"We're building the future of <insert anything here> with AI"

Literally every other job posting. Boring (to me, yes I know it's subjective)

It's appreciated! 🫂

I find a "polished, only optimism and good vibes" account feels inauthentic. I want to see the HUMAN behind the profile, y'know?!

So true. Thoughtful. Intelligent. A delight to chat with!

I'm here working in the shadows on my own, so I had to apologize for being so excited and talking way too much 😭

It was such a delight to chat with @offline.arushibandi.com from @habitat.network today. I love that we're aligned on values and direction (mostly!). Slightly different start frames, but we all want the same thing.

Feeling more energized each day.

(also FOMO from not attending ATmosphereConf)

Sorry, @blaine.bsky.social. Didn't mean to turn this one into my soapbox 😅

100% for your original point. It's the path forward for an equitable society. I just want our public servants to solve the problems we do have the RIGHT way (i.e., stop propping up for-profits, that's myopic and inequitable)

Here's how much Doug Ford's government pays a for-profit clinic to do OHIP-covered surgeries | CBC News Premier Doug Ford’s government gives a for-profit clinic more funding to perform certain OHIP-covered surgeries than it gives Ontario’s public hospitals to perform the same operations, CBC News has le...

For anyone curious, article attached.

"Public servants" 🙄

And honestly, so many financially well-off people I know are equally despicable. They're doing everything they can to pay fewer taxes, with GIGANTIC salaries most could only dream of.

It often feels like things be crumbling.

If Doug Ford has his way, Ontario would be privatized 😭

And he's working on it too. Public resources are being used to set up more for-profit clinics, something that not everyone has access to. It's despicable, and it's enraging. I'd be ashamed to do something like that, but they're unabashed.

And it doesn't matter to me if I build something that doesn't hit as hard as what they're building (or anyone else for that matter). I just want _something_ in this space to work, and I think this gives me drive and motivation, but is also what fuels the excitement.

Onward and upwards 🚀

I'm genuinely excited about this decentralization project I keep yammering about. Talking to the Habitat peeps tomorrow to learn more about what they're doing, and maybe bounce some ideas back and forth.

It's been quite some time since I've been this excited about a thing.

Or, if you prefer (since your Bluesky account is "offline" and I'm just now reading that you're not on social networking much 🙂): email me at <my first name> @ <my bluesky domain which is just my last name + .ca> (how cryptic)

Following! You should be able to DM me now :)

I mentioned some in an earlier post:

- solidproject.org
- www.inkandswitch.com

But some new ones:

- linkedwebstorage.com (very new; spiritual successor to Solid, I believe)
- habitat.network
- basic.tech

As you all know, I've been prototyping something in the background for giving users back their agency in where their data is stored, how it's used, and the software that can use it.

Still nothing to share, but I am excited to consistently find similar things in this space that share my values 🧵

Oh, @habitat.network is interesting! it is strikingly similar to what I've been prototyping for the past couple of weeks 😅

Still gonna pursue my own approach. Worth independently trying some different ideas to see what sticks! I'm just happy to see so many examples of shared values out there 🙂

33% of your life = sleep
25% of your life = work

(what they don't tell you about living a comfortable mid-life)

~20% of your life is/should be stretching

Oh yeah, forgot to call out something else: I suspect 95% of "problems at scale" are accidental complexity imposed by centralization.

If that suspicion is correct — what a waste of time, energy, and resources. Cool, we all got a little intellectual indulgence, but dessert alone is not sustenance.

Haha, my bad. Thanks for clarifying.

I WAS JUST TOO DAMN EXCITED, BLAINE.

🙈

Watching some ATmosphereConf talks now. Sad that I didn't attend 😢

But @blaine.bsky.social's talk, in particular, aligns with my own vision. Really hoping I can help contribute to realizing these dreams! I'll show more once I get past prototyping, but check out the 13:00 mark of this one.

Focusing on how YOU feel shows an understanding of that subjectivity. It acknowledges that your tastes and values aren't fact. I'm working on this because I think the alternative leads to encoding superiority into your train of thought, which in turn leads to worse interactions and unhappiness.

Simple example: instead of "musician XYZ isn't very good" you can instead say "I don't like XYZ". If this is said in the presence of someone that likes XYZ, you've likely made them feel bad about that. Also, you've created an unsafe space for conversation with that person.

One thing I've been working on for myself is the inability to properly frame subjective thoughts. Poor framing can lead to making people around you feel...not good!

Sadly, I observe this fairly regularly in my day to day life.

Also: if I build a company around this, money will need to be made (salaries, opex, etc) but I'm not looking to become the next billionaire bro or anything like. I'm going to find ways to feed profits back into the ecosystem to support the app ecosystem in this space.

VCs will hate it.

Agreed! And perhaps you hit the nail on the head as to the "why": being our genuine selves may feel like it makes us less hire-able. A form of professional code switching.

If you're curious, here's some of inspiration:

www.inkandswitch.com
solidproject.org
lofi.so

Lofty, I know, but I'd like to do my best in the second half of my life to try something that makes life better for us all. I want us all to take everything back from these massive corporations.

I'd rather try to do something I believe to be good and fail, than not try at all.

Anyways, if this goal could be realized to its fullest extent, the end goal is:

🔥 Eliminate all SaaS.
🚫 Eliminate ads/subscriptions (most subs = money grab).
🧘 Complete agency over your software/data (and your focus!).
🌳 Drastically reduce the need for data centers.

And when I say "everyone" I truly mean everyone! Individuals. Households. Communities. Organizations. Again, you'd have complete agency over how you run your software. You would own your own data, instead of someone else owning it and you being the product.

My dream is everyone running their (most of) own software, with all the goodness they expect out of all the SaaS they use.

✅ Access your data on all of your devices
✅ Share data with other individuals/groups
✅ Easily back up and restore your data
✅ Securely access your data anywhere

I started using Tailscale within the past year, and it's made it so easy to set up a low-to-zero trust setup. An E2EE VPN that I can easily access anywhere? Super low effort. Some amount of technical literacy may still be needed, so perhaps not for everyone, but it shows this could be possible.

I have this dream of bringing back the old ideas for a decentralized web. I think it's possible now more than ever, and I think there may be a way to build all of this without having to sacrifice convenience, or very little 🧵

(and no, this is not a crypto/blockchain thing)