"Al has joined your family"
I set up OpenClaw on my old MacBook and created a child Apple ID for it, allowing me to chat with it over iMessage. The result feels surprisingly human.
npilk // Notes
Hi, I'm Nathan Pilkenton. I'm currently based in Nashville, TN, and I create business strategies at IA Collaborative. These are my notes.
Latest posts
Experiments with AI adblock
What happens when AI models that can interpret text, audio, and video just like humans do can review content and filter out any undesirable messages?
Ten thousand agents
I believe the future of AI won't be one godlike superintelligent model, but thousands of nearly-free micro-agents constantly meeting hyper-specific needs.
ChatGPT is my static site generator
Instead of using a static site generator, I just copy and paste a new post and an example of an old post into ChatGPT. It's super easy and extremely flexible, with no setup required.
We don't notice slow improvement
Technologies take off before they're perfected, and we anchor to those early versions. But over time, they are quietly optimized until one day, they just work - and we hardly notice.
A color for every day
To make daily updates feel different from one day to the next, I generated a unique color combination for every day of the year.
If you have to optimize, it isn't good enough
Success is determined by your initial conditions, not whatever improvements you can make on the margin.
Personal data is everywhere in public
I accidentally 'doxxed' a stranger on a plane today.
Monthly resolutions
A few years ago, instead of a New Year's resolution, I experimented with setting twelve: one for each month of the year. I liked it much more than setting traditional resolutions, and I'm planning to try it again this year.
Writing for Others
I've written a short guide to more effective business writing, with a focus on how keeping the reader in mind can help you better communicate your ideas. Read on for the introduction, which gives a brief overview of my perspective and the book's content. You can also download the entire (short) book for free as an epub or PDF.
The personal big screen
I believe the near future of AR is simply a 'personal big screen' for viewing content streamed from other devices, and that this future is much closer than many think.
Customizing web search with LLMs
Updating my custom search system to route some queries to GPT-3.5-turbo using the OpenAI API, while still routing others to different search engines.
Unearthing lessons from 2008: My first Mac apps
I reminisce about the first software I ever shipped - a pair of Mac apps created when I was in high school. Despite their simplicity and flaws, these apps gained surprising popularity, leading me to reflect on the lessons I can learn from their success and apply to my current projects.
How to get better at everything
I believe that learning to read and write faster can improve the quality of your work beyond what most people would expect.
Radically user-centered design
Most product teams have a mandate to put the user first. Based on the state of the web, that seems more like empty lip service than a serious design principle. But I believe truly user-centric digital product design is possible.
Building on email
I believe services that extend email have great benefits for users compared to web- or app-first solutions.
Taking the internet off the hook
Using a Raspberry Pi and a cheap door sensor to restrict my internet access when I take an old landline phone off the hook.
Customizing web search
I use a simple Cloudflare Worker script to automatically redirect my search queries based on keywords I've chosen.
Seamless web analytics without Javascript
Using GoAccess and shell scripts for easy, Javascript-free, and privacy-respecting site analytics.