all posts tagged 'joy'

Why Houses Donā€™t Look Like Houses Anymore


šŸ”— a linked post to thenation.com » — originally shared here on

Iā€™ve owned my own home for close to five years now, and Iā€™m slowly coming around to the idea of making major changes to it in order to make it feel like it is mine.

During the pandemic, we poured a patio in the front of our house and spent nearly every day sitting on it.

In fact, that patio led to the formation of several enduring relationships with my neighbors.

I find it tough to shake the renterā€™s mindset, where I canā€™t do anything to affect the ā€œresale valueā€ of my home becauseā€¦ well, maybe the next owner wonā€™t buy it because of the deep purple walls in the basement.

But the more I lean into tweaking what we have, the more I feel comfortable, productive, and happy. Iā€™m incredibly grateful to have property which I can modify however I see fit to improve the wary of life for my family and myself.

This article also made me reflect on how toxic it can be to covet other peopleā€™s homes:

We should always remember that the purpose of a home is for living and that decoration, for many, is a form of self-expression. Media literacy, which has improved with regard to beauty and fashion content, lags when it comes to architecture and interior design. Changing that begins with realizing that most homes donā€™t actually look like hotel lobbies or real estate listings. They, rather joyfully, look like homesā€”dust bunnies and all.

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Claude and ChatGPT for ad-hoc sidequests


šŸ”— a linked post to simonwillison.net » — originally shared here on

Iā€™m an unabashed fan of Simon Willisonā€™s blog. Some of his posts admittedly go over my head, but I needed to share this post because it gets across the point I have been trying to articulate myself about AI and how I use it.

In the post, Simon talks about wanting to get a polygon object created that represents the boundary of Adirondack Park, the largest park in the United States (which occupies a fifth of the whole state!).

That part in and of itself is nerdy and a fun read, but this section here made my neck hurt from nodding aggressively in agreement:

Isnā€™t this a bit trivial? Yes it is, and thatā€™s the point. This was a five minute sidequest. Writing about it here took ten times longer than the exercise itself.

I take on LLM-assisted sidequests like this one dozens of times a week. Many of them are substantially larger and more useful. They are having a very material impact on my work: I can get more done and solve much more interesting problems, because Iā€™m not wasting valuable cycles figuring out ogr2ogr invocations or mucking around with polygon libraries.

Not to mention that I find working this way fun! It feels like science fiction every time I do it. Our AI-assisted future is here right now and Iā€™m still finding it weird, fascinating and deeply entertaining.

Frequent readers of this blog know that a big part of the work Iā€™ve been doing since being laid off is in reflecting on what brings me joy and happiness.

Work over the last twelve years of my life represented a small portion of something that used to bring me a ton of joy (building websites and apps). But somewhere along the way, building websites was no longer enjoyable to me.

I used to love learning new frameworks, expanding the arsenal of tools in my toolbox to solve an ever expanding set of problems. But spending my free time developing a new skill with a new tool began to feel like I was working but not getting paid.

And that notion really doesnā€™t sit well with me. I still love figuring out how computers work. Itā€™s just nice to do so without the added pressure of building something to make someone else happy.

Which brings me to the ā€œside questā€ concept Simon describes in this post, which is something I find myself doing nearly every day with ChatGPT.

When I was going through my album artwork on Plex, my first instinct was to go to ChatGPT and have it help me parse through Plexā€™s internal thumbnail database to build me a view which shows all the artwork on a single webpage.

It took me maybe 10 minutes of iterating with ChatGPT, and now I know more about the internal workings of Plexā€™s internal media caching database than I ever would have before.

Before ChatGPT, I wouldā€™ve had to spend several hours pouring over open source code or out of date documentation. In other words: I wouldā€™ve given up after the first Google search.

It feels like another application of Morovecā€™s paradox. Like Gary Casparov observed with chess bots, it feels like the winning approach here is one where LLMs and humans work in tandem.

Simon ends his post with this:

One of the greatest misconceptions concerning LLMs is the idea that they are easy to use. They really arenā€™t: getting great results out of them requires a great deal of experience and hard-fought intuition, combined with deep domain knowledge of the problem you are applying them to. I use these things every day. They help me take on much more interesting and ambitious problems than I could otherwise. I would miss them terribly if they were no longer available to me.

I could not agree more.

I find it hard to explain to people how to use LLMs without more than an hour of sitting down and going through a bunch of examples of how they work.

These tools are insanely cool and insanely powerful when you bring your own knowledge to them.

They simply parrot back what it believes to be the most statistically correct response to whatever prompt was provided.

I havenā€™t been able to come up with a good analogy for that sentiment yet, because the closest I can come up with is ā€œitā€™s like a really good personal assistantā€, which feels like the same analogy the tech industry always uses to market any new tool.

You wouldnā€™t just send a personal assistant off to go do your job for you. A great assistant is there to compile data, to make suggestions, to be a sounding board, but at the end of the day, you are the one accountable for the final output.

If you copy and paste ChatGPTā€™s responses into a court brief and it contains made up cases, thatā€™s on you.

If you deploy code that contains glaring vulnerabilities, thatā€™s on you.

Maybe I shouldnā€™t be lamenting that I lost my joy of learning new things about computers, because I sure have been filled with joy learning how to best use LLMs these past couple years.

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If you can use open source, you can build hardware


šŸ”— a linked post to redeem-tomorrow.com » — originally shared here on

Iā€™ve been dreaming of building my own electronics since I was a kid. I spent so many afternoons at Radio Shack, and even tried my hand at the occasional kit, with limited success. Every few years in adulthood, Iā€™ve given it another try, observing a steady downward trend in difficulty.

Iā€™m telling you: weā€™re at a special moment here. The labor savings of open source, the composability, the fun: all of it has come to hardware. You can build things that solve real problems for yourself. I first imagined my heat pump devices over a year ago, and I have been frustrated they didnā€™t exist every day since.

Now my dreams are real, and the largest energy consumer in the house can be automated and remotely controlled.

Thatā€™s amazing.

As soon as I gain employment again, the very first thing Iā€™m buying is a 3D printer, and Iā€™m gonna start building stuff.

I donā€™t quite know what yet.

But Iā€™ll find something.

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Why Can't Programmers Agree on Anything?


šŸ”— a linked post to jesseduffield.com » — originally shared here on

Programmers disagree on various topics, for various reasons. Personally, I wouldnā€™t have it any other way. I wouldnā€™t want to live in a world where all of these software topics are settled and boring. Debates about programming are interesting and intellectually stimulating, and unlike debates about, say, politics, youā€™re unlikely to lose any friends when you express your functional-programming hesitancy.

Maybe, at the end of the day, thatā€™s the real reason thereā€™s so much disagreement among devs: because itā€™s so fun.

I should print this out and give it to my wife. This is exactly why I enjoy arguing about dumb stuff.

Itā€™s rarely about winning. Being correct is fun. Arguing over semantics and picking nits over asinine details lets you sharpen your beliefs by pitting them against someone elseā€™s.

It also signals that you truly care about the thing. Itā€™s probably the most common way I show I love something.1


  1. I recognize this makes me insufferable to consume most forms of media with. When I notice the little details in a show where they took shortcuts and were lazy, I canā€™t help but call them out. Sorry, Shanny. 

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eternal woodstock


šŸ”— a linked post to bnet.substack.com » — originally shared here on

As people keep trying to make Twitter 2 happen, we are now in a period that I'm calling Eternal Woodstock ā€” every few weeks, users flock en masse to new platforms, rolling around in the mud, getting high on Like-dopamine, hoping that they can keep the transgressive, off-kilter meme magic going just a little longer, even though social-media culture already been fully hollowed out and commercialized.

I havenā€™t signed up for any of the new Twitter clones. I do have a Mastodon account that I created back before Twitter got terrible, but besides a futile one week attempt to get into it, it too has sat dormant.

Maybe this is just part of progressing through life, progressing through society and culture.

Itā€™s something Iā€™ve noticed now with having kids: as a kid, you are extremely tuned into social status. Everyone else listens to the ZOMBIES 3 soundtrack? Now you have to be into it. Your little brother likes it now? Now you have to be too good for it.

But for that brief moment, you feel like youā€™re ahead of the game. Youā€™re a tastemaker.

The times where Iā€™ve genuinely been the happiest in my life have been when Iā€™ve done something just for myself. If it makes those around me impressed or weirded out or indifferent, it was of zero consequence to me.

The short list of things I can think of that fit that bill: this blog (which has existed in some shape since I was in sixth grade), making clips for television production class, learning something new, 90s/00s pro wrestling, running, and playing the guitar.

Itā€™s only when I start to look around at others when I start to get depressed.

And maybe thatā€™s a key insight into why I feel like I feel right now. I donā€™t have a job at the moment. At my age, your social status is determined by things like the vacations you go on, the home you have, and the title you hold.

But really, none of that stuff matters. What matters is the stuff that brings you joy.

It just so happens that those things, in fact, do bring me joy. The vacations Iā€™ve gone on in the past 12 months have been the happiest Iā€™ve been in ages. I spent all morning deep cleaning several rooms in my house, and it feels incredible.1 Building software and solving problems for people is what makes me happy, not being a director of this or a chief whatever.

I guess what Iā€™m trying to say is: I should stop feeling guilty about not posting a whole lot on social media.

My home is this website. People can come here if they wanna hang out.

Sure, Iā€™ll poke my head up and see whatā€™s going on with others around me on occasion, but I donā€™t need to feel compelled to chase the feelings that come alongside taste-making.

Those feelings are like capturing lightning in a bottle, and ultimately lead me to my deepest forms of depression.


  1. Even though I know the kids are gonna mess it up in roughly 4 minutes, thatā€™s okay. Itā€™s their house, too.  

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Restoring IBM Model M Keyboard with Destroyed Cable + USB mod


šŸ”— a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on

There is not much in this world more satisfying to me than watching an Odd Tinkering video.

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My website as a home


šŸ”— a linked post to nicochilla.com » — originally shared here on

Iā€™d like to use ā€œhomeā€ as the operative analogy for my own website.

With any analogy, you choose which properties of the subject to apply to the object of comparison, and which to ignore. What I find significant about homes in this context is that they donā€™t exist primarily for display: rather, theyā€™re designed around the habits and values of their occupants.

Analogously, I want to use my website to order and document my own activity, and to interact with things and people that I care about.

Still, a website and a home are importantly different in that the former is intended for public exposure, whereas the latter is grounded in private life. But maybe we can relate the public nature of websites to a public dimension of homes: hosting visitors.

Typically we donā€™t show our house guests everything ā€” we keep many things private and clean up before they arrive. Moreover, weā€™ve made prior decisions about our furniture and decor with future guests in mind. So homes can certainly be curated for the public eye; but crucially, they maintain their function as living spaces.

I find it generative to consider websites as a similar conjunction of public and private activity: by thinking about how visitors will receive the things that I publish, Iā€™m compelled to produce more and refine the things that I make. At the same time, the website remains my space and is subservient to no other end.

The joy I get from tweaking my personal site and sharing links like this to it seems to be the exact same joy that my kids get out of meticulously organizing their playhouses.

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The Job Hunt Chronicles: Month 1: Discovering My Path

originally shared here on

An AI-generated image showing some business guy standing at a crossroads, looking at a wide array of paths and opportunities floating in the sky.

I was laid off from my job on January 2. It did come as a bit of a shock, and for the first time in my life, I've been really struggling to figure out who I am and what I'm looking for.

As a way to keep pushing myself forward and holding myself accountable, I'm going to start publicly documenting this process as a way to process my thoughts out loud, keep my friends and network aware of my activities, and start some conversations that'll help me take my next step forward.

"What are you looking for?"

If I could summarize the past month in a single question, that would be it.

In the 58 conversations I've had in the past month with friends, recruiters, industry peers, networking events, partners, and job interviewers, I've been asked that question literally every single time.

And 58 times later, I think I'm starting to get closer to an answer.

Here's what I'm looking for:

  1. A team of kind, smart, and hard-working people
  2. A mission that the team rallies around which helps improve as many lives as possible
  3. A leadership role to help drive an engineering team towards fulfilling that mission
  4. Doing all of this while continuing to experiment with LLMs and other AI technologies
  5. Connecting with as many people as possible to explore the impact of AI on who we are as humans
  6. Something that includes medical benefits to support my family

It doesn't matter much to me what the title is. Some roles I've applied and begun interviewing for include "Director of Engineering," "Software Architect," "AI/ML Lead," and "Founding Engineer".

If you know of any opportunities that you think would fit a nerdy kid who has a big heart and enjoys exploring practical applications of artificial intelligence, please send them my way!

Activities I've done

Here's a list of the activities I've pursued between January 2 (the day I got laid off) and February 3 (today):

  • Friends: 11
  • Recruiters: 11
  • Industry Peers: 19
  • Networking Events: 6
  • Interviews: 8
  • Partner Chats: 3
  • Total: 58

Here are my loose definitions for these categories:

  • Friends: People I have a deeper relationship with and whose primary interest isn't necessarily in discussing the job search.
  • Recruiters: People who have a vested interest in pairing me up with a job. These could become friends at some point, but my primary purpose in engaging with them was to talk shop.
  • Industry Peers: People who work in the industry and want to make a connection to expand each other's networks. Again, these folks could become friends at some point.
  • Networking Events: Events geared towards either making connections or learning something new with a bunch of other people.
  • Interviews: Discussions with people who have a possible role that I can fill.
  • Partner Chats: I do still have an entrepreneurial bone in my body, so these are discussions with those I am working on building a business with.

As you can see so far, most of my time has been with folks in the industry, making connections, trying to explore what opportunties are out there.

I'm hoping that I start to see more growth in the "interviews" column by this time next month. šŸ˜…

Things I've learned

Alright, so back in the day, I used to do these blog posts where I'd accumulate a bunch of random thoughts over a period of time and then list them out in bullets. I'm gonna do something similar here, so here are some things I've learned in the past month:

šŸ‘Øā€šŸŽØ Personal growth insights

Safe spaces rule.

Every classroom in my daughter's school has had a "safe space", an area of the room that kids can go to when they're overwhelmed or stressed out. It gives them a place to calm down and process their emotions.

My daughter recreated one in her room. Beneath her lofted bed, she's created this fortress of solitude. It consists of a beanbag chair, a little lamp, some stuffed animals, a sound machine, books, crafts, and affirmations scotch taped to blanket walls.

When I took my first virtual therapy call, I did it from that safe space.

Our house isn't big enough for me to build a room with one, but once I get employment again, I'll begin finding a way to add one on. It's important to have a space you can retreat to where you feel safe.

Anxiety is an asset.

There's a reason we feel anxiety: it helps us stay safe from threats.

But when you're abundantly safe in nearly every sense of the word, anxiety itself becomes a threat.

I've been dealing with runaway anxiety issues for decades now, which is a big part of the reason I don't feel comfortable spinning up my own business at the moment. The last time I did that ended with a similar series of rolling anxiety attacks.

But as a professional software architect, anxiety is actually pretty useful. Being able to envision possible threats against the system allows you to create mitigations that will keep it safe and efficient.

Of course, you gotta be careful to not let your applied anxiety run away from you. Easier said than done.

"It'll all work out. Even if it doesn't, it all works out."

My lifelong pal Cody's mom is a paragon of confidence and chillness.

I went for a walk with Cody a week into being laid off, and we got to talking about her parents.

She shared that her mom often says that quote, which is what gives her that confidence.

I need more of that in my life.

Gravity Falls is an amazing television show.

You all should look it up on Disney+ and burn through it in a weekend.

It's one of those shows that slowly builds to a gigantic payoff at the end.

The finale hit me with all the feelings.

Plus, it's a good show to bond over with your seven year old daughter.

Journaling really helps with perspective.

I've journaled every day since getting laid off. Reading back through them, I'm seeing patterns into what activities contribute to good days versus bad days.

Good days include some sort of vigorous workout, a conversation or two with a good pal, and tons of encouraging self talk.

Bad days include skipping the workout and sitting by yourself with your horrible, negative self talk.

Journaling is proof that life still goes on even if I don't have a job.

It's also proof that I'm at least taking some advantage of not having the responsibility of a job. (Not nearly enough, though.)

What helps my depression is a clear vision.

I've realized this month that it's when I've taken the path of least resistance when I've ended up the most miserable.

When I was a senior in high school and needed to decide what to do with my life, I picked a school (the U of M) and a degree (computer engineering) that were convenient because of proximity and my interest in computers.

My first semester of college was a complete shock.

For the first time in my academic career, I hated school.

The classes absolutely drained me. My "intensive precalculus" class sounded about as fun as you'd imagine. I mean, yeah, there are some people out there who enjoy math, but it's a rare breed who would say that they derive pleasure from "intense math."

My calculus-based physics class was a kick in the teeth. I've always been told I'm smart, but memorizing and deploying specific formulas on demand was not my strong suit. It made me feel dumb.

It felt like I was there because I had to be there, not because I wanted to be there.

And how ludicrous is that? I spent $12,000 per semester out of some perceived obligation to do so.

When I failed miserably out of engineering school, I sat down in Coffman Memorial Union and scrolled through the class directory, looking for something that looked interesting to me.

I ended up landing on a class called Broadcast Television Production, which gave me so much energy.

It required me to become a journalism major, so I switched over to that.

That path led me to an internship at WCCO, which was one of the most enjoyable professional experiences in my life. I mean, I got to hang out with hard working creatives that perfectly blended their surly dispositions with a passion for making engaging videos.

Now that I'm in my mid-thirties, I feel like I no longer am obliged to follow any specific path. The only thing holding me in place is myself.

For the past six months, I've felt like I've been stuck in this fog of uncertainty and depression. I've felt useless, a drain on myself and those around me.

This fog has led me down some dark paths where I've said some really nasty things to myself, kicking myself for being a loser, a failure, an idiot.

But really, my problem was that I just lost sight of who I am and what I want to be.

So while I'm still squinting to see my way through the fog, I'm using some of my other senses instead.

I'm using my ears to listen to my friends and network who are serving as voices to pull me out.

I'm using my nose to sniff out opportunities and make new friends.

And perhaps the most important of all: I'm using my heart to decide what will make me feel fulfilled and useful.

All of that stuff is helping me form the vision for what the next few years of my life looks like.

The two resources I have to offer those who may be in a similar situation would be my pal Kurt Schmidt who is currently in the final stages of a book that helps you formulate your 10 year vision, and my idol Arnold Schwarzenegger's new book Be Useful.

I cannot recommend the audiobook version of his book enough. Hearing Arnold say things like "rest is for babies, and relaxation is for retired people" hits so much better with his accent.

The messages shared in children's programming are important to hear as adults too.

I've been hanging with my kids a lot this month, and my son is super into Paw Patrol and Blue's Clues.

In the "Big City Adventure" musical movie, you follow Josh (yeah, there's been several new "Steve" characters since the show debuted in my childhood) as he tries to achieve his dream of performing on Broadway.

Are the songs simple and annoyingly catchy? Definitely. But you know what? Sometimes, it's important for us, as adults, to believe that "happiness is magic" and "you can do anything that you wanna do."

Paw Patrol is another one of those shows where, as an adult, it's easy to complain about their reductive storylines and fantastical premises.

But on the other hand, I have a vivid memory of discussing the Green Ranger's transformation into the White Ranger on the bus as a first grader.

These stories serve as lessons for teamwork, cooperation, sharing, and the importance of spreading joy and helping those in need.

These are traits that come easier to some than others, but they're crucial if we want to have a thriving society that lifts all of us up as humans.

Plus, sometimes, it's just fun to get invested in silly, simple characters and storylines.

So while I'm still gonna watch RuPaul's Drag Race or FUBAR when the kids go to bed, don't sleep on the shows that your kids are into. If you can drop your "I'm too good for this" mentality, you might just remember how simple life can be if you reduce it to its basic concepts.

How does one build confidence without cultivating hubris?

Is it just staying humble?

Asking for a friend.

...okay, I'm asking for myself.

Brain pathways are forged through the tall grass.

My therapist gave me this analogy as a way to help me visualize how to deal with changing your perspectives.

When a pathway is stomped through the tall grass, it's easy to walk down it.

But sometimes, those pathways no longer serve us. We still choose to walk down them, though, because it's easy.

If you want to forge newer and more helpful pathways, you gotta do the hard work of stamping out new pathways.

Eventually, if you keep doing the work, you'll discover that the old pathways become overgrown, and the one you stamped out for yourself is now the easy path.

I think this metaphor works for so many areas of our lives, like getting into shape or improving our own self talk.

If I'm so smart, why can't I beat depression?

I wrote that question in my journal, and I think it's because depression might not be something you beat. It's something you experience when you have achieved so much and aren't confident in what's next.

You "beat" depression by choosing to take a step towards your vision every single day.

You "beat" depression by spending less time with your brain and more time with your heart.

You "beat" depression by engaging in creative pursuits that make you happy. Just you. Nobody else.

šŸ‘Øā€šŸ’¼ Professional insights

AI is so much fun to experiment with!

One of the goals I set for myself this winter was to clean out the crawlspace we have under our steps.

As any homeowner knows, it's easy to accumulate stuff over the years. The item that left the biggest footprint? Several totes filled with baby clothes.

It doesn't seem like we're on the path toward baby number 3 at all, so we figured it was a good opportunity to purge it all.

I ended up donating 12 boxes of clothes.

While I carefully placed each item into one of those boxes, I dutifully tallied each one so I could calculate the fair market value in order to write the donation off on my taxes.

Now, this is something I've done for years. I find some spreadsheet on the internet that helps calculate it, then I manually add the items to the sheet to end up with the value.

This time, I decided to try to use AI to help me figure this out.

I live streamed the whole process, which you can check out here.

I learned two things during this experiment: first, OCR tools aren't that great at reading tally marks (but honestly, they did better than I expected). Second, while we're still a fair ways away from being able to hand off tasks like these to AI bots, it's impressive how far GPT-4 was able to get from my basic prompting.

Can AI really take away the "soul sucking" parts of our jobs?

There are a lot of mechanical tasks that our brains are wired to be good at: counting, pattern recognition, and so forth.

These tasks are often the crappiest parts of our jobs, right? It's the monotonous, soul-sucking parts of our work. And we even call it soul sucking because it often feels like stuff that gets in the way from pursuing better, more fulfilling things.

So what does that leave us with? If the soul sucking parts of our jobs are automated away, what does it mean then for us to be human?

Maybe the future here isn't that AI will kill us all. Maybe it will force us, for the first time in the existence of our species, to truly deal with what it means to value a human life.

It will free us up to pursue creative pursuits. To keep digging deeper on our humanity. To ask new questions about what that actually means, and then allow us to pursue it together with machines helping us do some of that hard work for us.

Maybe something I can look into is figuring out how to use AI to help us understand our brains better. Like, can AI help us figure out the chemical imbalances that lead to severe depression? And if it can, can it help us synthesize treatments to keep our brains in perfect balance all the time? And if it can, does that prevent us from being human, or does it make us more human?

"Happiness is to write code that does great things for other people."

Before getting laid off, I bought tickets to Code Freeze at the University of Minnesota. The annual event focused this year on artificial intelligence, so it would've been foolish not to go.

I am so glad I did.

The event kicked off with a keynote from Andreas Sjƶstrƶm, a long time industry leader, who shared a story of a paper he wrote when he was young.

His teacher asked him to define happiness, and he came up with "happiness is to write code that does great things for other people."

Really, when he said that, it felt like someone suddenly turned the focus knob from "blurry" to "sharp."

Writing software is challenging work filled with constant struggle, but once you get things working right, it's magical.

We, as engineers, often lose sight of that magic because we get so invested in discovering the secrets to the magic.

Sometimes, it's nice to just sit back and appreciate the opportunity and privilege we have to deliver technology that brings not only joy to others, but empowers them to go forth and do great things.

"An architect's crystal ball is being connected to others."

The other networking event I attended that brought so much joy is the AppliedAI meetup.

This month's meeting featured Jim Wilt, a distinguished software architect, as he discussed AI's role in an organization's architecture strategy.

The thing that struck me at this particular event was how dang smart everyone there was. All forms of intelligence were explored. Some folks were really keyed into the emotional side of intelligence, while others were approaching things from an analytical lens.

All of us were working together to gain some insights into how we can better use these amazing tools we've been given.

That spirit was wrapped up in a story Jim was saying about the importance of collaboration.

In isolation, you're only as smart as yourself. When connected to others, you are able to make deeper and more accurate insights into what might work for your own situation or problem.

The key takeaway? "An architect's crystal ball is being connected to others."

If we're going to answer the tough ethical and societal problems that surround these new AI tools, the only way we'll figure it out is together.

What's next for me

Certainly, my next month will involve more meetings, more interviews, and more digging into this vision.

I commit that by this time next month, I'll be back with a more clear vision of what I want my life to be. That way, when one of you wonderful people asks me "what are you looking for," I can provide a hyper-focused answer.

As always, a huge thanks to those who have reached out and offered their support. Like I said above, being connected to others is really what makes all the difference.

If you would like to help, here's how:

  1. If you know of a full time (32-40 hr/week) job opportunity where I can help architect a complex software system, explore how AI can fit into an organization, or lead a team of nerds towards building an awesome product, please send it my way.
  2. If you have insights or articles that speak to how AI might force us to define our humanity, please send those my way.

Until next month, stay in touch!


On Craft


šŸ”— a linked post to drcathicks.com » — originally shared here on

Grandpa loved craft. He didn't put it that way but other people did. My dad said grandpa was a craftsman. I didnā€™t understand what this meant until one day when we were visiting. We sat down at a restaurant table and it wobbled. We ignored it. But Grandpa dropped as quickly and efficiently as a seal, vanishing underneath the table to fix the cheap, badly-screwed leg with a coin for a screwdriver.

He fixed things often and silently. Grandpa just cared about things working. He had an instinct for not just broken things but soon to be broken things. He would point out risky work, bad decision making in the form of shoddy materials or shifting angles. He was offended by the trace measures left in the world that signified short-term planning. So I learned that this too had something to do with craft. He had a visual vocabulary that amazed me. I think about how he could see these details. He saw choices and constraints and tensions and frictions where I just saw chairs. He saw effort where most people just saw end products.

Iā€™ve got a few posts in mind that Iā€™ll get cracking on soon about my recent malaice and regression towards a mid-life crisis, but this post helped me keep one thing in perspective.

As someone commented on Lobsters, caring is at the root of a craft. How else could you possibly spend your life?

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How to Find Joy in Climate Action


šŸ”— a linked post to youtube.com » — originally shared here on

I have a habit of listening to podcasts and jotting down reminders to check out stuff that the hosts recommend, and then never ultimately getting back to consume that content.

I stumbled upon this video today while spelunking through my reminders app, and I felt like it was fitting considering (a) an upcoming thing that Iā€™m really excited to share soon, and (b) it helps tie together the two most recent posts on this blog.

The part that made me go ā€œah, damnā€ was when she mentioned that most people who go through this exercise end up with some form of communication as their climate action.

After completing the exercise, the two things I wrote down were:

  1. Do the podcast idea, build your network of ā€œdoersā€ in various climate fields, leverage the network to institute policy change and inspire others into action.

  2. Do the podcast idea, discover a company doing something cool in climate (terrible pun), join that company.

The other thing Ayana warns in this video is to not start with your solution in mind, but dang, thatā€™s just not fair, is it?

Either way, going through this venn diagram exercise gave me a lot to think about, and Iā€™m quite curious to hear what you think if you end up doing this as well.

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