Category: Creativity
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Ira Glass, and the gap
A few days ago, I published an essay convincing you to be prolific. I was elaborating on the idea that focusing on quantity will lead to better quality, a lesson I learned in 2013. When I was writing that original post, I came across a useful metaphor from Ira Glass, about how people experience a…
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Vinyl isn’t just about the sound
In 2025, people bought over 45 million vinyl records, spending over $1 billion in the process. What’s more surprising: a stat from 2022 suggests that 50% of vinyl buyers in the US don’t own a record player. To a vinyl collector, this is absurd, and perhaps even heresy. What would a person do with a…
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Why I’m prolific, and why you should be too
In 2013, I came upon an idea that quantity was a reliable way to find quality. It was one of the most useful lessons I have learned, and I’ve aimed to be prolific. It’s why I write every day, and I choose to spend much of my time making as much new work as possible.…
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Obviously AI, totally acceptable
Some people have a policy about AI slop: “If you didn’t write it, I don’t want to read it.” I generally agree, though that kind of work existed before AI anyway. My policy is more like this: If you didn’t put yourself into it, I don’t want to read it. I know a few friends…
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A restaurant’s evolution
Several years ago, if you had lunch or dinner at Kingyo Izakaya, you would likely sit at a table on its main floor. Perhaps your seat would be in part of its big booth, or at the communal dining table with a tank containing the restaurant’s namesake, goldfish, in the middle. You might find yourself…
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Be mindful of renting capabilities
“For a while, he even makes you believe that his power has become yours. Irresistible power… that makes every desire’s fufilment seem inevitable.” When I heard this line from Rings of Power, it reminded me of this: Sometimes, business partners want to make you rely on them in order to gain leverage on you—as if…
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Please prompt me, and allow me to prompt you
A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with a friend about AI. They told me they had bought two of the highest tier Claude plans, had two computers running Claude Code, and still often ran out of tokens. Their enthusiasm for making new things with AI was contagious. They told me they wished they’d…