The Weekend Wind-Down #32 - October 6, 2024

I hope your October got off to a great start! Here's this week's list.

What I listened to this weekend

The Daily had a fantastic interview with Al Pacino this week. He talked about his career, getting older, having a kid late in life, and much more. I've always been a huge fan of his work and it was great to hear his thoughts. The interview was really well done and I feel the interview make a great connection with him and didn't just stick to surface level questions or push his talking points too much. I've been studying the art of interviewing recently, so this was great timing for me. It's well worth a listen if you're a Pacino fan!

What I learned about network and connections this week

This week I've been in the process of starting a new project, stay tuned for an announcement soon! One of the driving factors behind starting this project and what's been demonstrated this first week is the power of network and connections. A couple of things contributed to me starting to think about this phenomenon and put it more into practice in my life. The first has been this year's experience volunteering with TEDx, and through the process of preparing for the annual event we are running in December, I've learned a ton. I've been helping with speaker curation and it's been fascinating to be part of this process. The two biggest lessons I've learned, are one, how many interesting people there are we can all learn from, we've found fantastic speakers doing all kinds of interesting things, and they come from all walks of life. The second is how open and receptive people are to sharing their ideas and stories when asked. I even got to talk to an MMA superstar after reaching out to her on Instagram about being a speaker. This was not only one of the drivers behind my new project but also demonstrated again this week when I've been reaching out to people about it. People have been super open to being part of it, even though I'm just getting started. I'm super excited to share more with you in the very near future!

What I cooked this weekend

One of my favorite things about having immigrated to Singapore is getting to know Southeast Asian cuisine better. Growing up in the US, we were exposed to Thai and Vietnamese food, but Malaysian, Indonesian, and Singaporean weren't something I ever got to try before moving here. And the crazy thing is, it is now at the top of my list, I love Nasi Lemak, Rendang, Laksa, Char Kway Teow, and tons of the other food in the region. I've even started cooking some of these dishes, and one of my favorites to both eat and cook is rendang. In general, I like roasting or braising meat, it is so gratifying to turn a large piece of tough piece of meat into something tender and delicious. Rendang is usually beef or lamb, cut into chunks, and braised in a coconut curry sauce until it almost falls apart. This dish is usually eaten with rice, which soaks up the thickened curry, but last night I decided to serve it with udon instead. It was delicious, the curry clung to the noodles and it was almost like a bolognese. Try it next time you cook rendang!

Best ChatGPT experiment I did this week

I saw this interesting prompt on Reddit and decided to try it for myself, the first prompt is "Based on everything you already know about me, profile me." this only work if you have updated ChatGPT with some info about yourself and have used it a bit since the memory features rolled out earlier this year. This prompt delivered an accurate but very positive few paragraphs about what it knows about me. The really interesting part starts from the next prompt, "What are things you think I'm not aware of about myself?". ChatGPT responded with a list of 6 points that while all still positive, actually did point out things that I hadn't actively thought about before. Not all of them were revolutionary, but they did make me think about some aspects of my career and capabilities in a new light. And then finally is the killer prompt "Now go one step further and speculate on things that have a high probability, but cannot be confirmed with any confidence." and we finally get some awesome insights and critiques that go far beyond praise and regurgitating what you have put into ChatGPT in the past.

Have a great week ahead!

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