Summaries
Formats: Summaries
- Culture
Theory vs. Reality: Manipulation through Media and Technology (January 2005, Emin Mahrt)
At 17 I wrote a school thesis on manipulation through media and technology. What I wrote back then, and what really happened since.
- Building
Sometimes the more things you add the smaller it gets
Twenty-one quotes from a talk about making things, and what each one means when you build a product
- Culture
The Crazy Picasso
A summary of a video on Paul Johnson's essay about Picasso, his cruelty to women and his family, and his huge output and wealth.
- Building
The 2020 investment protocol, a crisis management case study
My plan from day 12 of the 2020 lockdown, to buy companies for ten years and not panic in the crash
- Bitcoin
Lightning Network deep dive, architecture and implementation
A summary of a talk by Laolu "Roasbeef" Osuntokun on how Lightning channels, HTLCs and LND really work, and how Flare could scale routing.
- Science
Jim Simons: My life in Mathematics, finance, and Philanthropy
A summary of Jim Simons' talk at MoMath about math, code breaking, Renaissance Technologies, his five rules and the Flatiron Institute.
- Science
The mystery of the Simons Cone: The day geometry broke
Jim Simons tells how he found a shape in eight dimensions that uses the least area but isn't smooth, the Simons Cone
- Culture
Divine Principle: Theology and Controversies of the Unification Church
A summary of sources on Shinzo Abe's life and political legacy and on the history of the Unification Church, with two audio pieces.
- Culture
Radical Georgism
A talk led by a member of the Amoveo project about land value tax on a blockchain and why crypto might finally make Georgism work
- Bitcoin
The Medium of exchange era: Key takeaways from Lightning++ Berlin 2025
Day one of Lightning++ Berlin 2025. Bitcoin as money you spend, AI agents paying in sats, lighter watchtowers and BitVMX.
- Bitcoin
Michael Saylor: The Bitcoin treasury debate and the future of digital credit
Michael Saylor on What Bitcoin Did, about the fight over Bitcoin treasury companies and why he wants Bitcoin to be the base of digital credit.
- Culture
The Trump Doctrine and the fall of Maduro, a new era of gunboat diplomacy?
A summary of PLO Lumumba's take on Maduro's removal on January 3, 2026, which he calls the death of international law and the birth of a Trump Doctrine.
- Culture
The song that burned down a republic, the story of Fela Kuti's Zombie
In 1976 Fela Kuti released Zombie and laughed at the Nigerian army. The army answered with 1,000 soldiers. The story, the lyrics and the facts.
- Culture
The $40 Billion Secret, 9 Lessons from the Chocolate King Who Built an Empire in the Shadows
Michele Ferrero built a debt-free $40 billion empire with Nutella, Kinder and Tic Tac and never gave interviews. Nine lessons from his story, summarized
- Agents and AI
The AI Playbook: 9 Mental Models for Building in the Age of Intelligence
A summary of Andrej Karpathy's 3.5 hour talk on large language models, and 9 things founders can take from it.
- Bitcoin
Aave DAO's governance showdown: The fight for brand ownership and token alignment
Aave DAO votes on moving the brand, domains and GitHub from Aave Labs to the DAO. What the proposal says, who is for it, who is against it, and the drama.
- Bitcoin
Code is law vs. The $9.4M rescue: The Gnosis chain hard fork
Gnosis Chain hard forked to take back $9.4M stolen in the Balancer hack. Why people fought about it, who really decided, and what comes next.
- Bitcoin
The Aave governance crisis, a post-mortem of proposal 0xbc60
Aave Labs kept the frontend swap money, the DAO wanted the brand back, and then Labs pushed the vote alone. What happened and what it means for DAOs.
- Culture
Resident Advisor Exchange, an interview with Ricardo Villalobos (2012)
Todd L. Burns talks to Ricardo Villalobos for RA Exchange 100 about vinyl, the internet, parties, ECM, modular and staying innocent
- Agents and AI
Claude's Document of the Soul
Anthropic's soul document for Claude. A short TL;DR in plain words first, then the full text, from helpfulness and honesty to safety and Claude's wellbeing.
- Culture
Einstein & The Immigration and Naturalization Service of the United States
The Immigration and Naturalization Service of the United States, in cooperation with the National Broadcasting Company, has invited a number of…
- Culture
Predictive History, A Bullshit-Fact-Check by Venice
A professor on YouTube predicted a lot of today's Israel and Iran war a year ago. I asked Venice to check his claims point by point.
- Agents and AI
An Interview with Emil Wagner from Ape Unit Berlin about the Future of Software Planning with AI
I talk with Emil Wagner from Ape Unit Berlin about planning software when agents write the code. Milestones and goals first, tasks later.
- Payments
Pavel Matveev, co-founder at Wirex
A summary of Pavel Matveev's talk on mentors, co-founders, careful hiring, crypto cycles and how Wirex got big in Japan.
- Nuri
Nuri.com Brand Building by LIT Creative Berlin
What LIT Creative Berlin said in their video about building the Nuri brand, from the shift away from Bitwala to the name and what they learned.
- Culture
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Dar es Salaam in numbers. About 8 million people, the port that moves most of Tanzania's trade, traffic, floods, waste, crime and the cost of living.
- Bitcoin
Sascha Hanse on Protocols and their Importance for Society
Sascha Hanse on why protocols matter in decentralized networks, who they give power to, and how to design them simple and hard to attack.
- Bitcoin
The complexities of governance among humans, in blockchain and open source software development
My talk on governance in blockchain and open source. Deciding together is hard when nobody is in charge and miners, users and devs want different things.
- Culture
MrBeast’s Guide to Success in YouTube Production
A summary of the MrBeast production guide, from thumbnail and first minute to ownership, plus a Gemini script for a fair token launch.
- Bitcoin
Bonding curves, a new way to launch tokens and fund projects
Notes from a call in 2019. A bonding curve sets the token price by supply, rewards early buyers and keeps funding a project for as long as it runs.
- Bitcoin
The Amoveo community on futarchy, decentralization and real-world use
A summary of what the Amoveo community and its lead developer worked on, from futarchy and Verkle trees to a land registry and the DEX.
- Agents and AI
Coding with Cursor as Key Development Tool and the Role of AI in Coding by Sahil and Josh (Part 1)
Sahil and Josh on building with Cursor, Claude 3.5 and Tailwind. Faster coding, smaller teams, and why less context gives better answers.
- Agents and AI
AI Revolution: Eric Schmidt’s Insights on the Future of Technology and Global Competition
A summary of Eric Schmidt's interview on AI agents, big context windows, chips, energy, the US and China, jobs and misinformation.
- Culture
proud magazine Berlin Issue #1 summarized and interpreted by Claude Sonnet and written into a blog post by Claude Haiku
I fed the first issue of proud magazine Berlin through a gumloop.com flow. Claude Sonnet summarized it, Claude Haiku wrote the blog post.
- Agents and AI
Building a Custom GPT with Domain-Specific Knowledge: A Comprehensive Guide
A summary of a video on building a Zanzibar Insider GPT with GPT-4, by feeding it local knowledge, PDFs and voice recordings.
