Sajal Choudhary

Jaya

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:31:35 GMT

Started reading.

Wordpress containers are launched

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 05:07:01 GMT

But now, thanks to incredible advances in WebAssembly (WASM), we can spin up a web server, a database (SQLite or MariaDB), and a full WordPress installation inside your browser in about 30 seconds. Instantly. No server needed. I introduced Playground at State of the Word in 2022.

I did not understand the product - my.wordpress.net. Need to research it a bit more.

About the MacBook Neo

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 08:46:05 GMT

The Essence of a Machine by Om

Customers and reviewers alike look at a laptop and ask all sorts of wrong questions. How much RAM? What GPU? Can it run Final Cut in real time? Nobody stops to ask what they actually need it for.

The spec sheet becomes the thing. The benchmark becomes the measure. The webpage becomes a place to extract every cent. Every human relationship on Instagram an opportunity to transact. And somewhere in all that maximization, the person using the machine disappears.

Also, John Gruber’s review was fun to read.

And I can buy one, just like this one, for $700. That’s $170 less than an 11-inch iPad Air and Magic Keyboard. And the Neo comes with a full-size keyboard and runs MacOS, not a version of iOS with a limited imitation of MacOS’s windowing UI. I am in no way arguing that the MacBook Neo is an iPad killer, but it’s a splendid iPad alternative for people like me, who don’t draw with a Pencil, do type with a keyboard, and just want a small, simple, highly portable and highly capable computer to use around the house. The MacBook Neo is going to be a great first Macintosh for a lot of people switching from PCs. But it’s also going to be a great _secondary_Mac for a lot of longtime Mac users with expensive desktop setups for their main workstations — like me.

I have three devices as well - the iPhone 16 Pro, MacBook Air M1, and iPad Air. I so want to use the iPad - it is great as a focus device, but would I miss it if I did not have it anymore? I think not. I have not started drawing on it yet though. Maybe I would after that. I used to read on it, not right now though. But in that case I would have two devices - the Mac and the iPhone. Both of these are essential to me.

System Collapse

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 17:24:57 GMT

Started reading.

Coupling and cohesion

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:19:56 GMT

In the context of micro-services architecture, from Building microservices.

Cohesion

We want related behaviour to sit together and unrelated behaviour to sit elsewhere. Because when we want to change one behaviour, we want to be able to do it.

Coupling

Systems should be loosely coupled. So that changes to one system does not affect the other systems.

Types of coupling

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:18:43 GMT

In the context of micro-services architecture, learned from Building microservices.

Domain coupling

One service needs to interact with a different service. This is mostly unavoidable.

Passthrough coupling

One service passes data to a different service, because the data is needed by the other service further downstream. It can be problematic because if they need it in a different format or need different items, than we may need to make changes as well.

Common coupling

In common coupling two of more services use a common data source. Not desirable.

Content coupling

Very similar to common coupling, the difference is that the external system can directly make changes to the internal state. Should be avoided.

Zen in the art of writing

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 10:13:18 GMT

Review

This is a beautiful book, just the prose of it. It is beautifully written. The namesake essay - zen in the art of writing, talks about the work of writing. The act of sitting and typing words out, so that it becomes normal, something that gets out of the way, that becomes part of nature. And then you can write.

This idea comes from the book Zen in the art of archery. A book I’ve added to my reading list.

I loved reading the book. The first two chapters were pretty good. That’s when Mr. Bradbury talked about writing 1000 words per day. And also about how to feed and keep your muse. I loved those essays.

There is a principle I have about books I want to keep. By keep I mean in a physical sense, on a bookshelf. When I started reading, I did not care about it. I had a home, and in that home I had a bookshelf.

Things are not so certain right now. I am trying to build a home. After which would come a bookshelf. I don’t want to accumulate things I may have to abandon.

The principle I have is this - I will only keep books I know I will re-read. Books that speak to me, on some level. Books which inspire me. Books that are short (maybe).

The books I have on my bookshelf now are -

On writing
What I talk about when I talk about running
Steal like an artist
Show your work
Keep going
Light on the yogasutras of Patanjali
A year of mornings

I think I will add this book to my bookshelf next.

Notes

He talks about writing a thousand words each day since he was twelve.

Make a list of things that speak to you. Things that you want to write about. Things hidden in your subconscious. Aligns, a little bit with the exercise from Bird by bird, about writing stories from your childhood.

Feed your muse.

Read a poem a day
Read essays - learn about the smells, sights and tastes people may feel in different places
Read stories and novels - things you want to read and don’t.

As writers our job is to create tension, and the release that tension - build tension toward violence and then release that violence, for example.

We are teachps, being filled all the time. The trick is in how to flip ourselves and let the good stuff flow.

Sony appears to be testing dynamic pricing on games

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 07:31:05 GMT

Sony appears to be testing dynamic pricing on PlayStation games by Terrence O'Brien

Dynamic pricing is nothing new and is used across a number of industries. But it’s often met with backlash and isn’t typically found in online game stores. According to PSprices, Sony is running A/B testing on prices for over 150 games in 68 regions, though the US doesn’t currently appear to be part of the experiment. For now, at least, Sony isn’t toying with raising prices. Instead, the program appears to offer discounts to select users, ranging from 5 percent to 17.5 percent, on titles like Spider-Man 2, God of War, and Red Dead Redemption 2.

I had seen a post on Reddit about this some time ago. This makes it official.

Not a good idea. Dynamic pricing never is.

Holi week

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 23:08:24 GMT

Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #95, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

To follow the series, you can subscribe here. A new NordLetter will land in your inbox every Sunday. Not a fan of newsletters? No problem! You can read previous editions here. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed.

You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Mastodon.

I asked Claude to give me a structure for my NordLetter posts. These posts are either travelogues or about going to events. Mostly.

Claude gave me something which I kind of already did know and what I thought of was the structure for these posts.

You start with the setup - the why of the thing.
Then the confrontation/middle of the thing - the smells of the place, the sights and so on.
And then, finally the conclusion of the thing.

I think this is a good structure to follow.

It was not a given, unlike the years past, that we would be going to the BJPF Holi event this time around. As I had said in [[202602262122 NL94|NL94]] that it had been a busy few weeks since I returned from home.

We did not know if we had it in us to go to this event. We registered for the event on the very last day, eventually deciding it would be a fun outing, and we would not have to cook. That is always a good bonus.

The Holi event was at Leppävaaran nuorisotila. As with every other place, I had to find the parking for our car, after having dropped off Prerna and Savya. It took longer than usual here. I had to drive around the parking space a couple of times, after which I found one spot.

The parking space and the space around the venue was full of slush, the dangerous kind, the see where you put your feet or you may slip kind. I walked through all of it and reached the venue.

I heard, 'Papa', and 'Savya you don't have to go there' almost simultaneously. I took off my shoes, left it at the entrance among other shoes, took off my jacket, put it on a door hinge, and went and hugged Savya.

The cultural part of the event had started already. Chandji was quizzing the kids - what Holi was, how it was celebrated back home, who was Hiranyakashipu, and so on.

I went and picked up a samosa and a tea from the snack/food counter. The venue was basically split in two halves - one a room where the kitchen, some sofas, and a bunch of games were kept, and the other where the cultural event was happening.

I stood at the boundary of the two rooms and ate my samosa and then had my tea. Savya was hovering around my feet. The samosa was awesome. Meanwhile Chandji continued talking about Holi, Holika, lathmar holi among other things.

Prerna called me then, a space had opened up next to her. I went and sat next to her. Chandji invited Kalpanaji on stage and she gave a short talk. Then followed the pre-planned, rehearsed, performances. Both the performances were good - one a devotional dance and the other a song about saving water.

Then Bhavesh ji took the stage and started calling couples on stage to dance - the non-planned part of the evening. It was good fun. Then it was time for the Bihari boys to take the stage. I went along with Savya. We danced on a bunch of songs. Then the women came, and I recorded Prerna dancing. Then joined her on stage to dance some more.

Sudhanshu took some pictures. I took some more pictures. And videos.

We had lunch after that - paneer, pulao, dahi-bhalla and rabri-pua. I loved the first bite of panner that I had. It was magical. It would have went well with flavourless normal rice or jira rice max. It did not work with pulao. But I understand why they had to serve pulao.

Savya had 2-3 puas. He likes puas.

We went out and stood in the slush as the others took care of the venue - sweeping, putting garbage in the bags, cleaning and so on. Then it was time to play Holi!!!

We assembled in the parking area. What started as civilised putting colours on each other's cheeks, turned into a wrestling match of sorts. It was awesome!

I got colour everywhere. Savya was super sleepy by this time. He slept the moment I got the car out of the parking.

We went and bought some groceries after that. Then returned home, had dinner and now, I am writing this, inspired by that Claude comment on how to structure the NordLetter.

The second Holi party happened on the day of actual Holi. A party for two - three if you count Savya, but I think he does not know or care about Holi at this point.

Prerna was in the kitchen since early morning. She made puas. She had made dahi-vadas a day before. Making puas took most of the time. She changed recipes somewhere in the middle. Mixing banana in the batter did the trick. Then rice, dal and mix veg.

We ate. Meanwhile, I continued working.

In the evening, we changed and took some pictures.

The final party of the Holi week happened at Smitaji's place. This happened on a Friday.

This was the type of gathering I enjoy - four families. Enough that you can call it a party, and have conversations.

I talked to a couple of friends about AI, the things they were building if any, and the general state of the world, which, spoiler is in a bit of a disarray right now - thanks, Mr. President.

The food was awesome. Lots of starters. Food is the main thing people go to parties for, that's my theory. The star was the samosa chat. It reminded me of the samosa chat we have in Bihar. It tasted the same. Just the right mix of tangy, spicy and sweet.

I like their home. It is a 1BHK, tastefully decorated. The kitchen is a room of it's own, they have a dining table in the kitchen. The bedroom and hall are fair sized. The bedrooms in Finland are usually small in size. Not theirs, or the one in our home.

It was our second time at their place. We were last here for Diwali. There were more people then, less conversations.

There is an optimal number of people for these things - otherwise people just split into smaller groups and you don't get to talk to everyone. Which is fine, I guess. But not my idea of fun.

The main course after everything was a formality at this point. But it too was great.

/five things to share

1. What We Lose When We Gamify Reading by Marissa Levien

But even if we’re reading more, all this quantifying is forcing readers into harmful patterns. First and most obvious, when we read to hit a goal rather than simply for pleasure, everybody reads as fast as possible to hike up their numbers. It’s like the entire reading public is a high school freshman trying to cram To Kill a Mockingbird at midnight the day before the assignment is due. We technically finish the book, but we retain nothing. Ask someone what they thought of A Guardian and a Thief, they’ll say, “Who knows? That was ten books ago.” More worrisome, when we read fast, we experience nothing. The book does not have a chance to burrow into our heart.

I have felt this once or twice - not often, but enough like reading The secret of secrets at 1.5x. That was driven more by the duration of time I had the book borrowed from library for (14 days).

The second problem is: it’s less and less likely that A Guardian and a Thief is even on a person’s list if they’re shooting for a tally of, say, one hundred books a year. If we’re trying to read fast, the best strategy is to pick books that read easy. Generally this means books that are prose-light, plot-forward, and propulsive. It means we’ll forego a Moby Dick or a Middlemarch in favor of five declensions of A Court of Thorns and Roses. (Before the pitchforks and torches emerge, I should mention that I adore fun, propulsive books. We need these kinds of stories in our life, for the joyous escape of it. I’m not saying you shouldn’t read A Court of Thorns and Roses. I’m saying you shouldn’t only read it.)

Again, not faced this problem, but I can see it happening. I usually chose what to read next thanks to lists. What I add to the list is dependent on a bunch of factors - but mostly is it interesting?

I don’t have a goal though. I am happy with whatever I end up reading. Like I read more books in January because I had time to read. There are more important things in life than reading.

2. Console exclusives might be making a comeback by Andrew Webster

The near future of game consoles could look a lot like the past. Once a hallmark of the industry, over the last few years console-exclusive games have steadily become rare, as the likes of Sony and Microsoft experimented with offering titles on multiple platforms. Heck, who knows what an Xbox even is anymore? But it seems that the experiments haven't paid off. Signs are pointing to the return of exclusives, as companies lean on other ways to entice new audiences.

I was happy when Microsoft started offering their games on PS5. I was looking forward to play Starfield on PS5.

I never cared for Sony games on PC, because I have a PS5.

I think games should be like Podcasts, play wherever you play your games. Consoles will have a future in such a world. They provide excellent value for those who don’t care about tinkering with their gaming systems. It’s plug and play. That has a ton of value.

3. Say hello to MacBook Neo - Apple

Apple’s all-new MacBook features a durable aluminum design, a stunning 13-inch Liquid Retina display, the power of Apple silicon, and all-day battery life — all for the breakthrough starting price of just $599

The Neo does not appeal to me. For one, the display has huge bezels. The RAM is fixed at 8GB, the storage started at 256 GB, goes up to 512GB. The price was a surprise to me, in a pleasant way.

But I loved the announcement video and I think it is meant for the students - those who would pick up a Chromebook perhaps.

This may be an excellent device for schools. A good device against the chromebooks. I want a Pro. Maybe the next one with touch. I may get that. We shall see. I don’t have any reason to. My M1 runs fine.

4. Apple gives in to temptation and renames its CPU cores

Apple announced its new Fusion Architecture today as well, which allows the company to mix and match different “chiplets” in a single package. This is another esoteric chip thing (is there any other kind?) but it has real ramifications for the future of Apple’s chip designs. It means that Apple can be a bit more modular with its designs, building a standard CPU set (for the M5 Max and Pro) while offering two different GPU variants with 20 (Pro) and 40 (Max) cores. I’m also curious what this means for a future Ultra chip, assuming there will be one whenever the M5 Mac Studio is announced.

I had the same thought. This is the same architecture we were hearing rumours about, some years back. Maybe memory upgrades won’t cost that much now.

5. What Do Social Media Companies Fear? Time Management. - Cal Newport by Study Hacks

When you’re following an intentional schedule, your efforts are oriented toward goals that you find important. You also feel a satisfying sense of self-efficacy. These realities engage your long-term reward system, which can override the urges generated by its short-term counterpart, dissipating the drive for quick gratification from activities like glancing at your phone.

This seems to put too much of an onus on individuals and very few of the responsibility on these social media companies. The products are addictive by design. We can’t keep expecting people to not be enticed by the product.

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.

Fazer plans to enter Indian market

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 15:16:52 GMT

Finnish sweets giant Fazer plans to enter Indian market

Fazer said it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Indian branding firm Reliance Consumer Products Limited (RCPL) to make that happen. according to a company press release.

This is the brand of chocolate I take to India whenever I travel back home. Fazer is awesome. Good move.

Learning microservices and k8s

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 11:01:56 GMT

Getting reacquainted with k8s and microservices. The goal is CKA at the end of this. Targeting this exam some time in April, perhaps the last week.

Log

2026-03-06 13:00 - Started reading Building microservices by Sam Newman.

Building microservices

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 10:20:43 GMT

Started reading.

Problems with gamifying reading

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 10:42:28 GMT

What We Lose When We Gamify Reading by Marissa Levien

But even if we’re reading more, all this quantifying is forcing readers into harmful patterns. First and most obvious, when we read to hit a goal rather than simply for pleasure, everybody reads as fast as possible to hike up their numbers. It’s like the entire reading public is a high school freshman trying to cram To Kill a Mockingbird at midnight the day before the assignment is due. We technically finish the book, but we retain nothing. Ask someone what they thought of A Guardian and a Thief, they’ll say, “Who knows? That was ten books ago.” More worrisome, when we read fast, we experience nothing. The book does not have a chance to burrow into our heart.

I have felt this once or twice - not often, but enough like reading The secret of secrets at 1.5x. That was driven more by the duration of time I had the book borrowed from library for (14 days).

The second problem is: it’s less and less likely that A Guardian and a Thief is even on a person’s list if they’re shooting for a tally of, say, one hundred books a year. If we’re trying to read fast, the best strategy is to pick books that read easy. Generally this means books that are prose-light, plot-forward, and propulsive. It means we’ll forego a Moby Dick or a Middlemarch in favor of five declensions of A Court of Thorns and Roses. (Before the pitchforks and torches emerge, I should mention that I adore fun, propulsive books. We need these kinds of stories in our life, for the joyous escape of it. I’m not saying you shouldn’t read A Court of Thorns and Roses. I’m saying you shouldn’t only read it.)

Again, not faced this problem, but I can see it happening. I usually chose what to read next thanks to lists. What I add to the list is dependent on a bunch of factors - but mostly is it interesting?

I don’t have a goal though. I am happy with whatever I end up reading. Like I read more books in January because I had time to read. There are more important things in life than reading.

Console exclusives may be back

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 08:29:42 GMT

Console exclusives might be making a comeback by Andrew Webster

The near future of game consoles could look a lot like the past. Once a hallmark of the industry, over the last few years console-exclusive games have steadily become rare, as the likes of Sony and Microsoft experimented with offering titles on multiple platforms. Heck, who knows what an Xbox even is anymore? But it seems that the experiments haven't paid off. Signs are pointing to the return of exclusives, as companies lean on other ways to entice new audiences.

I was happy when Microsoft started offering their games on PS5. I was looking forward to play Starfield on PS5.

I never cared for Sony games on PC, because I have a PS5.

Apple launches Macbook Neo

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 19:22:41 GMT

Say hello to MacBook Neo - Apple

Apple’s all-new MacBook features a durable aluminum design, a stunning 13-inch Liquid Retina display, the power of Apple silicon, and all-day battery life — all for the breakthrough starting price of just $599

The Neo does not appeal to me. For one, the display has huge bezels. The RAM is fixed at 8GB, the storage started at 256 GB, goes up to 512GB. The price was a surprise to me, in a pleasant way.

But I loved the announcement video and I think it is meant for the students - those who would pick up a Chromebook perhaps.

Apple announces M5 Pro and Max chips

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 06:01:22 GMT

Apple gives in to temptation and renames its CPU cores

Apple announced its new Fusion Architecture today as well, which allows the company to mix and match different “chiplets” in a single package. This is another esoteric chip thing (is there any other kind?) but it has real ramifications for the future of Apple’s chip designs. It means that Apple can be a bit more modular with its designs, building a standard CPU set (for the M5 Max and Pro) while offering two different GPU variants with 20 (Pro) and 40 (Max) cores. I’m also curious what this means for a future Ultra chip, assuming there will be one whenever the M5 Mac Studio is announced.

I had the same thought. This is the same architecture we were hearing rumours about, some years back. Maybe memory upgrades won’t cost that much now.

Why do LLMs have personality

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 05:06:17 GMT

Giving LLMs a personality is just good engineering by Sean

In other words, human-like personalities are not imposed on AI tools as some kind of marketing ploy or philosophical mistake. Those personalities are the medium via which the language model can become useful at all. This is why it’s surprisingly tricky to “just” change a language model’s personality or opinions: because you’re navigating through the near-infinite manifold of the base model. You may be able to control which direction you go, but you can’t control what you find there3.

What do social media companies fear

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 12:44:10 GMT

What Do Social Media Companies Fear? Time Management. - Cal Newport by Study Hacks

When you’re following an intentional schedule, your efforts are oriented toward goals that you find important. You also feel a satisfying sense of self-efficacy. These realities engage your long-term reward system, which can override the urges generated by its short-term counterpart, dissipating the drive for quick gratification from activities like glancing at your phone.

Birthdays and claude

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 22:08:54 GMT

Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Mastodon.

I am trying a new thing here. This is a meta beginning of sorts - a look behind the curtain if you will.

I usually start writing a NordLetter on a Saturday. I have a 2-3 hour window during which I write whatever I want to write. I upload the images on CloudFlare, then schedule the post on Buttondown, and finally post the NordLetter on my website.

It is hectic. Especially with the looming Sunday deadline. Sometimes I don't know what I want to say in advance. Which to be honest is most NordLetters. I don't like that pressure.

There is this newsletter I follow - Installer, among others, which has a section that lists out things their readers are into. The callout for that goes out every Thursday.

And so I thought, let's bring some professionalism into this. If they start drafting their newsletter on a Thursday, I can too.

And so, here we are.

While I was in India, and Prerna was the one dropping him at his päiväkoti, he was not crying. In fact, he would be laughing, and waving her goodbye.

I am not so lucky.

For most of last week, since I've returned, whenever I would drop Savya at his päiväkoti, he would cry. Which is not new. He used to cry while I was dropping him at his päiväkoti. The anomaly was these three weeks while I was in India.

Anyway, on Tuesday, as I went and dropped him at his daycare. I heard a cacophony of voices coming from inside the play area.

Savya.
Savya.
Savya.

The other kids in his Sade group, were calling out his name - laughing as they did so. As I put Savya down, the little babies started making their way out of the play area toward him. All the while laughing and calling Savya out.

Savya.
Savya.
Savya.

I smiled at that.

Savya was laughing that day as I left him with his teachers in the play area. I was laughing when I got in my car and drove away. Oh, the joy!

We had celebrated Savya's birthday on 18th Feb. Editions of NordLetter came and went, but I did not say anything about it. I guess that says as much about it as anything I could have said.

I love the decoration we did. It came out really well. One aspect of living here, and maybe even in India now, is that the decoration is still there on the wall. Every day I look at it and smile a bit. It was the same with the decoration for Prerna's birthday or mine. We have three Happy Birthdays up in our home now - two in the hall and one in this secondary bedroom/study-room/work-from-home-room.

There was good food, a lot of children - and I don't think I talked to but one person, the father of a friend of Savya's from his päiväkoti. There was a lot of shouting and running around. Plus the bound to happen tussle over who gets the new cool car.

I guess that's how children's birthday parties go!

It has gotten slippery here these past couple of days. We had great fluffy snow in the morning and then, it started raining in the evening. I had gone to pick up Savya and then thought to myself, this will be a mess soon.

And guess what, it was. It became. Whatever.

I took the long way out today when I was bringing Savya back from the daycare. Somehow I went down through the danger route. Not back though.

Allowed me to have a bit of a walk too.

Another thing I did over the weekend was that I used Claude Cowork to fix my Obsidian vault. Obsidian is where I write. Obsidian is where I think.

These were things that I had on my task-list for a few months. To be clear, I could have done these things by myself at some point. I was originally planning to do these things with Claude Code, but again never got around to it.

Claude Cowork provides a nice UI to Claude Code, perhaps making it a little more accessible. You basically point Claude to a folder and tell it whatever you want it to do.

Since, the Obsidian vault is basically just markdown files, it works like magic.

I asked Claude to:

Fix the metadata on all posts.
Create an archive from my daily notes and remove the daily notes after the fact.
Make it come up with any links from all the micro posts I keep writing.

It did those things surprisingly quickly. Next up I want to run some open source models locally. It is again something that I have been wanting to do since a long time. My Mac has just 16GB RAM though, so it would not be very good. It will just be a PoC of sorts.

Fun times ahead.

/five things to share

1. Speaking is quick, listening is slow - interconnected

The human uses voice and the computer uses screens. I mean, it’s rare that my phone is beyond peripersonal space so we can assume it is only rarely not present. A screen is way higher in terms of information bandwidth than listening. Let’s use it!

Super cool idea. We are always on our phones with us. We can use both - the screen and voice. The software needs to be smart though, to understand intent.

It makes sense why Jony and OpenAI are building their device.

2. Anthropic accuses DeepSeek and other Chinese firms of using Claude to train their AI by Emma Roth

DeepSeek, which caused a stir in the AI industry for its powerful but more efficient models, held over 150,000 exchanges with Claude and targeted its reasoning capabilities, according to Anthropic. It’s also accused of using Claude to generate “censorship-safe alternatives to politically sensitive questions about dissidents, party leaders, or authoritarianism.” In a letter to lawmakers last week, OpenAI similarly accused DeepSeek of “ongoing efforts to free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other U.S. frontier labs.”

I remember there being similar comments being made when Deepseek had first come out. But hey, you did not ask for permission when you trained on the world’s data.

All this fear mongering and for what?

Also, I’m in a weird position re: Anthropic. I use the Pro plan and am their customer. With the way things are you are bound to feel some sense of loyalty toward the company. You may feel the need to defend them. They’re better than OpenAI!

Not really.

The way these companies have built their tools is generally shitty. The products are useful though. Make of that what you will. I had read recently a post by Cory Doctorow which talked about this.

Refusing to use a technology because the people who developed it were indefensible creeps is a self-owning dead-end. You know what's better than refusing to use a technology because you hate its creators? Seizing that technology and making it your own. Don't like the fact that a convicted monopolist has a death-grip on networking? Steal its protocol, release a free software version of it, and leave it in your dust:

That’s where I stand. My dream is to be able to run these tools locally. I don’t want to send my data out to these companies.

3. Continue local sessions from any device with Remote Control - Claude Code Docs by

Remote Control connects claude.ai/code or the Claude app for iOS and Android to a Claude Code session running on your machine. Start a task at your desk, then pick it up from your phone on the couch or a browser on another computer.

Seems interesting. Not everything I have runs on a remote git repo.

I have ideas about how I want to use it for my obsidian vault. But I have not been able to make time to start playing with this there yet.

I have loved using CC on web. Asking it to do things as the ideas come to me, from wherever. This would be like that. So fun.

There are limitations - like not being able to start a new session, but that’s OK.

Before I let it lose on my obsidian vault, I need to have my backup strategy in place though.

4. Pluralistic: The whole economy pays the Amazon tax

Without billionaires who would happily support concentration camps in their back yards if it means saving a dollar on their taxes, fascism would still be a fringe movement.

Loved this line. All movements need money. That money must come from somewhere.

The crux of this article is this - Amazon forces sellers to raise prices everywhere, if they want to raise prices on Amazon, because of the cut Amazon takes.

5. Phantom Obligation

Email's unread count means something specific: these are messages from real people who wrote to you and are, in some cases, actively waiting for your response. The number isn't neutral information. It's a measure of social debt.

But when we applied that same visual language to RSS (the unread counts, the bold text for new items, the sense of a backlog accumulating) we imported the anxiety without the cause.

I have wondered about this myself. My current practice involves reading what I want to read and then marking everything else as read with prejudice. It’s not ideal. There is this feeling of guilt I have, of a task that needs to be done, quite like email.

There should be a different design, a different paradigm. Maybe I should write my thoughts in a place.

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.

Use voice and screen to talk to your computer

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 21:09:31 GMT

Interconnected, a blog by Matt Webb by

The human uses voice and the computer uses screens. I mean, it’s rare that my phone is beyond peripersonal space so we can assume it is only rarely not present. A screen is way higher in terms of information bandwidth than listening. Let’s use it!

Super cool idea. We are always on our phones with us. We can use both - the screen and voice. The software needs to be smart though, to understand intent.

It makes sense why Jony and OpenAI are building their device.

How to use CC to build a website

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 20:56:57 GMT

Proud Uncle Alert - Sabrina Feld by Brad Feld

This matches what I see building with Claude Code every day. The quality of the output tracks directly with the specificity of the input. “Make this look better” gives you something generic. “I want warm tones, editorial layout, and a buttercup accent color for hover states” gives you something that looks like a real design decision was made. Sabrina’s version of this was arriving at each session with strong opinions about what she wanted – gathered design references, prepared content, and a clear vision for the aesthetic.

Matches with how I used CC to build my own website - clear directions.

Microsoft launches copilot tasks

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 11:30:37 GMT

Microsoft’s Copilot Tasks AI uses its own computer to get things done by Emma Roth

Microsoft is previewing a new AI-powered “Copilot Tasks” designed to take care of busywork for you in the background, the company announced on Thursday. The feature takes the load off your device using its own cloud-based computer, allowing it to work across a browser and apps to handle a variety of jobs ranging from scheduling appointments to generating study plans.

Microsoft seems to build a worse version of the product leaders have built and launched. That should not be a surprise though. It’s their playbook. Given the size of the company and slow moving enterprises, they will have a comfy second place everywhere. I guess that’s a good place to be.

Anthropic refuses to acquiesce to Pentagon

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 10:56:44 GMT

Anthropic refuses Pentagon’s new terms, standing firm on lethal autonomous weapons and mass surveillance by Hayden Field

Amodei wrote in his statement that the Pentagon’s “threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request.” He also wrote that “should the Department choose to offboard Anthropic, we will work to enable a smooth transition to another provider, avoiding any disruption to ongoing military planning, operations, or other critical missions. Our models will be available on the expansive terms we have proposed for as long as required.”

Unexpected.

Phantom obligation

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 10:02:09 GMT

Phantom Obligation by https://indieweb.social/@tg

Email's unread count means something specific: these are messages from real people who wrote to you and are, in some cases, actively waiting for your response. The number isn't neutral information. It's a measure of social debt.

But when we applied that same visual language to RSS (the unread counts, the bold text for new items, the sense of a backlog accumulating) we imported the anxiety without the cause.

There should be a different design, a different paradigm. Maybe I should write my thoughts in a place.

Scheduled tasks in cowork

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:58:05 GMT

Schedule recurring tasks in Cowork | Claude Help Center by

Scheduled tasks allow you to delegate work to Cowork by creating tasks that run automatically on a recurring basis, or on demand. Instead of starting each task from scratch, you describe it once and Claude handles it on your schedule—delivering finished outputs like reports, briefings, and summaries every time.

I finally used cowork today to handle a few open tasks in my Obsidian vault. It handled all of them in one small hour long session.

There is one task remaining for my vault now, which is more creative and less fix the metadata type thing.

But this feature is awesome, in addition to the Claude remote work feature. I hope they release a CC web type Claude cowork tool. A mixture of these two abilities, basically.

There is an archival script that I had Claude create as part of my cowork session earlier, I could ask Cowork to schedule it.

The other more creative task is also something that I want to run a sort of weekly schedule, like a sprite that sits in my vault and surprises me. Let’s try to make that work.

The whole economy pays the Amazon tax

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 12:46:47 GMT

Pluralistic: The whole economy pays the Amazon tax (25 Feb 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow by Author Cory Doctorow

Without billionaires who would happily support concentration camps in their back yards if it means saving a dollar on their taxes, fascism would still be a fringe movement.

Loved this line. All movements need money. That money must come from somewhere.

The crux of this article is this - Amazon forces sellers to raise prices everywhere, if they want to raise prices on Amazon, because of the cut Amazon takes.

About Claude Remote Control

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 11:13:16 GMT

Continue local sessions from any device with Remote Control - Claude Code Docs by

Remote Control connects claude.ai/code or the Claude app for iOS and Android to a Claude Code session running on your machine. Start a task at your desk, then pick it up from your phone on the couch or a browser on another computer.

Seems interesting. Not everything I have runs on a remote git repo.

I have ideas about how I want to use it for my obsidian vault. But I have not been able to make time to start playing with this there yet.

I have loved using CC on web. Asking it to do things as the ideas come to me, from wherever. This would be like that. So fun.

There are limitations - like not being able to start a new session, but that’s OK.

Before I let it lose on my obsidian vault, I need to have my backup strategy in place though.

About Xbox leadership change

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 09:19:45 GMT

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma — "This team has brought it back before, and I'm here to help us do it again." By Jez Corden

"Right now, I need to learn, candidly. About the 'why' of these decisions, what we were optimizing for, and what the data says about the Xbox strategy today. That's the honest answer. I'm looking at lifetime value, not just what happened in a previous moment, or in short term efficiencies and things like that. The plan's the plan until it's not the plan."

Macbook Pros may get a Dynamic Island as well

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 08:45:30 GMT

Apple’s touchscreen MacBooks might also have a Dynamic Island by Jay Peters

The new MacBook Pros, which will come in 14-inch and 16-inch screen sizes, otherwise look “similar” to the current models, Gurman says, but Apple will be updating the Mac’s user interface to make it “dynamic” and work better for either touch or point-and-click. “For instance, if users touch a button or control, the interface will bring up a new type of menu surrounding their finger that provides more relevant options for touch commands,” according to Gurman.

Tempting.

I was considering getting a Mac Mini with more RAM to run the local models. But a MacBook makes more sense.

Anthropic accuses DeepSeek and other Chinese firms of using Claude to train their AI

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 09:50:13 GMT

Anthropic accuses DeepSeek and other Chinese firms of using Claude to train their AI by Emma Roth

DeepSeek, which caused a stir in the AI industry for its powerful but more efficient models, held over 150,000 exchanges with Claude and targeted its reasoning capabilities, according to Anthropic. It’s also accused of using Claude to generate “censorship-safe alternatives to politically sensitive questions about dissidents, party leaders, or authoritarianism.” In a letter to lawmakers last week, OpenAI similarly accused DeepSeek of “ongoing efforts to free-ride on the capabilities developed by OpenAI and other U.S. frontier labs.”

I remember there being similar comments being made when Deepseek had first come out. But hey, you did not ask for permission when you trained on the world’s data.

All this fear mongering and for what?

Not really.

The way these companies have built their tools is generally shitty. The products are useful though. Make of that what you will. I had read recently a post by Cory Doctorow which talked about this.

Refusing to use a technology because the people who developed it were indefensible creeps is a self-owning dead-end. You know what's better than refusing to use a technology because you hate its creators? Seizing that technology and making it your own. Don't like the fact that a convicted monopolist has a death-grip on networking? Steal its protocol, release a free software version of it, and leave it in your dust:

That’s where I stand. My dream is to be able to run these tools locally. I don’t want to send my data out to these companies.

Researchers make gel electrolyte breakthrough for Lithium ion batteries

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 21:21:25 GMT

'There’s still plenty of life left in lithium-ion battery technology': researchers make gel electrolyte breakthrough that could boost EV range and safety

Researchers at the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science claim to have developed a new gel electrolyte that will help stabilize anode-free lithium-ion batteries. This should improve the safety and longevity of this emerging battery technology, while presenting a cost-saving to manufacturers.

Range anxiety and battery longevity are real issues that need to be fixed. Any progress is welcome here.

Nothing Phone 4A renders

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 14:22:34 GMT

Nothing couldn’t wait to show off the Phone 4A by Jess Weatherbed

After teasing the upcoming launch of its midrange Phone 4A last week, Nothing has now revealed what the rear of the device looks like. An official render of the Phone 4A shared on X shows off the brand's familiar transparent-industrial stylings, alongside a new "Glyph Bar" lighting feature located to the right of the triple camera island.

Always tempted by the design of this phone. If I ever switch over to the Android side, I will be going with a Pixel though.

Azure AI

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 10:09:48 GMT

This is a certification quest for the next few months. The goal for this is the Azure AI 900 certification.

Primary source for learning is the Microsoft Learning Path with 14 modules for this path.

Log

2026-02-27 13:07 - Started with the module.

Write only code

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 05:39:51 GMT

Write-Only Code | Heavybit

Much as humans no longer shell into individual production servers, I believe we will develop similar practices around unread code. Over time, we will treat “humans had to read this to be comfortable” as a smell in our code generation pipeline, or as an explicit, expensive trade-off reserved for truly mission-critical subsystems. A natural outcome of this shift is a “code reading coverage” metric, tracked much like test coverage. What fraction of production code has actually been read by humans, partly as a safety signal, and partly as a metric teams deliberately and safely work to drive downward toward an asymptote.

Two sentence journals

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 16:16:42 GMT

Allow me to introduce the two-sentence journal by

I would aim to constrain each day's entry to one or two key things, and limit their expression to one or two sentences.

An interesting idea this. I am a believer in constraints. But not this constraint.

I do most of my writing in Obsidian. Space is not at a constraint here. I can write whatever, and however long I want to. And I do.

I do like the idea of diluting and thinking about whatever happened in the day though.

The limits of AI

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 14:37:59 GMT

The Limits of AI by Hugh Howey

The limit holding us back will never be the limits of AI, but rather the limits of our biology. Can we stop hurting ourselves and others? Can we expand our circles of empathy until they include every living thing and even most non-living things. Can we be satisfied with less than our neighbors if it means we all have the basic necessities of life? I’m an atheist, and the 10 commandments start off with some very weak sauce about fearing no other god and what not to believe, but even I can see that most of our problems would be solved if we lived by the rest of what’s there. No lying. No jealousy. No killing. We’ve had all the answers for thousands of years. We still can’t abide by them.

An anniversary visit to Porvoo

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 22:32:49 GMT

Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #93, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Mastodon.

The past week was a busy one. I travelled back on 13th Feb. 14th Feb was Valentine's. 15th was our 3rd anniversary. On 16th I rejoined the office - which had its own challenges. 18th was Savya's second birthday.

Busy week.

I wrote a valentine's day poem for Prerna on the flight back to Helsinki. We had just had a conversation about Valentines day in Finland and the poem just came to me.

We have been super busy with travel and Savya, so it was nice doing this thing for Prerna. We were so tired for our anniversary that we ended up cutting the cake on 21:30 on 15th. We had wondered out loud if we even needed to.

I think we do. We think we do. The small things matter.

a trip to Porvoo

For our anniversary, Prerna wanted a drive to Porvoo to visit the Runeberg home museum. And so, we did.

Throughout winter, I have been scared to drive on snow, so we haven't gone anywhere, outside of the trips to Espoo.

This was a nice drive. There were snow covered pine trees on both sides of the road. The road was cleared and dry most of the way to Porvoo. I have driven in snowy conditions once this season and that is not fun.

We had been to Porvoo in the summer of last year. We had visited the old town, had lunch at Cafe Kiva and picked some souvenirs at a trinket shop. It had been a fun trip.

We drove straight to Runeberg Koti, parked our car on the side of the road. Savya had fallen asleep on the way over, so we put him in his pram, and made our way to the house/museum.

about the Runebergs

Johan Ludvig Runeberg is Finland's national poet. He was a Swedish-speaking poet, writer and academic.

His most important work is Fänrik Ståls sägner (The Tales of Ensign Stål), published in two parts in 1848 and 1860. It's a collection of poems romanticizing the Finnish soldiers and common people who fought in the Finnish War of 1808–1809 against Russia. The opening poem, Vårt land ("Our Land"), became the Finnish national anthem. The way Runeberg portrayed ordinary Finns — farmers, soldiers, everyday people — as noble, brave, and deeply tied to their land gave Finns a sense of shared identity and pride at a time when Finland was a Grand Duchy under Russian rule.

Frederika Runeberg was his wife, and Finland's first female writer. She wrote novels while Johan wrote mostly poems. The famous Runeberg pastry is attributed to her, though her original recipe was lost through the ages. More people (like Prerna's Finnish teacher) now consider her to be more talented than her husband.

trip continued

The Runeberg Koti sits on Aleksanterinkatu in the old town of Porvoo, right in the heart of the charming wooden town district. We had visited nearby places in our last trip. Not that Porvoo is that large.

It is a wooden house, painted in yellow. There are accompanying houses and a garden that is open in the summers. The house has old furniture from Runeberg's time adorning it.

The wonderful staff at the Koti, helped us get in through the wheelchair entrance, the main entrance had the stairs and no lift or easy access. We bought the tickets at the museum shop, passed the main entrance, left our jackets, and shoes in the hallway and then were on our way.

The kitchen was small. There was an accompanying room/cabinet full of utensils from their time.

The fox skin chamber was next. There were ten fox skin pelts on the wall along with hunting guns. But that was not the interesting part for me. It was the three bookshelves full of books and papers.

Then came Frederika's room. This was her study. There was a bust of her child in a corner, among other paintings and objects.

Next was the massive hall. There were large paintings on the walls. The furniture was a wedding gift from Frederika's mother. So many years, and it was still here. There were more busts and sculptures in this room. The drawing room had these nice big leafy plants. All, cuttings from Frederika's plants.

We slipped into the bedroom next. The bed felt small, but we realised it had a construction which allowed to be elongated as needed. There was a mirror on the wall which allowed Mr. Runeberg to do bird-watching in his olden days.

The final two rooms were the guest room and the exhibition room. If the bedroom was red, the guest room was blue. It felt nicer than the bedroom. There was a display case that contained their personal items. The exhibition room had a table with many Finnish words and sentences. Prerna took what she knew and put it in one of the frames, while I sat at one of the chairs and looked at the books on the bookshelf.

All through the house, in almost every room, I found a table and a chair of some sort. I had fun imagining Mr and Mrs Runeberg sitting at the table, looking out, writing.

We bought a trinket from the store and were on our way out after that. We took a bite at Yatra - momos, samosa and a sizzler. We talked about what we had seen, how the home had felt. The food was OK. Most of my attention was on making sure Savya did not break anything.

Back in Helsinki, we went on a walk, came back and then cut the cake. I managed to get Savya to laugh and then click a picture. It came out nice!

How do you celebrate your anniversaries? If you have them, that is.

/five things to share

1. Japan Is What Late-Stage Capitalist Decline Looks Like by Ellie

Japan’s conditions create a map of where the U.S. is heading unless significant structural changes occur. We’re seeing intensified overwork culture in a stagnant job market, parasocial intimacy becoming a substitute for human connection, and convenience replacing domestic life. There is slow collapse of dating, shrinking fertility rates, and a pattern of young adults dropping out of social life under economic pressures.

Similar pressures exist in India as well, where all you’re doing is sleeping, getting up, going to work, coming back, sleeping and so on.

Finland is better at this. For now.

2. Memberships Year Seven, Nuclear Bombs, Solar Power — Roden Newsletter Archive by Craig Mod

Laptops kinda ruined this. I find it hard to focus on my laptop, the wondermachine it now is. So: I’m typing this on my “modern” word processor — the cheapest iPad Mini I could find, stripped of anything fun, with an Apple Bluetooth keyboard, in Obsidian. It’s been working pretty well for me. iPadOS is so bad (at this point they’d need to do a full reset to make it feel whole and / or interesting) that it makes doing any kind of “fluid computing” impossible. So it’s best to just stay in Obsidian and write.

I was thinking about this just yesterday as I was writing the last nordletter on my Mac. For the past month I had carried just my iPad and the Logi keyboard with me to India.

iPadOS is bad - just jarring enough, to break the flow, that you can continue to write. I find less desire to do something else on the iPad, not so on my Mac. It’s easier to find something to read, something to browse on the Mac.

3. The Only Moat Left Is Money - Elliot Bonneville by

Reach is also gravitational. Past some threshold it accumulates without you — posts find people, people find posts, the thing feeds itself. Below the threshold, identical effort produces nothing. Same quality, same idea, same work. Zero. Not because it was bad. Because you showed up on the wrong side of the line.

4. OpenAI’s first ChatGPT gadget could be a smart speaker with a camera by Jay Peters

OpenAI's first hardware release will be a smart speaker with a camera that will probably cost between $200 and $300, according to The Information. The device will be able to recognize things like "items on a nearby table or conversations people are having in the vicinity," The Information says, and it will have a Face ID-like facial recognition system so that people can purchase things.

Sounds like the iPad on a swivel home device Apple has been rumoured to be making since quite some time. Given Apple’s manufacturing chops they are more likely to turn it into a hit product.

5. PILK #3 | Facebook is absolutely cooked by

The first post was the latest xkcd (a page I follow). The next ten posts were not by friends or pages I follow. They were basically all thirst traps of young women, mostly AI-generated, with generic captions.

Not on Facebook, other than when I have to log in to get to the marketplace. I decided to scroll my feed after this. It is different from what this post talks about. Not heavy on AI generated slop, though IG is like that. Reels upon reels of AI generated story sort of things - of grandmas being eaten by tigers, that sort of thing.

The thing Zuck wants after all. And what Zuck wants, we all get one way or the other.

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.

A galaxy composed mostly of dark matter

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 10:07:17 GMT

A Galaxy Composed Almost Entirely of Dark Matter Has Been Confirmed by Jorge Garay

Astronomers have just identified what appears to be a cosmic anomaly: a faint galaxy with so few visible stars that, according to calculations, as much as 99.9 percent of its mass is dark matter. The remaining 0.1 percent is conventional matter.

Facebook is cooked

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 06:01:30 GMT

PILK #3 | Facebook is absolutely cooked by

The first post was the latest xkcd (a page I follow). The next ten posts were not by friends or pages I follow. They were basically all thirst traps of young women, mostly AI-generated, with generic captions.

The thing Zuck wants after all. And what Zuck wants, we all get one way or the other.

OpenAI could be building a smart speaker with a camera

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 17:35:00 GMT

OpenAI’s first ChatGPT gadget could be a smart speaker with a camera by Jay Peters

OpenAI's first hardware release will be a smart speaker with a camera that will probably cost between $200 and $300, according to The Information. The device will be able to recognize things like "items on a nearby table or conversations people are having in the vicinity," The Information says, and it will have a Face ID-like facial recognition system so that people can purchase things.

Sounds like the iPad on a swivel home device Apple has been rumoured to be making since quite some time. Given Apple’s manufacturing chops they are more likely to turn it into a hit product.

A city on mars

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 13:56:18 GMT

Review

When I picked the book, I was expecting this book to read a bit like a sci-fi book, perhaps like Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red/Green/Blue Mars series. I had expected the book to detail how a society may form on Mars, what technology could make it happen and so on.

I don’t know why I had that expectation.

This is a much more sobering read, shining a light on the current state of the field, and why wait and go big will be a better approach to take.

This book also seems like an excellent resource in case I want to write a sci-fi book with space travel elements in it at some point. The Weinersmiths have done the research. I could reference it.

The book takes you, the reader, through all the challenges in planning a long term future in space. The book is funny. The book is entertaining, though there were sections where I was mentally checked out.

The book talks about the different challenges - biological, physical, law related, and psychological to setting up a base in space - the moon, on mars, and maybe some moons which are absolutely shit.

Our best bet maybe lava tubes on the moon.

It was an entertaining read, though it put a damper on space travel and exploration for me.

Notes

Based on the current data, carefully selected personnel don’t seem to have any mental health issues. Astronauts though tend to lie.

This valentines day

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 14:39:14 GMT

You said, in Finland,
they celebrate friendships
as well, on this day,
in this week.

It’s love that they celebrate,
regardless of form.

Let us celebrate that,
this valentine’s.
Let us celebrate,
our friendship.

Friendships are different,
from what we share usually.
Friendships are lighter though.
Less burdensome.
Lesser expectations too.
They provide a similar relief though,
a similar sort of love.

Let’s celebrate that too,
this valentine’s.
Being able to talk,
without worrying too much.
Being able to laugh,
at mostly stupid stuff.
Being able to dance,
with or without the music.

Let’s celebrate it all.
Let’s celebrate our friendship,
this valentine’s day.

The only moat left is money

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 20:51:56 GMT

The Only Moat Left Is Money - Elliot Bonneville by

Reach is also gravitational. Past some threshold it accumulates without you — posts find people, people find posts, the thing feeds itself. Below the threshold, identical effort produces nothing. Same quality, same idea, same work. Zero. Not because it was bad. Because you showed up on the wrong side of the line.

Audible syncs ebook reading and audiobook listening to keep you focused

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 20:35:06 GMT

Audible syncs ebook reading and audiobook listening to keep you focused by Stevie Bonifield

On Wednesday, Audible launched a new "immersion reading" feature that could help readers concentrate on their audiobooks by allowing them to read along with the ebook version. While listening to an audiobook in the Audible app, users can tap the "Read & Listen" button above their book's cover art to see the text version of what they're listening to. As the audio plays, the text is highlighted in sync.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 out now

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 09:22:37 GMT

Introducing Claude Sonnet 4.6 by Simon Willison

Sonnet 4.6 has a "reliable knowledge cutoff" of August 2025, compared to Opus 4.6's May 2025 and Haiku 4.5's February 2025. Both Opus and Sonnet default to 200,000 max input tokens but can stretch to 1 million in beta and at a higher cost.

Japan is what late stage capitalist decline looks like

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 11:37:48 GMT

Japan Is What Late-Stage Capitalist Decline Looks Like by Ellie

Japan’s conditions create a map of where the U.S. is heading unless significant structural changes occur. We’re seeing intensified overwork culture in a stagnant job market, parasocial intimacy becoming a substitute for human connection, and convenience replacing domestic life. There is slow collapse of dating, shrinking fertility rates, and a pattern of young adults dropping out of social life under economic pressures.

Similar pressures exist in India as well, where all you’re doing is sleeping, getting up, going to work, coming back, sleeping and so on.

Finland is better at this. For now.

Fugitive Telemetry

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 13:52:45 GMT

Review

Fugitive telemetry is the sixth book in the Murderbot series. It’s not the sixth book in the timeline order, so it was a bit jarring to read.

It is a standalone murder mystery. Perhaps because I was reading it after some time - I had finished the fifth book in July of 2025, or because it was not the next book in the series, I did not enjoy it as much.

This book follows Murderbot on preservation station as they try to solve a murder. It is a novella - which is something I enjoy about these books. I enjoyed the twist at the end. The whodunnit of it all. Otherwise I would have rated it as not-for-me.

The ending elevated it though. I may have enjoyed it more had I been reading it in July.

Craig Mod on writing and memberships

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 09:17:48 GMT

Memberships Year Seven, Nuclear Bombs, Solar Power — Roden Newsletter Archive by Craig Mod

Laptops kinda ruined this. I find it hard to focus on my laptop, the wondermachine it now is. So: I’m typing this on my “modern” word processor — the cheapest iPad Mini I could find, stripped of anything fun, with an Apple Bluetooth keyboard, in Obsidian. It’s been working pretty well for me. iPadOS is so bad (at this point they’d need to do a full reset to make it feel whole and / or interesting) that it makes doing any kind of “fluid computing” impossible. So it’s best to just stay in Obsidian and write.

I was thinking about this just yesterday as I was writing the last nordletter on my Mac. For the past month I had carried just my iPad and the Logi keyboard with me to India.

Friends

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 21:21:10 GMT

Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #92, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Mastodon.

This one arrives a little later than usual. I was travelling back to Finland this week. And that has meant among other things, a lot of things to write about, but not that much time to write those things in. And so, here we are on the Air, at 22.46 on a Sunday. A Sunday that happens to be my 3rd anniversary.

I love you Prerna.

friends

We are a group of five friends. We were six in college, but then one went away and well what can you do.

What I try to do is call everyone of these people once a week - Saturdays usually. Usually one or two of these friends picks up and then we have a little chat.

After leaving college, we were lucky enough that all five of us were in the same city - Delhi - for a time. We would meet once every month at Sarthak's place or mine. We would sit, eat, talk, play some Counter Strike.

These meetings took time and effort to set up. We were all working now. I would get angry if someone was not able to make it. Eventually, I realised it did not matter. We all had our lives. We all had priorities. So, the thing we agreed on was this - we would have a meeting once a month, we would publish it, and then if you could make it, great, if not, then that was also fine.

That has been my principle for these calls as well. Great if you can make it. Fine if you can't. I will talk to whoever picks up.

Saurabh, the friend who got married now, was not in any of these calls since maybe the past two years. We would often talk about what was going on. If anyone knew what was going on.

Sarthak and I met him for a bachelor's of sorts a few days before his marriage. It felt as if we had just picked up from where we had left of. He was so happy, visibly so. I was so happy to share this space with them.

Uchit arrived from Japan on 8th. We met on 10th, a day before Saurabh's wedding reception in Delhi. On an unconnected note, receptions are boring. Nothing happens. You eat, drink and maybe dance. Have cocktail parties instead.

Back to Uchit. I am physically meeting Uchit after five years, maybe more. We talk on phone. But the stars never seemed to have aligned in the past. They did this time.

I had messaged Sarthak in advance that we will have a bonfire on his roof. A thing we used to do in winter months in Delhi. There are so many memories I have of these meetings.

So we did. We sat around a bonfire. And we talked. There was a nip in the air around us. But the fire provided the requisite warmth. And we were happy.

Someone said that we don't get to do this anymore. Maybe it was me. I don't have friends I can sit around a bonfire with. I don't have friends I can bare my soul to. And I miss that. I could talk about anything with these friends of mine.

And just for a little while, I was back in that little pocket of time, when I could. And it was pure bliss.

The return to Finland was a tense affair.

I had left home three hours before my flight. I should have kept more. The Indigo counter was full of people. I tried talking to some people, but they just said, they will call out when end time is near.

They did. My luggage was over limit. 32 kgs is the absolute maximum they will allow in planes. I had to do an emergency shuffle. I was sweating and angry. In the end I had to carry a bunch of books in my arms through immigration and security.

The flight was delayed by around 90 mins. Half of my layover was spent in the plane. I spent the rest rushing through the Istanbul airport. Thankfully, I did not have to go from F zone to A.

I landed in Finland around six in the evening. I got into a cab and was home by around 19:30. I changed, ate a little and was in the sauna by 20:00.

The sauna felt nice at the end of an approximately 16 hour travel.

It's nice to be back here. The snow just makes the dark months a bit brighter.

/five things to share

1. Stop generating, start thinking - localghost

In the wake of the Horizon scandal, where innocent Post Office staff went to prison because of bugs in Post Office software that led management to think they’d been stealing money, we need to be thinking about our software more than ever: we need accountability in our software.

Nice write up. I see the same points that I’ve seen elsewhere. I don’t think it’s the engineers driving this revolution though. It’s the business leaders doing that. There is a fomo in the industry - people are committed to AI without having any use case for it.

Regarding accountability it will fall on the reverse-centaurs, the people left to deal with the large amounts of AI generated work. Nobody will say Claude made a mistake, it’s the employees who made mistakes by not verifying what was generated. It will not be a great place, but we are barreling toward it.

2. How iPhones Made a Surprising Comeback in China by Zeyi Yang

But Apple’s product strategy wasn’t the only important factor here. The iPhone 17 was priced low enough to qualify for a massive electronics subsidy program launched by the Chinese government last year. To help stimulate the economy, Beijing spent some $43 billion subsidizing domestic purchases of electronics, appliances, and cars in 2025. Smartphones sold for less than 6,000 RMB (about $860) were eligible for up to a 15 percent discount. Apple listed the iPhone 17 in China for 5,999 RMB, ensuring price-sensitive buyers would be able to benefit from the government policy.

A combination of good product, subsidies by the government and people being in the upgrade cycle since their last phones were the iPhone 13 series.

3. Vibe coding Nothing’s apps is fun, until you try to make them useful by Robert Hart

The second issue is a potentially fatal hurdle for a project like this: me. I’ve been reporting on AI tools for years, and one pattern keeps repeating—no matter how capable a system is, the hardest part is knowing how to use it to its potential. I immediately ran into that using Nothing’s Essential App Builder. It seems very capable and has great potential, but I didn’t always know what I wanted, and when I did, I didn’t always know how to ask for it. An ecosystem built on vibes is a great idea, but sometimes vibes aren’t enough.

Good to know that there may yet be a future for us techies.

4. Pluralistic: Europe takes a big step towards a post-dollar world (11 Feb 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Once Trump tried to steal Greenland, it became apparent that the downsides of the dollar far outweigh its upsides. Last month, Christine Lagarde (president of the European Central Bank) made a public announcement on a radio show that Europe "urgently" needed to build its own payment system to avoid the American payment duopoly, Visa/Mastercard

5. Threads’ new ‘Dear Algo’ feature lets you tell the algorithm what you want to see by Jay Peters

To use the feature in a public post, type “Dear Algo” and then a description of what you want Threads’ algorithm to show you more of. Once you make your request, the change will stick for three days so you can see how it changes your feed. If you want to see more of the new content in your feed over the long term, interact with those posts.

It sounds like a good feature - a good use of LLMs. It is still opaque though.

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.

You can tell Threads what you want to see in your feed

sajal@sajalchoudhary.net (Sajal Choudhary) — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 03:52:54 GMT

Threads’ new ‘Dear Algo’ feature lets you tell the algorithm what you want to see by Jay Peters

To use the feature in a public post, type “Dear Algo” and then a description of what you want Threads’ algorithm to show you more of. Once you make your request, the change will stick for three days so you can see how it changes your feed. If you want to see more of the new content in your feed over the long term, interact with those posts.

It sounds like a good feature - a good use of LLMs. It is still opaque though.