Week 1337 / 2026-09-06 - notes

Woohoo, week 1337! Such a fun and popular number! If I weren't so tired writing this, I might actually have figured something out to say about it. 😁

But alas, all I can say is that this week I dedicated no time to hacking of any kind, because I was busy doing all of these things:

• As mentioned in last week's post, this week I was at the Homeschooling conference in Bulgaria! Such a blast to meet friends from years past, re-acquaint with any acquaintances I forgot, and get to know some of the families just starting out with planning their homeschooling journey.
• Also as mentioned, I prepared and delivered a discussion on "Jobs of the future" for the older teens. It went... way worse than I hoped for 😅 Most of the teens mysteriously went fishing / running for the duration of the presentation, so I ended up talking with only ~6 people in the end; but maybe it's for the best--while I had prepared to discuss different future scenarios like "What if all the AI people are wrong, and an economic crisis is on the way," we only ended up covering "What if AI boosters guessed right and AGI is right around the corner," and not even fully exploring the world-building of that particular future scenario.
  • Kids did have fun chatting on the matter... and I had fun too, pointing the ways AI is flawed today, from biases, to energy use, to centralization. 😁
• I managed to convince one of the other presenters to remove the genericised AI slop art from their presentation! 🎉 They did it for the practical reason of "text is easier to read and less distracting", but I'd still count it as a win.
• Away from the topic of machines, we had a really nice walk in the mountains, complete with a mountain-top view over a lake, and all the fresh air we could want over the whole duration on the conference. Definitely one of the best places we've booked for these conferences so far!
• And on the topic of mountain-top experiences, I'm already brainstorming topics for my participation in the conference next year, so I won't be forced into some talent-building-adjacent topic again. Currently, webdev and small website building is on the table... as are some extra-conference hikes in the mountains. Stay tuned! ✨
• Me and a friend at the conference tried to fold a really complicated single-square-sheet origami Pegasus. The attempts have been dutifully burned and the ashes scattered. In unrelated news, I'm back on the hunt to figuring out how to procure "proper" origami paper in Bulgaria.

Reading, games, and other media consumption

• I read Normalized Fascism in Open Source last week, but it and DHH Omarchy Doctrine: Fascism Stage One by Definition have been food for thought and some discussions with friends this week. Honestly unsure what I'm going to do about it, other than soft-boycotting all the companies/projects involved in funding Omarchy, since it would be nice to have a more principled stance on the matter, beyond doing whatever everyone else is doing...
• There's no such thing as Just a Tool was a good pre-conference read; though I found the nuisance much harder to communicate than e.g. energy inefficiency.
• things I would like to tell my 10 year old self reminded of some experimental letters to "Dear Past Self" and "Dear Future Self" I've written over the years 😅

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