Life & Reflections

I made a 62-second animation that draws caffeine’s wake-up effect as a game of “seat-saving”: after a cup of coffee you feel ready to work again, but your brain may not have actually rested.

Five years after leaving the office, I’m ending my half-year gap and starting a new job tomorrow; it isn’t a perfect choice, just an imperfect me taking an imperfect little step forward.

This day was a video on RedNote.

I converted a cup of coffee into how many minutes a local has to work for it: 14 minutes in Dubai, 18 in Kuala Lumpur, 28 in Chiang Mai, and 50 in Yerevan.

When information is short, you don’t always have to explain the world first and guess right before acting; you can pick a next step that still mostly holds up even if you guessed wrong.

Looking back on Day 100, not much has changed: the products I’ve built went from 1 to 4, and the only user is still me; I applied to 51 AI PM roles and landed very few screening calls.

What technology can do and why people need it are two different questions: tools and capabilities change fast, while many deeper needs change much more slowly.

Seen through Stewart Brand’s pace layers, AI’s application layer changes every day, while organizations, law and culture each have their own inertia; slow doesn’t necessarily mean behind.

What Hobbes asked in 1651 was how a group of people with their own goals, different information and no way to fully trust each other can cooperate. The question runs from states, companies, markets and Bitcoin all the way to today’s AI agents.

With no topic waiting in my pool for the moment, I left Day 86 blank: just as the silence between notes is what makes music, leisure may be exactly the white space creativity needs.

This day was an image post on RedNote.

I didn’t look at them as a traveler but asked whether each could support a stretch of stable life, rating five cities — Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Chiang Mai, Yerevan and Tbilisi — on visas, housing, budget, work efficiency, safety and healthcare, climate, community and how well they suit me mentally.

A flight from Turkey back to Dubai had to turn around because of fighting in the region, and for the first time an accident felt that close. That’s why I built my second indie product, AllGood · 好好的: an index of information for your family.

I went to four AI events in Chiang Mai. The one closest to what I need was a small bi-weekly meeting with a host’s talk, project shares, self-introductions and small-group conversations, where everyone really took part.

I found four good places to work from in Chiang Mai — The Pagoda Cafe, Dreamtime Cafe, Monsoon Tea Wat Ket and fimue — each paired with a lunch spot nearby.