#78 | Next AI Course, Fisk, Board Games

My irregular newsletter on work and play. Unsubscribe at the bottom. LinkedIn

Back from a short break - I hope August treated you well!

MENU

1. WORK: Events & Travels
2. VIBING WITH TECH: Next Course
3. CULTURE: Prada, Fisk, Board Games

1. WORK

Events

• SOSV Climate Tech VC/Founder Matchmaking (free, virtual, Sept 8-12)- 1,000+ participants are already registered. Meeting requests start next week.

• SOSV / HAX Hard Tech Startups Showcase (NYC, Sept 24) - Meet 20 portfolio startups doing hard things.

• SOSV Climate Tech Summit (free, virtual, Nov 3-7). Speakers include Vinod Khosla, Chris Sacca, Jigar Shah, Form Energy, Quaise, and many more to come.

Travels

• VC Platform EU (Berlin, Sept 11-12). I’ll speak about “AI automation and Vibe Coding for VCs”.

• The Drop (Malmo, Sept 16-18) - I’ll co-host a roundtable about AI & automation.

• NY Climate Week - I’ll be mostly at our NY office events.

2. VIBING WITH TECHNOLOGY

My journey into the world of #vibecoding #contextengineering and overall #makingthings.

My Key Ideas

• CROSSBOW > Like coders, archers needed years of training. Like AI-assisted coding is transforming who can create software, the crossbow transformed warfare by making peasants dangerous after mere days of training.

• TOOTHBRUSH > When getting started, build a toothbrush: something useful to you even for 2 minutes a day. This is the gateway to more and bigger projects.

• LEGO > Coding with AI is like assembling LEGO. You need to understand the elements, and make a plan, not mold bricks yourself.

• START > Where to start your AI literacy journey? Self-study can work for some, yet a hands-on course might be the most reliable way to commit and learn.

Learn AI & Automation

• The second cohort of my 15-hours course on “AI for prototyping and automation” in partnership with the up-skilling company CodeForAll starts next week! There are only 3 spots left (max: 20).

• Dates: September 2-18, Every Tuesday and Thursday

• Times: 19:00-21:30 UKT, 20:00-22:30 CET, 14:00-16:30 EST, 11:00-13:30 PST

What you will learn:

• Overcome the "fear of code" - if that's you and you never wrote code, I know where you come from! I worked in tech for 2 decades before picking up some Python skills during COVID, then realizing that AI could help non-coders if they acquired enough knowledge to "project manage" correctly.

• Open your eyes to what AI-assisted coding can do for you. Even ex-coders can benefit from learning about what modern code can do.

• Become an active prototype and personal tool builder. Previous participants said that their #1 satisfaction came from "building a thing" of their own. The first of many!

• Get on an exciting learning path that can lead to building more complex applications for yourself, your team or a broader audience. AI and code are very fun.

• Surf if up 🌊 — but the train hasn't left the station yet 🚂 ;)

Course fee

• Normally: €750. I can offer you a discounted fee of €500 - simply mention my name when reaching out to admissions@codeforall.com.

• If you are eligible for the Portuguese "Cheque-Formação + Digital", the course fee of €750 will be reimbursed 100% by the government. The team at admissions@codeforall.com will help.

Business Time

• I am looking to license this course to other partners like CodeForAll in other geographies. In particular in US, France, and Germany.

• If you know the names of reputable up-skilling companies, or have contacts there, do tell!

Recent Projects

1. AI in a Box > a box with a button, a microphone and a speaker, to ask questions to ChatGPT directly. Uses STT, LLM, TTS via OpenAI API on a Pi 5.

2. Filtered Push News > Weekly email on select topics with news & authors from 25 hand-picked media. To cut the noise and make connections. Uses SerpAPI + Gmail + PythonAnywhere.

3. Filtered News Search > A web version to do the same as above.

4. Next: Portfolio Semantic Search > Search our startups portfolio using natural language.

AI Resources

• YouTube > Matthew Berman | Greg Isenberg | Fireship | How I AI | Andrej Karpathy

• My talk on AI automation at the Lisbon Vibe Coding Club

• My Udemy course (here is a discount code to $9.99 for the next 4 days). Already over 3,000 students. My recommendation: watch everything, then try yourself!

3. CULTURE

MOVIES

The Devil Wears Prada**
Final opus in the canon of Mean Girls, 10 Things I Hate about You and Legally Blonde.

• With a 2025 lens, this level of harassment would probably not fly today.

• It also reminded me of Emily in Paris: a pretty woman with awful behavior. Maybe that was Emily’s pitch? “The Devil Wears Prada in Paris, skipping the ‘ugly duckling’ transformation — she arrives already savvy and fashionable, and the show doesn’t end with redemption.”

• It is also an n-th reminder that “the frame guides the behavior”, and makes good people (that includes you and me) do bad things. Awareness can get you out of the frame (sometimes at a cost).

SHOWS

Fisk - Season 3**** (Netflix)
If you haven’t checked this cute Australian show about a socially awkward wills & probate lawyer, it’s quirky, well written, and short!

Long Story Short** (Netflix)
I had high expectations from the creator of BoJack Horseman, but this animated show about a Jewish family did not quite work for me - I might give it another shot later on.

BOARD GAMES

A few games I tried this summer:

• Flip 7 *** black-jack inspired, luck-driven but fun and tense.

• Skyjo ** light, fast, but felt like becoming an interface for an algorithm (like in Risk).

• Bears vs. Babies ** by the creators of Exploding Kittens (which I haven’t played). Build monsters to fight and capture babies. Chaotic fun for the first few plays, then loses steam as too much luck is involved and some buzzkill tactics become obvious.

Keep vibing!
— Ben

#77 | Next AI Course, Free Vibe Coding AMA, DJ Mehdi and more

My irregular newsletter on work and play. Unsubscribe at the bottom. LinkedIn

Mo’AI, Mo’Problems?

MENU

1. WORK: Events galore
2. VIBING W/ TECH: Next Course, Projects, Resources
3. CULTURE: DJ Mehdi and more

1. WORK

Events

• Climate Matchmaking - We are hosting our next Climate Tech Matchmaking for investors and founders - it is free and virtual Sept 8-12. Over 700 participants are already registered, including over 360 investors (not a typo!)

• Climate Summit - Our annual / virtual / free Climate Tech Summit is Nov 3-7. We confirmed our first speakers and look forward to a solid line-up! We expect 5,000+ participants. Register and send your suggestions here.

• Hard Tech Startups Showcase - Meet 20 portfolio startups doing hard things. In NYC on Sept 24. Register here.

Travels

• Berlin (September) - I’ll be at the VC Platform EU event where I’ll give a talk about “Vibe Coding for VCs”.

• Malmo (September) - There is a good chance I’ll be at TheDrop climate tech event. No talk planned for me so far, just networking.

• NYC (September) - I’ll be at NY Climate Week. We’re hosting a bunch of events at our NY office.

SOSV Deep Tech Live

• Our monthly event series had a great guest on nutrition last week: Dr. Robert Lustig. The video is here.

• Next session: Tim Latimer, CEO of enhanced geothermal energy star Fervo Energy, on Sept 22 at our NYC office and online. Register here.

2. VIBING WITH TECHNOLOGY

My journey into the world of #vibecoding #contextengineering and overall #makingthings.

Free Vibe Coding AMA

I will run a free 1-hour Free AMA on Tuesday 12 at 7pm UKT / 2pm EST / 11am PST. Register here.

Talk on AI & Vibe Coding

I was invited to speak at Lisbon’s Vibe Coding Club last month (1 hour video). Among the ideas I shared:

• Coding with AI is like building with LEGO.

• AI usage requires some code literacy. Learning what code can do (libraries, APIs, potential problems) is a huge advantage when building things beyond a simple website.

• AI is the modern crossbow: it can make a peasant as powerful as a trained expert in a matter of days.

Next Cohort-Based Course

The first 15 students graduated from the July cohort-based “AI for prototyping and automation” course. I’m taking a break in August but the September is open for registration, in partnership with the upskilling company CodeForAll. Want to open your eyes to AI and say ‘I made a thing!’ by the end? This hands-on course helps non-coders go from zero to prototype with AI. :)

• For non-coders and ex-coders who want to learn how to build things using AI.

• We use Google Colab and Cursor to generate and run Python code (no coding experience required), discover useful libraries and APIs and learn how to build apps like you assemble LEGO: you don’t need to make the bricks, just know what they are and how to stack them.

• Register your interest here.

Details:

• Fee: The usual course fee is 750 euros but only 500 euros if you register through me. Your company might be able to pay for it as part of Learning & Development.

• Dates & Times: September 2-18, Tue/Thu 7pm-9:30pm UKT (total: 15 hours)

• Cohort: Limited to 20 participants.

PS: My Udemy course for inspiration is here (already over 3,000 students!). It’s quite fast-paced - you can just watch to get a taste, as setup might discourage total beginners.

Latest Projects

AI in a Box

• What > a box with a button, a microphone and a speaker, to ask questions to ChatGPT directly.

• Why > I use ChatGPT for questions all the time and wanted a one-button voice interface for answers too.

• Status > fully functional.

• Tech > Raspberry Pi 5 with python code using the OpenAI API for speech-to-text, LLM and text-to-speech. Whisper, Microsoft’s Phi-2 and Coqui for the offline version.

• Latest > I already have a fallback local LLM in case of Wifi outage. It’s quite slow and mostly there because I could. The current version logs questions and answers in a file but does not have “memory” (by design). It can also run on a battery pack. Also, I received the tiny USB microphone and small bluetooth speaker I ordered from AliExpress, so I got some LEGOs to make a smaller box (and stop using cardboard).

• Next > I plan to port from the Raspberry Pi 5 to the Pi Zero to make it even smaller and cheaper.

News Scanner

• What > An app that scans news on particular topics and sends a weekly email with titles, links and authors from top publications.

• Why > My comms colleague is looking for new journalists to connect with, and using Google News or Google Alerts takes too long due to the lack of filter.

• Status > Complete.

• Tech > SerpAPI to query Google News, python code for filtering, PythonAnywhere to host the code and run the code weekly.

• Next > a web version for one-off searches.

Portfolio Semantic Search

• What > An app can list relevant companies using natural language search (no need for an exact keyword).

• Why > Our portfolio counts over 800 startups and it’s impossible to keep all in mind. It could also be used to search startups that join our VC/Startup matchmaking events.

• Status > Functional prototype

• Tech > Use OpenAI API to create an embedding of the startups descriptions. The search query is also turned into an embedding, and used with a cosine similarity search to identify the closest matches.

• Next > I first made it a web app, then a local Mac app (which was interesting to make). The final version will be a web app.

Favorite AI Channels on Youtube

• Matthew Berman (detailed news)

• Greg Isenberg (business cases)

• Fireship (short news)

• How I AI (generalist)

• Andrej Karpathy (fairly technical - coined the terms ‘vibe coding’ and ‘context engineering)
  

3. CULTURE

MOVIES

The General*** (Youtube)
An old Buster Keaton from 1926 - quite charming and with some dangerous stunts. Buster was the Tom Cruise of his time! Free on Youtube.

10 Things I Hate about You** (Prime)
I am told it is part of some canon. I was definitely not the target audience. Quick comments:

• Some of the behaviors from 1999 would get you arrested in 2025.

• It is inspired by Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Upon research, the Bard’s story was itself inspired by many stories in the oral tradition of Europe - some in which the Shrew is tamed by birching. In the movie, the Shrew is aggressively independent, was tame before becoming shrewish, and needed to be seen and accepted to soften.

Mike Birbiglia: The Good Life** (Netflix)
I loved his previous standup specials but this one did not touch me as much.

SHOWS

DJ Mehdi: Made in France**** (Youtube)
My friend O. who had a record distribution company in the 90’s and 00’s told me about this free documentary on Youtube on France’s legendary DJ/producer/musician whom he knew very well. I was not plugged into that scene and didn’t know his name, but I knew his work (and you likely do too as he worked with Daft Punk, Justice, 113). Like Kanye, he started as a beatmaker for rappers, then worked with the electro French Touch scene as they used the same machines and he was a curious guy. I highly recommend it.

Silicon Valley**** (HBO)
I rewatched this show - still an excellent illustration of startup life. It had an almost prescient ending in this age of AI!

After School Doctor**** (Netflix)
I partially re-watched this Japanese show about a frowny doctor working in a primary school and dealing smartly with the physical, mental and social problems of little kids. It’s charming and intelligent - I recommend it!

Leviathan*** (Netflix)
A steampunk anime series where the pre-WWI world is divided between countries who use machines and those using genetically modified animals. Not amazing but well made and decent story.

Keep vibing!
— Ben

#76 | New Vibe Coding Course, AI in a Box, Bad TV Picks

My irregular newsletter on work and play. Unsubscribe at the bottom. LinkedIn

Surf’s up with AI!

MENU

1. WORK: Events
2. VIBE CODING: New Course, Free Workshop, AI in a Box
3. CULTURE: Bad Picks Again

1. WORK

Events

• Our virtual Health Tech matchmaking has over 700 registrations from investors and founders. Meetings take place next week. Register here (free)

• Bitter Truths and Sweet Lies — a hybrid event about metabolic health at our NY office on July 30. Register.

• We also announced the upcoming Climate Tech Matchup in September.

• Our annual Climate Tech Summit will be in November. Register here.

Events

• Berlin (September) - I’ll be at the VC Platform EU event where I’ll give a talk about “Vibe Coding for VCs”.

• NYC (September) - I’ll be at NYCW. We’re hosting a bunch of events at our NY office.

2. VIBE CODING

First Online Cohort

My up-skilling course on Vibe Coding (using AI to code without needing to know how to code) in partnership with Code For All in Portugal will start on July 1st!

• It will be 15 hours total, on Tue/Thu at 7pm-9:30pm UK/Lisbon time (3 weeks). I might do a US-time version later on.

• This a great skill unlock to future-proof careers.

• No coding experience needed. You will learn to use AI to generate code for personal apps, using libraries and APIs.

• If you’re a Portuguese resident, a government coupon can cover 100% of the cost!

• I am facilitating the first run of the course. They will run it with a license later on.

More info / register here (info in Portuguese but the course is in English).

Free Intro Workshop

I will run a free 1-hour hands-on intro workshop next week on June 26 (Thu). 7pm-8pm UK/Lisbon time. Register here (free).

Udemy Course

My Vibe Coding Bootcamp has passed 2,500 students on Udemy. It’s a fast-paced cornucopia of tech with practical and quirky examples. Watch in one go, then try some!

Latest Project: AI in a Box

I vibe coded a few things - including a scraper for X.com which was harder to do since Elon wants people to pay for data, but the project I am most excited about is this one:

I use ChatGPT for search constantly and found myself longing for a more direct system than typing or talking to my phone. What if I could have a simple box on my desk with one big button that I could press to ask a question, then get an answer?

Initially it was only for me, but I also thought that our son is an “AI native” and will soon enough have plenty of questions, so a kid-friendly safe simple and safe AI would be useful. Maybe for survivalists, campers, sailors, and others too.

Though I have worked with many hardware startups, I don’t know electronics and last time I soldered was probably 30 years ago in a middle-school technical class. So I asked ChatGPT, who helped me narrow down the options to a Raspberry Pi 5 as the main brain. I then vibe coded two systems:

• Online: using the OpenAI API for transcribing, prompt and even text-to-speech. This runs pretty fast. I called it “Tim” (for “Tiny Him”, as a reference to the movie Her).

• Offline: I wanted a way to work ‘off-grid’, potentially for wilderness or privacy reasons. So this mode does all locally: it uses a local speech-to-text model, a local LLM and local text-to-speech. I called it “Pim” because it runs entirely on the Pi, and also because it is slower and not as smart ;p

I still have a few kinks to iron out, but I have connected a USB microphone, a bluetooth speaker, and a friendly guy at the local hackerspace showed me how to solder the button and a couple of LEDs. Now I need a few more hours to finish and put it in a box.

Possible developments: memory / private mode, solar or crank-powered (to be 100% off-grid). Depending on your knowledge, this project might sound hard or easy (it is quite easy, though it uses cutting edge tech), but more importantly to me, it really feels great to build a first gadget!

3. CULTURE

MOVIES

It hasn’t been a good time for me.

Broken Rage*
I used to love Takeshi Kitano’s movies — Sonatine, Kids Return, Hana-bi, Kikujiro, Violent Cop… — and saw he had a fairly new one on Prime. Sadly, after a first half hour of average yakuza story, it switched to some nonsense slapstick comedy. Did he need money from Amazon? Maybe that’s the real yakuza move. I stopped before the end.

Gladiator 2*
I tried to watch it on a flight. I thought it was a sequel of some kind, but it looked more like a remake, with unnecessarily better special effects, a dose of wokeness and a lack of emotional connection. I stopped in less than 10 minutes. Better rewatch the first!

Maybe I should try and ask ChatGPT for recommendations…

SHOWS

Clarkson’s Farm*** (new season)
This time he’s trying to buy a pub while fighting bad weather. I like this show, which illustrates the difficulties, constraints and uncertainties of running a farm.

Rick and Morty** (new season)
Alongside Black Mirror, here is another show I really liked that I feel got worse. Is the loss of flavor due to the firing of one of the creators? Has this show run its course? Is this part of the enshittification trend?

PODCASTS

I was interviewed on a podcast focused on the immigration journey. I was recommended by Derek Sivers as I lived in 10 countries, dabble in 7 languages, and apparently have interesting ideas about cultures and communication. I wondered initially why I was asked as I don’t see myself as neither an immigrant nor an expat, but we had a good chat. The episode should come out this summer - we’ll see how it turned out!

As a side note, these days I’m listening to:

• Peter Zeihan on geopolitics. He likes hyperbole but he knows a lot.

• Greg Isenberg / Matthew Berman / Fireship on AI.

Word of the day: parsimonious.
Word of yesterday: profligate.

Keep vibing!
— Ben

#75 | Productive Laziness, Constructive Struggle, Debunking Frogs and Marshmallows

My irregular newsletter on work and play. Unsubscribe at the bottom. LinkedIn

Quick post before flying back from NY to Lisbon.

MENU

1. WORK: Health Matchup
2. VIBE CODING: Workshops, License, Discount
3. CULTURE: Bad Picks
4. THOUGHTS: Productive Laziness, Constructive Struggle, Debunking Frogs & Marshmallows

1. WORK

VC/Founders Virtual Matchmaking

• The Health Tech Matchup has just been announced today and the first 100 registrations came in. We expect over 1,000 participants including 500+ investors. Register here.

• Those events might sound like anecdotes, but they are the largest events of their kind, with unprecedented info about both startups and investors, and they are FREE!

2. VIBE CODING

The term “Vibe Coding” was coined 4 months ago, and my Vibe Coding Bootcamp launched 3 months ago on Udemy.

Here is what happened recently:

• I came up with an acronym to describe AI benefits: BASE, for Building and Prototyping, Automating Repetitive Tasks, Speeding Up Execution, Enhancing Skills. It’s such a skill multiplier I worry for those who are exposed to disruptions and don’t get on board fast. Surf’s up!

• I gave a talk on vibe coding followed by a panel with an experienced CTO discussing the benefits and limits. AI-assisted coding is here to stay, and vibe coding is democratizing access.

• I ran an in-person workshop and some individual coaching sessions, and saw people move from a deep “fear of code” (FoC?) to being excited and starting to build their own tools.

• The first licensing deal for a 15-hours training is on the way with a coding school in Portugal specialized in up-skilling non-IT workers (PMs, accountants, lawyers, businesspeople…). It might become the template for other licenses.

• I added a lesson on how to use Google Colab rather than VS Code. Colab is a cloud-based virtual environment which includes Gemini. It sidesteps all setup difficulties people experienced with VS Code. If you want to try it, click here.

To conclude with a couple of recent ideas:

• On my United flight I used the Wifi but it was quite unreliable, and annoying to try connecting again every now and then. So in less than 10 minutes I vibe coded a network tester, which would check connectivity and measure its speed every 5 min, and log it. Easy peasy!

• I use ChatGPT a lot with voice on my phone instead of googling, but I find annoying to use the phone. So I am planning to build a “ChatGPT button”: a box with one button that I would press to start recording your question, then press again when I’m done, and that will give me a quick voice answer from ChatGPT. It took me about 15 minutes to write the python code for the voice => speech-to-text => generate answer => text-to-speech. Now I need to get a simple hardware and button to run it! Can I sell it to Sam Altman for $6.5 billion? Time will tell!

 👉 Here is a coupon with the best price ($9.99) if you’d like to try the course. It is only valid for 3 DAYS so be quick! I recommend watching it all before trying to vibe code by yourself. It’s made for non-coders and I tried hard to make it fun, easy and practical — email me if you have any issues!

3. CULTURE

DOCUMENTARY

Becoming Led Zeppelin**
Watched on United. Didn’t learn much but still good vibes.

MOVIES

Boiling Point***
A chef reaches his boiling point in this movie shot in a single take. Impressive but stressful!

BROADWAY

Glengarry Glen Ross*
It really pains me to say I did not really enjoy my first broadway play! And this despite:

• A cast I love (Bob Odenkirk & Michael McKean / Better Call Saul, Bill Burr, Kieran Culkin / Succession),

• A movie I liked,

• Having paid $200.

Other spectators seem to have loved it, though. Maybe it’s the jetlag, or having too high expectations? At last now I know!

4. THOUGHTS

Debunking Frogs and Marshmallows

There are two persistent myths:

• The Boiling Frog. That it won’t notice it’s boiling. Actually, it will. I still think it’s useful as a shorthand, or as my friend Derek Sivers would say “Useful, Not True”.

• The Marshmallow Test. That if a child can delay gratification they will be more successful later in life. Actually, there is no correlation at all. Also, they had not considered things like appetite, taste for sugar, trust in adults (will they really give me the 2 marshmallows they promised?). Self-regulation later in life (measured through surveys at ages 17, 27, and 37) was a better predictor of adult outcomes than marshmallow wait time. It can be learned!

Productive Laziness

• On the Vibe Coding panel, the CTO talked about the joy of putting sometimes disproportionate effort into code to avoid doing some boring work. I have the exact same spirit with vibe coding!

• The benefit of “doing” and acquiring new knowledge and skills pays off over time. For instance, by now I can whip out a custom web scraper in minutes, and use many other technology bricks to build quick programs. Productive laziness has compounding returns.

Constructive Struggle

• I had some thoughts and discussions recently about the benefits of "“constructive struggle”.

• As Nvidia's CEO said in a recent talk, struggle builds character (as long as it is not so hard it crushes you).

• For instance, many immigrants work hard for the hope of a better life, but their kids often grow up with more comfort and do not have the same drive.

• Similarly, children of well-off families, or kids with helicopter / lawnmower parents are deprived of the agency and growth opportunities from struggling.

• Arguably, life throws enough struggle at everyone without trying, but could we pick some useful ones?

• Now the questions is: how can you engineer constructive struggle when struggle is not necessary? I know jiu-jitsu was for me a chosen struggle (though I didn’t know I was going to get smashed for 2 years), and so were Asian languages I learned, and even learning python! Now that I’m a dad, I am thinking about what constructive struggle we should plan for our little boy ;)

Keep vibing!
— Ben

#74 | AI or Die, HBO Silicon Valley 10y Later, Big Animals and more

My irregular newsletter on work and play. Unsubscribe at the bottom. LinkedIn

Keeping up the tempo - as a few things are happening.

MENU

1. WORK: Matchups
2. VIBE CODING: 2000+ students!
3. CULTURE: Silicon Valley 10y, Maths, VR Games
4. EXPERIENCES: Scams and Tricks
5. THOUGHTS: AI or Die

1. WORK

VC/Founders Virtual Matchmaking

• The SOSV Biomanufacturing event ended with 800 participants (about 50% investors) and a NPS of 44. Some new tools we introduced (and vibe coded) helped.

• Next events are focused on Health (June) and Climate. Pre-register here.

2. VIBE CODING

Quite a lot happened since the launch of my Vibe Coding Bootcamp on Udemy 2 months ago (the very first one published there):

• Over 2,000 students.

• Selected into the “Udemy Business” catalog.

• Received requests and in talks to license the course for trainings!

The feedback also helped me realize a few things:

• Setup can be difficult. Cursor and Google Colab might be better than VS Code.

• Vibe Coding can get you fired. Some firms don’t like you to run unverified code.

• Vibe Coding has limits. Great for prototyping and personal apps. Not enough (yet) for public apps that require reliability, security and performance.

More than ever, I am convinced that vibe coding is the fastest, most useful (and most fun) skill unlock of the decade. Try it out here!

3. CULTURE

SHOWS

Silicon Valley**** (HBO)
It’s been 10 years! It is fun to rewatch it now that I’ve spent a decade in the world of VC and startups. Most of it is still relevant - a crash course in startup life with lots of gems. I also have a renewed appreciation for some of the characters (Jared/Donald in particular). Several actors are standup comics!

Legally Blonde *
Apparently I suffered from a cultural gap. This was the first opus of a canon I was supposed to watch. Not being the target audience made the first half especially difficult — lots of cringe.

Mean Girls**
More tolerable. Still not the target market. Wish me luck for the third one! (will you guess?)

VR GAMES

Tiny Archers VR***
You’re an elf shooting at goblins attacking your tower. What’s not to love?

PowerWash Simulator***
I only played the trial version, but a thorough power wash can indeed be very satisfying. See this guy on YouTube.

MATHS

Over 3 decades ago I was taking advanced math classes to prep for engineering school. I recall there was one little exercise I could not solve, with an interesting unstable solution to an iterated series. I couldn’t recall the details so I finally asked ChatGPT, who quickly helped narrow down the problem, then solve it! If you’re versed in the arts:

• f(x) = 2 . sin(pi . x)

• The only fixed points are 0 and x* = 2 . sin (pi . x*) (±0.72)

• | f’(0) | and | f’(x*) | > 1 so they are repelling fixed points.

• It also has ergodic behavior and values explore the whole space.

BIG ANIMALS

Can a bird carry a coconut? A baby?

• The strongest bird out there — the harpy eagle — can carry max 5kg (about half their body weight of 10kg), roughly the weight of a 3-months-old baby.

• The heaviest insect is only about 100g.

• The heaviest land mammal is the African bush elephant (±10t) and sea mammal is the Antarctic blue whale (max 190 tons).

4. EXPERIENCES

Blackout Part 2

I talked about my Lisbon 10-hour blackout experience in the previous email. I forgot to mention the type of concerns I had:

• How long will the water from the tap/shower be usable? It needs treatment.

• How will hospitals do after a few hours? Their generators will likely last only a day.

• How long will transports work? Gas stations are out so people only have 1 tank of gas.

Scams

Thanks to my reader A. who shared a "six zeros" scam story!

• It’s a fairly elaborate scammer pretending to be an investment firm offering an investment in the form of a convertible loan (Safe) to a startup at a high valuation.

• They asked to put the first year's note interests in an escrow stablecoin wallet, for “guarantee”.

• The US-based startup founder went to meet in person in Europe, had all the paperwork in order reviewed by lawyers, etc.

• The money was gone within minutes. Now it's a criminal case. As often: if it's too good to be true, it probably is. But… dayam!

Any seven zero scam?

Business Dishonesty

After scams, a few other tricks I came across:

• This guy spied on his tech employer for their competitor for 5kEUR / month.

• Looking at some online courses, some creators had many thousands of students but only a handful of reviews… Free passive users to boost optics.

• A friend discovered his YouTube channel had systematic downvotes, and found out their competitor used “capping bots” to do it, and game the algorithm.

Play fair!

5. THOUGHTS

AI or Die

• I came across a video of a pulmonologist looking at an X-ray who said he spent 20 years honing his craft and now AI does it in seconds. That’s an example of a high-skill profession made irrelevant.

• On that note, the first decade of my life was in market research and consulting. It is a peculiar feeling to think that I spent a decade doing work that AI can now probably do in minutes. I suppose those skills apply elsewhere, but still…

• The CEO of Duolingo said AI teaches better than humans (but schools will remain because people need daycare).

• Entry-level tech job offers have seen a big drop in numbers. Is the on-ramp disappearing?

• In academia a famous phrase is “publish or perish”, which MIT Media Lab then evolved into “Demo or Die” then “Deploy or Die”. I think ignoring AI today is like putting one’s head in the sand - like refusing to see doctors because one doesn’t want to know. It is quite clear that some jobs will disappear, and others will require AI literacy. It is not really AI or Die yet, but the writing is on the wall. The best way to start? You guessed it: vibe coding ;)

Over and out.
— Ben