It struck me today that you can make your own luck simply by doing things earlier than most of the other people around you believe is reasonable. We’re in this strange world now where folks don’t need an engineering background to make pretty great software, but I decided to teach myself programming when folks in design were saying that you shouldn’t need to. I didn’t think that I needed to, I just... wanted to.

Now that we’re here, I assume things will do what they always do: just keep moving; shift over. The reason I’m teaching myself machine learning now is that it’s just the next most fun thing to me. It’s the thing that most folks in design won’t be doing, but that will increasingly be the thing that defines what software gets made, and how the world is shaped by it. I don’t want to just work with the output, I want to shape the thing itself.

The thing that you have to do, I think, is just assume that you can do it. Assume that you can do anything, really, because you probably can. If someone can do it, you can probably do it. Maybe you can even do it really well. I try to quiet the critical part of my brain and just start poking around, feeling incredibly dumb until I feel... a little less dumb. After all, don’t we all listen to the critical part of our brain too much already?

For no reasonable reason whatsoever, I sat down to write this journal entry but first decided to have Claude write a static site generator from scratch to replace Jekyll. That took about thirty minutes, which means that I don't have time to write much of anything here now, but I am publishing the thing that I'm barely writing via my completely pointless but very joyful static site generator, which is both worse than Jekyll and infinitely more fun. I can recommend making software you don't need to for fun.

There was a moment today where I thought I'd go and work in the garden before it got too cold. I need to put the covers on the couch cushions for the garden furniture, and I obviously couldn't be bothered to do that, so I got a tiny camping seat out and perched my laptop on my knees like I was in the smallest plane seat in the world, t-rex arms included.

Cacio sprinted into the yard, picked up a stick, ran around in frantic circles and tried eating said stick. At this point, the neighbors dog decided it was precisely the right time to bark at her, which resulted in the predictable outcome of Cacio running in more circles, as if this is a game they play. The game of "you bark, I run, you bark at me running."

A cloud of midges decided they wanted to join the party, specifically around my head. They might still be stuck in my hair, ears and eyeballs. So: T-rex arms, barks-galore, dizzy dog and a mouthful of midges. Not quite the relaxing, very cool time I'd imagined, but I smiled and came back inside. Sometimes things don't work out, and that's just fine.

We ran out of teabags tonight. That might be the most boring thing I ever write in this journal? Anyway, we ran out of teabags. We had one left. I tried to split it between us but wanted to make sure that Aneesah's cup looked good first. I succeeded at that part, but failed at the second: my cup looked like someone had whispered the word "tea" somewhere in the vicinity.

Another glorious day here in the East Bay. Slept in again because why not? My body clearly needed it, and who am I to deny myself what I need. Quickly got ready and met friends for brunch. I'm so thankful to call them friends, and it was nice to have an easy hang with good food on a slow Sunday. Tried the biscuits with butter and jam, and was left wishing I had a cream tea. The biscuits were good, but hey, I'm an English boy.

A day in the garden after that, initially with the goal to do some gardening, but the blazing sun made "doing nothing" a considerably more appealing option, so we did that (to the extent that you can "do" nothing) and I have zero regrets. A bit of reading, a bit of sitting and listening, a bit of... eating ice lollies. Ended the day walking Cacio together and stopping off at Trader Joes to pick up ingredients for a favorite meal.

There are lots of fiddly steps involved, so we cooked together. There's something that satisfies me about getting everything ready in fifteen bowls—300g of parmesan here, a beaten egg there... breadcrumbs, garlic, nutmeg. Mise en place, or something. It's a pain in the ass (the dish) but it feels worth it when you sit down to eat it. Slow Sundays are for slow meals, and taking enjoyment from taking the time to make them.

I slept in today, way later than I have in a long time. It felt good, and also bad. You know that feeling when you've had more sleep than ever but also feel more tired than ever? Anyway, an excellent day once I'd rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. We headed to Sonoma for a tasting, and Cacio even tagged along. We drank the wine, and she ate the cheese.

The weather was perfect. Like ridiculously, suspiciously great. The kind of day that you're lucky to get a handful of in England, but that I've already had a few of this year in California—and it's only just March. It's such a beautiful drive there, too. Every time we drive there we just keep repeating "I can't believe we live here" or "we're so lucky" or "I feel so blessed." I really can't. We really are. I really, really do.

We grabbed dinner afterwards and walked Cacio around the dimly-lit streets. She always seems to know where she's headed, even when we have absolutely no idea where we are. I'd trust her with directions more than I'd trust myself though, to be fair. Aneesah likes to say I walk very confidently in precisely the wrong direction. As usual, she's correct.

Long day at the end of a long week. You can tell if I'm having a long week, because I write less. I write less everywhere. I skip morning pages. I write less in this journal. I don't write my work journal. It's weird, because I think we often skip the things that actually help the most, or at least I do. The busier I am, the less likely I am to spend the 10 minutes with my coffee writing a todo list. The less likely I am to stop for a few minutes once an hour to breathe, stretch, and drink water. Maybe it's just me, but probably not. This is a reminder to me (and you) to... not do that.

I was teaching a few concepts around agentic programming today, and at some point it struck me how weird and nice it is that markdown is having arguably its biggest moment yet. In a world of large language models, it turns out that plain-text enhanced with formatting and machine-readable frontmatter is a pretty useful thing to have knocking about.

I’ve been writing with markdown for years. The most important things I write, I write in markdown. I’m writing in markdown right now. There have been many times that I’ve considered using some other stack for this blog or for my private notes, but I keep coming back to markdown. There’s something so satisfying about a file vs. a database.

Markdown syntax has even snuck into other places, now. You’ll find some of it in WhatsApp and Instagram, and there are extended dialects like GitHub Flavored Markdown that give you even more to play with. John Gruber has done many great things, but bringing markdown into existence I think is still one of the best things he gifted to the world.

Who could have known that all these years later it would be the language spoken by these otherworldly tools. The language that we use to speak back, from agents.md to skills.md to the countless other places that it shows up. I have markdown files piled high from years of writing, ready now to serve some new purpose in a new world. Peculiar.

I’ve got an extra-busy few days ahead, and I was reminded today of how amazing it is to have someone who cares for you in the most everyday, but completely life-changing ways. This morning Aneesah brought me a coffee while I was working, and this evening she’s walking the dog and making dinner. She insisted that I catch up on this journal.

I like to think that we have a pretty well-balanced relationship, but during the times when I’ve got a little less to give I always feel so loved, and I hope that I’ll never take that for granted. Sometimes you need a gentle push to take small moments to care for yourself, even if you feel guilty for doing so. I only hope that I pay the same attention when it’s needed, but you’ll have to wait for Aneesah’s blog to find out.

For some reason, I’m sat here on the couch in my jacket. Do you ever do that? It feels cozy somehow, like I’m wearing a blanket. A portable hug, something like that. I like jackets. And hats. I have more jackets and hats than any other item to wear on my body. Thank god I live in Northern California so that I still need a jacket. Thank god it’s not just a raincoat these days, although I don’t mind a bit of rain, really.

It’s been a while since I got out to Point Reyes, and I wish that I was sat there right now, wrapped up warm and staring at the stars or something. I’ve not been there at night, but doesn’t that sound great? I want to camp out there at one of the wild campgrounds, but I’d even take a thermos and the bench at the lighthouse. I’m not too fussy, so long as I’ve got a hot drink and some biscuits. Maybe just fussy about the biscuits.

I’m analyzing a bunch of data this week. Usually that would mean “writing a lot of SQL,” and whilst there is a lot of SQL, I’m barely writing any of it, because this or that LLM is doing it for me. In the past, doing this sort of thing included two important steps: think of the question you want to answer, then translate it into the right SQL syntax. These days, the first step is the same, but the second one absolutely isn’t.

The good side of that, of course, is that you can spend more time on the first part, which was always the most important part. Maybe there’s a bad side? It’s interesting to move from a strict syntax that describes something logical to a floopy syntax where almost anything goes. I think there’s something lost in not “thinking in logic” but I’m not sure if it’s enough that the speed doesn’t make up for it ten times over.

There are moments where I caught myself assuming something was correct based on a cursory glance, only to realize my request had been misunderstood in a way that was important to the analysis. I would say that I’m one of the more “check everything that an LLM gives you very closely” kind of people, and yet here I was. I suspect that the models will eventually get good enough that I’ll just stop thinking about it.