I enjoyed being "the outside contractor," who came only on specific occasions and left as fast as one could. At that time, this path looked like the most fun path possible. By changing one "weird" production job after the next and hitting the ground running with an exciting experimental project, I hoped to gain fun experiences and a unique perspective that can't easily be replicated. It was my way of writing a story that can be leveraged later. And indeed, it worked well. I enjoyed my most recent job interview simply because it was easy and refreshing to reminisce about my past projects and explain in detail why I did what I did.

With this particular interview, I finally admitted (to myself, first and foremost) that I'm tired of working solo with no clear attachment to a team or a project.

Never bonding with anyone or getting involved deep enough to disturb my sense of self and the team's boundaries were the necessary prerequisites at the beginning of my production path. Looking back, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do during that time, so I grabbed whatever came into my hands. This work ethic brought me one or two huge professional wins, but the downside got to me only after I could stop and reevaluate what matters to me long-term. That was the moment I found out that, professionally, I've accumulated almost nothing – and even more, I found myself trapped in a career path I no longer wanted to be a part of.

Tom Morgan writes about it in his How To Be Lucky piece, “Single-minded pursuit of narrow goals blinds us to unintended negative consequences and superior alternatives.” This tunnel vision in entertainment production got me started, and I'm forever grateful for these experiences. But it still feels like I've been compounding the wrong things this whole time. Now came a moment when I felt the need to change direction: towards bonding and staying close to people, spending lots of time with the things I value the most, and fully immersing myself in subjects that will radically change our lives for good.

I'm now a job interview runner, talking to people and teams across the intersection of AI, Web3, EdTech, and digital media. My core approach revolves around finding the right team with the right set of values and long-term vision. Whether the product they're building is successful or comes second to my attention, all things go if the team's heart is in the right place. I want to find a team and product I could grow and push to the limits. To surround myself with challenging goals and commit to the fullest.

I guess the point of this writing comes back to a simple idea: once you've worked for a few years in your specific path, you can reevaluate and pivot as needed – it's not as scary as it may seem. In Beal, Infinite Loops, and Asymmetry in Work and Life, Frederik Gieschen writes**, “**Some pushing of rocks may be required, but don't let that define your life. Keep looking for opportunities to form a snowball, for fertile soil, or for beaches with promising waves. Pay attention.”

There aren't any rules to this process. Choose a course of action, take a risk, and adjust as needed. Just make sure you keep doing what you want to be doing.

This was heavily inspired by this excellent recent talk by Graham Weaver.

We've spent the whole summer chasing the "rebuilding" game. Little did we know that the most challenging thing would be not the bureaucracy – Israel is tough for expats' businesses but ultimately solvable – but rather our internal debates about the financial side of keeping the studio running. Particularly the ever-present question for most service-oriented companies: how should we price our work with this thesis in mind.

After some research, we proceeded with a subscription-based model around three different tiers of services. And at this exact moment - as I sat down to calculate unit economics - I started to feel disappointed with this whole endeavor. When I looked at our half-baked spreadsheet, all I saw was a Sisyphean load full of wrong ideas. In our neverending quest to turn an artistic vision from 5 years ago into a valid business, we bumped into the brutal realities of the current market for creative studios. With the sufficient lack of outside investments early on, our model doesn't make any sense in the long-term survival of the studio.

In some way, that was a predictable path. All of us burned out. Myself included. My partner and I have dreamed about catapulting ThinkPink onto the market since 2018. After many attempts (which I've highlighted here), no matter how consistent and mentally strong you are, it's: a) impossible to keep going without even a tiny win; b) the moment comes when you need to face reality and accept it to prevent the further drowning.

And now, with our final journey to relaunch the studio with some mid-level results after a few months of work (a couple of landings to test and an incomplete financial model), I no longer feel any desire to keep going. It's finally time for me to wipe out this story and recharge with another project that answers my internal goals and vision for the future.

I don't want to keep this thing going if I no longer believe in success – and moreover, I stopped finding inspiration in any attempt at building the "creative studio of my dreams." I'm no longer the person I was in 2018, yet I'm still trying to push down the vision and ideas about the world that I had five years ago.

One might ask, why did you write that damn thing back in July. I genuinely believe in the concept itself, but this is not what I want to spend all my time chasing for the next few years. Building a creative studio does not feel relevant to me anymore. And it's okay. It's better to say "stop" now rather than later.

What now? I have to find out, to be honest. I now find immense joy in coding, AI acceleration, and science. Life is too short not to chase the things that inspire you.

The Current Thing

We're living at times of foundational shifts in how we approach creative work. With the vast arsenal of easily accessible AI tools at our disposal, the creative process we've used to is about to become commoditized: any business owner can compile a fast-paced "marketing team" with little to no resources, quickly generate ongoing campaigns, and cut costs on creative professionals that are usually tough to communicate with. The number of in-house dedicated content teams built from internal company staff will grow exponentially. Creative work is affordable like never before.

The next logical step is to ask yourself: how can a dedicated team of creative professionals carve out a niche in the world of easily-generated content? Our vision with ThinkPink narrows to simply turning our full attention to the packaged solutions with a strong vision and innovative technology under the solid transparent umbrella. You spend X; you get Y – and Y isn't as good as you can unwrap and put on your table. Your creative strategy and its implementation become a productized service that will help your client make more money, save time, and be 100x more productive.

Experience-as-a-Service

At ThinkPink, we turn our full attention to tailor-made Experience as a Service: the business provides what is essential for its brand, product, and core market, and we build an innovative community-driven emotional experience with complete transparency and a boundless toolkit—with an experience packaged as a product. In our view, it's a solution with the limitless scaling potential to enrich customers' emotions and form deep connections with the product and/or brand.

We build the foundational pipeline for Experience as a Service to be:

• An understandable, financially viable, locked, and loaded creative solution for gaining brand recognition and involving the current community in a company-centric experience.

• A product that offers transparency around the tools and the pricing of such Experience, with the flexibility to pause a development mid-stage when there are doubts or desire to complete the project on the company's resources alone.

• A marketing event that feels fresh, modern packed with a toolkit full of transparent communication and a comprehensible development process as we're not bounded to a particular set of technologies (or rather - tools do not define us but by our spiritual approach to EaaS).

• A truly personalized and tailored experience that aligns with the client's brand, product, and target market.

Why do we believe in Experience-as-a-Service as a viable model for a creative team of the future

• It answers the need for a business to "humanize" the brand, make it feel "on the edge of something new and exciting," and facilitate long-term community loyalty and empathy with the shift towards emphatic marketing solutions.

• It answers the need for transparent creative solutions with an understandable and humane process. Long gone are the days of closed agencies with sketchy pricing that gets more complicated with each step further into the production process. The product - even a creative one - must be understandable and transparently produced. If it's not, there's no trust.

• It answers the need to reach out to previously unforeseen markets and audiences that value empathic connections and companies that stand for something much more than pure commercial gains.

We build Experience as a Service by applying production legos that are not glued to each other. Each Experience by ThinkPink is a composable playground filled with infinite tools. A client takes a journey with us - one step at a time. The nature of EaaS allows the client to exit the project mid-stage if they feel the need to finish on their own.

The Foundation and The Ignition

We split our product into two cycles:

1. The Foundation (Creative Strategy): a detailed and fully budgeted outline of an Experience. Creative strategy is a foundational aspect of EaaS. You provide what matters for your company – we assemble a vision upon that input. Emotional and humane. Transparent and fair. Nothing is left behind. Every tool is within our reach. We keep it simple and sophisticated at the same time. We provide you with a three-point solution that contains the following:

2. The Ignition (Production): a turn from The Foundation to the shipped Experience.

In future posts, we will examine our previous work in that framework to explain how each cycle has been conducted and what results we have achieved with regard to a particular client. Although we focus on a productized solution, unique input from the client's side plays a significant role in building an Experience by ThinkPink.

The future is empathy

For our team, it's clear how many challenges are ahead. Having spent years in traditional local marketing game, we need more credibility in what we're trying to achieve at this stage of the studio's life. With leaving our legacy production process behind, we must distill the primary revenue streams and any potential ancillary income sources we plan to pursue long term. And we still need to clarify certain aspects of EaaS - partially, that's the reason behind this writing.

But these challenges are inspiring. In the chaos, we need another human being to find a path to a future worth building. Distilling the essentials in the ocean of data has become one of humanity's most important skills. Now it's time to focus even more on distilling human emotions and focusing on each other. To provide value to communities and inspire them to be the best versions of themselves. In our view, empathetic experiences can do just that.

We ready to talk and ready to support that change. Let's get to work.

The most validated core conclusion of social science across many decades and thousands of studies is that human intelligence makes a very broad range of life outcomes better. Smarter people have better outcomes in almost every domain of activity: academic achievement, job performance, occupational status, income, creativity, physical health, longevity, learning new skills, managing complex tasks, leadership, entrepreneurial success, conflict resolution, reading comprehension, financial decision making, understanding others' perspectives, creative arts, parenting outcomes, and life satisfaction.

Source:

https://a16z.com/2023/06/06/ai-will-save-the-world/

Get in touch

Our website:

https://www.thinkwithpink.com/

Follow us on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/thinkwithpink

There were some thoughts I played around with for some time before donning my explorer's hat and diving into Python. "In the world of ever-present AI, Python is your friend." "What else do you want to fill a few hours of your day for the foreseeable months?". The main reason was much more prosaic: rebuilding ThinkPink with a razor-thin team requires wearing multiple hats simultaneously. I estimate that we're now better off with at least one person capable of reading and comprehending Python. It took me a few months last year to jump into JS; now it's Python time.

Short term plan looks like this:

• Learn the basic syntax, data types, and functions – enough not to feel overwhelmed by the simplest things.

• Dive into the technical debris of machine learning and AI algorithms.

I know it's stupid to write something in the style of "here's how you should learn duh," but for purposes of accidental fun, I'll share my go-to sources as of now:

• Replit's 100 Days of Code is solid and practice-oriented, with occasional mistakes here and there (some commentators on YouTube videos highlight them pretty accurately)

• Python All-In-One For Dummies by John C. Shovic, Alan Simpson. Yeah, I got that one from Shkreli's videos. A good book and probably the most comprehensive one at this stage of my involvement with Python.

A few random observations so far:

• Knowing JavaScript helped a lot. But honestly, that's the case with any previous experience coding.

• For an untrained eye like mine, the Python world looks more friendly: fewer brackets and more readable syntax.

• Indentation is a matter of life and death.

Today, the "creator economy" — the platforms and tools that allow visionaries around the globe to share content, build an audience, and make a living in various ways — is worth over $100bn. There are an estimated 50m creators worldwide, and each year more people look at the "creator" as a sought-after career choice. Moreover, individual creators' cultural impact is eclipsing the reach of traditional media operations. Thanks to crypto, web3, and AI, that relatively new environment is rapidly changing. But as we go deeper into the digital realm, I firmly believe that the next generation's winning creative teams must step beyond that. The successful creative practices of the future will exist at the intersection of physical and digital environments.

The future of the creative economy will belong to the teams and the individuals that incorporate full-stack engineering and profound emotional storytelling across digital and physical realities.

1. Rethink a creative process — and stop considering mundane obvious choices

The complexities that come with managing new technologies have the power to strengthen intermediaries — in this case, creative agencies — instead of crushing them, but only if they are quick to adapt. So in the long term, I think that creative — what we now call "knowledge workers" — will find their jobs enhanced by a wide margin. And that's a unique opportunity to gain a competitive advantage if you’re open to it.

Across creative space, web3 before and now AI has become the buzzwords no one wanted to miss across creative space. When FOMO is hitting hard, it's easy to slip away from the team's core values and delegate the most important tasks to the brand-new shiny things. We saw it during the metaverse craze, with one company after another announcing "revolutionary experiences" only to find out themselves later in a Dan Olson video. And now, the median piece of marketing content could be created by AI. Everyone can become an agency of their own: the work of sophisticated teams can now be done on your laptop with a stable internet connection at your disposal. Thus agencies who will keep the same pace of influencer marketing campaigns, routine web design, and stock digital content creation will become obsolete in facing thousands of agencies of one person.

Each new technological breakthrough adoption cycle will not be different. We're entering the world of a generic creative process: commoditized or general interest content will slowly fade in value, and any company betting only on high traffic is doomed. To compete, the winning agency of the future must look beyond the assembly line of look-alike visuals — and take a look within. That's where the niche teams aimed at emotional experiences who can reflect on how new technologies can bring people and communities together will shine the most.

2. The power of empathy is a first priority

The COVID pandemic and over-abundance of digital content taught us that there's nothing more important in life than authentic human connection. People feel more alone than ever before. It's become clearer now as we keep delegating tasks to AI agents and exploring what matters long-term. Any intellectual, cognitive activity will be commoditized thanks to AI. Consumers will soon get neatly written search results with ChatGPT-like LLMs. You'll get intelligent answers — but not smart connections. At the same time, we're entering an easier time to create and spread distracting, disgusting, or misleading information at scale.

That's why I believe the future belongs to empathy-centered teams — those who smartly navigate and tighten direct relationships with an audience and content consumers. Emotional intelligence, the ability to feel ourselves and others, and to interact deeply and healthily with information and other people, will become our primary skill. We're yet to see companies realizing this on a large scale. Winners in the creative economy of the future will provide a transparent bridge between the physical reality of human connection and the digital spaces of our online presence.

3. Don't be afraid of technologies screwing up your process — embrace it

But simply being empathic is not enough to gain an advantage. I often come back to Balaji's formula of full-stack engineer x full-stack influencer: winners in the creative economy of the future are both of these things.

The future lies with builders, doers, and hackers — creating in public. Instead of a team of 8 people, all it takes is one knowledgeable person and a few evenings of free time to validate a business idea. LLMs will teach you Swift, while Stable Diffusion will make the top graphics, and babyAGI will whip up a marketing strategy. And here lies a paradox: you can do everything yourself, but you need others to make an impact with your work. It becomes easier to start building, but human contact is only getting more valuable as you go further and get noticed.

4. The List

Today, we still need to realize the vision of an economy dominated by networks of emphatic creative teams. The future of creativity lies in the successful unity of digital and physical realms, harnessing the advantages of both technology and human emotion. By embracing technology and blending it with traditional art techniques and physical reality, artists and creators can forge a path toward a future marked by innovative and emotionally resonant creations. Take ownership of what you create by embracing the value of breakthrough technologies and always maintaining the power of human connections.

The successful creative team of the future must have:

• Generalists for bridging the gaps between ideas and toolkits.

• Hackers & builders for shaping new horizons.

• Highly empathic people for adding a soul to technology and incorporating it into the physical space.

  As expanded by a list from @1eo.

My partner and I launched ThinkPink way back in 2018. Back then, our goal was to create a creative agency that would provide brands with unique special projects focusing on noticeable and profound emotional experiences. We failed.

In 2021 we decided to reinvent ThinkPink into the web3 creative studio by connecting the brands from the web2 world with web3 opportunities and technical stack. We failed.

I've always prided myself on staying ahead of the curve. The rapid changes in technology, especially in the realm of artificial intelligence, have prompted us to reevaluate the direction of ThinkPink one last time. The vision behind this decision is the clearest I've had in years. I genuinely believe we could make it work this time – by being fast and more understandable to the outside crowd.

Any sane person would drop this idea by now, but deep inside, we still believe we could make this work. So this is our last shot at making ThinkPink into a sustainable business that we would enjoy running.

I'll document the transformation process in this blog, sharing our plans, insights, and progress updates to provide an honest look behind the reengineering of the small creative team. I genuinely believe that by reevaluating our approach and embracing the upcoming changes in the creative space, we can create a brighter future for ThinkPink and the world.

For the foreseeable future, I plan to share my thoughts on the possibilities of the creative industry, and the role of humans amidst AI advancements, reflect on my previous working experience, and construct the long-term path for ThinkPink with a step-by-step plan.

Maybe we'll fail again. Or we'll succeed at last. The journey ahead is undoubtedly filled with challenges and uncertainties. Still, I'm excited to embark on this new path and share the experience with you. Together, we'll explore what it means to be a creative studio in a world where AI and human creativity collide. Stay tuned for updates, and join me in witnessing the transformation of ThinkPink into something extraordinary.

I know many of my peers face the same challenge: watching the world and more successful friends move ahead in life while you scrap the pieces to make something valuable out of yourself. I feel for you. I know that it sucks to be near the end of the line. Life's challenges sometimes feel unbearable, but they also shape us into who we aspire to become. At this moment, one of the things that always helps me to collect my thoughts and make a move – is to mark the guidelines:

1. Stay patient. Nothing happens overnight: it takes enormous time, effort, and a lot of persistence to achieve your goals. So always remember to celebrate small victories and keep working through setbacks.

2. Criticism sucks (but accept it gracefully). It's inevitable if you want to grow beyond your current level. Constructive criticism is precious for growth and improvement, so try to view it as a learning opportunity rather than a personal attack.

3. Keep expanding your skillset. This keeps me going: knowing how much I still don't know. Never stop learning; always be open to new techniques or tools to enhance your craft.

4. Health and well-being first. Your physical, mental, and emotional states are essential for sustained work. Prioritise self-care and seek help when needed to maintain a balanced lifestyle.

5. You need people. Get out there. Every sudden meeting can lead to valuable connections, collaborations, and opportunities. Surround yourself with positive and supportive people who can help you navigate the ups and downs. And offer support to others in return: it is (for me, at least) much more rewarding and valuable.

6. Stay real. You're not evil, full of envy or greed. In a world where it's easy to get swept up in trends and popular opinion, staying true to yourself and believing in spreading the good is essential.

I may hate my birthday for years to come, but there's always a second to pause and start another year of making things worthwhile.

Welcome to Bilita Mpash – a digital experience designed by the creative team at ThinkPink studio and powered by our technical partners at 8XR. 

Four Basics Before We Start

1. It's not a game.

2. It's not a membership pass collection.

3. It’s an art experience – a digital installation with three separate stages.

4. It’s an experiment in rethinking our interactions with digital spaces.

How to Participate in 5 Sentences

1. Buy The Key to The Island.

2. Reveal which Totem your Key opens.

3. Create an account on app.8xr.io platform and connect the Metamask wallet that holds The Totem.

4. Enter The Island using the link on our website / on a reveal page / on 8XR “Showroom” page / or on OpenSea.

5. Start exploring The Island and come back when new stages are unlocked.

What is «The Key To The Island», and how do I get one?

The Key To The Island is a wrapped Totem. Right after you obtain one – you can buy it or follow our Twitter account to catch a drop – you should reveal which Totem this Key unlocks for you.

The Totems use the ERC-1155 token standard. Only 5 different versions are available. You can get one Totem per Key. The Totems are randomly distributed during the reveal.

Note that The Key To The Island can’t be used to enter The Island. Only The Totem grants you access to The Island on 8XR platform.

The Totems are created on the Polygon network. Please note that on some occasions it takes a few minutes to confirm the transactions.

To get The Key To The Island, please visit mint.bilitampash.xyz

How to create an account on 8XR website and connect my wallet?

1. Follow the link and register an account: https://app.8xr.io/?auth=login

2. After the registration, click on your avatar, and select “Profile”. In your profile settings select “Linked wallets” – then connect your wallet that holds The Totem. Remember: the authentification process to open The Island link may take some time.

How does The Island work?

Congrats! At this point, you have a Totem, an account on app.8xr.io, and a linked wallet that holds your Totem.

Now, let’s meet 8XR engine platform. It's the place where we host The Island. The link to The Island is provided with every Totem – look for it after the reveal, in the metadata, or on our dedicated page on OpenSea.

8XR is a browser-based game engine for creating high-quality virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and 3D applications easily without requiring programming or 3D graphics expertise. *8XR technology is available on laptops, mobiles (yes, you can use your iPhone to explore The Island), and VR headsets.*

Got it, I’m in. So, what’s next?

After the authentication is finished, open the link – and start exploring The Island. No more guidance for you. Listen and explore. Take notice of any details. Try to focus on sound installations too, and how the sound communicates with the space.

As you start, only the entry section of The Island will be available. We plan to open other areas according to the schedule that we will announce later this month.

What should I do if something is not working properly?

If you've encountered technical difficulties during the minting process or the whole experience of entering/interacting with The Island, please ask for help in the "Support" channel on our Discord. Or DM us on Twitter. We're there for you.

We can't wait for you to experience the Bilita Mpash, and we hope that it will be worth the wait. Prepare to immerse yourself in the captivating world of The Tribe.

Look forward to continuing this journey together with all the new members.

The Magic of Math is an extremely simple book for anyone who knows math well enough, and revelatory for other people who were afraid of calculus their whole life (like myself). In time, I found that the most obvious comparison regarding Benjamin's book can be made with art books rather than other literature on math. Like a true master of his craft, Benjamin is not trying to brute force all known equations into your brain for the sake of it, but rather to express the whole mathematical pallet so you can see the beauty behind xs and ys, and find your own way to then eventually "get it all". The idea is that even if you find math difficult to understand, that doesn't mean it's impossible to appreciate its beautiful structure and complexity. The Magic of Math invites you to embrace math as a critical component of understanding the simplest things in the world around us. Whether it is calculating a tip on a bill or understanding the algorithms that power social media, zkRollups, or LLMs, math is everywhere, and it is - yeah - quite magical in its elegance (I fell totally in love with a chapter on the Fibonacci sequence).

I guess at one point or another, any human must realize that mathematics is not just a subject which we learn in school and then leave behind. Embracing the beauty of math and its practical applications in our daily lives helps you - especially in times of turbulence - ground yourself and think outside the box of your senses. Whether you are an artist, producer, writer, or Twitter warrior, mathematics is something that we can all appreciate and understand in one way or another - or just simply enjoy the fact that there’s at least one certain way how we can explain almost everything in the world. It’s worth taking the time to appreciate the beauty of the universe around you by exploring the language of math. Start with The Magic of Math if you're like me.

"How well does the AI perform clinically? And my answer is, I'm stunned to say: Better than many doctors I've observed."—Isaac Kohane MD.

Peter Attia's (probably, the only book) Outlive is out this week, which I've waited for what feels like forever. Although he wrote extensively during the last five years, now I can't help but imagine how, in some ways, this book is already in need of supplementary chapters: all of a sudden, the talk of the town shifted to the upcoming spread of the AI-based longevity tools, and how the infinite amount of personalized AI health providers will accelerate the whole healthcare system. It's impossible at this stage not to wonder how technological advancements impact future generations' life expectancy and well-being. Everyone from Bill Gates to Martin Shkreli (long live Dr. Gupta) shares the vision behind all the possible - predominantly positive - changes. Books are coming soon on the topic too.

I rarely contemplated the concept of longevity before 22' as I've written extensively in my year-end posts. Attia and Huberman became those figures who pushed me toward a stern look at my health and the health of my loved ones. Learning how to treat the body organically led to exploring many healthcare system traits and obstacles. It is at this moment of a personal journey inside this broken system (also keep in mind the third-world country in my particular case), one wishes for less dispassionate humans and more sophisticated machines. Standardization sucks, and a personalized approach is yet to come in magnitude worldwide. I'm no medical scholar, yet I vividly imagine how groundbreaking the current state of things in AI is already changing the landscape.

There's early detection that excites me the most as the only affordable "cure" for a wide range of diseases. No single doctor on Earth could keep up with all the medical research and advancements within their own field of practice. With the vast amount of biological data, it's difficult for humans to comprehend the complexities of all the processes across medicine - and here AI will significantly speed up medical advancements. This process will enhance diagnostics, treatment plans, and enable us to understand better and prevent illnesses - thus improving long-term health and life expectancy.

There's personalization on levels we've never seen before. Sergey Young calls this IoB, Internet-of-Body: a world where your diagnostic devices will all connect into a distinct network that helps you and your medical provider monitor your health. This system will fuel powerful machine-learning algorithms designed not only to detect and diagnose disease but also to prescribe and even administer the right treatments in real-time. It opens lots of opportunities with personalized fitness and nutritional plans, analyzing sleep patterns, and providing mental health support (as we can already communicate with ChatGPT as with our personal IFS guide). By offering coordinated, data-driven approaches to managing health and fitness, AI technology can improve living, allowing us to create healthier lifestyles and enjoy a longer, more fulfilling life.

Finally, there're remote access solutions. Advanced technologies such as computer vision and deep learning can improve the accuracy of medical diagnoses eliminating the need to visit a physician in many cases. AIs can provide patients with triage services, advice on health matters, and help determine if they need medical attention - all from the comfort of your home. This increased access to healthcare services can boost early detection and intervention and facilitate long-term care for people who may otherwise struggle to access these services, resulting in better health outcomes and improved quality of life.

At the same time, yeah, AI can still screw us up well. The acceleration of AI raises many concerns about potential challenges and ethical considerations that must be addressed to ensure its positive impact on longevity and happiness.

We for sure mistreated in the past the issue of data privacy in social media - and now we're on the right track to make the same mistake with LLMs, especially in the medical sphere. You're probably tired of reading countless takes on AI alignment, bias, and discrimination. I won't go there, but addressing this is crucial to guaranteeing equitable access to healthcare services and resources for all individuals, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status. It's an ongoing challenge for the developers and the broader AI community to ensure everyone experiences AI-driven healthcare benefits.

And, of course, there's a scare of massive job displacement that stands close to nearly every conversation around AI acceleration. Entering medical school today could mean your profession will change drastically by the time you graduate. AI is already disrupting some clinical practices, physician training, so more significant disruptions are expected. The obvious silver lining is that AI can streamline routine healthcare processes by helping human professionals file insurance claims, complete paperwork, and create visit notes - which helps focusing on individuals more. But investing in upskilling opportunities is essential, ensuring that health professionals can adapt to the changing market and continue to contribute meaningfully to society.

Ultimately, our collective ability to overcome these challenges and harness the power of AI will determine the extent to which we can unlock the full potential of these technologies to improve our lives. While challenges and ethical considerations must be addressed (and people far more competent than I am are already doing it daily), the prospects for a more fulfilling and longer life, shaped by the responsible implementation of AI technology, are optimistic. As we navigate this ever-evolving landscape, the future of human longevity and happiness still remains kinda exciting, to be honest.

Attia vows never to write another book, but imagine how profoundly different Outlive 2.0 might be. Or not, as per Galpin's Law, the methods are many, the concepts are few.

It's 2017, and I'm freezing like hell. We're about to start the first production day of Maintain My Focus. Nothing is on schedule, some people got lost while driving to the set, and we're already over budget. But it's impossible not to feel the excitement in the air. I'm about to enter my final year in university, and Focus is on the way to becoming my professional breakthrough (or so I think).

Nothing happened, though. We've got some views, but not in life-changing amounts. This mediocre success did not lead straight to another - our team waited almost six months to settle and negotiate the second project. But ultimately, none of that was important. To this day, my first professional shoot is still my favorite and quite foundational. During those weeks, I learned more than while sitting in class during my five university years. My heart has a lot of warmth when I revisit these memories, especially considering how this experience has shaped me.

Producing is the fastest way to learn that the most valuable currency on the planet is time. In talking about time, creativity isn't often the first trait that comes to mind, but the minute you set foot on a production set, you understand what a valuable asset it is and how to, well, be creative with it. Each lost minute is a fuck-up. With a producer’s pants on, you learn to think outside the box and "find" time when necessary, or rather "create it" out of thin air. That's how I understood the value of routines: a well-oiled content-creation machine can do anything. In the field, where deadlines can make or kill any project, planning and managing tasks efficiently to deliver on time is essential.

Producing taught me to connect with people from all sides of life. Imagine: when a particular project launches, across the following weeks, you're supposed to talk 24/7 with team members, clients, accidental people on set, and vendors to ensure everyone is on the same page and that the project is progressing smoothly. It's not about who you know but about getting stuff done in seemingly impossible situations that appear each time you wake up. A mere act of human connection in finding the right key to a person is essential to achieve your goals for a particular thing. Money cannot buy a warm relationship and a feeling of belonging with a trusted group of professionals. But a solid collaboration is everything.

Producing taught me to recharge once in a while. My many personal conversations with production people constantly return to the notion of "how awesome it is to build something out of nothing every time you step foot into a brand-new project." It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to bring a creative vision to life, as getting discouraged along the way is so damn easy. That's why producing something successfully of any scale requires endless passion and drive - and learning to recharge occasionally is a skill that forces upon you with that realisation. When you have a deep passion for every little piece within this machinery of content creation, it fuels your drive and helps you push through even the most challenging obstacles (or toughest people). It's still surprising to me how this trial-by-production-fire can help you become more resilient and determined in all other aspects of life, as well as better able to bounce back from setbacks and keep pushing forward.

And ironically, experiencing the production set was the only useful personal finance education that helped me to become more mindful of my spending habits and more creative in finding ways to make the most of my resources.

So finally, here’s a programming note that Bilita Mpash is now open, and the mint will be announced soon.

Visit our website for the details about the story and mechanics. I would love if you decided to participate and check out our collaboration with 8XR.

Discord is also available here:

https://discord.com/invite/Z4BmvZs973

There’re many things I’m proud of with this thing (art is fantastic), but some things have disappointed me (I promise to talk about them after the mint). But it’s important to keep in my mind why we decided to try and build Bilita:

1. It’s an experiment with digital architecture and art installation building that we’ve placed on web3 rails (’what we knew / what we aspire to do long-term’)

2. It’s a relatively small attempt at community building (visit our Discord folks, we care about communication)

3. And we were just excited about partnering with 8XR’s tech (after the mint, please try using Bilita on mobile, you won’t regret it)

I’ll share more as we move along the stages of Bilita.

Hope that dedicated crowd will appreciate this experience.

https://bilitampash.xyz

"ChatGPT is the colleague I never had. The psychological benefits outweigh the intellectual ones. I know my field. I don't need "answers." I need constant and immediate feedback and suggestions."

I've been thinking about that a lot recently: how the notion of a "dedicated project team" is redefining in real-time. To address the quote above: I definitely suck at my field*, but now I've got the power tools to make me much better at it - and without any need to spend my resources on colleagues who will fill my gaps in knowledge.

For the first time in my sort-of professional life, it became possible to substitute 99% of a production team with a set of AI tools at your disposal. I spent years depending on other people or a certain kind of work and would have never believed anyone who would have told me that someday working alone can be entirely possible and easygoing. That's a game-changer for creators and artists: you can have your prototype or an MVP ready in hours.

Consider this. Art has always been an area where it's been ever challenging to persuade potential team members to join, or you're always short on resources because of the economic uncertainty of the results. Anyone who has ever tried to produce, let's say, an art installation or a choreographic performance will recognize the pain of answering the question, "how can we convince *put-here-an-amazing-creative-professional* to join us with our few cents that have left?" Experiencing ChatGPT broke me: the workflow and resource allocation for solo creators or for small teams is about to change drastically.

Of course, I'm not talking about replacing the army of highly proficient full-time professionals in multilayered market-ready products with ChatGPT. Yet.

It's visible on a small scale, though. We plan to launch Bilita (finally) in the next few weeks. The speedrun production of the last month has been accelerated by AI tools to create a content plan and execute it, fix our website, prepare visuals for various socials, write thousands of story texts, etc. All this I did by myself. I've finally been able to work faster and better, which has allowed me to get ahead on a dusty stack of side projects as well. 

I'm fully aware of how early we still are. Still, it blows my mind every time I imagine how AI will soon be used in other creative fields, not just primarily in text-based domains.

So okay, AI is a cost-effective solution that drives down costs and enables small teams to take on more considerable challenges. Even with the current iteration of ChatGPT, we have one of the most powerful tools available for streamlining workflows. But I keep asking myself, "will it make us even more alone"? As AI accelerates, we will see its potential to replace every team member, where AI takes on the grunt work while allowing you to focus on higher-level things. So will you even need anyone else at all?

In the recent post "For Polarization," Marc Andreessen builds on this quote by Christopher Hitchens:

"…only an open conflict of ideas and principles can produce any clarity. Conflict may be painful, but the painless solution does not exist in any case and the pursuit of it leads to the painful outcome of mindlessness and pointlessness; the apotheosis of the ostrich."

The foundational aspect of any art form is to always be wrong. Picasso once said that his art Is "a sum of destructions". To create something sublime and eternal, there's got to be a dialog of ideas in contradiction to each other. Every artist needs a person or a passionate group to guide them through the valley of uncertainty. Art - music, cinema, software, etc. - cannot exist without everlasting contradictions within and subsequent search for the steady ground to build your ideas on.

The possibilities for LLMs are endless, and with their limitless potential, the upcoming GPT-4 will revolutionise how we create and work. Of course, we will drown in content by then, and the quality curation will be challenging. But the works that produce artistic clarity through the contradiction of ideas will stand out as the most valuable and profound creations. And while ChatGPT accelerates for clarity and speed, humans will always stay fragile and unsure, searching for someone who can actually contradict you.

* I still consider myself somewhere on a spectre between art and technology – an amateur on both sides.

To summarise, building an immersive experience with a small inexperienced team is not exactly fun. Although we're approaching the release date (we hope to announce it quite soon), I can't help but overthink what we've been doing this whole time inside my head. There were a few posts a year ago where I envisioned this important thing we're building in vivid colors - even providing some context in terms of style/lore. Now as we put the final touches, I see thousand different ways we may fail. So I keep asking myself: do people need another virtual world wrapped around ERC-1155? 

Bilita is not a traditional game, yet we had to think about it in terms of conventional game design: with a ton of moving parts that are already complicated dancing together as it is. Carelessly throwing NFTs into the equation only adds to the complexity and challenges we face. Across the previous cycle, lots have been written by the most talented visionaries of the market on why web3 virtual worlds weren't able to gain traction. On the one hand, July 2022 post "A Road forward for Web3 Gaming" highlights the "tokenization of in-game assets" as the major problem. Since most GameFi products are too focused on the financial aspects to compensate for the lack of everything else, the developers eventually face two challenges: economic outflows and over-speculation. On the other, the virtual world you're building has to be exciting to, well, play around: that's where the case for boredom comes into fruition. For decades virtual worlds existed for fun and distraction. Unfortunately, many web3-centric gaming projects in their current iterative period failed to provide the same level of engagement and immersion that other interactive experiences offer. Simply put, players are used to playing games with rich worlds, detailed graphics, and gripping storylines, and instead, they mostly got Axie-clones, with titles here and there needing to catch up in all the areas mentioned above. 

So what made us believe we could overcome many traits of the typical GameFi experience? Firstly we've decided not to focus on GameFi. We can't build experiences that could sustain as avenues for making a living. From the get-go, Bilita turned into a conscious choice to stay away from in-game tokenization. Instead, we focused on things we were good at in the physical projects: emotional resonance and one-time-only events. In our view, the solution to our vision of a virtual world was simple: if everybody started seeing virtual worlds as more transactional and less fun, let's cut the corner into something transcendent. One only needs another metaverse if it offers something unique. 

That's how Bilita was born in our minds as a memorable, one-of-a-kind event beyond the traditional gaming experience that touches upon something deep within us as only unique art can do. The "one-time-only" part is an essential piece of the puzzle: digital abundance has become such a delicate part of our life that radically reducing the supply of one's art has become a solution to a wide circle of artists. Bilita evaporates the minute you come into contact with it, and that's by design. In that, we don't want to put the audience on an artificial waiting list to make a case for the uniqueness of the product - it's just an instrument to make the viewer pause for a second and appreciate what's in front of them.

With the alpha build in our hands, I see all the blind spots, design mistakes, and conceptual failures. I doubt some visual aspects, and I suspect it would not be able to touch the viewer in any way. Of course, I'm prejudiced, and it's probably a result of a grinding year-long production cycle for a project with a relatively short length. It's a tricky concept to handle even without Web3 as an additional layer - that now requires moderate audience expectations. But we're ready for it. With Bilita, unlike how gaming products of the last 20 years have become social-consumption goods packaged as game experiences, we rather came closer to the obscure early 2000s games that were linear experiences where you played through a storyline and impossible interface. Yet I'm fully aware that these linear virtual worlds are fascinating until the story is played out, after which the audience doesn't have much reason to continue exploring the world.

With a web3 layer, we aim to push limited-edition storytelling beyond. Bilita is our first step in that direction. We'll see if we succeed or not.

There are many tools on my checklist to try, but for now, I attribute the most significant starting progress to classical music listening. So much so that in my private journey around the genre for the past few months, I've become moderately confident that classical music can make you a better person - even providing the key to unlocking better decision-making abilities in our lives. Yeah, the random Twitter guy will talk about poker in that regard, so allow me to make a case for classics for once.

The notion I've lived for quite a few years is that classical music is boring and can't keep up with the pace of our modern world. That's difficult to argue about during a Tiktokization of the whole media environment as we become more accustomed to easily consumable content. In that world, classical music is dull and uninteresting because people around are used to the more upbeat tempos and rhythms not of only other genres of music but of the whole array of audiovisual content. In addition, we feel okay to demand something from the art: have a little portion of fun, a 10-second laughter, or a 2-second jump scare. So it becomes impossible to stop and listen to what's hidden inside a particular art form if that's not a job assignment.

Somewhere along the way comes the moment you realize that art owes you nothing but its pure being out there in the world. With a conscious listening effort, classical music becomes as captivating and enjoyable as any other type of music, full of emotion, power, and intricacy. It requires attentive listening to find and appreciate its complexity and beauty. With the right attitude and an open mind, classical music can provide a stunning and captivating experience – alongside multiple science-supported benefits.

Studies have shown that listening to classical pieces can improve cognitive function, enhancing memory and concentration while simultaneously calming the mind and body and reducing stress and anxiety. All of this can lead to a clearer and more focused mind, making it easier to weigh the pros and cons of any decision that requires thoughtful and well-informed thinking. How exactly does this happen? One theory is that the structured and (somewhat) predictable patterns found in classical music mirror the patterns of thought that our brains use when making decisions. This means that we're effectively training our brains to think more organized and logically when we listen to classical music. In that sense, it's an additional protective layer that gives you a sense of control over chaos. 

I certainly did not become the calmest person in the universe, but at least I started to feel the effects of the stress-reduced mind since I started blasting the DG catalog in my earbuds during working hours. Long-term, I see what a powerful tool it can be for improving decision-making abilities and problem-solving skills. And the more I dive deep into the discography of somebody like Barenboim or Karajan, the more fascinated I am with how much complexity the genre provides. I'm consciously not willing to take on any "best-to-listen" lists for this post, as there are lots of them online, and the history of classical music is vast to be captured within a silly Mirror page of mine. But the only thing I want to share in the listening department is this: don't force yourself to like a particular piece. Despite many top-100 editions available on the web, there's no definitive answer on what you'll definitely enjoy. Be open, and you'll catch it along your journey.

And in the end, you may be surprised at how much easier it becomes to find the right path with classics on your side.

What has also changed over the years is that movies and TV series have started to occupy little to no space. So it seemed natural to expand the list and include basically everything from books and podcasts to personal stuff and health issues. Turned out it's quite lovely to look at a list like that after some time and evaluate what things affected you emotionally. It's also a convenient way of clearing my thoughts around the most significant pieces of popular culture, science, and worldwide events – and evaluating what truly mattered.

So, here's a list of TV shows, movies, music albums, video games, books, podcasts, Youtube channels, and personalities - and even stuff in my private life - by which I will remember this awful unbearable 2022.

Perhaps I should make the disclaimer: it's most certainly not the "Best of '22" kind of guide. Some items originated in '22, but I knowingly declined to ground this list within the boundaries of the creation time.

So let me talk a little bit about each one:

Huberman Lab Podcast

Dr. Huberman launched the central theme in my life this year – how to become healthier and live longer. Across the year, I've seen many people I love and care about getting sick for not properly taking care of their daily habits and quality of eating. Seeing how your peers fall victim to the illnesses you previously considered "something for old people" is painful. Now in my late 20s, I realize it's time to stop wasting your body's resources for good and start building the foundation for the future. This topic probably deserves a separate post, but I know I'm on the right path. The result of the decision to turn into the habit of the desire to treat my body right is the only positive thing that happened (for me personally) in 2022. I've never felt healthier in my life before. The daily routines, the fasting, the constant workouts. 2022 is the starting point of my future living in terms of longevity.

VOIR

Video essays from YouTube's best came to life on a widescreen with Fincher's touch. Tony's (from Every Frame a Painting, which I miss so much) pieces are obviously fantastic – probably the only reason to check out this series on Netflix.

Disco Elysium

"This is somewhere to be. This is all you have, but it's still something. Streets and sodium lights. The sky, the world. You're still alive."

I wish all the best to ZA/UM in resolving the chaos that the company has collapsed into recently. The world will be a much more grim place if the sequel is abandoned in a court trial.

Ozark Season Finale

Saying goodbye to Ozark was a tough but immensely satisfying experience. Will revisit it in some time for sure. And I can't count how many times my partner and I gasped at how badass Laura Linney commanded viewers' attention on the screen.

Changing Apartments

This March marked my first grown-up moving from one apartment to another. By "grown-up," I mean U-Haul, movers, lots of containers, and all that jazz. It's funny to figure out a way to collect the items of your physical life inside a few cardboard boxes. And getting rid of things is now my favorite kind of meditative experience.

Jeen-yuhs

Lots have been said about Kanye this year, and I'm definitely not going to pour a little something of my own. However, jeen-yuhs follows the foundational period in Kanye's life, and that's a remarkable documentary series. For one, it speaks volumes of a person so confident that it pours on you from the screen – so much so that you want to support him with your dear life. Secondly, it's a valuable historical document of the 2000s hip-hop scene and the culture of selected gatekeepers who can make or break you. You can only imagine what could've been possible for Kanye to break through, let's say, during the Soundcloud craze days, but he was exceptionally good at navigating the power circles and knocking on the right [physical] doors. Jeen-yuhs is amazing. I left the viewing wondering how kind this world would have been if every person had an infinitely supportive mother like Donda.

Licorice Pizza

Difficult to describe how much I love PTA, so it was the obvious choice. Saw it twice this year and will certainly see a couple more in the coming months. There's something deeply intoxicating for me when I watch PTA flicks. His made-up "families" are often full of complex, dynamic, and usually deeply troubled people – something that I relate to a lot and also, in a weird way, aspire to experience.

The War in Ukraine

Yeah, 2022 will forever be a year of another stupid war. Just stop it already.

Going Bankless

Well, the legends are not lying: the power is in the hands of the unbanked. I live in a rural Slavic village with cut-off card payments access while at the same time:

• I stream music from Poland

• I listen to audiobooks from Bulgaria

• I shop at Amazon GB

• And I watch TV shows from Egypt

And don't get me started on how easy and fast it is to exchange currency with my peers around the globe. State oppression is no longer an endpoint for the information to reach you. So in that sense, I'm limitless. As tacky as it may sound, crypto frees. And we've yet to see anything genuinely groundbreaking. You'll never be able to witness the potential to revolutionise how we exchange value and conduct business until it becomes your only way to freedom.

Charlie XCX

One of my favorite albums this year.

Tamara Eidelman

Thank you, a beautiful Russian teacher and writer, for awakening my deep interest in studying history.

"The Heart Part 5"

Surprisingly enough, I didn't care much about "Mr. Morale." As it turns out, I'm not the only one. But that sample and that music video (tacky, of course, but powerful) are not leaving my head. What a great song and performance, although, sadly, the tune didn't make it into the album.

Yury Dud x Tinkov + Solodnikov

Yuri Dud became a solid anti-war voice for the Russian-speaking audience. However, out of many interviews post-March '22, these two are the most painful. Both Tinkov and Solodnikov are controversial figures in Russia in vastly different social circles, which nowadays is almost a compliment. And both appear to be radically honest, sometimes painfully so, especially when confronted with past choices, figures of speech, and taken sides. The narrative of "let's look at how you behaved before February 24" became standard across numerous Russian media, where it's almost always a humorous effort. I started to appreciate that Dud can push with enough pain and empathy to let his guests confront themselves in a non-toxic way – and meditate on the past in real-time. That's a helpful exercise to figure out how to move forward.

Terra Luna / FTX Collapse

What a ride.

Lex Fridman Podcast

The podcast of the year for me. I started watching select few episodes last year, and now I'm consuming every single one. Love everything about it: themes, guests, dialogs, problems, and, yeah, the length. A common joke in the comments section that Lex is a replicant of sorts, but in reality, he's one of the most humane podcast hosts and a fantastic listener.

Severance

"Funny, terrifying, and brilliant in equal measure."

I'm not going to put it more colorfully.

How to Become a 1000 Year Old Vampire

It would be stupid to describe what's inside the article, so I will lead you straight to the link.

Solodnikov's War and Peace Cycle

The channel is not active now, so I'm deeply grateful that the final series of interviews turned out like that.

Cha Cha Real Smooth

Cha Cha is a typically quirky indie dramedy from Sundance. Yet I found throughout the year the urge to come back to revisit the movie, which is rare for this type of indie stuff. I love its tonal mixtures, performances (particularly by otherworldly Dakota Johnson), conversations, and teasing chemistry between the characters. But, most of all, Cha Cha got me at the right place at the right time: when everything around me started to fall apart, and I lost track of things. Life kept moving, but I felt stuck. There are layers of depth behind Raiff's simplistic approach, which helped me realize that it's okay when you can't figure stuff out right away. And right here and then, I was free to explore.

Arthur Hayes Posts

I'm fascinated with almost every post, which I wait for like a Christmas miracle from week to week. The wit, the mind, the boldness, the intelligence. CryptoHayes is a badass.

POPCULT

This is a pure nostalgia shot. Only in Russian, sorry.

Endel

I wish they would release more Study-like playlists, but it's still one of my favorite tools this year.

The Rehersal

I'm not sure I want to have kids anymore.

Smart Home Devices

I'm now that person who geeks out around Matter devices, Xiaomi gadgets, and smooth Home App integrations. That's so fucking comfortable, guys.

The Last Movie Stars

My favorite limited TV series of the year. Full of love for people, their craft, and for cinema history.

Balaji

This might get sentimental, and I hope I won't regret it later. There's a popular opinion that you must have a mentor to make life-altering changes (and quickly). A figure in your life must inspire you to create great things and guide you into the unknown. I've never had such a person in my filmmaking career. I'm not attributing my desire to end making films to the lack of guidance, but it certainly made me reconsider my beliefs on how the world will develop and what things will matter. Cut to last December when Tim Ferris "introduced" me to Balaji. As far as I became aware, it's 2020 that became a major public push for him across multiple podcasts and media appearances. For me, the introduction started with a 4-hour podcast that was so full of mental jams that it was impossible to pause (or, at that point in my life, even comprehend some issues). At that moment – deep into my final production project – I realized the need to move on from filmmaking and get closer to things that will matter in the future. Cinema stopped inspiring me and was no longer the answer to everything. The answers are never easy; that was the first lesson I learned from Balaji. If you want something so much – no one will make it easy for you, so educate yourself.

And I did. I've been a curious fella my whole life, but it's 2022 that marked the first year of a self-proclaimed "never-ending education course" on everything that excites me: from LLMs and public policy to DeFi and space exploration. The more Balaji stuff I encounter, the more I realize how much there is to educate myself too. Foucault's "infinite library" became a reality in my household. During this year, I started to pile up books on subjects other than cinema and popular culture. I've been an avid reader, but now I have become vicious. I write, think and debate with others and myself a lot more. And what warms my heart is that I can see changes in my thinking. I actively reinvent myself from an entertainer behind-the-scenes to a thinker and builder. The latter role inspires me and gives me all the power to keep going despite an army of difficulties.

There must be an argument where I say it's all on me and my willpower to change. And that's a valid statement. But I would have only accelerated my thinking and desire to learn with such vigor after encountering Balaji first. He's the mentor I never had, although I doubt we'll meet in person one day. But, for the time being – he's out there, outspoken as ever, creating new and exciting ideas. He knows that people like me – in distant lands with totalitarian regimes but with internet access – hear him. So we take notes. And get smarter.

What We Owe The Future

Writing about EA right now is shaky ground: the book and the movement suffered a lot after the FTX collapse. The desire to push the vast amount of SBF crimes toward the particular personal philosophy is great, although the approach may need to be revised. We still need some time to separate the shadow of EA from SBF and reevaluate the movement with a clear head without controversy. Nevertheless, as it stands on its merit, the book is a fine introduction to the limits of "effective altruism" for someone who previously heard these words without much context (I put myself on that list too). MacAskill is persuasive enough to convince you that in some parts of our future, the principles of EA will matter in one form or another. So it's better to get to know the basics.

City Pop (and Tatsuro Yamashita in particular)

YouTube knows you better than anyone. Right at the time I needed the kind of musical escapism to distract myself from the horrors of reality, I stumbled across Yamashita's illegally uploaded albums – only later to learn that it's the only way to listen to his music. What followed was my personal journey to the deep end of City Pop – funk, disco, smooth jazz, and pop-rock-induced mixture of sophisticated production and pure happiness. Many great articles are out there explaining why city pop gained traction in recent years, thanks to our collective nostalgia. Still, even when you put aside the pop cultural aspects, it's as simple as this: these tunes are fucking fantastic.

Limitless

Okay, It's time for a sudden segway into the "Balaji was right" section. If I were to choose any single intellectual event on a pop-culture front that blew my mind this year, it would be a reconciliation with the ending of Limitless.

Let's take a quick look at how GPT-3 describes the ending:

In the end, Eddie is betrayed by his former friend and business partner, Vernon, who tries to kill him and take the NZT for himself. Eddie ultimately overcomes Vernon and destroys all the remaining NZT, realizing that he doesn't need the drug to be successful. In the final scene, Eddie is shown walking away from his former life and into a new future, free from the dangers and constraints of the drug.

That's ironic of the GPT to persuade you not to get too close to the sun. Here comes the thing I never fully realised until after the rewatch (and noting Balaji's observation) – Eddie never got rid of NZT. Instead, he improved it, building upon the existing foundation and eliminating all the side effects. He came too close to the sun – and became truly intellectually invincible. Limitless, in that sense, is an exquisite ode to the powers of engineering and overcoming natural difficulties. Humans do not have to limit us to the "powers we can't understand." On the contrary, the way we excel is to accept the challenge and engineer our way out of harmful side effects.

There're still many things I dislike about Limitless in terms of its creative quality, but the ending overcompensates. Even if, as it's the case with most art, in the end, it'll turn out that Neil Burger had a completely different opinion.

Twin Peaks (Rewatch)

I've never revisited TP since it ended in 2017. My girlfriend and I postponed the rewatch for quite a long time until the reality around us pushed us to embrace it as the sweetest medicine. Boy, this hit even harder. RIP Angelo Badalamenti.

TraumaZone

In my view, this was the most discussed piece of visual content across multiple Russian-centric media. In the year of the war, the discussion of "how we ended up where we are now" is impossible to ignore — notably through the lens of Adam Curtis. Curtis is a British documentary filmmaker known for his distinctive filmmaking approach, using archival footage from the vast BBC archives to explore political and social issues. In TraumaZone he does what he does best: he focuses on how power, ideology, and historical trauma have shaped Russia into the country that it currently is. TZ features the best quirks of Curtis's work: ironic cutaways, non-linear narratives, and authentic musical acts (I'll probably never experience Anzhelika Varum's track the same way) to construct an atmosphere of a complete disaster that happened from 89 to 99. TraumaZone is not a comprehensive review of why the Soviet regime collapsed (for that, the Remnick book is a friendly complementary material). Instead, TraumaZone is a funny, painful, thought-provoking, challenging, and intellectually stimulating docuseries. And, somehow, with many details left on the table, it's honest about how my parents' generation viewed the collapse of the USSR.

CS50

Before this year, I never knew that CS50 – a popular introductory computer science course at Harvard University – is widely considered one of the best programming courses available online. So I won't be original in saying that it's simply the best programming course for a person who never considered learning to code in his life. David Mallan became my sole digital mentor in everything related to algorithms, data structures, security, and software engineering. And I can't express how appreciative I'm that this kind of information is available online. CS50 is why I gained a solid computer science foundation for my next career steps.

Top Gun Maverick

Sorry for being pretentious, but it's hard to love Top Gun this year. For obvious reasons, as you become accustomed to seeing how the country where you were born obliterates another country. The footage is nothing like Hollywood. The war machine is grim, inhumane, and excruciating. At first, I reluctantly decided to put Maverick away for a couple of years until I saw yet another tweet in the style of "omg Top Gun is amazing." That's a red flag for a person who used to see 300 movies a year after every single mention that something is considered "good" by some critic. But despite all my fears, Top Gun comes with the single thing I appreciate more than anything else – a gripping story and a fascinating cinema spectacle. I'm eager to join anyone willing to wrestle with mainstream critics for not including Maverick as the best movie of 2022. It's a cinematic experience on par with Fury Road and Avatar.

AirPods Pro 2

There was a time when I did all my work in noisy cafes, which was a productive environment. Not anymore. I would have continued to use the 1st generation if not for the infamous crackling sounds that started to appear in September. At first, it was bearable; just knocking an AirPod with a finger worked just fine to fix the noise. Then, the cracks became permanent. The 2nd generation is phenomenal in many ways, especially in improved noise cancellation and connectivity speed. Now I spend nearly all my waking hours with this thing (of course, except when there's a need to talk to people, not trying to be one of those "AirPods human"). That's a blessing of technology. And funny enough, the sound became much-much better.

Sade

In search of the music that would calm my mind and give me hope for a better time and place, I found Sade. With Adu's smooth, soulful voice and sophisticated blend of R&B, jazz, and pop, the band has created a unique and enduring body of work that is timeless, enduring – as the troubling times proved – may serve as a medicine for the soul.

External Monitor

No longer I'm confined to a tiny 13-inch screen of a laptop. The world became so big and beautiful. I'm using something from Xiaomi, hoping it'll serve well enough not to break next year.

Contact

I've heard a lot about Sagan's work, but I was blown away by this movie, primarily by how it explores the intersection of science and faith and the idea that the two can coexist. As many people struggle to reconcile their beliefs with something like ChatGPT, this aged exceptionally well.

TÁR

My personal movie of the year. Don't try to persuade me that Lydia Tár is not a real person. The viciousness with which Blanchette plays this character is breathtaking and leaves you in awe. Also, I couldn't find a more potent and beautifully crafted commentary on cancel culture and "current things" by any modern artist. No one came closer to accomplishing this as Todd Field. 2022 should have happened only because of TÁR.

Tana

That's my most recent discovery, which aims to be the most consequential moving forward. The software that had changed my life for good. Hope to write a thorough review next month.

Classical Music

The consequence of my obsession with TÁR: I'm now trying to catch up with the world of classical music. And oh boy, it's a rich one. MEZZO is permanently blasting in the background, and since December started, the only gym music I've enrolled myself with is Mahler's works by Karajan. Still, I know practically nothing, so there you go, 2023, to explore further.

That's it. See you all next year.

Some elephants in the room are easy to digest and state heads on. I've toyed with an immigration idea for some time to finally land on the conclusion that I have to postpone the move. I'm writing this post fully aware that I will not be able to quickly leave the country in the near future. Weighing in all the pros and cons of rapid immigration resulted from the substantial lack of funding, hard technical skills, and logistical troubles. Most of my time nowadays is spent learning and fixing all the necessary hard skills for the next chapter of my life. On the sideline, there're many passion projects with various degrees of potential success (or failures), which we continue to develop with the team at ThinkPink.

Overall, life became less turbulent in the final quarter of 22'. That's if you try to stay away from the "current thing" and follow a strict information diet. Money-wise, a few trading moves here and there allow for some mediocre gains. And at the same time, the cheap cost of living allows compounding all the money left from monthly spending. With that put aside and enough time on my hands, I read, watch, and consume a lot, giving me tremendous joy and extra knowledge. I write much more than I'm used to; that, for sure, made me a better thinker and allowed me to clear my head and bring new ideas into the world. 

But I'm most proud of the number of fitness habits I've gained this year. Talking about the one silver lining: 2022 is the most active year of my life in terms of physical activity. I never felt any healthier, and it warms my heart to know that it will only compound over the years if I stick to it. Also, I never took a proper break for the whole year, but that's more of a good thing. Unfortunately, my partner doesn't share the same attitude (that's why the first few weeks of 23' we'll probably spend on traveling around). That's where I stand as of this writing. 

Looking forward, I feel that the parts "future-Me" would want to review the most are mistakes and opportunities 22' have presented. 

Things that happened to be “nice”

1. Saying goodbye to my filmmaking career once and for all

Early in my professional career, the capacity to "rewind back" was my guiding light across every shitty cinema project that came into my hands. During a challenging shoot or a painful dialog with the client, this was my imaginary lifevest that rendered everything temporary. "I can always start something new" is how I used to convince myself. Now I've realized that holding the "rewind back" game card with a tight grip means never challenging yourself to the limits necessary to succeed in any endeavor. You live with the idea that whatever you do is reversible, which leaves a mark on any effort you consider unknown – "if it's bad, I can go back." And it's even more challenging to outline the progress scale: any potential win is perceived as a result of contingency. At the same time, any loss is a death sentence, so you get the "rewind back" card closer and closer to your heart. That's why almost any previous attempts at changing my career path before 2022 stopped when I realized that either the results were slow or the mistakes were not worth the pain. And here's why I'm ultimately grateful for everything that happened this year. The systems that I used to rely on in my filmmaking career are gone. The professionals I worked with, companies and investors – all disappeared. The career game suddenly became zero-sum, and I got a chance to go all in without fear of making mistakes. Web3 is no longer a side hustle I read about during the int/ext shootings. It became a lifestyle and a chance to reinvent myself into a better human being. For that alone, 2022 was not a disastrous year but somewhat groundbreaking. There's nothing to rewind back to now – only the future is ahead. 

2. The Network State and a subsequent wave of inspiration

I'll write more about Balaji in future posts because he's a single human being that has turned my brain and exposed it to the world of technology and science this year on 360. As far away from general perception as it stays now, the concept of The Network State empowers me to believe that this is the answer to the kind of system I would want to participate in in the next chapter of my life. We have many online communities today, but only a few are highly aligned with outside metrics like common interests or what platform you happen to be on. Although the internet has allowed people to reach massive audiences across the globe, we have yet to fully appreciate its potential to improve the number of connections and the quality of connections. You are no longer limited to those in close proximity. You can be a recognized economic and social force. I'm tired of projects that prey on loneliness to sell some promise of community in the metaverse. Now, the best and brightest minds started devoting their resources to tackling this problem – so it's exciting to see projects like Praxis emerge. So it's tempting to join an engineering movement of moral innovation and collective action. I'm not going to say that you should read The Network State because you have probably already done it or not going to. But that'll be one of the most important pieces of writing going forward into 2023 and beyond.

Things that can be identified as “mistakes”

1. Not being confident enough

In a way, that's understandable. Across the different corners of the world, you can count a vast number of people feeling unstable after everything this year has brought. Be it the glooming recession, continuous war, climate change, AI advancements, crypto collapses, etc. Another side of this argument may put us in a position that, well, every year is like that. That's for the future generations to decide. Still, looking back on 2022, the amount of uncertainty seems unprecedented relative to at least a decade prior. And I regret taking a long meditative break a few times during situations when I needed to act bravely. Not leaving the country soon enough, not seeing all the ominous signs, not telling the things I needed to tell, and needing to be more active in certain aspects of my work. I fucked up in many ways, summarized in a simple "failed at acting confidently." If there's one thing I need to take with me to the following year, it will be a bag of confidence. It will not get any easier, so I need much of it. 

2. Not holding onto people I love

I wrote about this topic a lot during the year. Like, a lot. Zooming out, I get the immense pleasure of knowing that many people I love are in a safe place, doing things they love. And many of them have a significant financial safety net, which is something I aspire to obtain myself. The feeling of abandonment has changed to a sense of gratitude and acceptance. Even a hundred miles away, I still love all the people I used to see daily before February 24. We'll meet again; for now, we need a stable internet connection.

3. Anger management issues

This resulted from the most emotionally challenging project of my career last year. Ironically, it turned out to be a state-supported cultural thing that partially explains why we fought, screamed, and cursed each other in the team for the whole production period. I never fully allowed myself to take a break or at least work through this period with a therapist. Only because of the money involved, as soon as we finished this horrific production, I started developing a new one, basically "a part two" of the same thing. Then, war stroke, people left, and the industry collapsed. The anger I buried deep inside started to burst into flames as there was nowhere to let go of it. That affected my mental health, relationship, and productivity. I seriously contemplated doing something with myself to stop this pain for a moment. My professional world collapsed, the news cycle suggested that each new day would be far worse than yesterday, and all my friends had left for good. The first few months of the war were excruciating as it seemed like planning ahead was the worst idea possible. I saw no future, and it became hard to even wake up and do something to stay sane.Unfortunately, I somehow overcame it. I still don't know the exact recipe, but if I could retroactively pick one solution, my answer would be "try to stay curious." Only my inner curiosity allowed me to find meaning in an ever-changing world. Only a curious mind can listen closely to brilliant voices around and decide to move ahead in life, learn new skills, and find a footing ground and a new purpose. I firmly believe that curiosity saved me from the worst parts of my own psyche. That's why I only see the immense number of opportunities looking forward to and don't regret taking time away from work to fill the gaps in my technical skills. 

Where do I go from here

Whatever will happen in 2023, I'm sure it will not surprise and shock me that much. So let's keep it that way and hope for the better. Until there's a certain possibility of a nuclear outcome, I intend to plan for good things to happen. 

The main objective for the next year – is to relocate. I've been reading many state-produced documents on various scenarios moving forward which are not attractive. Basically, if you choose between USSR 2.0 and Z-Nation, I select "exit." For now, it's difficult to predict if I will relocate only by myself or with a partner as she's deeply rooted in the Russian language by the nature of her job. Next on my list – reassemble the team and go full-on into the project's development. We plan on meeting for a strategic session early in January to decide where we're going. There's a possibility that we'll split and walk in different ways or reinvent the core team and start a new development.

I am still figuring out what I want to do precisely. An awful sentence to write when you're approaching your 30s, I know. But my main goal is to connect my previous experience of the art world with entertainment production and cross-breed it with the web-based creator economy, engineering, and tools of the future. This time, it's much more technical for me rather than managerial. In this new stage of my career path, I want to engineer more, create more and make money while doing it for my passion. 

Sounds naive, but whatever. There's no turning back now. My final 2023 wide-ranging goal is to work on becoming a full-stack engineer and full-stack influencer (as per Balajis' idea). It's hard because there seem to be so many disparate skills. Still, I am genuinely interested in learning and build across web3, creator economy, crypto, while sharing my learning with all of you.

It was a unique year. So great to say goodbye to it.

Here's the link: https://chrysalism.space

The experience is already open. You can mint your personal commemorative NFT (which you may like or not - but I hope you do) at the end of the reading. 

So what's up with the CHRYSALISM? The backstory starts somewhere around the summer of 2021 when our production team shot the visuals. During the early stages of development, we conceived this footage as a part of a commercial campaign for the local Russian jewelry brand. Unfortunately, for personal reasons, the brands' key decisionmaker lost interest in the project along the way, and we put the material aside to focus on something else. And early this year, we dug it up and started thinking – what can we do with this content after the brand that inspired the visuals is gone? And at the same time, making our first probe into NFT artwork was on our minds. So the reassembled material ended up as CHRYSALISM: "The serenity of a person who stays in a shelter during a thunderstorm."

With the source project's visuals, we explored humankind's sensual nature and the infinite sensuality of the human body. Upon revisiting the materials, the critical element was to include our reflections on the boundaries of digital texture. Across our previous work in traditional mediums, we constantly tried to explore this particular topic. The deeper we delved into its physique, the more vividly we discovered pleasures and unrecognized savagery that are not always recognizable in our everyday lives. CHRYSALISM uses photographs, videos, and AR objects to bring you closer to an innocent, childlike exploration of the nature of self without any social stigmas. Each digital piece evokes nature's primary natural cycles: growth and awakening. 

As for the technical side, we're doing the minting in the simplest way possible. The collection release is on Polygon. The mint price is utterly symbolic – 1 MATIC – with the total amount of editions being 35. The contract was made using the no-code tools from Studio721. This simple solution saved us a lot of time and allowed us to learn from the process. Predicting the skepticism, someone may ask, "why Polygon?." It's our first NFT project every step of the way – and we always perceived Polygon as a perfect technical playground for experiments and creativity. And yeah, an affordable one too. Our primary goal with CHRYSALISM – is to commemorate studios' transition into web3. Making money is not the intent of this collection. We view CHRYSALISM as an experiment first and foremost, so the affordability of participating in this experiment is a must. We do not promise a sophisticated roadmap with community calls and Discord activities. It is different from how we initially designed the project; the worst we could do is to fill it up with stuff that we never even thought about just to make a quick buck. As a studio and I, we are here for the long run. And my personal goals are simple: to implement an NFT collection in the least resistant way possible, learn how it's done and what's behind the engine, take notes and see the results. In my view, that's a good playground for a person who could not have been farther from coding and engineering for most of his life. And I'm most excited about what could be done next. 

Our expectations for CHRYSALISM are modest. The whole collection may stay unminted for months, and that's okay. Or perhaps it'll be minted out in a few days, which would be fantastic. No matter the result, we're still proud of finally letting go of CHRYSALISM, after all the initial perturbations. It's a relatively small but profound achievement for a small studio like ours. 

So, as a final reminder, visit CHRYSALISM: https://chrysalism.space

And also, check out our studio's website at https://thinkwithpink.com to learn more about the studio and our previous projects. There's more to come. *And yes, we're still in for the Bilita. *You can also follow us on Instagram at https://instagram.com/thinkpink_brand.

With this out of the way, I've been thinking a lot recently about the way our small team optimistically turned to web3 back at the beginning of ‘22. Like, was it even the right way to do it? In December-January, there was still so much hype around the NFT, new ATH's were on our monitors, and Meta had just announced its plans (which sounded almost like a pop-culture recognition). And although the signs of the inevitable fallout were already quite visible, for many small collectives of artists, none of the economic and political indicators mattered.  

Many small teams started developing around the same time as we were. We've positioned ourselves at the frontier of digital transformation as we discovered more and more ways to integrate our ideas and work into an exciting web3 arena. The subsequent downslide of the NFT market turned out to be an experience worth living through, especially for ever-mentally wounded artists and creatives. The web3 celebration in under-the-radar creative circles went silent for a while, leaving the naive and hopeless with many projects stuck in development hell. Our team got lucky too. 

Likewise, we went for hype, hoping that with the right attitude, the web3 community would appreciate anything we'll be able to produce. It turned out NFT was not an instant problem-solver for everything related to artists' long-term economic well-being. That's the reality that many creators got into, including us. However, this experience's bright side resulted in the opportunity for numerous teams to take time and figure out what matters in this web3 transition. We recently walked through the same thought process inside our team, and I will share our conclusions next time. 

As you probably know, things are a bit turbulent in Russia right now. A little recap: in March, almost 80% of my close friends and business associates fled the country, and rightfully so. Commercial projects tumbled, and retrospectively I became aware of how depressed I was during those weeks of what felt like a widespread collapse. Now, September turned out to be much, much worse. It is not an exaggeration to say that out of almost 300,000 people who left the past month, the remaining 20% of my friends and associates also joined that number. The only people I got here are my partner and our parents. I guess this speaks volumes about me and the state of my finances. I fucked up for many reasons during my entire lifetime, but the main one was not deciding to leave earlier, which is why I'm in a rather confusing state right now. 

I consider these posts to be as honest as possible, even when I sound like an unbearable child. So here's full disclosure: it was impossible to do practically any work for the past two weeks, so instead, I dove into the abyss of self-destruction more progressively. There are many reasons to be desperate, some more obvious than others. For sure, it may sound humorous. Like, I'm scared to start anew, even though I'm not that old. I'm anxious because it feels like every opportunity I ever got has been wasted for good; thus, the voice in my head tells me that I'm destined to fail in this particular endeavor too. I was also becoming accustomed to a certain level of comfort that got pulled away from me and made it impossible to plan anything ahead. My head fucks with me, I know. 

All my friends who'd already left told me explicitly that they see no future in this country. I get the picture, and it's a scary one. I know I must do something to get out – and that's where I feel stuck between the need to leave and the fear of life-shattering change. So FYI, I'm still in Russia. A bit paralyzed, but I'm making some slight motions toward the state borders to avoid the possibility of being a part of war crimes conducted on the land of my ancestors. But it's a relatively tiny stimulus compared to all the possible scenarios of my future living here that have been flashing up recently. 

With all the sanctions and the number of political decisions to cut Russia off from the global world, on the economic side, I see how complicated it's going to be. All these things – to invest in anything, build a competing product with a worldwide release, and assemble a team of professionals around the globe with easy-to-access solutions on payments and salary – are now more challenging than ever, if not impossible. The most brutal balancing act is to figure out exactly how important all these things are for you. Because here's the caveat every fleeing opportunist must seek: if one decides to stay in Russia, it would probably be a decent life (that's if we won't nuke ourselves out of this planet till the end of 2022). It's a decent living with job security, a retirement account, and well-priced government and medical services. And the costs of this life would be even cheaper than today. But here's what I, or any other person around my age (30-40), need to consider on the other hand: statistically speaking, life has just started for us. We still have lots to give and build – and risk – throughout the rest of our time on Earth. The scariest thing is to accept the fear of the unknown: there's a high probability that you will mess up at some point in this transition. There's also a strong chance that your partner in crime or a close one will abandon you in all this chaos and financial uncertainty. But people like us who are stuck in this position need to take a leap of faith toward a better future because we have nothing to lose except time. And that's why the period of sitting in a country that is most certainly destined to fail in the long term is the most depressive thing that should bother me right now. 

So, yeah, in my head, immigration is a done deal. The next logical step – is to decide where to go. Leaving Russia has become impeccably hard since March of this year, and it's getting difficult with each fresh piece of news. Our red passport is a major red flag in almost all the significant historical destinations for immigration. Each member of the EU doesn't want to do business with Russian citizens. The USA is unattainable since you can not apply for a visa inside Russia. Maybe with the help of the embassies in the EU – but surprise, you can't enter the EU. This situation leaves us with a relatively small list of available countries. In order of priority, we are looking at Turkey, Serbia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. For a residence permit, some countries from that list require a local work contract or a stable source of income (which I don't have at the moment), while the others ask for proof of funds (which I do have, thankfully). With my partner, we primarily focus our resources in two directions: proof of funds and a permanent source of income. What also complicates matters is that our Visas and MCs went bust after the first block of sanctions-hit Russia. A portion of my funds has gone bankless since then, but it's not enough to compensate for a loss when it comes to exchanging magic internet money for real one. And if you're not moving fast enough, the regulators come crashing faster. And as a cherry on top: we have a cat. An old one, to be exact. That's a pain in the ass. 

I can go on and on, telling you how unfair the current collapse is toward regular citizens who wanted nothing more than a sense of comfort and a land of opportunities. But there's little point in doing just that. This whole situation is an abomination, and makes me feel nothing more than utter disgust. There are no long-term winners in any scenario. That's why on our little personal level, we plan things relentlessly. There's little time (and energy) to do any work, but I'm trying to keep my connections afloat. And learn new skills too. And write a lot because that's what will matter the most when we finally leave the Russian-speaking world for good. This blog helps, though I'm sure some issues here already feel like a naive infant wrote them, including this one.

Talk to you soon, hopefully, from another country.