Three UDP packets walk into a bar. First: I'll have a whisky Third: Vodka for me. Second: Just water. Bartender: What you lads having? IYKYK

It has been a long week. Lots of calls. But the good news is that I have put together a genuinely amazing group of people to kickstart Build Mode – the new builder community I'm launching next week. 👏 Still spots available, so if you're curious, here's all the info: buildmode.club

Remember: The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question. It's to post the wrong answer.

I'm learning Thai, and he resource I'm using is clearly the correct one because I've already learned กาแฟ ☕️

Free startup idea for anyone that wants it: round up all these zombies and get them onto treadmills. Infinite energy supply. 🧟‍♂️

So, applications close for Build Mode in 9 days. And I hid something on the website... Only the smartest people will find it. If they do, they get to skip the application process entirely. Only 1 person has been successful so far.

Starting my week by welcoming some very cool people to Build Mode's official launch in 10 days. I'm working from a local co-working space today. Love the Manchester bee they have on the wall.

“Take for example the item right at the top of my list right now. It was supposed to be done eleven months ago. I have accomplished an enormous number of important things as a way of not working on it.” This is a masterpiece: structuredprocrastination.com

Good morning! Here’s a bit of Monday inspiration: “Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment."

I'm visiting the UK right now and what I'm missing most this Sunday evening is my regular ride up and around Núi Sơn Trà in Đà Nẵng.

📢 If you hack your brain with SRS via Anki, listen up... Anki still defaults to its classic SM-2 algorithm. But FSRS is superior, and it has been supported in Anki since 2023. So change it, and hack your brain better.

Build Mode is filling up with some very cool people. Two more joined today. Excited to see this thing coming together. buildmode.club

Guys, I'm human after all (damn). I built a social network with almost 2000 users. After years of not a single bug, this morning it died. 💀 10 mins later and we're back! It was a fun bug that lay silent for a very long time! Who wants to try and spot it?

It’s been a few days since I did this to my MacBook and I still love it. Phew.

Friends, I launched something today. 🚀 Build Mode is a private online community for people working on cool stuff but feeling like they're not around the right people. It's scratching a big personal itch, too. If it sounds relevant, here's the site: buildmode.club Applications close in 2 weeks. 🙏🏻

I'm not focused on langsesh.com (my language-learning product) right now. But every day people are still using it to do lessons! 👏 I have big plans for you LangSesh, but I have another mission first. It's awesome to see it still being helpful for now, though!

POV: Preparing for launch tomorrow. 🚀

Learning a language teaches you to embrace being wrong and see how important it is to make real progress. A useful skill for many other things.

However good the input you consume, if you're not converting it to output, you're not closing the loop. Start the project. Teach what you've learnt. Speak the language. Design the app. Make the music. Act. It may have gone in, but what really matters is how it comes back out.

This weekend I've written a lot of fun code... code to facilitate a game, code to help me learn Thai, and code that I can't mention or it'll give away a secret! This kind of code is the most fun. It's play, It's exploration. It's where I tend to learn the coolest things.

Here's the final result. Video is on YouTube if you want the explanations of... well yeah, every single sticker :)

Sneak peak of what's happening this morning.

Hate to break it to you, but code is a liability. You should strive to have a little of it as possible.

Long day. Great day.

Talking to so many people today about something I'm launching next week. Having people excited and signing up before launch is a new experience for me, but one I highly recommend. Also, this level of responsibility and potential is perfect!

As much as I share my love for Vietnam and Thailand, it’s also cool being back on home turf for a bit. MCR is a cool city.

I just walked in here to order lunch, and launched a full-scale assault of her assumptions with: 🇻🇳 Chào chị ạ! Em muốn nói tiếng Việt, được không? 🇬🇧 Hello (respectful, to older lady). I want to speak in Vietnamese, okay? Got lots of compliments and lunch tasted great.

Want to lose fat? It leaves the body as carbon in your CO2. Raise your heart rate. It’s that simple. The heart doesn’t know what the body is doing. The exercise doesn’t matter. Keep it raised for long periods and stay consistent. Don’t eat back too much of your expelled carbon.

I don't know about you guys... and I don't want to brag, but I can sit for HOURS on an entirely inappropriate chair before I rage quit it and begin to not STFU about backache. Fun at parties too, obvs.

Morning! A fresh 14° here in Manchester and I’m making the most of it. It sounds odd, but this cooler air is like gold after so long in places where it’s not.

My favourite things to build are little experiments. Apps that nobody else will ever see, but let me learn something, or exploit something or just have some fun.

I’ve been coffee shop hopping today and taking in the cool red brick vibes of northern England.

I made a pixel-perfect, cross-browser infinite event scroller for my app's landing page. The result? Infinitely more respect for the iOS developer that did the whole fixed list date picker thing recently.

I a̶c̶c̶i̶d̶e̶n̶t̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ bought 44 stickers (yes that's too many, dear reader) to graffiti the hell out of my Macbook. Should I vlog it?

Me: Opens Anki after 3 months... Me:

Them: "New AI tool can..." Me:

Cool views of the city from out in nature today. 🐝

Time spent sharpening your tools isn't wasted time. I updated my Neovim + terminal setup on Tahoe and it feels 🔥 now.

I don't like the word "work". For most people work is something they despise. I love mine because I choose it, own it, enjoy it, and it makes me feel good. "Oh, you're working on the weekend?" is always such an awkward question. New answer: "Yes, but I sleep with the boss so it's no problem." 😁

Today there's a public transport strike. 👎 It'll now take 3x longer to get home! 👍 There's a strike today, but it's cool because it means I'll walk home. That's +15k steps, listening to two Thai lessons, and enjoying the outskirts of the city. Choose beliefs that are useful.

Tools are the worst. Try to use as few of them as possible (but not too few).

Interesting observation since being back in the UK for the first time in 2 years. I like all the accents... even Scouse. Like, I really enjoying hearing them all again. A nice reminder that the best way to stop taking *everything* for granted is to withdraw from it for a bit.

It's 17º in Manchester today and everyone's wrapped up. I'm wearing a t-shirt. It's delightful. Maybe I really did adapt to Southeast Asian weather. I'm enjoying while I can!

Now I'm focusing back on Thai, this has become my life again.

Yes I have a rot13 implementation inside my landing page. And what?

I can't lie, I love walking through the city when on calls with Esperanto friends. Knowing nobody can understand me is a surprisingly nice feeling. I mean, I speak at 100mph, so that was probably also true in English.

"For a simple install, yarn makes over 4 million system calls, npm almost 1 million, pnpm close to 500k, and bun 165k."

So two weeks back in the UK and yes, it definitely rains a lot. But still not as bad as when it rains in Chiang Mai.

For the first time in years, I decided to actually upgrade to a new macOS release. Hello Tahoe! I like it! * * After heavy customisation. The amount of stuff I change is actually insane.

Still kinda blows my mind to think we created The Web as a means of linking together basic textual documents and now it's an entire application platform.