Netflix, Great Books, and the Best New Hotel in Miami

It's Friday so let's try something fun and maybe not work-appropriate: Book tips! Best new TV shows, and an amazing hotel in Miami. Here it goes...

I usually carry a notebook in my back left pocket. I try to write down interesting things that I hear.

These are some from the past month.

Great Articles

Non-Profits With Balls: Renamed to Nonprofit AF. Blog recommended to me at museum conference.

Recommended Business Article: Finding a CEO for his business, by Tucker Max

Great Television

Master of None: Everyone is talking about how great Season 2 is and a celebration of New York City. Two episodes of note, via Ramit Sethi: Parent episode from S1, and Ode to New York from S2.

Old TV Show: Bullshit! by Penn & Teller

Great Book Recommendations

Some awesome book recommendations from my friends.

• Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977–2002), by David Sedaris via Charles Forman
• How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie via Charles Forman
• The Magic of Thinking Big, by David J Schwartz via Ramit Sethi
• Thank You for Coming to Hattiesburg: One Comedian’s Tour of Not-Quite-the-Biggest Cities in the World, by Todd Barry via Jeff Rubin
• Saga, by Brian K Vaughan (Author) and Fiona Staples (Artist). A comic book that might be the best comic book ever via Jeff Rubin
• Tetris: The Games People Play by Box Brown, via Jeff Rubin — a graphic novel about the history of Tetris
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, via Tasia Duske
• Andrew Carnegie by David Nasaw via Scott Kidder
• Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll, via Scott Kidder
• Getting More: How You Can Negotiate to Succeed in Work and Life by Stuart Diamond, via someone at Skillshare party
• The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King by Rich Cohen, via Michael Karnjanaprakorn
• Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money by Nathaniel PopperDigital Gold, via Michael Karnjanaprakorn
• Love Yourself, by Kamal Ravikant
• Head Strong by Dave Asprey, via Michael Karnjanaprakorn
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, via Natalia at Skillshare party

Best New Hotel in Miami

Faena Miami Beach via Amanda Ferri.

Amanda tells me: “They spent $18,000,000 on a gold-plated wooly mammoth skeleton. I got a behind-the-scenes tour and loved it. The design is incredible.”

(image via therollingstorm.com)

Great Movies

• Who Took Johnny (2014) via Amanda Ferri “Really sad, really messed up, but great movie.”
• The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, via Alex Kelloff (inspiration for Star Wars?) See clips on YouTube here.

Senators in Washington, DC have lots of staff

Senators in Washington, DC have lots of staff. Including, a Chief of Staff, Legislative Director, Office Admin Manager, interns, policy people, etc. I learned all about this from an intern working for a senator at the going away party for Alexandra Liveris.

Also: there are lots of tunnels around the United States Capitol building in DC. These are helpful because (1) it is very hot in DC in the summer, and tunnels underground are much cooler, and (2) easier to protect and manage security.

Thematic Dinner Salons

I’m considering writing a short book about the extremely specific way that I like to host dinner parties and cocktail parties. Name tags, icebreakers, etc including the exact templates I use. The target audience is anyone who wants to host parties or events (with friends or for work).

Ideas for thematic dinner salons that we can host for friends in NYC:

• Wills
• Freezing sperm or eggs
• Parents for Non-Parents
• Concierge Medicine
• Aging Gracefully

(These are all somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but also serious)

New York Transit Museum

• The New York Transit Museum is supposed to be very cool, and I should go visit it ASAP.

Conversational Tidbits

• DLD conf in NYC, I did not go but sorta wanted to see what it is about
• Hu Kitchen is still my favorite lunch spot, I took my friend Scott Kidder there for the first time
• YouTube the Will Smith video about running and reading (via Michael K)
• Nice walking meeting w/Tasia + Sarah of the Museum Hack team today. I love walking meetings
• Phone calls today with Thomas Griffin, John Antista, Tracy Avin (resched), Richard Murray, and a VIP dinner tonight w Mark Kennedy-McClellan
• Cauliflower is cheaper and better in San Francisco, via an informal survey I did with Zach Klein on Twitter

Cryptocurrency

Ethereum and Bitcoin lunch in Washington Square Park on Thursday, May 11th at 12:30 pm. Jordan Cooper organized it via Twitter, here were my takeaways:

• Everyone attending (10 ppl) used Coinbase to store most of their coins. Some had other methods, like printing sheets of paper and keeping in bank vaults, but everyone at least had a Coinbase account
• Paying taxes on gains: Everyone agreed it was the right thing to do, especially if you converted back to USD
• There’s a bubble in a lot of alt-coins
• Large banks looking at the blockchain after SWIFT hacking incident RE: Bangladesh
• ICO stands for Initial Coin Offering, like an IPO (I had never heard this term before)
• I have no holdings; I wanted to attend because my friend Tynan constantly checks currency pricing + Ben Yu loves BitCoin (and more friends), and I think Jordan is a smart guy
• “What is the actual utility of these coins?”
• “This is the first time that open source has been directly related to capitalism.”

In Other News

Verizon wins $3.1B bidding war for Straight Path’s 5G spectrum (NYSE:STRP). Only nine employees. Articles in WSJ, USA Today, etc. Fascinating story — until a month ago they were worth only $500m, then AT&T and Verizon got into a bidding war over their wireless frequencies.

THE END

I typed these notes to share the stuff I’m hearing about, and tips on great media to consume.

Was this interesting? Should I do more posts like this? Let me know. Thank you for reading!

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This story originally appeared on nickgray.net