Istanbul notes
Human resiliency fascinates me. Expats in Europe say the Turkish inflation is not too bad, Istanbul people say it's really bad.
hazn
i am hazn, although, emphasis not mine
Latest posts
You will get the stupid version
Some ideas get adopted by the mainstream, and inevitably lose nuance during the adoption. Aka the mainstream gets the stupid version of the idea.
hazn's 6 (7) rules for young CS graduates
At 30 years old, I am saddened that I beat all of my computer science students when it comes to AI workflows.
Bittersweet
I have a British lad in my head going "bit bittersweet, innit?" on all these things.
roon on analytical thinking
humans are really not built for first principles analytical thinking. even smart people find it incredibly exhausting.
Aesthetics of 2026
In Q2 2026, you should either max out being a specialist or max out being a messy/composer/glue layer. Here is some inspo for messymaxxing.
What I've been reading - 2026-06-12
Links and notes from June 12, 2026.
The Retroactive Redemption Pattern
They really thought they were cookin'. Arguing against crackpots (and the fans they've gathered) is a losing battle, as losing is overdetermined. This post documents one reason why: The Retroactive Redemption Pattern.
Performance mantras
Most advice on performance will only help you to get better incrementally. Here are some mantras I think are undervalued for true breakthroughs 🧘.
Three things I believe
consume guilt free, compound everything, recover faster from the inevitable crashdown.
Repeating the phrase "taste is the differentiator" will not benefit you
AI has a new fool's trap each year.
Just stop using these
phrases that never achieve anything, ever
On snobbery
I'm a MacBook snob, I have declined attractive job offers because they only allowed Windows machines for work.
Roon on historic times
the thing about living through history is, they don’t prepare you for how cringe it’ll all be
Smoking is ass-backwards meditation
You take a hit, you focus on your breath, you let your mind run, the coffee tastes better, the cigarette burns up your throat in just the perfect way.
Office zazen
Zen's minimalist aesthetic is timeless.
Jensen on loser mindset
The premise that even if we competed in China, that we're going to lose that market anyways… You're not talking to somebody who woke up a loser.
Cold hearts on heated floors
Or: What do you do, spiritually, with a psychopath roommate?
One step at a time
I just ran a marathon without real training.
Jane Austen
To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love
The always-be-moving-forward trick for getting out of bed and getting good grades
My trick for getting out of the bed is to keep moving. One leg out of the blanket, then one arm, then the other leg. You will be out of the bed before you know it.
On intelligence
Knowledge is knowing your discarded toenails contain keratin, which in turn, contains nitrogen. And that your living room plants need nitrogen.
Bucket list: 40 for 40
Two months until thirty. Ten years until forty. Forty things I want to experience in between:
ruminous fee
i have tried prudent planning long enough
The underrated benefits of always having oatmeal at lunch
For me, eating oatmeal at lunch every day is almost a spiritual experience.
How does your country pronounce "Wi-Fi"?
International flights, connect me to the Wi-Fi
The Ozempic theory of societal change
Ozempic is the moment society stops pretending that discipline alone should govern the body.
Nasreddin on the Djinn of Algebra
A young man rushed to Nasreddin Hodja's house, breathless and wide-eyed.
No days off
In the theme of 2026 and new habits, here's what worked for me: the no days off principle.
On online psychopaths
Why giving good universal advice can be bad or I wish I could pre-filter psychopaths
Two tweets for twenty-sixteen
Two tweets for twenty-sixteen
All my criticism applies to myself, also
I don't want to come across as negative, though I know some posts might read that way.
The Exemption Outsourcing Pattern
Two observations about how people interact with differing opinions they encounter:
On deathbed advice/regret
A common social media trope is posting advice from people on their deathbed.
Evaluating big life choices might be overrated
Two simple observations and my own two cents
Bureaucracy enables envy, envy begets bureaucracy
The classic explanation of growing bureaucracy inside an organization is that the people who benefit from the processes (i.e., bureaucrats) have an...
Against auto-update
People flip out over rearranged or occupied desks at work.
Timeboxd
We fetishize time, let's put it in a nice dress
The vasocomputational model for meditation
You could see meditation as mental stretching: standard intellectual skills are like training for grip strength, you get better at grasping concepts, but...
Munger and Godbolt rules for explaining the world
You can never make any explanation that can be made in a more fundamental way in any other way than the most fundamental way.
In defense of autism
It is hardly possible to overrate the value, in the present low state of human improvement, of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to...
A simple definition of simple
My life changed when I learned what simple really means. Simple comes from simplex. The opposite of complex. Complex comes from complex, the verb that...
Assumptions in apps
Let me decide what's best for me
Underrated reasons to be grateful: podcasts
That "subscribe wherever you get your podcasts" is a miracle
Sigal Samuel on Indra's net
Sigal Samuel making some great observations about boundary setting culture:
Ruminating on read receipts
Why the two ticks mean so much
The allure and failure of knowledge graphs
Knowledge graphs are one of the sexiest sounding methods in theory.
The case for preserving case
A short story of going against your elders, while being accepting of their ways
My personal, stubborn attachments
Tyler Cowen's book Stubborn Attachments lays out "a vision for a society of free, prosperous, and responsible individuals".
Don't make me wait
It's 2025, after signing up for an app or website with your e-mail address, you wait to receive the "verify your account" message in your e-mail inbox.