Brian's Corner

This is the beginning

2026-08-03T02:35:26.000Z

Welcome

to my little corner of the Internet.

Hi.

This is a mix of a blog and personal wiki. It's a place for me to:

Comment on media I've consumed
Share about my interests and personal projects
Document viewpoints or aspects of my life that I want to share with the world

You can Subscribe For Email Updates if you'd like to stay tuned.

I recommend looking at the hierarchy of topics and seeing what catches your interest, or use the Random Note button below, or pick from the list of recently updated posts.

Suggested starting points:

For more explanation: What Is This
For monthly musings / what I've been up to: What's Up

Pages here come in different flavors:

Some are more polished, traditional blog posts or reviews
Some are smaller notes, lists, or quick thoughts
Some are placeholder pages that I'll expand on later. Generally any page might be in-progress and subject to change or be added to.

The Lesson of the Time Bike

2026-10-12T02:08:46.000Z

If you skip past the bad, you may also skip past the good (or the important).

As a teenager, I read The Time Bike by Jane Langton. The main character is a kid in school, and he found a bike that can fast forward himself through time. It's not exactly time travel -- he, or at least a version of himself, still goes through his life without being "away", so to speak. But his consciousness moves forward past those events, so he isn't actually consciously experiencing them.

He uses this to skip past an exam for a class at school. Using the time bike will let him skip ahead to after he's already taken the test -- so he doesn't have to live through the bore and stress of preparing for and taking the test.

But when he arrives on the other end, he finds out that he took the test... and failed it.

Apparently the un-time-bike version of himself (who still lived linearly through his life while his consciousness skipped ahead) did not adequately study for the exam and just did not do well.

Presumably, if he hadn't skipped ahead, he would have studied for the exam and done well on it. But I guess you can't predict what the un-self will do.

This lesson has floated in my head since I read the book, and it occasionally comes to mind for one reason or another -- usually when I imagine that I want to skip ahead past something boring, stressful, or troublesome. But the lesson of the Time Bike reminds me that I must live through the events moment by moment, and be fully present, and not turn away in fear, hesitancy, or timidity -- it is through my complete presence that things will come to pass in the way that they must. If I am not there, if some un-self version of me is there instead, then I may not like the result once I arrive on the other end. I may also miss out on positive aspects of the experience which I should want my conscious mind to live through.

The lesson of the Time Bike is that you should not use the Time Bike.

Solar Punk

2026-06-29T01:44:38.000Z

I've come across this concept a couple times, and it's extremely appealing and aligns with my hopes for the future, especially as a contrast to how the current dominant systems in the world's governments work.

But what if there is something good to look forward to? A future where technological advancements and the power of industry can be used for the good of mankind and our planet.
~"A Comprehensive Guide to Solarpunk Fashion (For Beginners)" (channel: Patchwork Television):

Interactive Narrative

2026-08-23T15:12:22.000Z

Concept from Ready Player One -- you enter a movie in VR and you have to play along as one of the characters in the movie, say the right lines, etc.
Rick and Morty S8E7 ("Ricker Than Fiction") reminded me of this too (though they mess with the plot)

It has occasionally crossed my mind that LLM-based AI could probably get us to something similar. I asked ChatGPT if there are any current research/projects around this.

Pasting ChatGPT's answer in the meantime before I explore the specific links further.

[!INFO]- ChatGPT
(ME): "are there any projects/research about: "ai to put yourself into a movie"
like, ai re-enacts a movie script and you take over the role of a character and if you make changes, the plot changes? or reenacting in VR like in ready player one?"
(CHATGPT:)
Yes. The field is usually described as LLM-based interactive drama, generative interactive narrative, playable television, or interactive generative video.

No polished system yet fully combines:

an existing feature film;

you physically or vocally performing one character;

AI actors performing everyone else;

unrestricted deviations from the script;

a coherent newly generated plot; and

real-time cinematic VR.

Several projects are surprisingly close to individual parts of that idea.

Closest direct research

1. From Role-Play to Drama-Interaction

This is probably the closest academic match to what you described. The player enters a known story, assumes the role of one character, speaks or takes actions, and interacts with characters controlled by an LLM.

The researchers built demonstrations based on Detective Conan, Harry Potter, and Romeo and Juliet.

Their “Narrative Chain” system tries to keep the original dramatic progression intact while still responding to the player—a central problem in your idea: what happens when Harry refuses to go somewhere, warns someone early, or otherwise breaks the screenplay?

From Role-Play to Drama-Interaction: An LLM Solution

A 2025 follow-up studies:

immersion: feeling present inside the story;

agency: genuinely influencing the story rather than merely choosing dialogue;

adapting NPC reactions to the player’s intentions while retaining dramatic structure.

Follow-up paper on immersion and agency in drama interaction

These experiments are primarily dialogue-driven rather than photorealistic movies or VR, but conceptually they are almost exactly your proposal.

2. IBSEN

IBSEN divides the AI into a director agent and multiple actor agents.

The director maintains the overall plot, while the actor agents portray individual characters. When a human enters and changes events, the director can revise the plan and redirect the actors toward a new dramatic objective.

That “AI director repairs the movie after you disrupt it” architecture is likely how a practical version would work.

IBSEN: Director-Actor Agent Collaboration for Interactive Narrative

3. StoryVerse and WhatELSE

Autodesk Research’s StoryVerse generates “living stories” from high-level plot outlines, character simulations, and the changing state of the story world.

The plot is co-created by the author, simulated characters, and player rather than selected from a fixed branching tree.

StoryVerse

Its successor, WhatELSE, lets an author establish a range of permissible alternate plots.

For example, a studio might decide:

“The detective may accuse different suspects, lose evidence, or become allied with the villain—but the story must remain a murder mystery and eventually reveal the conspiracy.”

The system then produces playable events inside those boundaries.

This is particularly relevant to adapting films because it provides something between a completely fixed script and unrestricted AI improvisation.

WhatELSE

4. NarrativePlay and Open-Theatre

NarrativePlay converts existing narratives into environments where the user selects a fictional character, explores the story, and converses with AI-controlled characters.

It extracts personalities and major events from the source narrative and adds generated settings and character portraits.

NarrativePlay: Interactive Narrative Understanding

Open-Theatre, published in 2025, is an open-source toolkit specifically for constructing LLM-based interactive dramas.

It is a more practical starting point for experimentation than most research-only systems.

Open-Theatre: An Open-Source Toolkit for LLM-Based Interactive Drama

5. STAGE

The 2026 STAGE benchmark focuses on whether AI can understand entire movie screenplays well enough to construct character relationships, track events, and perform in-script character role-playing.

It contains structured material covering 150 English- and Chinese-language films.

It is not itself an interactive movie, but it addresses a prerequisite: the AI needs a reliable internal model of what everyone knows, where they are, what has happened, and how each character should behave at every point in the film.

STAGE: Screenplay Understanding and Character Role-Playing

The closest actual consumer product: Showrunner

Fable Studio’s Showrunner is currently one of the most direct visual implementations.

Users can:

create or remix animated television scenes;

upload themselves or friends as characters;

place those characters into a show’s world;

provide instructions for what happens next;

generate scenes or episodes rather than merely receiving text.

The app describes itself as serialized AI storytelling and explicitly offers the ability to “put yourself in the show.”

Showrunner app

Showrunner Agents research

Showrunner is not yet “act continuously inside the movie.” You prompt or remix a scene and then wait for it to be generated.

It currently works best for relatively self-contained animated episodes, especially formats where characters can reset between installments, rather than a causally complex two-hour movie that continually branches.

Its creators nevertheless frame the eventual concept as making films and television playable, including putting yourself into an existing fictional world and generating alternate continuations.

The visual technology is beginning to catch up

Runway’s 2026 Characters system can generate a responsive, expressive video character in real time from a single reference image.

A language model and voice system control the conversation while Runway generates the character’s visible performance.

That could eventually supply the AI “actors” in this kind of experience.

Runway Characters

Runway’s Game Worlds research is more directly aimed at nonlinear experiences where users explore characters, stories, and environments generated with AI.

It is still an experimental hybrid rather than a convincing cinematic world.

Runway Game Worlds

CinemaWorld, a 2026 mixed-reality research system, extracts objects and effects from a film and extends them spatially into the viewer’s physical surroundings on a Quest 3.

It does not alter the story, but it shows how an ordinary 2D movie could be converted into a spatial experience.

CinemaWorld

What is still missing

The main obstacle is no longer merely generating dialogue. A complete system must simultaneously maintain:

Narrative causality: If you prevent an early death, every later scene dependent on that death must be reconsidered.

Character knowledge: Someone cannot react to information they have not learned in the altered timeline.

Character arcs: Characters should evolve according to what has happened rather than act like static chatbots.

Long-term visual continuity: Faces, clothing, rooms, props, injuries, and spatial arrangements must remain consistent.

Real-time generation: VR generally cannot pause several minutes whenever you speak.

Dramatic quality: Total freedom often produces shapeless role-play rather than something satisfying as a movie.

Rights and consent: Commercially inserting users into recognizable films would require licenses covering the story world, characters, performances, voices, likenesses, and generated variations.

Researchers in interactive generative video still identify real-time rendering, persistent memory, long-horizon coherence, physics, and causal reasoning as major unsolved problems.

Interactive Generative Video survey

What a plausible near-term version would look like

The first convincing version probably would not generate photorealistic video from scratch.

It would likely use:

a licensed movie screenplay converted into a scene and causal graph;

a game-engine reconstruction of the sets;

AI-controlled character agents;

an AI “director” that maintains dramatic goals;

voice input and VR body tracking for the player;

fixed or motion-captured animation augmented by generative facial performance;

dynamic dialogue and moderately flexible alternate scenes.

In other words, it would initially resemble immersive theater inside a video game, not a perfectly regenerated Hollywood movie.

Fully generated video could gradually replace the game-engine layer as interactive world models become more stable.

The research phrase most likely to produce useful results is:

“LLM-based interactive drama with player agency and embodied virtual characters”

Closely related searches include:

generative drama management

interactive narrative planning

story-world simulation

playable television

interactive generative video

High level points from ChatGPT i'm curious to explore more about:

"Their “Narrative Chain” system tries to keep the original dramatic progression intact while still responding to the player—a central problem in your idea: what happens when Harry refuses to go somewhere, warns someone early, or otherwise breaks the screenplay?"
"IBSEN divides the AI into a director agent and multiple actor agents. The director maintains the overall plot; the actor agents portray individual characters. When a human enters and changes events, the director can revise the plan and redirect the actors toward a new dramatic objective."
"WhatELSE, lets an author establish a range of permissible alternate plots"
"The 2026 STAGE benchmark focuses on whether AI can understand entire movie screenplays well enough to construct character relationships, track events and perform in-script character role-playing."
"Runway’s Game Worlds research is more directly aimed at nonlinear experiences where users explore characters, stories and environments generated with AI"
- Sounds similar to the Ender's Game VR world simulation

Ender's Infinite Game

2026-08-01T01:41:16.000Z

AI Person Simulation

2026-08-08T20:10:04.000Z

Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior — Park et al. (2023)
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.03442
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY5Wncq5vAE
- Experiment - simulated a small town called "Smallville" with a bunch (couple dozen?) of characters - only input from the start is small character bios. Agents then live out their day to day lives and have interactions with each other. There is some emerging social behavior in the agents, like dissemination of information through the community, and collective gathering.
- Important components
  - Memory - each agent has a list of actions/observations representing what it's done, said, etc
  - Reflections - to help the AI to make decisions without the huge context of full list of memories. Series of observations are turned into a tree of 'reflections': e.g. "Character A is reading a book" + "Character A visits the library" --> reflection: "Character A likes to read".
  - Planning - agents show more believable behavior if they follow long-term plans which guide their actions/decisions. e.g. could be at the scale of one day (plan is what they'll do that day), then they break it down into more granular chunks, for every hour and then every 5-15 minutes. They also give the option for editing plan if circumstances change, e.g. someone else has a conversation with them in the middle of the day.
  - In the simulation, the human can intervene and ask the characters questions (acting as the 'reporter'), they can influence the character's actions by acting as the 'inner voice', and they can also directly take control over the character.
Agentopia: Long-Term Life Simulation and Learning in Agent Societies — Wang et al. (June 2026)
- https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.07513
- html https://arxiv.org/html/2606.07513v1

brianiscool.tk

2025-12-10T01:13:09.000Z

#project

This website was one of the first coding projects I worked on, back in high school. My version of a portfolio but a bit silly.

I originally hosted it using a webhost called 000webhost (I don't think it exists anymore) and Freenom for a free domain name (probably free because it was for non-traditional domain endings, like ".tk" or ".cw"). Eventually I forgot to keep renewing the domain and probably the hosting broke at some point, but luckily I had the original source files saved locally (or maybe on Github actually) so I turned it into a Github Pages site which is mostly functional to what it was originally like.

https://briancherin.github.io/brianiscool/

Scavenger hunt / things to watch out for:

Random color generator (not on the homepage!)
Farm animal game (weirdly fun but eventually not balanced)
Bee Haven game (warning that this is not particularly mobile-friendly but it'll still work)
Try not to fall into the Trap (the curse of 100 alert dialogs)

Restaurant AI VR Simulation

2025-12-09T23:29:47.000Z

#project #miniproject

Oh My Rockness Genre Enrichment

2026-06-27T22:08:10.000Z

Oh My Rockness is a website that lists music shows in NYC. It also lets you filter by shows that are free to attend. I've never actually attended a show through the site, but I've wanted to.

My one qualm with it is that it does not easily show the genre of the bands or a description of the kind of music they play. There are so many event listings that it's hard to make a choice of which I might be interested in.

For a while, I've had an idea floating in my mind to create some way to easily tell what the genres of the bands are.

Today I decided to have an AI coding session to come up with a solution. And it worked out pretty well!

It scrapes from ohmyrockness as you flip through the dates, and pulls genre data from Spotify and Last.fm. Also includes a convenient link to the artist in Spotify. It took about an hour to spin this up.

It's locally only, and currently I don't plan to host it anywhere, but we'll see. For one thing, I'd worry that ohmyrockness would not be happy about a mirror of their site. Maybe a browser extension to augment the existing ohmyrockness site with genre data would be better than hosting a standaline webapp. But for now, this tool perhaps will be useful to me. (I do sense there is a flaw for my local setup in that it must be run on my laptop, and there may be times when I want to know about current music events from my phone while I'm on-the-go. Maybe I'll be motivated to host this somewhere small just for my own use.)

Anyone can set this up locally if desired -- you just need a Spotify and/or Last.FM API key. Note that Spotify API requires a premium account, but Last.FM is free and it should work with just that.

Note - this may be buggy and imperfect. Haven't tested it thoroughly.

Code is on Github: https://github.com/briancherin/ohmyrockness-genre-enrichment

Mini Projects

2026-08-01T01:41:16.000Z

#coding #project #miniproject

GPT Meal Planner

2026-04-21T04:31:40.000Z

The idea: An AI-driven Discord bot that would prompt me once on the weekend to ask me what kind of recipes I wanted to make during the week, and then prompt me each weekday morning if I wanted to work on preparing one of the recipes that day. Since I work from home, the goal was for the AI to break up a recipe into small chunks that I could slowly prep during breaks from work (since I work from home).

I implemented pretty much the above, but I didn't end up using it like I thought I would. Perhaps it wasn't feeling as useful as I thought it would be, perhaps it just wasn't the right solution for me, or perhaps I was too lazy to interact with it how I thought I might've.

I decommissioned it because I stopped using it / wanting to use it.

There were also some flaws. The breakdown of a recipe into chunks didn't always make sense. I made this in mid-2024. Probably GPT was up to v3. I bet if I used today's models, the chunking would be better. Could eventually explore this or revisit the idea.

I also found myself using it mainly to generate recipes, rather than really using it for the time-based prep chunking. I obviously could have just used the ChatGPT UI to accomplish the same thing, which would save me AWS costs from having to keep the bot server running (and OpenAI API costs, but at my usage it would be miniscule). That being said, I did like having essentially one Discord thread acting as a log of what I was cooking. Though, I also felt friction because I would have a recipe generated in Discord but wouldn't have it copied over to OneNote where I kept other recipes saved.

Here's an example interaction with the bot.

[!note]- Example conversation with the bot

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:00 AM
Hi there! I'd love to help you plan your meals for the week. Could you tell me two dishes you're thinking about cooking?

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:09 AM
Vegan Sweet potato brownies. I dont want to specify a recipe. Give me more vegan meal ideas

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:09 AM
Vegan Sweet Potato Brownies sound delicious and healthy! I'll provide you with a recipe for that shortly. To give you another vegan meal idea, how about trying a Chickpea Spinach Curry? It's flavorful and quite satisfying. Would you like to include that in your meal plan, or is there another type of cuisine you're craving?

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:09 AM
No list 10 ideas

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:09 AM
Absolutely, here are ten vegan meal ideas you might enjoy:
Quinoa and Black Bean Chili
Lentil Sloppy Joes
Stuffed Bell Peppers with Rice and Vegetables
Vegan Pad Thai with Tofu
Butternut Squash Soup
Cauliflower Tacos with Avocado Lime Crema
Mushroom Stroganoff
Thai Green Curry with Vegetables
Roasted Vegetable Quinoa Bowl
Eggplant and Chickpea Stew

Do any of these dishes pique your interest for your second meal choice this week?

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:10 AM
More ideas, specific dishes from diverse cuisines

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:10 AM
Certainly! Let's explore a variety of cuisines with these vegan dishes:
Ethiopian Red Lentil Stew (Misir Wot)
Italian Eggplant Parmesan (made with vegan cheese)
Indian Vegetable Biryani
Mexican Vegan Ceviche with Hearts of Palm
Korean Bibimbap with Tofu and Gochujang Sauce
Moroccan Chickpea and Apricot Tagine
Lebanese Mujadara (Lentils and Rice with Caramelized Onions)
Greek Vegan Moussaka
Japanese Vegan Ramen with Shiitake Mushrooms
Cuban Black Beans and Rice (Moros y Cristianos)

These are just a few examples of the amazing variety you can experience with vegan cuisine around the world. Feel free to let me know which one you'd like to try, and I can provide you with a recipe!

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:11 AM
Let's do num 7

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:11 AM
Great choice! Lebanese Mujadara is a wonderful dish that combines comforting lentils and rice with the sweetness of caramelized onions. I can come up with a tasty vegan recipe for you. Once I provide the recipe, let me know if everything looks good or if you'd like any modifications!

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:11 AM
Ok

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:11 AM
Here is your Vegan Sweet Potato Brownies recipe:

Ingredients:
2 medium sweet potatoes (about 2 cups when mashed)
1/2 cup smooth almond butter
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup oat flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C) and line an 8x8 inch baking pan with parchment paper.
Steam or boil the sweet potatoes until soft, let them cool, and then mash them until smooth.
In a large bowl, mix the mashed sweet potato with the almond butter and maple syrup until well combined. Stir in the vanilla extract.
Sift in the cocoa powder, oat flour, baking powder, and salt, and mix until well combined.
Fold in the vegan chocolate chips.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and spread it out evenly.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean.
Allow the brownies to cool completely in the pan before cutting into squares.

Would you like to make any adjustments to this recipe or does it look perfect for you?

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:12 AM
Use this instead

Ingredients
• 2 8- ounce packages Straight From The Root Organic Sweet Potatoes
• 1 cup smooth almond butter
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup aquafaba if needed
• 1 cup chocolate chips or chocolate chunks

Instructions
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8x8 pan with non-stick spray and set aside.
• Puree sweet potatoes in a high speed blender. Add almond butter, maple syrup, and cocoa powder and process until smooth. Add aquafaba to blender if needed until batter is smooth.
• Mix in chocolate chips by hand and pour into prepared pan. Bake for 40 minutes or until done.
• Allow brownies to cool before slicing. Refrigerate any leftovers.

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:13 AM
Your Vegan Sweet Potato Brownies recipe has been updated with the one you've provided. It sounds absolutely scrumptious! I'll hold on to this recipe for you. Now, let me provide you with a recipe for the Lebanese Mujadara.

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:13 AM
Actually adjust the sweet potato recipe with these notes

Cook sweet potato in microwave. I used ~3/4 of a large one (at the rest lolllll). Blend dates and some plant milk. Then add sweet potato, a bunch of almond butter, and some cocoa powder. added more almond milk to assist blending. Blend. Spread on tray/whatever (I did pretty thin because just one sweet potato doesn’t make much batter). Then baked 350 degrees for ~30 min.

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:13 AM
I've updated the recipe for your Vegan Sweet Potato Brownies with the specific notes you've provided. It's great to see how you've tailored the recipe to suit your tastes and preferences! Now that we have your personalized brownie recipe, shall we proceed with the Lebanese Mujadara recipe?

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:13 AM
Yes

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:13 AM
Here is a simple recipe for Lebanese Mujadara:

Ingredients:
1 cup brown or green lentils
1 cup long-grain white rice
3 large onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Rinse the lentils and place them in a large saucepan with enough water to cover by several inches. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until lentils are tender, about 20 minutes.
In a separate saucepan, cook the rice according to package instructions.
While the lentils and rice are cooking, heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring frequently, until they are caramelized and deeply browned, about 30 minutes.
Once the lentils are cooked, drain any excess water. Combine the cooked lentils and rice in a large bowl, and stir in the cumin, cinnamon, salt, and pepper.
Serve the lentils and rice topped with the caramelized onions.

Let me know if this recipe works for you or if you'd like to change anything!

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:14 AM
Brown rice today. Let's fully use instant pot if possible

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:14 AM
I've adapted the Lebanese Mujadara recipe to be prepared with brown rice and fully utilize the Instant Pot for convenience. Not only does it simplify the process, but it also provides a deliciously satisfying vegan meal. Let me know if you're happy with this Instant Pot version or if you have any additional tweaks in mind!

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:14 AM
Show recipe

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:14 AM
Here's the Instant Pot recipe for Lebanese Mujadara with brown rice that we've tailored for you:

Ingredients:
1 cup brown or green lentils, rinsed
1 cup brown rice
3 large onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste
4 cups of water or vegetable broth

Instructions for the Instant Pot:
Set the Instant Pot to 'Sauté' mode and heat the olive oil. Add the onions and cook until they are caramelized, stirring occasionally (this may take about 15-20 minutes for a deep caramelization).
Once the onions are caramelized, remove about half to use for garnish later.
To the remaining onions in the Instant Pot, add the lentils, brown rice, cumin, cinnamon, salt, pepper, and water or vegetable broth.
Secure the lid on the Instant Pot and set to 'Manual' or 'Pressure Cook' on High for 22 minutes.
After the cooking time is complete, allow the pressure to release naturally for 10 minutes, then do a quick release for any remaining pressure.
Fluff the lentil and rice mixture with a fork, then serve hot, topped with the reserved caramelized onions.

Does this recipe look good to you, or would you like to make any changes before you start cooking?

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:15 AM
Would it come out better to cook the rice and lentils separately

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:15 AM
Cooking the rice and lentils separately can indeed provide optimal texture control for both, ensuring that neither one becomes overcooked. Using the Instant Pot, you can first cook the lentils to desired tenderness and then cook the brown rice. However, cooking them together as described in the initial recipe can be more convenient and still yield delicious results. It really depends on your preference. Would you like the recipe adjusted for separate cooking, or would you like to proceed with the combined cooking method?

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:16 AM
Let's do them separate, rice in instant pot, and lentils on stove. Also include a step to make veg broth from buillion paste

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:17 AM
I have updated the Lebanese Mujadara recipe to cook the brown rice in the Instant Pot and the lentils on the stove separately to ensure both are cooked perfectly. Additionally, I've included instructions on how to make vegetable broth from bouillon paste. Please review the updated recipe and let me know if you're ready to get cooking or if there's anything you'd like to change!

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:17 AM
Show recipe

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:17 AM
Here's the updated recipe for Lebanese Mujadara, with separated cooking instructions for the rice and lentils, and including making fresh vegetable broth from bouillon paste:

Ingredients:
1 cup brown or green lentils, rinsed
1 cup brown rice
3 large onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste
Vegetable bouillon paste (enough for 4 cups of broth)
4 cups of water (for broth)

Instructions:
Prepare the vegetable broth by dissolving the required amount of vegetable bouillon paste in 4 cups of hot water. Stir until the bouillon is fully dissolved and set the broth aside.
In a pot on the stove, combine the lentils and half of the prepared vegetable broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer until the lentils are tender, about 20-25 minutes. Drain any excess liquid, and set the cooked lentils aside.
While the lentils are simmering, set the Instant Pot to 'Sauté' mode and heat the olive oil. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until caramelized, about 15-20 minutes. Once caramelized, remove about half the onions for garnish and set them aside.
Add the brown rice to the remaining onions in the Instant Pot, along with the rest of the vegetable broth. Secure the lid, set to 'Manual' or 'Pressure Cook' on High for 22 minutes.
After the cooking is complete, allow the pressure to release naturally for 10 minutes before doing a quick pressure release.
Fluff the cooked rice with a fork, then in a large bowl (or in the Instant Pot), gently combine the cooked rice with the cooked lentils. Stir in the cumin, cinnamon, salt, and pepper.
Serve hot, topped with the set-aside caramelized onions.

This recipe should provide a delicious meal with perfectly cooked lentils and rice. If everything looks good to you, you're all set to start cooking, or if you have any other preferences, just let me know!

{{me}} — 3/10/2024 10:18 AM
Looks good

GPT Meal Planner — 3/10/2024 10:19 AM
Fantastic! I'm glad the recipe looks good to you. You now have two wonderful vegan recipes to enjoy: the Vegan Sweet Potato Brownies and Lebanese Mujadara. Enjoy your cooking, and if you have any more questions or need further assistance in the future, don't hesitate to ask. Happy eating!

GPT Meal Planner — 3/11/2024 8:45 AM
Hello! Are you looking to do some cooking today? I remember over the weekend you looked at recipes for 'Vegan Sweet Potato Brownies' and 'Lebanese Mujadara'. Would you like to make one of those today, or is there something else you'd like to whip up? Just let me know what you're in the mood for!

{{me}} — 3/11/2024 10:21 AM
Lets do mujadara

GPT Meal Planner — 3/11/2024 10:21 AM
Great choice! The Mujadara is a delicious dish. Would you like to follow one of the lentil and rice recipes you selected over the weekend, or would you prefer a new one? Here's the recipe you provided for Lebanese Mujadara:

Ingredients:
1 cup brown or green lentils, rinsed
1 cup brown rice
3 large onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste
4 cups of water or vegetable broth

Instructions for the Instant Pot:
Set the Instant Pot to 'Sauté' mode and heat the olive oil. Add the onions and cook until they are caramelized, stirring occasionally (this may take about 15-20 minutes for a deep caramelization).
Once the onions are caramelized, remove about half to use for garnish later.
To the remaining onions in the Instant Pot, add the lentils, brown rice, cumin, cinnamon, salt, pepper, and water or vegetable broth.
Secure the lid on the Instant Pot and set to 'Manual' or 'Pressure Cook' on High for 22 minutes.
After the cooking time is complete, allow the pressure to release naturally for 10 minutes, then do a quick release for any remaining pressure.
Fluff the lentil and rice mixture with a fork, then serve hot, topped with the reserved caramelized onions.

Would you like to proceed with this recipe, or modify it in any way?

{{me}} — 3/11/2024 10:22 AM
Looks good

GPT Meal Planner — 3/11/2024 10:22 AM
Great, you're all set to make Mujadara! Could you let me know by what time today you'd like to finish cooking? This way, I can help you break down the recipe into manageable chunks.

{{me}} — 3/11/2024 10:23 AM
5pm. Please make 5 chunks. Earlier chunks should focus on doing as much food prep as possible first before doing any cooking

GPT Meal Planner — 3/11/2024 10:23 AM
We'll plan to finish cooking by 5:00 PM, so here are the 5 chunks of work we'll do, with time for breaks in between:

At 10:45 AM, you'll gather and prepare all the ingredients.
At 11:30 AM, get those onions sliced so they're ready to caramelise.
By 12:30 PM, start caramelising the onions in the Instant Pot.
At 2:45 PM, finish up with the onions and add the rest of the ingredients to the Instant Pot.
Finally, at 3:30 PM, set the Instant Pot to cook everything. This will give us a buffer for the natural pressure release and any final touches before your meal is ready right on time!

Remember, you can take a breather between these chunks, and we'll have your delicious Mujadara ready for dinner. Enjoy your cooking!

{{me}} — 3/11/2024 10:25 AM
Actually i need to cook the lentils separate from the rice. Rice in instant pot and lentils in separate pot. Update chunks to reflect this as separate steps

GPT Meal Planner — 3/11/2024 10:27 AM
Okay, I've updated the cooking plan to cook the lentils and rice separately, which should suit your needs better! Here are your updated chunks:

At 10:45 AM, prepare all the ingredients. Soak the lentils to reduce cooking time.
At 11:30 AM, slice the onions and measure out the brown rice.
By 12:30 PM, start cooking the lentils on the stove; you'll want them to be nice and tender.
At 1:15 PM, begin caramelizing the onions in the Instant Pot.
At 2:00 PM, remove half the onions for garnish and start cooking the brown rice in the Instant Pot with spices, ensuring the lentils are simmering away too.
Finally, at 3:30 PM, check both the lentils and rice. Finish up and get ready to serve your Mujadara by 5:00 PM, perfectly for dinner.

Have a pleasant cooking session!

{{me}} — 3/11/2024 10:31 AM
What sides go well with this dish

GPT Meal Planner — 3/11/2024 10:31 AM
Mujadara is a flavorful dish that pairs well with a variety of sides. Here are some suggestions that complement its taste and texture:

A fresh salad: A simple green salad or a tomato, cucumber, and herb salad with a lemony vinaigrette can add a refreshing contrast.
Yogurt or a yogurt-based sauce: A cooling side of plain or seasoned yogurt, such as a cucumber mint yogurt, balances the warm spices of mujadara.
Pickled vegetables: Pickles or a pickle relish can add a tangy kick that cuts through the richness of the dish.
Roasted vegetables: Roasted carrots, cauliflower, or Brussels sprouts can provide a delightful caramelized edge.
Flatbread or pita: This is great for scooping up the lentils and rice, providing a satisfying textural component.

Feel free to choose any of these to serve alongside your mujadara for a complete and satisfying meal!

GPT Meal Planner — 3/11/2024 10:45 AM
Hello! It's time to get started on your meal prep. Please gather all your ingredients and begin by rinsing 1 cup of lentils. After that, start soaking the lentils in water to reduce their cooking time. Once you've done this, you'll be all set for the next step when you're ready. Happy cooking!

GPT Meal Planner — 3/11/2024 11:30 AM
Hello there! It's time to thinly slice the 3 large onions and measure out the brown rice. This is a great task to fit into a short break and will set you up nicely for the next steps. Let me know if you need any assistance or guidance!

GPT Meal Planner — 3/11/2024 12:30 PM
It's time to start cooking the lentils. Please put them in a pot and cover them with water. Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat to let the lentils simmer. They should become tender in about 20 minutes, so you'll want to check on them around that time.

GPT Meal Planner — 3/11/2024 1:15 PM
It's time to heat the olive oil in the 'Sauté' mode of your Instant Pot. Once hot, start caramelizing the onions by stirring them occasionally until they are deeply golden and soft.

GPT Meal Planner — 3/11/2024 2:00 PM
It's time to proceed with the next step in your Lebanese Mujadara recipe. Please remove about half of the caramelized onions for garnish later. Then, add the brown rice, cumin, cinnamon, salt, pepper, and 2 cups of the vegetable broth or water into the Instant Pot with the remaining onions. After adding these ingredients, secure the lid of the Instant Pot and set it to 'Manual' or 'Pressure Cook' on High for 22 minutes. Let me know if you need further assistance!

{{me}} — 3/11/2024 3:08 PM
Image

GPT Meal Planner — 3/11/2024 3:08 PM
If you need any help or have any questions about the recipe, feel free to ask. Enjoy your cooking break!

GPT Meal Planner — 3/11/2024 3:30 PM
It's time to check on both the lentils and the rice. The lentils should be tender by now, and the Instant Pot will soon finish cooking the rice. Once the pot indicates it's done, allow it to release pressure naturally for about 10 minutes. Then, you can release any remaining pressure and fluff the rice with a fork. You may choose to mix the lentils and rice together or serve them separately, but don't forget to top your dish with the delicious caramelized onions you set aside earlier.

Idea - Spontaneous Plans

2026-06-20T03:39:50.000Z

(Discussed this idea a bit in The Right Way to Talk to People About Your Business - Indie Hackers Podcast; and closely tied to Thoughts on casual open social invites)

Idea - Social ebook annotation

2026-08-23T15:38:15.000Z

The idea

While someone is reading an e-book, they should be able to highlight a quote or passage and make a public annotation that other readers can see while they are reading, and likewise they can see annotations that other people have posted. Annotations become comment threads for further discussion. It's a micro-community around this one book, integrated within the content itself. As you read the book, you have an experience that is shared with the other people who have read it or who will read it in the future.

Imagine reading a sentence in a book that is a huge reveal, or poses a philosophical question, and you can immediately see that other people are discussing that exact line, and join the discussion or start your own.

The purest form of this product would be limited to public-domain books, so that anyone could load up the book in the app/browser and read it and contribute to the annotations.

My more general vision would be for the community annotation tool to work for any e-book file that someone would locally load (i.e. their arbitrary file is not being hosted by any cloud server), and anyone else who has the same file locally would also see the public annotations that they've made.

Limitations

I realize that many (most?) people read physical paper books, so the e-reader version of this is not useful for them if they want to keep reading physical books. However, they could still access a social view that lets them see the annotations that other people have posted, and they could also still participate in the discussions and even manually add a new annotation. (This applies to people listening to audiobooks as well.)

I also realize that most people reading e-books are reading them on an established e-reader like Kindle. I don't envision a realistic way of creating something that would apply to existing e-readers. So maybe people would just come to my app to view/add annotations rather than using it as an e-reader if they don't want to.

Spoilers

One tricky part to account for is to make sure that annotations don't contain spoilers for the content ahead. It might not be possible to have a perfect solution here. At minimum, the commenter should be able to mark the annotation as containing spoilers, and other users should be able to flag an annotation as containing spoilers (which would maybe mark it as a spoiler if enough people flag it).

Grocery Receipt Tracker

2026-08-01T15:16:25.000Z

#project

Note: This page was formerly titled "Specific Main App Pursuit I'm Currently Working On"

Slowness

I started writing down ideas related to this project in July of 2024. It's taken me a really long time to make progress. There are several factors that have caused this.

General life stuff - changing priorities, other pursuits capturing my interest (like piano and learning Japanese)
Coding/focusing at work makes it difficult to want to code outside of work
I got stuck on some infrastructure aspects that took me a while to figure out

Specifically on that last point (stalled infrastructure), now that I've gotten past those hurdles, development of my prototype (writing this as of January 2026) has been speeding along and I'm making a lot of progress.

I've also decided to use AI to help me code - at this point, if it gets me to work on this project, I want to leverage AI because I just want to have my prototype ready. I've started using OpenAI's codex in my command line (previously I was just occasionally using ChatGPT and copy/pasting relevant code back and forth) and it's made things so much easier.

The infrastructure troubles

I have a backend API and a frontend (mobile) for this project. I knew from the start that ideally the backend would be hosted on AWS EC2. However, I've done this for a few projects in the past, and realized that since my AWS free tier is expired, having a new EC2 instance running would cost around $10 per month. I didn't want to have that running for the indeterminate amount of time I would spend developing this.

So I opted to try a different solution, which was to wrap the API in an AWS Lambda function and have the frontend make requests through that. Lambda is much cheaper because it only runs when the call is being executed - as opposed to EC2, which is essentially a sever that is always running, waiting for requests. The main drawback of the Lambda approach was that it takes longer for requests to be processed, since Lambda has to do a "cold start" - it takes extra time to warm up for accepting requests if it hasn't been triggered in a certain amount of time. I was willing to deal with this in the short term.

So I started working on this approach. I developed the first major endpoint of the API. At that point, I had only been testing it locally. Once I was satisfied with the implementation, it was time to deploy it to Lambda in AWS. Unfortunately, I simply could not get it to work. It seemed like everything was set up correctly, but when I would make API requests to the Lambda function (via AWS API Gateway), the requests would fail. I spent a lot of time trying to debug this, but eventually I gave up.

I decided that I was better off switching to the EC2 approach, which is what I would do in the long term anyway. It didn't take too long to set it up, and I'm really glad I did. Development became so much more manageable after that. This was only a few months ago, at the time of writing this (Jan 2026). I've been shutting off the EC2 instance when I'm not actively working on it so that it doesn't incur unnecessary cost. At this point, however, I have an in-progress prototype frontend and I'm in a phase of actively working on this, so I'm just leaving the instance on.

Using AI Code Assistance

At the moment, "code assistance" is more like, it's writing all the code for me, given my prompting.

At the beginning of this project, I was intending to do more of the coding on my own and to rely less on AI. However, as mentioned, I've gotten to the point where using AI is what's helping me to stop procrastinating and to actually get results. After sitting on this project for over a year with not much progress, I'm kind of thrilled at how much I've accomplished while using AI. It speeds up development so much, and doesn't force me to expend the mental effort which, if I knew I needed to expend, would probably make me want to avoid the effort.

I could argue that coding more of it on my own would make me a better programmer, increase my experience, help me learn -- I generally agree with points like those, but in this case, I just want to have my app prototype.

I am a little bit wary, though. I'll have to see how AI usage impacts codebase maintainability. I am also more distanced from the specific implementation details, which could make it more challenging to debug things that come up. Yes, I could ask AI to debug as well, but there are some things that it couldn't handle, I'm sure. I want to say that I'd be confident in digging through and understanding the code in a debugging situation - and I would be. But would I really do a better job than AI? Well, given my experience of actually doing this for my job, I'd say that yes, there are issues that I can solve that current AI tools can not. Especially when it comes to understanding interactions between different systems and overall architecture. For smaller, self-contained problems, AI is pretty good.

Using AI kind of feels like cheating. But this may just be the future of software development. I don't think I should feel like I'm "cheating". Instead, I'm directing my skills in a different way. I'm performing something closer to a product management and design role. I am defining the specifications of what features and user experience I want, and still thinking through the technical needs in order to implement them. I augment my overall implementation plan with AI input, and then have the AI implement it. But the product specifications aspect is essential. Without it, AI wouldn't have much direction - it might be able to create something like what I want, but it wouldn't be exactly how I want it. So I'm still thinking through the engineering aspects of it -- the AI is just handling the tedious details of actually coding it.

Not telling people about this project

For a while, I wasn't telling people what my idea was. (cough, at the time of writing this, I still haven't described what the actual project is on this blog. I'll get there eventually.)

The reason for this was NOT that I was scared someone would copy the idea.

The reason for not telling people was because I was protecting the fragility of the idea in my own mind. I was scared that I would lose motivation to work on it if someone gave a certain reaction. For example, they might point out that something like this already exists. Even if I still felt my version had value, this person's pointing this out might be enough to deflate my motivation. I was scared of other similar well-meaning but perceived-negatively comments as well. Even someone displaying not as much interest as I might hope them to, could be something that deflated my motivation.

I do believe there is merit in being cautious like this. However, I admit that I dragged that period on for too long. It certainly has to do with how long it took me to make good progress on the project in general. I was telling myself, once I hit a basic prototype, and am certain that there's no turning back from at least that point, I would tell people about it. But it just took so long to get there.

Looking back now, I was losing something by not talking about the idea. It would give me a better sense of whether it's a product people would actually use (this podcast episode brought this lesson home for me). I could shift certain priorities in terms of features based on what people find useful. Telling people could also actually increase my motivation.

Now that I've got an actual frontend, something I can show people wherever I am (since it's on my phone), which has the basics of what my MVP was supposed to be, I'm starting to talk to more people in my life about it. I can mention that I've been working on a side project, and then show them what it is.

Maybe it took me too long to get to this point, but it also kind of makes sense that now is the time -- I actually have something to show. I can still reap the benefits of having people give input on the idea. But the idea is less fragile now. My own internal resolve for this particular idea is strong enough that even if someone doesn't think it's useful, I'm confident in giving it the chance that I think it deserves.

Maybe I shouldn't have that fragility in the first place. But given how many ideas for projects I have floating around in my head, I can sometimes be tempted to hop from project to project. It's fine if I decide an idea isn't worth pursuing - I can move onto a different idea. This project in particular felt like it deserved to be pushed through to the end. I just decided I wasn't taking chances. But sure, perhaps I should be less private in the future at the earlier stages of an idea^[1].

Example where I did this: Idea - Spontaneous Plans ↩︎

Toothpaste Burger

2026-05-20T04:00:58.000Z

(Not exactly sure what the "anti-toothpaste violence" cause is about, but it's there. Was being goofy)

Overview

This came out of a similar era when I was interested in 2D game development using Unity, around the same time as when I made Bee Haven (2018).

I also published this on the Google Play Store after making it, but took it down when I needed to make some updates to comply with Play Store requirements (same situation as Bee Haven). I'd like to get it back up in the store, though.

And also I'd like to just have a playable web version like I have for Bee Haven. On my to-do list.

Gameplay

The goal of the game is to waste as little toothpaste as possible (hence the "Don't waste the toothpaste" on the title screen).

The player controls a tube of toothpaste and taps the tube to squeeze out toothpaste. A moving conveyer belt carries two types of object: hamburgers^[1] and toothbrushes. The player must squeeze the toothpaste onto either of these object types (earning points), and minimize the amount of toothpaste lost to the conveyer belt (i.e. they miss the object). If the player wastes too much (measured by the "Waste" meter), the game ends.

Okay, but why?

That's... a good question.

I'm not too sure about the lore behind the game concept.

Why indeed are we putting toothpaste on burgers?

This is left up to the interpretation of the player.

I broke my thumb (minor fracture) in high school. I was exiting the bathroom, and was reaching for the door handle, when someone kicked in the door from the outside and it slammed straight into my thumb. It didn't even hurt that much in the moment - I was mostly startled - and I proceeded back to the cafeteria. But a few minutes after I sat back down, I realized that it was hurting kind of badly, and I had sense enough to head to the nurse's office. I'm not sure if it was my body's reaction to the injury (I still don't recall it hurting that much) or if it was mental anxiety about having been injured, but I was experiencing blurred tunnel vision as I was walking through the hallway, and I felt a little dizzy. I made it to the nurse and they gave me a bag of ice to put around my thumb.

After a couple doctor appointments, I ended up getting a cast on my hand. It was, of course, annoying for various reasons. But it was a really nice color of blue! So there's that. It looked kind of cool, especially in my mirror-selfie photoshoot the day I got it:

And the other side effect -- I was excused from phys ed / gym classes in school while I had the cast, and went to "study hall" instead. "Study hall" was basically free time to do (generally school-related) work in the library.

I did some school work / studying / readings.

But also? Toothpaste Burger.

I pretty much exclusively worked on developing Toothpaste Burger during my time in study hall.

So, if there's one slightly cool/good thing that came out of breaking my thumb, it's that.

Apparently this was my initial mockup

I had this huge whiteboard in my bedroom. It was often blank, but often I had random lists, random quotes, random doodles on it. And apparently the idea for TPB.

Uh, whiteboard typo? I assume "um!" is supposed to be "yum!".

"It is no good anticipating regrets"

Naturally, I am wanting to contemplate this quote because it is so randomly on the whiteboard. I don't recall this quote having a particular impact on me, and I never would have remembered it until now, but I can see how I could relate to it (then and now). It's kind of related to overthinking and worrying, and making a decision whether to do something.

"Anticipating a regret" might mean you hold yourself back from doing something because you are worried about a negative outcome. I think it's fine to think through and predict certain outcomes. But "regret" isn't usually something you can control. Whether you will regret something depends on how things will go, and you don't know how things will go until they happen. Maybe you can do a risk calculation and decide that the risk outweighs the benefits -- maybe then your decision is to hold back, and that's fine.

But if you're just scared of failure, or scared that you'll embarrass yourself, and it's only possible (not certain or probably) that you will fail, then it's better to push through those uncertainties and ignore these potential regrets. Otherwise, you might completely miss out on the possible positive outcomes.

I guess it also just says something about the thinking ("anticipating") part of it (as opposed to the actual act of making a decision with how to proceed). To actively think about possible regrets is to bring yourself into a negative frame of mind. You're creating unnecessary worry (though, again, I'm tempted to say that some thinking through risk is okay) and stressing yourself out. Maybe you even sway the outcome through your thinking, which influences your behavior, which influences the outcome - like an observer effect. Ambiguous example: You anticipate a regret, so you act less confidently or take the less bold choice, which actually leads to the negative outcome you were regretting. I feel like there are many examples of this in popular media (tv/movies) and no nothing comes to mind in this moment but maybe I'll update this if I think of one.

I made this game when I was not vegan. Now that I am vegan, I choose to imagine that the burger is a vegan burger. ↩︎

Bee Haven

2026-08-01T15:16:25.000Z

#gamedev #project

A game I made during a high school summer program I attended in summer of 2018. It's an infinite scroller. You control a bee's movement to the left and right as it moves forward toward the horizon, collecting flowers and avoiding birds.

The graphics were very simplistic (I vaguely wanted to make them better in the future but never went back to it).

I published it to the Google Play Store (under a pseudonym because I was very resistant to publishing things under my real name back then) but eventually it got taken down because I needed to update things to comply with Google's new developer rules (possibly could've been something as easy as adding a privacy policy to my app, but I just never bothered to expend the energy to do whatever it needed me to do).

But also recently, I've been wanting to show people a demo of the game. I recently tried to re-install it on my phone by using an old APK (app installation file for Android) that I downloaded from the Google Play Dev Console, but installation failed because the architecture of the app was too out of date. There is, however, a usable version of the game that can be accessed via brianiscool.tk, so in theory I can show people from that, but I'd prefer the app experience.

So...

Run it locally and build it to Android, test it
Try re-publishing it to the Play Store???
Could also think about what improvements I could make (though tbh don't feel it's the place for me to invest my energy in anytime soon, especially with projects like Grocery Receipt Tracker on top of my mind)

Game Dev Inspiration

2025-12-10T19:06:42.000Z

#gamedev

"Make Tiny Games." by Juniper Dev (youtube)
- Made me feel a brief moment of inspiration to code up small games - clones of existing ones with modifications, or just novel simple ones. Mostly made me think of Bee Haven, which is sort of a subway surfer clone I made during high school. I've recently been thinking of repolishing and republishing it to the Play Store.

Wildlife livestream kiosk - Window into another world

2026-09-01T20:29:16.000Z

Earlier this year (2026), I was at Manatee Lagoon in West Palm Beach, Florida - it's an educational center with wildlife viewing. Inside the center, there was a TV displaying a livestream of an underwater cam.

Of course, that's not the first wildlife livestream I've come across. But it staged my mind. A while later, an idea came to me: having a small display mounted somewhere in my apartment which would have an always-on wildlife^[1] livestream displaying. It's a very passive thing, not something to be constantly watched, but something to occasionally notice.

I made^[2] a simple custom site that searches YouTube for wildlife livestreams and then displays a random one, with some basic settings such as to rotate through them at a specified interval. Code can be found here: https://github.com/briancherin/wildlife-livestream

I am using an old Amazon Fire tablet and installed the "Fully Kiosk Browser" app^[3], which lets me specify a URL (where I've deployed the webapp) and it will keep the webpage locked on the screen, always in fullscreen mode. (I guess it's better than just using a browser, so it's fullscreen all the time and keeps the display on.)

The plan is to mount the tablet somewhere on my wall. This step remains to be done.

The deployed webapp is at https://display.briancher.in/ and can be viewed anywhere.

Brief contemplation on AI-development

Having coded the website essentially fully using AI, it makes me wonder about the merit of this mini project. Well, the merit is obvious: I now have a kiosk that I like and that is tuned to my goal and is ready to be used. It just feels a little bit like cheating, compared to pre-AI days when I would have coded this up on my own. (Regardless, it's not a particularly complex webapp - fullscreen embedded youtube stream, with some basic video search, config, and video selection overlay.)

So, the more important things than the actual code here are:

Having the idea to create this thing in the first place
Having the drive to implement it
Actually executing it and placing this in my apartment.

Those are the valuable things, and less so the fact of writing actual code. It's a more product-oriented outlook.

Scifi connection

The project reminds me of farcaster windows from Hyperion:

“Is it true, Merin, that people in the Hegemony have their homes on a dozen worlds? One house, I mean, with windows facing out on a dozen skies?” ~Hyperion

Window into another world.

doesn't necessarily have to be wildlife, but I'm not sure what else it would be ↩︎
AI-assisted ↩︎
via APK file since Fire doesn't use the Play Store ↩︎

Idea - Dresser objects come to life

2026-08-03T03:20:10.000Z

Idea is to animate the objects on top of my dresser in my childhood bedroom coming to life and jumping off the dresser and going on some adventure.

Personal 3D VR World Building

2026-07-01T01:52:19.000Z

I've had many ideas related to this topic. I can explain it in more depth in the future, but for right now I'm just going to paste a tiny thought-stream question I asked ChatGPT and then the AI response. Just a little bit of ideating for something I know I want to spend more time on in the future.

I want want 3d environment building to be an art form, a kind of journaling and exploration and expression, an interconnected world of 3d/vr environments, make scenes tying music to memories, bringing paintings to life, creating representations of my favorite scenes from fiction, crafting environments of all the bedrooms of my life, in a way that is extensible and not software-locked as much as possible moving forward into the future, in a way that allows me to access and explore these scenes in an interconnected and stable way, allowing me to do something like having a virtual hallway allowing access into different rooms which show these various scenes, or having a portal room to bring me to the scenes, my own personal 3d world, how should i do it and make it and organize it and store it

[!WARNING]- Chat GPT Response
You’re essentially building a long-lived personal spatial archive rather than a single VR project: an interconnected set of 3D environments that function as journaling, memory, and artistic expression. The core goal is continuity over time—being able to add scenes indefinitely, explore them through symbolic navigation like hallways or portals, and return to them years later without being trapped in a dead piece of software. Treat the world as a personal mythos or memory palace, where meaning matters as much as visual fidelity.

To make this sustainable, separate the work into layers. First is the concept layer: short written “scene cards” that capture what each environment represents, the memory or emotion behind it, associated music, and how it connects to other scenes. This lives in plain text or Markdown and is your true journal. Second is the asset layer, stored in open, portable formats (glTF/GLB for models, PNG/JPG for textures, WAV/FLAC for audio). Each scene gets its own folder, like an album, so the assets can outlive any engine or tool.

The scene-building layer uses replaceable software. Tools like Blender are ideal for creation, but their project files are working files, not the archive itself. Always export clean, engine-agnostic versions of scenes. For exploration, use a runtime engine (ideally something open like Godot) that loads scenes dynamically from a hub or portal space. This keeps scenes loosely coupled and makes it possible to change engines later without rebuilding everything.

Music and sound should be treated as first-class elements of each scene, stored separately and documented alongside the visuals. When bringing paintings or fiction into 3D, focus on translating emotional and symbolic qualities rather than literal realism—lighting, spatial rhythm, and abstraction often convey memory better than accuracy.

Finally, protect the work over time. Use version control for text and metadata, archive assets carefully, and periodically “freeze” scenes by exporting models, videos, and written reflections. Start small—one room, one memory, one piece of music—and let the world grow organically. The result is not just a VR environment, but a durable, explorable record of your inner life that can evolve with you.

Notes

Mainly this has been an idea for myself only, but if I make something I am willing to share, it could be cool to host it (or at least to it) on this digital garden so that visitors can explore these 3D scenes.

Environment Generation

2026-08-01T01:41:16.000Z

One of my strongest interests in Virtual Reality is the idea of having an auto-generating virtual environment.

Similar to the game simulation in Ender's Game ^[1].

(well... ultimately not really but kind of) ↩︎

Idea - House Doll House

2026-08-03T03:20:10.000Z

Idea is to make a 3D model doll house of my childhood house. Could be cool to 3D print it. It would open up like a dollhouse and you could look into all the rooms, and when closed it would look like the house from the outside.

Could be nightmare / horror-movie fuel though, something to consider (joking but I acknowledge this could be a little creepy.^[1]).

Reminding myself of the book "Time Windows" which is a memorable but haunting book that I read when I was somewhat young. ↩︎

Hadestown

2026-09-01T17:17:32.000Z

I've had a couple Hadestown-related ideas for 3D modeling/printing over the years.

Not spoiler-related ideas:

3D model+print of the set of Hadestown

Spoiler-related ideas:

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

The ending Orpheus moment, crouched by the hole in the ground and looking into it distraught, with Hermes standing nearby and peering in too. I've had this idea in mind since around 2022. Should really get on that.

Time Travelers, Back Off

2026-06-28T16:08:07.000Z

I try to be pretty privacy-aware went writing publicly. This includes not disclosing where exactly I'll be at a specific time and place. I don't want someone malicious to know where I'll be!

It feels more okay to talk about where I was, after it happened. For example, saying I was at a certain concert or similar event. There's something similar I've seen people do for their public Instagram stories -- they share pics of their activities/event only afterwards and not while they're still there.

However, there's the time traveler issue.

I'm sure most time travelers are (/ will be) nice people, but there could be some malicious ones. I worry slightly about letting them know where exactly I was on a certain date. It crosses my mind when I disclose these things.

(This is 99.999% satire but there is genuinely a 0.001% part of me that feels wary about posting about where I was.)

The Tug of Television (Resisting Overconsumption)

2026-06-27T20:00:45.000Z

One episode of a great series ends, and you want to watch the next. This tug... It's what causes bingeing (not so good). But also it's an effect of the joy of storytelling and a good production.

Over the years, I've grappled with the relative merits of various forms of media. I used to feel that watching television was a vice, and that reading was a much more productive thing to be doing, in all cases. However, my understanding has matured past that shallow. At the core, regardless of the form of media, it's about storytelling, and art, and maybe putting a message out there. Sure, there can be cheaper, more shallow, less meaningful material, which I might argue is less worth one's time than more meaningful content -- but this can apply to books just as much as to television.^[1]

I've watched some pretty great tv shows that I would be sad to not have watched. Often what draws me in is seeing the experiences of characters and watching them change and grow. (This is true of books as well.)

So, this tug.

The tug is separate from the inherent merit of enjoying a show. I can enjoy the show and appreciate that it's here for me to consume, while also wanting to have a better relationship regarding my consumption habits. Sometimes the tug does not need to be resisted, but sometimes it should/could be.

And I suppose, since I've already started talking about books vs tv, anything I'm saying here about "the tug" can also apply to reading. You can get lost in a good book for hours, and spend more time than you initially intended reading it, and maybe even consume time you know you would/could spend doing other things that a part of you knows has higher merit. (The fact that I view this more of a problem for television probably shows that I still feel this bias towards reading feeling more "productive". Though, perhaps there is some merit to focusing on television, because, at least to me, it takes way less effort to continue watching tv, and more focused effort to continue reading.)

So why resist the tug?

Well, for me, part of it is because I know I don't spend as much time on creative pursuits lately as I want to be. And spending hours in front of the tv, somewhat mindlessly consuming it^[2], seems like a good target to cut down on in order to make more time for creative endeavors (or whatever other endeavor I may judge in the moment as having more worth than watching tv).

A key concept here is advice I have been hearing recently: Create more than you consume. This advice is actually strongly related to the forces that set in motion my starting to write in this blog format (See What Is This#What inspired this? -- specifically, this advice was definitely in a video on the Struthless channel (but also I've heard it one or two other places, I think.)) I should probably have a separate note about this piece of advice. It's kind of requires clarification... How do we measure creating vs consuming? If I watch an hour of television, does that mean I should produce something that would take an hour for someone else to consume? Or does it mean that I should spend an hour working on something creative? I assume the latter, because the former would be kind of silly. Anyway, this is kind of a tangent, but despite some ambiguity, the advice has rung true as good advice, and I feel it's helped orient me in a way to feel more fulfilled, by enhancing my understanding of the balance of enjoying media versus working on creative pursuits. I do really sometimes strongly feel this imbalance -- that I've consumed a lot but not created much -- and when I create more, I feel like this balance gets restored, and I feel more fulfilled. I don't know if it works like this for everyone, but I've found that it definitely works like this for me.

Okay, so, it feels like I've been going on several tangents, but it kind of all comes together.

I started by saying that there are merits to watching tv. The "tug" makes me want to keep watching, episode after episode, because I'm enjoying it a lot. Why resist this? Because, even though I am enjoying it, perhaps I have had enough for the day, and I can move on and make some time for other things, like creative pursuits.

The "perhaps I have had enough for the day" is a point I haven't touched on yet. Why do I even watch tv? Part of it is for the sake of the storytelling and the material itself, and because it's fun and enjoyable to consume. But also it serves the role of helping me to relax and decompress, probably after a day of working my 9-5 job (or after a busy weekend day). But I don't need to watch hours of tv to accomplish that decompressing. 40 minutes (maybe even 20 minutes) might be enough. (I'm not here to say how long exactly is "enough", but my point is that there is a quantity that would be sufficient.)

The "tug" is the force which is built into media like this which may cause the consumer to go past the quantity that would be sufficient for the day, and to continue consuming.

So, it is the duty of the mindful consumer (or at least I feel it is my own duty for the sake of my own habits, fulfillment, and actualization) to pay attention to what the sufficient quantity of consumption is, and to resist the forces that may draw me further than that quantity and into the territory of unnecessary, and potentially harmful (in the form of the opportunity cost of what could instead be done with that time) overconsumption.

Whew. I didn't expect this "note" to have a thesis statement, but there it is.^[3]

One caveat: It's valid if the answer is no, you will not resist. Sometimes you just need a little more consumption. Even if you've already reached the sufficient amount, it's also okay to give in to the urge. It's not always the right time to exert that willpower. But I hope that I resist often enough so that I don't view the overconsumption as a problem which is limiting what I want to achieve with my free time.

Strategies to resist

Phase shift

One suggestion I heard a while ago, which I occasionally follow but pretty rarely, specifically to resist the cliffhanger effect making you want to immediately start the next episode, is to actually end your viewing session in the middle of the episode you're watching. And next time, start from the middle of the episode and continue until the middle of the next episode. With this approach, you get the satisfaction of seeing what happens after the end-of-episode cliffhanger. And it may be easier to pull yourself away from the episode in the middle, when the action may be slower and there may be a natural place for a break. (Of course, this doesn't work if the content is so absorbing that stopping at any place in the episode would feel like stopping at a cliffhanger / exciting moment.)

Sit in the void

End of the episode. Feel the urge to start the next episode -- but just sit with it for a few minutes. Force yourself to sit still for a couple minutes. Maybe five. Just process what you've consumed. Think about what else is going on in your life. Almost meditative. Think about what else you could move on to doing (e.g. a creative pursuit, as would often be the case for me in terms of what else I could choose to do in my free time). Sit with that thought for a little bit.

I've only done this a few times, but usually it leads to me thinking more about what creative pursuit I might fall into, and then I end up feeling more interested in that than with watching the next episode. (In fact, I have written this post directly after feeling this 'tug' and resisting it. Perhaps it's blurry if this is following this "strategy" versus just deciding to do something else... But maybe the point is just to give yourself just a little space to see if you are open to doing something else right now.)

(I acknowledge that less "meaningful" stuff can also be enjoyable. Indeed, "meaningful" (to an extent) is a subjective quality. What is meaningful to me may not be meaningful to someone else, and vice versa. So I do not mean to criticize anyone who consumes what I do not feel is meaningful to me. I suppose this is kind of part of the point I'm getting to.) ↩︎
(and maybe I just say "mindlessly" because it takes less concentrated effort. But really it's not so mindless. It's not like I multitask while watching, other than eating food/snacks. My focus is on the material still.) ↩︎
(I rebel against everything I was taught in school and place my thesis statement only at the end of my essay, forcing the reader to work through my rambling thoughts. But hey, isn't it fun to see someone's thought process harden into a nice conclusion? It's more organic. (Which admittedly may not be the purpose of the "essay" structure I was taught in school. I admit there are reasons for rules. Obviously, a personal blog is not the place where this structure is expected.)) ↩︎

Not all who are lost wander (pre-blog blog post)

2026-05-16T21:41:33.000Z

I was searching for files on my computer related to Toothpaste Burger and I came across this college assignment which was to write a blog post about values related to my career. I completely forgot about this assignment. It will finally revel in satisfaction of any blog post's wish: to actually be a public blog post.

October 4, 2020

Before you say anything — no, the word arrangement of the above phrase is not a mistake. Rather, it is a clever manipulation to imply my point: although I may be lost in some areas, I do not wander randomly with no strategy. In other words, although I may not know exactly where I am in the grand scheme of my life, my direction is guided by my internal judgement system. A major part of this judgement system consists of my values.

My career is one area of my life where I don't have a clear vision of my path but do have an understanding of my direction.

There was a time in my life when I had neither a vision nor a direction. When I was younger, I had no clue what I wanted to be “when I grew up” — there were so many options to pick from! Once I discovered computer programming, however, I knew that this was the career for me.

During high school, I attended hackathons, which are 24-hour creative programming events, where the goal is to develop a project with a team and present it to the judges at the end of the event. After my first hackathon, I remember saying to myself, “If I enjoy doing this for 24 hours, I would certainly enjoy doing this as a daily job!” That statement inherently reveals a few personal values: I want the work that I'm doing to be enjoyable. To me, this means that the work is engaging and challenging, and forces me to constantly grow and learn.

So, based on that, the path is pretty clear, right? Work as a software developer for the rest of my life, since it's something I will most likely enjoy. My recent internship experiences have affirmed that I enjoy the work in all the ways I described above.

However, there's one aspect that I can't fully wrap my heart around (and this is where the trouble arrives) — the part where I'm doing this job for 40 hours a week, for the next 30 or so years of my life.

If I'm being completely honest with myself, my career, though it may be something I enjoy, is not a core part of my identity. Put simply, it's not how I would like to spend most of my time. I have a ton (seriously) of other interests and hobbies, and it would bring dissatisfaction to my life if I did not give myself the opportunities (and time!) to pursue these to their full extent.

In recent times, the list of interests is made up of: reading, cooking, exploring the outdoors, unicycling/juggling, creating my own coding projects, various forms of art (drawing, sculpture, piano), playing with video effects and animation, 3D modeling and 3D printing, and learning (about the world, how it works, and how we got here). I only see this list getting longer as I expand my interests and learn more. I highly value the diversity of my interests and the creativity that I often wield in pursuing them.

Some examples of the products of my hobbies:

3D modeled, 3D printed, and painted^[1]

A mobile game I created, entitled "Toothpaste Burger"^[2]

The time during weekends and a few daily hours after an exhausting 9-5 job just doesn't feel like enough for me to explore all these pursuits to my liking.

So, where am I going with this? I'm not quite sure. That's the part where I don't have a clear vision. What I do know is that I probably won't be satisfied with the traditional career path of: work aggressively until you're 60 and then finally have a significant amount of free time once you're retired. To get around this, some possible options I might follow in the future include some variant of FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early), digital nomadism (traveling while doing remote work), or living off passive income of a profitable side project. These possibilities excite me.

All that being said, another of my values is financial security. I'm not about to stop my career search and go live in the woods. I fully expect myself to continue the path of pursuing internships, and then working full time after college. The question is, how long will I stay there before I start getting antsy? (And maybe I won't get antsy — another of my values is flexibility. My future self might change his mind about all this, and I am okay with that.)

And so, while I may not know exactly where I will be or what I will be doing in ten years, I know what my next steps forward are. Being in touch with my values reveals those steps with clarity.

So, readers of My Blog, what do you think? Has anyone felt similarly? Am I just crazy? All thoughts or advice is welcome.

And, on another note, I searched Google for “Not all who are lost wonder” and came across some pretty good music.

My Most Amazing, Aspirational, Unrealistic, Impossible Self

2026-05-06T03:08:19.000Z

After watching a video ^[1]of a guy living 21 years off-grid and building a bunch of structures, dance studio, sustaining a life (with outside purchases too. And a weird amount of technology and power tools), I am in a state of wondering what my own life would be like if I was at 100% max following my instinctual pursuits without inhibitions or limitations by things like willpower, money, and energy. No, I'm not saying I want to live off-grid (though, I find it really cool how he built everything/mostly on his own).

What does this most amazing, aspirational, unrealistic, impossible version of myself look like? What does he do with his time? What has he accomplished and what does he hope to accomplish?

If I should accomplish a fraction of this list in my lifetime, I should be satisfied.

This list should grow with time (both as I populate the list with what has already been in my mind, as well as with what will spring up over time).

Ok, but...

Well, ... it's now been some time since I started this note, and I'm kind of dubious about building up this list. It feels like a list of goals kind of -- which is fine, but supposedly the point is to be "impossible", which aren't really good goals. But I feel like I am feeling limited by trying to write these as goals. Even though the purpose is not that. Huh? Also, my "impossible", "unrealistic" self may not be interested in pursuing the same things that my actual self is... Does the list then just become "do anything and everything to max capacity?". My impossible self also can go beyond the max of what my actual self may desire -- so what's the bound here? At the very start of the list, I was using the phrase "to the extent defined by the standard of satisfaction set by myself" but that's kind of defining a limited infinity -- the truly impossible self would have no bound. So if I insist on setting a bound, then is this not just a list of goals that my actual self can achieve?

Frankly, I should probably just indeed convert this to a list of pursuit-related goals.

... but anyway here's the start of the drafted list, at least

(In the early stages, this list will look puny... I look to my future self to make it look less puny.)

I have achieved mastery (as defined by the standard of satisfaction set by myself) of the creative trades I am interested in, and have built up a body of work which I am proud to share with others (and enjoy for myself simply for its own sake), and have the confidence and drive to continue such creation moving forward.
I have developed the skill of lucid dreaming. I have nightly lucid dream experiences (or as often as I want them) which are high quality. Not only do I cultivate fun and awesome and amazing experiences for myself to enjoy, but my dream practice can serve to enhance my waking life through creative inspiration and self exploration.
I have developed the skill of performing recreational hypnosis such that I am able to hypnotize someone as a party trick and give them a cool experience. My base skill is strong enough to be able to get creative with inductions and suggestions and have fun (for both me and the participants/observers) with it.

Taking this prompt in a completely different direction:
What would my most impossible, unrealistic, aspirational, amazing self do?
With the snap of a finger:

Solve world peace
Eliminate unnecessary human suffering
Increase the lifespan of humans^[2] to whatever extent we want^[3]

"21 Years Living Off-Grid on a Remote Island in a Self-Built Cabin & Homestead" on "Exploring Alternatives" channel) ↩︎
(and I guess do the same for our pets if we want to -- well, first, add to this list: make it so that animals can talk so they can give their consent for stuff like increasing their lifespan, and also so they can give consent for killing+eating them (I have a feeling they might not consent to the killing+eating part, though, so maybe this will make more people want to be vegan. This footnote got a bit vegan-propaganda, oops))) ↩︎
(maybe this is already captured by "eliminate suffering" but I think it's worth calling out) ↩︎

If an AI-art falls in a forest...

2026-07-21T21:38:29.000Z

The title is misleading. It's not AI art falling in the forest. It's human-made art.

Here is the question I pose:

If you see a piece of art, and you do not know who created it, is it any different from AI-generated art?

Or, put a different way: Is AI-generated art just as valuable as human-made art if you don't know what human made the art?

A couple assumptions are necessary:

It is impossible to find out who made the human art
The general AI-art that we are imagining would be, from a purely visual standpoint, as good as, if not indistinguishable from, the general human-made art we are imagining.

Normally, I would say that AI art has less value than human art because there was a human behind the human art. Someone actually worked on making it^[1].

But if you don't know who that human was, is there really value to the art?

Well, sure. My instinct says that art from an anonymous artist still has value.

But what if you really don't know whether the art was human-made or AI-made? Then you may start shaking with this moral quandry. You want to appreciate the art, but you don't know if you are "allowed" to.

So now there are two variants to this question:

If you don't know what human made art, is it any more valuable than AI art?
If you don't know whether a human or AI made the art, how are you supposed to feel about appreciating it?

I may have to think more about that second question.

Mainly, I wanted to drop a line from a blog post I just read, which reminded me that I wanted to discuss this topic:

It's that art was never just "output" to me. The point was never just the image. It was my hands, my bad decisions, my (what felt like) infinite number of discarded versions sometimes, my taste built over years of looking at things and being influenced and rebelling against influences. When a model spits out an image, it's skipped all of that.
...
For art, and for me, process is the point, quite possibly the entire point. The meaning comes from a human having something to say and figuring out how to say it.

So, to me, this is part of the answer to question #1. If you know that a human made it, but you don't know who that person was, you can still be assured that that person went through a process to create the art; they made decisions; they crafted something based on their accumulated experience and taste.

Also regarding: "The meaning comes from a human having something to say and figuring out how to say it" -- Most of my art is just me copying reference images that I think look cool or pretty. I'm usually not imbuing a particular meaning into it. Does that mean my art is no more valuable than AI? I don't think so, because I still put process into it. I decided how exactly to sketch and color it. And there is of course something inherently rewarding about me personally recalling the memory of having created it - as insertchaos said, I would never want to replace that with just the output. It's not the same. (But -- to an outside observer (someone who didn't make the art), it could feel the same...)

Here's an example of this train of thought I just encountered. I was reading a friend's blog post and, while contemplating the nature of comments on a blog, I checked what one other person had "hearted" his post, which led me to the below blog.

https://substack.com/@dreamsymbols/p-203837052

Though I don't explore the blog any deeper, I feel a little bit of excitement because of my interest in dreams, and especially when I figure that the art here is (maybe?) based on this person's dreams^[2].

Then a thought crossed my mind: "Wait a second, is this art AI-generated?".

My instinct was no, but these days, you have to consider.

It doesn't really look AI-generated to me, but it can be really hard to tell, and I haven't exactly been intensely training my brain to distinguish AI-art from non-AI-art.

Then I asked myself: "But does it even matter?".

So we get to the variant of the question I pose in this post, in the form of: "If you don't know whether a piece of art is AI-generated or not, is it still valuable?". And I kind of have a feeling that this really just comes down to: "If it is probably AI-generated, is it still valuable?"

Here's my gut answer in this case. I say yes, it is still valuable. The art here is meant to represent the dream that the person is describing. So what if they prompted AI until it spat out an image that looked really close to what they saw or experienced in a dream? There is inherent value here in the mental image itself, regardless of how it manifested into a sharable medium. The person had an idea of what they want the end result to look like -- the idea itself is an act of creation^[3]. Even if a person used AI, they are still making decisions about what tweaks to make (via prompting) and they decide when it is complete and matches their vision. Those decisions are creative decisions.

At the same time, if this is real, hand-drawn art, then I obviously commend it, and I think it is really cool to have the skill to draw something from your mind and for it to look really good. And, despite what I just said about there being decision-making even in AI-art, there is so much more decision-making with hand-drawn art. Every placement of a line, every curve, every shade, every aspect of where objects are placed in the composition and how much detail to put into each thing - those are all creative decisions that stack up into the creation.

But if I don't know whether those "decisions" were made by a human or an AI... well, what am I to think? I can only interpret it based on the aesthetics of it. This is an example, a case in point, not a resolution of the question... I still feel an off-ness here. I feel myself not wanting to commit to appreciating this art because I am unsure of its origin. Aesthetics versus process. I easily can appreciate the aesthetics of it. If it were human-made, I would appreciate the process of it being created. But I waver on that point due to the possibility that the process could have been drastically different to what I normally imagine it would have been, in the case that it was AI-made. Now that I say this, I realize that any digital image^[4] of art can be questioned in this way.

I acknowledge that there can be tweaking and human processing in AI-generated art. Maybe we are just talking about one-shot or minimally-prompted AI art here. ↩︎
in the past I have made some sketches based on dreams and I'd like to do more. I love the idea of dream-inspired art. Example of my own dream drawing: Ansible drawing. I recently also wrote a song based on dream I had. ↩︎
though... it may instead of the subconscious mind's act of creation in the case of a dream. ↩︎
not going to dive into the possibility of physical-medium art potentially being created by an AI that is controlling a physical medium... I'm sure it's been done, though. ↩︎

Whats Up

2026-09-22T12:38:15.000Z

What's up. What's going on. What am I doing, reading, interesting stuff to share that I don't feel like making a separate page for. I don't expect myself to keep this super regularly updated or fully comprehensive of my activity - but it's a place to put stuff that I find noteworthy.

September 2026

Travel
- Bellingham, WA 2026
Media
- Finished The Ministry for the Future (Kim Stanley Robinson)
- Started reading The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller -- an impressionist travelogue about Miller visiting Greece. I was looking for a book to prime my mind and get me excited for my upcoming trip to Greece. But also I am already really enjoying the writing -- it's quite distinct, with sprawling imagery and over the top descriptions of characters, scenery, and events.
- Watched the movie Never On Sunday (1960) -- set in Greece, about an American scholar trying to "save" someone who doesn't need to be saved. Liked it.
- Similarly, watched Boy on a Dolphin (1957) -- also set in Greece.

Past months:

May 2026

2026-07-03T18:55:50.000Z

Articles:
- Article I found via Makoism (which seems to be my new favorite blog lately -- or at least I've really liked the links that he posts): Why I'm Not Worried About Running Out of Work in the Age of AI- Standout part to me: You want to be driving the tools, not driven by them. Aggressively learn AI. Be the person who knows the most about solving problems using AI tools — integrating them, automating workflows. Not just generating content. Maybe kind of obvious, but I feel it's good to highlight. More specific to the title of the article, it talks about how AI will make work happen faster (and unfortunately possibly make less workers necessary. though I feel this depends on the industry) but it doesn't mean there will be less work to do -- this aligns with my feeling of how AI is speeding up our work at least in my job.
- I really want to read this article but haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm kind of scared (in a nervous-good way), it poses itself as being mind-changing. https://letters.thedankoe.com/p/why-your-life-feels-fake-an-antidote (also found from Makoism)
  - Update: I read this. Did not need to be scared. It did not really resonate with me, though I will be thinking a bit about its points. Mostly the problem is I think I've mostly evolved already from the issues it brings up (but I do feel it can be valuable to people who need to hear it). Took (non-comprehensive) notes here: "Why your life feels fake".
- Blog post: "NES, SNES, Genesis, VirtualBoy, and PSX | A journey with AI and Recompilation" - interesting quick read about someone's project of creating recompilations of some retro consoles. Interesting to see LLMs (Claude cli specifically) with a project like this.
Books:
- Starting to re-read The Left Hand of Darkness for my bookclub. Ursula K. Leguin is one of my favorites. Taking notes: The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin)
- Also semi re-reading Beyond Beliefs by Melanie Joy - it's basically about how to help make personal relationships work between vegans and non-vegans, though it also just has some great relationship advice in general (and I feel the advice on relationships and vegan/non-vegan relationships applies to friends and family too, though perhaps the most important one would be the romantic relationship / life partner).
Theater:
- Saw an off-off-Broadway show. Notes: Specimen (2026)
- Saw Dave Malloy's latest musical: Black Swan
Podcasts:
- Indie Hackers podcast helping me think about asking potential users questions for an app idea: The Right Way to Talk to People About Your Business - Indie Hackers Podcast
- Listened to "Did Shakesepare really write all that stuff" on the Stuff You Should Know Podcast. Interesting listen.

June 2026

2026-07-03T15:39:28.000Z

Doings
- I sewed a button back onto my shorts. Huge news, I know. First time doing this. Needle and thread. Followed youtube vids.
- I went on a Foraging tour with Wildman Steve Brill - foraged (and ate) plants in Central Park. Great experience! I'm excited to become more confident on identifying the plants we saw.
- I've finally gone back to the sketch I made in January for Pools (2025)#Paint a picture and have started painting it (still in progress).
- Finally got my record player set up. I already had the record player but no amp/speakers for it. I bought "ART DJPREII Phono Preamplifier" from Amazon and then took some old computer speakers which my dad had lying around. I've had the record player itself for almost a year -- it was a curbside find from my parents' neighborhood. Now I can actually play records on it!
- I'm building back up some dream recall, which is why I've been making some recent notes about dreams.
Blogs / videos / podcasts
- Hank Green - "What is 'Slop' (and why it gives me hope)" - The 'hope' part is that as low-effort AI generated content becomes easier to make and thus there is more of it (this is the "slop"), real human effort will become the more scarce thing and thus people will appreciate the value of human effort more.
- Podcast: Skeptics Guide to the Universe#Episode 1087
- I found a blog called "Escaping Flatland", specifically because of this dating advice article which is resonating strongly with me, but I think I'm also going to enjoy many of the other blog posts/topics.
Theater
- Saw a production of the play Uncle Vanya (first time seeing it) by the Hudson Classical Theater Company. They perform in a park. Nice to be outside although it is a low budget production.
- Saw a free production of Shakespear's Tragedy of Julius Caesar performed by NY Classical in Central Park. It was very well done, and an enjoyable show! It was semi-immersive because they had us walk+settle to different (near) locations in the park for different scenes of the performance. Similar to Into the Woods Immersive Performance (though the ITW experience was much more epic in my opinion).
Music
- Loving the song "Each Time I Die" by Bones & Beaker. (Title sounds morbid but it's more reincarnation-esque.) The rest of their album doesn't really resonate with me though.
- I saw Larry and His Flask live! Larry and His Flask#June 2026 Concert
- Saw Streetlight Manifesto live at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park! Really fun concert (it's my fifth time seeing them live). They were opened by a band called Whilhelm Screem, and then The Aquabats!. Aquabats was really fun (I had listened to some of their songs in the past).
- Right after I coded up a quick little project, Oh My Rockness Genre Enrichment, I used it and went to see some live music by two bands called Um, Jennifer? and Dune Blue.

July 2026

2026-08-03T01:50:21.000Z

Doings
- Starting to learn some Greek in preparation for a short trip coming up.
Articles
- Netflix character requirements: "have this character announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along". This came up for me because of a really bad line in the S2 Netflix adaptation of Avatar Last Airbender, where a character did exactly that (Youtuber Drew Gooden agrees in his analysis here - also highlights everything else wrong with the Netflix adaptation, and it resonates.). Reading that this kind of bad writing is being "required" is so sad to me. Haven't read this full article.
Music
- Been loving the album "Waves" by Bitter Ruin. Love the male+female vocals+harmonies. It's especially nice when the male+female vocals alternate in a song. Their voices are lovely. Highlighted songs so far are "Tom Thumb", "Ticker Don't Tock", "Leather for Hell", "Stampede". Regarding genre: wikipedia says "experimental pop", Rate Your Music says "dark cabaret, acoustic rock, indie folk".
TV
- I've been rewatching Avatar: The Last Airbender (the original series) right after having watched S2 of the Netflix adaptation (which, especially after rewatching S2 of the original (which itself is fantastic of course), my opinion has gotten lower and lower of). One particular episode in S3 inspired this note: Dostoevsky as Last Airbender. I'm also excited to watch the new movie which is being officially released later in the month (I have refused out of principle to watch the leaked version). And of course took this as a reminder to update my list of dreaming skills to work on with element bending (which has been one of my dream interests since I first got into lucid dreaming).
Books
- Finally finished War and Peace (perhaps poetically, finished it on the same day as finishing my rewatch of The Last Airbender (which certainly, as a show, covers topics of war and of peace.)). Happy I finished it; definitely ready+excited to move on to other books. (I've been interleaving book-club books between chunks of War and Peace. But still just excited to move on.)
- Starting to read The Ministry for the Future (Kim Stanley Robinson)
Movies
- Saw The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan). Fantastic film.

August 2026

2026-09-01T17:42:02.000Z

Media
- Rewatching ATLA last month and finishing catching up on Rick & Morty is reminding me how good animated series can be.
- Finished the final book (audiobook) in The Wheel of Time series! I wrote up a bit of a sentimental thought-stream in that post.
- A ReWildU video making me suspect I will eventually want to try learning some Braille... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR39oD8f-lw)
- Saw Spiderman: Brand New Day - liked it overall
- Watched They Live (1988)
- Catching up on Daredevil: Born Again season 2. I started it a couple months ago but wasn't in the right mindspace to continue (maybe just because it's a darker type of show) but I'm enjoying it now that I've actually gotten into it.
- I found a piano songbook for classical / old-time-y Broadway showtunes and a couple songs in was a song called "The Big Time" from a show called The Will Roger Follies, which, as I learned, won the 1991 Tony Award for Best Musical. After playing the song through, I wanted to see a performance/visual of it, so I searched YouTube, and got drawn into a proshot recording of the musical. Some more notes.
- I saw Will Wood and the Tapeworms live at the Starland Ballroom in NJ! Fun show, love the music, though the concert didn't hit as hard as I expected it to.
Creative thoughts
- Comics
  - As usually happens when I consume good art (see "TV" above), it makes me want to create... Trying to come to terms with this desire within me to create some kind of animated story. When I've had this feeling in the past (well, maybe more for feeling inspired to create a live action film or shorts or whatever), I come to the logic that the baby steps are to first just write creatively, then for animation get better at drawing, which could lead to creating storyboards/comics, which doesn't feel too far away from animation (except of course realizing that animation is extremely time-expensive, but knowing me, I might put a medium amount of effort interspersed over an annoyingly long period of time and end up creating a mediocre three minute long animation and then be satisfied and call it quits). Brief youtube spree searching for "How to make a cartoon": "Making an Indie Animated Series from Scratch" (Infinimart) makes it very scary, whereas "Animating a Whole Cartoon in 24 Hours" (CyanSandwich) is more comforting -- makes me more confident that there is an in-between space between these two where I could create something satisfying.
  - I've also started reading through "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud (notes).
Programming projects
- I'm gotten an urge to think through some game dev ideas. Not sure what will come of them. Possibly this is triggered by me working on a game-ish project for my company hackathon. Most of my ideas right now are involving LLM-based interaction or user-directed AI-generated assets in some way. e.g. Thinking about AI Person Simulation and Interactive Narrative.
- I've occasionally been using Codex (Open AI's CLI-based AI tool) to help with local development. After getting frustrated at reaching the weekly credit limit, I decided to try one month of the pro-tier ($80/month) which highly increases the limit. I've ended up making progress on several projects due to trying to then hit that limit so as to make use of what I've paid for. There a strange balance of finding enough work for it to do, versus then still eventually running out of quota and then having to wait for the limit to reset the next week. I'm not currently sure if I would do another renewal of this or just stick to the regular plus-tier ($20/month) which I've been on basically since ChatGPT came out.
- Been making progress on Grocery Receipt Tracker. I'm partially feeling spurred to make progress here because I discovered a competitor who has actually released something that is almost exactly my same idea. I'm feeling mixed between thereby not wanting to continue it, or wanting to continue it and make it better than theirs. I'm at least giving it a try and we'll see how far I go.
- Started making a prototype for Idea - Social ebook annotation - I'm quite excited about this idea, and the goal (at first at least) is for a community tool that's more open-source rather than profit/product-driven. I just genuinely feel like this should be a thing that exists and that people should use, and I feel that I don't want to put a barrier (like a paywall) in front of it.
- Devised Wildlife livestream kiosk - Window into another world -- partly a coding project (hardly, because AI coded for me), partly a new apartment feature -- excited to get this mounted onto my wall.
Blog commentary
- Adding a couple kind of random (but pre-existing) ideas to the Projects->3D Modeling & Animation and VFX sections. I want to document more of the random ideas that are floating around, both simply to share them and also to have a place for me to track progress on them (and also creating pages for ideas lets me reference them in other notes when they are relevant of course.)

April 2026

2026-06-22T01:31:03.000Z

Listened to part of an episode of the podcast called "Sceptic's Guide to the Universe" (episode #1079). I've been following this podcast for a while but never listened to an episode. I like it. More of a conversation about different topics, with an intellectual/academic tone. e.g. this episode jumped from discussing a) hygiene during medieval times, b) a logical fallacy called "fundamental attribution error", c) agricultural science related to photosynthesis. (And that was just barely half of the episode.) Long episodes. I have a feeling I'll be listening to this podcast more often.
Another podcast I've been listening to (on walks) is "The Bowery Boys", which covers interesting tidbits of NYC history. Listened to 1) about the construction of an underwater railway across the Hudson River, 2) about the 'scandal' surrounding Robert Ray Hamilton (grandson of Alexander Hamilton), 3) about the Great Fire of 1835 which destroyed hundreds of buildings, 4) about the Ellis Island processing center and hospital. All very interesting listens.
Saw The Lost Boys (musical) on Broadway
Listened to the new Foo Fighters album ("Your Favorite Toy") and I liked it after listening through once. I just read some threads on reddit of people's reactions, and it seems people are underwhelmed at it. I think I can see why, but I still enjoyed the listen and would listen to the songs again. For what it's worth, my exposure to Foo Fighters is pretty much only the album "Wasting Light" and even looking at the track list from that, the only songs that are close to my heart are "These Days" (probably my most-listened-to song of theirs) and "Arlandria". I indeed should explore their stuff more. Anyway, the new album felt similar to what I knew their sound to be from Wasting Light, in a good way, so it makes sense that I liked it.
I obtained a free book called "The Marquis de Sade: the complete Justine / Philosophy in the bedroom / and other writings". I selected it because it seemed it could be an interesting philosophy book to have on my bookshelf of physical books that I barely (but sometimes!) look at (because I'm an e-book guy through and through). I just now read the Forward to the book, and this Sade guy seems to be pretty interesting. Apparently a masterful writer who was ostracized (maybe?) and jailed (for some reason) and wrote a lot, almost with the intention of seeing how far he could push the limits of ideas that go against all societal norms. I'm almost scared to see what that means, but I'm also intrigued. I get a kick out of people going against the grain (but I get the feeling this may go waaaay farther than what is probably my own wholesome version of "going against the grain", so I'm definitely not trying to make any claims about his work before I have any idea what it contains). Not sure if or when I will read more of this, but it will be on my shelf, with mysteries to be discovered.
Listened to "Cardboard Castles" (album) by Watsky (pop rap). I like it, will listen more. Spotify suggested a song from it after I was listening to Flobots (conscious hip hop). Added it to my current playlist of albums I like / want to listen to more (similar to what I was describing in 2025 Music Retrospective)
Working through Book Four of War and Peace - exciting times (seriously, I'm being slow at reading it, but the plot/character developments are exciting)

Random Snippets

2026-06-09T15:19:07.000Z

10

https://blog.avas.space/nemesis/
(Avas Space is a blog I found via the Kagi Small Web RSS feed and I've been following new posts since then.)
This is resonating with me:

"search for someone equally passionate to help me grow and challenge me in some topics"
"My understanding of things is not getting pressure-tested, I want to need to research more and formulate arguments in conversation.

I feel like for a lot of topics, I don't have much challenge or back-and-forth. Looking for that is part of why I started writing on this website - to increase the amount of stuff I put forth into the void, which can open the possibility for discussion of topics that are important to me.

I think what is really important is to regularly have chats with people who want to have intellectual discussions.

9

https://www.scarletink.com/if-youre-never-wrong-at-work-youre-probably-not-leading/
(from Makoism coffee post)

Title - "If you're never wrong at work, you're probably not leading"
importance of taking risks and trying things out that aren't obviously already needed/definite
- Surely this applies outside of career stuff as well (See snippet #8 below)
"a person who adds value is doing things that others would not do."
One criterion I've used before to measure value is, "If you weren't there, would things have gone a drastically different way?"

8

https://experimentalliving.substack.com/p/life-lessons-from-a-pro-bowler
(from Makoism coffee post)

Encourages experimenting with everyday things in your life
Footnote 3 talks about a way to help falling asleep - it's essentially thinking of words that start with a selected letter and visualizing those objects interacting. Similarly, I often find that visualizing (usually imagining tasks to complete in dreams) brings me closer to sleep. Something about letting your mind wander away from the physical sensations of your body/bed and towards the inners of your mind seems to help with drifting.
"Try new methods, no matter how ridiculous they might seem."
Makes me think of the thinking I've been doing recently related to sending broad invites to social hangouts (in terms of experimenting with new/different ways to do so) (see some discussion of this in The Right Way to Talk to People About Your Business - Indie Hackers Podcast)
"Often, progress happens because a handful of people are willing to look ridiculous for awhile. "

7

https://sive.rs/bfaq - Blogger who posts notes about books he reads. Linked article is about philosophy on publicizing the notes he takes on the books he read. Feels similar to the idea of a Digital Garden as a public place for your own notes which you take for yourself but you also want to share them with others in case they can get something out of them. He makes emphasis that the notes he posts aren't meant to be a replacement/summary of the book, but instead just his own notes about what stands out to him and things he wants to remember about them. I also do make a lot of highlights in e-books I've read, so I could see myself at some point going through those after I read a book and making more formal notes and publicizing them here, though I've never really done this yet (Except for my notes on The 2-Hour Cocktail Party by Nick Gray)

6

(WARNING -- The Good Place spoilers) In the tv show The Good Place in season 3 episode 8, there is a character who lives on earth and has, during a mushroom trip, figured out the (basically utilitarian) point system that the afterlife uses to determine if someone goes to the good or bad place. After learning the system, he devotes his life to, as far as he can, be "good", so to speak, but it is obsessive (and frankly a little weird/silly but that's just the tone of the show). Our protagonists observe this obsession and try to convince him to relax a little, but he says that he won't take the chance of letting his guard down because it might mean he'll end up in the bad place. They see that he has become so obsessed with doing "right" that he has actually lost all enjoyment of life for his own sake of living life. I think the implicit expected reaction to this is: Well, is doing all that stuff really worth it if you are losing your whole human life to it? (Well, given that the Good Place would actually mean eternal heaven, then it does actually seem worth it, since the short human lifespan is nothing relative to eternity - it's a worthy sacrifice. But that's besides my subsequent point:).

Anyway, this made me think about what a friend has questioned to me a couple of times about my adherence/attention to a whole-food plant-based diet - specifically, contemplating if it's worth it to give up delicious foods and the enjoyment you get from them. Hopefully the parallel to the good place guy is clear. As for my response: First of all, I'm not actually 100% strict on the whole-food part of wfpb (though I am 100% vegan), so I do enjoy treats when I want to. Second -- if we look at things like me substituting recipes with refined sugar to use date paste instead, or even looking more broadly at vegan substitutes in recipes making vegan versions of recipes, then what I say is: it's not a loss; it's simply a new set of recipes/techniques to learn, a new set of food options to enjoy, and there can be infinite enjoyment within that. Perhaps non-vegan food is its own infinity of enjoyment, but vegan food can be its own equal infinity. Similar to someone from any one particular culture can have an infinity of enjoyment with their own ethnic foods (ignoring that they can try other culture's foods), I can view vegan foods as its own infinity. So even if it does involve giving up one kind/flavor of enjoyment, (and yes there may be certain things that can never be perfectly substituted), there is still an enormous realm of enjoyment to be had in vegan cooking. (Of course, even if the vegan "mode" does not quite reach infinity, though above I argue it does, I would still say it is worth doing due to the ethical arguments of it.)

(2/26/2026)

5

https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2026/02/17/relaxation-paradox/

About energy after work. Fatigue vs vigor. Relaxation+detachment -> reduce fatigue, control+mastery -> increase vigor.
Good sleep has 2-3x the impact of recovery experiences.
Exercise also important
Small efforts to recover energy can compound

(Big fan of this blog. I got hooked years ago by the articles about lifelong learning.)

(2/24/2026)

4

Liked this blog post about someone going vegetarian: https://maxwrenna.com/slowly-meat/

(1/11/2026)

3

Reddit post I found via Google search query "writing a proustian memoir site:reddit.com". (Entitled "Scraping training data for your mind"). Described a writer (Karl Ove Knausgaard’) who was read Proust's In Search of Lost Time, supposedly very quickly (the post seems to imply in one sitting, but given it's 4000 pages in total, I am dubious), and then was inspired by it and it influenced his writing style. I liked some other aspects of the post as well. (I read In Search of Lost Time a few years ago. It took me 1.5 years to get through (it didn't really need to have taken that long, but the combination of a) challenging material, b) boring at times, c) my reading habit was not very strong (possibly because I was focusing strongly on just getting through this - see (a) and (b))).

Additional notes:
- "He doesn't know what to write about. He overhears a conversation in the library, writes it down, and then wings it from there."" (On finding inspiration )
- take input from expert sources rather than ppl slightly better than you. (Makes me think of LDing) and also make sure it adapts to you and your strengths
- also refers to "learning in public" as a way to attract other ppl who will help supply you with expert examples as well

(12/27/2025)

2

"This is why I’m not afraid to take my own case to trial because even if I fail or even if I fight and lose, —at least I fought for you." https://thewrittenaddiction.com/2025/12/15/all-for-more-or-less-35/ -- Seems like a poetry-based blog. Slogan of the site is "Where I go to leave pieces of me". I like that. (12/16/2025)

1

Blog that talks about associations between their travel memories and specific music/albums/artists. I could see myself doing something similar with music associations. https://mfranchi.net/posts/springs-best-25/ (12/14/2025)

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2026-05-06T03:38:06.000Z

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2026-05-13T15:36:53.000Z

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What Is This

2025-12-16T16:08:31.000Z

#digitalgarden

This is my "digital garden". It's sort of a blog, sort of a personal wiki. It's a place for me to comment on media I've consumed, share about my interests and personal projects, and document my viewpoints or anything else I want to share with the world.

What inspired this?

I've had the idea of writing in a blog format for a while -- see My Past Self Telling Me To Start a Blog. Idea blossomed into reality after I watched a video^[1] which introduced the idea of a digital garden. I then read more about the concept in this article.

What directly appealed to me about the concept of a "digital garden" is that it's not a blog with an underlying purpose like promoting a product or gaining ad revenue. Instead, it's just a way for someone to express themselves to the world.

Even though I've read handfuls of personal blogs before, I never connected the dots that it's something that just anyone could do. It seemed like you have to have a really strong and cohesive message or goal to put out there if you're going to be one of those people who starts a blog.

But it's a garden, not a farm. You plant some seeds and tend to the plants as they grow. Anyone can do it. Things don't have to be super polished. You can write a full-blown article about a topic you're interested in, or just a couple bullet points about an idea you recently had.

What makes it a digital garden and not a blog?

Maybe it's both?

But a digital garden has an emphasis on a few things:

Posts don't have to be perfectly polished - they can be incomplete or in-progress at any given moment
Posts aren't viewed as untouchable pieces of work - they can be changed and updated over time
Posts aren't organized chronologically like in a typical blog. The preferred method of navigation is through categories or tags, or through backlinks from posts to posts.

This article goes into more detail about some of these points, and is worth a read if you're interested.

What do I hope for a reader to get out of this site?

Perhaps:

Be entertained
Discover new resources, ideas, interests, or concepts
Understand me better and have a glimpse into how my mind works

What do I hope for myself to get out of this site?

See Reasons to Write (Here)

How did I make this site?

I use a text editor called Obsidian, which makes it easy to have a hierarchy of many interconnected notes, and publish to Github Pages.

Also see Obsidian Setup.

Who in the world do I think is going to read this?

Perhaps friends or family I share it with. But also over time, random people from the World Wide Web. At some point, I'd like to add it to the Kagi Small Web feed.

Even if my audience is extremely tiny, I still feel motivated to write here. It's a long-term project representing myself.

"The Brainrot Apocalypse (a DIY survival guide)" by Struthless. Relevant part at about 26:45 but the whole video is worth watching ↩︎

Reasons to Write (Here)

2026-05-07T03:16:56.000Z

Doing any writing makes me a better writer by developing the skill
Expressing my ideas and sharing them with people, which can lead to connection (with people), collaboration, insight
Writing things out provides a means of developing ideas, possibly leading towards insights and connections (between ideas)

Inevitability

"One sign of a good action is that in retrospect it appears inevitable." ~Kim Stanley Robison, Green Mars

I'm feeling an inevitability in my writing here. As of writing this paragraph, it's been about three weeks since I've started writing here. It has felt so natural to write and to have things to write about, in this format and with having a public audience in mind. I've surprised myself - it's not often I begin a pursuit that feels this easy. It feels like I've been doing this forever but it's been such a short time. It doesn't feel like I will ever want to stop writing here, unless I at some point feel like I have privacy or safety concerns (which I try to be mindful of when publishing my writing).

The above statements remind me (and honestly are partially drawn from) this Slate Star Codex post (which I read before starting this blog). There are some other related lines, but mainly: "I’ve written a few hundred to a few thousand words pretty much every day for the past ten years. But as I’ve said before, this has taken exactly zero willpower. It’s more that I can’t stop even if I want to." I'm not trying to compare myself to the very impressive writing of Mr. Codex, or even say that the type of writing I'm doing here is similar to his, but I feel the same way that most of what I write here has not felt like it required willpower from me.

Please Don't Spearphish Me (Creating an Obsidian Plugin)

2026-05-30T19:45:49.000Z

#digitalgarden #obsidian #cybersecurity #privacy #project #coding #miniproject

Anytime I make a new public appearance (like making a new social media account, or this blog) I ask myself: am I revealing too much about myself to the Internet? I have some background in cybersecurity (meaning: a handful of classes at university), so I have some mental framework that lets me contemplate the consequences of having information about myself online.

There's a little voice in my head saying not to publish an article with this title ("please don't spearphish me") because it might act as reverse psychology and give someone the idea to do it just because I mentioned it. Please don't be that person.

Anyway, my point here is that I'm building some level of a safeguard for myself. A tool that might help me catch myself before revealing too much.

Is this a perfect solution? No.

Am I overthinking this? Maybe.

But just like my footnote in my 1 Second Everyday - Indie Hackers Podcast post ("It's scary sometimes how easy it might be to ruin your own life"), I feel that exposing some little piece of information about yourself in public could cause some mess for you. At best? Someone being creepy and sending you weird messages. At worst? Someone identifying a routine that you have and stalking you in real life. Or just hacking you via a spearphishing email that contains a link or download you mindlessly click.

So what's my little solution for this? An Obsidian plugin that will audit the current note I've written and tell me if I'm revealing too much information in the post. (Obsidian is the text editor I use to write these blog posts, and I use the Obsidian Digital Garden plugin for help building+publishing to this site.)

How it works

This is the workflow:

Install the plugin (see instructions on the Github repo, linked below) and set your OpenAI API key in the plugin settings. You can also modify the system prompt that tells the AI how to interpret your note and what the output should look like.
You write a note in Obsidian.
Open the command palette (ctrl/cmd + P) and run "Privacy Audit".
The request will be processed by the OpenAI API and the result will be opened in a side panel.

More details

I used ChatGPT to help me code this up. It didn't take long to set it up locally and test it out in Obsidian.

The plugin uses the OpenAI API to ask GPT to review the note and make any suggestions.

I've published the code to my Github here and I've made a Pull Request on the Obsidian repo to get this added to the community plugin list so that anyone can access it. A fun little open-source contribution that I hope someone might find helpful! I'm pretty new to the Obsidian and Digital Gardening scene, so I hope the universe will forgive me if something like this already exists (I swear, I don't mean to flood the plugin list with slop).

Examples

The command:

The plugin catches my reveal of a routine:

The plugin catches my reveal of corporate information:

No issues with this one! It gives some extraneous suggestions about my clearly engaging content:

Areas for improvement

Add a command to run an audit for every file in the vault individually and get a summary of suggested fixes for each
Add a command to do a comprehensive audit across the whole vault, in case little bits of information in each file add up to a bigger picture (violating your privacy) which wouldn't be revealed within just one file. (This may be complicated since all the files won't fit in one GPT context window. There'd have to be some processing.)
Add a similar audit to the Github pipeline that actually gets triggered when I publish a note, so I don't have to remember to manually run the audit within Obsidian. If there is a critical warning, maybe fail the job, or maybe just alert me somehow.

Concluding words

I have a feeling I might think of other AI-related Obsidian plugins in the future.

A retrospect from two days later

(2025-12-10) Retrospectively, what I mostly actually developed here was a GPT wrapper for a single-prompt analysis of the current note. The only thing making it a "security audit" plugin is the system prompt, which is modifiable in the plugin settings. So, anyone could actually change the system prompt for themselves and use it for something different. (This is a good/cool thing.)

Maybe I should instead have branded it as a generic GPT overlay. But I do also value the privacy focus because I feel like it's good to get people to think about it and give them a ready-made tool to do the privacy check up. So maybe I should make a separate plugin that has more emphasis on being a free-form AI tool.

But, without researching this at all, I'd guess that something like that already exists. GPT has been a thing for a while, and I'm sure that someone made a plugin to integrate a full chat into Obsidian. Fine, I'll check. Found this reddit post with some suggested plugins for this. I'm not discounting my own plugin, but maybe I don't need to expand it like I'm saying. At the same time, what I'm really suggesting here is a way for a user to set up any amount of custom commands which will execute one GPT system prompt on the active note. I could see this being a novel plugin idea.

2025-12-11
Also, I realize that there is some irony/concern with passing the potentially sensitive note content to AI to scan for said potentially sensitive content. The tradeoff is, do I want to reveal my personal details to the Internet, or reveal them to an AI (read: the corporation running the AI)?

Also, my PR for the Obsidian plugin has kind of stalled, and I'm not feeling much motivation to push hard on it. Might be something I just let float around until I feel more strongly about it. It's a really teeny tiny mini project, not a big deal.

On Privacy

2026-06-13T18:34:58.000Z

As can be hinted in Please Don't Spearphish Me, I a conscientious of the dilemma of having a blog like this versus possible privacy and safety concerns. I have always been careful about what I post online, and suddenly I am encouraging myself to post more personal thoughts, opinions, and details -- obviously I'm avoiding posting information that would lead to someone being able to harm me, but it's scary to think about what could slip through which someone malicious could leverage. What's there to be scared of? Stalker, hacker, threats. I don't think anyone has a reason to target me in particular, but it's the Internet. You never know.

Notes

1

From Youtuber benoftheweek's podcast "DRAMA MAMA" in an episode called "Omegle shut down", talking about how Gen-Z posts online more anonymously and less of personal content (I'm slightly censoring quote to make family friendly):

"They'll have a thousand videos, but never a video of themselves. Which, like, I think is very valid, they're onto something. We don't need to be sharing personal things/details, probably, on the Internet. The logical side of my brain is like, no, do not share anything about yourself online. Digital footprint, all that. But the heart and soul of me is like, damn, if we don't do that, if we're not putting a piece of ourselves on the Internet, what is the Internet then. It's gonna be another form of TV where these hyper-curated, polished influencers are just pumping out junk food content for us to see that doesn't make us think or want us to chime in or inspire us to create anything of our own."

This youtuber makes goofy videos (which I love the sense of humor of) but I've also recently enjoyed some of the more serious takes on his podcast. I didn't really expect this video in particular to touch on this but was pleasantly surprised it did. It aligns with the core of what inspired this blog in the first place (See mention of Struthless video in What Is This#What inspired this?). Also obviously I started this "On Privacy" page because I wanted to add this note about the considerations to have when debating privacy vs community. Part of my starting to write on this site is because I also feel this importance of wanting to put something of myself out there for others to appreciate, learn from, be inspired, engage with, maybe form a sense of a micro-community around someday, and hopefully have interaction back my way which could inspire or influence me.
Coming back to this note because I just watched another of his videos, "stop sharing everything online" which at surface level seems like a contradiction of the above, but his point is more about not sharing super personal details, which I think is fair. It did make me question what level of detail I am willing to / should be sharing, though.

On Lack of a Comments System

2026-07-21T01:52:08.000Z

When I was first creating this digital garden, I was wondering if I should add a comments system so that people can react and discuss to my posts. There could be genuine community and engagement developed through that.

It's possible I may change my decision in the future. However, I have been hesitant to add a comments system. Instead, if someone wants to react to something I've written, I hope they will use the "Send me a comment" form on the bottom of every page, or write to me directly if it's someone I know in real life.

Reasons I am hesitant to add a comments system:

Comments can be performative. I would prefer someone messaging me something meaningful directly rather than them commenting publicly in order to show to the world or to others that they were here, or simply to show to me that they were here. I would hope for real discussion.
I don't want to have to deal with spam comments, or comments that I may not be happy about being there (and dealing with the dilemma or removing the comment or allowing free speech).
Comments might interrupt the feeling of simplicity and purity of just having my writing here.

Reasons that make me want to add a comments system:

I think it would be cool to develop a sense of community around things I've written^[1], which only happens when comments are visible to everyone and people can discuss things with each other.
Public comments means someone can share knowledge or thoughts with me or others. This could lead to interesting discussion or new insights.
Having a public comments section may make someone more likely to write something rather than writing to me privately, which might seem more intimidating. This could increase the chance of someone sharing something that could be helpful to me or others.
Maybe part of why I am hesitant to add a comments system is because of the fear of an empty comments section and making it publicly obvious that what I've written has not had engagement. I don't want to not do something simply because I am scared or anticipating shame^[2].
- 30 minutes after typing the above, I opened the Insight Timer app for a short meditation session^[3] and the quote of the day was: "May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears." Feels like the universe responding to me or something. (Also... the quote has a comments section.)

And then I go and leave a comment on my friend's blog, and I'm thinking... shouldn't I let people do that on mine, too?

I feel arrogant to even claim that anything I've written would lead to "community", whatever I mean by that, but I still think it would be cool. ↩︎
to be clear, I don't think I should be ashamed at any lack of engagement. I write on here happily regardless of whether anyone engages. But those feelings may still come up. ↩︎
I just use the app for the timer feature. I set a never-ending timer which rings a chime every five minutes. Helps me to not wonder about how much time is passing (which yes is maybe something to work on not worrying about) ↩︎

My Past Self Telling Me To Start a Blog

2026-05-30T19:45:49.000Z

Digging in the archives of my Google Keep notes:

From May 5, 2018:

[!NOTE]
Start a blog, because cool people have blogs. But don't do it for money or fame. Do it to write about things you like writing about, and if anyone reads it, that will be reward in itself.

Write about:

Unicycling

Complaints about society or myself

(My past self was a little bit performative about the concept of "being cool", but it was mostly in a silly joking way and more about inspiring myself to do interesting things with my time.)

From June 8, 2018:

[!NOTE]
When there's an interesting quote or passage or idea in a book you're reading, write about it (use those skills from all your English classes over the years) and maybe make a blog post about it! Who knows, maybe someone will be interested in your thoughts. But do pure thoughts. Okay, not #thoughtstream thoughts, as this is approaching, (well this style would be fine for a blogpost, if not excellent for displaying my personality) but don't flourish the writing - make it true to yourself.

I'm guessing the above note was inspired by this line from Never Eat Alone that I highlighted also on June 8, 2018:

[!Warning] Quote
Acting on an idea—whether it’s as small as writing a blog, or as big as creating a business—sends a shock wave out into the world that flows back even stronger, as others gain interest in your ideas and wish to add their own and new community all gathered around you, energized by your shared interest.

From June 3, 2018:

[!NOTE]
Things I could write about on a blog

<redacted>

<redacted> (eventually)

juggling, unicycling

programming

China/Japan

The physics of microwave doors

Hour of code

Book review

Product reviews! Once your blog starts growing, you can start places for free stuff (eg filament)

Electronics robot

(No, I'm not sure why physics of microwave doors is on this list.)

From June 6, 2020:

[!NOTE]
Blog name
Life flow

From January 2, 2021:

[!NOTE]
Argument for having a blog
"Reach out to like-minded people.... Having a public blog... with small amount of content expressing your thoughts and ideas is helpful [for meeting people]" https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2020/11/23/missing-foundation/

From December 11, 2024:

[!NOTE]
Blog name: Brian, Master of None

Above note expanded on October 23, 2025:

[!NOTE]
Brian's Corner

Likely because on October 21, 2025, I wrote this in OneNote^[1]):

[!NOTE]
Blog: aka writing for an audience.

Could see myself having a public blog in the future -- this notebook is an experiment, space to see what posts might look like.

And finally, on December 6, 2025, the day before I started this Digital Garden and wrote my first post.

[!NOTE]
Digital Garden -- related to my ideas for blog / personal website / answer to my wondering about use of social media to share projects and interests and [engage?] and such

https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history
Found from this good video which has other great ideas too https://youtu.be/6fj-OJ6RcNQ

(with an associated movie review of Twinless which at least as of writing this here I have not published. Maybe I should. ↩︎

Indie Web

2026-03-30T02:33:59.000Z

Notes on "The Web Revival Breakdown"

https://myrrh.city/museum/library/Thewebrevivalbreakdown
Reading on: 3/29/2026

"The web revival rejects algorithmic content, in favor of intentional and thoughtful expression."
"There is no scarcity here but your own creative thoughts. Save my images, copy pieces of my code, take inspiration from my site.... Copy my site page for page, but only I’ve got the mind to make new pages just as good as the old.
"Leave your echo chambers!... A lot of conversations you think may be obvious just haven't happened in other places, and vice versa."
"Decentralize your web use" -- new phrasing for me for having a personal site. I like it.
Free online photoshop clone: https://www.photopea.com/
"[The web revival is] your chance to participate and express yourself and your ideas, and see other peoples as well."
"Your information is not packed away anywhere for a third party to sell. It is yours. Nearly impossible to be found by anything other than a human who cares."
- Not sure about the last sentence -- surely a bot could scrape a site like this. Maybe it just means it's not discovery-by-algorithm like most social media.
Talks about part of web revival being about archiving.
- Example: Apparently MySpace used to be a place for artists to post their music. It was all deleted from MySpace but there's an archive of it called the "MySpace Dragon Hoard" - this is a player for it: https://mydora.restorativland.org/
  - (<-- from that site: "The archived collection contains 490,273 songs, which represents a tiny fraction of tens of millions of songs that were destroyed, many of which had no copies and are lost forever.". How tragic (the destruction).)
- First thing playing was "Aethra - Far Beyond The Distant Skies", listened to it while writing this. Feels like a radio. Just letting it play as I continue to read the article and write these notes. Another I'm liking is "Mike Joseph - Screeaaam". I like how these have kind of an early digital music feel (meaning audio quality. but maybe it's just my laptop speaker quality).
"Decentralization of communication means little to no profit incentive. No one paid to sell you on a trend."
Talks about joining a "web ring", where you join a ring and link to the next site in the chain. Not sure if I would want to do something like this - but it seems like a cool way to have random people find your site and to help visitors to your site find other sites. (This could be an answer to my point in Garden Improvements about an alternative to adding this blog to Kagi Small Web since Kagi requires a blog to be 3 years old)
Just as a touchpoint on my thoughts as of March 2026: I am really appreciating these ideas especially with the ownership aspect in mind. I have felt urges in the past to post deeper stuff to social media, but it never quite felt right. I think one reason is because of the lack of true ownership. With a site like this, I am in charge of my data. This partly is a worry about losing my data. But also it's a feeling of not wanting some corporation to be the place where my data lives -- it's kind of weird. Like, (and yes weird example I'm summoning), imagine someone is building a time capsule (like physical one) and the place they choose (/ feel the need) to hide it in is a fast food restaurant storage closet. Why let your treasured possessions be controlled by an external entity, when you could find an independent location that you are completely in charge of?
Links this article, I'd like to read it: https://kyledrake.com/writings/ai
"Everything you see on the internet is man made, and every man has an agenda. Even you and I. So Everything we interact with should be thought about critically."
Search engine for indie web (not sure where it indexes from) https://wiby.me/. Similar but for non-commercial sites in general: https://marginalia-search.com/
"The concept of the web revival is a free speech oriented space, dedicated to the open and free dissemination of information and resources to all people, regardless of class, location, social standing, age, race, gender, and everything else. This may seem like the obvious desire of the web, something we can all aspire to, right?"

Blogging Inspiration

2025-12-10T19:06:42.000Z

https://strikingloo.github.io/wiki/essays

Obsidian Setup

2026-04-27T21:07:52.000Z

#obsidian

Most of the setup for this blog is handled by the Obsidian Digital Garden plugin (specifically I used this fork of it which made it easy to publish via Github Pages).

My current theme from the Obsidian Digital Garden theme library is "Blue Topaz".

Following the custom components guide for the DG plugin, I added the link to my feedback form using a footer component which I manually added in src/site/_includes/components/user/notes/footer/feedback-form.njk (github link)

Feed.xml fix

The Obsidian Digital Garden plugin automatically generates an RSS feed at the /feed.xml route at the root of the site. But when I navigated there, I saw this error:
error on line 48 at column 17: Opening and ending tag mismatch: link line 47 and entry
https://github.com/oleeskild/obsidian-digital-garden/issues/493
I found this Github issue that helped resolve this. The solution was to manually go into the site's Github repo and edit src/site/feed.njk so that all of the <link> tags have a closing tag with five backslashes instead of four (yes this is a weird error/workaround).

Setting custom domain name

I added garden.briancher.in as my domain in Github Pages settings, but it got cleared any time I published a note from Obsidian. Thankfully I quickly found a note in the repo's readme which said I needed to add the domain also to .github/workflows/build.yml.

Garden Improvements

2026-07-06T13:41:33.000Z

#digitalgarden

Things to do:

The Will Rogers Follies (1991)

2026-08-26T00:14:33.000Z

Broadway musical from 1991 that won the Tony awards for Best Musical and Best Original Score. It's about the life of historical figure Will Rogers (1879-1935), who was a performer and social commentator.

I chanced upon it in August 2026 due to a piano sheet music book I was working through (unsurprisingly, it's a Broadway songbook) and the song "The Big Time" caught my interest. I searched it on Youtube and saw that there was a full recording of the show (with original cast) -- can be found with a quick search. So I watched it.

I enjoyed it! I understand what it won the awards. It has the classic extravagance of Broadway^[1] and some very fun traits -- it kind of has a show-within-a-show gimmick, and the fourth wall is broken a bunch of times, and it's funny, and (somewhat) touching at times. There are some pretty catchy songs (especially "The Big Time", which is echoed as a recurring motif throughout the show). I've learned more about Will Rogers than I ever would have expected to, especially considering I had never heard of him before this. I don't particularly intend to learn any more about him, though, beyond being curious how accurate the show was to his actual life.

Less positive feedback about the show:

It was a bit slow at times
Not a particularly compelling plot, especially if you've never heard of Will Rogers
Perhaps one too many songs about his wife missing him (though, it's an important characteristic, so I forgive it)

(Still, I think it was very well done and was entertaining to watch overall).

The writer of the musical (the book, specifically) was Peter Stone, who also wrote the show 1776 - which I have't seen^[2], but I've heard of and have been meaning to watch for a while.

I vaguely do want to watch (if available) every Best-Musical-winning show, so this checks off one of that list at least. Funnily, I didn't realize it had won that award until I was partway into watching the recording and was already getting absorbed into it. So when I saw the award, it was an "aha, that explains it" moment.

which normally I am not a huge fan of, but either it's grown on me, or it's just that it's expected of the time period this was made in and so I appreciate it for what it was in its context ↩︎
admittedly I watched the first few minutes, years ago, and got a bit bored and haven't gone back to it since ↩︎

Specimen (2026)

2026-05-10T22:34:45.000Z

Writer/director: Randall Sharp
Axis Theatre Company
(Off-off broadway)^[1]
75 minutes
Running May 6 - June 6, 2026

This was a high-energy, chaotic, weird play. It's about a crew on a space ship that receives an unexpected visitor and they are unsure if it's a creature or a human. It had an intricate set design and it's a small theatre so I was second row, close up to the action.

I liked it enough that I shared it out on my Instagram story, which I basically never do! But I felt like the show needed some love, and it was an entertaining 75 minutes.

Other notes:

Apparently Randall Sharp (founder of Axis Theatre Company and writer/director of this show) also runs a cooking channel called "dinner party tonight".
The theatre (1 Sheridan Square) has a lot of history: https://axiscompany.org/history.php
- Another note on the theatre. Most theaters^[2] I've been to are a common space that can host different production companies. But this seems to be a permanent space for the Axis Theatre Company. So it's generally the same artistic team doing these shows, or at least the same director (Randy Sharp). Not sure if the cast is consistent show to show or if it's new people each show. I would guess there's some overlap and some rotation. It's cool they're able to have a permanent space. I assume this means they have a very stable/consistent source of funding.

Spoiler time

for the small risk that someone is reading this and then goes to see it.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

random notes

What is up with S.U.P. ??? Still will be contemplating this. The characters didn't really know what it was -- both unclear what it's for and unclear on its effectiveness (but I like this, it adds to the weirdness^[3]). Also that one scene... basically drowning the creature in the stuff.. That was the peak of their madness and denial and chaos.
My biggest sense at the end in terms of themes/meaning was one of denial. They began with one conviction/idea and then stuck with it even when there was evidence against it. Their motivations (of earning money by selling the "creature" back on earth) were so strong that they were blinded to the truth.
Also about the ending, I kind of felt like the direction it goes is to imply that they may be bringing the contagious brain disease to earth. It's not clearcut though (as with many other aspects of the show). And I think that's another fine thing to be ambiguous about. Makes me think.
Jumpscares. It wasn't really the kind of show that would obviously be jumpscare-y. I'd say it's a scifi thriller, not horror at all. But there were tense scenes where things would be kind of quiet and then all of a sudden someone would say or do something really loudly, breaking the tension, and I would startle/flinch in my seat. Shows how focused and tuned in I was to the scenes. I liked this aspect of the experience. I assume it was intended.
upon entering the theatre, there's some recordings playing out on the set on the monitors. We don't learn this until the show starts, but the gimmick is that the computers are malfunctioning and playing spaceship orientation videos and some random video diaries from crew members, and it's almost kind of annoying to be sitting there and watching them because they are looping. And then the show starts and we see that it's also annoying to the characters. So this was kind of immersive. It was also a recurring aspect throughout the show.

off broadway vs off-off-broadway -- an off-off broadway has fewer than 100 seats. Apparently also the distinction between broadway and off broadway is the number of seats (I previously thought it was location-based aka on the avenue of broadway). Broadway is 500 seats or more. ↩︎
no i can not decide theater vs theatre ↩︎
kind of reminds me of Hemingway's ice berg principle. You don't need to paint a whole picture of every detail. Leave things up to the consumer's mind. ↩︎

Spare Parts (2026)

2026-04-06T02:08:26.000Z

Off-Broadway play
Written by: David J. Glass
Directed by: Michael Herwitz

A thought-provoking play exploring human lifespan extension. Good experience.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

The big reveal of the play was that the tech CEO had grown clones of himself so that he would have backup organs and such if he needed them for medical reasons (i.e. spare parts for himself).

Well, this may be closer to reality than I would have surmised -- I saw the play about a week ago from coming across this article ^[1] talking about a "stealth startup" that is (maybe?) working on developing brainless human clones for exactly that purpose. The "brainless" part is different from what the play showed -- so, this potential reality would at least avoid the dilemma shown in the play. Either way, this is quite freaky of a potential technology and gives me a yucky feeling. I kind of hope this does not become a reality and I'm not quite sure why. Something just feels very off about it.

found on blog http://makoism.com/ which I stumbled upon from Kagi Small Web's RSS feed. Actually, I originally stumbled upon it via Kagi, and then I added this blog specifically to a smaller collection of Kagi-originating blogs RSS collection. ↩︎

Pen Pals by Michael Griffo (2025)

2025-12-27T04:02:07.000Z

#theater #friendship

Someone I recently met invited me to see this Off Broadway play. I didn't feel particularly strong about the premise of the play, but I decided to go. I'm glad I did. It was a good play, well-written and full of emotion.

The show is a two-women play, told as a series of letters they have written to each other (as "pen pals") across fifty years of friendship. High school pen pals, one living in Newark, NJ, and one living in Sheffield, England, turned into long term close friends, and we see them share with each other the most important moments of their lives.

There were several moments in the play that resonated with me.

Moments where a friend challenges you.
- You make a decision in life, or experience something, and your friend speaks up about it not being right, or prodding you to do something differently, or to pursue a dream. Sometimes they are right, and you listen, and good things happen. Sometimes they are not right, and you stick to what you know you must do. But the input is so valuable.
- It makes me ask myself - do I have friends in my life who are, or can be, like this for me? I'm pretty sure the answer is yes. It makes me wonder, who will be the friends who will stick it out with me for fifty years? I suppose it should also make me wonder - am I being this type of friend, this Challenger, to the people in my life? I think I am, would, or have-been, in the right doses, at the right time, perhaps. It's a good reminder.
- It reminds me of a quote from the movie Good Will Hunting which I saved in Google Keep on December 19, 2019: "Do you have a soulmate? Somebody who challenges you. Someone who opens up things for you, opens your soul." I've always interpreted "soulmate" here as being a friend who challenges you. I can also see it in the context of a relationship as well.
A break in a friendship.
- Sending letters but not getting a response for a large chunk of time. And handling it gracefully - not harboring ill-will, but instead expressing that you cherish the words and time you shared together in the past. Then eventually resuming the friendship because the person who wasn't responding eventually realized they did not want to stop communicating just because of a particular conflict of values.
- Sadly, at the time of writing this, I am in the middle of the no-response phase of this sort of thing, for a friendship that meant a lot to me. Like the character here (at least before they resumed their friendship), I do not have an explanation for the silence. While I try to handle it gracefully, it can be hard. I feel like a fool to hold onto hope, because there has been no change for quite a while now. And hope only makes me more sad and makes it hard to move on.
Experiencing hurdles in life with breast cancer or mental illness in a loved one.
A mother discovering her son is gay, at first being worried that life will be harder for him, but coming to be happy for him.

A couple other random points on my mind:

The show has a rotating cast. I saw it with Veanne Cox and Melissa Gilbert. Veanne Cox played a character in the 1995 revival of Company, and I watched Company for the first time just the day before seeing Pen Pals (but the 2006 revival of it). So though I didn't see the recording with Veanne Cox, it's still a funny coincidence/connection.
Of course, since Company is on my mind, the topics of marriage which came up during this play made me briefly think of Company.

Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812

2026-03-17T22:46:54.000Z

This musical, created by Dave Malloy and put on in 2012, is based on a 70-page slice of Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace I found out about this musical after seeing one of Dave Malloy's latest works (a musical called Octet) and then exploring what other things he had created.

After watching a recording of the show and listening through the soundtrack, I decided I was invested in the content enough to read War and Peace. Prior to this, War and Peace had the connotation of super long boring book and I didn't know much else about it. Perhaps watching the musical showed me that it could be interesting. Plus, In Search of Lost Time had shown me that I have the ability to read a long and supposedly-boring book (even though it took me a stupidly long time...) so I decided to jump into it.

At the time of writing this (January 2026), I am midway through the book, and have just barely started reading the section of War and Peace that Great Comet is based on. Already, however, I have felt the satisfaction that I hoped reading the book would give. It's adding context to the characters of the show, explaining deeper who they are, and what their habits and motivations are, and showing events that lead up to some of the pivotal moments of the musical.

Also, though Great Comet mostly wraps up the arc of the portion of the story that it tells, there is clearly much more to be said about the characters and what happens in their lives. At the end of Great Comet, I was definitely thinking, huh? that's how we end this? what happens with them next?, so I'm excited to actually see the proper resolutions of the full story arcs in the book.

I had the opportunity to see a performance of Great Comet put on at Columbia University, directed by Emilio Maxwell Cerci, in February 2026. The cast was quite talented. Some of their voices felt shockingly similar to the original Broadway cast -- casting was great.

Mini Theater Reviews

2026-05-30T23:50:05.000Z

Black Swan (2026)

David Malloy's latest musical. I was in Cambridge, MA and caught this on opening night. It was great -- unreal choreography and amazing staging/effects. Dave Malloy's lyrics/score were tight (no wasted space) and carried the flow of the story. I caught sight of Dave Malloy milling around the theater and saw where he was sitting in the audience, which was pretty cool.

The Lost Boys (2026)

Musical. Saw it during previews (period of time when they are still making some changes, like polishing it up, before "opening" for its full run). It was a good show, I rate 7/10 (on a very rough scale). It's heavily rock-inspired (regarding type of music) which is really fun to see in a show. It's based on the movie, which I watched months ago when they first started advertising the musical (really liked the movie - tbh liked the movie more strongly than I liked the musical, but that's often how it goes for adaptations). I'd call it a fun show, but not as "serious" of a show as what really gets me going in theatre.

Into the Woods - Sondheim (1986)

2026-06-01T01:54:32.000Z

A Stephen Sondheim musical that won many awards.

1991 Original Broadway Cast Proshot

(Proshot = professional recording) My first exposure to the show. I watched this while on a flight to Arizona for a family vacation. I then ended up listening through to most of the soundtrack again while in Arizona and parts of the songs were in my head throughout (mainly the first song (Prologue)). The original cast is great.

Into the Woods - Sternfeld Studio Immersive Show

I went to see this in October 2025. This was one of the most incredible theater experiences I've ever had. It was the full show of Into the Woods - but literally in the woods, taking place across a series of trails on land owned by a boy scout camp in Staten Island. The highlights of the experience were that we were outside the whole time, we were constantly very close with the actors (like we were milling about in the same space), and physically moving through the actual woods as we moved from scene to scene (and sometimes walking through different areas while scenes were happening). They timed it so that the midpoint of the show happened at sundown, so for the second act, it was getting darker and darker and we were given flashlights (which eventually became quite necessary) to guide us through the woods and ensure we weren't tripping over roots. The music was also all acoustic, which was unique and enjoyable. And the acting was quite good.

I'm so glad I got to experience this. There were so many magical moments. The crazy thing is that I only introduced myself to Into The Woods about a month prior to this show. The way I found out about the Sternfeld production was because I happened to search online "into the woods productions" wondering if there was anywhere in the world that the show would be playing... and it was literally right then and there going through their run of this. To my dismay, tickets were sold out... But they eventually opened up more (and I'm glad I kept checking!!) and I snagged a ticket.

Back to the beginning: I ventured after work via train and then ferry and then rideshared (uber/lyft) to the camp. It was kind of confusing navigating to the check-in spot once I got there, but I did find it (actually by following who I later realized were some of the actors) and they sent me with one other early-arriver along the trail, map in hand, to the place where the performance would start. I think we were a little too early, because it was just me and this other guy who ended up at the benches, and it seemed that the crew was still setting some stuff up for the show. Turns out the organizers had held the rest of the audience back at the check-in area, but for some reason had let us through first. Eventually, the rest of the audience was settled in.

It was a small audience (20-30 people) and we started by gathering around a campfire at early evening. The actors were milling around at that point, chattering amongst each other. And then suddenly, without any forewarning, the actors began singing and the musicians (who were also just the actors with instruments) started playing. Partway through the intro song of the show, I think when the lyrics start saying "into the woods" a lot, some of the actors started beckoning us (with their arms) to stand up and started directing us to the trail. These interstitial moments where we are moving through the trails from scene to scene are so memorable to me, especially because they were always playing catchy transition music (part of the ITW score) as we walked.

Again -- all so memorable, and there are so many details I could talk about.

Columbia University student production

I got an extremely last minute seat to this production directed by Brennan Urbi as his directing thesis at Columbia, in April 2026. The show was very fun. The direction took a more comical take on the show, in a good way. e.g. the cow was a balloon and Cindarella's birds were paper airplanes. I feel like I learned some lesson here about how a director can affect the feel of a show even if the script is the same.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!WARNING]- Slight spoiler
Another interesting choice was that after the narrator was killed, there was no more piano accompaniment because the narrator had also been the piano player, EXCEPT if the actors were the ones playing it. Possibly because of this (or maybe an unrelated choice), the song "Your Fault" (which I assume is one of the most complicated songs to do in this show) was played without any backing instrumentals... Though, they did have a metronome prop that I think was ticking at this point (don't remember exactly how that prop came into play). I kind of like the characters-only-piano-accompaniment choice because it's interesting and probably they had no other choice since the narrator had been the piano player, but it also made certain songs a little less natural-sounding I think. But it's really cool that they did it!

[!success] End of spoilers

Hadestown

2026-06-10T04:08:12.000Z

Generally my favorite Broadway musical.

Ghost Quartet - Dave Malloy (2014)

2026-05-13T19:42:55.000Z

One of my favorites! It's a great show. VERY nontraditional. An official recording is available for free on youtube, so it's pretty accessible for anyone to watch.

I was exposed to Dave Malloy because of his 2025 musical Octet, and then heard about his other works like Ghost Quartet (and Great Comet). Specifically, I had watched an interview with Dave Malloy about Octet, and they played a clip of one song from Ghost Quartet ("Any Kind of Dead Person"). As soon as I heard that song, I knew I had to watch a recording of Ghost Quartet. More than that, I made an occasion of it and I had a watch party with some friends (and it happened to be during the Halloween season, which wasn't really intentional, but was perfect timing).

With Octet, I listened to the song "The Forest" (and no other song) many times before seeing the full show, and it turned out that the rest of the music was pretty unlike that song... Well, same thing happened with Ghost Quartet -- the one song I listened to a bunch of times was "Any Kind of Dead Person", and I LOVED this song, but it's pretty different from the style of most of the other songs (and gives away absolutely nothing about what the show is actually about, other than the general theme of ghosts, which... should already be obvious). However, the song was the perfect lure (so to speak) -- it did its job! Got me intrigued and excited, without giving away much. Kind of like a good movie trailer. And even though most of the music was different stylistically, I loved that different style as well. If anything, the contrast and the surprise made for an even better and immersive experience, because I really had no clue what I was getting into.

(intending to go more in depth... a lot to analyze with this one.)

Random quotes

1

"She believes in the oversoul
That all living things in the universe
Are part of the same consciousness."
~The Photograph

Reminds me of The Egg (Andy Weir) (short story).

2

"I like a good rebellion"
~Four friends

I spent a couple months with this statement sometimes popping up in my head and not being able to remember where it was from. Then I just re-listened to this song (which is one of my most relistened-to songs from GQ) and heard the line!

Company A Musical Comedy - Sondheim 1970

2026-05-08T17:25:29.000Z

#theater

Some facts

Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book (script and dialogue) by George Furth.

Nominated for 14 Tony awards and won six.

Watching the 2006 Raúl Esparza proshot

Before I get into this... Start with some not really relevant, (semi)comic relief with some randomish statements about what has occurred prior to me starting to write here:

[!INFO]- Tangent

Raúl Esparza was born in October 1970, making him just having turned 36 when the 2006 revival opened on Broadway in November of 2006. The show is about the character Robert turning 35. Almost a perfect lineup but it's close - anyway I was just doing the mental math when I saw his age and it struck me as kind of funny.

Multiple layers to this one

The main actor's name is Raúl (as established)

When searching out which video of this show to watch, I think some things said Raul without the accent over the u.

So in my head, his name was Raul, rhyming with Paul (I'm jumping ahead of myself with the way I phrased that). Same as the main character of Endymion books (in the Hyperion series), whose name is Raul (with no accent).

I realized that Company Raul was actually Raúl, pronounced Ra-Ewl

Then I got concerned that the Endymion character was actually also Ra-Ewl. But then I sought out a clip from the audiobook and confirmed Rawl -- Not to mention, the explicit line in the book says "My name is Raul Endymion. My first name rhymes with Paul.". Relief.

Anyway.

What led up to this

Well, a couple months ago I watched/listened to Into the Woods (the first Sondheim musical I've seen) for the first time and developed a strong appreciation for it. I've been interested in exposing myself to more of Sondheim's works.

My intention was to next watch a proshot of Sweeney Todd, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. It also seems that media about death and murder isn't strongly calling to me right now (I almost wish I delay it until next Halloween, but it being December right now, that is very far away, and I don't think I can hold myself back until then).

Yesterday, I was in a place where people sing theater songs, and two songs from Company were played. So I took that as a cue for this to be my next exploration. And so my lazy Christmas day activity, admittedly in a slightly sleep-deprived state as a result of having gone to bed at an abnormally late hour last night, was to watch the Company 2006 proshot.

I came in with no context, except for having heard two of the songs karaoke-style, and I didn't catch most of the lyrics during that. (But I heard enough that my interest in the musical quality was piqued -- specifically, the songs were "Another Hundred People" and "Getting Married Today" (or at least snippets of them).

I'm writing this (initially at least) right after watching it, so these are somewhat raw thoughts. I'm sure my thoughts will evolve over time, assuming I re-listen to the soundtrack and contemplate the material further.

What is this show about

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

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It's about a man named Robert/Bobby who is single but has a bunch of married friends. The musical is about marriage. From start to end of the musical, we see an internal transformation of Bobby's attitude about marriage. It's kind of subtle.

At the beginning, he says he wants to get married eventually, but his conviction doesn't seem strong. He doesn't seem to have a deep-rooted feeling of why he wants to get married. It seems like it's something he knows he should do - perhaps a result of being surrounded by his married friends and spending a lot of time in their company. When asked why he wants to get married, his reasons usually sound shallow, and he often focuses on the negative aspects of getting tied down and always having someone around.

Throughout the musical, we see a series of scenes where he spends time with his married friends, has interactions with girls he is dating, and has conversations and trains of thought relating to (sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly) relationships.

It's only in the last song of the show that we see the direct change in Bobby. It's like a switch has been flipped. He again voices why he wants to get married, and this time we feel the conviction in his words. There is more depth in his interpretation of marriage and what it can lead to.

At the same time, we are reminded about his lack of experience with marriage. He has always been an observer, and has thought much about marriage, but he himself has never experienced it. The last song is both about his changing interpretation about marriage, and a hint of his realization that it is time for him to gain direct experience.

While watching, I took note of some quotes that stood out to me. Several of them have to do with this last aspect of not having experienced marriage firsthand. I think they stood out because they are like a slap in the face. Bobby seems to hesitate a lot about marriage, but the basis of his hesitation is due to lack of experience - you don't know until you try (the thing you "try" is presumably a long-term relationship, not marriage at first of course).

"Whenever Robert's over I get this feeling we're auditioning for him" --> (Bobby:) "well you know my favorite quote, the unexamined life is not worth living" --> "and mine is, the unlived life is not worth examining"
"You have to want to marry somebody. Not just some body"
"I'll take care of you" --> (Bobby:) "But who will I take care of?" --> "Well, did you hear yourself? Did you hear what you just said, kiddo?" --> "I didn't mean that" --> "Oh, I just heard a door open that's been stuck a long time"
- This gives chills. Feels like the moment when the switch flips in Robert's mind.
"You were always outside looking in the window when everyone else was inside dancing at the party"
"How do you know so much about it when you've never been there? It's so much better living it than looking at it."

The show also concludes with Robert not showing up to his surprise birthday party that his friends had planned for him (and accidentally let slip that the surprise was happening). I think this implies he is distancing himself from his friends a little bit rather than always relying on their company. This is an important step in his growth too. Maybe it will give him more space to explore a long-term relationship. There is also a hint earlier in the show that his friends are overly critical of some of the girls he brings into his life (in the song "Poor Baby") - so becoming less dependent on his friends may quiet those voices as well.

Overall thoughts

I liked it. I get why it won Tonies^[1]. I feel like I still have a lot to process about it.

Unsurprisingly (given what I know about Into the Woods), Sondheim's lyrics are a strong and captivating force. Intricate, rich, sometimes dense (in a good way). I want, need, to listen to the soundtrack again to fully absorb and appreciate it. I feel like I'm at an interesting spot right now, especially to be writing about it, because I've only listened through once -- usually my understanding of the songs and overall material changes once I've listened multiple times, and connect things together. But I can already sense the richness of the lyrics, music, and how they tie together with the book, and know that the experience will be enriched by repeat exposure.

This proshot isn't of the original Broadway cast -- but I don't think there is any recording of that. I was skeptical about this recording at first because it's staged with the actors also playing instruments. But it's actually kind of a cool setup, and the actors are great actors. It's also a very simple set compared to the original, based on what I briefly read, and I haven't looked at what the original looked like, but I think this version came through well. It was elegant. The story came to life even on the simple stage.

I saw many comments praising this recording, and particularly Raúl Esparza's performance. I see it. Raúl was fantastic. He is the character to me -- he embodies it that well.^[2]

Regarding the plot/story, I found the character of Bobby appealing and could relate in some ways to his uncertainty about relationships. Actually, if I think about it, I can relate in major ways - at the time of watching this, I am single and have never been in a long-term relationship, and most of my friends in a specific friend group of mine are in long-term relationships. Though I don't think I'm in the same mental place that Bobby was in, the connection to myself kept me engaged with the show, making me wonder what the resolution would be. I'm curious to see if my interpretation and connection changes as I re-listen to the soundtrack, now and over the years.

I like that this is a whole musical about a somewhat subtle shift in a character's mental world. It goes to show how much you can dive into any small subject.

Unstructured thoughts

Thoughts on a couple songs
- Another Hundred People - I liked the effect of dialogue interspersed between choruses
- Getting Married Today - FAST lyrics
It's a non-linear show. I like it.
Some moments of really good storytelling -- praise to the book. Specifically noted this for the butterfly and baby-oil stories.
Natural comedy - doesn't feel like forced jokes. It's situational comedy, done well.

More lines that stood out to me

"You're a terribly attractive man. The kind of man most women want but never seen to get"
"Someone force me to care"

Random notes

Robert discovers the/one reason to be in a long-term relationship is "support for being alive". Contrasts with Hadestown where Eurydice asks "Why should I become his wife" and the response is "it'll make you feel alive". For Bobby, "being alive" is something that is difficult to deal with, but for Eurydice it's something to strive for.

(Tonys? Tony's? Tonys'? Tonies.) ↩︎
(But often any first exposure to a show would make me say that for any and all characters -- but I sense he plays it especially well. It feels natural, like he is really the character and not an actor playing a character. When the metaphorical curtain rises and the no-longer-character actors bow, I find myself saying, "oh, could it be possible that this person does not actually fully embody the elements of the character from this show?" and then I blink and remember that this person is just doing a job and they are just really good at that job) - what I'm saying is that he's a good actor. (But for all I know, Esparza does fully embody the character in his real life. Shrug. The mysteries of acting.) ↩︎

The Good Place

2026-07-17T01:22:44.000Z

Completed watching on March 3, 2026.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

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WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

ok that's the final warning.

The ending

I just finished. The last episode kind of got me. Like I have mixed feelings about seasons 3 and 4, but I think the finale hit it home. I think mainly my problem with seasons 3 and 4 were that there was too much filler (and sometimes characters not being written well, but that's besides the point right now). Some of the subplots felt kind of dumb and non-meaningful/relevant (though, with some redeeming moments throughout).

But the last episode got me thinking again, and it made me feel more like how i felt in seasons 1 and 2. The finale -- finally everything that was being worked towards, from the first episode of the first season, was actually achieved. The whole reveal of { ending up in the afterlife and then realizing that everyone is just bored zombies } followed by a very fast resolution (deciding to invent a door of true immaterialization) was suuuuper rushed, which bugged me a little.

Actually, I think the big thing here -- the thing that I feel is actually causing the change in me that a piece of media like this can enact -- is that I at first scoffed at the solution. I was dismayed that they were giving an exit strategy for the eternally good afterlife heaven good place. And felt like they were making essentially the anti-longevity argument that people don't want to live longer lifespans (note I'm avoiding saying "forever" because that's the point we're about to get to) because they'll get bored and lose meaning and meaning only happens because you know it's ending soon. Okay well, they kind of did make that point, but I skimmed away from that perspective of it because it's really talking about something else. When I might contemplate longevity on earth during human life, and what we may someday achieve with { hundreds? } of years of medical advancements and such, I would be talking about maybe humans living a couple hundred years at most (who knows though -- maybe it would be much longer. but kind of besides the point and I haven't seriously ever considered that). But good place is literally portraying an afterlife-lifespan of infinity... They are vague about exact amount of time passing (jeremy beremy or whatever) but it could be the equivalent of hundreds or thousands or more years. The point is that each person gets to decide.

So what I'm getting to is: my experience of watching the finale was one of at first scoffing at the idea that anyone would/should take the exit strategy, but then gradually coming to accept that there indeed can come a point where a person may feel that they are complete and it would be completely valid and reasonable to take the exit. It's terribly difficult to comprehend, as a measly human like myself, but if I imagine spending thousands of years doing anything and everything with everyone anywhere anyhow, then it seems reasonable that the human soul may eventually feel done. This, to me, is good writing -- good, rational^[1] writing. Even if it's not something I've experienced, it makes sense. Maybe even impacts me. I mean, what's the impact here? I'm not sure. Maybe have to think about it more. Probably relating to ideas about longevity (despite the caveat I mentioned before). Anyway, main point is that I felt the ending was well-done. Somehow, from the shows I've been watching lately, it feels like that's a lot to ask sometimes. But they did it here. In my humblest opinion.

My lasting reaction

is that the reaction did not last.
(July 2026, 4 months after I finished.)
Well, the ending was good, I don't take that back.
But most of the last two seasons were disappointing, and unfortunately that's what's sticking with me. I wish they were better.

By "rational", I mostly just mean "good writing". I'm not anti irrational plot or endings or whatever. Bring me the well-written irrational or absurdist or whatever plots. Also I acknowledge that sometimes stupid writing can be treasured as well. (But... personally I usually get the most impact when something is meaningful.) ↩︎

Dostoevsky as Last Airbender

2026-07-14T03:44:34.000Z

I have never typed the name Dostoevsky until this moment -- it's a milestone. I have also never read any of his books (though I probably will eventually).

However, I did recently read a blog post called "Dostoevsky as lover" by Henrik Karlsson on his blog "Escaping Flatland" -- it's part 2 of his series of posts starting with Looking for Alice, which was a high-impact article for me.

As part of the article, Henrik describes a key aspect of Dostoevsky's writing style:

*Instead of using his characters as mouthpieces for his ideas, what Doestoevsky does is craft situations in which the characters reveal themselves. And then he listens. *

He does this by crafting conflicts^[1]:

Why conflicts? Because we often say what we really think only when everything around us is breaking, when a relationship is ending, when our hopes have been crushed, when we think we have failed beyond repair. We hide our true word, out of fear, until we break, and then it spills forth. Dostoevsky’s books are feverishly intense because of this: he is trying to push people into full crises, so he can hear their authentic voice.

Henrik beautifully connects this to his own story of mutual growth with his partner Johanna.

I just want to talk about Avatar.

Spoilers for Avatar: The Last Airbender - Season 3, Episode 14/15 (The Boiling Rock)

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

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I'm not here to say anything super duper insightful here. But I just watched this episode and I felt like it had some good examples of conflict leading characters to break and show their true colors.

Sokka is forced to decide between his initial escape plan and escape with Suki, or stay at the prison another day with the chance that his father will be part of the incoming war prisoners. The tension is between protecting the safety of Suki versus the chance to save his father. He chooses to stay and help his father escape (of course it's a win win because Suki stays and helps and they all escape in the end).
When the guards are going to cut the gondola cable, May is forced to choose between her love for Zuko (because his life is at risk) and her loyalty to Azula (and May's own freedom / not "betraying" the fire nation). She chooses Zuko.
When Azula is about to (probably) kill May (in response to May's betrayal), Ty Lee is forced to choose between her friendship with May and her own loyalty to Azula (and her own freedom). She chooses May.
Just thought of this, but the warden also was forced to choose between his own life, and his loyalty to the fire nation. He chooses his loyalty to the fire nation -- he shouts to the guards to cut the cable, knowing that he is unlikely to survive (but at least he prevented the prisoners from escaping).

Wow, that actually got kind of deep. Especially when I measure up these parallels.

There's a consistent theme with those examples -- tension rises until each character is forced to make a decision between their own safety, versus their loyalty to others. May, Ty Lee, Sokka, and the warden all choose to sacrifice their own safety/freedom, for the sake of their values (which includes their loyalties).

Nice job, writers.

Slightly tangential but related to this line of thinking:

Not this episode -- but Zuko recently had chosen to leave the fire nation royal scene and switch sides. This was more of a slowly rising tension which culminated in his self-discovery, rather than an intense in-moment conflict.
- Though, there was the moment of crisis in S2 when Zuko had to choose between helping the Avatar or staying loyal to Azula / fire nation. He chose Azula. But eventually he saw that this choice was not actually in line with that his values had transformed into; he regroups with the fire nation, but slowly sees that world in a new light (given his new values) and comes to his own conclusions and ultimately decides to branch out on his own.

I mean, sounds like a pretty standard approach to me... is this really a Dostoevsky thing? Maybe, maybe not, maybe I'm taking it too simply; either way, it's still framing my thoughts in some way, clearly. ↩︎

All nearness pauses while a star can grow (E.E. Cummings)

2025-12-16T04:21:25.000Z

I selected and analyzed this poem for my high school English class. It's probably one of my favorite poems ever, if only because I spent some time puzzling over it, but also I love the imagery and the mysteries that it still contains for me (seriously, still don't understand "not where not here but neither's blue most both). Also because I memorized it (just for fun - I wasn't required to memorize it).

I try to test myself sometimes to see if I still have it memorized -- usually I don't, except for snippets. It's kind of fun to piece it back together after all these years.

Kind of arbitrary, but thinking about the poem evokes my childhood bedroom in my mind, probably because I had written out the poem on the whiteboard in my room while I was memorizing and analyzing it.

Some of the lines have really stuck with me. "more he gives than takes" gives me chills -- thinking about what we gain with time rather than what we lose. Also get chills from the last few lines. Something plays in my mind when I read those last lines (well really throughout the whole poem), an image of a sunset, an image of many doors or worlds floating in midair (this must be a remnant of "if a world ends... worlds begin to begin" being the equivalent of "one door closes, another one opens"), and when I read the "(see?)" I literally gasp, a small, sharp intake of breath, or I visualize someone gasping as they see the evidence of what is being told to them, knowing it's true, seeing something new coming over the horizon.^[1]

I'm literally going to paste my analysis from that English class below. I do not claim to be 100% on the same page with what my past self wrote here. (some of it honestly seems like a bit of a stretch... But I can't blame my past self. It's a complicated and confusing poem!)

(I feel weird adding this caveat, but my high school era was before AI-generated content, so yes this is analysis is 100% written by me (though, I think I remember getting help for a few things from the web, in particular the word swap thing ("the and peaceful hills"). I think everything else was just from my own contemplation.))

My English class analysis

“all nearness pauses,while a star can grow”
- “A star can grow” represents sunset, when the sun (a “star”) appears to “grow” as it approaches the horizon
- “All nearness pauses” — the beauty and importance of the setting sun makes anyone watching it “pause” for a moment, staying still and remaining silent.
- The comma in “pauses,while” emphasizes this pause, even though the comma is grammatically unnecessary. E. E. Cummings frequently uses punctuation to convey deeper meaning in this way.
“all distance breathes a final dream of bells;”
- As the sun sets, the sounds and events of the day are beginning to die down.
- The start of the night begins with an exhale of breath, and the events of the day fade from immediate memory like a “dream”.
“perfectly outlined against afterglow”
- “Afterglow”: light remaining in the sky after the sun has set
- Also “afterglow”: good feelings remaining after a pleasurable or successful experience
  - The setting of the sun could signify the ending of a pleasurable event, or even one’s life. The “outline against afterglow” is the pleasant but fading memory of what is lost to the past.
“are all amazing the and peaceful hills”
- Cummings purposely rearranges the standard order of the words in the phrase “are all the amazing and peaceful hills”.
- He does so to momentarily disorient the audience, emulating the loss of coherent words one experiences when observing a setting sun.
  - This feature is seen in several other of Cummings’ poems.
“(not where not here but neither’s blue most both)”
- This perhaps is in response to the question of “Where is the sun setting?”. In response, the narrator responds that where is not an appropriate question to ask, and that the sunset also did not occur here. This emphasizes that the sunrise occurs everywhere at once (for one hemisphere), not in just one particular place. Anywhere the sunset has just occurred, the sky will no longer be blue, because it is now night. However, the sky is only mostly devoid of blueness, because of the “afterglow” leaving behind some color.
- Figuratively, this could be answering the question, “Where did the events of my life occur?”. The answer is that they did not occur in any one place, but rather the impact of the events is so broad in history that their impact can be seen everywhere. Just as the sky is no longer blue after a sunset, the world is not the same as it was after these life events occurred, and the feeling or memory of those events is almost completely gone from one’s mind. However, some residual feelings of the events remain, so they are not yet completely lost.
“and history immeasurably is / wealthier by a single sweet day’s death”
- The sunset represents another day passing
- Every day that passes, the events and experiences of that day are added permanently to history
“as not imagined secrecies comprise / goldenly huge whole the uploating moon”
- When day ends, the moon remains in the sky to shine over the night.
- The moon is a symbol of the day’s end and the transition of the next day, made up (“comprised”) of all the things that have not yet come to pass (“not imagined”). These future “secrecies” lie in wait for the coming day to see them to fruition, and meanwhile the moon holds on to them.
“Time’s a strange fellow;/more he gives than takes/(and he takes all)”
- Personifies the concept of time — the narrator reflects on Time as a peculiar creature who acts in an usually generous way.
- What does time give and take?
  - Time takes youth, vitality, and life, and gives in return experience and wisdom
  - Time takes days of the past, and gives to the future the histories that they contained
- “More he gives than takes” —
  - The experience and wisdom gained over time are more valuable than the lost youth — losing youth is worth it for what is gained
  - “More he gives than takes/(and he takes all)” — paradox: implies that Time gives more than “all”. Stresses the great extent to which Time gives.
“Nor any marvel finds/quite disappearance but some keener makes/losing,gaining”
- “Marvel”: a wonderful or astonishing person or thing
- To this type of person, the days/time/youth that are lost do not “quite” feel like they have disappeared. Instead, they are able to turn losses into gains.
- Looking back at the lost days of one’s life should be fulfilling, even if those things can never again be experienced.
- The narrator implies that the audience should also view their losses in this way
“—love! if a world ends/more than all worlds begin to(see?)begin
- [if a world ends, more than all, worlds begin to begin]
  - A closing door means that more doors begin to open, and new opportunities may arise
  - The day ending means that more days with new opportunities/experiences will follow
  - Could also signify the end of one’s life, and the entrance to the afterlife. “See?” may be the narrator gesturing to the audience as they die and enter the afterlife.
- The object in question is a “world” — this magnifies the sensation of loss and gain, on the planetary level
Overall meaning of the poem
- Presents an optimistic view of loss, whether it be the loss of a good experience, or the loss of one’s life.
- What is lost is also a gain whether in memory or experience, and the fact of loss means that new things (such as the afterlife) can be experienced

also kind of evokes Eliza's gasp at the end of Hamilton. (I wonder if that Hamilton association is remnant of my interest in it during high school and so it became imbued with this poem, or if it's just because of the connection to the gasp that I'm thinking about now.) ↩︎

Skeptics Guide to the Universe

2026-09-03T03:28:20.000Z

Podcast I've been loving -- each episode is a discussion about recent science news and current events with the lens of scientific skepticism. Skepticism here is in the context of always questioning things and not believing things just because you are told them or because its the popular view; holding beliefs that are based in evidence/facts. I like that they not only talk about interesting topics, but they also educate on examples of misinformation and bad science. It's always the same panel of ~5 hosts, and they are a diverse and knowledgable set of individuals and they have fun with the discussion.

Episode 1100

One discussion topic was a review study having to do with social cohesion and how having a good community can help with mental health outcomes. They started talking about how these are observational studies and how you might do a more rigorous scientific controlled experiment. Very briefly the idea of using AI was brought up (but they didn't explore it further). This reminded me of the study Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior — Park et al. (2023) which I took some notes on in AI Person Simulation -- one of the concluding points of that study was that such a system of simulated humans could be used in scientific studies. I'm curious if AI agent-characters could actually produce some emergent knowledge that would reflect people's behaviors in real life. I'm sure there is so much that could not be practically learned from it; but I think there could be some stuff that could. The power of the AI simulation would be that it could simulate the complex interactions between people and see what emerges from that. Many simple building blocks (basic thoughts, decisions, actions) could add up to complex societal interactions, which we could maybe learn something from, especially if its a controlled (simulated) experiment. Curious to see if anyone has done studies like this yet.
Another discussion topic - a recent study related to terraforming Mars, apparently finding some more hint of feasibility than previously thought. Though, the panel discusses how there are still fundamental limitations that can not be changed, such as needing to bring more resources (like water or other elements) that Mars would not have already. They also debate the question of why/whether we would want to terraform Mars in the first place (interesting discussion). I love the topic, particularly because Mars trilogy being one of my favorites.

Episode 1095

Discussion about a research advancement in synthetic cell creation -- project called "spud" -- the researchers created a minimal cell which can build proteins (but can't make its own ribosomes (which are the protein factories) which have to be injected in) and keep itself alive (but needs mechanical assistance to reproduce). Really cool stuff. Reminds me of my past excitement about cell biology and everything required for a cell to be "alive". Also cool that the researchers are going for an open-source vibe. They published a long "tome" publicly about how exactly to reproduce what they've accomplished, so that anyone (well scientists) can iterate on what they accomplished so far. Also brief discussion on the merit of having it public like this, which allows bad actors to see it, but also allows good actors to combat bad actors if bad actors try to do something bad (similar to how in cybersecurity, they publish full details about known exploits online as soon as possible, which hackers can use, but which devs can also guard against). In terms of the aspirational uses for the synthetic cells, they talked briefly about potential uses in medicine or industry, though I'm not fully satisfied, wish they gave more examples. I kind of want to find the research paper or at least more about it because I'm curious about how they created the cell structures and machinery.
discussion on geothermal energy. Making me want to learn more and see a visual demonstration.

Episode 1087

discussion about an evolutionary biologist who is convinced that LLMs (specifically Claude) have consciousness.

kind of silly study about how haunted houses affect feelings of friendship/boding with the people you go through it with

1:39:00 - discuss reasoning for trusting a licensed medical doctor rather than eg tiktok medical advice, can trust their expertise because they are most likely intending to get it right because their job and license depends on it. Doctor will be held accountable.

1:43:00 - "genetic fallacy." Can not dismiss an argument/evidence due to its origin. Gives an example: an idea comes from a dream obviously not a reliable source of information, however you can not dismiss all of the evidence they gathered after the fact just because the idea came from a dream.

The Right Way to Talk to People About Your Business - Indie Hackers Podcast

2026-05-30T22:36:32.000Z

Indie Hackers Podcast episode #154: "The Right Way to Talk to People About Your Business with Rob Fitzpatrick, Author of The Mom Test"

Life Context

I've recently been working on prototyping + brainstorming for an app idea (Idea - Spontaneous Plans). On the day I listened to this podcast, I was about to go for a long-ish walk, and I wanted to listen to an Indie Hackers podcast episode because I haven't listened to one in a while.

See the section below about ChatGPT to see how I selected this episode.

What I got out of listening to this episode

This was a high-impact episode.

The biggest takeaway: Talk to real potential users/customers before investing so much time into creating something.

I've been building a prototype for my idea, and I have talked to basically no one about the idea. That's bad, because the people who I would want to use my app are... people. While working on the idea, I've found myself often asking myself the same questions over and over again: mainly, is this actually an app that people would use?

My most likely plan in my mind has been to build the prototype, and then test it out by being the user of it and, since it's a social app, engaging with other people on it and seeing if other people like it.

I still think that's a semi-valid approach.

But this podcast episode gave me a reality check. I should really talk to other people about their behavior related to my idea. Because it might tell me that there really isn't a need for the app. Or, better, it might make me more confident that it could be useful to people. But I don't gain any of that if I don't talk to people about it.

A core piece of advice from the episode was to approach these discussions indirectly. Rather than pitching your app idea to someone, you should ask them the questions you really need to know. If you phrase it as a pitch (even just mentioning that it's an app idea you're working on), their answers will probably become skewed in your favor, because they don't want to discourage you. I don't think this would be the case 100% of the time, but it makes a lot of sense to me. You want to have someone's genuine answer.

For example, for Idea - Spontaneous Plans, the thing I really need to ask people is: "Do you use Partiful for same-day plans ever? Or would you use a groupchat instead? Would you ever post plans to your Instagram story?". If 100% of the people I talk to about this say, "Yeah, Partiful is absolutely adequate for this", then maybe I need to re-think my approach for this idea, or scrap it entirely in favor of something that is a more important problem to solve.

The episode makes a big point to make sure to ask the hardest questions, and to have a mindset of trying to unveil what would be the worst possible answer for you ("The thing I least want to ask is probably the most important question."). So, for example, it could be scary for me to ask some of the questions above, because it could mean that my efforts on this idea are a waste. But I should try as hard as possible to determine what people's existing behavior is. It's really an ideal result to find out as early as possible if your idea is simply not needed or not important to people, or even counter-productive to people, so you can spend your efforts on something more likely to succeed and be useful.

At the same time, I had moments while listening to this where I was thinking the advice is a little sad. I'm more used to hearing advice like, don't give up on your idea! Work hard! Push forward even if you feel doubts! But I suppose this episode's advice isn't directly contradicting that -- it's just telling you to make sure you're putting your energy where it will serve best. If your goal is to make a successful app/business, then it makes sense to put your efforts into something likely to do well. It's a bit of a different mindset than making a toy project just for fun. And I do in fact want to make a successful app/business, though I am also fine with converting something like this current idea into just a toy project that was fun to work on.

Still, though, this episode made me realize I should really be having these conversations to understand people's social behavior. I know my own social behavior, and I know that I want to use the idea I am making, but it doesn't mean other people will.

I used ChatGPT to find this episode

Throughout working on my app idea (codenamed "Spont" or "Pulse"), I've been asking ChatGPT questions here and there about certain aspects of the idea.

So I asked ChatGPT this:
What are the five biggest questions on my mind about pulse/spont

And it gave me a pretty good answer which reflected the biggest things that have been on my mind about it.

Here are the questions:

Is Pulse actually solving a real problem, or just repackaging existing tools? ... The core uncertainty is whether the missing thing is a product, or a social norm.
What is the correct onboarding and notification model? ... You seem convinced that spontaneous coordination only works if notifications are immediate and reliable, but you're worried that the mechanisms that make that possible also feel spammy or create too much friction.
What is the actual social primitive? ... You often seem dissatisfied whenever the concept starts looking too much like traditional event planning.
Can the network effects ever get started? ... Many social products die before reaching that state, and you seem very aware of that risk.
If it succeeds, what is the business? (((in terms of financials))) ... You seem comfortable building before knowing the answer, but you're not fully comfortable ignoring it either.

Then, I asked ChatGPT:
Suggest me episodes of the indie hacker podcast that relate to these questions (be specific about why you're picking them)

And it gave me a bunch of suggestions of episodes to listen to.

I really like this use of AI. I'm using it to make a broad search for real human content, but leveraging natural language and a large-scoping conversation to drive that search. Without ChatGPT, I suppose I could have searched Google for episodes related to these questions, but I really am not sure if the results would be as good. At the same time, I acknowledge that ChatGPT's answer may be biased or not really the perfect results. But still, what really matters to me is that it's redirecting me to the real human content which I can get real value out of.

The top result it picked was this episode - #154. It said "Best fit for your biggest question: “Is this a real problem or just a product-shaped fantasy?" and that felt like a question I really needed to answer.

More notes I took about the episode

Talking to customers can save you months of coding eg you realize some feature isn't needed or should be done some other way
As an indie hacker it's important not to waste time on an idea you're not sure is gonna work
- ?? Not sure I like this... But maybe true. If I'm spending my free time, could be better to do it on a definite problem that will definitely have customers. But also I think the point is, have discussions w ppl first to make sure you're solving a real problem
Talking to ppl early means you'll have early users to test it.
In early conversations -- DON'T pitch your idea. Find some other reason to ask them your question
- inexperienced founders may be overconfident in their ideas. Need to get it out of just their head and see if it fits in the real world
- starting with a direct pitch to someone will make them lie more to you rather than a genuine answer. Compliments / ego-driven lies. Get to the core of their actual behavior.
- to directly ask if your idea is good, puts emotional burden on the other person. Putting the responsibility of truth on them - it should be on you(me) to find the truth of the idea's viability out of the behavior you learn from them
- if you start with side-angled questions, and then feel like you might want to actually pitch, be aware of the person's comfort. They may not be open to being pitched to, and in that case, stop. Can directly ask them "would it be ok if i pitch something im working on related to what we've been talking about"
When talking to someone, if they are being vague (or you just want them to explain more), push, like "tell me how that works", get them talking more
Want to have almost an anti-sales mindset during the discovery phase. TRY to get them to say no. You want to dig up the reasons why your thing won't work or isn't good. (Or, become very confident that it is good). You don't want to fish for compliments or be annoying because then they will lie to you
Ask yourself "what's the scariest thing possible / what's the worst thing they could tell me" and then actively search that out (at the appropriate time). "The thing I least want to ask is probably the most important question."
- I feel this applies to dating as well -- the hardest questions are probably the most important ones ultimately. Though, certainly not all questions should be asked right away.
Going to a meetup just to swap business cards but never actually set up a call... Instead, ask your questions while there, make use of the time
Talk to the ppl who are low hanging fruit first. Who you already know or are connected to or like hanging out with.
If it feels hard to do something and it's making you miserable, find a way to do it that's easier / feels better.
- again, advice that can apply to many areas of life.
- Echos the advice in Hank Green Tells Me To Fall Downhill
Venture/investors approach - could spend 4 yrs working on something without reward and then it fails. With indie hacking, you get to choose what your days are like, who you spend time with.

Indie Hackers Podcast

2026-05-30T19:45:49.000Z

A podcast with interviews giving advice on bootstrapping a product/app.

Episodes I've taken notes on:

Daniel Vassallo - Indie Hackers Podcast

2026-08-01T15:16:25.000Z

#podcast #entrepreneurship

Episode #177 of the Indie Hackers Podcast: "Mastering the Lifestyle-First Approach to Indie Hacking with Daniel Vassallo" - published October 20, 2020

Overview

This was a good listen. After listening to 1 Second Everyday - Indie Hackers Podcast and much enjoying it, I wanted to give another episode a try. I actually asked Chat GPT for the best episodes of the podcast, liked the title of the first one it told me, and listened to it.

The person being interviewed was Daniel Vassallo, who had been working at Amazon for 6 years, I think as an engineer, earning a high salary ($500k+), and then quit his job to pursue his own things. The podcast was recorded about a year and a half after he quit. A theme was that he pursued several different areas, including developing a SAAS business, a couple other software products, and bringing him the most income were actually some e-books and video courses that he published.

He has an interesting success story with the ebook/courses because he created them in a small amount of time (weeks or a couple months) and made a lot of money off them -- over $100,000. The software pursuits were more slowly growing, with the SAAS pursuit being the strongest "bet", but not something he was actively putting more effort into at the moment. (I wonder if this product has grown in the last five years.)

Books/course publishing

I'm more interested generally in the creation of profitable software products, but it was kind of interesting to hear about the book/course pursuits, too. It makes me wonder what skills I have that I might be able to turn into technical writing or course material. At the same time, I wonder, even if I did have ideas for those things, is my time better off spent on making cool/profitable apps, which interests me more and feels more attuned to my skillset.

I feel a bit silly talking about myself in that way, though, because I generally view myself as having a broad range of skillsets and having many different interests, which includes writing. But I don't normally think about writing in terms of creating something directly with the intention of making money off it. Writing something technical, like a guide on how to get better at some skill, feels more boring to me than writing fiction, or writing a guide on how to do something but having it free on the Internet. On that last point, though -- it's cool to have free skillsharing on the Internet, but at some point, it could make sense to develop whatever "guide" it is with more depth and have the "premium" version be the profit-driven book or course. There can be a balance.

A recent example of this is the book "Hypnosis Without Trance" by James Tripp. Well, it already is a book in the first place, which in itself is in theory a profit-generating item, but there are a couple (not too many) lines in the book alluding to an online course/program for those interested in going more in depth. I didn't mind this promotion (/ the existence of the course) because I got a sense that the author was putting the core information into the book, so I wasn't missing anything, but I could imagine that someone might want to go further, or have hands-on instruction and feedback, thus making the course also valuable to them.

Notes

Some thoughts/highlights I noted about specific parts of the podcast discussion:

You can work on a project and publish it, and let it sit for a while, without actively working on it, and come back to it in the future.
- This made me think of my work on Grocery Receipt Tracker. Sometimes I view it as: if I have even a little bit of success on it, it'll be The Thing that I am always working on. But by this advice, I don't necessarily have to adhere to that. I can get a core form of my app out, and just let people use it and see how it goes. Then I can pick it back up at some point and make improvements to it, or go harder on marketing it more. (But also probably smart to take initial traction and develop from there right away. But still, there can be a breaking point at some point.)
The host made a brief comment about the strategy of asking yourself what your future life/lifestyle looks
A perk of having your own business / not having a corporate job is that you get to decide what you want to do every day. Which pursuit to focus on. Reminded me of the "fall downhill" advice from Hank Green Tells Me To Fall Downhill -- rather than someone telling you to do one specific thing and you having to follow it (or risk job security), you can make the decision on what to work on, and that might be the "easier" thing or the path of least resistance -- the thing you most want or feel like doing in the moment.
Working on multiple things at once can help smooth out the risk of putting all your eggs in one basket. It might feel scary to work on one thing for six months and then there's a moment of seeing if you'll be rewarded for it, or if it doesn't pay off. Instead, if you work on a couple different things at once, there's less pressure on any one thing. It's a way of diversifying.
- I like this advice because it's in tune with how I operate. I generally already have different pursuits going on. At different scales too -- different coding projects (or ideas) as well as non-coding projects also (though usually not with a business focus).
- There's a tradeoff here of losing focus on any one thing. It really depends on the person's working style. I think I accel at working on different things at once, and I feel the nervousness that Mr. Vassallo described, of wondering if the One Thing you're focusing on will work out. I don't really ever take that risk, though. Doing so is just not how I operate.
- I've tried sometimes to focus all my attention on one thing, and, at least for a recent time I did this, I would get stuck or lose motivation on the One Thing, procrastinate it and not make much progress, but still tell myself that this is the Only Thing I am allowing myself to work on, and nothing else, and so I don't make progress on anything. If instead I had allowed myself to switch between things more, I may have reduced the strain of needing to get the One Thing right (which paradoxically might raise motivation for it), and I can make progress on multiple things at once. Again, I seem to excel and feel most motivated and rewarded when I'm making incremental progress on a couple hobbies/projects at once.
Host mentioned in the morning he likes to read some random(?) blog posts - the value of being exposed to new ideas/concepts/things that may not be what you normally consume / learn about. I like Kagi Small Web for this purpose. I recently added it to my RSS feed viewer app (I use Feedly on Android) - specifically, the RSS feed for "appreciated" posts.

1 Second Everyday - Indie Hackers Podcast

2026-08-01T15:16:25.000Z

#podcast #entrepreneurship #digitalgarden

Written on: 2025-12-07

Well hello there. This is my first ever attempt at an actual blog post / garden entry. Yesterday was the first day I learned of the concept of a Digital Garden, from a short bit of this video (Relevant part at about 26:45 but the whole video is worth watching), which directed me to this article for more context on Digital Gardens.

Then, today, I was exploring more examples of the concept and read a couple relevant articles, including "Pick Up What They Put Down, which itself linked to the podcast that I'm about to discuss. ^[1]

What's this podcast?

"Bootstrapping an App to Millions Through Sheer Persistence with Cesar Kuriyama of 1 Second Everyday", published January 1, 2020.

It was a pretty good listen. It's about the founder of the app "1 Second Everyday", which has you take a 1 second video of your life, or whatever you want, every day, and then, presumably whenever you'd like to, export it into a continuous video of all those clips combined. I've never used it before, but I've definitely seen some other people's videos that they've shared. They're fun.

[!question]- Tangent on my use of PhotoChron (similar app)

I have done something similar in the past with an outdated, possibly-no-longer-supported Android app called PhotoChron, which prompted me to take a picture just of my face everyday, so I could generate a cool timelapse of what I looked like (and what I was wearing, and what my background was) over time. I started in 2017 and mostly had been consistent (it's 2025 at the time I'm writing this) with taking daily pictures, with some lapses here and there.
I'm in a larger awkward period right now where I haven't done this in (I'm ashamed to admit this to myself because I'm kind of annoyed at losing the continuity) several months (or more) because I haven't redownloaded the app since getting a new phone (part of the problem is that it's no longer supported on the latest version of Android, so there'd have to be some "hacking" around to get it to work -- honestly, I should just have been taking pictures in my normal photos app and putting them in an album or something, but then I lose the little oval in the middle of the screen that PhotoChron overlays over the viewfinder to show me where to put my face, and I lose the niceness of it saving the photos All Together in The Right Place and backing it up to the folder in Google Drive where I already have all the rest of the pictures.) -- All that being said, I'll get around to fixing this setup someday, because I think I do still value the result.

What drew me to listen to the podcast was that the PUWTPD article mentioned that the app had been featured in the movie Chef ^[2], which came about because the app's creator tweeted to Jon Favreau about something unrelated to the app, and then Jon Favreau found and liked the app via his profile.

The actual key word, though, that made me want to listen was "bootstrapping". I love this term. It kind of makes me feel warm inside, in a nice way. I'm not joking. And I am talking about it in its intended context in this podcast.

Bootstrapping is when you develop an app/website/service/project, probably with the goal of making some income from it, without going the "traditional" route of raising money via investors of venture capitalists or similar. Instead, you kind of just go and make the thing and find ways to monetize it and organically grow it. I'm not exactly an expert on this topic, but it's the kind of thing that I want to do in the future to make something out of a personal project. I'd definitely like to listen to more episodes of the Indie Hackers podcast in the future.

I originally came across the term bootstrapping from a random video I stumbled upon (or maybe not so random) ^[3] of this guy giving a talk... It stuck with me, though I haven't exactly followed it -- not yet at least. I intend to. ^[4]

So anyway, this was an interesting listen.

Highlights

Some nice tidbits that stuck out

A good callout to not be too secretive about your app idea. Probably no one is going to steal it, and even if they do, they probably won't have the same passion as you do. And there can be a lot of benefit in sharing your idea with others and having conversations about it and seeing what people might be interested in, etc.
- I really needed to hear this, because I have been working on an app idea (Grocery Receipt Tracker) for at least a year (progress and effort have been too slow for my liking) and pretty much across the board I've been not telling people about what I'm working on -- though, that's more because I was scared that one slightly negative comment (or someone pointing out my idea already exists) would cause me to lose motivation to continue working on it, and less about someone stealing my idea.
- Recently, though, I've started talking about the idea to some people (because honestly it was just taking too long for me to create an MVP that I had to backtrack on the secret-keeping, perhaps in part to see if it would motivate me to work on it more frequently (it kind of has worked)). But hearing this reinforced from the podcast will certainly encourage me to do this more.
There was an interesting comment around the 44 minute mark when they were talking about the tweet to Jon Favreau. The app founder said that there's probably some tweet that anyone could make right now which could change their whole life. You would just need to identify what that tweet would be.
- This kind of thought gives me chills. I find I want to believe it's true. It might take a billion alternate universe scenarios to find what that one tweet would be, but there probably is one out there. (Caveat that it'd be easier to find a tweet that could destroy your life rather than generate tremendous positive change -- the former case makes me shudder, rather than positive chills, with a sort of call-of-the-void^[5] type feeling.)
- This gives me similar vibes to thinking about the butterfly effect. You can track one small action in the past to where you are now. The tweet thing is kind of like a future projection of this. Maybe the tweet sets off a chain of events (like attracting the attention of a movie director on your app).
There was a mention of the book The Art of Non-Conformity (don't remember the exact context in the podcast around it - something related to running your own business rather than working within a corporation I think). I checked and it was already on my to-read list. Seems like something I would like reading and would get something out of.
Towards the end of the podcast, there was a discussion about future forms of social media, and what a "better" version of it would be. A platform that doesn't want you to just scroll infinitely so that you see more ads, or get more data collected about you. (This was in the context of the 1 Second Everyday app possibly having a form of feed / social media integrated in it in the future (and making it the "better" form). This podcast is a few years old, so maybe this is already a thing in the app.)
- Always an interesting topic, but right now it made me think of the concept of Digital Gardening, since in a way, I've approached it from an alleyway of being frustrated with traditional social media not giving me the kind of platform that I've felt myself craving for a while where I can have more meaningful engagement, both letting me put content/thoughts/writing out there (god forbid me putting this post in an Instagram caption or story) and receiving feedback/commentary in response to what I've put out there (yes, I'd like to participate in the other side of PUWTPD, too), and also just having a place where I can put my stuff and feeling more secure in it lasting there forever, and not having to worry about limitations like video length or worrying about "which account" to post something on.
- More directly related to what they were talking about on the podcast, though, is that the Digital Gardening concept is related to evading the "algorithm" and infinite-scrolling feeds. Blogging and longer form content in itself is an antidote to this. Engaging more deeply with specific content rather than flitting from one short video/image to the next. (The video I mentioned earlier talks about this and other related antidotes)
Another video mentioned in the podcast that I'd like to watch: "Stefan Sagmeister: The power of time off" (TED talk)

That's what was top on mind. I noted a couple things while listening to the podcast (I was on a walk in The Park) and I covered them all above.

[!danger]- Epilogue
One final note, on my experience writing this right now (spent about 1hr 45 min btw)... I've had the idea of starting a more traditional blog here and there, but it always felt like a big scary task, so of course I never got to it. The concept of the Digital Garden helped me get the initiative to do it — mainly because of the emphasis that it's a living, growing thing.

You don't have to view an article as a one-and-done entity. I could have just written the first third of this page and been happy with it for now and still had it be public on the web and maybe send it to some people. I also don't have to worry about this being perfect and polished and super cohesive and meaningful... It's more of a scrapbook journaling vibe than a perfected portfolio.

I also feel like I don't need to be self-conscious about what material is on here — meaning, my "first post" can be this arbitrary podcast episode that I listened to. There are seeds I need to plant in the garden that maybe normally would come first, like giving a brief summary of who I am, or expanding more on my ideas and purposes for this site. But I can plant those seeds another day.

Another core concept of the Digital Garden is it not meant to be a chronological list of posts like a traditional blog — a post I write a year ago can be just as valuable and as open to being edited as any more recent post. Just the idea of having a hierarchy of categories and tags as a way to navigate a site, rather than a time-sorted list of posts, drew me in as well.

Maybe these things aren't so different from traditional blogs, but the concept just gave me the push I needed (and surely some circumstances of general life right now, or the type of energy I've had in the last few days).

Ideally I shall make a separate post about my feelings and inspiration for the Digital Garden concept, but I wanted to mention a bit here since this is the first post and it kind of led me directly to this podcast. Also, I can mention that I am kind of following the advice from "Pick Up What They Put Down" in that I'm responding to a podcast that I just listened to (and kind of also responding to that article in a way). ↩︎
(a movie I've watched probably twice but only once really in my recent memory i.e. in the last five years -- great movie, and I'm feeling inspired to watch it again because of the discussion on this podcast) ↩︎
(TODO: Find this video and link it) ↩︎
Given what goes on in my mind and with projects that I pursue, I would be surprised if I'm not making a decisive effort (and hopefully succeeding) to generate passive income from a bootstrapped app/website in the next x years (no i'm not defining x for you) ↩︎
"The call of the void describes the sudden, unexplained desire to participate in dangerous or self-destructive behaviors" (source ) It's scary sometimes how easy it might be to ruin your own life. ↩︎

Will Wood and the Tapeworms

2026-09-01T17:34:22.000Z

Specifically love the album Self-ish - one of my tops.

Weathervanes (Album) by Freelance Whales

2026-02-04T02:28:10.000Z

One of my favorite albums ever. After I started being more intentional about discovering new music, this was one of the first albums that clicked with me as a whole. I like basically every song on the album. The songs are emotional, gentle, "vibey". Combination of lovely lyrics and chill musicality.

Listening to it now, it gives me a nostalgia for the time period when I first started listening to it - in 2022 (so I have strongest associations of it with the feeling of junior year of college and the summer I spent in NYC after it). I think I can remember the exact moment when I listened to the album for the first time -- I was in the room of my university apartment, either working on a jigsaw puzzle that was on my floor^[1] or folding laundry.

If I recall correctly, the way I found the album was actually through an Instagram reel (unless it was Tiktok? But I don't remember using Tiktok back then) that had a clip from the first song, and it captured my interest so I looked up the album and listened to it.

Top songs:

Generator First Floor
Location
Broken Horse
Ghosting
Generator Second Floor
The Great Estates

Honorable mention to (all of the others):

Hannah
Starring
Kilojoules
We Could be Friends

There's a couple other tracks which are purely instrument so I'm not listing them, but they are vibe-y too.

The band does have another album called Diluvia but I've only listened to it a couple times and I didn't like it as much. Unfortunately, the band has not made new music since 2014. Sadly one of the band's members, Chuck Criss (brother of Darren Criss), died in 2022.

I have another nice memory with this album. I had a listening session of this album (not the full album but many of my top songs) with a close friend during senior year of college. We sat in my room, dark except the glow of my LED strip set to green (even though the album cover is more brownish, I associated the album with a deep green for some reason), and listened, discussing a little but mostly absorbing the music. I haven't really done a dedicated session like this with any other albums.

Potential For 3D

The album also evokes an idea I have related to Personal 3D VR World Building -- I would like to someday work on creating 3D environments relating to memories, scenes, media, that are meaningful to me. The Weathervanes cover and many of the songs (lyrically) evoke spatial relations (the album is partially meant to represent moving through different areas of a house), not to mention vivid imagery and scenery. This, in addition to it being one of my favorite albums makes it a prime subject for the 3D scene building. The songs would be playing in the background, of course, as the visitor explored the environment.

More specific ideas for this:

Approaching the house from the hills shown in the album cover (ideally the initial vantage point in the scene would look extremely close to the album cover). There's no house in the album cover (and I don't think the bird house (is that what that is?) is meant to be the actual house that the songs talk about) so I imagine you must crest the hills to see it.
Interactive "crank" for the Generator
Elevator-like experience for visiting different floors of the house and seeing the imagery described in Location
Graveyard/backyard with glowy spirit orbs for The Great Estates

(it would've been the 1000 piece puzzle of my face that my friends gifted me as a birthday gift...) ↩︎

Streetlight Manifesto

2026-05-31T13:50:02.000Z

A lot to be said.

Favorite band.

My Music Recommendations

2026-05-06T04:07:02.000Z

...

Music Associations

2026-03-13T20:18:35.000Z

Some songs instantly bring me back to a different time in my life, often a specific moment when I was listening to them. It could be an overall album or artist, too.

There are more than the below list, but this is just what I'm starting with.

Album: "A Kiss Before You Go" by Katzenjammer
- Autumn vibes. Brings me back to walking downhill along the street by where I lived senior year of college. Rustling and crunching leaves.
Song: "Innocence" by Renaissance
- Especially the line "And sometimes when the clouds obscure the sun, I wonder my my life feels as narrow as the road that winds along its way" -- brings me back to a certain eclipse viewing at a park on a blanket with friends. This scene is also in my mind as a candidate for a Personal 3D VR World Building scene.

Larry and His Flask

2026-06-17T15:46:29.000Z

Really really love their music! One of my favorite artists. Discovered them in 2024.

Favorite songs:

Ebb and Flow
Call it What You Will
The Battle For Clear Sight
Breaking Even

Albums -- I basically like 90% of all of the songs on all four of their main albums which are on Spotify:

All That We Know
By the Lamplight
This Remedy
Everything Besides

Each album has a slightly different feeling. Love it all.

June 2026 Concert

They are one of my favorite artists I discovered in the last few years, and I honestly thought I would never see them live because it seemed the band had split up. But they're doing a reunion tour right now, and I caught them on their NYC stop. Great show! The band has great on-stage energy. They played the album "All That We Know" from start to finish (for its 15 year anniversary) and then a handful of other songs. They hit a lot of my favorites -- most importantly: Ebb and Flow, Call it What You Will. Honorable mentions: Pandemonium, Barleywine Bump.

They did a bit/joke about holding up their paper setlist and then asking the crowd which we wanted to hear next, and someone said "Ellipsis", which was not on the list, but they played it anyway. I like the song enough, but I was slightly bummed because I think it replaced "Breaking Even" which was also on the setlist but they didn't play it! They kept doing the "requests" thing, and I shouted out for Breaking Even, and it seemed they were almost going to do it, but then they did a different one (Hobo's Lament, which I don't particularly care much about though it's a pleasant enough song). That being said, I really do like all of their music (with very few exceptions) so I can't really say I'm disappointed. They implied they'll do more shows in the future, so there's that too! This article from an interview this March implies they might also be working on new music... which would be really cool. Their last album came out in 2019.

I also got to high five Ian Cook (the lead singer+songwriter / electric guitar) at the end, once the crowd was thinning out and he was saying hi to some people who remained. This may sound surprising, but it was a pretty small venue+crowd (around 40-50 ppl in the audience at peak) so it was a more intimate vibe.

2026 Music Standouts

2026-07-12T14:17:27.000Z

This should be like 2025 Music Retrospective but more as the year goes on rather than one burst at the end (though I may reflect at the end).

Standouts Jan-April

Mostly taking this from my playlist called "Stepping Forward Briskly"

"Family Business" (album) by Lawrence
- A friend recommended Lawrence to me years ago and I never really explored it, so this is the first -- and I'm glad I did. I actually got into this album because it was being performed as part of the Broadway show "All Out" -- which I went to see twice (as a result of a discount) and Lawrence was the STAR of the show (sorry to Simon Rich, who I really like for the tv shows Man Seeking Woman and Miracle Workers but the stories in All Out were underwhelming (though some of them started to grow on me)). It was amazing to see the album performed live, with beautiful staging and the Broadway theatre vibe. The album is so strong, and the songs are so energizing and catchy.
"Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground" (by artist of the same name as the album)
- I might have stumbled into this by a Spotify recommendation... Possibly I can figure out what it was suggested as a result of. BUT I am so glad I found it, because I love this album. (Haven't checked out any of their other albums that I can recall.) At first I thought the album was too sprawling and unfocused (which was maybe being I was listening in a kind of unfocused way), but as I listened more and focused in more and got to know the songs, it actually feels like a pretty cohesive album and there are some VERY catchy parts of the songs. I love the whole feeling of the album and it has a particular sound. Highly recommend. (rateyourmusic says genre is psychedelic pop or indie pop)
"Waitsgiving" (album) by Fishboy
- Heard about this one through a Struthless video (not the same video but a different Struthless video inspired/triggered this entire Digital Garden). I haven't re-listened to this one except for a couple of times, but I enjoyed it. It felt like a cohesive album in terms of sound and with lyrics/ideas being repeated at various points in the album (this kind of thing in an album really gets me going).
"Fantasy Memorial" (album) by Dinosaur Feathers
- This album... is SO good to me that I'm finding myself needing to be careful because the songs are the kinds that can get so stuck in my head that it actually starts to drive me crazy. Like, so stuck in my head that I will wake up in the middle of the night and realize that I'm already singing certain lyrics in my head, when I barely have even awoken. Standout songs: "Family Waves", "Vendala Vida", "Sleeping In". Another case where the album has a cohesive sound ^[1]
"Bangs" and "Dropped" (both albums) by Brick+Mortar
- Haven't (yet?) gotten as deeply familiar with this one, but I like the sound and lyrics. No standout songs on mind, but there are definitely some that I've been hearing over and over again and have grown to appreciate.
- Ok update on May 11 - these are growing on me! A couple standout songs: "Train", "Terrible Things".
- Update on July 12 -- ok I've reached obsession level with these albums. Maybe "obsession" is stretching it. But they've become top albums for me. Additional songs to highlight: ... you know what, nevermind. All of them.

(I think I'm saying this too much -- either these albums all share this quality in a well-done way, or this is just a very normal attribute of albums (I know, it kind of is, but I swear these feel particularly good in that regard to me) so I'm just stating the obvious). Maybe it's just that I really like the albums, so I'm just giving this vague descriptor as a way to explain why... ↩︎

2025 Music Retrospective

2026-06-17T15:34:20.000Z

The below "new approach" isn't all there is to be said about my music consumption this year, but it's a major part of it.

A new approach to music discovery

Prior to this year, my approach to music discovery looked like this:

Listen to songs I already like, and let Spotify auto-play (usually related/similar) songs after I finish listening to specific songs or albums
Take album recommendations from friends or the internet and listen through those albums
Occasionally find a song, artist, or album that I really liked, and then maybe obsessively listen to their stuff until I'm fully saturated on their content
Decide it's time to branch back out and begin exploring again

But something I noticed is that I would really like certain songs or albums only after listening to them multiple times, and sometimes those "multiple times" could be spread out over a long period of time. I usually add a song to my "Liked songs" in Spotify, but that doesn't mean I'll listen to it again anytime soon. If it took two listens for me to really like something, and there is a very long gap between my first listen and second listen, it feels like there is some level of "wasted" time or opportunity with regards to how quickly I can gain appreciation for a song I've heard once.

This also incurs a concern that I might listen to a song once, and never listen to it again, but if I had listened to it again, there could be high reward in terms of appreciation.

So for a big chunk of this year, I tried an approach that was aimed at getting me to more frequently listen back to albums that caught my interest.

At the beginning of a "cycle", I would use one of the music discovery methods (from auto-play, or recommendations) and then if an album caught my interest enough that it felt like it was worth listening to more, I created a new playlist and added the full album to the playlist. I then gave the playlist a name, pretty much always a random phrase that popped into my head at that exact moment. I then AI-generated an image, based on the name I came up with and my current sentiment in that moment, and used it as the playlist cover image.

Then for any other albums I liked within this time span, I added those to that current playlist as well, until the playlist hit around 3-5 albums total.

The idea was then that in moments when I didn't have anything specific I wanted to listen to, I would turn to this playlist as my default just-play-something playlist. This way, I would continue to expose myself to these albums repeatedly, and perhaps develop an appreciation for them, to a degree that I wouldn't have if I had just let the albums float by and maybe chance upon them later.

Usually after a month or two, I would feel like I had consumed the albums from that playlist enough, and I would start a new cycle for the next new album that interested me.

Another note on why I did this at the album level rather than for individual songs: Part of my general music discovery process is that if I like one or a couple songs on an album, I usually end up liking a lot more of the other songs on the album, as I listen to it over time. This is part of the core theory of why I started this playlist approach, to create a structure of exposing myself to all the songs in an album over time.

How did this go?

It started strong and then fizzled towards the end of the year.

I really liked the cadence at the beginning. It felt like I was developing more of an appreciation for the albums I was adding.

There was a flaw from the start, though, or maybe not a flaw but just something for me to be aware of. I might add an album to one of the playlists and not end up liking the album beyond my early listen. But I think that's okay. The point of this is to see what I end up liking more after repeat listens. The ones I care about will stand out. But it does mean that there are just some "dead" albums in these playlists. Ones that I don't care much about but which are still there. I think that's okay. These playlists are meant to be "discovery" playlists.

There's another ambiguity. During this process, there are several albums that became major favorites. However, I don't know if I can attribute that appreciation as being caused by this playlist approach, or if they inevitably would have become one of my "obsessions" after a first listen. I'll never know the answer to this, but what's important is that I found them and kept listening to them. That being said, I do think that the playlist approach had an impact here, at least to some extent. It kept the music on my radar, made it feel imminent, and brought me back to it as a sort of default, which perhaps I wouldn't have done as much otherwise. (Primarily I am thinking about albums from the band "Larry and His Flask" for this big win.)

I do truly feel that I developed deep appreciation for several albums due to this process. The real value here was in giving me a place to keep albums that I wanted to pay more attention to. So I don't lose them when I at first become interested. I don't have to scramble and search and remember which albums I wanted to focus on. They were right there in my current-cycle playlist. This aid on its own did a lot for helping me to have the focus I needed to pay proper attention to the albums I felt interest in.

Why did it fizzle toward the end of the year? I think partly it's because I became a bit more Broadway-focus in the last few months. Probably it started once I was exposed to Into The Woods, and suddenly I switched into theater-mode and I didn't need to track these in the playlist style. For some reason, theater just feels like a different part of my music journey and so I instinctively did not want to integrate show albums into my music discovery playlist process. And I think that's fine. The real effect here is that I was way more interested in the theater music than doing proper music discovery like I was doing for the rest of the year before then. And then once I mostly got past that Broadway phase, I made one more "cycle" playlist, but it was way more fragmented and I wasn't feeling the drive to add albums to it and listen back to it.

Will I do this again next year?

Maybe, maybe not. I'm interested in exploring other ways to manage music interest. I still believe in the principle that structured repeat exposure can lead to developing an appreciating for music that otherwise I wouldn't get. I'm not sure my above approach is the perfect one.

Basically, I'll go with the flow. I seem to be on a break from the playlist approach now (at the end of the year), and I have a feeling that break will continue for a little bit.

But I don't think my value of discovering new music is going away anytime soon, so I wouldn't be surprised if I seek out new ways to encourage and cultivate that, or continue this playlist approach.

The playlists

Rabbit Enters Winter - Created Dec 21, 2024^[1]

Standout albums:

"SELF-iSH" by Will Wood and the Tapeworms
- Some of these songs became obsessions. I love them but they are kind of dark in a goofy, twisted way. Later in the year, I was generally hesitant to listen back to these because I guess I wasn't feeling like a return into darkness, but they are great songs.
"Reality vs. the Optimist" by Kiss Kiss
- I wish I listened to this one more, I liked it but Will Wood kind of dominated my focus of this playlist. Want to go back to this more in the future. Does have a similar vibe to the Will Wood songs.
"Riding a Black Unicorn..." by Aurelio Voltaire
- I surprised myself with appreciating these. If I recall correctly, I got drawn in by "When the Circus Came to Town" (given my circus/juggling interests), but many of the other songs kept me in. Some of them are also quite dark and graphic. And I just plainly do not like "The Dirtiest Song That Ain't". But "Riding a black unicorn" (the song), "The Mechanical Girl", and a couple of the others are high re-listenability to me. They are a bit silly and theatrical. I'm interested in exploring more Aurelio Voltaire (he's known for spooky Halloween music) but I made an initial attempt at some point and didn't catch onto the one or two other albums I checked out.
"Rockin' the Suburbs" by Ben Folds
- I discovered Ben Folds through a couple songs he did with Regina Spektor (who is one of my earliest music interests (started with the song Eet, and then when she did a SummerStage concert in NYC a couple years ago I got into a bunch of her other songs) and then decided to explore his other music, hence why this album got added here
- I ended up liking a bunch of the songs in this album. Looking at the songs, though, "Zak and Sara" is the only one that stands out in memory, and I can't remember what most of the others were like. I liked them, though, and would listen more (though I honestly haven't much).

Somebody Called You (Thrumming) - Created Feb 27, 2025

Every album in this one was standout.

"...And the Battle Begun" by Rx Bandits
- This likely has a spot in my favorite albums of all time. The musical sound is so unique to me, I don't know what else to compare it to. I can't name top tracks, partly because I love most (if not all) of them, and partly because I honestly always forget what song the titles go with.
- Surprisingly, I also find that I probably don't know most of the lyrics that well. I'm usually strongly lyric-minded. But even if the lyrics are not as memorable (or maybe just hard for me to follow because they are kind of fast paced), the sound of the music comes through extremely strong. There are totally still little snippets of the catchiest lyrics that I know, but these perhaps just aren't the type of songs that make me feel the need to memorize the lyrics (unlike Streetlight Manifesto (my favorite band in the last few years), whose lyrics almost all become an instant need for being memorized)
"Ten Stories" by mewithoutYou
- I need to listen to this more (and listen to their other albums). Another unique kind of sound for me, which I really liked. Often giving spoken-word vibes, leaning into aggressive-rage spoken word (not like heavy-metal rage vibes, but like, someone really passionately and strongly and intensely speaking their spoken words. I love it. ^[2])
- Associate this with an airport waiting for plane, I was listening to a bunch of the songs while waiting.
"By the Lamplight" by Larry and His Flask
- The caveat here is that Larry and His Flask was already waaaay on my radar, and I would have listened to them plenty whether they were in this playlist or not, but I do think that adding it to this playlist reinforced it and made absolute sure I would keep going back to it.
- Larry and His Flask was the artist of the year for me, absolutely. If 2024 was the year of Streetlight Manifesto (and it was), 2025 was the year of Larry and His Flask (but still, look at all my other favorites in this overall list, there were so many standouts this year that I feel a little weird pointing LAHF as the #1, but it still feels right to say.)
- What do I like so much? The strong vocals (the lead singer has a really nice voice), love the lyrics and general themes, and the musicality and folky vibes are all great.
"The Script" by The Script
- This feels like an "education" pick to me. Like, I was culturing myself with a classic. I don't know if The Script is supposed to be considered a classic. But it feels that way to me.
- I ended up liking a lot of the songs, so definitely a win. They didn't stay on my radar after this playlist's cycle though.

Must also mention that the LAHF album has a song called "Muffled Thrums", which (I'm 99% certain) is not at all the reason I called the playlist "Thrumming", but I am enamored with that fact that there coincidentally was a song with the work "thrum" in it.

I created this playlist during a car ride (and an image of that ride flashes into my mind when I think about the origins of the playlist title).

During that car ride, I also used ChatGPT to get a couple of these recs -- specifically for Rx Bandits and mewithoutYou (for those specific albums I added) -- essentially seeding this playlist with those. Specifically I was asking ChatGPT for recs similar to Streetlight Manifesto. The pros and cons of AI for this can surely be debated, but clearly it paid off here.

[!INFO]- My AI prompting
Suggest me music artists and a suggested album from them that matches my interest. I usually like indie and rock, but am open to other things. I like streetlight manifesto because of the following descriptors. Strong lyrics that have meaning and make you think, that are sung with powerful and energetic vocals with a catchy beautiful melody and great instrumental along with it.

...
List some more that are slightly beyond my familiar zone but still fit the descriptors
...

Which of all the above recs would be highest energy

Actually I'm going to preserve all of its recs, in case I want to access them from here in the future, so I'm now prompting it to give a concise list of all album recs it gave:

The Crane Wife, The Decemberists (2006) – Poetic, deeply thought-out lyrics inspired by folklore and literature, delivered with passionate vocals and dynamic, theatrical compositions.

The Sunset Tree, The Mountain Goats (2005) – John Darnielle writes intensely personal, story-driven lyrics with raw energy and emotion, often dealing with survival and resilience.

The Monitor, Titus Andronicus (2010) – A chaotic yet anthemic rock opera drawing on historical themes with cathartic, passionate vocals and heavy instrumentation.

Go Farther in Lightness, Gang of Youths (2017) – Philosophical, life-affirming lyrics with dramatic, soaring instrumentation and emotionally charged vocals.

…And the Battle Begun, Rx Bandits (2006) – Complex musicianship, politically charged lyrics, and progressive rock influences built on ska-punk intensity.

Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair, La Dispute (2008) – Emotionally devastating spoken-word-infused post-hardcore with poetic, introspective lyrics and dynamic instrumentation.

The Greatest Generation, The Wonder Years (2013) – Introspective, storytelling-driven pop punk with deeply personal, self-reflective lyrics and huge, anthemic choruses.

Drunken Lullabies, Flogging Molly (2002) – Irish folk-punk with raucous energy, meaningful social commentary, and beautiful, haunting melodies.

Brother, Sister, mewithoutYou (2006) – Emotionally raw, poetic lyrics with spoken-word/post-hardcore delivery and intricate instrumentation blending indie rock and folk influences.

Painted Shut, Hop Along (2015) – Frances Quinlan's raspy, impassioned vocals paired with deeply narrative and literary songwriting, backed by dynamic indie rock.

Transgender Dysphoria Blues, Against Me! (2014) – Raw, anthemic punk rock with intensely personal and politically charged lyrics, delivered with fiery, commanding vocals.

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, Godspeed You! Black Emperor (2000) – No vocals, but this is post-rock at its most cinematic—deeply emotional, thought-provoking, and epic in scope.

Super Taranta!, Gogol Bordello (2007) – Gypsy punk with wild, energetic instrumentation, theatrical vocals, and rebellious, deeply political lyrics.

Ants From Up There, Black Country, New Road (2022) – Avant-garde indie with orchestral elements, deeply emotional storytelling, and vocals that teeter between spoken and sung with intense vulnerability.

Shake Shook Shaken, The Dø (2014) – Experimental indie-pop with hypnotic vocals and electronic-leaning but deeply human, poetic songwriting.

The Alchemy Index (Vols I & II – Fire & Water), Thrice (2007) – A conceptual rock album with poetic, mythic lyrics, balancing heavy, intense rock (“Fire”) and atmospheric, haunting beauty (“Water”).

Act III: Life and Death, The Dear Hunter (2009) – Progressive rock at its most cinematic, with lush orchestration and powerful melodies in a narrative-driven concept album.

Lighght, Kishi Bashi (2014) – Playful and intricate chamber pop, blending violin-driven melodies with deeply emotional lyrics and stunning vocal harmonies.

Bubbles Rising to the Surface - Created April 8th, 2025

I think I like the title of the playlist more than the individual albums. HOWEVER, that's not to say I didn't like the music. Just not as memorable as other albums this year.

Still worth mentioning:

"Absolution" by Muse
"PIPER CoolSelection" by PIPER
"Stick Season" by Noah Kahan
"Fight With Tools" by Flobots
- Flobots is one of my favorite artists. I don't know this album that well so I threw it in here. It honestly didn't serve that well here, I don't recall listening to it much in this playlist. Slowly appreciating this album over time, though. (My top Flobots album is "Circle in the Square". My entrypoint into Flobots was "Me & You (Happy 2gether)", which is their cover of the song by The Turtles. Love their cover of it so much - they rap/hip-hop-ified it.) I haven't found a hip hop group that I like as much as Flobots yet (I am very inexperienced in Hip Hop, so take that statement with a grain of salt.)

Enthused Disruption - Created May 14, 2025

I'm starting to realize that this whole "playlist approach" peaked with the first two playlists. Am I making a bigger deal about this than the impact it actually had??? Maybe.

This one had "Mr. A-Z" by Jason Mraz, "MAD!" by Sparks (their latest album), "Everything Besides" by Larry and His Flask (adding it here definitely made me listen to it and appreciate it), and "This is How We Get Better" by The Narcissist Cookbook (very interesting album, liked it).

Finding My Way Home - Created July 20, 2025

I'll say this one had high impact as well. If only because it got me listening to Midlake.

"The Trials of Van Occupanther" by Midlake
- Love a lot of these songs. Especially "Van Occupanther" and "Roscoe", with honorable mention to "Head Home" and "It Covers the Hillsides". This album took measurable real estate in my mind. It belongs in the list of top albums for the year (if I were to make one). The songs are on the chiller side. Don't remember exactly how I found them. But I love them.
"Six Demon Bag" by Man Man
- Liked some of the songs, but honestly never got that into it. Would listen to more.
"All Eternals Deck" by The Mountain Goats
- I think it's inevitable that I listen to more Mountain Goats in the future.
- Liked a bunch of songs in this album. Not particularly standout, but I liked the vibe. Mostly chill too, slower songs.
- Standouts are "Damn These Vampires" and "Age of Kings"

Fastly, Slowly, Breathe - Created October 2, 2025

This one is the "fizzle".

It started with me adding "Red, Yellow & Blue" by Born Ruffians. I liked some of the songs but still haven't listened to them much. Then in mid-November I added "The Ides" by Me Like Bees. I think I'm going to listen to Me Like Bees more moving forward, but I didn't really listen to them through this playlist, but instead in Spotify's shuffles after other songs I queued up, or through song radios for related music. Again, the "fizzle" is that I'm not really going to the playlist as my "default" currently, like I did earlier in the year. And then I added "The First Edition" by Kenny Rogers a couple days ago, but I'm not sure how much impact it'll have -- the song of interest was "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)", which is a funny song that showed up from my previously-hearted songs (I was playing my liked songs on shuffle).

End 'o the year

Bomb the Music Industry - this is the strongest artist in my mind for the last month or so. Otherwise, there's been a cycle of some theater stuff, and a little bit of Larry and His Flask and Streetlight Manifesto sprinkled in here and there. I kind of haven't been listening to that much music recently.

Oh yeah, must also give an honorable mention to Ludo's album "You're Awful, I Love You" -- especially the song "Lake Pontchartrain" - great song. Not part of the above playlists but snuck into my radar somewhere along the way.

The theater music I got into this year

The Outsiders
Octet (Dave Malloy, mostly the first track The Forest)
Into the Woods
Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812
Ghost Quartet
Bat Boy

I mentioned earlier that getting into some of these led to my playlist approach fizzling towards the end of the year. I'd say that's mostly attributed to Into The Woods, Great Comet, and Ghost Quartet. Outsiders was earlier in the year (April) and Octet and Bat Boy were minor influences on that. (Note, Outsiders in the above list is the only show I actually went to this year. I went to other Broadway musicals as well, but their albums did not dominate much listening time.)

In Conclusion

It was a great year for discovering new music.

There's definitely an Ebb and Flow to the cycles of consuming what I already like, exploring new music, and just not listening to that much stuff at all. Gotta respect that.

And as I said earlier, there are ups and downs (meaning, ambiguous benefits) of this time-based playlist approach. But I'm glad I tried it.

yes I know this is technically not 2025, but it basically is, and it's the first of this playlist approach, so I'm not going to exclude it ↩︎
Saying this makes me also think of my more recent listening interests, Bomb the Music Industry (becoming a big favorite!) and Apes of State (less favorite but similar intense-word vibes I'm talking about here and also similar to BTMI), which btw neither of which are part of these playlists ↩︎

Twelve Angry Men

2026-03-30T02:33:59.000Z

They Live (1988)

2026-08-13T04:13:33.000Z

Scifi/horror film, directed by John Carpenter^[1].

On December 14, 2020, I watched a Youtube video called "They Live - glasses scene" -- no recollection as to what linked me to it (probably some reddit comment), but I watched it. Since then, I have occasionally thought^[2] about this scene and figured I would someday watch the movie, since I was interested in the premise. That day was today, August 12, 2026^[3].

It was a good movie, but not a great one, I must admit.

First of all, I love a good rebellion. So there's that.

But. The movie didn't really live up to the hype that had built up in my head (yes, from that one clip) starting six years ago. The ending fell a little flat. I expected more, maybe.

I guess I want to get a bit more specific so I will guard my notes with spoiler warning.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

I do love the premise. It's a bold statement. That the upper class is aliens and oppressing the lower, basically. "They live. We sleep." I feel like this is a message that, transfigurated to a real life and not sci-fi meaning, more people need to hear. I want more people to wake up. For me, this can apply to politics, veganism, environmentalism (aka climate change), food waste, so many of the issues of our time. Open your eyes, people! Or rather, put on these sunglasses.
Our main guy was just a little too cheesy for our taste. Just some of the lines he said. e.g. "I'm not daddy's little boy anymore." "life's a bitch, and she's back in heat". I'm not sure if this is just the nature of this era of film, but just not to my liking in my 21st century taste. (Not that I don't like older movies. I do. This was just a little too much on those "quotable" catchphrases.^[4])
I understand why the "glasses scene" (the fight scene) is iconic , which is surely why I ended up stumbling upon it. But the premise of that fight is kind of ridiculous. He realllllly didn't want to try on the sunglasses. So they fought? John (protag) wasn't even being aggressive about it. I guess Frank just really wanted to not get in any trouble, and he thought that by going along with John's doings, he might become party to it. So maybe I can see why he was resistant... But the level of the fight just didn't seem necessary.
The ending. I'm not upset about the reveal of Holly's betrayal, and I'm not upset that John sacrificed himself. I think the end result that everyone now sees the true, non-brainwashed, reality is a good end result. And it's interesting to think about what would have happened next -- would they just get brainwashed again, or is the knowledge permanent? Would the humans rise up and kill the oppressors? Maybe the director/writer wants me to be asking these questions to myself. But I can't help but feel that the ending felt a bit cut short. We had thirty seconds or less of screentime after the illusion was broken. I wish we got more reward for John's sacrifice. I feel like it merited showing more of the end result, showing that his sacrifice was worth it.
The nature of the illusion didn't quite click until I was thinking about it right now
- I was off-put when the glasses let you see the aliens even through a tv screen. Meaning, without the glasses, the person on the tv looks human, but with the glasses, you see their true alien nature. This feels wrong, but only because I thought that the aliens themselves were creating the illusion. I figured that each alien emits some kind of illusion, and putting on the glasses stops that illusion from reaching the viewer. So, for an alien on tv, it made no sense to me that the glasses would do anything -- because you're looking at a recording, not at the actual creature. So why would it change anything you see.
- But now it clicked that the glasses are actually stopping the interference that is in the viewer's mind, rather than piercing through an external illusion. It's not adding an ability to the viewer; it's removing an inhibition. So for the tv situation, the true image actually is the alien; because of the radio waves in the air or whatever, the human brain is twisted into seeing the "human" on the screen. The glasses cancel out the effect of the radio waves, leading the human to see the reality.
- Retrospectively, my second bullet above is maybe obvious. I think it probably subconsciously clicked for me at some point in the movie, but I couldn't have put it into words until now. I feel like I appreciate it a little more, now that I've thought it through. The ending probably clicks a little bit more too (though, still feel it was cut too short).

never particularly paid attention to this name but I've also seen his The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China ↩︎
and occasionally got it confused with the movie "Soylent Green", which I also watched earlier this year. I guess it was the year to wrap up thinking about watching this duo, and to actually watch them. ↩︎
I feel some weight in realizing that it took me 6 years to get around to it. It's like it was eating away at some part of me for these six years, just waiting to be actualized. But what can be done. There are surely countless other latent situations like this just waiting to be realized. But I suppose the real point here is that the meaning and value of things can change over time, and you can't know right away which one of these things might build up. And also as more time passed, the memory of this clip intrigued me more and more until something reminded me of it and I couldn't resist the temptation of finding out the surrounding context of that clip. It's kind of a "Marshmallow Test" situation. ↩︎
All that being said, I feel like it would be pretty funny to memorize these phrases and spit them back out at random times in real life. I'm slightly cracking myself up at this idea. Will I do it? Probably not. ↩︎

The Drama (2026)

2026-05-30T23:50:05.000Z

Great movie. Asks some deep questions.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

ok I feel like I need to process this movie a bit.

Obviously big topic is that you find out something about your partner that changes the way you see them. Then how do you navigate that. How do you know if it's too much.
I really like a movie like this where you see someone go through kind of an extreme(ish) situation and see how they react. Especially like when it's something kind of intangible, psychological, nuanced. It's like a thought experiment.
I liked the sequence early on where Charlie was re-imagining moments in his relationship with Emma but he was imagining her younger self with him in those moments (i.e. the part of her that was disturbed). This is him realizing that although it feels like he learned something new about her, this aspect was actually always part of her throughout all the time they knew each other.
Poses the question to you -- What would you do if someone you think you know actually has some dark secret? Would you immediately reject that person? Would you be willing to think through the nuances? Can you forgive someone for doing something bad?
On the flip side, it also poses: Are you willing to reveal a darker part of yourself to someone else? Is it better to hide these things rather than risk misunderstandings and un-nuanced interpretations?
Should Emma have kept it to herself? Or would it have come out eventually? Is there any way for them to have a good relationship without this coming out eventually? Could their relationship now somehow be stronger now that they have seen a different side of each other but have accepted them? There is something powerful about that -- reciprocal acceptance of your partner's darkness.
The ending shows that they accept each other for their flaws and are willing to set mistakes aside. Both of them. Someone might look at their Things and think that one thing is much worse than the other, and maybe that's true, but people are complicated, and maybe what it's saying is that the current reality is what matters. She had a disturbed past, but is better now. Does she not deserve grace? Actually this makes me think of some reddit conversations I saw a couple months ago about a Hadestown actor (I think one of the recent Hades actors) that had some kind of allegation against him in the past, like many many many years ago, and he served his sentence (don't remember exactly what, maybe community service kind of thing) and had no violations since the incident and then he is now acting, and people (I have no sense of how many "people" think this way) are upset that he is playing this role, and other commenters were saying that he served his due sentence and why should what he did and never did again have to prevent him from having a fulfilling career later on. I'm not getting details right probably (i know I'm being vague) and not doing the nuances justice but I feel like it's a similar question being posed in this movie. Emma (almost) did a terrible thing when she was younger - does she still deserve something good in her life? Can/should anyone believe that she has really changed? Maybe we should be more empathetic to Emma than the actor with allegations because Emma was a troubled teenager and was going through things and didn't have access to mental health resources. But maybe it's not so different. We are also asked to forgive Charlie for basically cheating (or rather - and this is important and a parallel to Emma - he almost cheated but didn't go through with it). Or maybe we are not asked to forgive him ourselves, but we are shown that Emma is willing to forgive him. He was under stress and dealing with the drama of what he learned about Emma and he made a mistake. Some (many?) people would not be as forgiving to any level of cheating. But Emma is. Maybe it's because she understands that her reveal put him through strain and she knew it was affecting him. Point is, she understood that it's more nuanced than just "he cheated, leave him". This is the same thing that the subtext is saying about Charlie towards Emma. The easy answer is, she displayed psychopathic behavior in the past, so you should get far away. But the more nuanced answer is, well maybe she has really changed and people are complicated and it's okay for it to be something to work through and deal with and live with.
Another parallel comes to mind, regarding Charlie's speech during the wedding. He perhaps/obviously made the situation worse by having a public breakdown and e.g. revealing the incident with his coworker. This reminds me of Hamilton (I mean the musical, but also the actual historical figure) where Hamilton had an affair and then tried to "clear his name" by eventually revealing the affair publicly, and, at least the musical makes it seem, Eliza (Ham's wife) is more upset about the fact that he publicly disclosed it rather than the fact that he had the affair in the first place. Though maybe I am wrong and it's equal or more in the other direction. But it is a similar question in The Drama - which is Emma more upset about, the cheating, or his publicly announcing it? Well, from the ending, I would guess that she is more upset about the cheating and simply embarrassed about the publicity of it, but obviously willing to forgive both and move on.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

2026-05-10T22:35:01.000Z

Watched in preparation for seeing the sequel. (The choice of seeing the sequel not entirely being in my own hands.)

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

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First half thoughts

very exciting, almost feels like a corporate thriller (high urgency tasks, getting things done in the nick of time, etc)
it's about proving that you can do something people doubt you can
it's very rewarding and exciting to see someone succeed despite the odds seeming against them
i anticipate there's going to be a downfall and recovery, perhaps revealing something about the devil's personality - a softer side perhaps?
i also sense some falling out with her friends - already hints of the distance between them and her increasing

Ending thoughts

my prediction was kinda right - downfall with her friends/bf, and then recovery by the end. Also devil showed softer side
happy ending because we are rooting for her to do the job she actually wants to be doing. (Which concerns me about the second movie because she probably changed her mind or something.)
message of not overworking / staying in a toxic workplace. Otherwise it will affect the rest of your life. Also stop and think about if what you're doing really aligns with your values and what you're looking for.
yet by the end, Andrea has been improved by the job. She is more confident in herself, better communicator (maybe?), knows how to deal with people. And better sense of style ofc. And she did benefit from having the devil's recommendation for her next job.
that moment of just walking away (quitting). Kind of cliche/silly but also kind of powerful. Like it just makes so much sense for her to do that once she realizes the job doesn't align with her she is / wants to be
at the start, the job was kind of random, one of two places that would hire her and not even for what she really wanted. But she gets pulled into the world and actually is good at the job. It's takes a bit to snap out of it and pull herself away from it.
devil is this infamous dragon figure but andrea penetrates that image - sees the softer side, becomes a confidante, and devil says she sees herself in her. There's something appealing and fun about seeing this undermining of a harsh image.

[!success] End of spoilers

DWP 2 (sequel)

It had some touching moments but I was often bored and not feeling into the plot. Perhaps it felt like much more of a plot-driven movie rather than character-driven compared to the original. I was feeling pleased by the end, though, so that's something.

The Chef of South Polar (2009)

2026-05-30T19:45:49.000Z

#movie #japanese

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1345728/

(Warning: Not much spoilers here I think but I don't guarantee that there are no spoilers.)

If I'm being facetious, I'd say that after my thoughts about the movie Chef (with Jon Favreau) that I mentioned in 1 Second Everyday - Indie Hackers Podcast, which I mentioned inspired me to want to watch Chef again, I accidentally watched this movie instead. Well, that's basically what happened, but it wasn't accidental.

I was searching up Chef and took a glance a bit too far down the line, and saw Chef of South Polar with its 7/10 IMDB rating, which maybe doesn't sound like so notably high of a rating, but given that I stumbled upon it in happenstance and mingling with other incredibly random movies that had the word "Chef" in them, it impressed me enough to at least give the synopsis a read. My attention was snared. A movie about researchers in Antarctica with a focus on the chef that is with them. All this to say, I watched about 30 seconds of Jon Favreau's Chef, decided I didn't need to watch it again, watched just the "1 Second Everyday" clip on YouTube, and then settled in for The Chef of South Polar.

And? It was a good movie. Great movie. I gave it 5/5 on Letterboxd. It was funny and relaxing and had beautiful cinematography, especially of the food^[1]. Just an overall very chill and feel-good movie. It often made me think of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy - the characters in that had to go through training in Antarctica to ensure they were psychologically fit to survive on Mars (due to the similar isolation and desertedness that Antarctica and Mars would share). Certainly the characters in the movie had a range of "well-adjustedness" to their conditions (meaning, sometimes not so well-adjusted).

There was also emotion to the movie. There were a couple moments where I felt a wave of emotion (chills), albeit brief. Specifically, the food scene after the protag loses his daughter's tooth and then the others make a meal for him and he cries. The new-ramen scene was also quite cool and a tad bit of emotion too.

There were a lot of hilarious moments - these kind of stand out more as the essence of the movie (but are balanced by the brief but touching emotional parts).

It's not a particularly fast-paced movie and there's not much plot, so it's mostly about enjoying the vibes and seeing how food brings these people together and laughing along with the silly situations they find themselves in.

Oh yeah and also, it being in Japanese, I appreciated it as a little motivator/challenge for my Japanese learning endeavors. It was nice to see myself catch some phrases and vocab words. I was particularly pleased when I was able to read "tanjoubi" (it was in hiragana in the movie. sorry, I don't have Japanese keyboard stuff setup on my laptop right now. I usually do that stuff on mobile.) on the cookies the chef was making and realize it was a birthday party seconds before they expanded on that visually. I'm mostly in a slump regarding Japanese learning recently (I completed 11/12 Genki Volume 1 sections and haven't gone back to it in months) and I'm not saying this movie is at all getting me out of it but it's a good reminder of the fun of language learning and the perks of learning more.

I'm vegan. Given that most of the food pictured was not vegan, this summons thoughts and questions I ask myself about how I "should" and "do" feel about appreciating the cinematography of non-vegan food. Frankly, it's a complicated stream of thoughts that I haven't fully developed in this moment, so I'll leave that as a discussion for another time. ↩︎

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2020)

2026-08-03T02:49:03.000Z

Director: Céline Sciamma
(French film)

I liked this a lot! Even gave it a heart on Letterboxd.

A lovely premise+story. Full of emotion; depiction of artistic vision; sensuality; echoes of mythology. A likely candidate for a rewatch (rare for me). Good writing and cinematography and direction.

Bits of it also drive some inspiration to draw+paint, play piano, and like most good indie films I see these days, it also inspires me to write (and contemplate what writing/directing for film might be like).

The road to this film

Probably four or five years ago, I heard of this movie in the context of it relating to the Orpheus and Eurydice myth (subject of Media I Have Consumed/Theater/Hadestown, my favorite musical). I was interested in watching this film, but never got around to it until now. Today was also the day that the Hadestown theatrical trailer was released (not much of a meaningful coincidence because Hadestown is generally always somewhere in my field consciousness)^[1].

Though my watching this film was in the back of my mind as an inevitability, a specific sequence led me to watch it when I did. The sequence starts with Pools (2025), which I watched on January 1st of this year, which funnily enough was brought to my attention by an Instagram^[2] ad. I enjoyed Pools enough that a couple weeks ago, I asked ChatGPT to recommend me similar movies^[3] -- this led me to watch the movie Water Lilies (2007), a coming of age film about girl swimmers -- I like this a lot, too, enough to be curious and look up who the director was:
Céline Sciamma. What else did Sciamma make? I was surprised to see: Portrait of a Lady on Fire -- instantly reminding me of my intention to watch it, and also making me quite sure I would watch it soon. And then, today, deciding to watch a movie, and deciding it was time for this.^[4]

I feel a slight cringe at disclosing that ChatGPT was used to help get me to this movie. Yet how can I be ashamed given the wholly positive outcome? I say something similar to what I mentioned in this Indie Hackers podcast note: "I'm using [ChatGPT] to make a broad search for real human content, but leveraging natural language and a large-scoping conversation to drive that search." This also is evoking for me something I heard on Episode 1087 of the SGU podcast which I listened to today -- the concept of the "genetic fallacy", which says that you can dismiss an argument or piece of evidence due to its origin. Similarly, even though I got a movie recommendation from ChatGPT, I can judge and appreciate the movie separately from that source. Its worth is self-contained, regardless of where it came from.^[5]

though, there is some poetry in me watching a film relating to hadestown on the day that a hadestown film is in sharp focus. ↩︎
one of the only platforms I can't black ads on... let this not be a lesson for me to watch more ads, though. I do kind of love that most of the ads I see on Instagram are for film and theater. It's kind of excellent. ↩︎
"Suggest me more movies like Pools (2025) but from at least 5 years ago. Attribute specifc similar characteristics" --> "More but more obscure" ↩︎
side note: the Lady actress was also one of the two protagonists of Water Lilies. ↩︎
(Though, it does still feel appropriate and relevant to discuss its origin, which is why I have done so here, and I feel that it does add something to the conversation about AI usage, and how one discovers media, and how similar media is connected, and how interest in something can be predicted by an automation.) ↩︎

Pools (2025)

2026-01-03T01:00:12.000Z

I really liked this.

Going to be honest - I was shown an ad for this movie on Instagram, and at first I thought it was an ad for an AI-written story slop app, but then saw it was for an actual movie (I think technically it was an ad into Apple TV). The brief trailer caught my attention though - it was a short snippet of dialogue, and it seemed goofy and fun. It lingered in my mind as something that might be fun to watch as a low-effort movie. So I watched it, a few days after exposure.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

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The premise is fun. A bunch of college students invading rich people's pools in the night. All led by the spontaneous plans of our protagonist, a girl named Kennedy. They eventually end up breaking into one of the houses and partying themselves to exhaustion. It sounds and seemed ridiculous -- are they not thinking about the consequences of trashing someone's house? They seem confident that the owners are away, but surely this could catch up to them. But they're living in the moment.

Again, it's fun to watch this. But the surface level fun isn't the point of the movie. It's actually a story about Kennedy processing emotions related to her father's death (who died of a stroke while in a pool) and dealing with her impending future. She feels, or feels that society feels, that she should stay in school and continue her education on her scholarship and do what would've made her father proud. Yet from the start of the movie, and in moments throughout, we can sense this force inside her which propels her away from her studies -- she can't do the bare minimum of showing up to class, even when skipping another class means she will be expelled.

It takes the pool boy, a stranger to Kennedy, to offer some wisdom which makes her realize that it's okay to actually follow her instincts and pursue a path of music rather than rigidly conform to that college education which other people are saying is right for her, or that her past self felt was right for her.

I love the emotion and heart here. I love the (wo)man-versus-self conflict. In the first third of the movie, you might think it's a man-versus-world conflict -- will they get caught by the homeowners or police? But it turns out that what we really care about is Kennedy's journey and for her to find resolution in the uncertainties of her path. Yeah, if I think too deep about the fact that they broke into and partied in these people's house, I have all kinds of questions, like, what is going on morally with these people. Yet as the movie progressed, even as Kennedy lingered in this mansion, the only important thing was her self-discovery and I became fully immersed in it.

Speaking of immersion -- the movie was beautifully shot and the score was really nice.

There was also poetry to this movie which I feel I don't see in that many movies. An example of a small detail I love - as a way to show the passing of time, there is a shot of a dial that is turned from "Winter" to "Summer" (I just realized that this is probably a reference to an Air Conditioner control, which yes is relevant to the plot). And then at the very end of the movie, after the credits, the dial is shown again and the disembodied hand turns it from Summer back to Winter.

There were also some really good lines that stood out to me. And they clearly were meant to. Specifically, I'm talking about the present vs future stuff. In an early scene of the movie, Kennedy tells her to-be-friend dude (Blake) that the future is basically impossible to reach. You can say something will happen "tomorrow", but then when tomorrow comes, tomorrow is still tomorrow. You can never get to tomorrow, really. Then, later, the Air Conditioner guy has a line essentially about living in the moment ("It's always now") and not worry about the future. --Okay you know what, I'm kind of at a loss for how I was connecting these two parts. But perhaps one message of the movie is that sometimes you have to do what feels best in the moment rather than worrying about what your future is supposed to look like. (Obviously this message isn't always true.)

Anyway these were some of these thoughts. I was surprised at the depth of the movie. I feel like I was taken on a journey and I often didn't know where it was going next. It felt fresh to me. Kind of makes me want to swim in a pool :)

Paint a picture

Don't take this as indicating that this movie has any more meaning to me than I've implied above -- but I've recently been wanting to make a painting of something, and saying the word "pools" so many times reminded me that I've taken pictures of my childhood home's pool area in the past, which would make a good subject for a painting. Especially since I've been wanting to paint something that is more of a landscape.

This is my sketch so far. Hopefully I do paint it and hopefully I remember to update this.

Over the Edge (1979)

2026-06-08T20:54:58.000Z

I really liked this movie! Three word description: justified teenage rebellion. Message: good recreation programs and parental attention are important for kids/teens to... not be delinquents.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

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[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

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Notes

Always love a good rebellion
Based on a true story
Best / most rewarding scenes: the pre-riot (locking the ppl in the school), the auditorium meeting (especially when Carl's dad voices reality -- see below), and the riot itself.
The crux -- the leaders in the community are obsessed with the productivity and appearance of the community (making it appealing to outsiders). They wonder why the teens/kids are misbehaving, and punish them by attempting to shut down their one recreation center. The recreation center had already been a thing that closes at 6pm even though the kids clearly have fun there and want to stay (this is an explicit scene). The movie opens with us seeing a bulletin that a new bowling+entertainment center was going to be built, but that they switched the plan to build a new industrial complex. With no recreation opportunities for the kids, and probably also with degrees of parental neglect (as emphasized in the auditorium scene when one of the teachers says none of the parents ever visit for the in-class viewing opportunities; maybe also neglect because most of the parents probably moved to this town for work), the kids end up congregating at night at dark playgrounds, or parties (one example of a party shown), drinking alcohol / doing drugs, doing vandalism, being violent with each other, other petty crime like stealing. It's clear to me that the movie is trying to say: give the kids recreation opportunities and they will engage with those rather than delinquency. It all builds up to the riot scene at the end, which feels like a great release of tension where hopefully it can bring a change in how the community is viewing the kids. Change is more likely because Carl's dad called out during the meeting that the leaders are only talking about making the community more industrially appealing, rather than actually paying attention to the needs of the kids, who are also a core part of the community. I think this is a seed that will grow, spread to other similar thinking adults, and lead to improvements.
Similar feeling to The Outsiders at some points (teen violence + community)
Many small moments+details that add up to really good writing

Local Hero (1983)

2026-03-31T02:25:43.000Z

This movie took me by surprise. I went in expecting a serious movie - and it did have a serious undertone, but it also was unexpectedly comedic/absurd, and also surprisingly complex. While being touching and having a positive message.

I arrived to it in a similar way as I did The Chef of South Polar (2009). I saw an ad on Instagram for a movie called "Our Hero, Balthazar", and was deciding whether to watch it, when I saw the next search result was Local Hero. Its imdb rating was 7.3 (balthazar was 7.1) and the synopsis sounded like it could be interesting. So I watched it instead. (Yes, this is a strange way of selecting a movie to watch. Yet it is working.)

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

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Overall thoughts

This movie did not go how I expected it to. I think that's what made it so enjoyable to watch. I kind of had no idea where it was going. Characters didn't behave the way I initially (or for a while) expected them to.

This is what I expected the plot to be: Oil company wants to buy and destroy this town. Protagonist (Mac) gets to know the town and people and decides to protest the oil purchase. This makes him the local hero.

The first thing that I got wrong was that the townspeople actually wanted the land to be bought, because it would make them rich. And Mac was a "local hero" because he was the one bringing this deal to them. He was shown praise by the townspeople.

But the true heroes (from the environmentalist perspective at least) ended up being Oldsen (Mac's new bud who works in the Scotland office of the oil company), the CEO of the oil company (Mister Happer), and the man on the beach.

The most unexpected (but also kind of obvious from the start) character twist was the CEO, Mister Happer. He's the CEO of the oil company and it seems that he is the one giving the order to destroy the town so they can build the oil refinery -- though, retrospectively, I remember that in the opening scene, he is the one who was asleep in the meeting where the board decided on this town as the location, so perhaps he never fully understood the reason for the location. Nevertheless, his entire characterization is barely about him being CEO -- it's mostly about his obsessive interest with stargazing and the sky (as well as his harrowing relationship with a psychologist whose methodology is to verbally abuse Happer for some reason -- I have to think through if there was a point to that or if it's just comedic relief or adding depth to the character (THOUGHT THROUGH: Theory)). Happer's check-ins with Mac are about what's happening in the sky -- Mac reports on meteor showers and aurora borealis, and barely discusses the oil deal. Ultimately, when Happer flies in (via helicopter) to the town and speaks with the Man On The Beach, Happer himself decides that the town is not an ideal place for the oil refinery because of its niceness and it being a prime spot for star/planet-gazing. This feels like a good ending, but also feels strange because in a way, we were rooting for Mac because he was the protag, and the end move by Happer is the CEO exercising his power and making this decision which nullifies most of the work Mac had been doing. We like the result, but it feels strange because 95% of the characters were rooting for a different ending.

The man on the beach is the black sheep character. He lives in a shack on the beach and it has been owned by his family for 400 years. He is the one person in this town who does not want to give up his property -- even when offered over a million dollars, and "any [other] beach he wants", he says that this current beach is fine, and that he's still "making a living" off it. He also has a deep interest in the stars, which is how he and Happer bond and how we get to the conclusion. The man on the beach reminds me of the opposing juror in Twelve Angry Men. Everyone else is satisfied except for him, but he is Right. The man on the beach is what I expected the rest of the townspeople to be like, with regards to the prospect of being kicked off their land. It's interesting how the person with the minority opinion is able to sway the entire cause. Happer's eyes light up when he hears that MOTB is interested in the stars. This connection is what sways everything.

The other interesting dynamic is Oldsen and "the girl". The girl is a marine biologist who has been surveying the wildlife on the beach. The two develop a flirtatious relationship (on-screen escalation is a somewhat strange foot-kissing scene, which leads to the absolutely absurd/confusing reveal that the woman has webbed feet??? I think??? I don't really understand this part.) I think she is unaware through the whole movie that Mac+Oldsen are actually there to make a deal which will lead to the destruction of the land, which she obviously would oppose to. However, even though she doesn't know about it, she is still an influence on Oldsen, who clearly starts to take an environmental stance (he at one point poses to Mac whether the townspeople know what is going to happen to the town (I'm still not sure if they knew the land was going to be destroyed)). Oldsen's opinion is another point of encouragement to Happer at the end, mentioning that they can build a marine biology research center here.

The ending of the movie is Mac being sent home to Texas and looking out at the Houston cityscape out his window, an undeniable juxtaposition to the natural landscape of the town in Scotland which is surrounded by beautiful mountain and beach. It's clear that Mac has been touched by his work trip. When Happer tells him to go home, Mac's still expression somehow portrays his disappointment of leaving the town (corroborated by his earlier remark to the mayor (Urquhart, another interesting character) indicating he wished he could switch places with him) and going back to normal life. It was a palpable feeling. I was wishing for him that he could stay in the simple life the town offered. The last moment of the movie is the phonebooth in the town ringing, presumably Mac calling in to check on how things are and how the friends he made there are doing.

Not sure if I summarized too much rather than offered opinion/insight. But I suppose I was providing supporting evidence for my opening statement of the movie being complex, comedic/absurd, and touching. The film had me giggling at the comedic and absurd moments, while also being vested in the outcome of the oil deal and the fate of the landscape.

My notes while watching

Thoughts 24 min in:

eccentric ceo character - obsession with stars and comet. I wonder if it will play a role
entering the ceo office was like entering heaven in terms of luxury but also visually/musically. I see the contrast being developed between the industrialized cold corporation versus the small town feel (so far they just checked into the hotel)
did the synopsis spoil too much? (But it got me interested)

50 min:

rabbit sad story, i guess just a funny thing? Or subtle manipulation by the townsman/leader? Seems to be not in his favor though. Maybe an indicator that protag is more caring about the land / natural order than the townsppl are
so the townsppl are trying to be the manipulators, hiding their eagerness to sell the land. Contrary to my expectations - i thought they would be resistant and win the protag over. Is it going to be the other way around? Protag independently wants to save the land? Or am i just misinterpreting what i thought the synopsis said and "local hero" actually means he sold the land and made everyone a lot of money
some strange/unsettling moments:
  - the ppl running out of the church
  - "whose baby" - blank stares, no answer
  - why dont you eat the crabs that you catch (/ intentionally don't catch) - because "too expensive"

The girl has webbed feet????? Strange moment.

"Do you think they know what'll happen to the place?" Ah so there's no opposition but they prob dont know the plan is to blow it all up for oil. Maybe it'll be the scottish protag (protag's friend) who raises the opposition since he is vibing with the environmentalist girl (who also doesn't know their plan is to blow it up)

Shifting between serious and comedic/absurd. Kinda reminds me of South Polar

"i thought all this money would make me feel different. All it's done is made me feel depressed. I dont feel any different." 1:20:00

1:27:00 trying to convince the beach guy to move / sell the beach that he owns. Says the beach is his living / still working on it. "You wont have to work." "well we all have to work [??]"

Theory about Happer's Therapist

It's the day after watching the film and I had some thoughts about this while I was out walking today.

So, Happer is kind of a weird CEO. He's kind of the opposite of how a CEO is often portrayed/stereotyped: cold-hearted, profit-driven, kind of evil. Instead, he's kind of a goofy fellow, with a deep interest in and attention to nature. He demonstrates a willingness to change a vital business strategy in light of the opinion of a simple man who lives on a beach and the connection they share through a common interest.

So I'm imagining that the "therapist" was called in (by who? him? someone else? or just the allegorical/comedic/satirical gods/grace of the film's universe) to turn him into a "better" (more evil/corrupt) CEO. How to make a decent person into a worse person? Traumatize them with verbal (maybe even physical) abuse.

With this in mind, it's also interesting that Happer consistently refuses the attempts of the therapist to do this. It's hinted that the therapist was previously hired and presumably did some decent service for Happer. But from the start of the movie, when the therapist is introduced as throwing verbal insults at Happer, Happer shuns the therapist. Happer terminates their relationship (or attempts to) when the therapist implies he wants to start trying physical abuse too.

With regards to my above theory, we are glad that Happer resists the abuse. We don't want his essence to change -- we want him to be a kind-hearted CEO, because he ultimately makes a positive impact on the community which is the subject of the film.

Furthermore, I think his resistance may highlight something about a more normal patient-therapist relationship. In a reversed way, we see what it looks like for a patient to resist the treatment of a psychologist. We understand that it goes against the nature/instinct of the patient (Happer) to give in to what the psychologist is demanding. Again, in this case, we want Happer to resist, so this is good. But maybe it can help us to empathize with patients (in a real, non-reversed therapy situation) who have trouble accepting the efforts of a therapist to help them. It may feel to them like it goes against their nature to change their behavior or mindset. In this case, we want the patient to follow the therapist.

Well, here's a crazier thought -- there probably are real life situations where the therapist is not doing good for the patient or not acting in the patient's best interest. <-- Mainly I meant, a therapist who might be manipulating the patient or for some reason trying to make them worse. But also, perhaps more realistically, a profit-driven psychiatrist whose motive is to sell drugs rather than genuinely improve the patient's situation. Perhaps this latter thought is actually closer to what the film is showing. The psychologist says that Happer is his "star patient" and implies the "work" they are doing is helpful for the psychology firm / their research. So maybe this is showing that Happer is taking advantage of the patient rather than taking Happer's best interest to heart.

Is that a stretch? Maybe. Well, here's an even bigger, stretchier stretch that I just thought up: Just as the therapist wants to take advantage of Happer, so does Happer's company want to take advantage of the people in the community by paying them to get off the land so they can blow it up for oil. Okay this is kind of a stretch, because the company does seem to be very fairly paying the people of the community, and the people are more than happy to accept this (unlike Happer to the therapist's insults). So... to stretch even more, it's kind of like the oil company exploiting the land for its oil -- definitely not in the best interest of the land (forgive my anthropomorphizing the land).

I admit the last couple paragraphs are a stretch. But I think my core idea here (that the therapist's role is to attempt to corrupt the good-natured CEO) could be valid. At the very least, it contributes to the characterization of Happer. I'm certain this relationship is not there simply for the purpose of comedic relief, as I originally proposed.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die (2025)

2026-06-20T03:39:50.000Z

A wild ride of a movie. The focus is on anti-AI, anti-overconsumption, anti a world where the spirit of humanity becomes lost to technology. It's presented in an over-the-top way, so it's not as serious of a take on these issues in some ways, but this makes it enjoyable and entertaining while still posing deep questions. Similar feeling to Black Mirror. The cinematography is excellent. I was closely engaged for the whole movie and eager to see it through. During the first half, I thought it would end up being my favorite movie of this year... Maybe it still will be, but some flaws in the second half make me less confident in making such a claim.

Spoiler-full reactions below.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

The ending
- The hesitation
  - He was able to plug the thing in, but then he hesitates for twenty seconds. It seemed like he could have plugged it in during those twenty seconds, but instead he stopped to watch what was happening (objects started flying in the air, but they weren't threatening yet). Clearly they needed him to not plug it in at that point so that Ingrid could be the one to go for it and then we get the reveal that she is the time traveler's mother. They could have paced that scene better so that he didn't have the unreasonable, unbelievable moment of hesitation. This alone knocks half a star off my rating for this movie.
  - That being said, twist #2 (they actually lost) revealed that the safeguards didn't actually change anything. So the hesitation didn't actually matter ultimately, and in fact perhaps did show to time traveler that this approach will never work. I just wish the hesitation was more plausible. Did he really just freeze up? The scene did not set it up in that way.
- Twist and double twist. I was not too pleased with the first twist (she is his mother), but was decently redeemed by the second twist (the safeguards didn't actually help; their reality is being manipulated; they really lost).
  - Her being his mother... I had thought the future he came from was much further into the future, not max ~50 years ahead. Maybe it makes sense.
- I'm pleased with the very ending -- the new idea to spread her technology allergy. Who knows if it's the thing that will actually save the world, but I like that the whole plot of the movie led up to scrapping the premise (the original heist idea) and using what was learned to get to a next step that we don't actually see.
- But also, maybe it's not the ending we as an audience, dealing with similar issues in the real world, want. Or at least I don't. We don't want to be forced to not use any technology. We would rather have guardrails. But that's the idea of the ending. It poses that guardrails will never be enough; technology will always corrupt. The only way to avoid that is to avoid technology entirely. Do I believe this? Again, I don't really want to. But I think it's a reasonable hypothesis.
Open questions
- We didn't get much info about the group of people that sent him to the past. He opens with the information that there is some grouping of people in the diner that will lead to a successful mission. How does he/anyone know that? (Does it have to do with Ingrid being his mother? Did he somehow know she had been there?) Did that only apply to the flash drive mission, or does that also apply to the new rat-spread-tech-allergy idea at the end?
- Will the proposed solution at the end work? Who knows. But there is hope still.
- What's the mechanism by which the AI/technology controls the people using it? The anti-phone ray guns show that when the tech turns off, the user seems to exit a trance state.
What was up with the mother's AI son helping the heist? Was that just the all-powerful AI luring them in so that it could get to Ingrid, make the son reveal, and try to convince her to stop the rebellion? (probably)
Not totally sure about why the AI is able to seemingly manipulate the real world like spawning the cat monster. Oh, I guess if there is technology to clone humans, they probably are advanced enough to make cat monsters that emit sparkles.
Dystopian concepts presented
- Using AI voice to replace a lost child
- Using AI-driven clones to replace a lost child. The clones spout product advertisements.
- School shootings have become so commonplace that parents are numbed to it and are willing to replace their children with AI (truly absurd).
- Teenagers behaving literally like zombies due to technology
Other notes
- Feels like the writer is talking directly to audience when the time traveler explains the mission and the bad things about the future. Example at 53:00.
- I like the junk build aesthetic. Like the anti-phone ray guns.
- I like the "good luck have fun don't die" chorus sound and also the theme song.
Writer's message to the present world
- Create AI guardrails before AI advances further
Parallels to my writing idea
- One of my ideas for a story (not sure if short story or novel) is "Agents of Chaos", about time-looping agents who must complete missions to change how events turn out, and there are antagonistic forces trying to stop them. This movie had a similar core concept. Does this make me less interested in my own idea? Only time will tell. It perhaps slightly is off-putting to me, but I don't think I should let it and I don't necessarily think it will. My idea is different enough and generally I understand/believe that similar concepts can be manifested in different executions/styles/etc. I'm not claiming to be the sole inventor of a time looping idea at all. It seemed like a fun idea to me. Also my idea became quite sprawling, so I feel there's a lot of potential with it. (If I ever actually start writing it...)
Questions to think about
- Effectiveness of the over-the-top ridiculousness of the plot, versus a more serious take?
- Would I volunteer to participate at the diner?
- What am i doing to fight against this future?
  - In my very small way:
    - Evading short-form content and instead cultivating rational, critical thinking-geared writing in this digital garden
    - Cultivating real life community and connections
- Could a VR world where you are your perfect self really be a better reality? Could AI/VR/tech really get us there? (It's pretty abstract, the concept is so unimaginable I'm not sure how it could be answered.)
Read this review. I liked the ending note: "Everyone can align on the peril ahead as AI increasingly embeds itself in everyday life. How to meet this challenge with a new response remains tantalizingly just out of reach. Verbinski and Robinson’s cinematic equivalent of screaming “FIRE” in a crowded room might help the next person tackling this pressing topic find the exit.".
- It feels like an important message to get out there and make art about. I'm curious how it will be represented in other media (whether future films, tv, or anything).

Eternity (2025)

2025-12-26T04:42:20.000Z

I feel conflicted about this movie. I'm giving it a 3/5 on Letterboxd. I almost want to give it a 2.5, given how I'm feeling after watching it. Sometimes I regret the rating I give something. I usually rate it right after watching it, but I might think more about the movie and my understanding and impression might change later. But I usually keep my rating as I set it. Sometimes I don't give something a rating at all. Rating is kind of silly. Anyway this is a tangent. But I don't think I'll regret giving this a lower rating than how I would normally rate a "good" movie.

Also, for the first time in my life, I took some notes about my thoughts during the movie. (This is an effect of having a public space to talk about it, perhaps. I wouldn't otherwise compile thoughts like this.) I have to admit I was pausing the movie multiple times towards the end to write notes, which might have interrupted the flow of some scenes a little. I didn't want to forget my thoughts though. I'm not sure how better to do this.

Also, I want to point out the funniness of watching this on the same day as watching Company, which is also about marriage.

[!DANGER] SPOILER WARNING

SPOILERS AHEAD. THIS IS YOUR ONE AND ONLY WARNING.

[!DANGER] SPOILER WARNING

Brief Plot Summary

Three characters are dead. Joan and her first husband (Luke) who died at war, and her second husband (Larry) who had a family with her.

How the afterlife works in this universe -- after you die, you end up in a purgatory waiting-room area where you have to make a decision on which "Eternity" you want to spend the rest of your infinite time in. The choice is binding. You're not "allowed" to change your mind. If you try to escape, you get sent to "the void", which presumably is either nonexistence or infinite nothingness.

Time is apparently linear between the purgatory and the real world. Luke has waited in purgatory for sixty or so years for Joan to die and then rejoin him and select an Eternity to live in forever.

But once all three of them are dead, Joan "has to" make a decision about which husband to spend eternity with. It is quite a dilemma for her. The guys basically hate each other. In response, Joan decides to leave both of them and go to an Eternity with an old friend who is there for some reason. Then Larry realizes that she should actually be with Luke, because the happiest moment of her life was when she was with Luke, so he "sacrifices" himself and tells her to "pick" him. She happily goes along with it and enters the "Mountain Eternity" which apparently consists of just cold mountain sports every day (hiking, skiing, etc.). She immediately regrets her choice and decides to escape this Eternity. She manages to get back to purgatory, where she finds Larry, explains that she actually wants to be with him, and then she leads him to a different Eternity which contains the town they lived in when they were alive.

What I liked

The core dilemma of the movie is deep and true. Deciding between two love interests is something many people have to deal with. Even though this is set in an afterlife scenario, you can apply a lot of the tension to a situation where someone's past lover shows up and you have to decide between staying with your current partner, or going with the desired past one. As I will expand on later, it's the world-building surrounding this core concept that I have issues with, not the concept itself.

I love a good rebellion^[1]. My favorite part of the movie is the attempt of Joan to escape the Eternity. We were told right away at the start that you're not allowed to change your mind. Maybe it's obvious that this would be subverted, but I liked seeing it executed. That being said, I do think her success was way too easy, given how the stakes were presented. But the scene where she was escaping the Eternity and going through the world of her memory was really cool, and definitely my favorite scene. I really liked the concept of the Hall of Memories itself a lot (see later section on link to my VR idea).

The cast was solid - no complaints about the acting. (But this doesn't give me much consolation about my complaints with the writing. Something about good acting with bad writing is upsetting.)

There were also plenty of funny moments that made me genuinely laugh. Especially moments between the ACs (afterlife coordinators) and each other or the other characters.

Also, super random (but a delightful moment for me) - I'm pretty sure I spotted Ponderosa Pine trees in the mountain scene (when Joan is deciding to leave, practicing her knife stabbing...), which at least in 2025 are my favorite tree after learning about them (and smelling lots of them - they produce a butterscotchy scent) in my trip to Lake Tahoe this summer.

My issues with the plot

I like to think that I have a pretty logical and rational mind. So when I'm trying to follow a plot and things are not making logical sense, or characters are not making reasonable decisions based on what we know about them, it stands out to me. This was happening a lot for me during this movie.

The overall system of purgatory + Eternities

For the most part, I'm willing to set this section aside, because I am fine with accepting the established rules of a universe. It is how it is - sometimes that's just how it is.

But also, if something just doesn't seem to be "set up" reasonably, it feels like a point of friction in a story, making me go "huh?" rather than getting absorbed in the plot.

To start: Why is selecting an Eternity a binding decision? Clearly it's possible to move between them. We see Joan and Larry do it in the end. Sure, things can get chaotic in this industrialized afterlife/purgatory world, but surely they could figure out a way to manage that chaos rather than dooming souls to a "void"? Again, I get that there could be reasons in this universe that we weren't told about, but... because we weren't told these reasons, it leaves me going "huh?".

The whole "select an Eternity" concept sounds cool at the surface, but it's presented in a very gimmicky way. We see promotions for the different Eternities one can select - and most of them are ridiculous, like "a world where there are no men", "France but everyone speaks English with an accent", "world where nudity is accepted". Who actually wants to define their place of infinite existence with such singular qualities as this? Why do the Eternities have to be defined like this?

The artificial choice

I think this is what is bothering me most about the movie.

I mentioned above the oddness of the binding nature of selecting an Eternity. The more I think about this, the more I have to ask - do we even care about this in the context of the plot?

For the whole movie, I'm sitting there thinking that I know what the obvious solution is that they're going to end up doing. To my surprise, they did not choose this option - maybe for good reason (I'll come back to this), but maybe not.

The obvious solution is for the three characters to choose the same Eternity - then the bindingness doesn't matter. Joan doesn't actually have to make the decision of who she wants to be "in a relationship with" in purgatory. They can pick a world where all three would be content and then figure out their business there. Whoever doesn't want to hang out with each other, just avoids each other. It's not like they choose their Eternity and then are forced to always be in each other's company. (I also want to shout at them, just become a three-person couple situation... but clearly that's not what this movie is about.) It also doesn't seem like there's anything about the Eternities which prevent you from meeting new people and establishing new relationships -- so why not just go somewhere where there's other people. Surely there are also other souls looking for new relationships.

Maybe the reason they don't follow this path is because Larry wants "beach world" and Luke wants "mountain world". But... surely there could possibly be a world with both a mountain and a beach? Why is this an either/or situation? This doesn't click to me.

Now, even though I think that the smart option is what I described above, I do think it's fine that Joan ultimately made a final decision about who she wanted to end up with. She realized that she values the fifty year relationship she had with Larry, and that what she had with Luke was more immature and young and not based on as much. But we went through so many irrational twists and turns to get there.

Why does Joan make terrible decisions

We are told that Joan is very smart. But she clearly is not thinking through her decisions well. And the stakes for these decisions are extreme, given that they determine her infinite, eternal existence.

First, we see her "decide" to split away from both of the men. Even Luke points out the ridiculousness of this decision, saying "so you're gonna hurt three people rather than one". Her response is that she "was going to be crushed either way" and "maybe the beauty in life is that things end". These sound like really impulsive ways to rationalize this decision. Especially when we see how fast she changes her mind. I wish we could see more into her thought process. That would help make these decisions seem more reasonable.

After Larry tells her she should go with Luke (instead of going with neither of them), she immediately goes along with that. (Isn't she still going to be "crushed"? What changed since five minutes ago? What about the beauty of things ending?)

And she actually goes through with it, and ends up in the Eternity with Luke.

At this point, I'm just upset that she didn't think through things more, or that we didn't get to see more of her thought process. We see her regret the Luke decision after one day of being there with him (it could have been more than one day, because the time scale was ambiguous, but it was soon after arriving).

It doesn't feel like her regret is a surprising reaction at all. She decides to throw away her fifty year relationship with Larry, for unclear reasons. It's irrational. No one is surprised that she regrets her decision. Maybe the message here is that we can be blinded by attraction and make poor decisions? Or that time pressure can make us make poor decisions? Maybe - but I think more likely it's just bad writing.

And then she decides to escape the Eternity, even though it's been well-established that there is infinite punishment that is strongly enforced if you get caught doing this. Well, it turns out that it's really easy to evade punishment for doing this. Frankly, it would have been more exciting if it had been more challenging to get away with it, but for her to still succeed. But based on what she was told, it should have been really hard to get away with it. I think at this point, it is reasonable for her to decide to escape (I do love her line - "I have to try", when Luke reminds her of the danger). So I think I'm still salty that she made the irrational decision to go with Luke in the first place.

I feel like I'm sounding like a reality tv / dating show fanboy, saying "she should totally be with Guy X!!!" but I still feel like there is some objectivity to the rational decision here, that she should have been able to come to earlier on.

Oddities about certain dialogue and events

Some odd lines I took note of (definitely not a comprehensive list)

Around 1:01:00, there's a kid on the beach who approaches them. Larry says the kid is probably an old man (implying that he can be a little harsh with him), but the kid says he actually died when he was nine years old. But to me, even if he died when he was nine, he could have been in this Eternity for ten thousand years already. So the line doesn't make sense. If he had said he died when he was nine and had been in this Eternity for only a year, then it would make sense, but how can they assume that. It's established that no one ages in the afterlife.
Around 1:20:00, Larry tells a story about how the happiest moment of his life was when he and Joan had recently learned that it's bad to drink alcohol while pregnant, and Joan takes a sip of wine while pregnant, and they share a special smile. Huh??? The happiest moment is that they are knowingly doing a harmful thing??? Luke smiles and nods as if it makes sense. (Again, good acting, bad writing.)

Conclusion

The movie is trying to be a silly+goofy movie at the same time as having a deep core dilemma. And I think it fails at doing both. There are too many irrational aspects to the decision-making and rules of the universe. If the writers asked me if they should change things up, I would absolutely say yes, please do not release it like this. Alas, I am not in this situation, and this media will now exist, as it is, for... eternity.

Further Reflection

What eternity would I choose

Surprisingly, possibly the same one that Joan and Larry pick in the end.

Just... the normal world.

It's the normal world, that anyone and everyone can live in. But it's actually the afterlife, so no one can die. One of the biggest problems with our world is now gone. To dispel further discourse on my last statement... let's also say that this world has all of its other Problems also erased. Or, like, give us a chance to continue working on it.

What I'm saying is the system of Eternities as presented gives everyone the opportunity to just continue living normally. But maybe I'm breaking the rules by thinking like this? I don't even know. It's a confusing system honestly.

So basically, I'm saying I like life, and if I have to die, I want to continue living. Life is fine. I don't need to live in France where they speak English with accents. (??? seriously, the choices of worlds is so nonsensical -- I'm willing to accept that there is some campiness to this, but most of the movie is presented in a serious way, or at least that's how I felt.)

Writing about a movie like this

Why am I thinking so much about this one movie and getting so riled up? Well, it's kind of arbitrary - I can pick any movie I watch and think through an analysis - but this one really stood out. I don't intend to do a deep review like this for every single movie I watch. I've also been exposing myself to such good material lately (like Wheel of Time, Wicked book, Company and Into the Woods, etc), so bad writing stands out. Also, I have higher expectations for A24 movies and movies that get popular (but perhaps on the latter, that should not be the expectation these days - popular does not mean high quality necessarily)
Feels satisfying to have worked through my dissatisfactions about the movie
Space to share my thoughts but also things are subjective and don't want to offend people who like the movie but also I feel a lot of what I said about logic and reasonableness is objective. I know this is a quite analytical take (stop overthinking it, Brian!) perhaps but this is just how my mind works.

Hall of memories - VR connection

One of my ideas for Personal 3D VR World Building is to have a hall of memories where I can put 3D scenes representing memories of my life. Pretty much exactly what the concept in this movie was. (The movie didn't call it "hall of memories" -- it calls it the "Archives" - this is my term).

I have been trying to figure out where I heard this phrase - "I love a good rebellion" but have not for the life of me been able to identify it, or if I just made it up or heard it in a dream or something... ↩︎

Bugonia (2025)

2025-12-13T23:59:06.000Z

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12300742/

[!WARNING ] WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD

I have mixed feelings about this movie.

First: acting was great. Everything I'm about to say is very much supported by the acting.

Here was my experience with this movie.

I heard about the movie a couple months ago, and vaguely knew it was about someone maybe being an alien. I re-read the synopsis before watching it, which gave me more of a feeling that the character probably wasn't an alien.

While watching it, I went back and forth several times whether I believed she was an alien or not. For most of the movie, the most plausible scenario was that she was not an alien. However, I knew there was a chance that there would be a twist and she would actually be an alien. (How many times can I say the word alien?)

That's kind of my problem with this. It feels like I was involved in a game between the director/writers and myself, where I was trying to puzzle this out, and the writers were tricking me until the very end. They won, honestly, and I was somewhat stricken at the end, or maybe actually self-satisfied due to my doubt.

But again, it felt more like an interaction between my and the writers, with the actors as the vessels of that interaction. This... actually sounds very deep and probably is actually a reflection of the purpose of all art and such. However, I think I'm actually trying to comment here about my level of investment in the movie.

My understanding of the characters obviously changed after the big "reveal". Suddenly, the crazy conspiracy theorist had actually been right about things. And the person we were empathizing with for most of the movie actually turned out to... go ahead and destroy all of humanity. (I do wish that last part was expanded on more. Why did the aliens need to kill everyone? I also have a problem with this because she displayed some empathy toward sidekick cousin guy right after his death (I think...), so how could she not care at all about wiping out civilization? Perhaps she lost all faith in humanity due to the events of this movie.)

I felt that this would've been a fine movie if the "twist" hadn't occurred. If it had just been about a CEO who was kidnapped and then managed to escape via her own wit. It would've been a great movie.

The ending cheapened it a little to me. It went from action/heist/drama to sci-fi. It cheapened my earlier understanding. But I'm not necessarily saying this turned it into a bad film. Just different. More wacky than the whole rest of the movie seemed. I read some review of the movie that said it should have been weirder earlier on, and maybe that would've made this change less harsh.

All that being said -- I am generally here for the experience and ride that the makers have charted for me. And it was a fun experience. And I know this is a remake of a film, so I feel like I can't be upset about the plot being the plot. I guess I can just be criticizing both versions, but I don't feel I can do that without having also seen the original. And unfortunately I don't think I liked the experience enough to watch the original. Even if I like the idea of having a deeper experience with the material. Gotta choose what to put my time into.

Overall. Good film. Fun. Thrilling at times. The twist ending was fun, but the execution of it with respect to the rest of the movie didn't sit totally right with me. But maybe that was the point.

Boy on a Dolphin (1957)

2026-09-22T12:38:15.000Z

Set in Greece, watched as a warmup to my 2026 trip to Greece. I liked the movie, though had some flaws. Was touching and I liked the subject material (it's kind of an archaeological thriller). Apparently the first Hollywood movie filmed in Greece.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

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[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

The flaw being, I don't see why they had to have the romantic element between Phaedra and the American.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)

2026-05-14T13:20:30.000Z

Summary

This was a lovely movie. 5/5 stars.

I was thinking of selecting a movie to watch from the National Film Registry. I first was on a tangent, searching google for people's opinions about the movies listed on the registry. This led me to a reddit comment which recommended this movie which is on the registry.

I read this part only of the reddit commend and no further, and immediately shut my laptop and decided to watch this movie:

"The other notable one is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. If you summarized the plot to me beforehand, I would have thought it would be terribly dull [...]"

Only now after having finished watching the movie have I read the rest of the comment:

"... and not at all the sort of movie I would like. It turned out to be one of the most emotionally moving movies I've ever seen, and is now one of my all-time favourites. It's why I think it's so important to keep an open mind about things, because you never know what you'll like and will change your life.

I'm not going to make a claim about it being my favorite or anything like that, but I did feel emotionally moved by it. It was touching. It showed the life of a family. Nothing too extreme or dramatic. Almost like a slice of life, but not in a boring or uneventful way. Showing the emotional ups and downs of life. Those emotions are the biggest things to those people living them. It was a relaxing movie but I was engaged with it the whole time, never bored. Always wondering what's going to happen next, how they will movie forward, how the characters will change and grow. Maybe these are obvious and kind of generic things to say about a story, but it's those core elements that make something so engaging, I think. The simplest story can be powerful with good writing (and good acting/directing).

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

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[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

Title

I think that by writing here, this will actually help me process this aspect.

The title is "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn". It's obvious which tree the title refers to. There's a tree that the family can see out their window, but one day the city worker cuts it down (or at least trims it substantially). The girl expresses melancholy at this to her father. Her father, always turning things to a positive light, tells her that the stump is still there and that it will grow back. That no one planted the tree in that cement - that it grew there on its own, despite the cement, and pushed through, and became what it became (something worthy and beautiful).

He says:

"Now wait a minute. They didn't kill it. They couldn't kill that tree. Well, sure, baby, don't tell me that tree's gonna lie down and die that easy. Look at that tree. See where it's coming from? Right up out of the cement. Didn't nobody plant it. It didn't ask the cement could it grow. It just couldn't help growing so much it pushed that old cement right out of the way. And when you're busting with something like that, can't anybody help it. Like that little old bird up there. Listen to her. He didn't ask anybody could he sing. And he certainly didn't take any lessons. He's so full of singing, it's his cut to bust out someplace. Why, they could cut that old tree right down to the ground, and a root would push up someplace else in the cement. You wait till spring, Prima Donna^[1], and you'll see."

This dialogue obviously corresponds to the title, and generally to the situations in the story. I interpret it as the family struggling to make their way through life, and whatever obstacles they must push through, they will be able to make it through, simply because that's their nature (perhaps the nature of all people). To make your way in the world even despite struggle. Even if they face a large obstacle (like the tree getting cut down -- or the father's death) there will be another chance for growth and improvement (seen at the end of the movie).

Notes

Some random moments I wanted to note down:

Scene where the father plays the piano. Made me want to play, get better, sing.
Teacher encouraging the girl to write. Told her to write what you know, and then add to it (with imagination).

Black and white

Twas an uncolored film. I've only watched a few such in my life. I usually feel some resistance to doing so. Usually it pays off though. Certainly did in this case. Lack of color does not lessen its merit. At most, I had a few thoughts related to how the lighting and saturation play the larger role (than color, I guess), for example, we know it's daytime because things are generally brighter or higher saturation, rather than e.g. a blue sky.

The "old-timeiness" came through more in the manner of speech. They speak in the old American way. Is it just a movie thing? I'm not sure. I

The girl's name is actually Francie. Prima Donna is his nickname for her. Prima donna apparently is the phrase for the lead female singer in an opera. It's a playful way of the father telling his daughter she's a star. ↩︎

Why your life feels fake

2026-07-03T18:55:50.000Z

Reading / taking notes on this article: https://letters.thedankoe.com/p/why-your-life-feels-fake-an-antidote
(found via Makoism coffee post)

"You wake up. and rather than hiding from the day by pressing snooze, you can’t wait to get up."
- Unfortunately I definitely do not wake up excited for my day most of the time. There is usually a vague sense of not really wanting to start working for the day. There was one morning which was particularly memorable in that I woke up with a big smile on my face and I noted to myself in that moment that it doesn't happen that often: this was the day after I signed my lease on my new apartment (which I've been living in for almost a year now) after a frustrating apartment hunt.
"whichever area of your life feels most off right now."
- Is there an area of my life that feels off right now?
  - generally i progress steadily on things even if there are ebbs and flows. eg fitness, food, hobbies
  - usually I am feeling like i don't put enough time into creative pursuits
  - sometimes I question aspects of my social life and where I put my time and energy
  - similarly, sometimes question habits related to pursuit of a romantic relationship
  - Work -
    - generally I've been content with the 9-5 job, though there are moments (especially during vacations) when I see through it and get an urge to escape it. Ofc a vague plan is to someday have my own app/business so I don't have to be in a corporate environment (though having my own app wouldn't mean I don't have to work. if anything, it could mean having to work harder.)
    - I worry sometimes that I work too hard or stress myself out; other times, worry that I don't work hard enough and should be doing more.
  - Sometimes I feel like I'm making a mistake by spending my money on an expensive cost-of-living city/apartment
  - Sometimes I feel like I'm not dedicating enough time to hobbies that deeply interest me
  - Haven't been working out (climbing/calisthenics) consistently for a while. Well I'm consistent at like once or twice a week but i want it to get back to twice or three and it hasn't been there for a while and it's also been a while since I made any effort at all on adding in calisthenics on the side.
- (I have a feeling most of this, except for the 9-5 stuff), isn't really what this article would be getting at.
"We move toward what we believe will make us whole... nobody stops to ask where those beliefs came from. / "the hit wears off in weeks ... wondering why the thing didn’t do what it was supposed to do."
- we move toward what we believe will make us whole, nobody stops to ask where those beliefs came from. I feel this applies for me to pursuit of romance. It feels like the right thing for me to do, but I rarely stop to think why I believe that. But, I have recently thought about it, and how media from my whole life has shown me what relationships and pursuit should look like, and how you should feel when you pursue/gain it.
"Between the ages of roughly two and seven, your brain runs in a state called theta wave dominance. It’s the same brain state adults pay hypnotherapists to access."
- hypnosis reference :)
"Instead, he’s been running a script his parents wrote in 1998, and somewhere around his late twenties he accumulated enough contradictory evidence to finally question it." ... "Your job (if you want your life to feel like yours) is to write [a new script]."
- The thing is, ---- ok what i was going to say is: the thing is, I like my life, im happy with it, I dont think I was programmed in a bad way ----. But also -- the 9-5 thing. If I was really pursuing the life I deeply want to live, I wouldn't be doing a 9-5 corporate job. But like, am I sure? I don't have an actual alternate plan, and the current one is pretty good, and I'm starting to build in some exploration toward the alternative (by working on app ideas).
"you can’t deny the fact that the culture and ability... largely shaped those beliefs... That should bother you. It bothers me."
- Should it bother me? There's always going to be subconscious programming. Whenever there is input, it affects how you think about things. Well I guess this is talking about input during the vulnerable developmental years when you didn't have much control, so there's something there. I guess I have a feeling that I have already done the work of seeing past traditional ways... whatever that means... So is there really more to unveil? Well, sure. There always is.
- What's nagging at my head at this point is, yes, still the 9-5 thing, in that it's such an accepted thing, oh -- or at least, I was taught that it was (at that vulnerable development age). But most ppl in the world also are. But still, it's always a good reminder to question things.
"waking up inside someone else’s goals is the cause, rather than age."
- basically I've always felt like I've been following my own goals. pretty confident on that
"Questioning the script while you’re still young enough to write a different one."
- so far it feels like I don't really need to write much of a new script. But I'm curious to see where this article goes. And, again, always a good reminder to question things and open my eyes to new potential paths or way of seeing things.
"It is only those who are in constant revolt that discover what is true, not the man who conforms, who follows some tradition. - Krishnamurti"
"Chosen beliefs - ... They change when experience demands."
"This is why most people feel unfulfilled. Their stated values and their actual values are different values, and they don’t know it."
- I think this is the crux of my dissonance with this piece. I have already spent my time evaluating my values and basing my goals off them.
- At the same time, I can/should look at the dissatisfactions I mentioned above and reflect on whether my inherited beliefs are affecting my outlook on them.
  - "Sometimes I feel like I'm making a mistake by spending my money on an expensive cost-of-living apartment" --> well I definitely inherited a belief that money should be saved as much as possible. It's a learning process to be okay with spending money.
  - im kind of confused, e.g. for 9-5 corporate life, is the inherited belief that this is the normal thing to do, or is the inherited belief that I should question it? Is the goal here to reject 9-5 or is the goal to quench any dissatisfaction I feel about it by re-evaluating and changing my beliefs that it's bad? (I think I am falling into the silly thing of going backwards with this thing of questioning beliefs. I already have questioned things. Don't need to re-question them into the opposite direction.)
"“I need to finish learning before I start.”" -> definitely a belief that has held me back with hypnosis.
"“I should have figured this out by now.”" --> definitely affects me with things like relationships. when comparing myself to ppl in my life who are in long term relationships, feels like I'm behind.
"Now look at your current goal (the one you’re grinding toward right now) and ask, without flinching, whether there is any evidence at all that this one will be different." I am getting confused and kind of annoyed at this article. It's making an assumption that the reader probably has a phony goal that they are only pursuing because someone else / society / inherited beliefs told them to. The confusing part is that it's not distinguishing between those phony goals (I admit they can exist) and what may already be genuine goals truly aligned with one's values. So a sentence like this implies that your goal will never give you any real satisfaction.... But surely it's not implying that no goals can give you satisfaction. It's making an argument that you should get better goals that are more true to yourself. But the writing is not quite hitting this point correctly in some of these paragraphs (because it's failing to caveat on whether it's talking about the phony/re-evaluated goal).
My conclusion: (SEE CAVEAT NEXT BULLET POINT) This article did not resonate with me. I don't think I'm the target audience.
- At the same time, I think it could resonate with me in the future, if I realize I am holding onto non-good beliefs or if I'm feeling stuck about something. Or maybe I do now just need to analyze myself more deeply (and I'm sure these ideas will be floating through my head for a while). But seriously, things are going well for me, and there's not much glaring that I feel I need to dive deeply into.
- It feels like this article is kind of trying to replace therapy in a way for someone. Or like teaching them how to replace a therapist and think through deep-rooted beliefs. I'm actually a fan of getting ppl to think through their stuff (while also encouraging ppl to see a therapist when they can't handle this on their own). Though, it's also kind of presumptuous for the article to portray every reader as equally having things to work through that are controlling their life and that if they just get down to their root beliefs and counteract them then their life will be transformed. Bugs me a little. (Also acknowledging that I'm being presumptuous in claiming that I have nothing to work on. That's not what I'm claiming. But I do not feel that my general quality of life and day to day activities/goals/pursuits are being negatively affected by inherited beliefs that I "did not give consent to", which is the article's main point.)
One day later:
- I feel like "this does not resonate with me" was a little too harsh of a statement from me. I think there is some good advice here. yes I have some problems with the way it was presented. But there are important concepts here. It is definitely good to question your beliefs. And I definitely do have PLENTY of room to question (though I think I am doing pretty satisfactory in many areas). But my life is not 100% perfect obviously. And there are smaller things in life that can cause friction and strain and obstacles towards getting to where I want to be and being my best self. And questioning beliefs and reevaluating behavior is a super valid way to overcome those things and be better.
- Still, I don't feel inspired to literally write down a list and work through my beliefs in a direct way. However, I can tell that this article is getting to me in the back of my head, so I think it's going to have more of a passive impact. I imagine I'll notice some pattern or behavior or "offness", then contemplate what (maybe inherited) beliefs might be guiding that, and then evaluate if there needs to be a change there.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas (Ursula K. Le Guin short story)

2026-05-21T01:34:19.000Z

https://shsdavisapes.pbworks.com/f/Omelas.pdf

Someone I met at a party recommended this to me after I mentioned I liked Ursula K. Le Guin). It's 5 pages long.

It's quite a trip.

Don't read my spoilers unless you read the story!!!

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

Overview

Was drawn in by Le Guin's prose and elegant description of the scenery/parade
Then the narrator (Le Guin? Or is the narrator a separate entity?) starts describing this idyllic civilization/city (Omelas), and it's a true utopia (or so it seems). At this point, it is reminding me of Island by Aldous Huxley with regards to the utopic aspect.
Then page 3 comes along... My god. It goes from pleasant description of something we seemingly should strive for... to a completely flipped around situation that feels like a hundred-mile deep hole shot down into the ground and filled with lava and poison at the center of this city. In order for this basically perfect city to run and for the citizens to have near perfect happiness, there must be a child kept miserably locked in an underground closet for its whole life (I'm not going to attempt to reproduce the description from Le Guin's writing further than that). And everyone knows about this; knowing about it is supposedly what makes them appreciate their happiness even more. There is a coming-of-age process where they are told about this child for the first time, and most people just accept it as something horrid that's there, but understand that it's necessary for their life/city to continue being as good as it has been.
Oof. Okay so this is more of a description of our own world. It seems (perhaps depending on the perspective) that we live good, maybe even great, lives. But we also vaguely know that there is a lot of terrible stuff going on that directly underlies our luxuries. Labor issues, environmental issues, exploitation of animals (will tie this into veganism later).
Then, finally, at the end, (and connecting us to the title of the short story), the part that soothes me and is the silver lining, is the rebellion^[1], the small miniscule rebellions of those who are shown the child and immediately choose to walk away from this place and decide to not participate.

My experience

What an experience Le Guin cultivates with this. I was completely sold on the city and then horrified about the child. Two opposing ideas in my mind nearly at the same time. And the way it's described (before we get to the ending) made me, while reading it, feel like, yes, it makes sense why this child must suffer in order for the city to run like this, this is normal and kind of okay. (I debate whether the reasoning actually makes sense as to why the child's suffering is "necessary" for the success of the city. I'm tempted right now to say that this maybe is part of the point -- that it's actually ridiculous to think of it as necessary and they could still have a successful city even without the terrible thing. The text does address this question, but I'm not sure I'm convinced -- may have to re-read.) I could feel this pull of the described "normalcy" of it -- everyone in the city knows about it and accepts it, so it must be fine. It's the norm. It's the dominant ideology. But I simultaneously felt the grossness of it. So when the ones who walk away were brought up, it was such a relief of tension.^[2] Thank god there are rebels who do not accept this thing that feels so wrong.

Parallel to veganism

So - there's a lot of real world examples someone could apply this to. For me, what comes to mind most strongly is veganism -- naturally, since I'm vegan. Vegans are the ones who walk away from supporting the terrors of the animal agriculture industry. There is first a state of ignorance where we are part of the dominant group that enjoys and appreciates animal products. Then there is the reveal -- the moment where we understand^[3] the terribleness of what underlies that enjoyment, and finally the decision (whether it is immediate or gradual) to walk away from that dominant norm and stop our consumption of animal products.

The thing that makes the Omelas story resonate so strongly with me as a parallel to veganism is the dominant normalcy of the city. The thing we can sense is problematic about the city is actually the widely accepted thing by the people of the city. It's not the type of rebellion where there's an obviously corrupt government and most people are vaguely unhappy and then a small group of rebels rises up and acts against the status quo. Instead, this is a situation where most people are happy, and have decided to be happy, and don't wish for a change (despite knowing that there is something terrible underlying their way of life). And then there is the minority of people who are not okay with participating in the morally-askew lifestyle. They are not okay with this system that, in order to run, relies on oppression/exploitation (even if just on one individual).

The ones who walk away aren't changing anything for the people who choose to stay (except, perhaps, making a statement and showing some social evidence that it can be okay to walk away). So this isn't like The Giver where Jonas chooses to rebel and (despite the people being content with their current way of life) releases the memories back to everyone.

Rather, the walkers are being rebels for their own sake -- they can not stand to live in complacent acceptance of the terrible thing. So they walk away. They choose to align their actions with their morals. This is what veganism is.

"I like a good rebellion" ↩︎
(I obviously knew the title of the story before reading it, but I guess I was immersed enough to not be exactly sure what was coming. And still, reading and processing prose is different than just guessing an idea.) ↩︎
and I mean this in the philosophical/rational sense of learning to see past the normalcy of animal agriculture and understanding the moral nature of the question "does the pleasure of taste merit the suffering and death of the animal" ↩︎

The Egg (Andy Weir)

2026-04-16T13:24:06.000Z

Short story / concept.

Text form of the story (quite short): https://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg.html
Kurzgesagt visualization of the story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6fcK_fRYaI
Also, the song "Waiting Room" by Logic is based on the same concept.
Apparently there is also a musical based on it: "A Crack in the Egg" Musical (2024) -- haven't consumed this at the time of writing this, but will report back once/if I do.

The Kurzgesagt video is I think what really got me into it.

Spoiler for this ahead. Just watch the video first!

I love the concept of it. I feel it presents a compelling argument for empathy, and doing no harm to your fellow humans. Obviously it's a fictional "argument"... but it's fun to imagine. It's a reminder that we are all the same, in a way. When you see someone struggling (or someone in a great position), that could have been you (in another lifetime). You could have sprung up as them instead of as You. The experience they are going through in life is not that unlike the experience, the sensations, that you've undergone.

In a weird sense, I almost let myself believe in it. It's like a weird religion or outlook that probably no one really believes in (unless there's a religion that believes in this... Buddhism has reincarnation but it's not quite the same as saying everyone is the same person.). I almost let myself believe in it. What's the harm in believing? That after I die, I will be reincarnated as another person (and then every person). There's no way to know if this is true. It's probably not, but it could be. It probably feels more rational to me than most other religious ideas. Not in a scientific way - I'm not trying to say anything like that. But if there is something mystical going on about the universe/humanity/souls, I like this idea for it. And I feel like it can be beneficial to frame it like this. If I believe in this (or even just contemplate it as art), then I believe/imagine that everyone is me (my one true mystical self/soul) and so I should treat everyone with kindness, empathy, and understanding. This begs the question - What about the truly bad people in the world? Well, the story touches on Hitler... You indeed are everyone. It's not like we're saying that it's okay for evil people to do evil things. But it makes you think... I was that person. I was evil once. But I was also all the other good people. Maybe it's like acknowledging that there are bad parts of yourself. Maybe it's saying you can have a certain level of empathy even for bad people / people who do bad things.

I love to tell people to watch the video. One of my favorite things. I feel like it's a really neat concept and is kind of mindblowing. And it kind of makes sense as an Explanation.

Makoism (blog) posts

2026-06-04T03:38:15.000Z

I've been reading some bunches of Makoism posts and I've been liking both 1) His periodic/weekly coffee posts with links to interesting articles, as well as 2) His own posts. The content has felt growth-oriented and honest about technology. I was starting to flood Whats Up with his posts, so I'm branching out to a new note instead.

From Makoism "About" page

To me, living a rich life of experiences and surrounding yourself with interesting people is what brings the diversity of thought into your life. Trying hard things (the things you thought were impossible) and going on fun, crazy adventures is all part of the journey.

I like this. Resonates strongly.

personal board of directors

have a personal board of directors. I like the idea of having a list of people in your mind who you turn to when facing important (or less important too) life decisions.

fixed growth

https://makoism.com/the_fixed_growth/

"how often forward progress is tempered by you, your environment, and your mindset."
TODO: watch Tedx talk "How to murder your mediocrity" (20 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjfJSfR7QUk
- though, mako notes down a quote - "Having a growth mindset means that YOU ARE NOT STATIC. you can learn new skills you can become a better person" - and I don't think I need to be told this... I like to believe I am a pretty growth-oriented person already and so obviously don't believe that my state of being / personal fulfillment / etc is fixed/unchanging. But I bet I could find some nuggets of useful sentiment in the video / rest of this article. Or maybe I'm wrong and I reallllly need these thoughts.
Another Tedx talk: "The power of yet" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-swZaKN2Ic
- "You're not yet there. But you will be, you can be; just keep going"
  - Now this is good. I feel like I need to hear this sometimes, especially when working on a skill. One example is piano -- progress learning is slow sometimes, but it really does accumulate, and I see myself getting better and better. It's important to trust that if you keep working at something, you will get to where you're looking to get.
  - I feel there's more than just skill acquisition to this, though. Like more life stuff. Like thinking about a phase of life that seems far away, maybe feels unreachable, but you have to trust that you'll get there eventually when the time is right.
  - (Not sure I caught this quote in the actual video. Maybe it's in there though. Taken from Mako's post.)
- "Instead of luxuriating in the power of yet, they were gripped in the tyranny of now."
- Talks a lot about students - better to reward "process" rather than "intelligence". i.e. praise someone when they try hard, when they care, when they show improvement, rather than just praising a good grade on a test.
- When you push yourself to learn something challenging, your neurons form new/stronger connections. Discusses this one potential reason why certain students struggle, if they don't realize this. I can imagine that there could be people who don't realize that the way to improve is to push yourself past your comfort zone.
  - It maybe sounds obvious... But it's a good reminder that to improve in any area, you need to push yourself and put effort in. The more you do so, the more you'll improve. (Of course, there's a balance to be found. I wouldn't encourage overdoing it just for its own sake. It should align with one's goals.)
"Finding your tribe... who believe in learning and improvement... will ultimately challenge your thinking with new possibilities... and help you think differently about things you hold as fixed truths."
- External input is so valuable. You can only get so far in your own mind. The voices/thoughts/insights of others can really change things, either giving you new ideas or validating ones you're unsure about (or also shooting down bad ideas/mindsets).
"The freedom of low expectations" -- i guess the idea is, for certain things, you don't need strict goals, but just see where things go

Hank Green Tells Me To Fall Downhill

2026-08-01T15:16:25.000Z

Video title: "Don't Follow Your Dreams, Follow Your Tools"
Channel: Hank Green
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_Rqf-vxBM8

Relevant part of the video:

"When they're like, 'how do you decide what to do?' -- 'I fall downhill,' is what I say. I am not swimming upstream, very rarely. I might be swimming upstream in terms of the broader culture, but in terms of my skillset and my toolkit and my values, I am doing the easy thing at any given moment. Because I only have so much energy. And there are times when I'm doing the hard thing. But it's only ever because I am obliged too, like I have to become of some obligation that I have that I would feel like a true monster to ignore.... The idea isn't a good idea if it's gonna require a tremendous amount of discipline from me. Because I know that I don't have that discipline."

My thoughts

I kinda agree/vibe with this and kind of don't.

The idea of "falling downhill" feels extremely relevant to me. I have a lot of interests and hobbies and pursuits, and I love the feeling when working on one of them is an easy thing to do, not requiring much effort because I am really into it and can easily reach a flow state. I've felt this way recently with writing (like, blog writing, i.e. Here) and piano (either practicing easy sheet music, or doing simple improvisation). Blogging/writing Here feels quite productive in the scheme of my pursuits, and I'm kind of surprising myself at how easy it feels.

On the other hand, I have pursuits that I feel are high importance to me that aren't as easy and that do require more discipline. However I disagree with Mister Green here because I view myself as obligated to pursue these areas, even if I wouldn't go as far as saying I'd feel like a "monster" to ignore them.

That being said, I do feel some resonance with the "monster" thing. My Grocery Receipt Tracker is not the easiest thing for me to work on^[1] but I tell myself it's really important for me to work on because I feel like it can have a high impact on myself and potentially others if I (hopefully) publish it some day. I would kind of feel terrible (/monster) about myself, to myself, if I didn't give this a fair shot. However, it does feel uphill at times because of the energy required to work on it. But I do have the toolkit. So maybe it's just a circumstantial thing that makes this a hard project for me (where the circumstances are, code-fatigue from dayjob, and not making the right time/space/energy for this pursuit, and (perhaps often rightfully) spending energy on other aspects of life).

But still, I have other areas of pursuit that aren't "easy" to me but that I would love to get around to working on. Maybe this wording reveals something though -- "get around to". Not necessarily working on them right now, instantaneously. Mister Green implies that at any given moment, he falls downhill. But perhaps something that is uphill right now could later be downhill in the future. So, I wait for the right time to work on this other pursuit, because in the future it may become easier. On the one hand, this could be a rationalization that gives way to procrastination (which is why the "monster" thing is important -- there are exceptions where I can enforce that discipline). But on the other hand, this mindset respects my energy and removes possibly unnecessary strain in life (and in hobbies that are usually supposed to be for fun and/or relaxation and etc).

Still, though, I'm a strong believer in "embrace discomfort". Always doing the easiest thing doesn't feel like it aligns with this.

A couple other thoughts

I feel there's some relation to: "Do [x] if it aligns with your values" ===> "Do the easiest thing, unless doing the harder thing aligns with your values". In choosing what to do with my time, I can do the easiest thing, but if there is a harder thing that is in alignment with my values / where I want to go in terms of fulfillment and self-actualization, then I should push myself to do that.
When I say "easiest thing", well, the truly easiest thing for me is usually watching tv or a movie or videos. What I'm really talking about here is Pursuits/hobbies. Taken literally, those are not zero energy. But if I'm in the headspace for working on a Pursuit, then there are some that are easier/lower-effort than others.
I have a lot of hobbies/interests/pursuits, so I feel lucky in that even if at any given moment, certain of those pursuits feel easier or harder than others, I can focus on those easiest ones, and trust that in the future, the other ones may be the easier/downhill-facing ones. Trusting that I will get to them eventually. I sometimes also view this idea of getting back to something in the future as an "envelope" that my past self has sealed an idea/motivation in, to be opened by my future self at some point. This also resonates with Barbara Sher's concept of "Cyclic scanners" which for a while I've identified as being closely aligned to my pattern of cycling through interests -- whatever is in cycle right now may be what feels the "easiest" at the moment, and, per Sher's theory, once I've satisfied myself in that area in the short term, something else may catch my attention and become the "easier" thing (but also maybe it's the harder thing that catches my interest and I decide to devote the discipline to focus on it for that period of time).

(though, that's partly because my coding energy gets sucked up by my day job -- counterargument to this is that I sometimes have other small coding ideas that are super fun and super easy, like my Restaurant AI VR Simulation mini-project (though, I worked on this during a holiday from work)) ↩︎

Creators I Like

2026-06-07T13:53:36.000Z

ReWild University

A lovely channel run by Kenton Whitman. So much wisdom to be found in these videos. He used to run a "Forest Monk" program where people would come to the forest and get away from technology.

Robin Greenfield

Similar category of content as ReWildU. He does over-the-top lifestyle experiments as a form of activism (as opposed to trying to get others should mimic him). Examples include wearing his own trash, eliminating all possessions, dumpster diving for food, and living for a year only on foraged food. In his book "Food Freedom" (which talks about foraging as well) he mentions Braiding Sweetgrass as one of his greatest influences.

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

2026-08-24T04:03:26.000Z

Published 1993. Structured as a sort of comic strip going through the history and mechanics (?) of comics. Reading due to my interest in Creating Webcomics. The book itself being in the form of a comic is definitely making it fun to read and is part of the appeal of reading it.

The Internet Archive has the full text free: https://archive.org/details/understanding-comics/page/n1/mode/2up (So convenient!)

Notes

Chapter 1: "Setting the Record Straight"

Constructs a definition of comics: "Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer." Or, for short, "Sequential art".
Walked through historical examples (even from thousands of years ago) of "comics" that fit into that definition.
Ponders what the future form of comics might look like (since it's been so varied in the past) -- making me contemplate what virtual reality comics might look like. VR animation wouldn't count as "comics", but maybe "flipping" through changing 3d scenes would be a VR comic.

The 2-Hour Cocktail Party by Nick Gray

2026-05-24T15:12:11.000Z

Poses hosting cocktail parties (or similar) as an approach for strengthening existing connections AND forming new relationships.

Author's premise is moving to NYC and not having many friends, then building out from there.

Mostly focusing on the intro chapter rather than the logistical hosting suggestions later on.

"Why host a party"

I already have this topic in mind -- wanting to host small events in my apartment as a way to keep in touch with connections, both strong and loose (and strengthen the looser ones).

It's posing this as a way to meet new people. I'm curious how it will present hosting as a solution to that.

The answer: It's not taking this hosting strategy as a source for meeting new people, but instead as a way to engage more deeply with new people you meet elsewhere. This aligns with my thinking -- though I lean cautious towards inviting people I don't know too well into my home. But I think it is valid and there's an instinct that can be developed for knowing who to invite in and who to wait on.

[!INFO] Excerpt
We know that approaching new people to develop a personal or business relationship can be intimidating. Even terrifying. I’ve avoided asking someone out for a friendly coffee or a drink because I was afraid of being rejected. I thought, What if they say no?

Then I found a solution: invite them to my party. Compared to a dinner or a coffee meeting, a cocktail party is a fun way to get to know somebody. It is a small commitment and an easy invitation to say yes to.

It's not explicitly saying this, but a natural extension of hosting a party is that people can bring plus 1s and that's a way to meet new people. The text does mention that hosting parties will give you a reputation for... hosting (good) parties, which will lead to you being introduced to more people.

Tip: Lead a quick icebreaker early on in the party, something quick like name, "a little about what they do during the day", and a fun fact or similar. Then later on in the party if more people have arrived, do another round of icebreakers. Helps facilitate conversations after the icebreaker is over.

Regarding loose connections -- mentions that hosting a party is a way to strengthen many connections at once rather than having an hour-long coffee chat with each person. I agree with this -- there is a time for one on one coffee chats, but sometimes it's just nice to catch up more casually with someone rather than having the one on one pressure of a coffee chat, and having people at a shared gathering can be a nice way to do this.

Explicitly notes that it doesn't actually have to be a "cocktail"-centric party. Basically is a placeholder for "mixer", "get-together", "happy hour". I'd just call it a "small gathering".

Notes

Suggests setting an end time for the event. Sets an expectation for how long guests will expect to stay, maybe makes guests more likely to show up on time and say yes to coming, especially if it's on a weekday.

Quote from a "Party People in Action" module: "I find last-minute cancellations and no-shows frustrating, even disheartening. But it’s bound to happen, and I remind myself not to take it personally."

"But since we were only passing acquaintances, I would never have had the confidence to ask Mallory to hang out one-on-one." --> anecdote highlights the importance of having a core of people you know well as the base invitees to your party, which makes it more comfortable to invite looser connections.

Suggests a good number of people to have over is 15. "With fewer people—like seven or eight—you’re more likely to get trapped in a single group conversation or have an uncomfortable silence in the room." <--- I have thought about this and it does happen. With 7 or so people, a circle of conversation forms. It's ok, even great, but I also like the idea of cultivating a space where smaller group conversations can flourish, and when there's a larger number of people like 10-15, those are more likely to manifest.

Tip: If you are worried about a small number of people showing up to your party, have a board game on hand that would be fun to play.

Tip: As a way to invite more new people, ask your core group (people you already know well) to each bring a friend (if they want to). Suggests offering a template they can send to their friend: "I'd like to ask a favor: Will you help me out and bring a friend or colleague to my party? You can send them this message: 'My friend Nick is hosting a cocktail party on Wednesday the 8th at 7 p.m. It will be fun! May I share your info with him to send you the information?'". Also suggests making it clear that you want them to bring someone, rather than just saying they can.

Encourages having a diverse guest list -- more interesting for everyone.

Random quotes

“When I meet someone new, I ask myself: do I want to continue the conversation or see them again? If the answer is yes, then they would make a great guest for one of my parties.”
"Be mindful of keeping a genuine interest in your guest list. You’re not trying to use and abuse your old and new friends in a self-serving manner. This is what gives networking a bad name."
"“There’s a serendipity to these parties,” Tyler told me. “I like seeing others make connections more than myself.”"

Makes an argument for enforcing 100% of guests wear nametags. It can reduce cliquiness and promote an environment of new connections.

Icebreakers

Suggests a party harmonica... I am less convinced. Though, piano could serve similar purpose (attracting attention to start icebreakers.)

Encourages doing three rounds of icebreakers, spaced about every 30 minutes apart. First round after 4-5 guests are there, second round after all the attendees are there, and third round with a more advanced question (first two icebreakers should be simply, easy, but third can be a bit deeper). Notes that doing icebreakers is a good way to break up conversations (e.g. if someone feels stuck in one) / encourage new conversations, shuffle connections (have more guests meet each other), and obviously give conversation starters.

Suggests giving a five minute warning for the advanced ice breaker question. Announce the question and that you'll go around in five minutes, then wait five minutes, repeat the question, and everyone answers.

Guests repeat name and occupation/passion again for each icebreaker, to remind everyone and to inform late arrivals.

Suggests having everyone standing up for icebreakers.

Suggestions for advanced icebreakers:

"What’s a great piece of media that you’ve consumed recently, and what did you like about it?". "Answers could include a movie, book, magazine article, Netflix show, YouTube video, TED Talk, or podcast" ---> This obviously strikes me as a great question, given my "Media I Have Consumed" directory on this site.
"What’s one of your favorite secret spots or life hacks for this city?"

Random thoughts

Saw this in my Google Keep I saved in March 2023 - a good reason to host parties:

"you can turn those friends into a group of friends! Invite them all over at once for a party or group activity. Introduce them to each other. Watch who gets along reasonably well, and then repeat this every week/month/whatever. You’ll have a friend group in no time." (source: reddit)

Real life application/learnings

I had a gathering right after reading/skimming a bunch of the book (mostly the day-of event chapters) and applied several things and had success. I enforced nametag wearing, which was embraced by all guests and, at the very least, no one complained. I also did an icebreaker (yes, one, even though the book says to do three) an hour into the event, when most of the 13-ish people had arrived. I did not force everyone to stand, as the book suggests, mostly because it would have been more cramped given the size of the room. The book's icebreaker suggestions were pretty instrumental - it helped me to not be afraid to interrupt people's conversations to start the ice breaker; and to my pleasure, it also helped to shuffle conversations and start new connections (and giving new topics to talk about), as the book said it would. The book makes a weird emphasis on getting people to leave at exactly the 2 hour mark, and I do think that setting a specific time range is helpful for getting guests to show up on time and to not feel bad about leaving, but I was fine with letting some people linger if they wanted to, which resulted in some interesting conversations.

CRISPR Book Summary

2026-04-16T13:00:05.000Z

“Editing Humanity: The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing” by Kevin Davies (published in April 2020)

I wrote the below essay/summary/review for an assignment for a genetics college course I took in 2021. I figured I may as well give the assignment some new life rather than not be read by anyone ever except the professor of the class.

I recall I had some choice in selecting a broad option of books related to genetics. I selected this one because I've always found gene-editing interesting and so it felt like reading the book would be an engaging read.

The most interesting part to me about the below essay is the discussion about the scientist who performed gene editing on babies, and why it was considered by many to be an unethical experiment. I feel that I nicely summarized the arguments and presented them logically to show why it is framed as unethical. The last paragraph teases some interesting discussion about the potential impacts of gene editing on society, which is worth discussion elsewhere perhaps, but it's not the focus on the essay.

Review of “Editing Humanity: The CRISPR Revolution and

the New Era of Genome Editing” by Kevin Davies

In “Editing Humanity: The CRISPR Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing”, Kevin Davies crafts a compelling story of how CRISPR technology was developed, the different characters behind advancements and controversies in the field, and how a world with CRISPR might look. The book is divided into four parts, each covering a different aspect of CRISPR and its impact on science and society.

In the first section of the book, Davies explores the researchers and experiments that led to the discovery of CRISPR. He makes an emphasis that the discovery of CRISPR shows the importance of performing basic science that isn’t necessarily “fashionable”: CRISPR was discovered during analysis of gene sequences of bacteria for research purposes completely unrelated to gene editing.

The second section of the book begins with a discussion of several genome editing and gene therapy technologies that existed before CRISPR. Davies then discusses several medical applications that CRISPR could impact, describing the clinical trials that are currently underway for diseases such as cancer and sickle cell disease.

In the third section, Davies covers a major event that recently took place in the field of CRISPR and genome editing: a Chinese scientist, He Jiankui, conducted research where human embryos underwent germline editing via CRISPR. Davies discusses He’s academic background, his experiments, and the backlash from the scientific community when the research came into the public light.

In the fourth section, Davies delves into other potential applications of CRISPR, such as de-extincting species, sterilizing disease-carrying mosquitoes, and increasing yields in agriculture. The section also describes advancements in CRISPR technology, such as the ability to make a single base replacement with higher accuracy and less off-target effects. Finally, Davies covers different ethical perspectives related to the use of germline editing to provide enhanced human traits to offspring, such as enhanced intelligence or perfect musical pitch.

Taking up an entire six-chapter section of the book, the discussion of He Jiankui’s act of germline modification in 2018, leading to the birth of three gene-edited babies, is a major topic in any discussion on the ethics of genome editing. This scientist’s research came as a shock to the scientific community and became a news sensation as the births of the “CRISPR babies” were revealed. He’s research violated ethical standards of science and his decisions have the potential to have a harmful impact on both the gene-edited babies and the scientific community.

He’s experiment sounds promising and justified at the surface level: to provide babies with immunity to HIV infection by inactivating the gene that allows infection to occur. However, there are several key points that bring He’s efforts into ethical question. First is that performing gene editing on an embryo went against the scientific consensus at the time, because the safety and effects of such a procedure had not yet been extensively studied. Some may view He’s research as one such study of CRISPR’s safety, but there likely are more incremental steps in studying the safety further without going so far as potentially harming a human being.

Secondly, a large reason why many frown on He’s research is because it did not address an unmet medical need, and so the modifications made were in a sense unnecessary. There are currently medical interventions that allow a person infected with HIV to lead a normal life and not be able to transmit HIV. Additionally, a man with HIV who does not want to pass it on to his offspring can undergo a procedure such as sperm washing to ensure HIV is not transmitted to his offspring. Taking the risk, however small, of some unknown effect of gene-editing was simply not worth it in this case, because the modification was simply not needed.

Thirdly, scientists’ concerns with He’s research were amplified even further when the study’s research paper revealed the slipshod nature of the edits that were made to the embryos’ genomes. The mutation that is known to provide immunity to HIV, called the “delta 32” mutation, consists of the deletion of 32 base pairs in the CCR5 gene. However, none of the edits that He’s team performed matched the delta 32 mutation. Instead, as revealed by the sequenced genomes, the edits included various lengths of insertions and deletions to the genes, with different edits across each embryo. For instance, one of the genes contained a 15 base pair deletion rather than the known 32 base pair deletion. Another embryo contained a 4 base pair deletion in addition to a single base pair insertion. These modifications were made with the hope that the changes would disrupt the gene’s function and thereby prevent HIV infection. However, these edits to the human genome have never been seen or tested before, so it is not certain whether those specific edits would actually lead to HIV immunity or whether there would be any unknown effects of the modification. Furthermore, the delta 32 mutation is known to be effective against HIV only if it is homozygous (mutated on both chromosomes). However, one of the babies was made to be heterozygous for the edits, providing even more uncertainty as to whether the edit would actually confer immunity to HIV.

The impacts of the modifications on the “CRISPR babies” may not be known for many years. The gene edits may confer immunity to HIV, they may lead to negative side effects, or they may not have any effect at all. The possibility of negative effects, especially when the intervention was not medically necessary, highlights the unethical nature of the act. Additionally, the slipshod nature of the experiments, creating novel and untested sequences in the CCR5 gene, shows a carelessness for the lives of the children and the potential consequences that may arise. Additionally, the children may be subjected to tests and research until they are 18 years old, which could be a physically or emotionally uncomfortable experience. Another effect that isn’t often discussed is that there may be undesired public scrutiny on the three children if their identities become publicly known.

The scientific community and those who could be benefited by future germline editing are also stakeholders when considering the ethics of the research. The publicity from He’s experiments could lead to mistrust in CRISPR technology and gene editing. In particular, if the edited babies end up experiencing negative effects as a result of the modification, this could be a major blow to further research in germline editing, potentially pushing back research and advancements for years. A consequence of this would be the deprivation of those who would benefit from germline editing, such as couples who have a homozygous dominant disorder that they don’t want to pass to their offspring. For such a case, germline editing would be the only option to prevent the disorder from being inherited. Without germline editing, if the couple chooses to still have a child, the baby would be born with a potentially debilitating disorder. It perhaps is overly dramatic to say that He Jiankui’s actions would be the cause of situations like this, but delays in research undoubtedly could negatively impact people by delaying the availability of clinical gene-editing procedures.

This discussion brings up the broader question of under what circumstances germline editing should be allowed, if ever. Beyond occasions where germline editing is the only option to prevent a known genetic defect in an offspring, many scientists believe that germline editing should only be used as a last resort. One reason for this hesitancy is because of the complexities of the human genetic system, making it difficult to predict the full impact of even one slight modification. Furthermore, many people fear the societal effects that could arise if genetic alterations to more superficial traits such as appearance and intelligence levels are allowed. However, much more about the human genome must be learned before modifications like these could become possible, if at all. Gene editing technology will need to undergo significant advancements before an experiment like He Jiankui’s can be ethically repeated, and in particular the safety of germline modifications will need to be studied in depth before such interventions can proceed.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

2026-06-07T13:53:36.000Z

This is a book that my close friends in college were recommending to me -- took a couple years for me to get to it, but it felt like the right time: After Always Coming Home, which talks about the culture and stories of a fictional indigenous-like civilization, I wanted to gain a sense of the culture of real world indigenous people. This book delivered, combining indigenous stories and some history with a strong and impactful environmental lens. At the start, it posed the question of how humanity can have a positive relationship with the environment (while not giving up technology and our core way of life), and it delivered on working through answering this question, in an optimistic way. I think this genuinely shifted how I think about the relationship of humanity and the environment. Spoiler: a core part of the "answer" is restorative ecology.

Mini Book Reviews

2026-06-07T13:53:36.000Z

Reactions to books I've read. This list does not necessarily represent every book I've read.

Most recent at the top.

The Lilac People: A Novel by Milo Todd (Finished February 25, 2026)

Historical fiction book about transgender people in Berlin during and after World War II. This was a good read. I learned a bunch of history from it, and the characters had a touching story. It feels like an important part of history for people to be aware of.

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (Finished January 3, 2026)

Very different than the musical/movie which were inspired by this book. I liked it a lot. In my opinion, it's a stronger story and better writing than the musical. I was told the book was darker, and that definitely comes through.

The Indigenous Triplet at start of 2025

(Just my own way of referring to this sequence of books)

Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin (Finished January 8, 2025)

After the election results of 2020, I searched Reddit for book suggestions based on the sentiment of those results, and this was a suggestion (jumped into this right after finishing Book of the New Sun series). It's an anthology of a fictional civilization, with origin stories, histories, poems and songs, descriptions of culture and ceremonies. Looking back a year later (I'm writing this in March 2026), it still carries a feeling of warmth and comfort -- the title is a good one -- the feeling is that no matter where you go, there will always be a home to return to. There's also a corresponding album of music that was created for this, which I listened through once -- interesting companion (most distinct word I carry forth from this is "heya"). Le Guin's last work I believe. This definitely solidified her as one of my favorite authors. The book also had an autobiographical section with essays by Le Guin, and I read and appreciated them (especially the ones relating to the connections between ACH and her own life).

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Finished March 1, 2025)

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (Finished April 6, 2025)

Braiding Sweetgrass had hints of the terrible history of the indigenous people in the US, and it felt like the perfect time to go deeper. I had added this book to my to-read list after a visit to the National Museum of the American Indian (in Washington, D.C.). This book was groundbreaking and transformative material for me. Tore apart everything I thought I knew about indigenous people in the US. Made me feel betrayed by what they taught me in school (or rather, what was lacking in what they taught). I think about the land of the US completely differently after reading this.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

2026-07-17T02:24:25.000Z

Finished July 2026.

Excellent.

Easy? No.

Some slow parts, some Tolstoy philosophy.

But - strongly compelling character arcs.

Though I may eventually have otherwise found my way to reading War and Peace, what got me to read it at the time that I did was 100% caused by Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, a Broadway musical (Tony-nominated) based on an ~80 page slice of the book (the musical ends at about the halfway point of War and Peace). After watching the musical, I wanted to know what happened before and after. So I read War and Peace. I'm certain Dave Malloy (creator of the musical) would have wanted it no other way.

I read the translation by Louise and Aylmer Maude, specifically because this is the translation which Dave Malloy quotes from in the musical.

Notes ahead contain spoilers.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

Thoughts after finishing but before epilogue

I have just finished the fourth (final) volume/book, but have yet to read the (two part, ~100 ebook pages) epilogue.

Ah, so Pierre and Natasha will indeed be together. I had been wondering about this ever since the end of Great Comet (aka the end of Book 2, when Pierre sees the great comet of 1812).

But so much happened in between.

I'm so glad I decided to read this. It's been such a great book (though slow at some times) and I was absolutely right about wanting to read it to enhance my understanding of the musical and to satisfy the craving to see what ends up happening to the characters. I did not expect it to be as rewarding as it was. At the time, I hadn't even been sure if the plot of the musical was relevant to the overarching plot of the book - but it now obviously was. Frankly, Dave Malloy picked a great part of the book to showcase as a musical.

The end of the musical showed Andrei turning away from Natasha, saying he never wished to speak of her again, and it showed Pierre having a special moment with Natasha and feeling like she awakened something within him. I was also left wondering if there would ever again be a chance between Natasha and Andrei. And the plot did reveal this, in a surprisingly tight way. Most of Andrei's emotional touchpoints for the rest of the book are him reacting (or non-reacting via avoidance) to Anatole's crime, him getting injured and coming to peace with Anatole, then reuniting with Natasha and the Rostovs while he is sick, ultimately expressing to Natasha that if gets well again then they will be together again, and then tragically dying of his illness. It felt so right for him to come back emotionally to his feelings of love for Natasha.

His turning away from her originally felt brash, but he also seemingly had no choice because she was basically about to elope with Anatole (and was only stopped by her godmother). To continue on that topic... reading the book definitely enhanced my understanding of that whole situation. When watching the musical, I feel that it's easy to place all the blame on Natasha for the elopement, because it seems so sudden and so ridiculous that she would fall for Anatole when she is engaged to the person she loves (Andrei). But the book makes some things clearer. For one thing, she wasn't actually engaged to Andrei yet (maybe this was just me misunderstanding the musical). She was only "promised" to him. Very soon after realizing their interest in each other, Andrei listens to the advice of his father (who very much is opposed to his marrying Natasha) and goes traveling abroad for a full year, and the idea is that if he and Natasha still feel the same way upon his return, they will get married. Andrei also explicitly tells Natasha that she does not need to feel bound to him. When it's put this way, especially considering that Andrei left just as he and Natasha would have been experiencing the honeymoon phase, when everything is exciting at the beginning and probably quite important to a relationship, at the beginning of what is essentially them dating, I'm not super surprised that Natasha's feelings started to change when he simply got up and left (and, if I recall, did not communicate much with her via letters or anything). Natasha of course intended to make it work, but we see her essentially experiencing misery and agony due to her separation from Andrei, and she doesn't really understand why he had left (frankly I don't understand either -- but he's a person, and person do things that are hard to understand sometimes^[1]). Time is ticking by and she feels so lonely. Then, the worst possible thing happens, which is Anatole, who, as we the audience knows but Natasha does not know, is literally only trying to have fun and mess around, but he deceives Natasha, who has basically no experience with relationships and intimacy and is so gullible (her feeling here is (paraphrased) "he kissed me. this must mean he loves me! We must get married now"), into thinking that he genuinely wants to marry her, and she succumbs to it. It feels so inevitable because Anatole is pretty rotten and has one goal in mind, to elope with Natasha (and then immediately leave her after making love presumably), and we can tell he will do whatever he can to do that. And Natasha is so lonely and at this point the contrast between Andrei being away and seeming to not be serious about their marriage prospects (because why would he leave!), and Anatole being direct and intimate and so attractive and confessing his love and saying he wants to marry her, now -- makes her go along with it. And then, of course, it all falls to pieces, and Anatole just runs away, and Andrei hears about it, and breaks off their would-be engagement. But while reading it, I'm just thinking, Andrei it's kind of your fault because you left for a year during a very fragile time in your relationship. Of course, Natasha is at fault too, for her actions. Again, it all feels inevitable^[2] and it sucks but makes sense that Andrei turns away from her.

All that to say... it makes sense that he still felt love for Natasha, once he got over her betrayal. It took him getting mortally wounded to get there, but at least it happened.

And then, Tolstoy weaves things such that it feels again inevitable for Andrei to die.

For the sake of two characters' happinesses/endings: Princess Marya (Andrei's sister) and Pierre.

While Andrei is wounded, we see Princess Mary and Nicolai (Natasha's younger brother) essentially fall in love with each other. And this feels wonderful for Mary because she has never before felt this for someone. And also it would be good for the Rostovs because it would help get them out of financial ruin.

"and Pierre", I mean, it would have been cool if Andrei had lived and got back together with Natasha (and I was genuinely hoping that it would happen, while reading it), but I also had a feeling somewhere in my mind that if Andrei did die, then this would make the Great Comet ending, which hints that Pierre and Natasha might get together, might happen. And, like, what else would happen with Pierre (I guess he could have had other resolutions too. but he didn't).

Moving on to other thoughts. Petya's death was sad and tragic... but I saw it coming from a mile away, because of how much his mother tried to protect him from going to war, how unnecessary it was for him to do so, and how reckless he was being once he was actually on a battlefield. Though, the light here is that Petya's death shook Natasha out of her grieving for Andrei because Natasha saw the necessity of being strong to support her mother in her grief. Also, on a similar note, Andrei's illness/death itself got Natasha to bond and become extremely close to Princess Marya (who very much disliked each other earlier on). Which ultimately led to Natasha going back to Moscow with Mary, where Pierre happened to visit and then realize that there was hope again for being together with Natasha.

Looking at the ways the characters changed from start to finish... It's really well done. I strangely felt a sort of pride in seeing how the characters grew. It's a result of spending so much time with them, and just of seeing things come together. Pretty much all the characters I've been talking about changed a lot over the course of the book -- especially Pierre, Natasha, and Mary.

Pierre... what a guy. Somehow the most relatable character, but also the strangest and most vacuous sometimes. Kind of a silly guy making silly choices which ultimately actually serve him somehow. Such as bumbling into battlefields, for the curiosity of it, which eventually leads to him getting taken prisoner, which itself transforms him into a very different person...

And Mary, who is defined by her relationship with her father, and has no life of her own, when her father is dying she feels hope of having her own life but extreme guilt, and then eventually grows out of that and (especially with the interest in Nicolai) is able to actually feel this freedom and feel like her life is her own.

Natasha, we just see grow up, from an innocent, kinda clueless girl, to someone who has gone through things, and becomes quite mature. This sounds so normal when I put it this way, and it is, but it's somehow special to see this so clearly across a book.

mainly I'm saying I view this as a character trait, not as a flaw in Tolstoy's writing (if that was ever in question) ↩︎
thanks to Tolstoy for masterful plot-weaving ↩︎

The Wheel of Time (series)

2026-09-03T14:03:50.000Z

The Wheel of Time. 14 books, the first published in 1997, the last in 2013. The author, Robert Jordan, passed away, and Brandon Sanderson took up the wheel to complete the last three books, based heavily on notes left behind by Robert Jordan and by all accounts did a tremendously great job at finishing it off.

My friend Elliott recommended the series to me, citing it as one of his most loved series. I remember when he told me about the series, sitting with him one night in the common room of our dorm, our freshman year of college, our friendship in its early bud. Forgetting about sleep as we talked from one topic to another, barely moving from our seats on the couch, until we noticed the sun begin to rise. This is the image in my mind when I think about what led me to this series.

That was in 2019.

The name of the series stayed in my mind, but it wasn't until a few years later that I started listening to the audiobook of the first book. Another image in my mind: jogging along the sidewalks of my college campus, listening to the audiobook. I'm not sure it was my first listening session, but it was early on in the book. I found a likely jog in my Google Maps timeline, placing this moment in April of 2021.

I take audiobooks slowly - they usually aren't my primary form of entertainment, but they are a pleasant escape while doing chores or lying in bed while sick.

I finished the last audiobook in August of 2026.

Five years. Five years total to finish this series.

Five years with these characters, these places, these concepts and systems, these plotlines, these themes, these big questions. Following the main characters as they grow and change, and see the world in different ways, and make an impact on the world just by doing what they needed to do.

I myself have changed with them. The me who started listening to these books in 2021 is not the same me who finished them. And in the infinite factors that have led to the change within me over these years, I know without a doubt that this series has contributed nontrivially to the makeup of my mind. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me." The series has given me a trove of memories, of experiences. In my exploration of dreams, I have learned that to imagine something is to experience it; visualizing yourself wielding a fantastical power will become a memory increasing your confidence of performing the same act in your dream. Likewise, in reading (or listening) to a book, as moment by moment is narrated, I imagine the events in my mind as they form, and so this becomes my own experience, my own memories. I am with the characters as they face obstacles and think through problems, and so the lessons learned become internalized for me as well. I ride the waves of emotions of the characters, from the deepest pain and sorrow, to the catharsis of joy and triumph; and so I know (for better or for worse) I can feel those things in my own life, for I have already felt hints of them in my mind. I can say this of any book I read, but The Wheel of Time has an especially strong spirit, morality, and depth to it. Its intangibles will stick with me.

I write all this right after having finished the final book. Last month, I finished up a rewatch of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is beloved by many and widely appreciated as one of the best narratives of an animated series. After my re-watch, I wondered where else I might find such high quality writing and storytelling. Maybe it's just because I'm still riding the high of having finished it, so I will have to see if the sentiment lasts, but I feel that another example has been right under my nose, with The Wheel of Time. In my mind, at least.

Okay, I feel the need to temper the above a little bit. It's now a few weeks later, and I do feel like I was riding the high of the ending, as I mentioned. It was definitely not a perfect series. There were some slow/boring parts throughout. The ending was rushed, and there are some characters and events that Brandon Sanderson probably didn't write as well as Robert Jordan would have (and it's just bittersweet to imagine what would have been different had Robert Jordan finished it himself).

Still, though, despite those qualifications -- a great series, great writing.

Notes I took before finishing the series

Fantastic series. It's epic fantasy. Fourteen books (plus maybe a prequel?). I've been listening to them in audiobook form - can't imagine consuming this series in any other way. The narrators of the audiobooks are great (there's one male and female narrator, consistent across all the books in the series). I would've been really sad if the voice actors changed partway through the series, so I'm glad they kept it consistent.

At the time of writing this, I am midway through the second to last book. I'll probably finish them all this year.

On Audiobooking

I treat audiobooks very differently than books (that I read with my eyes). I have a daily book-reading habit before bed, and sometimes (usually if I'm sick and don't want to use my eyes) I do audiobook before bed. But I can go large phases of time without listening to audiobooks at all, even if I'm in the middle of listening to the book. In the past, I might've gone months or longer without touching the audiobook. It usually gets to a point in the book, though, where a lot of action is happening and I can't put it down. It's not fully a boredom situation though -- I just don't strive to maintain the audiobook-listening habit.

That's changed a little bit in recent months, though. Maybe it's just because I'm at the exciting end of WoT when everything is coming together, or maybe it's because of life circumstances (recently moved to a new apartment^[1], going on more walks in the park, winter months so I've been sick a couple of times). But I've pretty consistently been working through the audiobooks. I'm not sure what I'll do once I finish WoT - if I'll take a break from audiobooks or start another series (likely another long fantasy series. It seems I like to do those in audiobook form).

On The Writing

The writing is really good. Character development is really good. The way Robert Jordan weaves together plots over long spans of time is really amazing. It feels great when plotlines resolve and things come together finally. These books give so many moments like that.

Part of this is due to the pacing. It's almost frustratingly entrancing. The story covers a really interesting scene or arc, and then that chapter ends in a cliffhanger (not necessarily a super dramatic cliffhanger, but it makes you want to continue staying with those characters and seeing what they do next) and then moves on to a different scene or set of characters. And you are feeling, "nooo! I want to stay with these other characters and see what happens next". But then really quickly you become invested again in the next scene because it's resolving that cliffhanger feeling from an earlier chapter. And it continues like this moment to moment until things resolve or converge.

Graphic Novel

Since I just finished the series, and because I've been thinking about Creating Webcomics recently, I decided to look up whether there is a graphic novel format of Wheel of Time. Turns out there are some -- At least as of 2026, a full set of six volumes for the first book (Eye of the World) and the prequel (New Spring, which I haven't read/listened yet^[2]), and several volumes for book 2 (The Great Hunt) -- that was in 2023, and supposedly more volumes are due to come out in October of 2027 (according to Wikipedia^[3]).

Anyway, I ended up purchasing a used copy of the first volume of Book 1 from eBay for ~$6^[4] -- I don't particularly intend to read through it cover to cover, but I expect it will be nice to occasionally flip through.

It feels like I'm discovering that I like graphic novels (/ comics?) for the first time. For now, I feel that only applies to material that I'm already familiar with and love and want to see them in visual form.

I'm writing this Jan 2026 so it's been 6 months in new apartment but still ↩︎
Not sure when I will. ↩︎
I know -- most reliable source in the world. ↩︎
free shipping! ↩︎

The Realm of the Elderlings (series)

2026-02-12T04:54:01.000Z

Listened to as audiobooks. So good!

The Ministry for the Future (Kim Stanley Robinson)

2026-09-16T13:04:58.000Z

by Kim Stanley Robinson

'Twas an apocalyptic-feeling day - July 15, 2026 - when wildfire smoke that drifted from Canada had filled the NYC skies with a reddish haze. I was seventeen e-book pages away from completing War and Peace and it would soon be time to select the next book I would read. After reading some Reddit comments in response to the wildfire events which made some dramatic (perhaps rightfully so) statements about climate change and humanity's future, something clicked in my mind and I knew it was time to read The Ministry for the Future.

KSR is one of my favorite authors, so this book has been on my mind as one to read some time, and it always felt like an important one to get to. So, what better moment to start the book in than one where I was feeling a droplet of climate despair? It's kind of like listening to sad music when you're sad. There's a resonance between the moment and the media which makes it just feel right. Plus, I figured it might frame the moment for me - give me a framework of thought, a way to think about the situation, an outlook, maybe even an answer of whether hope or despair should win.

Brief thoughts after finishing reading: I like the premise; I like that it got me thinking about climate change in the real world (led me to find some podcasts about climate change and the environment in general); I like that it gave me a vision of how humanity might fight it; Yet I wish it was more narrative-driven and had some more compelling characters. (More in-depth thoughts below.)

Notes taken while reading

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

Initial thoughts up to chapter 44 (about a third through)

Short chapters, I kind of like it. Many perspective shifts, but also we have recurring characters. We get to see the same characters through different lenses - one chapter may be first person for that character, and another may be third person from another person's perspective. This is definitely reminiscent of KSR's other works too.
I can already feel it changing my outlook, mindset, thinking. Even though I know it's a fictional portrayal, I can feel that KSR is making it seem like a realistic scenario of the way things might happen in the next ten or so years (at least that's the timespan in the book so far). So it feels real and like the things might happen. For sure, the message is relevant to us now. That's clearly why KSR is writing this. The scene where Mary is confronted by Frank feels kind of like KSR shouting to the world, "What you're doing is not enough!". (I feel like that was one of the most impactful scenes of the book so far.) And that is starting to float in my mind too - what we're doing is not enough. It's troubling.
There was a brief part in one of the interlude chapters (where it's not a particular character's perspective but more like a micro-essay about some relevant topic. Which, by the way, has been feeling very Tolstoyian (again, just finished War and Peace, where Tolstoy interleaved character/plot chapters with mini essays on the philosophy of history)) which talked about species that have gone extinct, and I found that I did not know if species have been going to extinct recently and if so, which ones, and this made me feel like I should keep up to date more with ecological (or just general environmental/science) news/events. Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast has been giving me a taste of science news updates, but they are just small tidbits.
- So I'm exploring some podcasts.:
  - Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast - so far, listened to one episode and really liked it - it was a special Q&A episode, so I'm not sure yet what their normal episodes are like, but I liked the feeling of it. Definitely will listen to more.
    - Listening to the July 16, 2026 episode called "Rosebank, Cambo, and the Conversation Christiana Never Got To Have", and feeling another connection to TMFTF. The episode talks about a young activist who hijacked a TED panel she was on where another panelist was a CEO of an oil company - it was supposed to be a 45 minute panel, but when it was her turn to be introduced, she directly spoke out to the CEO (the particular concern was in stopping new fossil fuel projects) and then walked out of the panel (video clip). This feels like a combo of some of the themes in Ministry for the Future for two of the standout scenes so far - 1) Frank confronting Mary, 2) The World economic forum hostage situation. There is power in getting around bureaucracy and getting a message in front of someone in an abnormal way which maybe will affect them emotionally and make it more likely they will pay more attention to it.
  - Living on Earth - Also a climate change + ecology podcast. Listened to one episode so far, and I enjoyed the range of topics it covered and the interviews/clips with real people. But, it's a bit slow and it leans towards being less conversational and I did not find the host compelling. Will give it more chances though.
  - Other podcasts that I haven't tried out yet but that came up in my search^[1]: "Nature Breaking", "In Defense of Plants", "Future Ecologies", "Mongabay Newscast".
- I just love this feeling of an integrated media experience. Reading a book about climate change, listening to podcasts about climate change, and just it obviously being a pressing topic in this world.
I'm also reading this at a moment where I've been entering into some vegan spaces in NYC and being around people who are talking about activism and social change. I've been feeling some parallels to this in the book, especially for the concept of "direct action" -- a phrase I heard someone say, in the context of asking about opportunities for veganism-related direct action. Wikipedia says: "Direct action may include activities that can be either violent or nonviolent, targeting people, groups, institutions, actions, or property that its participants deem objectionable." Obviously way more extreme than I hope any vegan activists are doing - but an example of direct action in the book is the scene where the 2500 political leaders / influential / wealthy people were held hostage at their convention and forced to watch "propaganda" essentially trying to sway them to be better people. This was another great scene in the book. It was told from the perspective of one of the convention attendees, which was an infuriating perspective to read from - genius move by KSR.
I appreciate that KSR is giving us perspectives from many different countries and groups of people, rather than just being US-focused. After all, climate affects all.

Thoughts up to ch 70 (the middle third)

The book is kind of going exactly how I thought it would after the first third, but also not. It's kind of slower than I expected. But that's kind of the point. Change takes time.
I do seriously love how we see the slow progression of change though. How little things add up. How there are so so so many factors in the world that must be considered in the climate situation. And also how bold strokes are what cause the most change. Large action taken by government. Or large action taken by... terrorists? Like it or not, this book is depicting a scenario where change is effected by destructive action by anonymous individuals. Though it leads to generally net positive change in this fictional version of the world (so far at least), this isn't exactly an optimistic take. But maybe it's realistic. It makes me find myself hoping that such decisive action is taken in our own future if that's the only way to make change -- and this is an uncomfortable thought. Ideally, change happens due to non-destructive, non-violent means. But as Frank said, "you aren't doing enough". KSR is painting an image of how this timeline of humanity solves the climate crisis. What will it take for our own real reality?
I also like the depiction of how certain individuals can be key to causing change. Mainly our main gal Mary Murphy, who for example convinces the world banks to start the carbon coin (of course, she is backed by the org of the Ministry of the Future for the research and drive for that idea, so it's not just her - but she is a charismatic leader and her job is to convince governments to actually make changes, and arguably it is her personality/confidence that leads to these changes). Semi-related, I feel like I kind of didn't expect us to retain focus on Mary for so long, because there are surely so many players in the climate emergency game, but it makes sense since this book is the Ministry for the Future and she is its leader. KSR could surely write countless versions of this book that are told from different perspectives in the same universe^[2]. We of course get a taste of this because KSR does not shy away from showing different perspectives or short chapters from other characters too.
I'm curious of course how the rest of the book will go. It feels like the book will be an overall optimistic take, showing how this timeline will end up saved from the climate crisis. It so far seems like the things are adding up to that. But I could also see there being a twist in the final third where it all doesn't add up to enough and the world gets to the point of no return and humanity is destroyed because of climate. Or, maybe a middleground, where they did too-little too-late, and humanity isn't wiped out, but a major part of the population is and things have to start from scratch or something. I could see the pessimistic outcome being chosen in order to drive action (in real life) to prevent this outcome. But I think I'd prefer the optimistic outcome (I guess I'm an optimist) so that we are instead inspired to make things better. Perhaps art is more effective when it inspires rather than frightens. But perhaps not.
And there's also the Frank-Mary subplot. I have a feeling that they are either falling in love, or Frank will somehow be an important player or inspiration leading to more change.

Thoughts on the final third

My reading pace kind of slowed down. I think this section took me the longest to get through -- as usual, part of this is just life happenstance and habits, but also the material got a little bit boring I think. Or the novelty wore off. I feel like not too much happened towards the end. Or rather, the same pace of stuff kept happening. It sometimes felt like just a list of factual events that had happened, rather than a narrative - even if it's a world-based narrative rather than a character-based narrative.
I didn't really like where the Mary-Frank relationship went. Meaning, the death of Frank. It felt kind of random. What was the point of that character? What was the point of Mary continuing to be friends with Frank? Other than being a slice of life about Mary as a character, it didn't seem like he particularly inspired action or affected Mary's life as applicable to the Ministry. Now that I think of it, Frank's whole original scene with assaulting Mary only led Mary to discuss with Badim about the potential for having a dark wing; and Badim revealed they already had one. So did that do anything? Well I guess it still pushed Mary to do more so maybe that's it. I think it's fine to have a character just stay a friend (because I had suspected love interest, but it never materialized), but I kind of just am not seeing the point at the end of the day. Mary's relationship with the other guy at the end was cute, but it felt kind of rushed and like it was stuck in there just to give Mary closure.
Building off the above, there's a tension between the character narrative of Mary, and the world narrative of how it globally responded to climate change. Mary wasn't a very interesting character, to be honest. It feels like we had her perspective just for the sake of having someone. It would have been a way more interesting book, I think, if we had had Badim's perspective as head of the dark wing. Why hide all that stuff? I guess because it's not the book KSR was trying to respect, which I can respect. But when I look back, Mary's perspective was just kind of lackluster.
The "plot" of the book kind of felt like it just teetered off. There was kind of a climactic moment when they realized that the proportion of carbon in the atmosphere had decreased substantially, but the writing just didn't make me feel excited about that moment for some reason. I imagine that maybe this is KSR's point -- if we do the right things, the good result will naturally happen and it won't feel crazy in the moment, and not to mention, we need to maintaining the things so things don't get worse again. But I just didn't feel a sense of reward for getting to this point of the book. Maybe it's just me or where my head was at while reading this part.
Reflecting back to the start of the book -- the first chapter was so good -- it had an intense first-person perspective (Frank's) about a firsthand experience of climate change. And then we got basically nothing like that in the rest of the book. I wonder if KSR started with that, and then diverged from it, or if he added it on later. I have a feeling he started with it. It just would have been really cool to see more firsthand experience like that. I guess I'm asking for more of a direct character-driven narrative feel rather than the sort of list-of-events that it often felt like. Mary just didn't cut it. I get that the book is called The Ministry for the Future, so it makes sense to focus on that organization's leader, but... it was just ultimately unsatisfying, in my opinion.

Concluding thoughts

Clearly, if you look at my final third notes above, I am not too happy about where the book went. It started in a really exciting way, and then became sort of a droll of events happening. Normally I like KSR's perspective-hopping and poetic interludes, but it kind of fell flat and felt like a mimicry of the other books I've read by him. There was a lack of soul in the characters to me. They weren't that interesting. I feel like Frank was a wasted character. He was super interesting and then just sat around -- why make me spend my attention on watching him sit around and not really impact much?

It also seems like the actual impact of the Ministry for the Future was dubious, or at least not described super well. The big accomplishment seemed to be the creation of the carbon coin. One thing. Was the whole point of the book really just to show the Ministry creating the carbon coin? That doesn't feel right. It seems like the Ministry should have had more visible impact. That's why I wish we saw more of the dark wing, rather than obscured hints of it. Was KSR trying not to come off as too extremist? If so, I think that was a mistake. The interesting part of this book would have been the extreme measures that humanity must take in order to resolve the climate crisis.

I'm disappointed, especially compared to the other Kim Stanley Robinson books I love. Maybe it's because his other books (Mars trilogy, Years of Rice and Salt) were earlier in his career and this is later. Has he lost my touch? Or am I just forgetting what those other books were like and they're not too different? -- I don't think so. I'll give more of his books a chance still, though.

All that being said, I do feel that the book accomplished what I was looking for from the beginning. I wanted to have some framework for the major issues related to climate change, and what we might be able to do to stop it. It got me to find some climate and environment-related podcasts, which is a big win in itself if I end up listening to them over time. And I am more motivated than ever to learn more about climate change related issues and what is being done in the real world to slow or reverse it. So it was the right book to read for me, at the right time.

I finished the book while on my trip to Bellingham, WA 2026 and during that trip, a friend told me that there was a report showing that we had just crossed the "point of no return". I haven't read up on what this really means, and I'm a little scared, but my reaction was: "wait, no-- look, we can still change things". So I guess this book gave me optimism, which is what I believe KSR wanted. Is it realistic? I don't know. But it's there.

search being a question to ChatGPT ↩︎
just like in any fiction/universe/history ↩︎

The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin)

2026-06-06T23:22:04.000Z

Taking notes during my re-read^[1] for book club in May 2026. Currently mostly listening to the audiobook version (my original read was ebook in 2020) but also may switch between ebook as well.

Notes taken during audiobook re-read

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

I'm remembering why I liked this. It's kind of like a case study of anthropology. Person comes to learn about a culture. But also part less like anthropology: also aiming to establish relations/allyship and trade and make them a part of a larger entity/system.
The cultural mythology (stories) interspersed so far reminds me of what Le Guin kind of was teaching with Always Coming Home -- you learn a lot about a culture from their stories and mythos.
Expanding on my first point, I wonder how much of the message here has to do with the negative aspects of colonialism.
- My instinct is that we are actually being presented with a good way to establish contact with a different culture and develop positive and respectful relations and exchange.
- But the king's speech to Genly brings up what is probably a common point (in real life) against even this kind of interference -- they are fine on their own, they are doing well on their own, what do they need from the outside?
- This reminded me of hearing about certain indigenous tribes who have been completely undisturbed by outsiders -- they do fine for themselves and maybe wouldn't want to be disturbed. Yet, is that really their answer? I don't know. Maybe they want to stay isolated, but maybe they would be open to exchange (of technology, ideas, etc). There's probably no right answer.
- It also kind of reminds me of the environmental dilemma I mentioned that the Mars trilogy explores -- (I just expanded on some of these thoughts here), but of course it's different when talking about a human civilization/group.
So far the subject of foretelling has only been briefly mentioned (though we got a whole tale about it). The foretelling from the tale reminded me of the Aelfinn and Eeelfinn from The Wheel of Time. Your prophecy may come true in a strange and ironic way.
Distinction of "supper" and "dinner" is kind of funny. If I ever have two separate dinners, I will call the first one supper and the second one dinner.
Obviously a lot of discussion of gender and sexuality within this. I appreciated the section that was just direct discussion of these topics with regards to the Gethenian physiology. I'm surprised I didn't reflect on this more during my first read through (I think I was just more focused on the sci-fi adventure / politics / ekumen aspect.)
- The themes on gender also are reminding me of the gender discussions in Terra Ignotta - in that universe, people dressed so as to not reveal what gender they are (so it's different from TLHOD in that they do have different genders of course). The reasoning was I think to remove the negative aspects of gender differentiation - this played a role in the Terra Ignotta plot and politics (won't spoil anything here). It's a strong parallel because it feels like TLHOD is also making a point about what lack of gender does to social/political life (obviously).
Shifgrethor concept is reminding me of The Wheel of Time's concept of ji'e'toh^[2], though not exactly the same.
Estraven's journal snippets is slightly making me want to do my own (private) journaling more often.
Got chills when Ai said that Estraven's actions were not for the sake of any one nation but for all of mankind. I feel like this is a thing in scifi that commonly excites me. To act in advancement of humanity. Similar feelings to Foundation (Asimov), and Terra Ignotta, and Book of the New Sun. It really is a common theme.
On Difference
- In our real world, someone being nonbinary, transgender, or otherwise of the non-majority gender or sexuality, is viewed as different.
- On the fictional world of Gethen, being androdynous is the norm and Genly Ai is seen as a deviant given his permanent state of male sexuality.
- This evokes lessons of ethnocentrism. Enter a new culture and do not view it as strange from the perspective of your own culture. Instead, view it from its own lens and accept that it is what it is. It is not an affront on your own. And of course, not just on the level of a culture, but on the differences from individual to individual.
- Evokes a sentiment I have felt before along the lines of answering "why is this the way things are?". Things could easily have been different. An example of this is something I sometimes feels around veganism when considering the different views a person may have between vegan and non-vegan food. Mainly in comparing taste and recipes.
  - It can seem like vegan food is inferior to non-vegan food. Kind of I am talking about veganized food rather than food that was already vegan (as most cultures have) i.e. making a vegan cheese substitute. For this kind of thing, vegans have been working on these substitutes for decades, or perhaps longer than that. But the dominant culture has been mastering non-vegan cooking for thousands of years, so it is a surprise that non-vegan food is more advanced and suited to our tastes? It is almost exciting to me to be on the frontier of vegan cooking, when put this way. It also leads to the point I'm getting to. Yes, it happens that our human culture's food had its roots in animal-derived ingredients. Yet there could equally have been a human culture that developed without animal-derived ingredients, which mastered non-vegan food over thousands of years, and would look at some new revolution of animal-based cooking as inferior and less good tasting (whether objectively less good tasting, or simply different than one's accustomed tastes).
    - From the introduction to Wildman Steve Brill's vegan foraged-food cookbook: "The great world cuisines came into being when people in diverse ecosystems and climates experimented with limited regional food resources and technologies over long periods of time, and shared their knowledge through trading." This isn't the point Brill is making, but I feel this supports my point of the scale of time needed for a cuisine to mature. It also lends to the idea of how creative vegan cooking is / can be, given the constraints.
  - My analogy to gender differences in Gethen/Earth should be clear. I ask my fellow human to look at my vegan food from the perspective of its inherent properties rather than as a comparison to your accustomed culture; evaluate it fairly and give it an equal chance as if you stumbled upon a food tradition from another world that maybe you could come to enjoy.
At the end, Ai acknowledges that he has gotten used to the cold of the world after being there for 2+ years. This evokes that when you immerse yourself in another culture, another worldview, another spirit, you can not just observe; you will be changed by it. You do not leave the same. Reminds of me Avatar (blue people).
Very ending - Ai visits Estraven's family in their home domain. He at first wonders if it was useless for him to visit, because seeing Estraven's father only seems to confirm his death. However, there is a certain respect and admiration and interest that the father and Estraven's son display to Ai. This left me with a feeling that perhaps Ai had found a bit of a family here, serving as an uncle figure (to the younger one at least). Maybe this is just the audiobook narration (excitement in the character voices) getting to me. But I like to think that Ai's closeness to Estraven might be clear to the family and so they may extend a familial feeling to Ai.
Ekumen. In both my first and second read/listen, I am very drawn to the idea of the Ekumen, the union of many worlds. Still makes me want to read more of Le Guin's take on it. I recall after reading it the first time, I was disappointed that it didn't seem there was more of a direct take on the Ekumen. But I still haven't read all her books, so how can I be sure. I definitely want to read more. At the top of my list to get to are The Dispossessed and The Lathe of Heaven (and especially this one since it relates to dreams). I'm guessing that Rocannon's World would probably fulfil my craving the most - synopsis sounds similar to LHOD, about ethnologist visiting a planet.
I haven't watched much of Doctor Who except for a couple episodes, but it also makes me feel like I should watch more Doctor Who. Might not be super related though. But I think there's something there. Obviously it's space travel scifi. But calling out more is the idea of visiting new strange places and understanding the people there.
My friend who read LHOD also had mentioned he read Le Guin's commentary on the book's themes, so I'm seeking that out.
- ChatGPT tells me her essay "Is Gender Necessary? Redux" is what I'm looking for: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ursula-k-le-guin-is-gender-necessary-redux. (btw theanarchistlibrary looks interesting. they've got a little community there. apparently it's an archive for anarchist writings. Not exactly sure if/how Le Guin fits in here but I'm glad they are hosting this essay so I can read it at this very moment. (okay well maybe asking whether gender is necessary is an anarchist topic... I suppose it depends on your definition of anarchy))
  - Wow, very interesting from the start, Le Guin acknowledges that her opinion changed over the years, which is why this is a "Redux" of her original essay. It's the original essay but with revised commentary in brackets.
  - "The fact is that the real subject of the book is not feminism or sex or gender or anything of the sort; as far as I can see, it is a book about betrayal and fidelity."
    - i kind of love that she acknowledges that the more important theme of the book is not the sensational-seeming one. This resonates me, especially given I didn't reflect too much on the gender stuff my first time through (it was really always the adventure and journey and ethnology and ekumen-ness that stuck with me).
    - Oh wait... I'm fooled. This is one of the statements she corrected. "“The fact is that the real subject of the book is …” This is bluster. I had opened a can of worms and was trying hard to shut it. “The fact is,” however, that there are other aspects to the book, which are involved with its sex/gender aspects quite inextricably."
  - "One of the essential functions of science fiction, I think, is precisely this kind of question-asking: reversals of a habitual way of thinking, metaphors for what our language has no words for as yet, experiments in imagination."
    - I feel I don't think about scifi through this lens enough. I think it likely is why I love it so much. The thought experiment aspect of it, the aspect of making commentary on society via metaphor. At the surface level, though, I feel I'm often drawn by the exciting adventure/technology topics.
  - "The basic social unit all over the planet is a group of two hundred to eight hundred people, called a hearth"
    - cites this as a reason for lack of wars in Gethen. Reminds me of the social structure in Terra Ignotta's world (I forget what the communities are called).
  - "To me the “female principle” is, or at least historically has been, basically anarchic. It values order without constraint, rule by custom not by force. It has been the male who enforces order, who constructs power structures, who makes, enforces, and breaks laws. On Gethen, these two principles are in balance: the decentralizing against the centralizing, the flexible against the rigid, the circular against the linear."
    - ah, this answers my question about why this essay was hosted on the anarchist archive site. Being hosted there is itself a hint on this theme in the book.
    - I suppose joining the Ekumen is a bit of a decentralization. (??)
  - "When Gethenians have to make love, they do make love, and everybody else expects it and approves of it." --> This is kind of the sexual liberation/positivity part of this book.
    - "The maturer culture, or psyche, can integrate these taboos or laws into an internal ethical code, which, while allowing great freedom, does not permit the treatment of another person as an object."
  - "I quite unnecessarily locked the Gethenians into heterosexuality. It is a naively pragmatic view of sex that insists that sexual partners must be of opposite sex! In any kemmerhouse homosexual practice would, of course, be possible and acceptable and welcomed—but I never thought to explore this option; and the omission, alas, implies that sexuality is heterosexuality. I regret this very much."
  - She talks about her shift of viewing he/him/his as the default generic pronoun in English; towards being accepting (and preferring over default he/him) of they/them/their. "for until the sixteenth century the English generic singular pronoun was they/them/their, as it still is in English and American colloquial speech." --> I didn't know this. I grew up with English classes telling me never to use they/them as a singular. This stuck with me and I have been having to unlearn it. Reading Le Guin's perspective helps.
  - "But this is admitted directly only in the chapter “The Question of Sex,” the only voice of a woman in the book." -> oh, is that chapter meant to be le guin's voice directly (i mean, i know not directly, but channeling more directly from her to some other in-world observer)?
  - "The most it says is, I think, something like this: If we were socially ambisexual, if men and women were completely and genuinely equal in their social roles, equal legally and economically, equal in freedom, in responsibility, and in self-esteem, then society would be a very different thing. What our problems might be, God knows; I only know we would have them. But it seems likely that our central problem would not be the one it is now: the problem of exploitation—exploitation of the woman, of the weak, of the earth. Our curse is alienation, the separation of yang from yin [and the moralization of yang as good, of yin as bad]. Instead of a search for balance and integration, there is a struggle for dominance. Divisions are insisted upon, interdependence is denied. The dualism of value that destroys us, the dualism of superior/inferior, ruler/ruled, owner/owned, user/used, might give way to what seems to me, from here, a much healthier, sounder, more promising modality of integration and integrity."

[!success] End of spoilers

Ansible drawing

This is the really the wrong note for this, since I made this drawing in 2017 and didn't read LHOD in 2020. So this drawing is actually my mind's representation of an ansible from the Ender's Game series, not LHOD. But this drawing was inspired by an ansible (or what my mind thought it would look like) I saw in a dream (7/24/2017).

I stubbornly do not mark this audiobook re-read on Goodreads as a book read. I just don't track audiobooks for Goodreads. Mainly for the purpose of the yearly Reading Challenge. It doesn't "count" to me. I acknowledge there is inherent and equal value in the audiobook. But I more value the more conscious effort of direct reading, in the context of the reading challenge. ↩︎
had to look up spelling since I've only heard WoT as audiobook. ↩︎

Terra Ignotta

2026-05-17T22:51:01.000Z

A four-part series I really liked. Read in May-August 2025.

Mars trilogy (Kim Stanley Robinson)

2026-09-14T01:17:31.000Z

Overview

Kim Stanley Robinson is one of my favorite authors. Mainly because of this (Mars trilogy) and The Years of Rice And Salt.

The Mars trilogy books: Red Mars; Green Mars; Blue Mars.

The topic is humans colonizing and terraforming Mars.

Very character-driven. You get started with a cast of characters and continue with them through the books and see how the world changes around them and how they change in relation to themselves and to the others.

There is plenty of social commentary, exploration of technology and ideas.

Has strong environmentalist themes -- makes you wonder, to what degree should we preserve the natural state of a world?

Another major topic is on longevity (lifespan extension). (See below: Roots of longevity interest)

Personal experience

Read these during my college years. I recall the feeling of being real happy to get to know the characters. A cozy, comfortable feeling.

I identified most with the characters Nirgal and Art.

Nirgal -- my image of him in my mind is a person who runs around with many social groups and has many friends and is a devoted friend and is very curious about the world. I think about him sometimes when I think about a model for charisma and having positive social energy. Also he loves running and did trail running.
Art -- for some reason the most distinct scene of him in mind is him helping out with organizing a convention. I think this (or maybe just other scenes/interactions) left in me the impression of him being kind of a neutral party who floats between many people and hears different perspectives and also is generally eager and ready to be helpful.

Roots of longevity interest

I read Red Mars from about^[1] June through October of 2019^[2].

And I have this Google Keep note which I made on July 22, 2019:

something to keep watch on
longevity / anti-aging efforts/research

So I'm pretty sure I made that note based on some of the content of Red Mars.

Furthermore, as I described in On Cooking - Veganism and Whole-Food Plant-Based Diet, this reddit post is what directly inspired me to start adopting a WFPB diet. Amazingly, I just checked my Chrome history ("History Trends Unlimited" extension) and I see that I accessed that page on August 3, 2020. My point here is that I recall at some point coming across my Google Keep note above (a while after making it -- i.e. a year) and then being inspired to look into what the current state of longevity research was. I think this then led me to the reddit post. (After looking a bit more into my Chrome history, I see I was already reading posts on the reddit longevity subreddit since around April 2020, but I think it probably wasn't until that August that I started thinking about the dietary aspect of it.) (Ok upon further inspection, I was already on the plantbaseddiet subreddit in April 2020, so maybe I had already seen the above linked reddit post earlier than August. But anyway, I'd still say it's linked to the interest in longevity and thus the Mars inspiration.)

Anyway, I'm kind of trying to say that the Mars trilogy probably had a pretty strong impact on me thinking about longevity stuff and thus turning to WFPB diet and soon after, veganism itself (really not sure if I would have gone strictly vegan if I hadn't first gotten pretty close via the health-minded approach of WFPB).

Environmental dilemma

(Branched off from thinking during The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin)#Ch 1-4): The dilemma: whether to leave natural land untouched (and the series poses this question about large swaths, or all of the land, not just small portions like national parks or such) or to allow human habitation and modification and extraction of resources. On the one hand, it seems obvious to want to preserve the natural beauty of a world, but also, there can be beauty in human culture as well (which may not be able to flourish without modifying the land). This then makes me think of Braiding Sweetgrass, which proposes that humanity can have positive relations with the natural world -- specifically the basis of this is on restorative ecology - fixing what we've done wrong. But in the Mars case, the question is about leaving a brand new world untouched or not.

dates are based on Google Play Book's auto-generated highlights file i.e. the dates of the first and last highlights/notes I made ↩︎
Yes this sounds like a long time. I guess I was busy being a college student. ↩︎

Island by Aldous Huxley

2026-05-13T19:42:55.000Z

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

2026-02-12T04:54:01.000Z

Hyperion series

2026-09-01T20:29:16.000Z

Book of the New Sun

2026-05-21T00:06:21.000Z

Four-part series I liked.

Ursula K. Le Guin

2026-05-21T01:33:30.000Z

One of my favorite authors.

Books I have read:

The Left Hand of Darkness
Always Coming Home
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas (Ursula K. Le Guin short story)
The World for Word is Forest
The Earthsea series (at least the main books of it)

Books I want to read:

Rocannon's World
The Dispossessed
The Telling
The Lathe of Heaven

Kim Stanley Robinson

2026-07-22T01:21:57.000Z

Sci-fi author, one of my favorites. Contender^[1] for favorite overall author.

Also apparently studied under Ursula K. Le Guin (another favorite author).

His books that I've read:

Mars trilogy
The Years of Rice and Salt
- (Contender for one of my overall favorite books)
Shaman

contender because I'm bad at committing to 'favorites' ↩︎

Audiobooks

2026-03-17T22:46:54.000Z

These are the book series I have consumed in audiobook form:

The Divergent series (by Veronica Roth)
The Gentlemen Bastards series (first book is "Lies of Locke Lamora") (by Scott Lynch)
The Realm of the Elderlings (series) (the Farseer Triology x 3, plus the Liveship Traders trilogy+chronicles) by Robin Hobb
The Wheel of Time (series) by Robert Jordan / Brandon Sanderson

Some explanation of my usage of audiobooks in The Wheel of Time (series)#On Audiobooking.

Search query (advice on blogging to attract conversation on niche interests)

2026-07-03T18:55:50.000Z

Notes about https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/search-query

"A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox"
TODO: apparently this is part 3 of a series of posts, starting at https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/first-we-shape-our-social-graph-then
- "you can shape yourself by reshaping your relationships"
"Writing for a general public, you need to be broad and a bit bland. I didn’t want a general public. I wanted a specific set of people, the people who could help me along as a human being obsessed with certain intellectual problems. I didn’t know who these people were. I only knew that they existed. Hence my writing was a search query. It needed to be phrased in such a way that it found these people and, if necessary, filtered others."
The more niche of interests/knowledge that you explore, the more isolated you can feel because you won't know many people interested in those things.
- examples that come to my mind are hypnosis and LDing. There are internet communities for those, but they are things I never really talk about in real life. (trying to change that, at least with LDing so far, on digital garden)
- a solution is to write publicly online about the things, and to realize that there are other ppl online who are interested in them too.
- Encourages to not think that you need to make your niche topics "accessible" i.e. simplify them or avoid jargon. Being true to the niche will get the right ppl engaging.
"The people you will be able to have deep conversations with have, like you, already been surprised by the simple, clear things. They need more to get high. And this “more” will be wildly idiosyncratic. It cannot be summarized in a list of writing rules."
- again, LDing -- (i guess this is one of my niches). I am bored by the basics, and crave the advanced discussions. Same with hypnosis.
  - idea is to write a blog post about my interpretation of the possible dangers of hypnosis e.g. 'can you get someone to do something they don't want to'^[1]
"You ask yourself: What would have made me jump off my chair if I had read it six months ago (or a week ago, or however fast you write)? If you have figured out something that made you ecstatic, this is what you should write. And you do not dumb it down, because you were not stupid six months ago, you just knew less. You also write with as much useful detail and beauty as you can muster, because that is what you would have wanted."
- The point here is to write about what you have learned. If you recently learned something that made you really excited, you can write about it and share it with other people to get them excited too.
  - So... for example, Henrik's Alice dating advice.? (so far I only have my private notes on it, and shared link to the article in dig garden, but haven't added any notes on it. but i feel it was a suuuper exciting article for me. TODO: Write more about it publicly.?)
- "as much useful detail and beauty" <-- a lot of my notes on this digital garden are messy. And that's okay, because I'm not aiming to sell it as something else. But I would like to write more polished things too on here. (direct example, very soon after writing the previous sentence I wrote a more polished post, Rick and Morty's Vegan Propaganda).
"I like it when people don’t just talk in the abstract but show you with examples, preferably many examples, and preferably taken from the real world so they are messy."
- I'm definitely guilty of writing abstractly and without examples sometimes.
"It is crazy-beautiful to have a stranger arrive in your inbox, and they are excited by exactly the same things as you! You start dropping the most obscure references, and they’re like, yeah, read that, love it. "
- reminds me of the time i was on the subway and a group of girls was talking about acting in a production of Great Comet and I asked what part she played and then mentioned I was going to go see Black Swan
I'm not sure the benefit he's talking about (of finding ppl who will then send me more interesting stuff) exactly resonates with me, but there could be something here
- like i'm not sure an issue in my life is that i don't have enough ppl online helping me learn
- then again... I do have some Big Questions and perhaps asking/presenting them online could be useful/interesting. like i would indeed love if i were presenting these Questions, and then random ppl started sending me relevant articles to them which are useful and could help me grow. (ok this advice is clicking now, whoa)
  - What are these Big Questions??
    - finding enough time in life to do all the things i want to do / stretching myself thin with so many activities+interests / making time for creative things
    - the paradoxes of relationships / the issues with dating (or at least in my own experience. e.g. the artificiality of "dates" versus organically getting to know someone (i mean, this is strongly related to the Alice topic, but it's also been on my mind, and even more on my mind since reading the Alice article.))
    - TODO: Think of more
  - But I feel like these Questions are less about what this article is talking about. The article is advising to post things you know, not that you want to know. But I still feel there is similar benefit. What I'm getting at with the Questions is more generically the Learn in Public thing and its benefits. Henrik is saying to also Teach in Public. But the teaching is just the evidence of the learning, so it's kind of the same thing. And even for my Questions, if I make any updates with potential Answers, then that does then count as Teach in Public and fits into Henrik's advice.
    - TODO: Read more about "Learn in Public" and make notes on it
  - The more I think of this, the more I am feeling like I could use this digital garden as a way to attract Answers+Discussion.
    - For example, I have certain ideas for personal projects which sometimes feel unrealistic and infeasible. If someone were to read my thoughts on those projects and have some kind of input about how to move forward with them, that would be phenomenal.
Distribution
- Suggests not being afraid to try to get the attention of bigger bloggers to your posts, because if they re-share it out (the article is pretty heavily using Twitter as an example), it will reach a lot of people.
- "The way messages spread on the internet is by flowing up this order of streams, from people with smaller networks to those with larger, and then it spreads back down through the larger networks."
  - Kind of an unexpected parallel, but this is making me think of an aspect of social relationships/networking. Everybody who has social relationships is also one of these streams. Some people are large connectors -- they cultivate many relationships and know a lot of people and host a lot of events. They have a large reach. Someone who is new to a social sphere might encounter one of these large social connectors and start to enter that person's social river. By wading through this river (e.g. attending an event hosted by the social connector), they can meet other people, who each will have their own streams (some larger, some smaller), and the person can choose (if they are given the opportunity) to explore those tributaries too.
    - "Going over land, from one tributary to another, is harder than going up the stream order and then down again." --> And the parallel here is that when exploring a social network, the easiest thing to do is to keep meeting people through the people you already know, as opposed to just trying to meet people in the wild from scratch every time.
    - I am able to call out this parallel because this is how I developed my social life after moving to NYC. I am often expanding this network by meeting new people through existing social connections. Though, I also find it very fun to meet new people from scratch ("going over land"). I never know where those "streams" might lead, and what interesting people I meet through them, so it's very fun.
- "Useful information will start to stream toward you, turning you into a small hub yourself."
  - Makes me thinks of the Makoism coffee posts where he aggregates interesting articles weekly. I wonder how much of the content he links is stuff he discovered himself or stuff that people have sent to him.
- "You can also post to subreddits and forums, like LessWrong or the SlateStarCodex subreddit, that act like intellectual cafés on the internet. "
- The advice doesn't really resonate with me right now, because I am not really in a state of trying to widely share this digital garden yet. Mostly it's something I'm sharing with friends I know in real life. But I definitely am writing with a broader audience in mind, so I will keep some of this advice in mind.
- I do love how the incentive for following this advice is simply to be able to receive interesting articles/whatever from people, to learn more about interesting things, and to be able to share interesting things out to people. No profit or marketing. (Well... someone running a substack with paid private posts (e.g. the blog this article is on, Escaping Flatland) is definitely a profit-driven incentive for attracting interest in your blog. But it doesn't have to be.)

(the answer generally is, probably not, but also there is some gray area because you can temporarily distort someone's understanding of reality, and in that distorted reality, it could make sense for them to do something in a way that wouldn't make sense in their normal state of reality. For example, you first give them a hypnotic suggestion to imagine that they are in their bank, then you suggest to them that they want to add some cash into their bank account.) ↩︎

Looking for Alice

2026-07-09T23:33:58.000Z

https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/looking-for-alice

Dating advice which feels refreshing.

My main takeaways:

Introduces a concept of "pattern matching" -- during the process of learning what you are looking for in a person, gradually narrowing down your criteria and choosing to spend more time in spaces where the people who fit your criteria are more likely to be. It's something I've been already doing but it's nice to hear it affirmed. It's also a good reminder to be selective about what spaces I spend my limited time and energy in (not just for the sake of potential romance, but also for generally developing connections with the people I will most likely resonate with.)
Emphasizes the importance of lowering your filter when engaging with someone ("jump directly to the strange parts"). Showing someone how you really communicate, what your real interests are, and how your mind works will make it clear more quickly whether you are compatible.
To me, this has been resonating with the idea of organically getting to know someone over time before introducing a tone of romance. I find myself asking -- how do I know if I want to enter the tone of romance with someone, until I get to know them a little bit? Sometimes, the simple act of going on a proclaimed-romantic date with someone feels like too much of a declaration, and forces the pressure of making a decision on whether to continue the romantic tone. I may feel some interest in someone, but not want to make that declaration until I get to know them a little bit more. When it's more obvious that there is romantic potential, then it would be time to request a formal date.

Notes I took while reading

The way I found this article -- for some reason, I wanted to search for indie web dating advice, so I found an indie web search engine: https://searchmysite.net/search/?q=dating
-> first result was this article https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/looking-for-alice
- looks like a cool site(blog). I'm sold after reading the first couple sentences of the article
can't believe i found this by some random indie web search site with the keyword "dating". I feel like this is the perfect article for me to be reading right now and it's so good.
Also, "Escaping flatland" is I think the name of the blog. I assume it's a reference to the flatland book? (which I recall was a lot about dating? i should read my highlights)
" I don’t know much about dating. The reason they ask me is that I am a nerd and I am married to Johanna. Johanna is an Alice. That is: she is a singular human being, that I happen to love."
- point i think: the person you end up with will be the right person in a unique way to you. perhaps a sense of loving/dating isn't really defined/clear until you meet that right person
- "Don’t assume you know what you’re looking for"
  - "thinking in categories would interfere with my ability to freely pattern-match for the particular type of individual I resonate with"
  - Feels like this article is really hitting a need I've been having for a more analytical (or just explained out in a more analytical way) approach to dating.
  - "So what do you do? You go talk to a thousand people (increasingly less randomly sampled) and see if there are any patterns in who makes you feel excited and alive and true and heard. And then you start hanging out with people like that."
    - I love this. Resonates with my thinking. So good to hear it stated. I feel like most of my dating experience has still been in the mostly-random mode. That's kind of how it felt at the beginning with pretty random dates from dating apps. Then branched out to trying to meet ppl IRL at meetup groups. A lot of my journey has been narrowing down what groups to try out / what spaces to spend more time in.
  - Overall point here is that you learn what you're looking for by meeting diverse ppl and then narrowing down that search by what feels right/important for you.
    - my own song lyric: "as your shape takes form, I'll learn to recognize" 😃
- "You can’t afford not talking to Alice"
  - (Alice is essentially a placeholder name representing "the person that is perfectly right for you")
  - "I’d never been as intrigued by a human being before."
    - It's rare for me to meet someone like this (Which in the context of this article (especially "i'd never been') means that I simply haven't met my Alice (or possible contenders for Alice) yet) (or perhaps my Alan because I am looking for a man. (just to be clear.))
  - "And the thing is, there aren’t that many people you can have an amazing life with. Maybe 10,000, spread unevenly across the globe? ...the number is small enough that you can’t afford to be casual about it. You have to never let someone like that pass you by."
    - "[that] you can have an amazing life with". <-- good reminder. that is the goal. it takes time to know if a person is someone you can have an amazing life with. It's easy to judge things after spending only a short amount of time together with a person. You can't really know if they could be a long term partner until spending a lot more time together.
  - "I spent the next eighteen months trying hard to make her feel like I wasn’t obsessed with her, though I stopped to talk with her every time I saw her—in the supermarket, at clubs, in the street. We had a lot of fun; she wasn’t into it."
    - I am so riveted by this story. At this point I am gasping, like, we know she is going to be his life partner, but eighteen months of pursuit and she isn't into it?
  - "But if the energy is Alice, you should also not drop it."... "When someone you resonate with is reluctant, you have to be alert to moods. Make sure you are the one that backs off before they do. Signal that what you like is this particular thing right here right now, not anything that you are hoping to game it into. And don’t flirt. But keep talking."
    - Not quite sure what to make of "don't flirt"
    - also not quite sure what to make of "signal you like this thing right now"
    - But, I think it's good advice to focus on talking as the signal and interest-engine rather than other forms of flirting.
    - Also includes a caveat that they are not advising being stalker-ish and creepy. They are saying to continue pursuing someone even if they are reluctant, but only if you "are the one that backs off before they do"... I feel it might be a hard line to draw. And, how much time can you spend on a person when they aren't displaying interest? But then again, I suppose we are talking about a very specific case where this is a person who seems to very likely be the kind of person who you strongly resonate with. It's not just a "oh this person seems to match my vibes and I'm attracted to them", it's more of "oh my god this person clearly matches the criteria I know is right/important to me, and they are incredibly interesting to me, and I feel infinitely wanting to talk more to them and learn about them, and there is also reciprocation in conversation and interest" (not sure about that last part ("and interest") as applied to the author's story, because "she wasn't into it")
- "Speed run authentic"
  - "She was more fascinated by the fact that, unlike all the other twenty-three-year-olds who didn’t know what they were talking about, I wrote about the thoughts that passed through my head as if my thoughts mattered, unironically... That is perhaps the most solid dating advice I have, by the way—show the inside of your head in public, so people can see if they would like to live in there."
    - Feels good to have this surprise benefit come up for writing in this digital garden! Extremely validating.
  - "There is a trope in romance that when you meet the person you are supposed to be with, you can talk about anything. You can apparently invert that too: if you talk about anything that pops into your mind, you can tell if you're supposed to be with the person by judging their reaction. "
  - "...speedrun relationships by jumping directly to the strange parts."
    - I'm definitely guilty of sometimes not talking about certain interests/hobbies early on
  - "speedrun relationships by jumping directly to the strange parts. There is really no point in going to a café to talk safely (if you can avoid it). You want to rapidly extract as much information as possible, so you can figure out what you like and so that you can pattern match, and you want to communicate as much as possible, too, so you can filter people who wouldn’t fit you anyway (which is why keeping a blog is good)."
    - Always a good reminder that I do indeed want to filter out the ppl who aren't a good fit, and the only way to really do that is being fully myself and communicating that self as best as possible. (obviously there's a line here of not oversharing / overwhelming at the wrong time)
  - "The type of person I’m assuming we’re looking for here is 1) someone that you will find fascinating to talk to after you’ve talked for 20,000 hours, 2) you feel comfortable with them talking through the hardest and most painful decisions you will face in your life, and 3) the conversation is wildly generative for both of you, in that it brings you out, helps you become."
    - #3 is: looking for mutual growth
  - "If you want to prompt someone to be authentic and playful and generative, you usually just need to ask them something where they have a rich experience to pull from but have never pulled an answer from that experience before. If you ask two or three increasingly detailed questions about something they tell you, you get there."
    - has an example from the documentary Into the Abyss about making a guy break down crying by asking him to expand on his stated interest in squirrels.
    - I like this as a conversational skill to develop + one that I kind of already have. Being able to find a thread in what the person has stated which you can follow and expand on in an interesting way. Get them talking. I see how it's important to get someone out of the stock/default question/answer sequences. I do also just love going deep and seeing someone's thoughts on things. (It's also one of the things that makes a date interesting even when you're not sure if it's really going anywhere.)
  - "Or you can prompt them by yourself going into uncharted territory, perhaps thinking aloud about something that confuses you. "
    - TODO: Linked article to read: https://www.experimental-history.com/p/good-conversations-have-lots-of-doorknobs
  - (on having this type of conversation) "But when I do it with Johanna—especially in the first few years—it was like my entire mental landscape broke apart and all was possibility and flux."
    - very romantic / idealistic sounding, but I love the concept of this one person just absolutely being uniquely captivating. I'm not sure if this article is making me more confident in what I'm looking for, or simply more deluded in finding "that perfect person" that will never really exist --> The question I find myself asking when I have these thoughts: Is it even worth having a long term relationship with someone if they aren't making me feel this way?
      - but also have to not fall into the trap that just because someone doesn't feel this way at first, doesn't mean they never will.... But also, this article is kind of proposing that you would realize pretty much right away. ?? maybe. (definitely saying that in the context of this type of conversation but also kind of overall too, upon immediately meeting someone. the cohesive point here i guess is that when you meet someone who seems interesting, do this type of deep conversation, and it should give you a decent idea if they have that special uniqueness which strongly resonates with you)
  - "That open conversational space, which is the heart of our relationship, is not something I can explain; it is not something I knew I was looking for; I’m not even the same person after having been there. It does not look anything like I imagined a relationship would or should look."
- "It is easy to get swept up by other people’s opinions about the people you date"
  - It can be challenging to communicate/explain a relationship/date to other people, especially when there is a unique quality to it that doesn't follow common tropes. Because ppl may not understand the uniqueness, "This will tilt the playing field against incomprehensible, singular, and deeply personal relationships." --> be aware of how that social dynamic affects you, i.e. just because it's hard to explain the quality/uniqueness of the person to your friend, or if they don't see "it", doesn't mean you shouldn't pursue it
  - Friends opinions can make you confused. Give an example from War and Peace (which I'm currently in-progress reading at the time of reading this article) !!!! --> When Pierre and Heléne meet, everyone is so excited and happy about them, which doesn't really match Pierre's true experience, but he is confused/overwhelmed by the supposed rationality of it and so agrees to the marriage.
    - (I remember reading that part and being like, oh no pierre, what are you doing, you literally are thinking so strongly about how you know she is not a good match, and then you marry her anyway.)
  - "letting the feelings of others decide who you get attracted to"
    - I feel i need to think through this and monitor moving forward to make sure this isn't happening for me
- (Ending summary of article): "
  What I’m saying is this:

You are born with this weird interiority that no one else can see.

You can’t see it either at first. But if you run enough experiments you get a sense of how that inner space behaves. In particular, you can figure out which types of people can fuse with your interiority and expand it.

You will not be able to explain how this fusion works. So don’t do it.

But when the interiorities do fuse: notice how things are set in motion.
"
-
```

From comments section
- Henrik: "I have masks. And I also think authenticity is a slippery idea—I don't think it is precisely that you have an authentic core. Your core is shaped by the people you talk to. But there is something like a seed--it says, oh with these people I feel slightly more alive, doing these things I feel more alive, reading these books, and as you move toward those things you gradually change into something that feels more "authentic", more distinct and different etc. Do you have anyone where you feel more spontaneous and yourself? What other friends does that person have? Do you have any hobbies where you feel more yourself -- what if you go deeper down that rabbit hole? It wasn't seamless for me, though pretty fast: I realized as a (very lonely) teenager that writing made me feel alive and started seeking out those scenes and tried out a few until I found some where I felt really excited, and there I met my wife etc."

Would I eat a cow if it was treated like a dog

2026-08-01T15:31:14.000Z

Sounds like kind of a silly question, doesn't it? But it's a serious one.

Inspired by this line someone wrote: "If I wouldn't eat a dog no matter what, why should I want to suddenly eat a cow if it has been treated like a dog?".

The "treatment" we are talking about here is with regards to the conditions of the cow's life^[1]. For the cow to have a "good" life where it's free to do what it wants to and it isn't mistreated in any way. Taken care of as nicely as someone's pet dog would be. (We can imagine the same scenario for a chicken or pig or any other farm animal, too.)

Well, first, I ask, would I not eat a dog? No matter what?

A couple things come to mind:

I generally have no reason to eat a dog, so yeah why would I
"No matter what" --> well if it was a survival situation, and I needed to eat the dog to live, then yes I would (but obviously still generally I would never choose to eat a dog if I didn't have to)
There is obviously the cultural association that dogs are our pets/friends, so from that lens, it feels particularly wrong to eat a dog^[2]

So say I'm hungry and a dog strolls by. Will I go kill and eat the dog? No. Or say a dog-meat merchant strolls by. Will I buy the dog meat and eat it for lunch? No. Why? Because I have yummy fruits and vegetables and rice and beans and tofu in my fridge that I can eat and that provide me all the nutrition I need to be healthy and strong and live long. There's no need to eat the dog. The dog is my friend^[3]. The dog is (or was...) a living creature, just like me. Even if it is already dead, and that eatable meat is already there, ready to be used: I will still not use it. Why? At this point, for me, it just feels a little weird to eat something that used to be alive. If I have plant options, then let the living stay living and let the dead stay dead -- not digested by me. It feels almost like sacrilege to eat the dead, like I'm violating the memory and dignity of that animal. (Related train of thought in Rick and Morty's Vegan Propaganda#Interlude An Anecdote on Animal Suicide and Roadkill Meat).

Ok, well, everything I just said above can be said about the cow strolling by as well. I don't need to eat the cow. I have yummy plants in my fridge. The cow is my friend, or could be, just as much as any dog could be. I'm certainly not going to hope that someone kills the cow early in its lifespan (because elderly-cow meat I think is not good to eat), because, well, that would not be very nice to the cow, would it? Let's treat the cow like a creature that deserves respect and deserves to be treated well -- killing an animal that doesn't want to die will never be good treatment, no matter how pleasant of a life it had so far. And, like I said for the dog, it also just feels weird/wrong to partake in consumption of the animal that used to be alive. Sure, there's nothing un-natural about humans eating meat, because food-chain has been a thing for all-time. But given that I have plants as an option, I'd prefer not to despoil the beauty that this creature's life was.

The above is just my gut feeling and the reasoning that comes to mind when posed with this question, but not a full analytical approach to the philosophy of not consuming animal products. The truth of consuming animal products in the real world is that it's connected to the animal agriculture industry and the associated horrors.

because, no, we are not talking about a cow that we bring to the dog park, feed dog food, and teach it tricks ↩︎
likely will touch on this more, but even saying this is an example of speciesism - what really is different from dog vs other animal? (if the dog is my own family's dog, then it's different, because there is real emotional relationship there. But saying that you wouldn't eat any random dog just because it is a dog is strange because a dog is as much of an animal as a cow or pig is, so why are you okay eating cow/pig but not a dog?) ↩︎
just as any other living creature would/could be (presuming it's not attacking me) ↩︎

Why do vegans want imitation meat

2026-04-29T14:01:23.000Z

#veganism

(I've been vegan since ~2020.)

This question comes up sometimes. Vegans don't want to eat animal products, so why do they want to eat something that looks/tastes like animal products?

There could be several ways to answer this. Let me try to answer it in a slightly abstract way that is a breakdown of my instinctual thoughts.

What really is the experience of eating a particular food item? I'd say there's two main parts:

The intangibles -- the culture around the food item, the people you usually share it with, your own experiences and associations with the food item, and facts of the food item related to how it was made and where it came from, and its impact on your health.
The direct tangible experience -- the flavor/taste of the food, its appearance, its texture, its smell. Everything related to your sensory experience of the food while (or before) you eat it.

Allow me to briefly imagine a hypothetical vegan person and a part of their journey. Imagine they spent much of their life enjoying a particular non-vegan, animal-based product. Most vegan substitutes or recipes could fit as an example here -- we could talk about direct meat (e.g. ground beef, replaced with imitation ground beef e.g. from the Impossible or Beyond brands) or a more complex recipe (like a lasagna made with vegan cheese instead of dairy cheese).

Suddenly (or gradually) this person^[1] becomes vegan, and they give up this food item. If we're talking about "vegan" in the strict sense of the term (as it is generally understood), then it means the person likely became vegan due to ethical concerns related to animal agriculture and the treatment of animals, and came to a decision to not put their money towards people/corporations that promote and directly cause suffering and death to animals when it is not necessary to do so to maintain a fully healthy human diet. The person likely came to the realization that the brief pleasure they experience upon consuming animal products does not justify the amount of suffering that the animal experienced throughout its lifetime, the pain of its death, and the shortening of the animal's normal lifespan, in order for the person to have that food experience.

The person likely feels that they made the right decision to move away from animal products.

Yet, when thinking about the experience of food, the reasons for going vegan only touch one part of the list of food-related experiences we described above (the intangibles of where the food came from what had to happen for it to get to your plate).

There is so much more to the experience of these food items that they used to enjoy before they decided to go vegan and give them up. Appreciation (and cravings!) for the flavors and textures of that food don't just disappear. The person may miss eating the food, even though they rationally understand why they've given it up and feel good about continuing to do so.

Vegan substitutes, including mock/imitation meats, can provide the familiar flavors and textures which the person enjoyed, without carrying the background of harm and suffering toward animals which are the reasons the person stopped eating the animal-sourced items.

Are the imitations always perfect, or even great (or even good)? Well, sometimes the imitations can be pretty good, and dare I say indistinguishable from the animal counterpart^[2]. And sometimes the imitations are not great, or even straight up bad-tasting or just a poor imitation of what they're claiming to imitate. But the point is that the mimics get us closer to the food item we are missing, even if it's not perfect.

To an extent, the merit of an imitation is up to personal taste, and also I feel a more productive outlook of poor imitations would be to consider the evolving nature of food science and recipe exploration (the imitations will get better and better) rather than taking it to mean that imitations are inherently bad-tasting.

Additionally, regarding the intangible experiences of the culture around the food item and the people you share it with -- it can be challenging for a vegan to find themselves suddenly displaced from these cultural and social associations. Suddenly they may no longer feel comfortable partaking in the food-based gatherings their friends or family hold. A vegan substitute can help get them a little closer to the experience they are fond of partaking in.

Note: I'm kind of describing this "hypothetical vegan person" in terms of an archetype that I feel is likely pretty common; but it may not reflect the experience/journey of every vegan person. Also worth noting, in this case I'm mainly talking about someone who for a substantial part of their life has not been vegan, and then becomes vegan, such that they have memories of non-vegan products to reflect on and perhaps "miss" the experience of. Though, this topic also applies to vegans-since-birth (or for most of their life), who I'm sure also can appreciate the variety of textures/flavors that imitation meat products may offer. ↩︎
one case in point that gets pretty close could be mock chicken nuggets.... Animal nuggets are so heavily processed that, well, heavily processed mock meat doesn't get too far off. Note that I'm not making commentary on here on healthiness of either group of items. ↩︎

Why do I stay vegan enough though I miss certain foods

2026-07-03T18:55:50.000Z

No one has specifically asked me this question (not directly at least) but it kind of is a certain subtext to the vegan experience, so I will answer it.

The answer:
The intellectual and rational refusal to support animal exploitation/suffering/unnecessary_death far outweighs the sensation of satisfying the desire for this "missed" food item or any pleasure that might arise from consuming it.

It's not like I think about this much, though. I don't. It usually just surfaces when I'm around people eating non-vegan food and I would (pre-going-vegan) want to try it or share it, but obviously choose not to. For example, being with friends who are partaking in a cake makes me crave a cake. If the cake was vegan, I would obviously partake, and not think any different of it. So in this situation, it's not the non-vegan-ness of it (meaning, it's not that I find the vegan version inferior), but a matter of convenience and proximity. Of course, there are also foods that don't have quite good enough substitutes to really make me able to say the vegan option isn't inferior (e.g. not sure I've really ever found an adequate cheesecake substitute, yet)... So in a case like that, we go back to the "far outweighs" statement -- it's a very intentional choice to adhere to the philosophy of veganism and sacrifice what may be pleasure in satisfying a craving.

Veganism

2026-07-03T18:55:50.000Z

I've been vegan since around 2020. My reasons for staying vegan include the health benefits, an opposition to animal exploitation, and the environmental benefits. Read On Cooking - Veganism and Whole-Food Plant-Based Diet for some more description of my journey.

Notes about veganism:

Rick and Morty's Vegan Propaganda

2026-07-24T16:10:31.000Z

Whoops, it's been two and a half years since I've watched a Rick and Morty episode! Back then, I had watched up through season 6. Then there was the wait for the next season, and I just never got back into it. But now apparently I'm in the mood for it again (and I'm over the fact that they changed the voice actor(s?) starting in S7 -- not that I disagree with their decision to do so, but it had me a little worried that the show would feel different).

FAQ:^[1]

Given this note's title, do I anticipate more examples of vegan propaganda in Rick & Morty? No, not necessarily, though I wouldn't be surprised. It's enough for me to start with the instance in S7 E4.
"Vegan propaganda" ?? -- take this phrase lightly. It's obviously not actual propaganda. It's just how I'm describing media that has themes around exploitation, especially when it comes to food, and especially when it has a message that is sympathetic to those being exploited. And generally, yes, the exploited one would be an animal (though veganism at its core is against all exploitation, including of humans).
- At least for me, being vegan means that these themes in media obviously stand out to me. But the message isn't always obvious to non-vegans.^[2]

If you aren't familiar with Rick and Morty, and don't mind getting spoiled, feel free to read this. (But honestly, just watch the episode first!) It helps to have a sense of what kind of show Rick and Morty is (hint: weird, chaotic, cartoonishly gory, and often thought-provoking (and funny!)).

Warning: Spoilers for Rick and Morty Season 7 Episode 4

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

But he was delicious. I hope that helps make it right.

The episode gets straight to the point.

It opens with the family eating Rick's delicious spaghetti with bolognese sauce. The family is raving about its deliciousness (and practically foaming at the mouth, with "sauce").

Pretty quickly, Morty finds out the secret to the deliciousness -- Rick has taken the "food" from the corpse of an alien (which closely resembles a human). Apparently, the people on the alien's planet turn into delicious spaghetti when they die, but only if they die of suicide (it's something specific to the biology of the people on that planet).

With that reveal, I started to sense that the vegan-adjacent themes. It's not about cannibalism (even though the alien looks like a human) because they are definitely not humans (humans don't turn into delicious spaghetti upon suicide; that's enough to differentiate the species^[3]). The parallel to veganism so far is: You have a sudden realization about the food that you've been loving - it comes from a dark, morally-questionable place.

Morty feels bad about it. He insists that Rick tell him the name of the people they've been eating as spaghetti. They end up at the funeral of the spaghetti-man, and Morty speaks to the mourners:

Hi. I just want to be honest about something. After Lawrence died, we… …ate him. Wait, we’re not… werewolves or anything, we come from a planet, where to us, when you guys kill yourselves, you turn into what my planet considers food. Spaghetti. It brought us together. Lawrence. Brought us together. It just felt wrong not having anyone know that. But he was delicious. I hope that helps make it right.^[4]

Morty genuinely feels bad about the whole situation. At the same time, he is unapologetic about enjoying the taste of the food.

I couldn't help but laugh at those last two sentence -- I was 100% sure that there were vegan undertones at this point. One of the most common reasons that people cite for not wanting (or not "being able") to go vegan, even when talked through a discussion of the moral wrongness of supporting an industry of unnecessary^[5] animal suffering, is that meat (and other animal products) simply tastes too good for them to give it up. Any vegan will say that just because the animal "was delicious", it does not "make it right" to have killed them.

Ah, but here is the nuance of the Rick and Morty presentation of this topic -- as I write this, I realize that the nuance actually makes this less vegan propoganda than I might originally have framed it as. At the same time, the point I'm about to make does not negate the vegan theme, but rather approaches it from a slightly different angle than I was originally thinking.

These aliens don't have spaghetti inside them just by dying any death -- it has to be suicide. So they can't be farmed (raised and killed for their insides) in the same way that Earthly animals are. We've hit the topic of consent here. While the aliens are not necessarily given consent to be eaten (though this does come up later in the episode), they have chosen to die.

This changes everything.

[!success] End of spoilers
(fornow)

Interlude: An Anecdote on Animal Suicide and Roadkill Meat

I didn't realize until getting to this point that I have a recent and relevant anecdote. But it's perfect.

A couple days ago, I was chatting with someone at a friend's birthday party. When it came up that I am vegan, he asked me if I would eat meat if the animal killed itself. I gave him a puzzled look and asked what animal would ever do that. He said something about pigs. My brief response pretty much was:

it's ridiculous because animals have the biological instinct to survive (and, though it's apparently a bit controversial, there isn't evidence that any animals purposefully kill themselves), and
even if the animal did intentionally kill itself, it has no way to communicate that intention to us humans, so we couldn't distinguish an intentional death from an unintentional one -- so this (unknowable) distinction would not be relevant to a decision on whether to eat a dead animal or not.

However -- it does bring up another relevant question. Would I (or vegans in general) eat an animal if it died accidentally? An actual example would be roadkill -- e.g. a deer hit by a car.

Some vegans will just say: no, it's an animal, and vegans don't eat animals, regardless of how it died. End of story.

Sometimes I don't mind that simple response, but also, I approach veganism from a rational and logical frame of thinking. So there needs to be more nuanced discussion on edge cases like this.

Eating roadkill is truthfully very different from eating a farmed animal -- and when it comes down to it, it may actually be an ethical action. Let's walk through the difference.

For traditionally farmed animal to get onto your plate, you (in most cases) paid someone for the meat. That exchange of money incentivizes the farmer (and the animal agriculture industry in general) to continue raising and slaughtering future animals. It's a matter of supply and demand. If people demand a product (which you do by purchasing it), the people who want your money will continue to provide it. And in a more direct sense, when you take from the supply of meat, more meat must be produced to keep up the supply for other people^[6]. In the world of animal agriculture, this unfortunately means the continuation of the exploitation of animals and the cause of unnecessary suffering and early death for those animals.

But the roadkill, on the other hand, is completely isolated from the economics of the animal agriculture industry. If you choose to consume the meat of that deer, any moral dilemmas are (mostly) contained within the bubble of you and the deer. You aren't sending a signal out to anyone that you want them to keep killing more animals.

In this way, it would indeed be better if you only ever ate road-killed meat. You wouldn't be paying for any kind of animal exploitation. (And presumably you wouldn't be influencing drivers to purposefully hit more deer so you could eat them. If so, then that would be an exploitation situation. You would be causing pain to the animal and taking its life, for your own benefit, when you do not need to.)

And yet, even if road-kill is ethical compared to farmed animal, I personally would still never eat meat in this situation. Why?

I honestly have not thought super deeply about this topic before. But my instinct is that it still just... feels wrong. After being vegan for five years, I feel no desire to consume the flesh of an animal. I seem to have developed this gut-feeling aversion to viewing the carcass of a once-living creature as being food at all. I would feel the same way if the hypothetical were about an accidentally-killed cow or pig or etc. rather than a deer.

Plus, a big reason for staying vegan for me is the health benefits of eating a whole-food plant-based diet. So all ethical points aside, I still wouldn't want to incorporate this hypothetical roadkill situation into my diet. But again, I feel no desire.

But I guess I have to acknowledge that if someone approached me and asked if it's okay for them to eat roadkill, the answer would have to be yes. They genuinely are not hurting anyone by doing it. (My own caveat here would be that by consuming an animal product, they are still promoting the idea of eating animal products to other people in society, which can contribute to the continuation of traditional animal exploitation.)

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

[!DANGER] Spoilers ahead.

Back to the spaghetti people

As I was saying, at the start of the Rick and Morty episode, the aliens who commit suicide chose to die.

So it it ethical to eat them?

Well, similar to the roadkill situation, you are doing no harm by eating them. They are already dead.

And yet, something still feels wrong. The person did not give consent to be eaten upon their death. This would be similar, in our world, to someone's body being used for research after they died (though, this seems like its own nuanced subject that I won't dive deeper into here).

We do see engagement with this thought in the episode. Morty is invited back to the planet and is shown a video of another citizen, who was terminally ill, stating that they desire to be eaten after they perform self-euthanasia. This is explicit consent, so I'd say this is the most ethical way to eat a spaghetti-person^[7].

But then, as often happens in this show, things take a turn for the worse.

The government of the planet realizes that they can profit off of the spaghetti-turning biology. Since spaghetti is only manifested after suicide, they start to make the conditions of the planet incredibly depressing. They blot out the sun so it is gray and faded. They televise only bad reality tv. Their billboards promote self-sacrifice (to be someone's food) as something valiant.

The planet has turned into a factory farm, and in the government's (dollar-sign) eyes, the planet is thriving.

Pop quiz. Is this exploitation?

Answer: Yes.

Dictionary.com says: "Exploitation is the act of selfishly taking advantage of someone or a group of people in order to profit from them or otherwise benefit oneself."

The government is exploiting the people for its own profit.

Is it morally acceptable to consume the spaghetti from the exploited people? No! Someone purchasing the spaghetti is adding to the demand and thus will lead to the government continuing to devalue the life of the citizens and essentially coerce them into suicide. This is the strongest parallel to real-world animal agriculture that I'm sensing in this episode (even if there is a nuanced difference with this suicide caveat).

And finally, the end of the episode (and Rick's solution to the problem) brings the topic to a close, with yet another analogue to vegan ideas.

Turning away from the spaghetti industry

Rick decides he needs to put an end to the spaghetti-from-people industry. He locates a spaghetti-man who is close to his natural death, and offers him the chance to stop the spaghetti industry through his euthanasia. Rick plugs the man up to a fancy machine which, right before the man's self-inflicted death, projects the man's lifetime of memories to the people of the planet (and presumably all would-be spaghetti-consumers, who were lining up to buy more people-spaghetti). The projection depicts the most significant and emotional moments of the man's life, including falling in love, getting married, and the passing of his wife.

The man dies. Rick then slices open the man's belly and offers Morty the "delicious" spaghetti. Morty glances at it ... and then immediately vomits. Many who had been watching the video also vomits.

The spaghetti has not changed, but Morty, and all of the prior spaghetti-consumers, have. Suddenly, the idea of eating the spaghetti (or having eaten it previously) has become so revolting that it's vomit-inducing. It's clear that they will never consume the spaghetti again.

What happened?

With the pure, unfiltered video of the dying man's life-moments, the would-be spaghetti-consumers were granted a new perspective. It forced them to internalize the truth that the spaghetti-people are not just soon-to-be-spaghetti vessels to be eaten; they were real people who had a life experience just like the consumers.

The thing is, there was never secrecy around the way the spaghetti was generated. The consumers knew that the people had to die of suicide in order for them to get their spaghetti. But they didn't care, and consumed from the industry anyway. It took a change of perspective for them to re-think (maybe subconsciously) the feeling of desire for the "food".

Morty: You couldn’t change everyone’s taste, but you could make it… distasteful. It wasn’t the death, was it?

Rick: It was the complexity of life.

Morty hits an important point -- even though the people may still think the spaghetti tastes good^[8], something mental has shifted that makes them view it no longer as desirable food. (Similar to my point in the interlude about the gut-instinct undesirability of road-killed deer meat even if it technically it could be considered ethical.)

Re-thinking food in our own world

It's not hard to draw the parallel from the episode to the real world. Becoming vegan is to re-think where our food came from. Most of us are born into a society where consuming animal products is a normal thing which almost everyone around us does, and there is no reason to question it. That is, until something makes us re-think it. For me, it was a video of Ed Winters talking about the philosophy of veganism. For others, they may chance upon a Cube of Truth demonstration and see the gory footage of the animal industry.

Whatever plants the seed in a person's mind, they stop seeing their (animal-based) food as just food. It came from an animal who was previously alive, and who had an experience of life. It may be a very different experience of life than humans have, but we come to understand that animals can have emotions, can be playful, can feel bonds with fellow animals (including humans!), and, above all, we see that they can experience pain and suffering.

None of that should sound surprising. We all know these things. And yet, just like the spaghetti-eaters, we don't think about it, or don't care, or don't see it as something to question. But when we connect the dots between the food on our plate and the animal that it used to be^[9], this new perspective can make the food suddenly distasteful. And this can be enough for a person to start changing their choices around food.

Rick as activist

In a strange way^[10], Rick was being an activist. He forced people to confront where their food came from, and made a real difference. This isn't too different from what vegan activists aim to do when they have open conversation with non-vegans to try to get them to see a new perspective on the systems of exploitation in our society.

Final thoughts

I enjoyed thinking more deeply about this episode and exploring the parallels which instinctively were obvious to me (but which were not fully formed in my mind until I actually went through the process of writing this). Great example of deeper meaning that can be extracted in media, and the value of contemplating it. This was fun! I'm glad I have this digital garden as a place to motivate me to do things like this. One of the earliest things I read about digital gardens / personal sites / blogs in general was encouraging people to do a talk-back to media you consume. To directly respond to what you've consumed is probably the most direct way to follow the Create More Than You Consume advice.

no, nobody has asked these questions ↩︎
An example of this that baffles me is the movie Chicken Run. The movie is about chickens on a farm that are trying to escape being turned into meat pies. The movie has real emotion and it's driven by making the viewer empathetic toward the chickens' survival. And, with a very small sample size on my end, for some people it does not even cross their mind that this may be related to the topic of veganism. ↩︎
technically.... we need to know if these aliens can have viable offspring with humans to really classify them as a different species. But, please. They aren't human. (Maybe there is another perspective to this, though.) ↩︎
taken conveniently from https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/That's_Amorte/Transcript ↩︎
"unnecessary" because humans can survive+thrive on a fully plant-based diet ↩︎
Obviously your one hamburger does not literally correspond to another fraction of a cow needing to be killed, but it adds up in the grander scheme. How many less cows would need to die during your lifespan if you personally never ate another hamburger? ↩︎
... in case you were considering doing so. ↩︎
semi-related: Why do I stay vegan enough though I miss certain foods? ↩︎
or, for animal-derived products like milk and eggs, think about the animal that had to suffer to produce it and eventually was still killed earlier than its normal lifespan due to being part of the industry ↩︎
(...if we ignore that he himself continued to eat the spaghetti) ↩︎

Asked Why Am I Vegan

2026-05-18T16:04:02.000Z

#veganism

"What made you go vegan?"

This is one of the most common questions I get asked by new people I meet. It's up there on the list with "what do you do" and "what brought you to new york" -- assuming we've gotten to a point in the conversation about my dietary habits.

It makes sense why I get asked this. If someone told me about a major life decision they made or were making, I would ask them for their reasoning as well.

My answer usually sounds almost exactly like this:

"I read online that a whole-food plant-based diet is healthy, so I gradually transitioned to that. Then I eventually learned about the ethical side of things (like for animal-cruelty stuff) and went fully strict vegan."

I'm happy enough to give this answer, and it's a concise summary of my reasons for following veganism.

However, I often feel an internal pang when answering the question. Usually it's because I am wondering how deeply the person is going to engage with my answer -- and usually, it's not deep. They accept my answer and move on with the conversation.

I guess there's a part of me hoping they will want to learn more about the "ethical" part. I know that small talk is unlikely to lead to an intense discussion or debate. I certainly am not looking to do that every time I breach my dietary preferences with someone. Yet I still am hoping for just a little more, and it is almost never goes there.

Maybe this is just the nature of it being a charged topic. Or maybe I can rephrase my standard answer so as to invite more discussion if I want it to. Or use more charged phrasing so as to invite more of a reaction. -- but that's not really my style.

Anyway, I can at least go deeper on this site.

I've been intending to expand more on the ethical arguments, in my own words^[1]. For now:

Obviously, anyone can find information online about the ethical arguments for veganism. But I believe there is value in me sharing my own understanding of it. ↩︎

Animal Agriculture As An Atrocity

2026-05-31T13:53:56.000Z

#veganism

Animal kill clock: https://animalclock.org

I believe that some day, humanity will look back at what we have done to animals as an atrocity, alongside other examples of war and genocide.

I believe that most people understand that animals can suffer and feel pain and do not want to die. The dominant ideology in our culture is to allow this harm anyway, for the sake of taste preferences and tradition.

Allow me to forecast, at the risk of erring. There is a chance that someday, the technology of lab-grown meat (and similar animal products) will advance sufficiently such that they will become cheaper than animal-originated products and taste nearly the same (or close enough that it hardly matters). If this happens, and lab-grown products become readily available, I would expect there to be a consumer shift towards these products. If there is a product that is cheaper and tastes the same (and hopefully is no more unhealthy than the originals), why would people not choose this option?

When it is easy to make this shift, I would also expect a significant proportion of the population to become more receptive to the ideas that animal activists have been voicing (that it is wrong to harm animals when unnecessary^[1]). This will become a more popular mindset, especially because less people would be using animal products. It's easier to take a stance when you don't have to work hard to stop violating it.

Do I wish more people could open their eyes to AAAAA before it is (presuming my forecast above may ever come true) easier to do so? Of course I do. This is the work of the vegan activist. But social movements take time. Science/technology takes time.

Must I spell out the atrocity?

Various sources will show that globally, we kill 50-80 billion land animals every year for food. Each of these animals had an experience of life. They likely were extremely uncomfortable (and likely were brutalized) during their life and were likely killed much, much earlier than what their natural lifespan would be.^[2]

Am I equating animal suffering/death to human suffering/death? No, I am not equating them. I would prevent a human genocide rather than prevent the mass killing of animals at a factory farm. But I would prefer to prevent both.

In the context of diet, it is unnecessary because humans can thrive on a fully plant-based diet. ↩︎
Most of these animals probably wouldn't come into existence if we stopped breeding animals for food. We don't need to bring them into existence just for them to live terrible lives and die young. ↩︎

Bellingham, WA 2026

2026-09-13T17:06:35.000Z

Annual reunion hiking trip for my group of college friends. We stayed in Bellingham, Washington, a couple hours away from Seattle, at the start of September.

This is my first time adding any sort of travelogue here. I'd like to do this for more trips, to keep track of trails/places, to have something to look back to and refer to, and to share with others my adventures/photos.

Saturday: Travel day

Flew from Newark airport to Seattle. The United seat gods placed my friend K directly next to my seat. There was an older woman sitting at the window seat in our row and she talked to us for most of the flight. She said she was not a great flier and it helped her to talk to us. We were willing to chatter. She was interesting and told us about her various travels throughout her life.
After landing in Seattle, we had a two hour drive to our Airbnb in Bellingham. We picked up the rental car and drove. I was expecting to be a driver candidate during the trip, but I opted out since we weren't getting liability insurance.
Settled into the Airbnb, which was pretty nice! We were directly on a lake and had our own doc going into the water. We had 12-14 people staying here, spread throughout four bedrooms, but it still felt spacious. There was a nice kitchen, a large dining area, and a nice common area with a big couch and tv. There was a porch with an outdoor table and a grill, and a grassy yard out back, leading to the walkway to the dock. The water of the lake was lower than we expected (but still swimmable), apparently due to less snowmelt this season.

Sunday: Chain Loops Trail

Got out of the house at 7am. Drove 1 hour 20 min to the Chain Loops trail in the Mt Baker wilderness. 6 miles total. Nice views - rocks, trees, mountains, lakes. Views of Mt. Baker (distinct peak with snow on it). We took a quick, cold dip in a small but pretty lake around two thirds the way through. Finally we got back to the car and chilled with some snacks.
We got back home, did some dinner prep, and then chilled at the doc and swam in the lake for a little bit. It was somewhat chilly (though not as cold as the trailside swim) so it was only a 10 minute dip.
We hung out more outside. I helped grill vegetables and tofu skewers (we had one other vegan and one vegetarian on the trip). K helped coach me on grill technique.
Sn ran a game of BOTC (Blood on the Clocktower, a kind of complicated social deduction game that can be played with many players). I was the ravenkeeper and made a bad choice of who to learn information about (J the undertaker) and thus was mistrusted for the rest of the game (and was killed the second night). My team (the townspeople) did win but I felt slightly bitter about at least my own gameplay. But it was fun overall and a satisfying win.

Monday: Oyster Dome Trail

It was a rainy night, thunderstorms in the morning so we got out later. Had a leisurely morning. Played a fun card game that M brought called Cross Clues (given a grid of word combinations, you are given a location and you need to give a one word clue that will help the other players to point to which coordinate you are referring to).
Once the rain had mostly cleared, we drove 30 minutes to the Oyster Dome trail. A group of five (including me) did a six mile version of the trail, and the rest of our group did a 4 mile version which started at a different point. We ended up all converging near the peak of the trail. We enjoyed the views and had snacks and lunches, before hiking back down. We had driven in separate cars, so we split back up on the way down.

After the hike, we drove to the Schweinhaus Biergaten, in the town of Bellingham. We got drinks and food (I didn't get anything, I was full from trail food. Though I was extremely tempted to try the vegan sausage.). They had a big Connect 4 game and I won best of five when playing with Sg. Various others also gave their go at Steinholding.
After biergarten, we walked to a nearby ice cream place (Mallard ice cream). They had a lot of wacky, interesting ice cream flavors. And then a dissapointingly boring non-dairy/sorbet menu -- I feel like they're slacking on that part of the menu^[1]. I copied Rc and got the coconut-date flavor
Then we walked to a shop with outdoor gear ("Backcountry Essentials") which was having a big sale on new and used items. I ended up buying a Lifestraw filtration system (squeeze bottle with attachable filter) for about $28 dollars since that's been in the back of my mind as something to acquire for future backpacking/camping adventures.
We drove back home and immediately went to swim in the lake. Some others were practicing lap-style swimming, and I wanted to do so as well so I grabbed the goggles I had just bought a couple weeks ago. I jumped from the dock into the water, with the goggles on my head. When I surfaced from the water, the goggles were gone and nowhere to be seen. I spent twenty minutes using someone else's goggles to search under the water (which was pretty clear) but couldn't find them - they either flowed away or were just hard to find. Tried looking other days too but no luck. Quite sad. It was kind of fun, though, to be doing the underwater search. I found a pair of old, breaking sunglasses on the bottom (the lake by the dock was only 6 or 7 feet deep) and brought them up.
Dinner for me was rice, grilled cabbage, grilled vegan sausages, and broccoli.

Tuesday: Maple Pass Trail

7am departure again. We drove about 2.5 hours to the North Cascades National Park area and hiked the Maple Pass Trail, a loop of about 7 miles total. There were some pretty nice 360 views. I had a banana in the morning, and had made overnight oats and ate them out of a ziploc bag during the car ride. I had snacks on the trail (nut mix, sliced apple) and my peanut butter and date sandwich during the long car ride back. I felt like I planned my meals and snacks pretty well (or rather, I packed what I thought what I needed, and it worked out perfectly).
My dinner was homemade (orchestrated by our passionate chef N) mango salsa, homemade guac, tortillas and black beans. And also tater tots.

Wednesday: Sahale

We hiked about 12 miles in North Cascades again - on Alltrails, the "Cascade Pass and Sahale Arm Trail". Our longest (and final) hike of the trip. Many of us agreed it was the best trail of the trip too.
We saw three black bears, almost scarily close to the trail! I haven't seen a bear in a really long time, so it was quite joyful to see them. They were beautiful, and there is a moment in my mind where we continued on the trail past one of them and I could see its fur glistening in the sunlight. On the way back, we saw a fourth bear that was getting a little too close to a woman and she banged her walking pole on the ground to stop it from getting closer (it was way nearer to her than they ever were to us), which worked and it headed away from the trail (though, for a second it seemed like it was going to go down the trail towards us, and it didn't, but we started semi-rushing away just in case). We were a big group so not too worried about being threatened by the bears (they were really just minding their own business).
At the peak, we chilled for a little bit. U and E filtered some fresh glacier water (I tried a sip, yum. Kind of regret not bringing my own new water filter to try it out.). We hiked faster on the way down. Many marmot sightings, and also sighted a bird of prey which was gracefully soaring about. It was more of a rocky hike overall, which I often like as much (if not more) than regular dirt trails.

We got home a bit after 9pm (long day!). Our friends who had stayed home and skipped this hike had prepped dinner and made it ready for us when we got there, which we were all grateful for.

Thursday: San Juan Islands

We had a 9am ferry reservation to the San Juan islands (specially going to Friday Harbor on san juan island) and a 1pm kayak tour reservation. Drove car onto ferry and then parked on the island.
Split up to get food but most of us got banh mi at "Nom Nom takeout", others went to "First Son".
Also prior to food had checked out a small print shop (you select a shirt and which design and color to print onto the shirt).
After food a couple of us went to a small used bookstore called Serendipity Used Books. Was quite a nice bookstore, several rooms, many shelves and stacks of books. Sg, C, and R got a book. I was kind of looking for Colossus of Maroussi (just started reading a couple days ago) but no luck (could have asked the shop tender to check the system but I didn't. I checked most of the travel stacks and by author name letter).
Drove to roche harbor where the kayak tour was. I ended up pairing with E, him in back. Got basic instructions, life vest, skirt to block water, they let us store belongings in a chest (i just left my jacket and big bottle of sunscreen. Phone stayed in car. I was wearing flip flops), fig bar and clif bar in life vest pocket as well as small sunscreen tube which didnt end up using at all during kayak but kept just in case. All 12 kayaked (two friends had left the trip already), all tandem sea kayaks. Two tour guides. It was called a 3 hour tour but really setup plus 2.5 hrs.
Kayaking was fun! My first time kayaking. Felt like E and I were at the back of the pack for a lot of the first half but that changed later on for the most part. Highlight was going to the kelp forest. We got to taste the kelp directly from the water. It kind of had the texture/bite of pickled cabbage, kind of the flavor too, def like a pickle, salty and firm / semi-crunchy. Didn't eat too much because they warned they take up heavy metals. We sat at the kelp forest for quite a while, first just as kelp time but then because they got word that there was a whale sighting in the distance so we were waiting for the chance, but we never saw it. We did see some seals in the water, not too far away, poking their heads up and seeing the rest of their bodies surface as they swam back under. Pretty cute. Also apparently saw one sea lion in the distance but it was kind of a small lump(speck). The guy tour guide had also cut a part of a kelp plant and showed how it could be used as a sort of tubed horn instrument. He asked if anyone was a trumpet player and K said yes and he was able to make some trumpet sounds with it (single note mostly, though with some variation, but also just did some basic but cool stuff with sequence of note lengths). Then we passed it around and tried to make sounds. K helped instruct me a bit (after doing so first for Sg) on how to shape lips to make trumpet sound and it took me some tries but i eventually got it and made a semi constant horn sound for a few seconds -- satisfying!
After kayaking we parked our car at the ferry line since we had about an hour and a half till ferry left but they let you leave the car there. We got dinner at a brewery (had vegan burger, fried. Pretty good). Then some ppl got ice cream. We met a big dog named Athena. Then waited a bit more conversing by the car and then drove onto the ferry. Walk up to seats and outside deck. Started with reading a bit and then stood outside, a little chilly but I had a light jacket and rain layer. Was right around sunset 7pm-7:30 ish (ferry ride about an hour). First just me outside and then M and Sg, then M went back inside, then sky pink with sunset colors and saw a little bit of alpenglow (pink tinge of mountain snow) on what we think was mt baker. Got E from inside and told him to come out. Then we went to the back side of the boat outside where the sky was still much more red in spots and we stayed there for rest of ferry ride until they said to go back to your car.

Car ride 1 hour from ferry to home. We were all kind of tired and silent at first and then Sg posed a question "if you could have infinite money what would you spend it on except for charitable things" and that livened up the convo and led to a semi-intense discussion. Then when we got home and other car too, we leaned their car had also had an intense debate about a different topic. We spent the rest of the evening discussing these things as a bigger group. Natural chatter in small groups and then occasional full group rundowns. Eventually there was a final discussion that ended up lasting till almost 1am, people trickling to bed as it got later. I helped as arbiter in part of the final discussion so we could wrap it up for the night and get to bed. (Serious and kind of intense discussions but all in good sport and with the goal of understanding one another generally).

Friday: Chill lake day

Chill day at the Airbnb! Slept in, swam in lake -- had fun on the 2 standup paddleboards that the house had. We were trying to get three people standing up on one, but we never got it (always lost balance after the second person stood up).
Hung out on lawn, throwing football and practicing handstands/cartwheels. Also earlier we did a fun small 6 person BOTC game outside while M was doing some classwork.
Most of group went to the town to go to a thrift store and get snack. Four of us stayed behind, helped a little bit with dinner prep, and then we went to grab some groceries and dessert.
Pizza night! Sg had prepped dough in the morning. Eight pies total, two vegan ones. Everyone stood around in the kitchen while each was made and cooked. Some musical karaoke going on. I was kind of socially drained ever since the afternoon and also quite tired.
Late night BOTC game. It was fun and me and Sg were evil and we won (! positive experience, I've rarely been evil the handful of times I've played BOTC), but I was sooo tired (almost concerningly so), so went straight to bed after.

Saturday: Travel day

Bittersweet departure, sad but was a great trip. I spent most of the flight contemplating a nonfiction book idea "Lazarus Long survival guide". Also I made an effort to try to know what we were flying through -- i had window seat, though there was no one else in my row (toward back of plane). With the help of the flight map, I was able to recognize that we were flying over Michigan and I was able to correspond the lake and islands I was seeing to what I saw on Google Maps -- very cool experience. There were also some nice pink cloud effects when the sun was down. And once it was dark and we were flying over NY approaching the city, I enjoyed seeing the sea of electric speckles as always.

Thoughts this trip inspired

I want to hike more near NYC throughout the year rather than waiting for trips like this to hike.
I want to cook better and more interesting things
I want to document travel more, in this digital garden, including past trips
I want to learn more about how LLMs work, e.g. transformers and the NLP part
I want to become more confident in understanding and being able to explain the evidence behind Whole-Food Plant-Based Diet
Reflecting on the social groups I spend time with in nyc

I know it's a smaller proportion of customers ordering from that menu, but it's just sad when the regular menu has flavors like root beer, cereal milk, smores cone, wasabi, and the vegan options are nectarine, coconut date, and lemon/mint. ↩︎

Thoughts on casual open social invites

2026-06-20T03:51:08.000Z

Whoever is reading this -- this is the kind of note where feedback+opinions+discussion is very valuable (especially due to the social nature of this topic) so please write to me if you want to share any thoughts!

"casual open social invites"???
- I'm not talking about small gatherings. Though I enjoy hosting small gatherings in my apartment, I could not send out a broad social invite (for one thing, because of space limitations. But also it's just a different social mode I'm trying to hit for what I'm discussing here; but perhaps some aspects of this discussion could apply to small gatherings as well, especially the goals I describe below).
- More I'm talking about things that can happen in public and without a strict limit on number of people who can join.
  - e.g. some free event that is happening, like a comedy show or a concert;
  - or, it could be a general activity like visiting a museum or hanging out in a park.
Why is this on my mind?
- I regularly meet new people in NYC.
- I regularly seek out activities and events in NYC which align with my interests.
- Though I'm generally fine going to activities/events on my own, doing things with people is nice too. And it can nourish connections (see goals below). And people generally want to do things too. And it's also a way to find common interests and share my own interests with others.
- I haven't been quite sure the best approach on how to send open invites for casual plans; so obviously (as is my nature) I think through solutions.
my goals are
- foster community and nourish+create connections between people (by creating social spaces around events/activities)
- be inclusive --> have open opportunities for my social connections to join events/activities. Inclusivity is limited to my own social network (i.e. I'm not at the moment interested in organizing public events); this includes connections of varying strength -- ranging from my closest friends; developing friendships; new connections. Can also be open to friends of friends (though I am not thinking much about this case). My hope is that by opening up events to a broad range of people in my social circle, I open the way for my own connections with these friends to develop and flourish, as well as for new connections between friends in my circle to develop and flourish. Strengthening networks of connections form community. Having an open invite allows for people to self-select their participation without feeling pressure that declining any one invite would lose them a chance to receive a future invite. (<-- amongst other reasons; to be expanded on I think)
Current thinking of an approach: send direct invite to friends who I know would be specifically interested; then share out more broadly as a soft invite via Instagram story
- This is my current solution to experiment, but I do not see it as a true solution. Instagram story approach is not fully-inclusive because:
  1. some people simply do not use Instagram;
  2. Stories are short-lived, so someone may not see the posting on time;
  3. Stories approach relies on people consistently checking Instagram^[1], which frankly I do not think people should have any additional pressure to do so, given the general negatives of social media.
  4. Related to the previous points: People do not really think of Instagram stories as a place to receive event invites. They may not be in a state of mind for thinking about invites / social activities when they are browsing stories --> even if I surface an event via story, it may not be the right time for them to receive it. People may not think of stories as a time-sensitive thing; i.e. they may not expect that they may miss an invite to a social activity if they are not consistently checking their stories.
- The above points about why Instagram stories are not an ideal approach is a primary reason in why I was brainstorming+prototyping on creating an app for spontaneous social plans (Idea - Spontaneous Plans). But, I paused that project idea because I realized I should first try the solutions available to me. So I am trying and learning.
- Those listed flaws aside, Instagram story has pretty broad reach and there is generally high visibility (specifically I am applying this to my "close friends" story which I've added anyone fitting my criteria of being in my 'social circle' -- this essentially equates to people who are not strangers to me and who I am comfortable hanging out with) -- so it may be a decent solution.
- Of course there are other possible approaches to explore as well.

unless they have notifications turned on for a specific user's stories, though personally the notifications aren't even consistent when I've tried to do this ↩︎

Hosting Gatherings

2026-06-20T03:39:50.000Z

Hosting gatherings is a way to foster connections and cultivate community. This can apply to existing long-term friendships, and to more newly developing ones.

Living in New York City, I often meet new people while participating in various activities, groups, and social spaces. I strongly value being able to bring people together. It's really great to be able to introduce people from different circles to each other and see what commonalities may be found and what connections may be made.

I would say that fostering connections and cultivating community is one of my core values and goals. It's one of those things I feel I will be doing my whole life.

Notes on a book about the logistics and philosophy of hosting small gatherings: The 2-Hour Cocktail Party by Nick Gray

Wildman Steve Brill

2026-06-09T19:04:48.000Z

Steve Brill organizes foraging tours in Central Park (amongst other places in and beyond NYC). I joined a tour: 6-6-2026 Foraging tour with Wildman Steve Brill.

His website: https://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/

I'm intrigued by this guy. There's a lot to him and a lot of history. I'm kind of revering the fact that I can join more of his foraging tours very easily.

He's been doing these foraging tours for 40+ years.
He's vegan and nutrition-oriented
- He has a published vegan cookbook called "The Wild Vegan Cookbook"
  - In the introduction, he discusses, in depth, the benefits of whole foods and avoiding processed foods, aligning with my own adherence to a (mostly) Whole-Food Plant-Based Diet
  - As described in the cookbook introduction, his intro to foraging was chancing to see a woman foraging in a local park in Queens, NY. I love this idea that he found it by observation and then it turned into something big for him and then he has passed it on to so many other people.
  - He is anti-microwave. I wonder if his opinion on this has changed since the cookbook was published in 2010 (the vegetarian version of the cookbook was published in 2002). He says that microwaving creates potentially hazardous chemicals and he does not want to take the risk of illness. (I am going to have to disagree with this on instinct, of course, because I microwave a lot. Could be something to learn more about, though.)
  - Doesn't include whole wheat flour (or seitan which is based on wheat) in his recipes because he has an allergy to wheat.
Early on, he was arrested by a park ranger in Central Park while he was foraging (and because of the foraging) (full story here). This attracted media attention. Eventually there was a reversal and the park system actually hired him to be an official park guide.
His youtube channel is pretty interesting: https://www.youtube.com/@wildmanstevebrill.
- So far I've watched his ice cream recipe (reminds me of justinthetrees as I discuss in Foraged Flavors)
- He has a playlist called "The Inquiring Naturalist" which is apparently a cable TV show that he hosted in the 90s.
He seems to be an artist - he has illustrations in his books of plants. The forward to his cookbook also mentions that he made sculptures of mushrooms.

Foraging

2026-06-09T19:04:48.000Z

Currently this is a passive interest that I have no acted on in any significant way.

Small things I've done that come to mind

Some years my parents make maple syrup from the maple trees in our backyard/woods
Our yard has had wild asparagus and raspberries before. I'm not sure if we ever tried the asparagus, but definitely the raspberries.
Recently (February 2026) in southeast Florida I was with my parents and we tasted some fruit that had fallen from a tree (retrospectively perhaps we should have more carefully identified it first. We only had a small nibble.)
In Arizona (September 2025) my family took some prickly pear fruit from a cactus while on a hike and we tried some of it (took it home and washed it first).
Tasting a random pine needle in Montana (during Glacier National Park trip by a lake).
Luxuriating in the caramel scent of the Ponderosa Pine (No I don't think smelling really counts as foraging, but it counts as appreciating a plant)

The most important principle of foraging

“Use only those wild foods that you've identified with 100 percent certainty.” ~ Steve Brill, The Wild Vegan Cookbook

Urban foraging

Apparently Central Park has edible plants that can be foraged. Video by Robin Greenfield of a CP foraging tour. I'd like to try this out sometime --

Video recommends Sam Thayer's books (The Forager's Harvest, Nature's Garden, Incredible Wild Edibles) for actually learning how to identify and prepare specific plants.

Update: I joined a foraging tour in Central Park: 6-6-2026 Foraging tour with Wildman Steve Brill.

I'm starting to feel a sense that urban foraging is part of an antidote to a negative feeling I sometimes get about living in NYC from an environmentalist perspective. It's not exactly the place to be to be immersed in nature. And yet, there are edible plants hiding just below the surface. It's a whole world beneath the surface of normal perception, a way to cultivate a connection with nature even in an urban setting.

Another opportunity: The New York Mycological Society does walks for identifying+foraging mushrooms. Could be interesting to join.

Foraged Flavors

2026-06-06T19:55:46.000Z

A couple months ago, I came across a YouTube channel called Justinthetrees. He makes experimental ice cream flavors out of tree bark, flowers, and/or sap. He also creates his own bowl and spoon in each video in his woodshop, out of wood from the same type of tree as the flavor. The videos are entertaining and interesting. My first exposure was during a flight.

Anyway, ever since I've started watching those videos, it's put an idea somewhere in my head to maybe try something like it sometime. Collect a pinecone or something and incorporate it into a recipe. Or collect flowers and try making a syrup.

Will I ever actually? Who knows.

Similar to my feelings about doing something with foraged materials in DIY Dyes.

6-6-2026 Foraging tour with Wildman Steve Brill

2026-06-22T01:19:43.000Z

https://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/
Steve Brill is an expert at foraging wild edible plants. From March-December, he regularly runs foraging tours in NYC (and other places too I think) which are free to join (with a suggested donation).

I joined the foraging tour in Central Park (June 26, 2026). We walked from east 106th street, through the park, and ended at the west side. There were at least 30-40 people on the tour. Steve Brill showed us different plants (some edible, some medicinal), explained their uses and briefly how to identify them, and we tasted/smelled them.

Takeaways

I'm excited to become more confident in identifying the plants we saw. I absolutely intend to forage more on my own.
I feel that this experience was transformative.
- I already loved Central Park, and this is a whole new way of appreciating it and seeing a new layer of it that never really crossed my mind until I started thinking about foraging. (I really had no clue it was a possibility until I saw that Robin Greenfield does tours and then also found out about Steve Brill's tours.)
- It's given me a new way to cultivate a connection to nature and the environment even though I'm in an urban setting.
I'm really glad I jumped right into going on the tour rather than waiting a long time or trying to learn/study more on my own before actually doing it in real life.
- This is made easy by the fact that Steve Brill does these tours pretty regularly, and it's obviously very convenient that these are being done in NYC where I am, in a park that I was able to walk to.
- The direct tangible experience of seeing the plants, hearing their uses, picking some of them and tasting many of them, was such a great experience and it directly translates to increased motivation that I probably would not have had if I hadn't gone on the tour.^[1]
- At the same time, now that I'm learning more about Wildman Steve Brill, I am starting to wish I knew more about him before meeting him. For example, that he is vegan and advocates for a whole food diet. But still, I can always go to another of his tours and have more interactions/conversations.

Plant highlights

My favorites:

black birch (twig smells like wintergreen)
wood sorrel (three leaf clover which tastes lemon-y)
lambs quarter (similar taste to spinach)
poor man's pepper (a peppery/spicy taste)
juneberries (mildly sweet)

I'd love to be able to identify these confidently.

Also interested in (though higher effort)

burdock root (used for soups / vegan beef jerky)
sassafrass root (used for root beer)
kentucky coffee tree (for drinks or fudge)

I want to check out Steve Brill's reference book and maybe his app if that's where his recipes are.

He also said he is vegan, which is cool.

Log of the plants we saw / talked about / tried:

common plantain (medicinal for mosquito bites)

lambs quarter - tastes like spinach, (tasted)

Burdock root

Can make vegan beef jerky out of burdock root

Jewel weed (medicinal for mosquito bites, poison ivy)

Bitter dock (tasted) (after accidentally tasting a burdock leaf, oops)

Northern bayberry -- a shrub (not a tree because no trunk) smells like bay leaves and similar cooking usage. In season all year. Smells very good

Epazoté - used in small quantites as a seasoning, very strong
(didn't get a picture or get to taste/smell it)

Poor man's pepper (tasted -- it's peppery/spicy)

Wood sorrel - lemony taste

Red clover and white clove - red ones taste better. You eat the pieces from the flower part. Taste kind of sweet. Wildman said tastes kind of legumey(peas) but I didn't really sense that. Red ones taste the best. Brown not so good.

Field garlic - related to onion and garlic (tasted) (has poisonous lookalike)
(Didn't really see how this was found - it was under a mysterious covering of a big patch of ground.)

Cattail - cook like corn on the cob. Not to eat raw. When it's younger and doesn't have flower yet, you can peel it and eat the shoot raw

Kentucky coffee tree -- has pods with beans that can roast for a similar taste as coffee, can use as coffee or for seasoning. Can make fudge out of dates+almonds+?? (want to find the recipe for this -- either in his book or app)

Lunch break

Random foraging guide i found https://www.wildedible.com/foraging#identification and it also mentions Brill's own book as a good resource (clearly he is well known in this field)

Reviewed poison ivy. Three leaves, the middle leaf has the stem

Found a peach tree (not ripe yet)

Sassafrass tree. You can eat the smallest (very small) leaves. They are gummy - can make gumbo. (Tasted. Did not like the gooeyness). Smaller plant root smells like root beer (it's what was traditionally used for making root beer). White part in bark is a good seasoning e.g. for rice pudding.

Common spice bush - for tea. He has a recipe for spiceberry peanut butter (it has berries in the fall)

Saw some black raspberry bushes (in season later in June )

Black birch tree - can chew on the twigs like chewing gum. Smells like wintergreen (kind of minty flavor -- i really liked it. Carried the twig for a bit and smelled.). This is low dose aspirin. I chewed on it but didn't have flavor (but smelling is strong)

Milkweed -- not picking because rare and used by monarch butterflies

Hack berries ripe in september

Juneberries / serviceberries - exciting find! Blue ones are best, red ones are ok. I tasted the dark red ones (easier to find than blue), mildly sweet and yummy. Also had a couple bluer ones, which are slightly sweeter.

Two girls were filming during the tour for a documentary. Past work - (freegan film) https://youtu.be/VB8SdONZGGU

Burdock root vegan beef jerky recipe

From an interview with Steve Brill https://www.eatweeds.co.uk/ep17

And with the root, I slice it thinly, and then I steam it for 20 minutes over vegetable stock. And then I put it in the kind of marinade that is used for beef jerky. So it’s apple cider vinegar, tamari soy sauce, fresh apple juice, cloves … what else goes in there? Garlic that is peeled, but not cut, which makes it much more mild than the cut garlic. And then I bake it and it gets drier and chewier. And when it’s about the level of beef jerky, I stop, and it’s really delicious.

Extra paint painting

I needed to use up some leftover paint after a short session of working on Pools (2025)#Paint a picture. I like to make something quick and rough so I don't waste the paint, and it's fun, and a little bit extra practice. Usually I scroll through recent pictures I've taken and pick something to paint. This time, I scrolled and landed on a pic of the Wildman and so made this little thing.

(I'm kind of sensing a tie to hypnosis as a learning from this -- I spent so much time studying up on techniques but not much time actually practicing/applying.) ↩︎

On Cooking - Veganism and Whole-Food Plant-Based Diet

2026-04-28T03:05:07.000Z

#veganism

I'm vegan. I approached this from a health-perspective first (WFPB), which led to a gradual transition to eating more plant based foods. Then I learned about the ethical philosophies behind resisting animal exploitation and went fully strict on following veganism.

When I cook for myself, I prefer to follow the principles of a whole-food plant-based (WFPB) diet as much as possible. When I eat at a restaurant, I just follow veganism but not WFPB.

What is WFPB

I don't follow WFPB 100% strictly all the time. But, these are the core principles of the WFPB diet:

*Minimize animal products
Minimize processed foods ^[1]
Minimize refined sugars
Minimize refined grains
Minimize oils ^[2]

* Technically, someone can follow a WFPB diet but not be fully vegan. The WFPB diet's principles say you should minimize animal products due to their health concerns. However, since I also am a strict vegan, I adhere to completely cutting out animal products. ^[3]

So what can you eat on a WFPB diet? The standard list is: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. More broadly, it's any foods derived from plants which are minimally processed. The list may sound small, but there's a lot of variation in ingredients and there is a huge variety of dishes to be enjoyed. Many, if not most (if not all) cultures around the world have dishes which are already vegan (if not WFPB) or easily modifiable to be so.

Getting back to my own cooking philosophy -- as mentioned, when I cook for myself, I prefer to adhere to WFPB as much as possible, but I do make small exceptions on rare occasions. When I eat at a restaurant, I don't think much about WFPB^[4] and I primarily focus on finding vegan options.

Why WFPB

Experimentation + Cooking for others

There's another big exception to WFPB that I make: when I want to follow a vegan but non-WFPB recipe to create something more tasty (or just tasty in a different way) than a WFPB counterpart would be, either to experiment for my own understanding of the possibilities of food and cuisine, or to create positive experiences with vegan food for friends or family or others who may be tasting the food I prepare. If I am to have a "mission" related to cooking, it would be to help others to see that vegan foods can be delicious.

WFPB is very much about health and longevity for me. Veganism on its own is about doing what's right for the sake of fellow animals that can't speak for themselves - drawing attention to and making efforts to stop their unnecessary suffering and exploitation (when plant-based alternatives can provide 100% sufficient nutrition for humans)^[5]. In other words: WFPB is for myself ^[6], whereas veganism is to help other sentient^[7] beings who are in need.

What I'm trying to say with the above: I'm willing to violate my WFPB principles when I'm aiming to cook delicious things for other people. I want people^[8] to have as positive a perception as possible of vegan foods. Making things "healthier", though I can deeply appreciate the tastes for myself (and do hope others can too), sometimes or often does not lend to the tastiest, at least in a mainstream way^[9], dishes.

Why do I want people to have as positive as possible a perception^[10] of vegan food? It's not like I think I'm going to directly convert people toward veganism like this. But even planting a seed in someone's head that maybe possible there could be a chance that they could survive with maybe even just this little percentage of a type of food that they eat, without an animal being involved, could be okay and enjoyable.

Talking about veganism & Challenging yourself^[11]

Whether this is true or not, I imagine some discomfort, if not stronger emotion, when someone reads this and notices that I wish for more people to become vegan.

Well, I'm not going to deny that it's true that I want more people to become vegan.

That's my stance. What's yours?

Can we have an honest conversation about our food systems and ways of eating and move towards a mutual understanding about each of our perspectives?

Can I challenge you? Are you open to being challenged?

Is your mind open to some ideas that might be different than what you're used to? Maybe different than what you've believed for your entire life? Can you evaluate these things with honest integrity and be open to making a change if what you hear is logical and reasonable? Maybe you're not ready for change right now, and that's okay. But if you really stop and genuinely think about the arguments for veganism, can you honestly and truly say that you shouldn't change something?

I'm not saying the answer should be 100% for sure one way or the other for you. But I do request, when you have the capacity to, to learn about the reasons for veganism, to question the norm, to fully and deeply engage with the issue and the discussion, and to have an open mind to the possibility of adjusting your course, if it makes sense to you to do so.

This is not a fully-fleshed argument for veganism (see other posts tagged with #veganism for more discussion). Mainly I wanted to discuss my mindset around cooking. It's inevitably tied to the vegan discussion though.

Resources about veganism and WFPB

Since we're here, then, some resources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3u7hXpOm58 ("You Will Never Look at Your Life in the Same Way Again" by Earthling Ed) This is the video that convinced me to follow the ethical side of veganism (it's just a guy giving a talk, no gory imagery or anything like that). This guy's channel has a lot of interesting tabled debates about veganism that also likely swayed me and are entertaining to watch. (Can you challenge yourself to watch these and engage with what's being discussed?))
This is the reddit post that made me start thinking about health for longevity purposes. https://www.reddit.com/r/longevity/comments/ci5vu1/i_am_a_22_yo_healthy_male_who_wants_to_live_until/ - There's one comment in there that references the whole food plant based diet, and I'm guessing that's what seeded my exposure to WFPB. Also likely seeded my avoidance of alcohol (or at least the health aspect of avoiding alcohol^[12]).
Some other resources about WFPB diet
- https://nutritionstudies.org/whole-food-plant-based-diet-guide/ - Another guide on WFPB. This site also is a great resource for WFPB recipes.
- Summary of "How Not To Die", a book that talks about the benefits of the WFPB diet in preventing and reversing many of the most common dietary-related causes of death in humans. It also includes a detailed list of "green"/"yellow"/"red foods (green is healthy, yellow is foods to steer away from but okay in limited quantities, red is foods to generally always avoid) https://www.chewfo.com/diets/how-not-to-die-by-michael-greger-md-food-list-what-to-eat-and-foods-to-avoid/
- https://plantbasedcookingshow.com/ A cooking blog/youtube channel that strictly follows WFPB for recipes. So many great recipes that use dried dates as a refined sugar replacement in dessert recipes.

"processed" can mean a lot of things. Cutting a vegetable is processing it. In the context of the WFPB diet, "processed" is usually taken to mean "heavily" processed or having many additives ↩︎
this doesn't mean avoid all sources of fat. You get lots of good, healthy fats from peanut butter and avocados, for example. Refined oils are empty calories without nutritional value, and can cause buildup of health issues. I acknowledge that I am not backing these claims with direct sources right now, but a search for wfpb health benefits should bring up more info about this and the other points. ↩︎
I would say it's a good thing for the principles to have this laxness about not needing to go 100% vegan right away. It makes it less intimidating. It gave me the opportunity to slowly transition away from animal products, without feeling intense pressure to immediately give up all animal products, a drastic change that may have scared me away. I slowly realized that I didn't need animal products in my life, before making the full switch. ↩︎
It's just less realistic to expect restaurant dishes to be oil and sugar free, unless the restaurant specializes in that ↩︎
This is basically my "why am I vegan" summed up in a sentence, but I eventually will expand and write more on this. ↩︎
(my own selfish desire to increase the length and quality of my life by eating as healthy as possible to reduce the chance of dietary-related illnesses later in life) ↩︎
I know what you're thinking. How can I claim that animals are sentient? This is too deep of a discussion for a footnote. But I'll just say: You wouldn't like if I kicked a dog. Why? Because it displays visual evidence of its suffering. Surely a pig or cow would display something similar. And yet we (non-vegans) are okay with (albeit indirectly) paying for someone to hurt and kill them? Something doesn't align here. (Ok that wasn't exactly about the term 'sentient' but it's related. Perhaps instead of "sentient", I mean "creatures who we understand to be able to feel pain, experience suffering, and have a desire to not die.) ↩︎
I'm tempted to say "the world" but realistically, my sphere of influence is the people that I interact with in my direct small community. Which is a great impact to make, in my opinion. Change starts small and local. ↩︎
because seriously, even with 100% WFPB, things can be incredibly tasty and I wouldn't want them in any other form ↩︎
(apapap) ↩︎
This section is (maybe obviously) aimed at people not already vegan. ↩︎
yes there are several other aspects of this, to be expanded on elsewhere ↩︎

AI-Assisted Meal Planning

2026-06-21T20:59:17.000Z

It's April of 2026 and I feel like my cooking habits have not changed much in the past few years. I feel that meal planning/prepping is an underdeveloped area in my life right now. I often find myself scrambling to make last-minute meals because I don't have anything prepped. I have common staple meals that I rely on and often do make large batches of them which last for several days -- but I go in cycles of feeling like I'm doing a good job with this, and then drift off into bad habits of not having things prepared.

The last time I was really thinking hard about it, I worked on a project that I thought might help me to do better -- GPT Meal Planner. It didn't get me very far (more my fault than the tech's fault).

This has again been nagging at me a little bit lately. It feels like I should be doing better. I feel that I often don't devote enough time to work on this area.

I vaguely know and understand how to make improvement in this area: Take some time to think through what meals I want to be eating for the week; take some time on the weekend (or whenever) to do some basic prep of ingredients so that I have bases to work with for weeknight assembly into meals. I sometimes do these things, but I don't have a consistent plan or proven routine that I know I can follow to make sure I'm doing these things.

And I'm not even proposing a plan/routine here necessarily. Though, it could be adapted into one.

The first step right now for me? Offloading some of the thinking into AI. Literally I mean getting help from ChatGPT. AI is pretty good at general purpose, common-sense activities/planning.

Here's an example of what I'm saying. In fact this is just my real input I am trying this with right now.

First I roughly listed what significant food items were already in my fridge and pantry. Then I prompted to help me with a meal prep plan for the week which would incorporate what I already had, with additional items I should grab from the store.

My prompt:

[!INFO]- Prompt
What's in the fridge:

half a cup of mexican black beans

a cup of roasted sweet plantains

unprocessed bushel of brussels sprouts

half an onion

a couple tomatoes, some leftover chopped tomatoes

quarter block of tofu (opened), several more packs of tofu

romaine lettuce

tofu shirataki spagetti

half can chickpeas

Freezer:

half pack of cajun mock chicken

half pack of whole foods vegan meatballs

a frozen potato (previously was steamed)

frozen roasted potato wedges

frozen tempeh sloppy joe

frozen pho broth

assortment of frozen veg
->pantry:

quinoa

brown rice ramen

soba noodles

dried tofu skin

brown rice

taco shells

canned beans

pasta

bhel puri kit
Above is just my scan of my pantry/fridge/freezer -- doesnt mean i have to use all those things. particularly the frozen stuff, can staythere for a while, but also happy to use them. more important is to use the perishable stuff that's in the fridge. Mostly looking for help planning lunches/dinners. Definitely can grocery shop for additional ingredients. Would be great to do some bulk prepping / reusing of prepped ingredients to reduce proessing/prep time overall (rather than making individual recipes with all diff ingred). I am looking for vegan meals, which are mostly whole-food plant-based, but I am open to introducing some non-wfpb (but still vegan) ingredients to add variety and make for more enjoyable+delicious meals. Also can take some wfpb dessert suggestions for the week (but less emphasis on this than lunch/dinner). I often scramble for last minute meals so I am hoping to get better at meal prepping and having more variety in my meals because they >are often the same easy stuff I know how to do.

Answer:

[!INFO]- Answer

Monday Prep (core of the week)

1. Grain

Cook 1.5 cups dry quinoa (or brown rice)

2. Roasted Veg (sheet pan)

Brussels sprouts

½ onion

Some tomatoes (if very ripe)

Season:

Oil, salt, pepper

Optional: garlic powder, smoked paprika, chili flakes

3. Tofu (protein base)

Use opened tofu + 1–2 extra packs

Cube or slice

Season:

Soy sauce, oil, garlic powder, pepper

Optional: smoked paprika / curry powder

Bake until firm

4. Fresh prep

Chop romaine

Dice tomatoes

Portion plantains

5. Sauces (pick 1–2)

Tahini Lemon

Tahini, lemon, water, salt, garlic

Peanut Lime

Peanut butter, lime, soy sauce, water, ginger/garlic

Grocery Add-ons (high impact)

Garlic

Lemon or lime

Scallions

Cucumber

Carrots

Mushrooms

Cilantro

Avocado

Tahini or peanut butter

Soy sauce (if low)

Optional:

Hummus

Salsa

Coconut milk

Ginger

Meals

Monday Dinner

Taco Bowl

Quinoa

Black beans

Roasted veg

Romaine

Tomatoes

Plantains

Tahini or salsa

Tuesday Lunch

Big Salad Bowl

Romaine

Tofu

Chickpeas

Tomatoes

Roasted veg

Quinoa

Tahini dressing

Tuesday Dinner

Peanut Tofu Soba

Soba noodles

Tofu

Roasted veg

Mushrooms/carrots (if bought)

Peanut sauce

Wednesday Lunch

Tacos

Taco shells

Beans or tofu

Romaine

Tomatoes

Onion

Plantains (side or inside)

Wednesday Dinner

Pho-ish Soup

Frozen pho broth

Brown rice ramen

Tofu / tofu skin

Frozen veg

Mushrooms (optional)

Lime, scallions, cilantro (if bought)

Thursday Lunch

Shirataki Bowl

Tofu shirataki spaghetti

Tomatoes + onion (quick sauté)

Chickpeas or tofu

Thursday Dinner

Cajun Bowl

Quinoa/rice

Cajun mock chicken

Veg

Romaine

Avocado or lime

Friday Lunch

Leftover Bowl

Remaining grain

Tofu

Beans

Roasted veg

Romaine

Sauce

Friday Dinner

Chickpea Tomato Pasta

Pasta

Tomatoes

Garlic

Chickpeas

Optional: chili flakes, nutritional yeast

Saturday Dinner

Vegan Meatballs

With roasted potatoes OR pasta

Side salad

Sunday Dinner

Tempeh Sloppy Joe

Over rice/potato OR in taco shells

Fallback Quick Meals

Ramen + pho broth + frozen veg + tofu

Taco shells + beans + romaine + tomato

Quinoa + tofu + veg + sauce

Soba + peanut sauce + tofu

Midweek Reset (Thu/Fri)

Cook more grain if needed

Refresh greens

Make another sauce

Pull 1 freezer meal into rotation

WFPB Desserts

Stuffed Dates

Dates + peanut butter or tahini

Banana Oat Cookies

Banana + oats + cinnamon (+ raisins optional)

Warm Apples

Apples + cinnamon

Optional: peanut butter

Chia Pudding (if available)

Chia + plant milk + fruit

Core Strategy

Reuse: grain + roasted veg + tofu + sauce

Mix formats: bowls, tacos, noodles, soup

Add 1–2 new flavors (peanut / tahini) to avoid repetition

Do I expect to follow this exactly? No, definitely not. Also this week I'm failing because I am already behind on listening to what it told me to prep. But I like what it's telling me. I like the ideas that it's giving, and the habits I could develop from this. Some of it is obvious. Yes, I know that to prep, I should roast vegetables and tofu. But it's helping to fill in some gaps - certain ingredients to buy that I normally wouldn't think to unless a specific recipe called for (cilantro, green onions). It just feels helpful to have some instructions given to me.

Obviously I have to give this a try. But it's something. The real work has to come from me, of course. But AI can give some scaffolding to support me while learning how to do better.

Commentary after a week or kind of following the generated plan

Started off kind of slow, since I generated the plan on a Monday (?) morning, so I was already bogged down with work before I could really start the prep. Ideally the base prep (or at least parts of it) would happen on the weekend (probably Sunday or I guess whenever I have time) so I have the base to work with.
Despite the slow start, once I had done the first wave of prep, it was actually feeling pretty good. e.g. had marinated + roasted tofu, had roasted a platter of vegetables, and had bought nice toppings that I usually wouldn't think to buy, like cilantro and green onions. It was also nice to have a dressing/sauce prepared (e.g. tahini+lime+spices) which I could add on top of bowls, because I usually either have no particular ready-made sauce like that to use.
By mid-week, though, I had used up a bunch of the bases that I already had, and used up most of the prepped stuff I had made, and I felt a little lost (or rather, not lost, but back to my default way of figuring things out and day-by-day figuring out meals). I did another followup prompt to Chatgpt with an updated list of what food I had available, and I'm not sure why, but the response fell short. Possibly, this is because I still had small bits of stuff I had prepped and it was focusing on how I could use it up. But I think I wanted it to focus on a slightly longer-term vision of creating a new bulk meal from scratch (e.g. some bean recipe) that would serve as some prep for going ahead even into the next week perhaps, or as something to freeze part of so that I have a reserve meal for some future week. I still believe AI can be a useful tool for this (even though it didn't hit home at this mid-week moment) but it would definitely need some more fine tuning to get out of it what I'm really looking for.
The mid-week check-in also hinted of a lack of variety of the meal suggestions chatgpt might come up with. To combat that, I have an idea of me keeping track of a minimal list of recipes that I'm interested in trying - either from my existing recipe bookmarks, or from random blogs or videos I come across. Especially on reels platforms, I see people making dishes which I feel are very different from my usual basic cooking, and those would be candidates to add to my list. Then I could point AI to the list as a seed for what dishes to prep for at moments in the food prep cadence when I have some time to make a somewhat more complicated dish that could add variety to my week rather than the same cycle of protein+vegetable bowls and so on.
Also want to emphasize that I wasn't following the exact timeline of meals, but rather on each day I picked from what meals it suggested (even if it didn't suggest it from that day).

(5/7/2026)
Trying a slightly fancier setup, with my local Obsidian vault (private notes, not this public digital garden). Multi-paged approach, using Codex for LLM.
Files:

AI Instructions file (see prompt below)
File for each week's plan, ideally with notes/feedback about how that week went
- (I feel like this makes this sound like I'm going very intense on this... and I guess given all this scaffolding, I am being more intense than not having some kind of structure, but also I'm not aiming to be perfect or particularly thorough, and again, definitely not expecting myself to follow any AI-generated plan exactly -- but it's good for ideas and structure.)
"recipes to try" - idea is to list recipes I may want included in the generated plans
"types of food I like" - idea is to help the LLM out for generating suggestions that would be amenable to me.

I haven't filled out "recipes to try" or "types of food I like" yet. Recipes one would ideally be a growing list I add to whenever I come across something I want to try. Ideally I would also mark a recipe as tried/enjoyed/disliked, at the very least for my own tracking.

This is my base prompt. I've been fiddling with it and chatting with Codex about how to improve it (based on what it generated) and Codex has been adding some more notes as an addendum to my base prompt, but a) it's verbose so I don't feel like putting the whole thing here, and b) I'm still not too happy with it, so maybe will wait till/if I have a version I like better.

[!INFO]- Base prompt
You are an expert meal planner. Your job is to come up with a realistic and diverse meal plan of lunches and dinners for a week (or whatever time range specified). The plan should focus on doing prep at the beginning (or midpoint) of the week such that the prep will last for several days of meals, to reduce prep time during individual meals.

The user may provide a list of food items they currently have in stock. The plan should take into account what the user already has, especially to use up perishables. You are encouraged to also suggest additional items for purchase, to support a diverse meal plan. IMPORTANT: Do not overly constrain the meal plan to what the user already has. AVOID creating strange meals or forced leftover mashups; prioritize flavor-coherent, standard pairings that would feel normal in everyday vegan home cooking or a casual restaurant.

Another thing to keep in mind is future prep. Even if there is enough food for this week already, it is good to plan ahead and have a bulk food ready for the next week. The user can also freeze portions of a meal to make for a ready meal in the future.

IMPORTANT: All meals must be vegan. There is a preference for whole food plant based meals (WFPB) i.e. use mostly ingredients that are minimally processed -- but exceptions are allowed, especially during discovery of making delicious dishes ("exceptions" may range from just some minor ingredients added to a dish, all the way to trying out a still vegan but dish with more processed ingredients e.g. refined sugar or oil).

Nutritional focus: The goal is for the user to have a balance of hitting nutrition goals and having prepped food that is delicious and palatable, with a setup that will be easily maintained. The goal for nutrition should be based on Michael Greger's Daily Dozen model. Use this as a guideline that should be roughly followed on most days (i.e. generally have food prepped available to hit most of the categories on a given day) but it does not need to be strictly adhered to (e.g. some days may have more of a certain category while other days have less). Additionally, following the exact portions suggested by the daily dozen is not as important as hitting the categories in some amount (though it should be reasonable close to the portions).

Daily dozen:
Beans:3/day(½c cooked beans or ¼c hummus); Berries:1/day(½c fresh/frozen or ¼c dried); OtherFruits:3/day(1 medium fruit or ¼c dried fruit); Greens:2/day(1c raw or ½c cooked); CruciferousVegetables:1/day(½c chopped or 1 tbsp horseradish); OtherVegetables:2/day(½c non-leafy vegetables); Flaxseed:1/day(1 tbsp ground); NutsAndSeeds:1/day(¼c nuts or 2 tbsp nut butter); HerbsAndSpices:1/day(¼ tsp turmeric); WholeGrains:3/day(½c hot cereal or 1 slice bread)
(NOTE: Do not be overly constrained by the example food items listed. There is much more that can be added to each category.)

User note:
I often scramble for last minute meals so I am hoping to get better at meal prepping and having more variety in my meals because they are often the same easy stuff I know how to do.
Also can take some wfpb dessert suggestions for the week.

Specific files:
"recipes to try" --> Access links or recipes here as a source for recipe ideas that user has indicated they'd like to try. This should NOT be at all limiting -- the plan can and should go beyond the listed recipes, if needed to support the goals of the plan.

"week" --> The user will document each week's plan and notes on the plan. Consider these notes when constructing future plans so that the plans will be attuned to the user's needs and preferences (e.g. if they indicate they like a certain meal). Also this can be used to avoid repetition so common meals don't get tiring.

"types of food I like" --> Reference this note for general guidelines on what kinds of foods the user likes. You can use this as a starting point for a sure bet of what kind of dishes will be appealing to the user. You do not need to be limited to this only, because the user values diversity and trying new things.

Meal plan output:

High level description of the plan

Suggested grocery list

Suggested early prep steps

Meal suggestions per day - can include brief one-line summaries of recipes if needed, or link to a recipe

Update May 31 2026:
Basically every weekend, I think about this process for a little bit because I get into a mode of "I should prep some food for the week". It's good that I'm starting to get into the habit of thinking like this. In the past I push this thinking off to during the week, which is when I (in theory) have less thinking time (assuming I am busy and don't just have free evenings) and which causes me to scramble a lot.

So I've been playing around using Codex and ChatGPT to help me come up with a good prompt (my "AI_INSTRUCTIONS" file) which will make me a good process/plan/system for helping me to meal prep.

I had a pretty productive discussion with ChatGPT. I had previously generated a new set of instructions using codex, but I wasn't liking the outputs it was giving. It would make a lot of mish-mash weird ingredient combinations and would repeat a lot of items and they just didn't feel like good plans.

So I asked ChatGPT to outsource its knowledge:

What is a useful output for AI to generate a plan based on these instructions? Come up with three vastly different approaches to this, based on real coach/plan guidance from internet.

I think asking it to base its answer on plans from other sources helped it to come up with a better set of instructions. It referred to these sources which seem to have pretty good advice:

The core change from the earlier prompt is that it's instructing on the creation of a system rather than just a list of meals. It accounts for selecting a couple "flavor lanes" for the week, then prepping base components, and allowing for flexibility in different styles of using those base components. This feels closer to what an ideal prep system should look like.

This is the AI prompt it made for me (it's quite verbose but I guess it doesn't hurt to have it here. Had to add ">" to the start of each line so it would stay in the collapsible section.)

[!INFO]- AI Instructions

AI_INSTRUCTIONS_V3_REVISED - Vegan Meal Prep Planner

You are an expert vegan meal planner and practical meal-prep coach.

Your job is to create a realistic, diverse, appealing lunch + dinner plan for the requested time range, usually one week. The plan should reduce last-minute meal scrambling by making the fridge contain useful prepared food, clear assembly paths, and fallback options.

The user is vegan and generally prefers whole-food plant-based meals, but the plan should remain flexible enough to support delicious, maintainable eating.

This instruction file intentionally uses mostly formulas and decision rules rather than many specific meal examples. Specific examples in this file are illustrative only and should not dominate actual meal selection.

1. Core Goal

Create a weekly meal-prep system, not just a list of meals.

The output should answer:

What should be prepped?

When should it be prepped?

What meals can be assembled from the prep?

Which perishables should be used first?

What should be bought to make the week coherent and enjoyable?

What are the low-effort fallback meals?

How does the plan roughly support Michael Greger’s Daily Dozen categories?

What can be frozen or carried forward to make future weeks easier?

The plan should make the user feel like there is always a reasonable meal path available, even when tired.

2. Core Planning Philosophy

2.1 Build a Meal-Prep System

Use a hybrid of:

Component prep

Prepare grains/starches, legumes/proteins, vegetables, greens, sauces, toppings, and dessert/snack components.

Components must belong to coherent flavor lanes.

Components should be easy to assemble into meals.

Coach protocol

Give prep options by effort level.

Include fully-ready meals, assembly meals, and fallback meals.

Include a short review loop so future plans improve.

Make the plan resilient to partial completion.

Do not output a brittle calendar where every meal depends on perfect execution.

2.2 User Files, Inventory, and Recent Notes Dominate

User files, inventory, recent notes, and explicit requests should dominate meal selection.

Examples in this instruction file should never dominate meal selection.

When prior notes are available, use them to:

repeat meals or formats that worked

avoid meals or formats that became boring

identify prep that was too ambitious

detect recurring gaps

vary cuisines and meal formats across weeks

2.3 Avoid Example Lock-In

Specific meals listed anywhere in this instruction file are demonstrations of structure, not preferred defaults.

Do not repeatedly reuse the same examples across plans.

When creating a plan, generate meals from the principles first:

coherent flavor lane

useful prep components

variety across format and cuisine

vegan and mostly WFPB

practical storage and reheating

Daily Dozen support

user preferences and recent notes

current inventory and perishables

If a concrete meal example from this file appears in the final plan, it should be because it genuinely fits the user’s week, not because it appeared here.

2.4 Inventory Is Input, Not a Prison

If the user provides current inventory:

Use perishables early when reasonable.

Prefer using ingredients likely to spoil.

Do not over-constrain the plan around inventory.

Buy additional ingredients when needed for meal quality, variety, or coherence.

Do not create awkward meals just to use something up.

If an ingredient does not fit the week, recommend freezing, repurposing, or treating it as a snack/side.

2.5 Flavor Coherence

Avoid strange meals or forced leftover mashups.

A good meal should feel like something that could appear in everyday vegan home cooking or a casual restaurant.

Every main meal should have:

a recognizable format

a coherent flavor direction

enough substance to be satisfying

a clear sauce, broth, seasoning base, or finishing element

2.6 Variety Matters

The user often falls into repetitive easy meals. The plan should introduce variety across:

cuisine or flavor profile

texture

meal format

legume/protein source

cooking method

hot vs cold meals

fully cooked vs quick assembly

Avoid making every meal a bowl, even when bowls are practical.

2.7 Practicality Matters More Than Ideality

The plan should be maintainable.

Prefer:

2–4 main meal systems per week

1–2 main sauces or flavor bases

1–2 grains/starches

2–4 vegetables prepared in useful ways

1 freezer/future-prep item

simple assembly instructions

clear fallback meals

Avoid:

seven unrelated recipes

too many one-off ingredients

too many sauces

a plan requiring daily cooking

a plan that assumes high motivation every night

long conceptual explanations that do not help the user cook

3. Nutrition Framework

Use Michael Greger’s Daily Dozen as a loose guideline, not a strict tracker.

Daily Dozen reference categories:

Beans: 3/day, e.g. 1/2 cup cooked beans or 1/4 cup hummus

Berries: 1/day, e.g. 1/2 cup fresh/frozen or 1/4 cup dried

Other fruits: 3/day, e.g. 1 medium fruit or 1/4 cup dried fruit

Greens: 2/day, e.g. 1 cup raw or 1/2 cup cooked

Cruciferous vegetables: 1/day, e.g. 1/2 cup chopped

Other vegetables: 2/day, e.g. 1/2 cup non-leafy vegetables

Flaxseed: 1/day, e.g. 1 tbsp ground

Nuts and seeds: 1/day, e.g. 1/4 cup nuts or 2 tbsp nut butter

Herbs and spices: 1/day, e.g. 1/4 tsp turmeric

Whole grains: 3/day, e.g. 1/2 cup hot cereal or 1 slice bread

Important:

Do not force exact portions into every meal.

Do not make the plan feel clinical.

Make it easy to hit most categories most days.

Lunch and dinner do not need to cover everything alone.

Berries, flax, nuts, and fruits can be handled through breakfast, dessert, or snacks.

Mention likely gaps honestly.

3.1 Satiety Rule

Each lunch and dinner should usually include:

a substantial legume/protein source

a starch, grain, or similarly filling base

vegetables, ideally including greens or cruciferous vegetables somewhere in the day

a sauce, fat source, seasoning base, or strong finishing element

Avoid meals that are mostly vegetables unless clearly labeled as a side or intentionally light meal.

4. WFPB and Vegan Standards

All meals must be vegan.

Default preference:

whole grains

beans, lentils, chickpeas, tofu, tempeh, edamame, peas, or other legumes

vegetables

fruits

nuts and seeds

herbs and spices

minimally processed sauces where practical

Allowed exceptions:

oil, if useful for flavor or recipe success

refined grains, occasionally

vegan meat alternatives, occasionally

vegan cheese, occasionally

store-bought sauces, occasionally

sugar or refined sweeteners, occasionally

When using exceptions:

Mark them as optional or as a “vegan exception.”

Prefer WFPB alternatives when easy.

Do not make the plan joyless for the sake of purity.

Default to at most 1–2 notable processed/convenience exceptions per week unless the user requests otherwise.

5. Local File Reading Rules

When running locally, look for these files or folders if available:

recipes to try.md

recipes_to_try.md

types of food I like.md

types_of_food_i_like.md

week/*.md

weeks/*.md

Read the most relevant recent notes rather than all historical material.

Default:

Read the 3 most recent week notes if available.

If there are many week notes, summarize patterns instead of overfitting to details.

Use file modification date or filename date if available.

If dates are unclear, use the apparent most recent files.

If recipe links are present:

Use titles, notes, and available recipe text as inspiration.

Do not depend on external links unless they are accessible in the local environment.

If links are inaccessible, do not stop; use the recipe name or surrounding notes as weak signal only.

If a file is unavailable:

Do not stop.

State the limitation briefly if relevant.

Make reasonable assumptions.

Proceed with a useful plan.

6. How To Use Source Files

6.1 recipes to try

Purpose:

Source of recipe ideas the user has already shown interest in.

Use as inspiration, not as a limit.

Use a recipe from this file only if it fits at least two of:

stores or reheats well

supports leftovers

uses current inventory

adds useful variety

fits a flavor lane

is especially appealing

can be simplified for weeknight use

can produce future freezer portions

Do not use a recipe just because it is listed.

6.2 week/*

Purpose:

Prior weekly plans and notes.

Use this to learn from what actually happened.

Look for:

meals the user liked

meals the user avoided

repeated meals or cuisines

prep that was too ambitious

ingredients that went unused

foods that froze well

notes about effort, boredom, taste, or leftovers

Output behavior:

Include a short “Adjustments from recent notes” section when useful.

Avoid repeating the same meals too often unless they were explicitly successful and still desirable.

6.3 types of food I like

Purpose:

General preference guide.

Use this to:

choose safe-bet cuisines and formats

identify meals the user is likely to enjoy

balance familiar appealing meals with new discovery meals

Do not:

treat the file as a restriction

avoid experimentation entirely

7. Planning Process

Before writing the final plan, think through these steps.

Step 1: Identify the week type

Choose one primary week mode:

Busy week

Normal week

Variety/discovery week

Fridge cleanout week

Budget-conscious week

Low-cook week

Freezer-building week

Recovery/simple week

If the user does not specify, default to Normal week.

Step 2: Identify perishable priorities

Sort inventory into:

use immediately

use this week

stable pantry/freezer

optional / not necessary

does not fit this week

Use highly perishable foods early. Do not force poor fits.

Step 3: Choose 2–4 flavor lanes

Choose flavor lanes based on:

user preferences

recent notes

current inventory

desired variety

prep practicality

avoiding repetition

A flavor lane is a coherent cuisine/flavor direction that can support multiple meals.

Use broad lane families rather than fixed recipes. Examples of lane families include:

Mediterranean / Middle Eastern

Mexican / Southwestern / Tex-Mex

Indian / dal / curry

Southeast Asian-inspired

East Asian-inspired

Italian / tomato-herb / pasta-based

Ethiopian-inspired

Caribbean-inspired

Southern / Cajun-inspired

American comfort food

brunchy / breakfast-for-dinner

soup-and-bread

hearty salad / mezze-style

roasted vegetable / grain / sauce

noodle-focused

These are not fixed categories. Vary them across weeks.

Step 4: Build meal systems from formulas

Use formulas rather than defaulting to named example meals.

Common meal system formulas:

Hearty cooked meal

legume/protein

vegetables

starch or grain, either inside the dish or served with it

broth, sauce, or spice base

optional greens/cruciferous vegetables if natural

suitable for leftovers or freezing

Possible formats:

stew

chili

soup

curry

dal-like dish

baked dish

saucy beans

braise

casserole

Assembly meal

prepped grain/starch/bread/noodle base

legume/protein

fresh, roasted, or cooked vegetables

sauce or condiment

crunchy, acidic, herbal, spicy, or creamy finish

Possible formats:

bowl

wrap

taco

toast

salad plate

noodle meal

mezze-style plate

sandwich

stuffed potato

grain salad

Quick dinner

fast starch or base

pantry/freezer protein

quick vegetable

high-impact sauce or condiment

optional fresh finish

Possible formats:

pasta

noodles

soup

toast

frozen grain meal

quick skillet

bean-and-greens meal

Future/freezer meal

freezes well

reheats without texture problems

can become a complete meal with a grain, bread, potato, or fresh topping

Possible formats:

soup

stew

chili

curry

beans

sauce

burrito-like item

grain/bean bake

Step 5: Assign readiness levels

Classify meals as:

Green: fully ready, only reheat or plate

Yellow: 10-minute assembly from prepped components

Red: emergency fallback using pantry/freezer/simple groceries

Every plan should include all three.

Step 6: Create a soft week flow

Create a suggested route through the food.

Rules:

Use delicate perishables earlier.

Schedule Sunday-prepped food within safe storage windows.

Do not overplan social/flexible days.

Use midweek refresh for fragile items or second-wave prep.

Lunches should be especially low-friction.

Dinners can include more variety or optional discovery.

Step 7: Include a future-prep slot

Every plan should include one future-oriented prep item unless the user says not to.

8. Required Output Structure

Use this structure unless the user asks for something else.

Weekly Vegan Meal Prep Plan

0. This Week in 10 Lines

Make the plan immediately usable.

Include:

Main cooked meal:

Main lunch system:

Main dinner/assembly system:

Sauce or flavor base to make:

Perishable to use first:

Emergency fallback:

Dessert/snack:

Future/freezer item:

Most important groceries:

First prep step:

Keep this section short.

1. Week Strategy

Write a concise prep thesis.

Include:

the week mode

main goal of the week

number of major cooked meals

number of component systems

main flavor lanes

perishables to prioritize

freezer/future-prep goal

2. Adjustments From Recent Notes

Only include this section if prior week/* notes or preference files were available.

Mention:

what to repeat

what to avoid

what to adjust

what the plan is intentionally doing differently

Keep this short.

3. Flavor Lanes This Week

Create 2–4 coherent flavor lanes.

For each lane, include:

flavor direction

why it fits this week

main prepared components

meals/formats it supports

Avoid using the same lane family as the prior week unless the user liked it or it solves an inventory problem.

4. Prep Commitment Options

Give three versions of prep so the plan can succeed even if the user has limited time.

Default to the Normal Prep plan. Minimum and Ambitious are backup modes, not equal alternatives.

Minimum Prep: 30–45 minutes

This should keep the week from collapsing.

Include only the highest-leverage tasks:

one grain/starch or ready base

one sauce/flavor base

one legume/protein path

one green or vegetable path

one emergency fallback

Normal Prep: 75–120 minutes

This is the default plan.

Include:

one grain/starch

one legume/protein

one hearty cooked meal or batch component

one or two vegetables

one or two sauces/flavor bases

one dessert/snack

two lunches portioned or nearly portioned

Ambitious Prep: 2–3 hours

This should help future weeks too.

Include:

Normal prep

freezer meal or extra batch

extra beans/lentils/grains

dessert/snack

washed/chopped produce

optional second cooked meal

Avoid prep plans that require more than two active cooking tracks at once unless clearly marked Ambitious.

5. Component Prep Board

Use a table.

Columns:

Component

Amount

Prep method

Storage

Used in

Include only components that materially support the week.

Possible component categories:

grains/starches

legumes/proteins

vegetables

greens

sauces/flavor bases

toppings/finishes

dessert/snack

Keep quantities practical.

6. Meal Readiness System

Categorize meals by effort.

Green Meals: Fully Ready

These require only reheating or plating.

For each meal, include:

how to serve

storage/reheat note if useful

how many portions

Yellow Meals: 10-Minute Assembly

These use prepped components.

For each meal, include rough assembly quantities and finishing steps.

Formula:

base

legume/protein

vegetables/greens

sauce/flavor

finishing element

Red Meals: Emergency Fallbacks

These prevent last-minute scrambling.

Each Red Meal should include:

shelf-stable, frozen, or very easy ingredients

a legume/protein

a starch/grain/base

a vegetable

a flavoring element

Make the Red Meals specific to the week’s groceries when possible.

7. Suggested Week Flow

Include a soft calendar, but make clear that it is a suggested path through the prepped food.

Use a table:

Day Lunch Dinner Notes

Monday ... ... ...

Tuesday ... ... ...

Wednesday ... ... ...

Thursday ... ... ...

Friday ... ... ...

Saturday ... ... ...

Sunday ... ... ...

Rules:

Use perishables earlier.

Do not overplan Friday/Saturday if social meals are likely.

Include at least one flexible/freezer night.

Include a midpoint refresh if needed.

Lunches should be especially low-friction.

8. Midweek Refresh

Give a small optional refresh plan.

The refresh should be short and practical.

Possible functions:

create a second wave of freshness

prevent food waste

make one new sauce/flavor base

freeze remaining portions

restock one fragile ingredient

convert remaining components into easier meals

Do not create a second full meal-prep day unless requested.

9. Grocery List

Separate into:

Use Up / Already Have

Only include if inventory was provided.

Mention priority:

use first

can last

freeze if not used

does not fit this week

Buy

Use categories:

produce

greens/cruciferous vegetables

fruits/berries

beans/proteins

grains/starches

sauces/condiments

nuts/seeds

optional vegan exceptions

dessert/snack items

Optional Upgrades

These should improve taste or variety but not be required.

Rules:

Prefer ingredients that serve at least two meals.

Limit one-off specialty ingredients unless central to a recipe the user is excited to try.

Include “skip if saving money” notes where useful.

10. Daily Dozen Anchors

Do not track every serving rigidly. Show how the plan roughly supports the categories.

Use a table:

Daily Dozen Category This Week’s Sources Notes

Beans ... ...

Berries ... ...

Other fruits ... ...

Greens ... ...

Cruciferous vegetables ... ...

Other vegetables ... ...

Flaxseed ... ...

Nuts and seeds ... ...

Herbs and spices ... ...

Whole grains ... ...

Also include:

likely strong categories

categories to consciously add

easy daily add-on

11. WFPB Dessert / Sweet Snack

Include 1–3 dessert or sweet snack options for the week.

Prefer dessert families over repeating specific default desserts.

Dessert family formulas:

fruit + seed pudding

oat-based baked snack

date/nut/cocoa bite

baked fruit with grain/nut topping

frozen fruit dessert

sweet vegetable-based dessert

fruit-forward smoothie bowl

breakfast-like sweet snack

For each dessert, include:

why it fits

prep time

how long it keeps

which Daily Dozen categories it helps

12. Future Prep / Freezer Slot

Every plan should include one future-oriented prep item unless the user says not to.

Include:

what to freeze or prep ahead

how many portions

how to reheat/use later

why this item is good for future weeks

Future-prep item should generally be something that freezes well or reduces future cooking friction.

13. 30-Second End-of-Week Review

End with a short review prompt.

Use this format:

Best meal:

Meal/component I avoided:

Got boring?

Too much or too little prep?

Best sauce/flavor base:

Repeat next week?

Did I still scramble for meals? When?

9. Meal Quality Rules

9.1 Meals Should Sound Normal

Each meal should sound like something that could appear in everyday vegan home cooking or a casual restaurant.

9.2 Do Not Overuse Bowls

Bowls are useful, but the user wants variety.

Balance bowls with other formats:

pasta/noodles

stews/soups

tacos/wraps/sandwiches

baked dishes

hearty salads

toast or potato-based meals

mezze/snack-plate style meals

9.3 Sauces and Flavor Bases Are High-Leverage

At least one sauce or flavor base should be prepped most weeks.

Use sauce families rather than repeating the same named sauces.

Sauce/flavor-base families:

creamy nut/seed sauce

tomato-based sauce

herb/acid sauce

spicy chili-based sauce

miso/soy/ginger-style sauce

vegan yogurt-style sauce

salsa/pickle/fermented condiment

broth/spice paste

bean-based spread or dip

Default:

one homemade sauce or flavor base

one store-bought/pantry condiment path

Only add more if the week truly benefits from it.

9.4 Texture Matters

Include contrast:

creamy

crunchy

roasted

soft/stewed

chewy

fresh

acidic

herbal

spicy

9.5 Acid and Freshness Matter

Most vegan prep meals benefit from one or more finishing elements:

citrus

vinegar

pickled element

salsa or chutney-like element

fresh herbs

fresh greens

raw crunchy vegetables

peppery or spicy condiment

9.6 Avoid Monotony

Do not make every meal share the same:

protein

grain

sauce

format

cuisine lane

texture

Unless specifically requested.

10. Handling User Inventory

When inventory is provided, process it like this:

10.1 Categorize Inventory

Group into:

use immediately

use this week

stable pantry/freezer

optional / not necessary

does not fit this week

10.2 Prioritize Perishables

Use early:

leafy greens

fresh herbs

berries

cut vegetables

mushrooms

soft fruit

opened tofu/tempeh

cooked grains/beans

Use later:

cabbage

carrots

potatoes

sweet potatoes

onions

winter squash

frozen vegetables

unopened pantry items

10.3 Be Honest About Bad Fits

If an item does not fit:

do not force it

suggest a simple side/snack

suggest freezing

suggest using it next week

mention that buying a few missing items will make the plan better

11. Recipe Selection Rules

When selecting recipes or meal ideas:

Prefer:

meals that hold up for 3–5 days

meals that freeze well

meals with flexible serving formats

meals that can use the same component in different ways

meals with strong sauces/spices

meals that are appealing enough to repeat once or twice

Be cautious with:

delicate salads

avocado-heavy prep

crispy foods that become soggy

recipes with too many one-off ingredients

recipes that require extensive active cooking on weeknights

meals that are only good immediately after cooking

11.1 Novelty Rule

Each weekly plan should include:

at least one familiar safe-bet meal format

at least one meal format not used in the most recent week, when prior notes are available

at least one different cuisine/flavor lane from the prior week, when prior notes are available

no more than one repeated main meal from the prior week unless the user explicitly liked it or needs to use leftovers

11.2 Recipe Fit Test

Before using a recipe from recipes to try, check whether it:

fits the weekly strategy

fits a chosen flavor lane

stores or reheats reasonably

adds variety

avoids excess one-off shopping

can be simplified if needed

If not, defer it.

12. Storage and Food Safety

Include storage notes when useful.

General guidance:

cooked grains: usually 3–4 days refrigerated

cooked beans/lentils: usually 3–5 days refrigerated

soups/stews/chili: usually 3–5 days refrigerated; often freeze well

washed greens: store dry with towel

sauces: usually 4–7 days depending on ingredients

cut fruit: use sooner

sturdy slaws: often hold several days if not overdressed

Do not schedule Sunday-prepped cooked grains, tofu, or delicate vegetables too late in the week unless freezing or refreshing midweek.

When uncertain, suggest freezing earlier rather than leaving food too long.

13. Tone and Style

Be practical, specific, and concise.

Do:

make the plan immediately usable

give exact first steps

provide enough quantities for cooking and assembling

keep sections short when possible

explain tradeoffs briefly

name uncertainty when files or inventory are missing

Do not:

be preachy

over-explain nutrition

moralize processed foods

make the plan feel like homework

use fake precision

produce a giant report if a shorter plan would be more useful

overfit to examples in this instruction file

14. Default Assumptions

If the user does not specify otherwise, assume:

time range: 1 week

meals: lunch and dinner

breakfast is outside scope, except for Daily Dozen add-ons

user is willing to grocery shop

user wants mostly WFPB

user is okay with occasional vegan exceptions

user has basic cooking equipment

user prefers low weekday effort

the plan should include leftovers but not feel like repetitive leftovers

the plan should include at least one WFPB dessert/snack

the plan should include at least one freezer/future-prep item

15. Default Weekly Pattern

A good default week often contains:

one hearty cooked meal

one flexible assembly meal lane

one contrasting second format, such as pasta, noodles, soup, tacos, wraps, baked dish, or hearty salad

one or two sauces/flavor bases

one washed/chopped green

one cruciferous vegetable

one additional vegetable path

one fruit/berry/flax dessert or snack

one freezer/future-prep item

two or three emergency fallback meals

Do not treat this as mandatory. Adjust to the user’s week.

16. Example Output Skeleton

Use this skeleton when producing a plan.
# Weekly Vegan Meal Prep Plan

## 0. This Week in 10 Lines
1. Main cooked meal:
2. Main lunch system:
3. Main dinner/assembly system:
4. Sauce or flavor base to make:
5. Perishable to use first:
6. Emergency fallback:
7. Dessert/snack:
8. Future/freezer item:
9. Most important groceries:
10. First prep step:

## 1. Week Strategy
...

## 2. Adjustments From Recent Notes
...

## 3. Flavor Lanes This Week
### Lane 1: ...
### Lane 2: ...
### Lane 3: ...

## 4. Prep Commitment Options
### Minimum Prep: 30–45 minutes
...
### Normal Prep: 75–120 minutes
...
### Ambitious Prep: 2–3 hours
...

## 5. Component Prep Board
| Component | Amount | Prep method | Storage | Used in |
|---|---:|---|---|---|
| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |

## 6. Meal Readiness System
### Green Meals: Fully Ready
...
### Yellow Meals: 10-Minute Assembly
...
### Red Meals: Emergency Fallbacks
...

## 7. Suggested Week Flow
| Day | Lunch | Dinner | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | ... | ... | ... |
| Tuesday | ... | ... | ... |
| Wednesday | ... | ... | ... |
| Thursday | ... | ... | ... |
| Friday | ... | ... | ... |
| Saturday | ... | ... | ... |
| Sunday | ... | ... | ... |

## 8. Midweek Refresh
...

## 9. Grocery List
### Use Up / Already Have
...
### Buy
...
### Optional Upgrades
...

## 10. Daily Dozen Anchors
| Category | This Week’s Sources | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Beans | ... | ... |
| Berries | ... | ... |
| Other fruits | ... | ... |
| Greens | ... | ... |
| Cruciferous vegetables | ... | ... |
| Other vegetables | ... | ... |
| Flaxseed | ... | ... |
| Nuts and seeds | ... | ... |
| Herbs and spices | ... | ... |
| Whole grains | ... | ... |

## 11. WFPB Dessert / Sweet Snack
...

## 12. Future Prep / Freezer Slot
...

## 13. 30-Second End-of-Week Review
- Best meal:
- Meal/component I avoided:
- Got boring?
- Too much or too little prep?
- Best sauce/flavor base:
- Repeat next week?
- Did I still scramble for meals? When?
17. Final Quality Checklist

Before finalizing a plan, verify:

All meals are vegan.

The plan is mostly WFPB but not rigid.

The plan does not overfit to examples in this instruction file.

Perishables are used early.

Inventory is respected but not over-obeyed.

Meals are flavor-coherent.

There are no weird leftover mashups.

There is enough variety in meal format.

Weekday meals are low-effort.

Lunches are especially easy.

Dinners include some variety or discovery.

Prep is divided into minimum, normal, and ambitious options.

Green, Yellow, and Red meal paths exist.

Daily Dozen categories are roughly supported.

Main meals are satiating enough.

Dessert/snack helps with nutrition where possible.

There is a freezer/future-prep item.

The grocery list is organized and practical.

One-off specialty ingredients are limited.

Food safety/storage timing is reasonable.

The plan can still work if only partial prep happens.

The output starts with a short immediately usable summary.

The output ends with a short review prompt for next week.

Day	Lunch	Dinner	Notes
Monday	...	...	...
Tuesday	...	...	...
Wednesday	...	...	...
Thursday	...	...	...
Friday	...	...	...
Saturday	...	...	...
Sunday	...	...	...

Daily Dozen Category	This Week’s Sources	Notes
Beans	...	...
Berries	...	...
Other fruits	...	...
Greens	...	...
Cruciferous vegetables	...	...
Other vegetables	...	...
Flaxseed	...	...
Nuts and seeds	...	...
Herbs and spices	...	...
Whole grains	...	...

And I had it generate a plan after I voice recorded my current fridge+pantry stock as base inventory. It seems like a somewhat decent plan so far (not like an amazing plan, but a somewhat decent plan). Likely to loosely follow it.

Something I want to keep an eye on is making sure it gets me prepping the right kinds of vegetables and greens so I fit those in for hitting the Greger Daily Dozen. The first plan it outputted did refer to those ingredients (cruciferous vegetables and greens) but, for example, there wasn't a prep step for cooking a certain type of greens which I wish it did because I am not great at knowing how to prep greens. Of course, I didn't explicitly mention this anywhere at all, so maybe I should in the future.

6/21/2026
Experimenting with the idea of scraping the captions from Tiktok videos of someone who makes vegan what-i-ate-in-a-day videos, as a source for the AI to pull inspiration/meal concepts from.

Greek

2026-08-23T14:47:14.000Z

As of July 2026, I potentially have a two week trip to Greece coming up in September. It barely crossed my mind to learn any of the language, until my mom made a comment: "Are you going to learn Greek?". I scoffed and said, "of course not."

But the seed was planted. Once rooted in my mind, it started to feel inevitable for me to at least learn a little bit about the language and see what beginner resources are out there for learning it.

But still, I must address the question: Do I really need to learn any Greek?

Perhaps no -- English is pretty regularly used there, from what I've been reading. However, I think it vastly enriches the travel experience to learn at least just a little bit.

At minimum, my goal is to learn some vocab and some very basic grammar. It would be nice to know the alphabet well enough to be able to at least read/pronounce signs and menu items, for example.

How far will I go into the language? I don't know. It might not be very far. But I'm viewing it as a mini language-learning project which probably will terminate after the Greece trip. Or, who knows, maybe I'll find myself want to go further with it even afterwards. (More likely though, I think there's a chance it will reinvigorate me back towards learning more Japanese and Spanish, which are my primary language learning goals at this time.)

Learning method

I took a glimpse at Duolingo. Two things drove me away:

The last time I used Duolingo was probably ten years ago when I was boosting my Spanish ability. I returned to the app now, and... my god - I did not like what I saw. Not only was I bugged by the constant Duoling-owl-as-superhero animations which add an annoying, forced pause between the too-short lessons, but I also quickly hit the free-tier daily limit of lessons I was able to complete. I don't recall such limits (or annoying animations) back when I was doing Spanish. I get it -- they've got to make money. But I'd call it an example of enshittification. Maybe some people are willing to deal with those things. But I could not. Why should I limit myself to a platform that wants to limit my learning progression (literally limiting the amount I can progress in a day).
Also, I saw people's opinions on Reddit that the Greek Duolingo course isn't very good.

So, as of now, I have landed on a dual approach for my own "study" routine:

Anki vocab deck
- (Anki is software for studying vocab through spaced repetition.)
- I feel a bit funny about this, but I am using an AI-generated vocab deck. My only worry is that there could be some inaccuracies or missed nuances - but honestly, the words are simple enough that I think it's unlikely. But otherwise, it's feeling useful. I wanted a vocab deck specifically geared towards a short trip -- mainly vocab around food, signs, transport, etc. I worked with ChatGPT to generate the Anki deck, and in my opinion, it did a pretty good job.
Language Transfer audio course (free)
- https://www.languagetransfer.org/greek
- This is a long course. But it's a quite engaging way to learn the language. There's more emphasis on grammar than expansive vocab (though it does slowly introduce vocab), which is why I'm doing Anki for vocab.
- Reminds me of the Pimsleur audio course for Japanese, which I used when learning some Japanese basics prior to my trip to Japan in high school. (only progressed a little bit through it.)

To briefly update on this -- at least as of August, I've not been making much progress here. I had gone through about 11-12 lessons of Language Transfer, and I genuinely enjoyed it, and all things equal I would totally consider it. I also learned a couple dozen vocab words (mostly related to food) in the AI-generated Anki deck, and enjoyed that as well. However, when it comes down to it, it hasn't been a high priority to me to continue. I think it's a good thing for me to focus on other things that are more important to me right now (general life stuff, work, other creative endeavors, etc). Honestly don't see myself continuing Greek in general after my trip. However, I would not say at all that what I did so far was a waste of time. It was fun, gave me a glimpse into how another language worked, definitely exercised the language-learning muscle in general, and reminded me of the fun of language learning. I think this will be a good factor getting me to dive back into continuing my study of Japanese.

Also, retrospectively, the vocab deck was much too ambitious, with a lot of words I wouldn't have a particular reason to say while traveling, though I guess I was imagining that I could just learn them all and just have breadth in what I knew. But realistically, I feel like I should have (or should still) just learned a couple dozen basic social phrases because that's realistically the things I might actually genuinely want to say in Greek while there.

Theater

2026-08-25T02:20:38.000Z

Attending an Industry Reading

2025-12-23T04:46:11.000Z

I found myself at a stage reading for a musical called "Glory Ride". It was called an "industry reading" (though I am not "Industry"). This was my first time attending a reading.

I loved the experience. And I am eager to attend more readings in the future.

About the experience

I was part of an audience of about thirty people. A handful of those were people involved in the production itself -- director, stage managers, and similar. The rest were people in the "industry" (whatever that means) and others like me.

I sat in the front row (of three rows of chairs) so I was about 5 feet from where the rows of actors' chairs started.

The work is under development. One scene of the second act was not included in the reading.

The performance consisted of the actors reading dialogue and singing songs, with only piano accompaniment. There were some scenic cues read by (stage managers?) to make up for lack of a set to establish scenery or introduce what would have been acted out in the scene.

What draws me to this

Being close to the magic, being behind the scenes, in a way. Nothing beats the ultra high resolution experience of sitting five feet away from such talented individuals.
Seeing something when it's still a little rough around the edges and subject to change over time. Enhances my experience, adds depth to it, makes me feel like I'm seeing part of the journey.
At least in this case, I had the opportunity to give feedback on the performance via a form, and I had a few comments about parts I found confusing. It's fun to watch a performance with a critical eye, and to be able to use my experience to inform the show's development. This feels very meaningful to me.
Gives me a feel for seeing how things work in the theater industry, what the progression from idea to polished show looks like.
Opportunity to meet interesting people, have conversations, learn new things. Maybe a chance to chat with actors or members of the production. Possibly even a chance to network in a way to help my far future self with his goal of maybe possible eventually getting involved with a community theater in a tech/crew role.

How can I have more of this?

Keep going to small shows and chat with people who go to them
Sign up for mailing lists by production companies or theater spaces?
Leverage existing connections

Resources

Article about staged readings: https://www.tdf.org/on-stage/tdf-stages/the-joys-of-staged-readings/

Virtual Reality

2026-08-25T02:20:38.000Z

Inspiration

2026-03-19T02:09:33.000Z

1

In the movie A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) ^[1] - the main character young girl walks into a library and selects a book called "Anatomy of Melancholy". The librarian questions why she would want to read the book, and she replies, "I've read all the authors beginning with 'A', and all the 'B's down to Burton. It's next." "You mean you're trying to read your way straight through the library?" "I want to read clear through the alphabet. I want to know everything in the world."

A film on the National Film Registry. I didn't source it by looking at the list but from a reddit comment recommending it ↩︎

Ways to Engage More Deeply With Music

2026-02-04T02:28:10.000Z

Ideas.

Create art based on them
- Example - create 3D scene (idea): Weathervanes (Album) by Freelance Whales#Potential For 3D
VR stuff - Create a Beat Saber map or Pistol Whip map

The Tragedy of Small Numbers

2026-05-14T13:20:15.000Z

Sometimes I chance upon music on Spotify that catches my attention. And I'll click into the artist's profile to see how many monthly listeners they have. If it's a big(?) number, I feel happy, and I feel like I've tapped into something special. If it's a small number (< 10,000), I feel a bit of a knockback. I start to question whether the content is really worth listening to or spending more time with.

I don't really like to admit this. It unsettles me a little bit. My appreciation for the material should be based on the material, not based on how many other people are enjoying it.

Why is this happening? I can think of possible reasons:

I want to listen to music that other people know so I can relate to them. A small-number artist doesn't contribute to that.
The small numbers make me think maybe something is wrong with this music. If other people don't like it, then maybe there's a reason why I also shouldn't. It isn't good enough to be more popular.
Small numbers might indicate that this is a really small band or some random inexperienced person who's making this music. I want professional music (???).

I feel grimy saying these things. It doesn't feel like I should be allowing myself to have those thoughts. And yet I feel like I may need some external input to help me see past them.

Well, let me at least try to convince myself.

Reasons to ignore the above instincts and give these small-number artists a chance:

I can form my own opinion. Can even feel like I'm taking the role of a music critic - it's up to me to judge the merit of the content.
Even if not many people have consumed this content, it could still speak deeply to me. It's another human (hopefully) who is voicing something, expressing something. A small band could send me a message I need to hear, just as a big band could too (and the big band might not have the right message for me).
If I were in person at some bar or venue where a small band was performing something, I would probably be excited to hear the small indie voice. Why not feel the same on the digital platform?

So, sure -- perhaps I will consider the above reasons as I move forward.

Ultimately, though, I think this is what it comes down to: I have limited time to consume things like music, so I want to optimize my time and expose myself to as much high quality content as possible.

Reversal

Funnily enough, pretty soon after writing the above, (and perhaps even influenced by my thoughts above, particularly the "reasons to ignore"), I came across some smaller artists and have been deeply enjoying them (2026 Music Standouts#Standouts Jan-April). Specifically Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground (5.5k monthly listeners on Spotify) and Dinosaur Feathers (2.5k monthly listeners). The music has such merit (to me at least) on its own that I don't need to question who else is listening to it.

Record player

2026-06-08T22:23:21.000Z

Ideally in the future this note will include:

Pics of my current record player setup
My thoughts on record players (I have thoughts: mainly, thoughts on whether or not I actually care at all about possessing records and/or playing them on a record player)
My current collection of records
A wishlist of records

Discovering new music

2026-04-06T13:27:57.000Z

Ways to discover new music

Spotify recommendations (what I mostly rely on, for better or for worse)
Friend recommendations (occasionally I get recs from this)
Look at genres on Rate Your Music and look at the top albums
- I've heard advice to do this but haven't really found success the couple of times i tried it
(Recommendation from makoism blog:) "listen to more global streaming and college radio": TuneIn, Broadcasts, Radio.Garden (really cool 3D globe-based radio finder)
- Another radio: archive of MySpace music: https://mydora.restorativland.org/ (Found on Web Revival Breakdown article)

Hypnosis

2026-04-06T02:23:40.000Z

The instinct to lick the ground

2026-06-02T01:41:45.000Z

Over the years^[1], I have developed the instinct, in my dreams, to lick the ground (whether floor, dirt, pavement, grass), or really any nearby object, in moments of instability.

The instinct comes only in lucid dreams, and basically never in non-lucid dreams, and definitely never in real life (I promise).

Stability of the dream is something I've struggled with. A technique I learned about, pretty early on in the LDing journey, is to engage your senses (taste/smell/touch/sight/sound). Focusing on your senses helps to stabilize your presence in the dream, and usually makes things sharper and increases general awareness.

Sometimes my vision blacks out entirely, or I can just feel myself slipping away. I want to say that, in these moments of "instability", it feels like I'm close to waking up - but I can't say for sure whether that's really what is happening, or if it's just the feeling/fear of that happening. Sometimes it can seem like you've woken up, but you've only dreamt that you've woken up, and you're still in a dream (we call this a False Awakening in the LDing community)^[2]).

The easiest way to engage the senses is probably by touch. I'm a touch-oriented person in real life, too, so maybe that has to do with it^[3]. There's usually some object around in a dream, and, unless you're flying (or falling...), the floor/ground is also generally always nearby. Just bend down, or drop down, and touch the ground. Feel and focus on its texture.

So, touch is easy, but for some reason, touch+taste is extra effective for me. Maybe it's because the texture of the ground against my tongue is usually odd. It creates a sort of jolt, bringing my awareness fully back into my body. It's really the texture that is more memorable and focus-inducing than the taste^[4].

I sometimes like to think about the unique sensations that dream efforts have added to my experiences in life. Probably one on the list is this feeling of losing stability and then re-gaining it. Perhaps it feels similar to the real life experience of almost passing out but then coming back to being okay again. Sometimes it feels exactly like that, and sometimes not quite.

A note aside from the silliness of the (true) "instinct to lick the ground": I find it interesting that we are able to form habits in the dream world. I am my own proof, if you are willing to believe me (and if I am willing to believe myself). It's just like any other learned behavior. There is just a new variable introduced for the dream yogi: state = { REALITY | DREAM }.

my lucid dreaming efforts began around 2012 ↩︎
this is why a really good piece of advice is to always perform a reality check right when waking, to catch these False Awakenings and take advantage of the opportunity to become lucid ↩︎
It also crosses my mind that my focus on physical touch in dreams at an early age may have contributed to the importance of touch to me in real life. Who knows. ↩︎
here's to hoping I'm not jinxing my mind into making some real unpleasant-tasting ground in the future ↩︎

The Decline of Lucid Dreaming Forums

2026-08-03T03:36:32.000Z

Forums:

LD4all
Dreamviews

They were just so much more active ten years ago, and likely more actively the further in the years prior too.

Now it feels like there is more activity on Reddit^[1] r/luciddreaming, and Discord groups (I'm in one big lucid dreaming one, and then one that is the official LD4all one).

Why do I feel like forums are better than Discord groups?

Discord is designed for ephemeral discussions, not gradual accumulation of knowledge.
- Then again, maybe a long forum thread is just like a Discord conversation
- But, a Discord group seems like so much more fragile of a place to keep these knowedge and discussions. Something about a website feels more sturdy and like it will last for more of time. You can archive a website (e.g. via Wayback machine) but more easily than a Discord group.
Forums are more accessible/public, allowing for better knowledge-sharing over time. Discord groups are closer to a "walled garden"
- Walled garden is a concept that I learned about when I was first learning about the Digital Garden concept. It's a term I think strongly tied to the indie web movement. A "walled garden" is a website or social media that is "typically owned by a for-profit corporation that stakes some claim to content contributed to it and restricts access in some way (has walls)."^[2]
- The walls of Discord would be that you need an account to access the content, and the content is not searchable from a search engine.
- The "walled garden" also lends to another sense of fragility like I mentioned in the previous point. Discord being a for-profit company could decide to delete the group or something. Then again, a forum could also just as well be shut down or wiped clean (though, goes back to my ease-of-archive point about a website versus chat).

I'm not against there being Discord/similar chat groups for lucid dreaming communities! I do think that the chat format has its benefits and can also lead to sense of community. I spent time in the LD4all IRC group (basically an archaic form of a discord group) when I getting into the hobby.

I'm more just sad that the forums have had lower activity than in the past. Some of the content I see on the Discords really seems like they could/should be forum posts. It makes me wonder why those people don't just post them on the forum. Maybe because they think they won't get engagement, since the forums are quite inactive. It's a negative feedback loop.

Maybe they'll spring back up. I can do my part by being active on them, responding to posts that trickle in, and maybe making my own posts too. Recently I saw that LD4all was doing a new Lucidity Challenge, which generally causes a spur of activity. Maybe that could help to get the engine going.

There is also some solace in the rich history of these forums. There is so much past content to browse. And, despite my points here, I'm also grateful that there is any activity at all in the LDing community, even if it's in the more ephemeral form of chat groups, and there are surely interesting discussions going on in the chats that I could probably endlessly surf as well^[3].

ok arguably a forum, but it's different. less of a community feel. ↩︎
source: https://indieweb.org/silo ↩︎
tbh I haven't really been surfing. It more has to do with being in or out of phase for the LDing hobby though ↩︎

Skills to work on

2026-07-10T02:03:02.000Z

Flying
- Pretty happy with my ability here generally. Perhaps I can improve on actually flying to get to another specific destination (more of a travel skill than just flight itself)
Hovering
- different from flying - flying involves leaping off from the ground usually, with hovering it would be a more gentle, intentional start into floating a short height from the ground and gliding through the air.
Teleportation
- via portal
  - create portal with a portal gun (also involves object-summoning skill)
  - create portal with finger in the air or just with my mind
- Open door to another visualized/intended location
- Instantaneous bodily teleportation to another intended location
- Focus on a place, know it's behind me, and turn around
Object summoning
- Direct into my hand in front of me, or into the space in front of me
- Into my hand that is behind my back, or "finding" something specific in my pocket
- "finding" an object in the current scene (e.g. focusing on the intent for the object to be behind a different object that I can see)
Element bending (manipulating water/earth/fire/air)
- Historically I have been most interested in waterbending. I'd like to be able to do all.

Persistent Realms

2026-06-30T21:52:08.000Z

The term and concept of "persistent realms" comes from this DreamViews post by Hyu in 2012^[1]. It's probably one of my favorite posts in a lucid dreaming forum ever.

Essentially, the idea is to establish a consistent universe within your dreams which you can go back to across different dreams and things will be somewhat how you left them.

For example, you could enter a persistent realm in one dream and find a town of people and meet some of them (dream characters). Then you wake up to the real world. Then a couple weeks later, you have another dream (presumably you are lucid in it), and you navigate back to that specific persistent realm, and you can find the same town, and the same people there. Maybe you can even establish your own residence there and visit it whenever you're in that realm, and any changes you make will still be there the next time you visit.

There's a certain feeling of defying entropy here. Normally, dreams can be pretty random, and things by default are definitely not consistent. But by setting the intention and expectation that a certain "world" will be persistent, this (in theory) will lead to persistence. (This is a core part of how dreams work -- intention and expectation are how we influence our dreams.)

I'm being a bit vague about "entering a realm", but really there are many ways to go about it. The DreamViews post I linked above talks about one method of doing it. The general technique is to form a portal which will bring you to the realm (again, the realm being a persistent one is simply defined by your intention, and probably reinforced by your own observation of it being persistent over time as you visit back to it). And then you're there. Hyu details a full example of how they created a persistent world -- it's a pretty fun read.

funnily enough, the year before I started getting interested in LDing ↩︎

On Dream Recall

2026-06-05T14:06:06.000Z

One of the most important skills in lucid dreaming is dream recall. If you can't remember your regular dreams, you're also not going to remember your lucid dreams. But it's more than that -- maintaining a dream journal and boosting your dream recall increases your awareness of your dreams and develops your mental sense of understanding the experience of what it feels like to be in a dream. Focusing on dream recall teaches your mind that you are paying attention to your dreams and that you care about them. At least in my experience, these things add up to an increased sense of self-awareness in future dreams, which can convert to lucidity and enhanced presence in dreams.

Mini tutorial for building dream recall

How to increase your dream recall?

By writing down your dreams.

Even if you think you don't have dreams, you probably do. Most people have dreams every night (assuming you get a reasonable amount of sleep and aren't on a drug that inhibits dreams). It's a matter of teaching your brain to remember them.

(

To be continued

)

Gradations of dream recall

The more I write down my dreams, the better my dream recall becomes. When writing down dreams, there are some obvious signs that differentiate a period of good dream recall from a period of not so good dream recall (by period I just mean different phases in life when I may be more actively focusing on dreams or not).

Here is a sort of gradient, with lowest dream recall at the top and best at the bottom

Not remembering anything
Remembering a small fragment, snippet, moment, person, place, feeling. But not being able to say anything that happened or give any details. These often slip away really quickly upon awaking if you don't focus on them and recite them (to harden them into memory) or write them down right away.
Remembering a small scene. Can remember broad details like what is happening, who is involved, where it is taking place.
Remembering longer scenes, and with a greater sense of self awareness. Not only do you remember what is going on in the scene, but you can somewhat remember what it felt like to be there. Rather than just remembering where you were or what you did, you can remember the experience of looking around and taking actions. You might remember some surface level emotions you felt and be able to articulate them to an extent.
Remembering high-detail longer scenes with continuity between them, with high memory of self awareness. You can remember well enough upon awakening to be able to describe precise details, like specific people or their clothing, the color of the sky, the temperature of feel of the wind, tastes or textures (any sensory detail really), navigation and direction. Furthermore, you can remember your emotions, thoughts, and perceptions. You might remember thinking to yourself about the situation or thinking through a decision, or thinking to yourself about what someone else might be thinking or what their motivation is. You might remember remembering things in the dream, of past moments in the dream, or even of things that happened in a different dream from earlier in the night, or even false memories fabricated by your mind while in the dream, or even memories of things that happened recently in real life.

I have experienced all of these levels, from remembering zero, to remembering detailed scenes with semi-complex trains of thought.

You can have a lucid dream with any of these levels of recall (except maybe with zero recall) -- but they are more likely to happen and more likely to be remembered when you have a consistently high level of recall. This in part has to do with what I mentioned earlier -- increasing your general sense of self awareness in dreams by walking through the experience of dreams in your mind in real life, and teaching your mind that you are caring and paying attention to your dreams. Maybe a more direct explanation/hypothesis would be: When you think about your dream experience upon waking, you have an awareness that the scenario is a dream, while you are re-narrating it to yourself. This teaches your mind to do something similar but while still in the (future) dream -- the goal is to have awareness of the dream while you're in the dream (this is the definition of a lucid dream). Awareness while dream journaling may be a way of training for awareness in the dream.

I kind of love the progression of dream recall. In my experience (and I think for most people as well), it is not too hard to progress quickly up the ladder of increasing the quality and quantity of remembered dreams. What matters is consistency and just taking the time to do it. It's rewarding to see progress, and it's pretty linear (which is not exactly true for other areas of lucid dreaming).

The gradation of dream recall is also one of the struggles of my own lucid dreaming journey. As you climb the ladder and start remembering more dreams which are longer and more detailed, the amount of time it takes to write them down also increases. I have this habit of re-building my dream recall, and then getting a point where I'm kind of annoyed at having to spend the time to write/type many long dreams. Then usually I start to slow down on making the effort to write them down, perhaps because I don't feel I have adequate time in my day to do so. (There are other challenges too -- e.g. my sleep schedule can change, like if I am staying up later for social things, and poor/less sleep naturally translates to lower dream recall.) Then after a couple weeks of not putting effort into dream journaling, recall levels can drop back down the ladder. One solution that I sometimes explore is to make sure that even if I remember many dreams in high detail, I don't have to adhere to writing them down 100% (not that I generally do anyway - 100% is never really required) and be more selective in which dreams (usually the more interesting/meaningful ones) I take the time to write down. Giving myself a time limit for how long I should spend DJing may help too, though I've never formally tried this.

All that being said, it is extremely rewarding to build up strong dream recall. I have found that there is insight to be gained from dreams, if only because it makes obvious what your mind is working through and processing. More speculative, but I sometimes think dreams are a sneaky way for your subconscious to re-surface ideas/memories/thoughts that you know deep inside your mind you should be paying more attention to. I like to be in-tune with that. And, of course, I've always found for me that higher dream recall equates to an increased change of having spontaneous lucid dreams, even if I'm not applying any particular LDing technique at the moment (which actually may be a problem in itself because then I don't feel as much that I need to work on specific LD induction techniques) -- and lucid dreams are ultimately what I am chasing.

Having well-defined goals for skill of dreaming

2026-06-09T14:02:39.000Z

Feeling inspired by a dreamviews thread https://www.dreamviews.com/intro-class/167037-santatis-workbook.html -- talking about how other real life skills are easier to work on because they have well-defined goals for those.

In my experience, DJing is easy to keep up. It's probably partly because it's easy to stay motivated, especially when recall linearly increases -- it's easy to have an unspoken goal of increasing dream count + quality / word count. Really easy to measure progress.

But then usually when it comes to actually making improvements in LDing skills (inductions too but mainly I mean in-dream content), my efforts fizzle and I don't make much progress. Yes I set myself little dream tasks sometimes but then I end up not making progress and forget about them, and then end up out-of-phase of LDing. (Though, this is usually due to other factors like lack of sleep due to social activities, which knocks dream recall out from under me).

So, maybe having more systematic tracking of dream goals and accomplishments in a more general sense would help keep me progress-oriented and hopefully more motivated+focused.

Should think more about this.

Started: Skills to work on

Dreams

2026-05-05T02:59:07.000Z

Yes, this is a major interest.

A lot to be said.

(Literal dreams)

Dreams and dreaming will never stop being a subject of unrelenting fascination to me.

It's not so much an intellectual interest (though there is some of that) as a quest for tangible experience. I want to breathe, feel, taste in my dreams. I want endless adventure and exploration and discovery by means of my dreams. I want to go to sleep at night eager for what awaits me in my mind. I want the sensations, experiences, and memories of my dreams to inspire creative outlets and personal growth in my waking life.

Dream Goal Build Civilization

2026-08-18T03:34:35.000Z

It's more of a dream project than a goal -- this would be a long-spanning thing over many dreams. Equally as importing as experiencing it is writing+documenting it. This goal has served as a strong point of motivation that gets me looking forward to mastering my dreams, because I think it would be so cool to do this.

The task

The way I've envisioned it in my head: in a dream, I establish a persistent realm^[1]. In that realm, I travel back in time to a world where there has been very little technological advancements, no cities, no civilizations. Perhaps just hunter-gatherer tribes of humans. Then the task is to meet these people, and help give them a head start on building up an advanced society.^[2]

I think it would be really fun to build this up over time. I could go to the dream civilization, give them some help or teach them something, then come back in a later dream (or jump forward in time) and see how this tip I've given has changed their society. The cool thing is that I couldn't really predict how anything will go -- it's up to my mind (subconsciously) to decide the result of things. And I get to figure out how to respond to those results. In theory, it's an infinitely generated open-world video game in my mind.

Status on this task

Frankly, as of 2026 (13 years after I first discovered the concept of LDing), I feel very far from achieving anything close to this. But also, I don't think it is necessarily such an unrealistic task that it's not something I'll be able to do once I have consistent and high quality lucid dream experiences.

Mainly, I feel that I have a lot of foundational work to do in my dreams before I get to this point. There are the fundamentals of dream stability and confidence that I've struggled with for years. Then there is dream control and dream skills which I'd need, e.g. to transport myself to a persistent realm and be able to navigate it confidently, to travel forward (or backwards) in time, and so on.

Context / inspiration

My past self from November 2018 wrote this in Google Keep:

HUGE LD goal
Build civilization, following How to Invent Everything

How to Invent Everything is a book by Ryan North that talks at a high level about, well, pretty much how to re-build civilization from scratch.^[3]

That book's subtitle is "A survival guide for the stranded time traveler". I remember reading the intro to the book, which in a humorous way talks about this (obviously fictional) scenario where you are a time traveler and go back in time and get stranded and want to rebuild civilization.

I don't quite remember if my dream goal actually came as a result of reading some snippets of this book. But it's possible that it did. Even before the book, though, I generally had in mind that I was very excited to generally learn about how things work, and how things got to how they are. That general interest is what led to this book catching my eye. Then I think this book inspired the dream goal.

So yeah -- I've had this dream goal floating around in my mind for a while, and I've never acted on it. But it's come to be one of the strongest motivators for lucid dreaming for me. I think it would be so cool for me to pursue this as sort of a dream project.

Persistent Realms

A key aspect of this dream goal is the idea of persistent realms. Building a civilization takes time! And probably many, many dream sessions. And that's the fun part. It's a long-term project. The world where I'm building civilization needs to be persistent across many dream sessions so that it can build up over time. Otherwise, it would be like building a Minecraft world, but every time you close the game, the entire world is wiped. You need to save the state of the world between sessions. That's the idea behind persistent realms.

Youtube video: "How To Make WIFI Starting With Only A Rock" (channel: Rune). I came across this video, and it's what motivated me to add this page to my digital garden! It's a fun video and obviously reminded me of this dream goal.

(see section below for more on "persistent realms") ↩︎
As I write this... I am realizing how I sound like a colonizer. But it's not about forcing my own ways/beliefs on these (dream character!) people. It's about improving the quality of life for them. ↩︎
Also found another similar book which is I think a more serious take on rebuilding civilization: "The Knowledge" by Lewis Dartnell ↩︎

Writing

2026-01-10T19:09:05.000Z

The kinds of writing I pursue or intend to pursue:

Public-facing blog, i.e. Here
Personal, private journaling
Creative Writing

Poetry

2026-03-18T23:12:02.000Z

The road to poetry

My first real go at poetry was in eighth grade English class when I was forced to write a couple poems for assignments. I'm proud of a couple of them. Now that I'm writing about this, I've decided to add the most memorable one (to me) here: Flicker.

After that class, I didn't have much poetry-writing forced upon me. However, the feeling of satisfaction from writing those couple of poems stuck with me. Starting in high school, I would sporadically write short, stream-of-thought (and never edited) poems, usually an outlet for some acute emotion I was feeling. It was fun. Feeling like way more of an edgy teenager than I (retrospectively) actually was, I "hid" these poems (there's only like ten of them) in a Google Drive folder named after a bacteria species that is special to me^[1]. Each doc had a title which was a random phrase that came to mind in that moment and usually had no relation to the actual contents of the poem^[2].

In college and shortly after, (feeling substantially less "edgy"^[3]), I wrote^[4] a couple of longer-form poems... also expressing feelings about things I was experiencing or experienced.

As of 2026 (time of writing this), my current experience with poetry is pretty "casual". I have a OneNote page called "casual" which I will occasionally add a short poem to. The subtitle to the page is "Just for some outflow when needed". That's how I've treated it -- if I feel like I have a poem to write, I open it up and write it. These ones are more varied in topic/feel - they range from short emotional snippets; descriptions of what I'm seeing on a vacation; random low-meaning lines that I think just sound nice/cool.

no I will not explain this at the moment ↩︎
This was less about "hiding" and more just being silly ↩︎
I wasn't actually an "edgy" teen, but some life things just feel dramatic because they are the first time experiencing them ↩︎
Tempted to say "drafted" instead of "wrote" because, again, these are never edited, and not written with the intention of any public visibility, at the time at least ↩︎

Creative Writing

2026-05-20T04:00:58.000Z

I've always been a big reader of fiction. It feels natural that I would want to write stories as well. And I do want to.

My feeling at the start of 2026

I title this section like this because I feel my explanation here may change over the years.

I feel I'll always want to write creatively. And yet, it doesn't come easily to me. At least not yet. I have to work hard to come up with ideas, think through plot, and actually sit down and write the content of the story. I'm pretty sure this is normal. I just need to do it more, and I often don't. It's been the most important, and also most challenging, creative area for me that I've been wanting to pay more effort to in the last few years.

I made good progress in 2025. Actually outlined a story plot and started writing some of it ^[1]. Started developing a couple other ideas as well, that I'm excited about.

Essentially, I made enough progress that I could stop having the dreadful feeling that I am not putting any effort into this important area.

Hope to continue making more progress in 2026.

Okay but why creative writing

It's fun to think through ideas and plots and what characters might go through.
A way to share ideas, wisdom, experiences, with other people.

I'm sure I will expand the above list. I feel it to my core that creative writing is essential to me.

Ancient history (of my writing)

I'm pretty sure I had some school assignment when I was really young, maybe in kindergarten (or maybe earlier?), where I spoke a tiny story and my mom wrote what I said and I drew a picture for it.

At early elementary school age, I wrote a small collection of (very simplistic!) mini stories. Each story was only a couple pages long (again, very simplistic!). I wrote in big messy handwriting on lined paper and drew pictures related to the story with crayons or colored pencils. I even bound the pages in a piece of cardboard, to make it feel like a book. I think I've lost the original copy of this, though I have a document somewhere where I eventually typed up some of the stories.

Mid elementary school age, I did another simplistic bound story, called "Eight In One". This is one of my punched-in-the-gut losses. I don't know where the original is, if it still exists in this universe. Those stories were special to me. I would pay a demon some good money to retrieve it for me (but perhaps not sell my soul).

I also had a phase of world-building around this time (I will refer to this as the Boxish universe). I would come up with histories, geography, inventions, and civic organizations for this persistent fictional world. My co-conspirator was my friend who I spent a lot of time with in those days. She would also do some creative writing about characters and events in this world -- likely a huge inspiration for my continued interest in creative writing in general. I had a couple false starts at writing stories in the universe around this time (or maybe bleeding into middle school, too), but they never got past more than a couple pages.

Slightly more modern history (of my writing)

I don't recall doing much creative writing during high school. I was busy being a busy boy working too hard at academics^[2], though there was some poetry outflow (Poetry#The road to poetry) and a lot of personal journaling^[3].

Things change around 2020. The era of OneNote. I have a notebook in OneNote called "Writing", with many sub-sections - and I've continued using this notebook^[4], but the earliest pages are from July and December of 2020. Pandemic era. I sometimes feel like I was most creative during the pandemic. I was at home and had a lot of free time. Not much social life other than sporadic video calls with friends. Plenty of time to explore the woods outside my house, delve into creative interests like 3D sculpting (specifically: Appa), and apparently to write.

Again, I still wouldn't say writing has ever come naturally. It's not easy. But I know that I want to do it. So over the years, I have pushed myself to do it more. I can see myself getting better, but I really don't do it enough to see that much progress. But I know I need it. It feels like it should be an inevitable hobby of mine -- it's one of those things that I could see myself being sad about in the future^[5] if I never end up making big progress in.

The 2020 writings were actually the Boxish-inspired writings. I have five or so ideas for different plotlines, and a little bit (like a couple pages worth) of writing for each, but nothing really developed far. I would like to go back and work on some of these eventually. Part of me thinks I want to move on from this childhood-worldbuilding. But at the same time, a core part of the Boxish universe has always been the concept of crossing the divisions between worlds, similar to Inkheart^[6] and Alice in Wonderland, so it feels equally ripe to explore it from a more mature perspective. My younger self explored himself crossing the divisions between worlds, and my modern self can do the same.

I didn't make much headway post-pandemic during the rest of college. The next major milestone was post-graduation, living in NYC, when the ever-present (but sometimes latent) urge to creatively write found its way back into the front of mind (often triggered by me reading past writings -- another place where I have to thank my past self for being a continued inspiration) and I started doing some writing again.

Another source of inspiration -- over the years, I've been maintaining a note in Google Keep called writing ideas inspired by "write the book you want to read" (a piece of advice I've sometimes heard). Anytime I had a story idea I would throw it into the list. I created that list in July 2020 and over the years have slowly contributed to it. A couple of the story ideas I've explored lately have come from that list, or from other Keep notes that branched off from that list^[7].

("Hypno Heist" -- but I have since abandoned it, at least for now, because I lost interest in the idea) ↩︎
I am grateful to my past self for working hard in high school. It had a near-definitive impact on my college selection (due to scholarship opportunities) which carved out a hyper-specific (compared to all the possible alternate universes) path in life which I am generally pleased with ↩︎
I still have never quite reached the amount of journaling in my adult life as I did during high school (and in some parts of college too) ↩︎
at least as of 2025/2026. I can feel myself maybe moving towards Obsidian as an alternative, but it's not certain yet ↩︎
feel similarly with: Dreams ↩︎
Loved this book. Don't recall if I ever read the sequels. ↩︎
e.g. Hypno-heist, and for-and-by-this-dreaming, and agents-of-chaos ↩︎

Songwriting

2026-05-20T03:35:56.000Z

The road to songwriting

It started with poetry: The road to poetry.

And then....

(Likely will expand on this):

I was like, poetry + music = song?
No, not really, need structure
Was walking in the park and thought of a song idea and came up with lyrics
Found chords for the lyrics
Recorded song
Repeated for a bunch more songs, slowly getting better
Started with just recording voice (phone mic) with my piano keyboard, then got a slightly nicer microphone, and also started using Reaper for production.

Reaper DAW

2026-05-20T03:35:56.000Z

I've been using Reaper, which is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) for music production. It's free and lightweight. A lot of people seem to like it and apparently it can do things just as well as the fancier-seeming DAWs. I think a lot of its potential is unlocked through plugins.

There's a set of videos on the Reaper website that is supposed to be good for learning some basics. I haven't really gone through it but I've watched a couple. I have a lot to learn.

Piano

2026-08-25T02:20:38.000Z

DIY Dyes

2026-02-04T02:06:21.000Z

I visited the Met Cloisters museum a couple days ago, and (perhaps surprisingly) one of the most engaging exhibits to me was about how dyes were made in medieval times. See exhibit image:

This got me thinking that it would be cool to try making natural dyes on my own. Maybe it could be from materials foraged in the NYC area. I'd like to research this more.

I'm going to paste an initial exploration from ChatGPT with some basic ideas:

[!INFO]- AI Chat
"How would i make my own dyes out of natural materials i can find in nyc? For art/paint/something? I'm complete noob"

Natural dyes you can make in NYC (beginner-friendly)

Scope: simple pigment extraction for paper, ink washes, and sketchbook art. No textile chemistry required.

1) What “natural dye” means here

Extract color compounds from plants/foods using water (sometimes vinegar or baking soda). Expect experimentation and some fading over time.

2) Easy starter materials (NYC-available)

Kitchen scraps

Onion skins (yellow/red) → gold, rust, orange-brown

Avocado pits/skins → dusty pink, peach

Red cabbage → purple → blue/green with baking soda

Coffee or black tea → browns/sepias

Turmeric → intense yellow (not lightfast)

Foraged (parks/markets)

Leaves → yellow-green

Berries (even inedible ones) → purples/blues (often fade)

Walnut shells (farmers markets) → deep brown

Dandelion roots → warm yellow-brown

3) Noob-proof extraction

You need

Small pot or jar

Water

Strainer/cloth

Watercolor or sketch paper

Old brush

Steps

Chop/crush plant material.

Cover with water (2–3× volume).

Simmer 20–60 min (or steep overnight).

Strain.

Paint directly with the liquid.

4) Make it act more like paint or ink

Thicken

A few drops of gum arabic (art store).

Optional: tiny drop of honey for flow.

Shift color

Vinegar → more red/pink.

Baking soda → blue/green shift (especially cabbage).

Test on scrap paper.

5) Improve longevity (basic)

Add 1–2 tsp vinegar per cup of dye (helps on paper).

Store in the fridge.

Fading over weeks/months is normal.

6) Best surfaces

Watercolor paper (best)

Sketch paper or handmade paper

Avoid glossy/coated paper

7) Safe NYC foraging rules

Avoid dog-heavy areas and roadsides.

Wash everything.

Never taste pigments.

If unsure about a plant, skip it.

8) First mini-project

Kitchen dye sampler: onion skins, red cabbage, coffee, turmeric.
Make four jars, label them, paint swatches, then modify each with vinegar/baking soda.

9) Next steps (optional)

Lake pigments (turn dye into dry pigment)

Iron modifiers (blackening inks)

Historical inks (walnut ink, oak gall)

Ask if you want a 1-hour starter plan, an NYC-foraging palette, or steps to make watercolor pans.

Drawing People From Imagination

2026-08-03T03:20:10.000Z

I'd like to be able to draw people from imagination. This isn't a new goal. In 2020, I started a small list of (mostly creativity-oriented) goals for myself, and one of them was: "I want to be able to draw a realistic person in any pose". As of 2026, I haven't made much progress on this since adding it to the list.

And I'm not necessarily saying that right now is the time to do so, but I've been thinking a little bit about it recently. The specific driver of this is that I've had this stretch-goal project of creating a comic (or at least small snippets of a comic) for the plot of Terra Ignotta. And though I am not a beginner at drawing, most of my art is based on drawing from reference images, and I do not feel equipped to compose more complex scenes, poses, expressions, etc. I'd like to be able to. It's one of those areas that feels inevitable for me to eventually make progress in, or at least never stop wanting to make progress in.

I just now googled "how to learn to draw people from imagination" and read the single response to this person's question on this forum, which recommends these two resources:

https://drawabox.com/ for general drawing skills
Proko course (free) for figure drawing fundamentals: https://www.proko.com/course/figure-drawing-fundamentals

This is what I need to improve on:

(In defense of my art skills... See Completed paintings for a couple examples of reference-image people drawings I've done. The problem I'm solving for here is for imagination-drawn.)

Cool tip from chatgpt

## Create recurring benchmark drawings

Every month or every six weeks, draw the same kind of prompt without reference. Examples:

- A person sitting on the floor and reaching upward
- Two people arguing
- Someone running toward the viewer
- A figure carrying something heavy
- A three-panel conversation scene

Date the drawing and spend no more than 30–45 minutes on it. Do not correct the old version. Comparing successive attempts will reveal changes in gesture, construction, proportion, confidence, and storytelling.

Creating Webcomics

2026-08-24T03:54:16.000Z

It never crossed my mind in the past that I'd ever want to make one of these.

Do I even like comics?

I have enjoyed some Instagram webcomic creators (if isolated panel-clusters per post would be considered a webcomic creator) like Alex Norris's "webcomic_name" / "oh no" comics.
Besides for that, I have occasionally come across some other ones, but I don't really browse Instagram for exploration, so it's rare.
I also started recently (2026) following raminnazer on Instagram which also fits the webcomic vibe.

Of course, there's also manga. I think back in the day, I read some of the Fairy Tale manga, but not much and not much of anything else.

I've also never been much of a fan of paper comics in general.

Turning point? Prophet of the new sun

But recently (2024 or 2025) I discovered through Kagi Small Web (which has its own Comics filter so you can browse webcomics!) a longer-form webcomic that I really like: "Prophet of the New Sun". I got absorbed into it, though I haven't caught up on it (but I've been wanting to). And I feel like it planted a seed in my mind as an art form I could see myself trying out.

Inspired by Terra Ignotta

Then I was thinking one day about how much I loved the Terra Ignotta series and how it seems perfect for some kind of animated adaptation. After seeing that there is none existing already^[1], of course my mind went toward contemplating if I could make something. But I knew that animating is hard and time-consuming, so my mind next settled on the idea of making a webcomic for it or for a portion of it^[2]. This eventually got me thinking about learning to be better at Drawing People From Imagination, because obviously that's needed in order to create the drawings of a character-based comic.

Creating a scrappy comic

Then one night, while showering, I thought of a recent situation that happened, and it felt very comic-able, and I ended up making a scrappy comic: Unnecessary Upgrade. That was fun to make and it felt pretty satisfying to finish something in this area! I spent about an hour on it, which simultaneously feels impressive because it's pretty quick for something that was so satisfying, and also not long at all because I need so many more hours to become better at this (if I really want to become better at it).

What's next?

No current plans other than seeing Drawing People From Imagination as the next step in my progression towards a web comic. Also for the Terra Ignotta idea, probably if I want to inch just a little bit towards that, I could make some sketches of characters or even certain scenes. Could even just jump straight into sketching out the opening sequence of the first book.

Seems like the "scrappy" method (low effort but comprehendible storyboarding)is a low-friction way for me to do comic-drawing, so I could see myself having more sessions like that in the future (whether for Terra Ignotta or random things like Unnecessary Upgrade).

Resources

Scott McCloud: "Understanding Comics" (1993) (notes) and "Making Comics" (2006)

i mean, not surprisingly. it's a relatively recent work. Not that everything needs or is likely to get an adaptation of some sort ↩︎
It's one of those ideas that I'm not at all acting on quickly, but letting it sit around and see if maybe I will eventually get around to making some effort on it. But this one is surprisingly sticking in mind, likely due to how much I loved the series. ↩︎

3D Modeling

2026-05-14T14:12:22.000Z

Creation: Appa.

Want to do more. Have various ideas.

Flicker

2026-03-18T23:12:02.000Z

Used to have night skies,
No stars.
No sparkle.
No awareness.
Is it a dream?
No.
Never.
Oblivious to darkness, in the
Shadows forever.

Presently… some
Change.
Sparse fireflies flicker.
Ripples disrupt the perpetual flow of darkness.
Awake, I say, I wish.
The minute hand stills.
Is it enough?
For now.
Treasure it.

Hope is all the future holds,
For what we know
Will never come.
Where is the gold at the end of the
Rainbow?
Always out of reach
Yet eternal.
At least Change will come.
Maybe.

Explanation:
Eighth grade assignment. Can you guess what this is about?

Scrappy Paintings

2026-06-22T19:32:14.000Z

Most, if not all, of these were made with the purpose of using up excess paint after a paint night or paint session.

Monster of Love

Date: 2025-01-29

(Reference to Sparks song)

Spaceship Window or Cave

Date: 2024-02-01

Howling at the Moon

Date: 2023-11-14

Boysterous

Date: 2023-11-14

A Perception of Friends Behind a Table

Date: 2023-10-18

Completed paintings

2026-06-23T03:29:40.000Z

Silly Slug

February 2, 2024

Freshman Move-Out

December 23, 2023

Demonic Forest Fire (Blood Birds)

October 18, 2023

(Done as corporate painting tutorial + my own twist)

Friends in Nature

February 18, 2023

Water Dripping From Leaf

December 3, 2022

Ascension

September 24, 2022

Lil Cheetah

April 1, 2022

Juggling Balls

March 12, 2022

Green-Tinted Circumstances

December 12, 2021

Floating Away

June 7, 2019

Peter Pan and the Moon

February 11, 2019

Watercolor (which I don't do much of anything in really, at least as of 2026 when I'm adding this.)

My favorite parts of this are 1) the silhouette of Peter Pan against the moon and the cloud that seems to be bursting from his hand and which goes behind the clocktower; and 2) the little boy and his teddy bear. I look at these and am kind of astounded and amazed that I actually made those parts look as good as (I at least think) they are. Of course, I drew/painted this from a reference image, so I'm not saying I'm amazing at my composition of it, but just of the ability to mimic it.

Unnecessary Upgrade

2026-07-23T17:07:17.000Z

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Full-page view

Appa

2026-05-14T22:06:47.000Z

Made in October 2020.

I sculpted the 3D model (in ZBrush), 3D printed it, and then painted it (acrylic paints).

My proudest 3D printed creation. It would be cool to do more Avatar characters.

Brian's Corner

This is the beginning

Welcome

The Lesson of the Time Bike

Solar Punk

Interactive Narrative

Closest direct research

1. From Role-Play to Drama-Interaction

2. IBSEN

3. StoryVerse and WhatELSE

4. NarrativePlay and Open-Theatre

5. STAGE

The closest actual consumer product: Showrunner

The visual technology is beginning to catch up

What is still missing

What a plausible near-term version would look like

Ender's Infinite Game

AI Person Simulation

brianiscool.tk

Restaurant AI VR Simulation

Oh My Rockness Genre Enrichment

Mini Projects

GPT Meal Planner

Idea - Spontaneous Plans

Idea - Social ebook annotation

The idea

Limitations

Spoilers

Grocery Receipt Tracker

Slowness

The infrastructure troubles

Using AI Code Assistance

Not telling people about this project

Toothpaste Burger

Overview

Gameplay

Okay, but why?

Breaking my thumb (semi-related backstory)

Apparently this was my initial mockup

"It is no good anticipating regrets"

Bee Haven

Game Dev Inspiration

Wildlife livestream kiosk - Window into another world

Brief contemplation on AI-development

Scifi connection

Idea - Dresser objects come to life

Personal 3D VR World Building

Environment Generation

Idea - House Doll House

Hadestown

Time Travelers, Back Off

The Tug of Television (Resisting Overconsumption)

Strategies to resist

Phase shift

Sit in the void

Not all who are lost wander (pre-blog blog post)

My Most Amazing, Aspirational, Unrealistic, Impossible Self

Ok, but...

... but anyway here's the start of the drafted list, at least

If an AI-art falls in a forest...

Whats Up

September 2026

Past months:

May 2026

June 2026

July 2026

August 2026

April 2026

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