14 Aug 2026 #mondaylinks
Hey there.
Here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week:
#1. Too Long; Didn’t View, the AI meeting notetaker, left over 100K meetings in the open. Here’s the full disclosure (8min). Someone who vibe-coded an app forgot to harden it.
#2. Just in case, AI finally takes over our jobs… Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer’s (7min).
#3. Need a rule to reduce your phone use? Don’t use it while you poop (3min).
#4. Want to become a thought leader on LinkedIn? Here’s the LinkedIn CringeBot 3000. “Transform any topic into peak LinkedIn cringe.”
And in case you missed it, I wrote on my blog about mentors and role models (2min) and my rule for reading translated books (2min).
(Bzzz…Radio voice) This email was brought to you by… Street-Smart Coding Manifesto. A case against syntax obsession. Because real impact comes from skills outside your IDE.
Keep coding smart,
Cesar
13 Aug 2026 #misc
I recently watched Codie Sanchez’s video on 10 upgrades to make once you have more money. It reminded me of a 10-idea list I wrote. Here it is.
- Healthcare. No more ER waiting lines.
- Shoes, mattress, and chair. No more back pain.
- Diet and food. No more cheap fast foods.
- Library. No more ebooks or pirated books.
- Dedicated reading room. No more reading on the couch.
- Air conditioning in common areas. No more heatwaves in summer.
- Workspace. No more virtual backgrounds hiding mess in meetings.
- Home workout equipment. No more waiting for machines at a gym.
- Hire a virtual assistant. No more unpleasant tasks.
- Accountant and financial advisor. No more taxes.
12 Aug 2026 #wellness
My days feel different when I start with email, book sales, or social media.
Daniel Miessler wrote in Creativity vs Consumption:
If there’s one metric to watch for managing your happiness level, it’s Creativity vs Consumption.
After a 1-week detox, I learned screens don’t energize me, even when used for inspiration.
To put limits on my consumption time:
- I set a timer for 15 minutes to read blog aggregators and news
- I have an alarm to signal the end of my working day
- On most Sundays, I go analog
Daniel’s line reminds me of Derek Sivers: stop consuming for the rest of the year and start creating. Because we’re born to create. And the busiest minds are the happiest.
Writing is my favorite way to create and the one I recommend in 10 simple ideas that changed my life
11 Aug 2026 #misc
A friend’s WhatsApp status showed a tech YouTuber giving him a warm shoutout.
It made me think of my heroes and mentors in my coding and writing career.
#1. I’ve had role models, but I’ve never called them mentors. Someone you want as a mentor is usually too busy to accept the title.
#2. At one of my early jobs, I worked next to my team architects. One of them helped me become a senior coder. Since then, I consider him a mentor.
#3. If finding a mentor seems hard, books are the best mentors. 500 books equal a good mentor.
#4. Even if alive, imagine your mentor is already dead. How would you learn from them? For my writing career, I’ve binge-watched and read James Altucher, one of my distant mentors.
#5. Make your mentors ageless. Try to learn from everyone and anyone.
If you’d like to learn from my journey, my books are a way to have me as your mentor. Find them here.
10 Aug 2026 #books
Being a bilingual speaker, Joel wrote about his struggle to read books and their translations:
I just can’t decide what to do when it comes to translated works at all. Be it old books in English translated to Spanish—or modern ones to be fair. And what about Spanish books that I could read in English, or picking between Spanish and English for books that are in a completely different language?
I’ve had the same struggle, so I came up with a reading rule:
Read non-fiction books in their original language, but fiction in my native language.
Non-fiction is a piece of cake. Writers want to get a point across without showing off about their rich vocabulary or literary devices.
That’s precisely what makes fiction challenging.
The other day, I read Angels and Demons in English to study suspense, flashbacks, and cliffhangers. I had to read it twice. The first time I underlined unknown words and guessed their meaning. Then, I revisited it with a dictionary. My copy ended up full of notes and folded corners.
I bothered to read it twice because my goal was to dissect the writing. But when reading for fun, to replace my doomscrolling, I want to enjoy the story, not stop every other sentence to look something up.
Being a bilingual speaker, I translate my own books. And I end up with slightly different books than the original versions. Find my books and their Spanish translations in my Amazon page. Books on coding and personal growth that respect your time.