1/22/2025

9:26pm

I want to develop an AI agent/system that allows me to input my writing (particularly the my logs), and it surfaces suggestions for commonalities, categories, and potential subject matter.

9:21pm

Is an radically transparent auto repair shop that focuses on repairable modern Japanese (aka reliable, easy to find parts) a viable business model? In the spirit of Shop Class as Soulcraft, I would love to run a reputable, dependable, trustworthy mom-and-pop repair shop (not a monopoly), that focuses on delivering the best work and customer service and has no intention of maximize value for any external stakeholders.

9:16pm

We've all been tricked into buying the identity upgrade that comes with a "pro" product, despite the gains being so marginal that its not worth the extra cost. Ali Abdaal talked about this in one of his iPad reviews, saying that most people don't need to Pro version of it. I'm curious to determine where this first started—Apple has perfected it—but I think it was with car companies like Toyota or Mini Cooper offering upgrades the double the sticker price of the same underlying car.

5:36pm

Watch Duty as gleaming example of resourceful use of technology (backed by a values-driven founder), that does a better than the government ever could. Collating accessible APIs, available data and presenting to users.

1:27pm

Intrigued to do observational creative expression (writing, photography). Work that forces me to keep my eyes open to things hiding in plain sight in day-to-day life; the paradoxes, the themes, commonalities, the absurdities. To see things in a way that we hadn't before.

1:12pm

The modern tech playbook is to do something at a loss to gain customers, often that skirts regulation or uses public subsidies or public goods. And once they have their claws in their customers, they stop focusing on making the product good, and they turn to making it something that maximizes shareholder, stakeholder value.

1/21/2025

8:48am

The world’s biggest streaming subscription service has been on a blockbuster run lately, its share price rising by more than 80% last year. Netflix’s quarterly earnings, due on Tuesday, will probably contain more good news for shareholders. Subscriber growth is easing off, as the platform nears 300m members. But operating margins are widening as Netflix raises prices and builds up its advertising business.

Netflix enshittification in full swing. While subscriber growth flattens out, they will make their product worse and squeeze more money out of their existing customers while simultaneously abusing their monopoly position. I bet they eventually start selling customer watching habit data to ad brokers.

7:58 AM

I want to create different GPTs/agents for the various tasks I handle through the day. Inspired by Ali Abdaals's idea sparring partner, Stoic's agents (Plato, Maya, Frida, etc). I'd like to use them for my daily journaling, for thinking through a fleeting idea in more depth (and getting prompts to explore further), for working through thought traps, for helping me with my weekly reviews.

1/20/2025

11:28 AM

Is it too limiting to think that quality storytelling must be confined to prose? That using visuals is too much of an aid to viewer? That not enough is left open to interpretation?

11:22 AM

I want to remove the pressure on myself to make money from my creative hobbies. It pollutes my psyche.

1/17/2025

7:46pm

The idea that's forming in my head recently is how much our digital dependency has been supercharged recently in terms of technology companies convincing us we need a new tool and that that thing will always make stuff better. And more and more it's about locking people into some proprietary closed off system.

6:47 AM

This about face that I've been having with technology stuff is that it's related to this pervasive mentality that everything needs a technological solution without considering the autonomy, upgrade cycles agency that we turn over to these companies with growth values that are likely different than ours. Doing things that are quality and that stand the test of time and that exist in the real world tangibly.