- Christian B. B. Houmann's Newsletter
- Posts
- PodNotes 2.0, Sherlock Holmes & Mental Models, and Benjamin Franklin
PodNotes 2.0, Sherlock Holmes & Mental Models, and Benjamin Franklin
PodNotes 2.0, Sherlock Holmes & Mental Models, and Benjamin Franklin
Hey there.
I hope you've had a great week.
PodNotes Major Release
Super excited to share this with you:🥳 The 2nd major PodNotes release is now out! 🥳
Here's what's new since last update:✍️ PodNotes can now help you create notes & timestamps without any extra plugins. You can define your own templates (similar to QuickAdd), so it's entirely customizable.
🏞️ Download podcast episodes for offline listening.
🎧 Support any local audio file. Creating notes & timestamps also works for these! If you record memos or listen to audio a lot, and want a better workflow for creating insights from it, PodNotes got you!
And some other features & bug fixes.
Support PodNotes on ProductHunt. Thank you!
What I've made for you
Book notes—The Autobiography of Benjamin FranklinI enjoyed reading this book quite a bit. Benjamin Franklin is an interesting man—there is a lot to learn from him.
Sherlock Holmes and Mental Models
In A Study in Scarlet, Dr. Watson criticized an article written by, as it turned out, Sherlock Holmes.He thought The Art of Deduction to be utter BS.
This prompted Sherlock to tell Watson about his profession. More importantly, how he acquired his skills, and the lengths he went to get them.
Sherlock Holmes is the only consulting detective in the world. He uses his skills in the art of deduction to set other detectives straight.
So what's his secret?
When you have 1000 types of cases readily available, it should be odd when the one you’re working one presents to be the 1001.
Patterns emerge, even in the most strange cases.
Like Ray Dalio says in Principles, you should learn the general principles, so new things can be reduced to “another one of those.”
This is also what makes chess players skilled: the accumulation of patterns.It becomes a game of who has the most patterns readily available.
Charlie Munger promotes the acquisition of mental models—a broad variety, at that—which shall help you become wiser and more capable.
Mental models & principles have certainly worked for these great men and women.They'll work for you, too.How to acquire mental models
Observe the data and find patterns in it.
Learn the lesson life teaches you.
Acquire models from reading and listening.
There are shortcuts to discovering mental models (
,
), but not to understanding them.
That only comes through practice: knowledge demands action.
Quote
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.
— Sherlock Holmes
