The Proof Behind the Slogan
DeepSeek's harness has four words on the poster and a long paper behind it. The paper claims something much smaller, and much more interesting.
7 minute read
The Feeling of a Locked Door
AI made building your own tools nearly free — which quietly changed an old argument about what should be open.
11 minute read
The Fish Was Never a Fish: How to Read Zhuangzi Without Sinking Him
Daoism isn't passive, and 'non-action' isn't doing nothing. A reading of Zhuangzi's giant fish — and the craving that quietly blinds us.
12 minute read
How a Courier Knows Where to Run
I cheated in the last post — I said 'the Sea of Couriers' and waved my hand. This is what was inside the wave: an internet held together by a billion strangers each admitting they don't know.
15 minute read
The Art of Buying a Toaster
Someone clicks Buy on a shop website. Half a continent away, in a small office building, two roommates argue briefly and then ship a toaster. This is a story about what actually happened.
18 minute read
What a Switch Actually Does
I tried to set up Portainer behind a Cloudflare tunnel. The thing that broke wasn't the tool — it was every shortcut I'd taken to avoid actually learning how networking works.
18 minute read
Confucius and the Book of Changes: From Fortune-Telling Fiasco to Thinking Toolkit
How a modern skeptic, turned off by fortune-telling scams, found new respect for the I Ching thanks to one remark from Confucius
8 minute read
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Reading as a Mirror: Why Books Change Lives — and How Framing Shapes Everything You Feel
The same book can save one person's life and bore another to tears. Why? Because you don't read books — you read yourself through them. And the mechanism behind that reveals something deeper: the only way to change how you feel is to change how you see.
14 minute read
Where Meaning and Value Come From — When Logic Starts Questioning Itself
We spend lifetimes asking 'what's the meaning of life' but rarely ask where 'meaning' itself comes from. From evolutionary cognition to social needs, a dismantling of humanity's most fundamental concepts.
16 minute read
When Hustle Loses Its 'Why' — The Ordinary World and the Crisis of Meaning
A novel that moved millions made me realize a deeper problem: when we say 'keep fighting,' do we actually know what for? From emotional comfort to philosophical foundations, a journey into the roots of meaning.
15 minute read