I have adopted a new way of taking on complex projects, and it is radically increasing my productivity. The idea is simple: I use documents as the shared canvas for collaboration between myself and chatbot sessions. The result is far more powerful than the sum of its parts.
I call it chatbot+document-assisted projects, or CDAPs.
Continue reading “CDAP: a revolutionary way of working with AI agents”We’re in the midst of a massive pivot in the entire line of work of software development. At least in some places, like where I work, everything is different.
Continue reading “Brave new world: rethinking software development”
As a child of the 90s, it’s a bit surreal to be taking Ritalin for the first time. Growing up, ADHD was kids bouncing off the walls, causing disruptions in class and having trouble with school. Ritalin was what they got in their daily trips to the nurse. This didn’t describe me.
However, as I came to understand the modern perspective of ADHD, I realized I pretty clearly have had it all along.
Continue reading “Took my first Ritalin, AMA”
There are times when I am embarrassed to realize that I have accepted a painful limitation for years. In this case, it is my resistance to restarting my IDEs because I don’t want to lose my terminals. Now, thanks to a burst of motivation and a modern chatbot, I’m setup for my IDEs to resume exactly where they left off.
Continue reading “Truly persistent terminals in VSCode and Cursor”There’s a saying that changed my life as a programmer:
YAGNI: You ain’t gonna need it
It’s the antidote to perfectionism. YAGNI comes from the observation that we are very bad at predicting the needs of the future. Adopting YAGNI changed how I code. I also try to apply that to decluttering my life. But every now and then, something you have held on to for years actually does come in handy.
Continue reading “You might actually need it”
For a few brief moments, my stock holdings in my former employer were hypothetically worth $5 million. This is the wild story of how I realized less than 1% of that value.
I’ll be pretty specific about some of the numbers, because equity compensation is a mystery to most people. Until I went through this, I never knew what’s possible and what’s normal. It’s a very complicated topic, but I hope that by sharing a real world situation, someone else might be able to learn something useful.
Continue reading “$5 millionaire for a week: riches to rags in the startup world”
For almost a year, I have been crafting and re-crafting a project I call The Fake Story of Music. It has been stuck in its present state for more than half of that time, and there’s so much more I want to do before it matches the vision in my head. However, I think it’s already pretty good and I’m letting go of my perfectionism.
Start with the story behind the fake story, or jump right in.
Let me know what you think in the comments on this post.
In my town, a surefire way to make everyone mad at you is to suggest that we consider merging with the much larger town that completely surrounds us. But I can’t resist.
New Jersey is a high tax state, and the property taxes in Metuchen are the highest in Middlesex County. Some people are interested only in using this as a political cudgel, but I’m interested in the question of why, and what options are there to bring the costs down? The question of whether merging with Edison, our neighbor on all sides, would bring down our taxes is an obvious question to consider.
I decided to do some digging.
Continue reading “Edtuchen: Should my town merge?”After finishing Alice In Chains: The Untold Story, I’ve been on a real AIC kick, which led me back to their Unplugged performance of Down In A Hole. And man, what a masterpiece.
The Superbowl Halftime show might have been the most polarizing in history. Some thought it was a triumph, others thought it was trash. I loved it.
To start with, without a doubt, there has never been a halftime show with the same sense of drama. Kendrick’s music has always played with themes of politics, pride, and liberation. How far would Kendrick go on the biggest and most American of stages, in this new MAGA era?
More importantly, would he sing “Not Like Us” and elevate hip hop beef to a level that will never again be topped? Given the subject matter of the song, surely, the NFL would not allow that even if he tried.
Wrong!
Oh, did he go there. He teased “Not Like Us”. Then he performed it. Then he hosted a guest appearance of Serena Williams crip-walking over the beat. It was delicious.
Other than the fact that some people were immediately turned off by the imagery of the performance and what they presumed it represented, I think a lot of people simply don’t know Kendrick’s style of artistry.
I really want to talk about my own experience with Kendrick’s music.
The first time I really took notice of him was his performance of Untitled 8 on The Tonight Show. It gave me chills, and still does.
First of all, this is not a track off of a traditional LP. Most of Kendrick’s music is out there in mix tapes, freestyles, and guest appearances. As many know, he often reserves albums for full concept works, and drops tracks like this as one-offs.
Immediately, he comes in over a strident jazz beat. Already, that’s different from a lot of pop hip hop of the time. This isn’t a club song.
Also, pretty quickly, I take notice of his stage presence. He looks like an immovable object in front of the mic. His eyes make him look like he’s almost in a shamanic state of consciousness. He doesn’t look like he’s seeing anything, nor does it seem like he’s concentrating overly intensely. It’s like he’s medium or something.
He changes up his flow for the first time (of what will be many) at 0:34. And his face starts emoting with each bar. I’m not the best at hearing lyrics or understanding poetry in real time, so I’m picking up on the vibes he’s sending more than the actual content.
At 0:50, another flow change over a change in the texture of the music, and step up intensity. I’m seeing that this is going to be a build-up song, and I love a good build-up song.
One of the things I notice at this point, is his hands look like they’re choreographed. He’s not just chopping aimlessly, but his hands are telling the story right along with this face and delivery.
At 1:38, flow change, (after a refrain). We’re getting up to jogging speed now.
At 1:50, he stretches a note for the first time. Not often done in hip hop. And then finally he rests for a couple beats
At 1:54, flow change! Oh man, I do love a call-and-response. That’s a nice touch.
At 2:19, oh, he’s on a roll now, we’re rolling.
At 2:28, tom tom drums come in and he’s still picking up steam. I love some rolling toms. The lighting is starting to get strobey.
At 2:41, flow change to singing. I’m not sure if this is a reference to another piece of music, but it’s pretty dope and definitely adds another layer of emotion to this performance. That’s a lot of Cape Town, but I’m here for it. We get to catch our breath, but surely this is just a rest stop…
At 2:58, emphatic grunt and we’re back to rhyming over a plodding beat. We’re still building to somewhere, and the breaks in the rhymes for sound effects seem to be signaling that anything can happen.
At 3:14, we’re going triplet flow now. At this point, the chills start to kick in. I’m seeing something special.
At 3:47, oh shit, he took the mic off off the stand! Full chest voice. Whoa!
At 4:00 “level 2, level 2, no I’m not done” whaaaat?
From this point, I don’t think I need to analyze it, this is just overwhelming intensity.
At 4:31 “YES I’M THE ONE” damn, you might be.
Big picture, I felt like I watched a piece of total art. The lyrics, delivery, instrumental, choreography, staging, and progression felt tightly designed to transport me into another world. It’s almost a spiritual experience.
I stopped following hip hop in the early 2000s. I grew up in the gansta rap and bling eras. Eminem and Outkast were the last artists that really blew my mind, and to me, they were a high-water mark of artistry. Objectively, Kanye would also fit this mold, but I never connected with him.
Seeing this performance put me on notice that hip hop was not a spent force. It made me emotional and frankly, proud.
Never Down, Always Up 