Vibecoding has so seriously reinvigorated my joy for building stuff again. Out here letting Claude code new things on a Sunday afternoon while I'm cleaning my apartment. PEAK
Back with a new monthly newsletter! This month, among other things are full of: algorithms, boredom, AI coding, seriousness, and aesthetics in the 21st century. Multiple essays, multiple links, many things. Enjoy!
https://sceneswithsimon.com/p/a-long-drive-back-to-non-algo-time
I want to run more LLM setups but hesitant to upload private and sensitive information to existing providers. What's the best local LLM setups atm? Or some other trusted setup (like running your own server?)?
Ironic given that crypto only works due to voluntary collectivism. Bitcoin's genesis comes from first having given compute to a p2p network in order to receive the benefits. The entire thing only works because of the collective "other" making cryptographic commitments into the future.
All the Opus chatter finally caused me to try AI coding. Yes. Never touched it (mostly because I've been writing). With Claude Code and Opus 4.5, I refactored code in 2 hours what would've easily taken me a few weeks of relearning the codebase+coding+debugging to do. Increasingly being dragged down by context switching. No more. Bring on 2026. 😎
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Early ETH miners on fire off the shoulder of Roberta's. I watched early ConsenSys HQ glitter with stickers in the dark near the Morgan Ave L. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."
Feel like I've hit the limit on Duolingo for my daily Spanish lesson. Learning far too niche vocab and grammar for my actual speaking and listening ability. Curious what else is there if any of you all use language learning apps?
My magical realism pet theory is that David Bowie was the gravitational well for the weird. And when he died in Jan 2016, we lost the ability to keep it all intact.
Unconventional peak experiences #4: 2 whiskeys down, cocooned on a flight with strangers to a far-flung destination, lights dancing in the cabin from TV screens, Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works in your ears, reading an epic sci-fi book.
Yo. It's insane to me still, that in TWENTY TWENTY FIVE, in the US, I get a bill in the mail without any option to pay online. Not even when signing up to the utility's online site. What century is this?!
Unconventional peak experiences #3: sometimes seeing a distant plane streak across the sky. It not only induces sonder, but also pulls you back into all your own travels over your life. A feeling of constant departure while always arriving.
