79,987 karma · joined August 23, 2008
www.brajeshwar.com
However, this is personal, but I stopped caring as long as the content is good, the animations can do justice in explanation and I get to learn or get what I want from them.
I've found people who have spent decades on one topic in a very specific vertical. It is amazing how they know EVERYTHING in that and I can listen with my jaws dropped to the floor for hours. Then I will wake up, with that spine-chilling shake all over my body on how patient and dedicated one has to be to be on that straight line their entire life.
Sometime, I still do and I like the fun and thrill of locking in a hotel room after a meeting and coming out in lot less days these days (pppppsssstt, because of AI) and get into the next meeting showing off what can be done that was discussed 48 hours ago.
Anyways, in a different take, I always have my own copy of things that I have and own. I tried to stop our family’s Apple One subscription a few years back as we were rarely using it. This was the time my daughter was all about Spotify, its “smart algorithm” and such. So, I decided to move our family music to Spotify so I can have one place to manage. She stayed, but Spotify isn’t for me—I’m getting older, so I know what I want and stick to my lane.
Came back to Apple Music (via ONE), the quality is way better and I just let it rescan my local library and we are happy again with the library + few that I missed in my collections.
In this case, a `.gitignore_global` takes care of the usual suspects that he mentioned `.DS_Store files, IDE config, compressed files, etc.`. Even if something goes wrong, it is usually caught during the initial scaffold before critical files goes in.
If one is working with new, young, rookie developers, give them the typical lesson on the global gitignore, local, config, and to have dotfiles, etc. Give yours for inspiration or something to start with.
Edit: I know that mine is not the best of the dotfiles on the internet but this has helped me switch multiple devices, multiple identities (work, projects, personal, etc) easily. I recently cleaned it up and added automation, test, etc with Claude Code. https://github.com/brajeshwar/dot
She has defined a life she wants to live and is scarily detailed. It is sort of an NPC lifestyle. I believe she is inspired by the games she play.
She might change but for now she seems have a clean outline of how things will be, work, home, and everything else like a very finite number of friends, the things to own, no brand logos (or should be really muted/subtle), etc.
A very personal view but many developers/engineers fail to see the overall picture. And yes, I was there and I went through all of the mistakes.
The things you see on the surface of those incompetent CxOs are just the tiny piece of the bigger picture. You cannot replace blames, decision in the face of uncertainty. Almost all decisions that businesses take have nothing to do with the proficiencies of technologies or engineering finesse, or even the best options, but mostly on “incentives” and who can take/own the “blame.”
“AI” replacing developers is evident because that is a rather tiny perspective and kinda easy to do the equation - developer can do that (good, bad, best) and can the AI do it - maybe, perhaps. So, replace.
A C-Suite took a decision to tick the final approval of a billion dollar deal with a service providers (amongst 10s of them). The idea might have sounded idiotic because there were 3 others better at the top than the chosen one. Even if all of the task and options were weighted with AI, but that last human decision is the Blame that the C-Suite took on, by betting his incentives on it (money, fame, pride, ego.)
I still start the stories with Mathematics and Musical Notes for product design. It is an effortless way to take “design is subjective” to being objective value.
This was magic during the early days, decades ago, and still applicable today.
https://brajeshwar.com/2025/mathematics-design-nature-formul...
I came from Picasa, (20+ years ago) eventually went on to Google Photos later. I kept that one as a back-up for a pretty long time, besides being a long-time paid user. I’m still on one of their cheaper tier for the family as Google’s services are such that we got to use one or the other (read relatives, friends, extended family etc).
However, I have made sure that if I have to walk or get blocked or something of the sorts that happens to people, I will just walk - no emotions attached.
Disclaimer: Article from my own personal blog, but I did blog about why and how I completely did away with Google Photos from our core photos collection (I still use it to host a bnunch of archives for friends, and families group photos).
https://brajeshwar.com/2021/how-to-delete-all-photos-and-get...
Now, I'm having fun with tldraw.[1] With their new tldraw offline, I can continue to work in Claude Code (and others) and I can either output or interact/input from tldraw. This is more of a free-form, infinite canvas. I treat it like Excalidraw + Draw.io + Freeform Notetaker.
For text, most agents/LLM/assistants are pretty happy and smart using the same Markdown files to anywhere I have allowed them to interact.
Why do I remember “The Faltering Fullback?” One has to be introduced by a local, or by someone who loves Irish Pub. A friend took me to The Faltering Fullback; it is an Irish pub with a Thai delivery restaurant license operating inside it.
When you are done, visit and parse your sidenotes.
Of course, the are the usual No Notifications, timers, etc.
1. Learn how you can get HTML generated from a human-readable and writer-friendly format, say, Markdown (plain-text). This can be Pandoc, a macOS/Win wrapper desktop UI over Pandoc, and many other tools that do this.
2. Learn the process (and the tools) to upload, or sync to a service that hosts the HTML (CSS+JS).
3. Learn the simple steps of owning of a domain, and updating the DNS to point to the right services, such as Github Pages, CloudFlare Pages, etc.
As you are not dependent on a particular tool/service/platform/company, you can walk out and host your files (the website content) elsewhere.
The post-processing of the raw (Markdown) articles/posts to HTML can be then automated with Static Site Generator if someone is willing to learn a little more on top of the above steps.
Of course, it is a fun and good thing to know HTML but that should be optional to the target of “Run your own website 100% independently.” With Github and Cloudfalre, you can hve it for $0 monthly. If they go kaput or stops free, someone will come up - walk out and walk in elsewhere.
And here is a review from Fatih Arslan at https://arslan.io/2025/02/24/plotter-notebook-system/
My writing style is ‘harnessed’ by a simplified Bullet Journal method,[2] complete with diagrams, writing on the sides, sometimes vertical, and everything else in between. However, the interesting thing is, my notes are still one of those that gets shared by other people in the same meeting. I tend to draw out everyone’s speech and ideas into visuals that make me understand better.
I also start writing from the last page of the notebook too, to maintain a running list of TODO/TASK items.
When a page is parsed or transferred or no longer valid, I mark that page as ‘archived.’ This is usually done weekly or whenever I feel like it with the same simple fountain pen or a colored marker if I find it nearby. This way, I know which page I never need to look back at and which ones need to be re-checked later.
Individual pages sometimes contain TODO/TASK too. This is where the Bullet Journal method comes in to finish it off.
For contents that are useful for future references, such as resources of knowledge or ideas or a journal entry, I transfer them to my digital notes, the physical journal, and the commonplace book. [3]
These might seem complex, but after a while, they have become muscle memory for me. If you want to start off today, constrain yourself with something "un-dirty" like the Cornell Note Taking System[4] to build up a habit.
I’m including links to some of my personal blog’s articles (not very popular around here), but it makes sense with the above notes I just wrote.
Edit/Addendum: I think it is only fair to confess that I am inspired by the note-taking style of Leonardo da Vinci depicted and dramatized in movies, and TVs. I’m just a low-level copier and thief of the methods of such a great person.
1. https://brajeshwar.com/2025/notes/
3. https://brajeshwar.com/2024/commonplace-book/
4. https://lsc.cornell.edu/how-to-study/taking-notes/cornell-no...
I’m not sure if I want to be inspired and try the fine-tuning model part too!
May be Gwern is right that this static personalization approach may not be long-lived. Still, I find it fascinating, and I’m seeing a lot of interest in this area from others too.
When I started, my personal interest was on how to multiply/enhance what I already know and touch adjacent topics/experiences and not really become pseudo expert or the know-all-generalists in things I have absolutely no clue.
Now, shamelessly plugging my idea that I started early this year
Long back Xiaomi Phones used to have soemthing like this. That one feature was how I migrated my in-laws to Smartphones from their Nokias.
The key content from the article;
Here's how you set it up: Head into Settings, tap Accessibility, scroll down to the General section at the very bottom, and tap Assistive Access. Now, tap Set Up Assistive Access, then Continue. It will then ask you to select your preferred appearance: rows or a grid. I suggest choosing a grid. This is how you get those super-large tiles. Now the OS will ask you to select allowed apps—tap the green plus icon next to the apps you want to allow.