Recent content in Hoarding Minimalist. Product-minded Software Engineer. Usually confused. on Kevin Quinn
Can you let your phone battery drop to 10% without stressing? I have a hypothesis that you can learn about a person’s core traits by checking for a very basic signal: whether they are comfortable letting their phone battery drop to 10% or less before they go looking for a charger 1 . In my mind, these signal a person with an Abundance mindset, optimistic that there will always be something…
TL;DR: July Iceland trip, drove south coast out to Diamond Beach and back while stopping at cool sites along on the way. Highly recommend the country, but plan accordingly for weather & prices. Key notes $$$ - food and much else is hella expensive, even at crappy places. Plan accordingly, grocery store meals or similar. Costco food court still cheap 😎 Kringum app was recommended by a local for…
You can lead a horse to make an anonymous feedback form, but how do you get the other horses to fill it out? - a wise sage I really enjoyed reading Cate Hall’s book “You Can Just Do Things” and loved the concept of getting anonymous feedback to help notice personal blind spots. It’s something I’ve noodled on before, so it immediately resonated when she suggested a…
Maybe my reality would be more aligned with my values if I tried to keep alternative metrics in mind, rather than falling back to the easiest existing metrics like money/net worth: Memory Dividends (from the “Die with Zero” author) Total number of people who I’ve made their life better Total number of times I’ve helped someone Amount of value I’ve created in the world…
“Metrics are useful because they compress information…They are dangerous, because they compress information.” -> source - C. Thi Nguyen, The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game.
Recently I was procrastinating and my brain was searching for something to latch onto. After seeing a picture for a pretty looking flight tracker, I was sunk. I HAD to have one. It would not leave my mind no matter how much I told myself that it was silly and I’d probably never look at it. “Ah, so obviously you had AI build you a quick snazzy version?” No. As far as I see it, AI…
Wealth in the modern era seems to be the privilege of disconnecting without consequence. Not having to be in a rush. Not having to be plugged into social media Having the funds to turn what could be life-changing problems for others into minor inconveniences for you (car breaks down, apartment floods, etc.). Not being directly in the line of fire for political changes
is it cool AI lets you build completely bespoke tools quickly? YES! did the majority of the population ever want that? Eh, not really. Regular people aren’t tinkerers, they don’t want to build their own personal apps. They already had the ability to do some form of this, if they wanted to, with Google Sheets, No Code apps, etc. For the same reason, self-hosters stay a tiny minority.…
TL;DR: what if PR review was as engaging & low-friction as TikTok? We’ve had a lot of innovation in AI agents producing more code, but I haven’t run across much in the way of innovation around how we do code review/PR review. The pace of new code is increasing, but humans reviewing are often still the bottleneck. The knee-jerk reaction I have to get ahead of is “jUsT hAVe AI…
My current approach to Agent Skills is to not include them unless I feel the pain without them. The majority of the time I’m running 1-3 instances of vanilla Claude Code. To be clear, I’m not against Skills usage. I pull in Skills that have clear value, like helping agents use specific tools more effectively (e.g. playwright-cli Skill) . My only hold up with AI Augments 1 is that so…
Can we make agents more reliable with better deterministic tooling?
I look forward to when tooling around AI agents has standardized to solve the common frustrations. One of those is trust that the reality of what it creates matches the plan we refined together. The features the agent & I are building get loaded into my mental model of the codebase, and each time I hit a situation where it only applied a concept to 1/2 the places it should have, I lose trust and…
I started playing with Claude Code a month ago, and to my horror I think I’ve been raw-dogging the experience with no protections. After hearing a few horror stories of important files being wiped, my incredibly risk-averse mind jumped into high gear looking for all the different ways to add layers of protection into using Claude on my personal machines. You will not catch me…
There’s this trend of Rust rewrites of tools that either make common tasks super fast or simplifed, and then they get significant adoption. It feels like some form of Jevons Paradox when making things run faster & people want to use it more. A few examples: ripgrep (2016) astgrep (2023) uv from Astral (2024) Warp.dev Probably numerous other instances of this trend continuing, especially now…
I am the bottleneck with AI development. I’ve been taking days polishing & perfecting my design doc for a new project because I want it to start from the “perfect” context. GAH. I’m hanging on to the optionality, since if I haven’t started yet, then if I just add enough AI Skills, enough notes, enough CLAUDE.md instructions, the repo will come out absolutely perfect…
Over time I’ve tried many different styles of to-do systems and apps, most of which have ended in the slow realization that I was stressed & the my version of the system was a flaming pile of crap (exhibit A: the “mountain of post-its” system ) . In my most recent flirtation with productivity, I’ve stumbled on a system that is working decently well at accomplishing the key…
I’m starting a new project, and I’m struggling with how much of it I should be writing by hand. I feel like a fraud if I use agentic engineering to develop it, but also that’s where the world is going. I think I’m afraid that people will view me as one of the people who vibe-codes a project in a couple prompts and then claims the work as their own. Part of this is deciding…
For a while I’ve been experiencing extreme slowness doing regular web browsing on my laptop, and it’s been frustrating the heck out of me. I use my desktop and work laptop on the same Wifi network, and they’re blazing fast, so what gives? I finally passed the threshold of discomfort enough to try to debug what’s happening. Debugging Windows Slowness To start, speed tests…
A creation so unfortunate, it has never been seen on the internet before. I asked the question “what if you could have a Chicago hot dog - but still have it compete in a pie competion?” . 🥇 Awards As I don’t enjoy baking in any form, I knew I’d only be able to compete on shock & humor factors. This recipe ended up outdoing my wildest dreams for it. This pie won not one,…
There’s a Midwest Archetype of couple I see in the Chicago/Milwaukee/Madison area, though it likely could be drawn to cover a much wider swathe: Met each other at a state school Married in their mid to late 20s Both have “email jobs”; e.g. they sit and work on laptops, maybe not fully remote but have flexibility to go home and visit family and work without taking PTO Bought a…
Living next to your friends is awesome. To be clear, I’m not talking just in the same city, or only a 15 min drive away - I’m saying on the same block, if not next door. My friend recently moved into our apartment building, and it unlocked so many events & adventures I hadn’t expected. Benefits of living next to friends Some of you will have experienced this in college, but less…
As someone who struggles to remember anything, I don’t have the luxury of trusting my brain to keep track of it. I’ve been a “docs guy” on every team I’ve ever been on, mainly because I am a sucky colleague asking dumb questions 100 times if I don’t. In the age of LLMs, if you document your application and the history of decisions that have grown it well,…
Now that LLMs have gotten relatively consistent at producing quality code in one shot (depending on the size & type of problem) , I’m having to retrain my brain to realize that I should: Be making many more throwaway one-off tools I should care about the UX of them since it’s basically free to invest an extra 1 minute in adding those nice touches into the prompt A simple example from…
I recently heard a podcast discussion about a man who uses AI tools to summarize 36 podcasts at a time, extract key insights, and then kickstart blog posts for him which are trained on his existing blog style. In the past, this idea would have hooked me. My instinct is to hoard information, if I can only collect enough wisdom fast enough it will make me smart & prepared for every eventuality. In…
So you’ve been hearing a lot of hype around Claude Code, Windsurf, etc about how it’s magic that can do your entire job in mere minutes - yet when you try integrating AI into your workflows, it just feels like super-fancy auto-complete? This is a skeptics review for other skeptics, so I won’t try to fluff things up or talk down to your experience, since I was in your exact shoes…
With modern tools, I could live my whole life in my apartment and not have to interact with any humans. Leases can be signed electronically. I can move in and have a car delivered to me. All my furniture, groceries, and other necessities are delivered silently. I can work remote jobs and keep my camera off at all times. We’ve made things so convenient that the world doesn’t require you…
The trope of the 10x Developer has been written about ad nauseum, but there’s another type you are more likely to meet in your career - the 0x Developer. What makes a 0x Developer? These are the folks who: Ask questions they could’ve answered with a single search Burn time and attention from teammates teaching them, but never learning Managed to become professionally paid developers without…
I saw an anecdotal study online recently which boiled down to “I lied to my hygienist about my flossing, and they couldn’t tell I was lying” . I love the energy exploring if conventional wisdom is actually useful, as well as the effort to actually put forth an investigation (yay citizen science!). Not to be a hater & poo-poo their efforts, but I do feel like their methodology…
General Links Github - see footer LinkedIn - see footer 💳 Credit Card & other referrals If they don’t work, it’s possible it’s been too long since I swapped them out - hmu if so. last updated: March 22, 2025 Chase Chase Ink Business - Unlimited, Cash, Premier, or Preferred Saphire Preferred or Reserve Freedom Flex or Unlimited Capital One Venture X Savor Amex Gold Blue Business®…
I began my career carrying a quiet conviction: I cared about the craft of coding in a way corporate drones didn’t. While they mindlessly churned out code to meet ticket requirements, I was obsessed with elegance, readability, and the ‘why’ behind every line. If you’d asked me, I would’ve said I was just passionate, not judgmental. But if I’m being honest, I knew the truth: I thought I…
I’m no expert on charisma, so I can’t teach you to be the next suave slick scooter, but I can at least showcase a few pitfalls I’ve watched people barrel-roll into when spending time with me. What’s your passion? Oh, I don’t care This is such a huge charisma-killer, everything else seems like small optimizations, so if you only take away one thing please make it be…
I want to have a concrete piece of writing I can look back on that details the business values that resonate with me, and that I would be proud to have my name attached to an organization that follows them. Core Values Killer hospitality Borrow from the ideas of “Unreasonable Hospitality” and make our customers feel like wealthy people do at fine establishments. “Manage 95…
At my day job, I work on a team that builds internal software products for a (somewhat) captive audience 1 . Our product’s unorthodox history allows us to inject a dash of fun, and avoid the traps that often befall captive-audience software - like being a complete suck-fest to use. This approach pays off - our product consistently ranks as one of the most enjoyable to use company-wide. We…
A few languages that I’ve stumbled on recently that I find very interesting - they aren’t general purpose like Python - they do what it says on the tin, and do it well. I think I’m also drawn to these languages because they often have great documentation that makes them seem like an attractive tool to work with. Sieve - server-side mail filtering A language built for filtering…
There I was, vomiting for the 10th time into not just one, but two different sinks, all while managing to avoid the obvious target of the toilet. This was, to put it mildly, not my best moment. It sounds overly dramatic to call it a “turning point”, as my alcohol consumption was average or less, but it was the moment in time when I started to make changes. I’ve now been…
You’ve probably seen the ads from Youtubers, podcasts, and more for data removal services - they’ve been marketing heavily lately, at least in my neck of the internet. These services want you to believe they are the heroes protecting you from Big Bad Data Brokers and scrubbing your data from the internet. The intentions aren’t necessarily bad, but much like TurboTax, the…
As a city dweller, you must quickly learn the invaluable skill of dodging dog poop on the sidewalk. I used to think everyone felt the same way 1 on the issue, i.e. poop on sidewalk = bad . Since sidewalk hazards seem to be as constant in life as death & taxes, there MUST be another side to the story that I am not seeing. Every human is the hero of their own story , after all. That said, I have yet…
Don’t be shy, come say hi! I welcome constructive feedback, suggestions of articles/people to read, or if you’re just practicing the muscle for cold emailing . I try to respond to everyone that reaches out with a good faith effort & isn’t spam or an AI bot. How to reach me My proxy email address at kevinquinnfun@notxss.anonaddy.com Twitter DMs 🐦 - I check this a lot less now,…
I’m turning off traffic analytics for my personal blog. It’s a journey back to the heart of writing, finding solace in the quiet, and rekindling the pleasure of writing without the pressure of numbers. Why did i add them? I originally added privacy-first analytics to my personal blog with the intention to add extra motivation to my growing writing habit. In my head, being able to see…
A collection of the best newsletters & articles I’ve encountered, so I can 1) easily remember them, and 2) easily share them. Also the living stream of articles that I felt were worth sharing. Newsletters I subscribe to hundreds of newsletters that pour into my email inbox. This is a short list of the ones that have consistently caught & held my attention out of the sea of content: Bits…
The lack of a system is still a system. ME: “What do you MEAN you don’t have a To-Do list app?!” I have spent way too many hours reading productivity books, organizing, and trying to optimize the systems that run my life. I have my calendar, To-Do list app, reminders, my “Second Brain” in Obsidian & Notion, SOPs, and more. I’m stuck in my productivity/systems…
Critical information locked away in institutional knowledge (previously known as “tribal knowledge”) has cropped up in every workplace I’ve ever been a part of, and no one seems to have good solutions for it - whether that’s a team of 2, or a team of 50,000. This is my living reference doc for to explore potential ways to reduce the amount of institutional knowledge a group…
I was listening to the interview with Pieter Levels on MFM , and was struck by his approach to avoiding potential frustrations, since they could derail his ability to spend time on what matters. It feels like the default in the U.S. is to collect responsibilities into your life that eat up your energy & time. I was very impressed by the choices that he makes in his life & towards the things in his…
I saw “The Man in the Arena” - and he wears LED-tipped gloves and a snazzy hooded boxer’s robe. The “Man in the Arena” hidden in plain-sight At a fratty bar on the UW-Madison campus, I saw him. Sitting alone and drinking a beer, gloves powered-off and resting at his side, waiting for the right song. I was unsure what to think, and went back to chatting with my…
TL;DR: Slack is shutting down the functionality that powers the open-source app I built for Workflow Builder , their Nocode automation tool. I (hopefully) learned some lessons about what makes a good problem, the joy of enthusiastic customers, time-sensitive opportunities, and platform risk. In 2018, Slack acquired a neat app , then released it in 2019 as a Nocode automation platform ( Workflow…
When developing, I keep running into situations where it turns out better to separate the decision making logic vs the actual actions that arise from it. Benefits of separating A couple clear benefits have popped out when I separate decisions from actions: Simpler to test Logic to make a decision is often self-contained & stateless, and can be written with few, if any, dependencies. You can pass…
Update Mar 2026 I haven’t used Dex in a couple years at this point, although I still have the account. I found I wasn’t really using Dex to record notes on interactions or what I talked about with people. I still like the idea of being able to quickly find all the people who match a concept, e.g. find all my friends who like churning credit cards, or who would find this article about…
This is a simple serverless design pattern that has come in handy numerous times during my career. The problem: I need to process a large amount of data through a Lambda and am running into timeouts even at 15 minutes - or maybe I just need the process to hurry itself along. Serverless Batch Processing The design pattern only requires a single Lambda, with a conditional variable in the input that…
I was recently walking past Equinox, the fancy $250/mo gym, and was thinking about at what level of income you’d have to be at for that to be a no-brainer, “Starbucks coffee” -level, decision. As a somewhat regular person (or so I’d like to think) the idea of paying for such an expensive gym (the one down the road charges only $40/mo) seems insane - but if you make a metric…
I naively thought I could apply the same complex & scalable solutions used by actual companies to my side projects. I thought it would save me time and headaches in the future. I was wrong. Having spent plenty of time living with my choices, I wish I would have started off following a few simple tenets: 🤴Simplicity is king Why? You have limited time and attention. The more crap you add (lines of…