“You can just do things” is one of my favorite meme phrases that I see out there.

Back around my senior year of high school, I consciously decided to shift to that mindset. I went from kind of operating within rules, and trying to leave a light touch around me, to being more assertive and creative about what I want to do. It was kind of a quiet “I’m not locked in here with you, you’re locked in here with me” vibe shift.

At the time I think the terminology I filtered it through was Sagan’s pale blue dot. Like, everything that has ever been done is on this crazy little ball spinning through space. So it’s okay to just do things, to take chances, to think outside of the box. Because the box itself is already actually kind of crazy.

And then in the mid-2010s, like around 2016, I did kind of a checkup on how I’m doing, and felt that while I had used that strategy well, I wasn’t thinking big enough. I had primarily used that strategy to climb up the ranks in the engineering world, with the goal of making things better for myself and my colleagues/division; I would just do things and be the person who pushed to say “yes” a lot and it had worked out really well.

But for my next phase, I felt I needed to “just do things” outside of an organizational structure as well.

So I started my namesake website. I previously had a small anon website on stock investing which I was able to sell to some publisher and that gave me experience, but this one would be different. It would have my face on it.

Any sort of content creator starts by being a little crazy. It starts with the improbable concept that you could create written or audio or visual content that thousands or millions of people will actually want to see and get value out of, in the sea of endless content that already exists.

But it starts somewhere. With just doing things. My view was that I would do my best, leverage the experience that I had, and give it my honest shot.

Never looked back since. It’s been a wild journey.

Overtargeting is a communication strategy that political parties use to ensure the target population complies.

During COVID, governments required universal vaccination, even though the primary benefits (preventing ER visits) were for elders and the immunocompromised. The goal was to make elders think, "If even healthy people need this, I better get mine quickly." This tactic worked and probably did saved lives (we will never know), but at the cost of widespread distrust in vaccine recommendations.

The Trump administration is doing the same with immigrants. By overtargeting — jailing and deporting people for saying the wrong thing (and tattoos) — they get everybody else to fear for their actions and fall in line, regardless of whether they have done anything wrong or not. It's the same story all over again.

Overtargeting is a lie. And just like any lie, it exchanges short-term results for long-term trust. Once you break that trust, there is no easy way back.

Personally, I don't feel very safe criticizing the administration right now — a feeling I never thought possible in this country.

that's good to know, so at least I'm not doing it all for nothing

I wonder how long I’ll have to wait to buy a reasonably priced machine capable of running cutting edge reasoning models. Fook an OpenAI API, but $10k is too much

Bicentennial Man. One of Robin Williams best starrings.

-What’s a movie from the past 25 years that hasn’t gotten enough attention in your view? Something that punches way above its weight. 😇

-The spicier question. What’s a movie from that same time period that is very popular, including kind of in your own social circle, that you think is kind of mid or overrated but it’s too awkward to say, but you’ll drop it in a Nostr comment? 😈

If AI doesn't make a dev like me obsolete, there is no point on any of it. Full steam ahead!

Asking questions to the elder generation, patiently explaining, and even being happy to show how to.

Asking questions to the younger generation, some of them simply said ask AI.

I don't think AI is really the problem here; the problem is people think AI can actually be like a living human to teach you things, thinking and adapting, and sharing from experience.

The 2035 $5-wrench attack will be hacking home robots to hold occupants hostage until they pay a Bitcoin randsome

yeah, caffeine is one of the worst things ever... i don't think Terrence McKenna really fully gave it the treatment it deserves, but he was pretty down on it.

it's like slave juice

never going back

what is even more important for me is that it is making me less irritable being without it, which makes my life a lot easier, because omg i have become so salty this last few years and this is taking the edge off so i can focus on overcoming the enemy

i've only just started upping my beef intake to primary diet lately, kicked out the coffee, i'm feeling pretty damn awesome, i'm doing better, more consistent work, and ironically i'm sleeping less and feeling overall stronger, but it takes time to fully accumulate, especially when you old like me

the normie food makes me so sick in so many ways i can't go back