July 2024 at Titanium Birch
Standardising bank and broker data, deep vs. shallow work, thoughts on writing, portfolio construction in video games, and more...
What we’re thinking about
Standardising disparate data feeds for investment reporting and accounting. In his first blog post, TJ dives into the challenges of handling data from banks and brokers, conforming the data into a standard set of facts, forking off into our accounting view, and leveraging robots to automate our bookkeeping processes.
What we’re consuming
Justina: I’ve been reading a lot of Cal Newport lately. I started with Digital Minimalism, which forced me to take a brutal and honest look at how I spend my time. I’ve since swapped out mindless scrolling on Instagram and r/askSingapore for more virtuous, challenging, and strenuous activities like reading, running, and learning how to fix bikes — the sorts of things I loved doing from 2000 to 2010, before I let my brain get hijacked by the attention economy. Do I miss those one-minute kitchen-hack videos on Facebook? I’m pretty sure I’ll survive without knowing how to hull a strawberry with some unexpected kitchen implement.
Now I’m reading Newport’s Deep Work. He distinguishes deep work (which requires one’s highest cognitive capabilities, adds value to the world, and is essential for learning hard things) from shallow work (which neither is demanding nor creates substantial value), and argues that we’ve lost our ability to perform deep work thanks to the distractions of the internet. He discusses the “attention residue” that remains when we switch from context to context and impairs our ability to focus. The good news? We can train our capacity for deep work by embracing boredom and restoring our attention — that is, by not reaching for our phones to entertain ourselves when we’re waiting at the bus stop.
J: For the past few years, I have been playing Hearthstone Battlegrounds, a strategic auto-battler game mode within the Hearthstone digital card game. In this mode, players recruit and upgrade units to compete in rounds against seven opponents. The game is captivating as it involves numerous investment-related decisions, such as whether to allocate resources for immediate strength or to invest for long-term dominance. Additionally, since battles are semi-random, players must aim to control the randomness by building a coherent lineup of units, a process akin to portfolio construction. This blend of strategy and unpredictability keeps the gameplay engaging and intellectually stimulating.
Peter: I’ve enjoyed more books by Adrian Tchaikovsky, the author of Children of Time. Children of Ruin and Children of Memory continue in that universe with a very positive
”let’s collaborate” outlook on problem-solving. The author’s most recent book, Service Model, made me laugh a lot, as I saw myself in this line:
Charles [a robot valet], should he be required to formulate an opinion, would advance that a certain level of displeasure and ill temper was how Master preferred to begin his morning.
And in this line:
Charles indicated that he was 100 percent satisfied with the doctor. This was not strictly true, as “satisfied” was not something Charles could be, but he had standing instructions to act in loco for his master when dealing with all manner of questionnaires, surveys, and similar “time wasting nonsense”, as his master had described them.
TJ: I just finished reading Everybody Writes by Ann Handley. I write a lot at work — Slack messages, emails, documentation, goals, and, most recently, this blog post (linked above) — but haven’t necessarily taken the time to make my writing a good reader experience.
The book was a great resource, pointing me at concrete ways to improve my writing, even in a technical role. Some key takeaways:
Writing is your ambassador to the world and can make or break you.
Writing is a skill and not a talent and can therefore be learned with deliberate practice.
Writing is about utility, inspiration, and empathy for the reader.
That last point about empathy for the reader hit home for me. One common failure mode for me is jamming as much information into my writing without consciously thinking about what value it would provide to the reader.
Next on my docket is Fifty Quick Ideas to Improve Your User Stories.
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All the best,
The team at Titanium Birch
Disclaimer: The materials linked in this newsletter do not reflect the views of Titanium Birch and should not be taken as investment advice.