What I'm up to - February 2023
Philip I. Thomas✨ What I've been up to
Hello from Cozumel, Mexico! It's 80° F here - a welcome break from the Chicago Winter.
Since last Summer, I've been taking a "solo week" trip every quarter as a creative recharge. This trip to Cozumel is one of these solo weeks, and I've been spending a lot of time in cafes exploring new Contraption Company projects. It's a ritual I plan to continue - I've already scheduled solo weeks over the next year to Copenhagen, Mexico City, And Tokyo.
Postcard continues to do well. I built new features and did a short interview with GoSolo.
Robin Sloan mentioned Postcard in his newsletter. I enjoyed Robin's book Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore while living in the San Francisco neighborhood where the story is set.
🤔 Things to share
- Articles: Nash Equilibria and Schelling Points. Underutilized fixed assets and how marketplaces inevitably shift from retail to professional sellers. The Digital Workplace Is Designed to Bring You Down. The uncovering of a real Tom Cruise-style dogfight between US and Soviet fighters during the Korean War. All of Bits about Money (like Money Stuff for financial systems).
- Books: Intrigued recently by the Nordics, I read every book by Kay Xander Mellish - even a guide to American culture for Danes (!).
- Trends: Starlink is popping up on Airbnb listings.
- Listening: Creativity by John Cleese. A 2019 interview between Lex Friedman and Donald Knuth (personal takeaway: seek simplicity in tools I build, but embrace complexity in tools I use).
- Fun fact: Many Russian submarines have a sauna.
- Apps : Obsidian replaced Notion as my personal organization tool. Quitter closes my calendar, messages, and email after 5 minutes of inactivity.
- Cool infrastructure : Chicago Deep Tunnel project.
- Coffee I'm drinking: Metric Costa Rica La Bandera Geisha.
📫 What I'm up to this month
- Writing a post about the AI hype cycle
- Launching some new Postcard features
- Researching online communities
- Prototyping a new project
📍 Where I'll be (Let me know if we overlap!)
- Feb 18-24: 🗽 NYC
Current office
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