Cover of Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
I have defeated mindless YouTube scrolling by walking outside and listening to music! Also listened to the rerun of a Terry Gross interview with Jay McInerney today on Fresh Air and hearing an excerpt inspired me to borrow Bright Lights, Big City from the library.
WSJ snapshot: "Trump Says U.S. to Blockade Strait After Talks Fail"
WSJ snapshot: "Trump Says U.S. to Blockade Strait After Talks Fail"
ηη³δΏ±η
This is the Chinese idiom for what Trump is currently doing in the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly translated: *"If we can't get the oil, no one gets the oil."*
The Chinese saying basically means: "I'd rather see the entire world burn to the ground and reduced to ashes before I let my enemies win."
This is a great tip! Ty!!
robertlin.substack.com/p/66-ten-tho...
Better late than never. Wrote my March dispatch today. March was unfortunately an incredibly unproductive month for me-- I fell back into bad habits (specifically: mindlessly scrolling YouTube for hours). Six wks later, I finally emerged from my cloud of funk.
Hung out with friends tonight who are moving away from Cincinnati next week. πππ I'm super-sad they're leaving but am also excited for them as they start their new adventures! Bittersweet for sure, but such is life. In the end, all we have are memories. Cherish!!
Finished reading "My Sister, the Serial Killer" by Oyinkan Braithwaite today. I found the characters annoying at the beginning but stuck with it because I have a book club meeting tomorrow. By the book's end, I actually appreciated it! I am incredibly bad with finishing books unless I'm in a club!
Recently I felt myself wasting time watching YouTube. IME, when I'm wasting time on YT it means something else in my life is off. It's bc since March for various reasons, I've fallen off of my walking routine at the gym. This was fatal for me. I'm getting back to walking at the gym everyday now.
One trick I have learned is to have YouTube playing in the background strictly for ambient noise. For whatever reason, this environmental low level noise helps me concentrate and keep busy. It's one reason I've continued to actually not buy YouTube premium. For background noise. Simulate ambience.
modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/develop...
Better late than never. Wrote and deployed my first MCP server today locally! Hype's real! It's essentially just a wrapper around our company API but the ability to interact with our API in a "fuzzy" way now βvia natural language in LLMs!β is a game changer!!
www.wsj.com/video/series...
The upper-middle class has tripled in size over the past 50 years! ~10% to ~30% of the population now. I have seen this first-hand. People I know who came from humble backgrounds are increasingly climbing into the upper-middle class. (I'm a millennial.) Capitalism works!
The question isn't about doing things. Anyone can just do things. It's about doing the *right* things. It's not about doing a dozen things a day. It's about doing two absolutely critical things that need to be done today. Or even just one. Keeping busy can feel satisfying. But it's a red herring.
The first step to a clean mind is a clean room. Am spending more time this weekend cleaning!! I have kept so much junk around that when I actually do need something I have trouble actually finding the important thing. π€¦ββοΈ That is the irony of hoarding: the clutter has a price and costs.
Love Marie Kondo! Only keep things that bring you joy!! β€οΈ
John Weld Peck federal building in downtown Cincinnati
It's cool to me how there is such a large federal presence inside Cincinnati! In 1950, Cincy's population peaked at ~504k and is today ~300k. Last year I renewed my passport online and it went remarkably smoothly! I was even able to take+submit my passport photos via my phone! Our government works!πΊπΈ
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE7l...
I never watched Babylon 5 but this breakdown was magnificent. A truly masterful episode. Space battles are always chaos to me and I have no idea what's going on. This video outlining how the writers wrote this space battle outside Proxima III is a masterclass.
Here is my Claude buddy cat called Tremor!
Just installed Claude buddy on my desktop. I got a cat called Tremor! I've also turned on full voice dictation and screenshots sharing with Claude on desktop. It is amazing!!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Geix...
Morgan Freeman on BHM-2009
Wallace: "How do we get rid of racism?"
Freeman: "Stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a White man. And I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a Black man. I know you as Mike Wallace and you know me as Morgan Freeman."
π― this! Life is amazing right now! It has literally never been a better time to be alive than right now. By every appreciable metric life is SO much better for the average human now around the world than even just 50 years ago. We are living in an absolutely golden era right now. Everyone enjoy it!!
youtube.com/shorts/Lkbfk...
America #1!! πΊπΈπΊπΈπΊπΈ
youtu.be/LK-cFaVmIaE?...
Love this!! America is going back to the Moon!! πππππ
www.npr.org/2026/03/27/n...
@planetmoney.bsky.social did a great piece on the SenΜΓ‘αΈ΅w development going up in Vancouver right now. Because it is on reservation land, they got to bypass all the NIMBY regulations and build a gigantic mega-complex that will give their people generational wealth!!
I fixed this! It turns out my firmware was locked. I ultimately had to install Tahoe by holding command-option-r while booting. This then presented a padlock screen which asked for my firmware password. After I unlocked the computer's firmware, I was able to install Tahoe successfully!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrj2...
Why Great Thinking Needs Distraction β Terence Tao
Started watching Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix last night. Very intriguing show.
I was talking with a colleague over lunch at the office today and it made me realize that as someone who doesn't have kids I take much fewer vacation days! In the absence of children, I have definitely struggled to create a vacation schedule for myself. This is going to be one of my 2026 priorities!
Watched Project Hail Mary w/ the crew tonight. Good movie! Recommend!
My favorite part in the movie is Ryan Gosling's character of why he joined the mission. We may think we're unable to do the thing but we'll never know until we're pushed into doing it. Even when you don't believe, others believe.
macOS Tahoe installation failed screen
Recently bought an old 2019 MBP with Big Sur on it and have been trying to upgrade it to Tahoe but Software Update keeps failing. π€¦ββοΈ Am considering installing from USB drive next. Anyone have any other recommendations?
Musical program for Legally Blonde
Had a great time at the Legally Blonde musical last nite at The Covedale in Price Hill! A 79 year-old establishment here in Cincy!
AI may be wreaking havoc in great swathes of the white collar job market right now but I think live performing arts will be insulated!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covedal...
Gen Z men with college degrees now have the same unemployment rate as non-gradsβa sign that the higher education payoff is dead
fortune.com/article/gen-...
Gen Z men with college degrees now have the same unemployment rate as non-gradsβa sign that the higher education payoff is dead - FORTUNE
March 7, 2026
Sharon Woods reopened yesterday!
Sharon Woods reopened yesterday! This is a wonderful park in Cincinnati. It's been closed for a year while they drained the lake and fixed a bunch of stuff. Walked around the lake today and it was glorious. Weather was gorgeous too. Spring has arrived!!
www.greatparks.org/about/newsro...