Who would've thought the U.S. would descend into Orwellian 1984, while China drifts toward Huxley's Brave New World? I always assumed their dystopian futures would be the other way around. Feels like the end of Cixin Liu's Supernova Era, where the two quietly swap roles.

Idealism is the last luxury the youth have.

All online video contents are either staged or AI generated. Online video will be meaningless.

I re-read the original Snow White tale — and found eerie parallels with the evil Queen’s Magic Mirror to our relationship with tech, AI, and digital vanity. ✨ New Code & Codex: “The Queen’s Magic Mirror”

The Queen’s Magic Mirror

Reflections On Vanity, Algorithms, and the Devices We Obey

There are no more conservatives. There are only nationalistic radicals of the right, and nationalistic radicals of the left.

Sun Tzu wrote, “The Art of War”. Who is writing “The Art of De-escalation”? I think the world need this, The Art of De-escalation: Save Face and Walk Away.

When you say AI can think, or AI can't think ... What is 'thinking' to you? How do human 'think'? I have my own opinion on this, but I would love to hear your thoughts. Drop a comment or quote this, I'll read it

Ace Combat is Grand Turismo with fighter jets. yes / no ?

I’ve tried a lot of coffee-making styles — grinding beans for French press, Aeropress, Moka pot, V60 pour-over… But somehow, this cheap kopitiam-style sachet with hot water hits the spot for me 😅

The software engineering equivalent of The Dark Knight quote: "You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain" is: "You either retire a farmer, or live long enough to become a tech curmudgeon."

Advertising has shifted from product research to market research. It's not about what's right with the product, but what's wrong with the buyer. Ads sell not the product's character, but the character of the consumer of the product.

New dispatch for Code & Codex

Import Tariffs for Code

A thought experiment on software protectionism and the invisible hands behind our code.

Is Monero still a thing?

Is there a “go-fund-me” type of service that using #nostr and lightning ⚡️? Like one can set a fund goal and people can zap ⚡️ to that goal. Or is anybody building this?

Trying to understand what is Trump’s plan with the tariff. Let's say that they could bring manufacturing back to the U.S. what’s next? How would the U.S. get the rest of the world to buy from them when there are cheaper options right next door? To me, it made perfect sense that for a company like Apple for example, to have their iPhones come out from a factory in China, have it transported and sell to the rest of Asia, rather than having their iPhones come out from a factory in the U.S. and ship it to the rest of Asia, or Europe, or rest of the world. Isn’t it better to produce the thing that your buyer wants to buy, closer to the buyer itself so you can transport it to them faster, and cheaper? Unless the end goal is not just to have the world buying from the U.S. but also to stop the world buying from China. How do you do that?

Trump’s Tariff: What’s the Plan, Really?

I am trying to understand Donald Trump’s tariff strategy.

My daughter abandon her survival world and created a new creative mode world and invited me in. Chicken Jockey! Guess who had a blast watching A Minecraft Movie? 😁

On Nostr, “repost” I think is better than “likes”. Since there is not much of a discovery algorithm (which I think is preferable) — “liking” a note does not bring much value. “Repost” gives the note the chance to reach more people, and also introduces new accounts to users. This feels like the early days of Tumblr, where “reblog” was the main thing. “Reblog” allows the post to get more exposure.

In 1786, Benjamin Franklin observed that Americans were so busy reading newspapers and pamphlets that they scarcely had time for books. Alexis de Tocqueville took note of this fact in his Democracy in America, published in 1835: "In America, parties do not write books to combat each other's opinions, but pamphlets, which are circulated for a day with incredible rapidity and then expire." Both passage is from “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman first published in 1985 Few centuries later, it is "Tweets" and "TikTok videos" that has taken over the main form of discourse. Headlines over headlines, video snippets over snippets. As long-form writing fades from digital culture and ‘memeified’ short-form content takes center stage, the seriousness, clarity, and above all, the value of public discourse dangerously declines.

As long-form writing fades from digital culture and ‘memeified’ short-form content takes center stage, the seriousness, clarity, and above all, the value of public discourse dangerously declines.