Oliver Sharman

As the dust settles on the US election result, those who care about what it means for the climate may find some strength in these words from James Stockdale.

“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

He was a U.S. prisoner tortured and held captive for over seven years during the Vietnam War. It is known as the Stockdale Paradox.

Keep faith in the future but confront reality head on. Mix outrage and optimism.

Sir Jonathan Bate has commented on the shift from humanities to STEM subjects among students seeking well-paying jobs.

“The irony of that, of course, is that if you speak to employers, they really like English students because the best of them can write, communicate and think critically. The deeper irony is, with the AI revolution, the people who are really going to lose their jobs are the computer programmers.”

He has a point. But in my opinion, what we need more of is writers who can code and coders who can write. I think AI can really help people expand their skillset.

As reliance on AI grows, those who develop deep, ‘analogue’ expertise in whatever it is they specialise in will stand head and shoulders above the rest.

I think how AI is used in education is particularly important. Especially if the machines break or get turned off one day.

Every now and then something happens in my life that reminds me of the importance of having a compassionate mind, both towards others and towards myself.

For example, a stranger was quite rude to me the other day. It was completely unprovoked, surprising and caught me off guard.

Instead of turning to anger or losing confidence, I thanked them and understood that their life may not be where they want it to be. And I was just some person who for whatever reason got in their way as they tried to keep going.

What may have once developed into a confrontation or knocked my confidence ended up as this blog post and a chance to reflect on how much I’ve grown.

“Coming from an ‘empty’ world with abundant natural resources, the Industrial Revolution brought prosperity in the form of economic and population growth. At the same time, this growth—based on production processes dependent on fossil fuels and other natural resources—has created social and environmental challenges."

A succinct assessment of the path we’re on in the Principles of Sustainable Finance by Dirk Schoenmaker and Willem Schramade. Great read so far.

What will it take to make corporate profits and shareholder returns much less of a factor when measuring the performance, or ‘growth’, of businesses?

“Being kind to others is mostly about your actions. Being kind to yourself is mostly about your thoughts.”

From James Clear’s newsletter.

Great article by Helen Thomson in The Observer about the mental health benefits of taking walks in nature.

Throughout the pandemic, I tried to take a long walk in the countryside every day. Doing this helped me get through a difficult time, that’s for sure, but I didn’t really give much thought as to why. The article explains some good reasons I can relate to.

Although it may sound great to people living in cooler parts of the world planning a summer holiday, one of the main downsides of living in southern Italy is how unbearably hot the summers are. Walking, and being outside in general, feels impossible for much of the day.

Now summer is finally over and the temperature is more manageable, I want to explore more of the Puglia countryside.

As the title of the article says: “Nature is free, and the best kind of medicine”.

I’ve been looking for a markdown editor that’s nice to use, keeps everything in sync and plays well offline.

I frequently work across macOS, iOS and Linux. The fact I use Linux on my old Surface Pro when out and about throws a spanner in the works and narrows my options somewhat.

Decided to give Obsidian a spin.

Liking what I see so far, especially the option for making subheadings foldable in the editor. Very tidy. The general look and feel of the app is great too. Obsidian Sync works well and comes with a one month version history and activity log.

It also offers a welcome nudge to finally set up that Zettelkasten and figure out a more effective way of taking and managing notes. But that’s for another day.

I’ve been comparing Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro with OpenAI’s GPT-4o.

The consensus from my research seems to be that most people think that ChatGPT is by far the better product. However, I find Gemini offers a better experience for me.

I use it to help with lesson planning, learning Italian, studying iOS development and for help across other more general things. It’s also become a new first point of call for much of what I would otherwise just Google the old-school way.

More often than not, Gemini reads between the lines to tell me what I need to know in a far better format and tone than what I get out of ChatGPT. It’s also more frequently correct, with a button to link to sources if I want to dig deeper.

I find it much easier to be sloppy with my prompts and get what I need with Google than with ChatGPT. Sure that may make me sound lazy, but sometimes I don’t particularly feel like ‘engineering’ a prompt. This is not to say the difference is night and day, they are both very close, but I picked up on some nuances after using both for months as I weighed up where to spend my €23 per month.

There is something about Google that seems just nicer and clearer in the way it explains things. It’s a bit less bland and cliché. The way information is structured and communicated matters a lot. There are so many different ways to say the same thing, with just as much variation in clarity and impact.

I don’t use it for any writing, however. Even for feedback as an editor, I find its language suggestions and structural ideas a bit too formulaic. But for research? If you’re willing to treat it like a really smart academic who is known to be a serial liar and take drugs at any time of the day, I think it’s a fantastic tool in your arsenal.

I often access Gemini through the Google app on my iPhone. If you’re not familiar with the format, there are two big tabs at the top: Search and Gemini. I would say that I use Gemini more often than Search.

I think this is a sign of things to come.

Over recent months this website has morphed into a public log of my reading.

I’m ok with that. I guess the beauty of having a personal website is that you can use it as you want, and it’s ok if that changes over time as it rides life’s ebbs and flows with you.

With no hunger for likes or algorithms to appease the freedom feels real. Hopefully I’ll find the time to post a wider variety of things here soon.

Interesting to hear Malcolm Gladwell talk about his writing process on MasterClass.

He shared how he breaks every piece of writing down into small, numbered sections before stringing it all together and figuring out what goes where and working on transitions. He didn’t mean sections like chapters in a book or even subheadings in an article, he suggested that his sections are often far more granular than that.

Sounds pretty basic. But this approach makes large, intimidating projects easier to handle. It also helps build a feeling of ongoing momentum. I do something similar but without the numbers. Think I’ll give the numbers a go.