<p>I believe that our cities are outdated. <a href='https://cabin.city'>Cabin</a> is building a better, more modern city.</p> <p>A network city.</p> <p>What is a “network city”? It’s partially physical like a normal city, but it’s also distributed across space and onto the internet.</p> <p><strong>I believe a city is not a physical location, but the context for our daily…
<p><strong>FarCon is an IRL gathering for the <a href='https://farcaster.xyz'>Farcaster</a> digital community.</strong></p> <p>A decentralized protocol requires a new kind of decentralized conference. The FarCon is a reusable template, an overarching structure that organizers remix to create a unique instance of the event. Historically, each FarCon is run by a different crew of organizers.</p>…
<style>hr{margin-bottom: 2rem}</style> <p>I recently gave a talk at Balaji’s Network State Conference in Amsterdam. It’s a conference for people interested in founding, funding, and finding new communities and parallel institutions.</p> <p>Topics included startup societies, network states, digital nomadism, competitive government, legalizing innovation, and building alternatives.</p>…
<p>These are the phrases I often say to you, and what they mean to me. You’re only four, so when you’re older you can tell me if any of this came through.</p> <p><a href='/img/matching-nails.jpg'><img src='/img/matching-nails.jpg' alt=''></a></p> <h2 id='i-love-you-no-matter-what'>I love you no matter what</h2> <p>I hope you’re not surprised to see this one at the top of the…
<p>In 2019 I took notes on 38 podcasts, lectures, presentations, and one-of conversations. The distribution of sources approximates <a href='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipf%27s_law'>Zipf’s law</a>. Half of the episodes came from my two favorite podcasts: 11 from <a href='https://conversationswithtyler.com/'>Conversations with Tyler</a> and 8 from <a href='https://fs.blog/knowledge-project/'>The…
<p>A while back I wrote about <a href='/corey-thomas-on-culture'>Corey Thomas’s take on company culture</a>. Here are some more notes on culture from his lunch talk today.</p> <h2 id='figure-out-whats-important-to-you'>Figure out what’s important to you</h2> <ul> <li>take the time to clarify your company’s vision: what you want to achieve and why is it important?</li> <li>define…
<p>Simplicity is my most important software design principle. But “keep it simple” is easier said than done. In fact it’s said all the time, so we must not be doing it enough.</p> <h2 id='what-is-simple'>What Is Simple?</h2> <p>Rich Hickey gave the <a href='https://github.com/matthiasn/talk-transcripts/blob/master/Hickey_Rich/SimpleMadeEasy.md'>definitive talk</a> (<a…
<p>The last few months have turned just about everyone into a work-from-homer. For many, it’s new, exciting, and probably somewhat stressful. For me, it’s been my life for over a decade. Ever since I left my job as a Navy scientist to live in startup land, I’ve been dealing with the ups and downs of working at home.</p> <p>It took me several years to figure out the right way to…
<p>Everyone makes mistakes. I’ve made a lot, and I’m gonna make more. If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not learning fast enough. Here’s what to do after a mistake.</p> <h2 id='own-it'>Own It</h2> <p>You made a mistake. It happened. It’s ok.</p> <p>Owning your mistake gives you agency and power.</p> <p>Admitting it publicly makes you more accountable, and…
<p>I’m trying to implement a new habit. When I read something, I will write a summary (at least one sentence) of it. This is inspired by <a href='https://fs.blog/2016/09/what-are-you-doing-about-it/'>these</a> <a href='https://fs.blog/2016/10/goal-gradient-hypothesis/'>two</a> (<a href='/archive/fs.blog~2016~09~what-are-you-doing-about-it.html'>a</a>) (<a…
<p><em>Status: work in progress</em></p> <p>The goal of communication is to change the recipient’s internal state. That could mean giving them information, motivating them to do something, triggering their emotions, etc.</p> <p>To improve at this goal, we need a model of how communcation works and a way to tell if we’re doing it right.</p> <h2 id='a-naive-model'>A Naive Model</h2>…
<p>Will and Ariel Durant spent four decades of their life writing an 11-volume history of humanity, from the beginning of civilization (3500 BC) to the time of Napoleon (mid-1800s). Then they condensed what they learned into an 100ish-page book called <a href='https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/174713.The_Lessons_of_History'>The Lessons of History</a>, which provides an overview of the themes and…
<p>My summary of <a href='https://heathbrothers.com/books/decisive/'>Decisive</a>, a book about a process for making better decisions.</p> <h2 id='the-express-version'>The express version</h2> <ol> <li>Widen Options: Add one more option to your consideration set. (If you can’t think of one easily, look for someone who’s solved your problem, via your network of contacts or a simple Internet…
<p><em>Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor. This is not medical advice, just my interpretation of the facts. Read the cited links and think for yourself before trusting a stranger on the internet.</em></p> <h2 id='short-version'>Short Version</h2> <p>When you find out you’re pregnant, tell your doctors that you don’t remember when your last period was. Then schedule an ultrasound…
<p>In <a href='https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6596.The_Four_Agreements'>The Four Agreements</a>, Miguel Ruiz invites us to make the following commitments to ourselves:</p> <p><strong>Be impeccable with your word.</strong> Try to be honest and true in everything you say. Do not lie, gossip, etc.</p> <p><strong>Don’t take anything personally.</strong> You cannot choose what others say or do,…
<blockquote> <p>I would like to wait far shorter to publish, and I would like to articulate my thoughts far more often.</p> <p>In order to encourage that, I will do two things:</p> <p>I will allow myself the luxury to change my mind. Anything I write reflects my best thought process at the moment but does not define me as a person. This will allow me to write “in the now” and not worry about the…
<p>I met with Corey Thomas from Rapid7 to talk about culture. Here are my notes.</p> <h2 id='culture'>Culture</h2> <p>Corey defines culture as “shared beliefs about how to create success”. These are beliefs you won’t compromise on, that you’ll live and die by. It’s better to fail with a principled and well-articulated set of beliefs than to exist in a wishy-washy…
<p>Here are three properties that most people agree they want, but you can’t have all three:</p> <ul> <li>local democratic accountability</li> <li>equal treatment under the law</li> <li>ability to absorb a large number of migrants</li> </ul> <p>It’s hard to reject the first two, so many jurisdictions have laws limiting immigrants from entering.</p> <blockquote> <p>I think we should…
<p>To change entrenched social norms, isolate a group that has the new norms. Then slowly reintroduce others at a rate where they absorb the new norms. This applies to countries and to startups.</p> <blockquote> <p>Persistent norms are not necessarily a bad thing, but you do need to think about what if you get stuck in a situation where the norms in a population are inefficient and really holding…
<p>Inspired by Tony Sheng’s <a href='http://www.tonysheng.com/blog/my-annual-book-audit-52-books-and-the-52-ways-they-changed-me-this-year/'>book audit</a> (<a href='/archive/www.tonysheng.com~blog~my-annual-book-audit-52-books-and-the-52-ways-they-changed-me-this-year.html'>a</a>), I’m looking to boil each book down to at least one way in which it has affected my thinking, or one change that I…
<p>Last week I spent a few hours at Zoya’s daycare to learn their tricks for putting her to sleep. I did learn a lot about that, but the most interesting things happened while playing with the other kids in her class.</p> <p>There were three other children there with her, all between the ages of 1 and 3. At first they gave me a wide berth, since they only know me in the context of picking…
<p><em>numbered for ease of reference, not for priority</em></p> <ol> <li>code is debt, and bad code is an <a href='http://www.higherorderlogic.com/2010/07/bad-code-isnt-technical-debt-its-an-unhedged-call-option/'>unhedged call option</a> (<a href='/archive/www.higherorderlogic.com~2010~07~bad-code-isnt-technical-debt-its-an-unhedged-call-option.html'>a</a>)</li> </ol> <ul> <li><img…
<p>Here are the books I read (or at least tried to read) this year:</p> <ul> <li><a href='https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40445.Altered_Carbon'>Altered Carbon</a> by Richard K. Morgan</li> <li><a href='https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17859574-how-to-fail-at-almost-everything-and-still-win-big'>How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big</a> by Scott Adams</li> <li><a…
<p><a href='https://visualize-your-git.herokuapp.com/display/4075/sparse'><img src='/img/git-command-flow.png' alt='my git command flow'></a></p> <p><code>st</code> = <code>status</code></p> <p><code>cmm</code> = <code>commit -m</code></p>
<p><a href='/img/photobooth-samurai.jpg'><img src='/img/photobooth-samurai.jpg' alt=''></a></p>
<p>I spent the last two days fixing the <a href='http://usetopscore.com'>Topscore</a> mailing lists so they forward attachments and inline images correctly. I had attempted this task twice in the past, failing completely the first time and coming close the second time but abandoning the effort because of time constraints. For some reason, this time things clicked for me and I finally understood…
<p>I recently bought a Raspberry Pi to play around with, and also started brewing beer a few weeks ago. I figured it would be great to build something to help with the brewing, so I went with an automated temperature/humidity sensor to track the climate of the brew. After a bit of soldering, wiring, and programming, everything is up and running. Here it is in all it’s glory:</p> <p><img…
<p>My first foray into data recovery ended up being a big success. My GF’s sister-in-law dropped her laptop and her hard drive started failing. She couldn’t get the laptop to boot, and when she took it to the Apple Store, they told her they can’t do anything for her. I knew I could do better.</p> <h2 id='first-save-the-data'>First, Save the Data</h2> <p>When you’re trying…
<h2 id='the-problem'>The Problem</h2> <p>Having easy access to my machines over the internet is very important to me. I’ve used several dynamic DNS services in the past, but none of them ever felt right. Many of them cost money for more than one or two addresses and they all give you a weird domain name. I wanted to be able to SSH to mymachine.grin.io. Here’s how I did it with…