I have been satisfied with various versions of my productivity trinity since the late 2000s: developing reflexes to note things down as they occur, put them where I'm likely to encounter them again, and deal with them at the appropriate moment; this served me well for to-dos, writing, programming, and
When it isn't possible to both make money and do something meaningful, I've always opted for the latter. This is my attempt to understand why. In 2021, I went through several periods of self-questioning, not feeling positive or certain about the path I had chosen. Although I usually ended up
After mentioning in my last birthday reflection how I wanted to avoid doing an end-of-year recap, I've decided to do an end-of-year recap… Ever since reading the Pinboard anniversary posts, I felt the urge to make one—the charts and odd commentary, uh, inspire me. So this will be less
I tend to describe modern life as 'fragmented'. Lacking a 'canonical place' to create continuity from shared experiences, people rarely collide on a regular basis and end up separated from one another, despite wishing otherwise. Although there is an abundance of spaces, events, and communities, they tend to lack continuity
Thinking about how to integrate multiple systems while building community and sustainable income. This year, I started to prioritize community building, which led to the creation of the Ephemerata newsletter and The Café forum (see My mother's gift for some origins). Seeking a hub to house everything and make it
Using a blog system has opened up a new channel of expression for me, curious to see how far this goes.
For most of my life, I have not been so open to the idea of using technology to find romantic relationships. Coming from a culturally conservative background, dating itself could only happen under very specific and limited circumstances. Moving past that, a lifetime of experience with computers and everything digital
The gist: My iOS apps are currently free and will disappear from the App Store in a few months. Read more to understand why. I have been working on iOS apps since 2009, starting by a collaboration with Wil on AudioScrub (née iLift), and eventually going solo in 2014. After
Originally presented at Tools for Thought Rocks on October 29, 2021 (with slides and timestamps). Below the video is an expanded text version of my presentation for anyone who prefers reading. I talk often about my apps and their features, but rarely about how I use them day-to-day—partially to
Reflecting on why events are work, I realize that the exhaustion comes from doing too much on my own. And in thinking about how to be more collaborative in what I do, I'm starting to notice an issue in my way of thinking: I start from the perspective of "X,
I have thirty-three years today and feel inspired by Matt Mullenweg's "birthday posts" to start an annual reflection. As an alternative to end-of-year recaps where tons of people write and publish simultaneously, I think it would be interesting to collectively spread out these musings over the course of a year
This year has marked the beginning of a shift in my approach: from doing virtually everything solo towards more collectivity and collaboration; the transition has barely begun and is still quite slow as I rewire myself to avoid what has become natural and automatic after over a decade's practice. I
In today's web, we are accustomed to gratuitously sharing articles, videos, podcasts, and other content. By default, most of it is available for free and posted to privately-owned spaces like social media platforms. Most of it is public, for anyone to consume, and some of it is even public domain,
A while ago, after years of being "analytics-free", I decided to try Plausible Analytics and I want to share what led me to start thinking differently. The original provocation was learning that Photopea, despite financial success as a one-person operation, earns most of its revenue from advertising and only four
In preparing Tiny concert for a friend, I audio recorded myself playing guitar while singing and listened back to it immediately after. I tried to do this at least once per day and ended up with four or five sessions repeating this process with the same set of songs. I
I used to help my father learn French via informal conversations. We would talk and pick words or phrases that might be useful to learn, then make flashcards in Kommit to review over time (one side French, the other in English). He learned a lot just by repeating phrases through
Below is a translated revision of my Facebook post in Portuguese, originally for friends but eventually public, followed by some reflections that I wasn't able to articulate at the time. After that, there is a recording I forgot I had, featuring some of my conversation with the officers. Thanks to
It usually takes me time to create projects and develop ideas before sharing them with the world. The durations always differ, but I might expect to wait a month or so as details accumulate, one or more weeks to conceive and finalize a visual identity, some weeks or months for
I started working on Kommit in March 2020, and now that it's March 2021 I find myself reflecting on what has happened in the past year. The app was conceived as a way to study languages orally rather than visually, hearing words and phrases rather than 'looking at them' on
I have been speaking Brazilian Portuguese since a trip to the country in the beginning of 2020. I already had a lot of experience with Spanish for a few years before that point, but I like to point out that most people in other Latin American countries don't automatically speak
I was fortunate to be born into a musical family and for music to have been a concrete part of life as long as I can remember. I studied piano for almost fifteen years, from private lessons to a professional university degree in music. I find it strange that despite
My journey towards independantly creating iPhone apps was not straightforward. I tried on at least five occations over the period of a few years to learn how to do it and always ended up blocked in the process, not coming away with an understanding of how the system works. I