: The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This is a great book for IT folks. In case you worked (or still work) in a big company with lots of ITIL things that holds the development, this book will be like home for you. It is a typical hero’s journey and the characters are not so well developed (IMO) but the story is still good to follow. Review of Level Up Your Life: How to Unlock Adventure and Happiness by Becoming the Hero of Your Own Story https://pothix.com/levelupyourlife/ Mon, 03 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/levelupyourlife/ Book: Level Up Your Life: How to Unlock Adventure and Happiness by Becoming the Hero of Your Own Story by Steve Kamb. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. This is a good book but it’s not for me. I already use many of the tips mentioned in this book and they really work. It makes a good pair with habitica.com, in case you like to play these kinds of games in real life. There are many great references for the nerds out there. Review of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever https://pothix.com/coachinghabits/ Fri, 02 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/coachinghabits/ Book: The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. Read this book in 2016 but never published any review until now (2021, even if the post date is the day I finished the book). I don’t have much to say now, but at least I can publish my notes from 2016. Here are my raw notes about the book: Kickstart, AWE (and what else), and Focus - Are the guides for a coach. Review of How to Spot a Liar with People Don't Tell the Truth https://pothix.com/howtospotaliar/ Mon, 29 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/howtospotaliar/ Book: How to Spot a Liar with People Don’t Tell the Truth by Gregory Hartley. Rating: ⭐️⭐️. I’ve used the Audible Abridged version for this one. The narration is not good as the other audiobooks I’m used to listen. The book content is not good to follow as well. It is focused on interrogation and this is not my goal for reading it. But it is not all that bad. I got some interesting tips on body language and these kind of stuff. Review of Thinking, Fast and Slow https://pothix.com/thinkingfastslow/ Fri, 12 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/thinkingfastslow/ Book: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. The concept of system 1 (fast) and system 2 (slow) is really great. For tech folks, the system 1 looks like a cache inside your head. It is the best way to explain it for tech related people, in my opinion. There are dozens of serious research done to make this book happen. They were not made exclusively for the book, but it is really nice to read a book that has strong foundations. Review of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business https://pothix.com/powerofhabit/ Fri, 08 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/powerofhabit/ Book: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Read this book for the first time in 2016 and re-read it now (2019). The first time I read it, I did not take notes, so I decided to “properly read/listen” now. I like the number of studies this book shows and how much we understand about our habits by looking at its results. Review of Life, the Universe and Everything (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #3) https://pothix.com/hitchhiker3/ Mon, 27 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/hitchhiker3/ Book: Life, the Universe and Everything (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, #3) by Douglas Adams. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. Nothing special about this one… The first one is brilliant, the second one is great, the third is just OK. This book made me think about reading the fourth and fifth and I think I will stop here. All that moments that make you think about “Life, Universe and Everything” are not present here like was in the first books. Review of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #2) https://pothix.com/hitchhiker2/ Tue, 14 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/hitchhiker2/ Book: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, #2) by Douglas Adams. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Another great book from Douglas Adams. The idea behind the restaurant is really really interenting and the author does a great job to insert funny concepts behind the whole event. There are some nice gotchas that make you laugh while reading, I really recommend it. Review of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1) https://pothix.com/hitchhiker1/ Mon, 06 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/hitchhiker1/ Book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, #1) by Douglas Adams. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This book is amazing! There are some non-sense parts but in general, it makes you think about “life, universe, and everything”. There are some ideas that look so absurd in real life but make sense in the book context. If you’re that kind of geek/nerd that likes physics (you don’t need to be an expert, just an enthusiast) this book will be great. Review of The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts https://pothix.com/futureofprofessions/ Wed, 01 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/futureofprofessions/ Book: The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts by Richard Susskind. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. It is a nice idea and the arguments looks valid and make you think about the future. The book is not easy to follow through and I the first 5 chapters are not so interesting. Most part of the book is an introduction to the main subject that is presented on the last chapters. Review of Docker Security: Using Containers Safely in Production https://pothix.com/dockersecuritybook/ Mon, 23 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/dockersecuritybook/ Book: Docker Security: Using Containers Safely in Production by Adrian Mouat. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. It’s a good book for who is using or planning to use Docker in production. There are some very good tips that are not so obvious about Docker. Review of The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street, #1) https://pothix.com/wolfofwallstreet/ Wed, 11 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/wolfofwallstreet/ Book: The Wolf of Wall Street (The Wolf of Wall Street, #1) by Jordan Belfort. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. Did you watch the movie? Yes: you’re done. The book does not add anything relevant IMO. No: Watch the movie. In case you prefer books than movies, you may try this one. It is not a bad book and you will see how a smart guy can be a perfect asshole. The only thing that I absorved from this book is: This kind of life is not for me. Review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change https://pothix.com/7habits/ Mon, 02 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/7habits/ Book: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This is a good book. There are some good examples there and it is worth reading, but if you want to understand the habits in a quick and easy manner just read on the author’s website. There are some great insights, at least for me, in this book. The author says that the world works on the “outside-in” but we need to work on the “inside out”, taking care of ourselves and doing the best to make things better. Review of Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Web Application https://pothix.com/gettingrealbook/ Mon, 04 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/gettingrealbook/ Book: Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Web Application by 37 Signals. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. There are almost 10 years from this book release and the ideas are still valid for the software development industry that we have now. Some of them can’t be applied to big and established companies, but it shows why small companies can beat them if they know how to organize. “Divide and conquer” and “Do only what is needed” are the core of this book IMO. Review of Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution https://pothix.com/hackerscomputerrevolution/ Fri, 01 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/hackerscomputerrevolution/ Book: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Great book. John Carmack said it was the most inspiring book for him and I can understand why. The word Hackers is not the same these days, but the Hacker Ethics still lives in some of the programmers out there. Those guys that keep hacking (and/or programming) for hours and hours just for the joy of create and modify things still exists. Review of MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom https://pothix.com/moneymasterthegame/ Mon, 21 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/moneymasterthegame/ Book: MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom by Anthony Robbins. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I have mixed feelings about this one. I got some cool insights about financing and how I can improve my plant of financial freedom, but the book was repetitive most of the time. When I started this book my feeling was: “Man, this may be one of the best books I read”. Some time ago I was reading a lot of “soon you’ll see” or even repeating what was said before. Review of A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1) https://pothix.com/sherlockholmes1/ Fri, 19 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/sherlockholmes1/ Book: A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1) by Arthur Conan Doyle. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. A good book! I always wanted to read Sherlock Holmes books but never tried it. Thanks to BBC’s Sherlock Series I decided to give it a try. The good part is that I could understand a lot of jokes that the TV show made and the differences from the 189x to 201x. :) I really recommend you to read it if you like stories on investigation. Review of Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture https://pothix.com/mastersofdoom/ Wed, 17 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/mastersofdoom/ Book: Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I love this book. The two Johns created an empire by using the engineering capabilities of Carmack with the enthusiasm and ideas of Romero. There are some other thoughts to put in this book. The two Johns are doing great and creating amazing games following the startup way of life, relying on junk food and diet coke. Review of The Big Drop: How To Grow Your Wealth During the Coming Collapse https://pothix.com/bigdrop/ Wed, 10 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/bigdrop/ Book: The Big Drop: How To Grow Your Wealth During the Coming Collapse by James Rickards. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️. TL; DR - A lot of theories about the next economic crash, if you want to know some connections between gold, dollar and other different investments to protect you in case it happens, it may be a good book for you. I’m Brazilian and some part of the economic context is not the same here, but there are some parts make totally sense. Review of Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything https://pothix.com/freakonomics/ Wed, 03 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/freakonomics/ Book: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Nice book with really interesting statistics done in some sets of data. It remembers me about the whole “big data” trend that we have today. In some parts it looks like the comparison of the global warming and the number of pirates (as my “Statistics One” professor and the book author used to say: “correlation does not imply causation”), but the whole idea behind the studies are really interesting. Review of Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders https://pothix.com/management30/ Thu, 31 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/management30/ Book: Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders by Jurgen Appelo. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. I read this book in 2015 when the product director of the company I worked for suggested to buy a bunch of copies and do a book club on that book. The director (and many of us, leaders) liked the ideas here, but there were not not attractive to the rest of the directors. Needless to say that reading this didn’t change anything in how the company does things. Experiences of almost two years using Colemak https://pothix.com/colemak-experience/ Thu, 08 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/colemak-experience/ TL;DR: I like Colemak, and it is a very good layout. I found some equivalent pros and cons, so I can’t recommend it to anyone without a little bit of philosophy. :) For those who don’t know Colemak, it is a keyboard layout created to make the most used keys stay in the home row as well as make you swipe between your right and left hand. There is a keyboard layouts heatmap for you to understand the benefits of using a keyboard layout that was designed to help you to be comfortable and fast when typing instead of one that helping the operator to not jam the typewriter. OSCON 2015 https://pothix.com/oscon/ Mon, 27 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/oscon/ TL;DR I’ve been at OSCON this year (thanks to Locaweb) and this post will summarize my impressions about the conference. I spoke at Locaweb Tech-Talks about it and you can find my slides here (in portuguese). OSCON (Open Source Conference) is one of the most important open source conferences of our time and happened in Portland this year as usual. Portland is a great city, the one I liked the most until now, it doesn’t have high car traffic, MAX (the train) took us for most of the places we wanted to know, nice people all over the place, great convention center and a lot of other benefits. New layout of PotHix blog https://pothix.com/layout2015/ Mon, 25 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/layout2015/ Welcome to the new blog layout of PotHix.com! :) I decided that the time has came to change not just the layout but the blog engine as well. I’m now using middleman instead of wordpress. Just to be clear, I don’t think wordpress is not good at all, but I want to publish static files instead of keeping the wordpress “infrastructure”. I’ve divided into 3 feeds: Only english posts: http://feeds.feedburner.com/EnglishPotHix All posts: http://feeds. Golang and 1.2 version performance improvement https://pothix.com/golang12/ Tue, 03 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/golang12/ I’ve started using Go last month and I really liked to work with the language. The project I’m working on is dead simple and just retrieves metrics and save on a redis server (the data will be analyzed by a different project that I’m working on). So I have 15 goroutines retrieving data constantly and I’m using just two native threads. I did some CPU profiling on the code using my current machine for Golang 1. Game Network Programming https://pothix.com/game-netprog/ Mon, 15 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/game-netprog/ English Abstract: This post was about my presentation with Diego Souza (vulgo Marciano) about Game network programming. I was studying and reading Quake source just for fun and decided to learn more about game networking in general, so I decided to prepare this presentation to show other people what I’ve learned. You can see the full video (portuguese only, sorry) and the slides below. Portuguese: Eu e o Diego Souza (vulgo Marciano) fizemos uma palestra sobre Game network programming tanto na Locaweb como no Guru-SP. A lifestyle https://pothix.com/lifestyle/ Mon, 10 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/lifestyle/ Just a transcript from here, but it reflects my way of life at this stage of my life: We believe in going our own way,no matter which way the rest of the world is going. We believe in bucking the system that’s built to smash individuals as bugs on a windshield. Some of us believe in the man upstairs.All of us believe in sticking in to the man down here. We believe in the sky and we don’t believe in the sunroof. Javascript and Gamedev discussion https://pothix.com/jsgamedev-discussion/ Sun, 02 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/jsgamedev-discussion/ I read the blog post from Impact engine creator Dominic where he shows an email he sent to John Carmack about his opinions on Javascript expressed on his keynote. Dominic is trying to show that Javascript is not a good language to develop the next AAA game but it is awesome to make simple games and have it easily available to the world. We have a lot of negative comments on the post (I really don’t know why) but some good ones too. Kernel compiling https://pothix.com/kernel-compiling/ Mon, 23 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/kernel-compiling/ Since I bought an Acer notebook to use Linux again (I sold my mac, I have a post about it but in portuguese) I started to compile my own kernel. The reasons for the decision: I have a hardware that works better with the newer kernels. I really want to understand the linux kernel better. As Judas Priest sings on Painkiller song: “I’m living on the eeeeeedge”. LOL How to proceed There are some steps to follow when compiling a new kernel for your Linux box: Simlinks for ruby on Debian Squeeze https://pothix.com/ruby-debian-squeeze/ Tue, 17 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/ruby-debian-squeeze/ Every time we need to deploy a new Ruby application on top of Debian Squeeze we need to fix some Ruby depedencies to make the application work as it should. It happens because we’re building using rvm instead of the packaged version of ruby, but it needed to be that way in order to use our old build server. I’ll keep it documented here: ln -s /usr/lib/libruby-1.9.1.so.1.9.1 /usr/lib/libruby.so.1.9 ln -s /usr/bin/rake1. Review of The Silmarillion https://pothix.com/silmarillion/ Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/silmarillion/ Book: The Silmarilion by J.R.R. Tolkien. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. This is J.R.R. Tolkien’s life work. The other known books a product of this. He was not able to finish this masterpiece, but Christopher Tolkien finished his father’s work in a great way. I’m not going to lie, the Silmarilion is not an easy to read book. I would not recommend it to anyone who was not totally aware of the other books and still looking for more middle earth content. Translated Rubylearning presentation https://pothix.com/rubylearning-presentation/ Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/rubylearning-presentation/ As I promised, here goes my presentation! :) Finally i finished to translate all the presentation! Watched the video a lot of times, pausing and playing to write all I said translating to english. :) Fortunately I had a big help from my friend Victor Goff, that corrected all my grammar errors and typos. I’m posting below all i have about the presentation, slides from Slideshare and a translation pasted here, but you can find the translation at Google Docs too. Deploying a simple Merb application on Locaweb https://pothix.com/merb-locaweb/ Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/merb-locaweb/ I writing this post to help my friends of Rubylearning with a little Merb application deployment on Locaweb. I’m just translating some informations that you can find here in portuguese. Lets get started! :D First open the Domain Manager (gerenciador de domínios) on Locaweb Panel (painel da Locaweb) and configure the pointer of your main site to other directory on public_html of your account (this directory don’t need to exist). New year is coming https://pothix.com/newyear2008/ Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/newyear2008/ Estou apenas postando para dizer que nesse novo ano eu pretendo postar mais sobre programação! Essa é a primeira virada de ano desse blog, então resolvi postar meus “planos” para o próximo ano. Como o blog é novo eu comecei a escrever faz pouco tempo e estou pegando experiência aos poucos, e talvez agora nesse novo ano a qualidade dos posts aumente! (ou não…heheh). Não sei bem qual rumo minha vida vai seguir nesse novo ano, o que eu vou ter que aprender e estudar, talvez eu tenha que aprender coisas que eu não tinha planejado e isso pode tomar uma boa parte do meu tempo, mas eu pretendo postar todos os meus estudos aqui, portanto terei algum material interessante aqui. First post in English here https://pothix.com/first-post/ Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/first-post/ Hi international friends! :) I’m just posting to inform that I want to post some content in English too! I’ll try to make a RSS Feed only for my English posts, so you don’t need to view my portuguese posts on your feed reader. :) As everyone knows, my English is not so good, but I think you can understand me well! Any English errors (I’m sure it will have a lot of them) please tell me and I’ll correct it asap. About me https://pothix.com/about/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/about/ I’m Willian Molinari, also known as PotHix. I’ve been working with software development since 2006, using many languages professionally throughout the years. It would be hard to add all the topics I’m passionate about in the top menu, so I decided to keep a list here: Write: I’m a published author and writing is something I love. Tech: I love technology and I’m usually speaking about programming in Brazil and around the world. Code https://pothix.com/code/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/code/ This is my page of all things code-related. I’ve been writing code professioally since 2007 and have some things to show. Some of them were done on my spare time and others were part of my paid job. Paid work These are projects I’ve worked full-time while being employed by a company or working as a freelancer. They are projects I deeply cared about, in one way or another. Locaweb: Cloud PRO I was the main developer for the Cloud Server PRO product at Locaweb. Desconstruindo a web https://pothix.com/articles/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/articles/ Articles published outside of this blog I as invited to write articles for other blogs which I respect and/or have a good reach. I will list here some of them. The game loop: Gamedev tuts+ An article that explains how the Game loop works in game development. It was written for gamedev.tutsplus.com in Nov 2012. Client side prediction: Gamedev tuts+ Article that explains how client side pretiction works in game development. Desconstruindo a web https://pothix.com/book/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/book/ I wrote desconstruindo a web in 2016 and my goal was to help web developers to understand the whole cycle of their application, from the initial keystroke to the loaded page. It’s important to understand all the pieces involved in a web request so we can better debug problems happening in this process. The internet is a complex system and many parts can fail, knowing the purpose of each is quite useful when something goes wrong. Gifts I want to receive https://pothix.com/wishlist/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/wishlist/ Sometimes people want to give me stuff and I would like to refer them to a page. Well… this is the page for it. 🙂 This page may contain things from cheap to very expensive, it’s OK if I never receive any of them. Let’s go for the list: Number one of all is Time: This is something I want with all my heart. Time to not have anything in my calendar and do whatever I want. Podcasts https://pothix.com/podcasts/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/podcasts/ I listen to podcasts since 2007 when I had to download them and transfer to my AAA-battery powered MP3 player every day (👴). A lot changed since then, but I still listen to podcast now and then. I also used Podcasts to help with my listening to learn new languages, so you will see different languages being listed here. I will write everything in English here and rely on Google Translate for the proper translation of everything. Presentations https://pothix.com/talks/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/talks/ No. Date Presentation Event 76 2022-09-24 Painel: A linguagem Rust e seu uso Codecon 2022 75 2022-07-23 Notas. Porque? Como? Vale a pena? Guru-SP 62 74 2022-05-17 Desconstruindo a web Talks4devs Iugu 73 2021-08-18 Note-taking: My experience, how to do it, and why it worth it Doist talks 72 2021-07-29 Keynote: Ruby, além da linguagem Rubyconf 71 2021-07-17 Desconstruindo a web Mutirão DevOps 70 2021-04-24 Mesa redonda: Trabalho remoto para empresas de fora Guru-SP 69 2020-11-18 Exploring a Core Library for Multiple Languages using Rust Doist talks 68 2020-10-06 Trabalho remoto e assincrono Future of Work 67 2019-11-29 Mongo, Rails 3 -> Postgres, Rails 5 Rubyconf BR 66 2019-06-21 Mongo, Rails 3 -> Postgres, Rails 5 Guru-SP 65 2018-10-27 10 anos de Guru-SP Guru-SP 64 2018-09-21 Writing a simple game in Rust THE CONF 63 2018-09-15 Como foi participar da Rustconf 2018 Rust-SP 62 2018-07-21 Escrevendo um jogo simples em Rust Rust - TDC 61 2018-07-21 Introdução a Rust (ft. Rustlang and me https://pothix.com/rustlang/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/rustlang/ Sometimes I’m kindly mentioned by people when there’s a topic about Rust going on. I decided to create this page so I could share a bit of my relationship with Rust in one single place 🦀. Books I’m the co-author of Rust — Concorrência e alta performance com segurança. A book written in pt-BR, which covers the basics a programmer needs to know to start his journey with the language. What is happening now https://pothix.com/now/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://pothix.com/now/ This is my now page, inspired by Derek Sivers. I’m currently living in Indaiatuba, São Paulo and working remotely. I have my own company, work full-time for Doist and esporatically to Intervac when I have time to spare. Daily, I’m working on Todoist and sometimes Twist, improving their APIs and backend codebase at Doist. Mostly working with Python and a bit of Golang. While I’m not doing that, I’m taking care of my family (I have 3yo twins) at home with all its ups and downs.