ccarnino

A few years ago, I was reading 15+ books a year. Last year? Maybe one or two that I actually finished.

For the longest time, I blamed myself. Lack of discipline, poor time management, whatever. But then I started noticing the pattern wasn't just me - friends who used to devour books were struggling with the same thing. Smart people, curious people, people who wanted to read.

The turning point came when I realized I could binge-watch a 3-hour YouTube deep-dive on Byzantine history without losing focus, but couldn't get through two pages of a book on the same topic. That's when it clicked - this isn't about willpower or intelligence. Our brains literally got rewired.

Think about it: we've trained ourselves on TikTok, Twitter, Reddit - constant stimulation, instant feedback, bite-sized content. Then we try to sit down with a book that demands sustained attention for hours, and wonder why we're re-reading the same paragraph five times.

I tried everything to get back into reading: audiobooks (mind wanders after a minute), AI summaries (forgettable), author interviews on YouTube (actually pretty good, but limited). Nothing stuck until I stumbled on something that worked.

Six months ago, I started uploading books to ChatGPT and prompting it to teach me through conversation - asking questions, giving examples, making me explain concepts back. Instead of fighting my shortened attention span, I worked with it. Suddenly I was spending an hour a day learning from books that had been gathering digital dust for years.

The technique is simple: turn passive reading into active dialogue. Instead of trying to force yourself through dense text, have the AI break it down, quiz you, give you analogies. It matches how our brains want to consume information now.

You can set this up yourself with ChatGPT, or there are tools that automate it (I ended up building one at https://thinktotem.com for myself because I was doing this so much). The point isn't the specific method - it's accepting that our brains changed and adapting rather than fighting it.

I'm back to learning from books I thought were impossible - Dante's Divine Comedy, The Art of War, dense philosophy texts. Not because I got more disciplined, but because I stopped trying to read like it's 1995.

Anyone else notice this shift in their reading ability? Curious what solutions others have found.

Hi, Claudio here . I am a technical founder.

I have first-hand experience in building mobile apps, web apps, and backend systems as a professional and as a founder. I managed teams of developers and interfaced with other stakeholders in a company.

I am starting a Clubhouse/podcast where I and other developers are going to give technical advice to entrepreneurs and people trying to create their own product.

Are you not sure if you should build a website or a mobile app? Should you go iOS or Android first? Should it be a native app or a cross-platform one? What technologies do you need to use? Is it better to hire or outsource? How long will it take? How much will it cost to run? And is it even possible?

If you want help get in touch. You will describe to me what you want to build, then we will create the event and discuss your idea on air.

Does it sound interesting? Reply here Claudio

Hello fellow iOS devs.

I've been working on a project that I hope will be helpful to the iOS dev community. It's a course on how to prepare for an iOS job interview. I'm new to this and I would really appreciate some feedback.

I am happy to give the course away for free for a few days. If you can spare less than an hour of your time, I would really appreciate your thoughts on it!

It's on Udemy. You can use this URL https://www.udemy.com/course/mastering-the-ios-interview/?couponCode=5FFC01512CF835766A1F or coupon code 5FFC01512CF835766A1F

I would like to create more video courses in the future, what else would you find useful and interesting?

I appreciate your help!

I am unsatisfied with Youtube. I think it's pretty much the same for the last 10-15 years. But I want to see if other people's pain points are the same as mines.

I am trying to understand: - what kind of research do you do? - what kind of data is important to you? - what calculations/analyses do you do? - what analyses do you ran after you purchased them?

I feel there's no best practice yet on how to investigate a new asset and so I am doing a reasearch to then compile a summary/blog.

Thanks!

Hello everybody, I am Claudio, a software engineer in London.

I am looking for an electronic engineer and a roboticist in London to start a robotics startup with.

I am creating a robotic body, with the human skeletal and muscular structure. A person would be able to pilot this robotic body, like his own, through VR technology. This could be employed to perform work in dangerous environments, like nuclear plants decommissioning, firefighting or in-space construction.

There are quite a lot of innovative solutions I adopted that make this possible. And I have built a prototype.

I want to find an electronic engineer and a roboticist to partner with, to transform a prototype into a real product.

I hope you can suggest me somebody who can be interested in talking more about this. Thank you all!