Thoughts
Quick snippets of ideas, observations, and moments. A timeline of thoughts as they come.
Jun 15
09:45
In chemical reactions, even when a reaction would release energy overall (the end state is "better"), it still won't happen unless you first supply a threshold of energy to get it started. The same dynamic governs human behavior. The energy required to initiate an action — to cross from "not doing" to "doing" — is often far larger than the energy required to continue it.
If you want to do something more, don't motivate yourself harder — lower the activation energy. Conversely, if you want to do something less, raise the activation energy.
If you want to do something more, don't motivate yourself harder — lower the activation energy. Conversely, if you want to do something less, raise the activation energy.
Jun 7
10:31
The phrase "the map is not the territory" comes from philosopher Alfred Korzybski, who observed that every model, diagram, description, or framework is a simplification — a selective abstraction of a vastly more complex underlying reality. Maps are useful precisely because they leave things out. But that same omission is what makes them dangerous when we forget what they are. A road map doesn't capture the traffic, the potholes, or the flood this morning. A job description doesn't capture what it actually feels like to work somewhere. A data dashboard doesn't capture the messy human behaviours that produced the numbers.
Understanding this model creates a specific habit: whenever you're reasoning from a representation — a document, a process, a metric, a title — you pause and ask what did this abstraction leave out? The quarterly revenue number leaves out customer satisfaction trends. The policy manual leaves out how people actually behave under pressure. The wireframe leaves out real user confusion. This isn't a reason to distrust all models (you'd be paralyzed); it's a reason to hold them lightly, cross-check them against direct observation, and stay curious about the gap between the clean version and the messy truth.
Understanding this model creates a specific habit: whenever you're reasoning from a representation — a document, a process, a metric, a title — you pause and ask what did this abstraction leave out? The quarterly revenue number leaves out customer satisfaction trends. The policy manual leaves out how people actually behave under pressure. The wireframe leaves out real user confusion. This isn't a reason to distrust all models (you'd be paralyzed); it's a reason to hold them lightly, cross-check them against direct observation, and stay curious about the gap between the clean version and the messy truth.
Jun 6
18:06
Most of the world's good ideas have gone bankrupt before they succeeded.
Electric vehicles were a failed technology in the 1900s. Containerized shipping was laughed at for a decade before it transformed global trade. The internet was declared a fad, repeatedly, in the mid-1990s. The people who saw these things coming weren't always the ones who got rich. Often it was the second or third wave of believers — the ones who arrived after the pioneers had already been wiped out and the idea had finally become obvious.
Being a pioneer sounds romantic. But pioneers are the ones with arrows in their backs.
Electric vehicles were a failed technology in the 1900s. Containerized shipping was laughed at for a decade before it transformed global trade. The internet was declared a fad, repeatedly, in the mid-1990s. The people who saw these things coming weren't always the ones who got rich. Often it was the second or third wave of believers — the ones who arrived after the pioneers had already been wiped out and the idea had finally become obvious.
Being a pioneer sounds romantic. But pioneers are the ones with arrows in their backs.
May 29
23:22
Money
Strip away the gold, the paper, the blockchain — money is fundamentally just shared belief. A dollar bill is a scrap of cotton-linen fiber. It has no intrinsic nutritional, structural, or medicinal value. What makes it worth a loaf of bread is that the baker believes the next person will accept it too. Money is a network of mutual confidence, nothing more. Three properties emerge necessarily from this foundation: it must be a _store of value_ (so you can bake today and buy shoes next week), a _medium of exchange_ (so the cobbler accepts it even if he doesn't want bread), and a _unit of account_ (so we can compare the price of bread to shoes without trading them directly). Every monetary system ever devised — shells, salt, cattle, gold, fiat currency — is just a different substrate trying to satisfy these three requirements.
From there, the whole complexity of modern finance reconstructs itself logically. Inflation is what happens when confidence in the store-of-value function erodes faster than goods are produced. Interest rates exist because lending money means deferring your own ability to exchange, so you demand compensation for waiting. Banking crises erupt when the network of mutual confidence collapses suddenly — not because the physical stuff disappears, but because trust does. Every exotic financial instrument, every central bank policy, every currency crisis is ultimately a story about a society negotiating the terms of a collective fiction it cannot afford to stop believing in.
Strip away the gold, the paper, the blockchain — money is fundamentally just shared belief. A dollar bill is a scrap of cotton-linen fiber. It has no intrinsic nutritional, structural, or medicinal value. What makes it worth a loaf of bread is that the baker believes the next person will accept it too. Money is a network of mutual confidence, nothing more. Three properties emerge necessarily from this foundation: it must be a _store of value_ (so you can bake today and buy shoes next week), a _medium of exchange_ (so the cobbler accepts it even if he doesn't want bread), and a _unit of account_ (so we can compare the price of bread to shoes without trading them directly). Every monetary system ever devised — shells, salt, cattle, gold, fiat currency — is just a different substrate trying to satisfy these three requirements.
From there, the whole complexity of modern finance reconstructs itself logically. Inflation is what happens when confidence in the store-of-value function erodes faster than goods are produced. Interest rates exist because lending money means deferring your own ability to exchange, so you demand compensation for waiting. Banking crises erupt when the network of mutual confidence collapses suddenly — not because the physical stuff disappears, but because trust does. Every exotic financial instrument, every central bank policy, every currency crisis is ultimately a story about a society negotiating the terms of a collective fiction it cannot afford to stop believing in.
Mar 12
08:02
This year celebrating birthday in a different continent. 😄
Feb 11
22:21
We kind of celebrate the kings or leaders who have won war and battles in their period forget the ones who never fought one because there was no need of. But the irony is that in the time period where there was no war, people were in living in peace and prosperity.
Isn’t it what we want or aspire to be? Then why not celebrate the boring ones?
Isn’t it what we want or aspire to be? Then why not celebrate the boring ones?
Feb 11
15:47
I love AI when it comes to learning new stuff and understanding them. But little hesitant to create new stuff with AI.
BTW this website is completely created by AI. 😬
BTW this website is completely created by AI. 😬
Feb 8
23:47
I always admired Matt Godbolt the creator of Compiler Explorer. His videos on Computer architecture are good.
I recently came across one of his cppcon video on how compilation and linking is get done by compiler. This started creating curiosity on elf and compiler stuff.
I recently came across one of his cppcon video on how compilation and linking is get done by compiler. This started creating curiosity on elf and compiler stuff.
Jan 26
10:14
Recently came across a post from @kepano -- maker of Obsidian which is one of the product I like a lot.
I am prone to existential depression... My mind easily drifts towards thinking that in the grand scheme of things nothing we do really matters, so why bother doing anything at all?
But within this fear is a desire for some kind of external validation. I like this quote by Kubrick: "The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light."
It helps me reframe life from being outside-in to inside-out. Inside of you is a tiny candle and you are in control of it. Keep it alive and continue to expand that light. For yourself. That's all.
Yes, nothing matters. But also, nothing matters! You are free. You are free to take that inner candle anywhere you want. Its glow will naturally grow the things around you.
I am prone to existential depression... My mind easily drifts towards thinking that in the grand scheme of things nothing we do really matters, so why bother doing anything at all?
But within this fear is a desire for some kind of external validation. I like this quote by Kubrick: "The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light."
It helps me reframe life from being outside-in to inside-out. Inside of you is a tiny candle and you are in control of it. Keep it alive and continue to expand that light. For yourself. That's all.
Yes, nothing matters. But also, nothing matters! You are free. You are free to take that inner candle anywhere you want. Its glow will naturally grow the things around you.
Jan 11
11:31
Started watching death note anime, maybe after 12 years and it’s the only anime I ever watched in my life. Still find the thrill in it. And the L’s background music, no words for it…