31 May 2026 #misc
Big cities have “content” in odd places:
- A gummy bear in a wall
- A love letter in a metro wagon
- A motivational message in a bridge
Thanks to James’ new ways of storytelling, I learned the Internet, like a big city, has odd places for art too:
Google Docs.
They’re a corner of the internet away from social media, search engines, and AI.
They form a gray web: The Doc Web.
A term coined by Elan Ullendorff, originally in a Google Doc.
Join the Doc Web
And to practice my 10-idea list habit, here are 10 ways to adopt the Doc Web as a writer, solopreneur, or creative:
#1. A book:
Publish it by sharing a read-only public url.
If anyone wants to download it, they can create a copy.
#2. A landing page:
Use headers, bold, italics, underline and include a call to action on the last page.
#3. A micro-blogging platform:
Tweet by adding a timestamped paragraph at the top.
Share it with “commenters” permission and you’ll have replies.
#4. A poll application:
Want to collect questions for an AMA or Q&A session?
Share a document and ask people to leave one question per paragraph.
They can upvote a question by increasing its font size.
#5. A survey or questionnaire:
Share a document with your multiple-answer questions.
People answer with a “+”.
#6. A membership area:
Use your members’ email to give restricted access to a document with your exclusive content.
#7. A guestbook (a la Facebook wall):
In your blog, link to a public Document for anyone to sign it.
#8. A magazine or episodic publication:
Use a single document as the latest edition.
To release a new version:
- Make a copy of the last edition
- Overwrite the original content, and
- Link to the previous edition
#9. A bookmarking service (a la Delicious):
Whenever you find an interesting link, add it to a public document.
Keep it organized with an index on the first page.
Share it with friends.
#10. A forum:
Start each question on a new page.
Include the creator’s display name and timestamp.
Answer by adding your name and a timestamp before your reply.
Use comments to start threads.
To run your next membership or community, the Doc Web is all you need.
And to start a blog, forget about hosting and domains.
You already know what to use instead.
A Doc. Why not!
30 May 2026 #misc
Time for another blog challenge.
This time, Rishabh started one about AI.
Here are my answers:
How was your first experience with AI models?
I jumped to try ChatGPT when it was announced.
But since it was still in beta, it was always too busy.
Then in 2024, I tried Copilot for coding.
First, it felt like, “hey this is cool.”
Weeks later, it was more like “this is dangerous.”
That’s my AI coding journey in two lines.
Do you use AI or are you completely against using it?
Here’s my full statement for AI.
But in a nutshell:
For coding, I use it for the boring and repetitive parts.
I don’t use AI inside my coding editor, but in a browser tab.
For writing, I want AI and its tentacles away from my writing…except for proofreading.
Do you have any preference among different models, for example Claude vs ChatGPT? If yes, how do you choose?
I never wanted to create an account for ChatGPT, especially after the news that your ChatGPT chats were somehow indexed. I use Copilot on Edge.
What aspect of AI models do you like and what do you not like?
They feel faster than Googling.
But they sound helpful and confident, even generating nonsense.
That’s the real danger: blindly trusting whatever they throw up.
We need real skills first before leveraging AI.
How do you feel about AI generated images? Does it annoy you if someone uses them in a blog post?
The first time I tried AI was to play with image generators.
Since I’m not naturally talented at drawing, I use them here and there.
When I syndicate my coding content on dev.to, I generate funny cartoons with cats as covers.
It’s annoying when covers all look the same.
Same colors, layout, and fonts. Eeewww!
I find it more annoying when a post starts with “In the fast paced world of…“
That makes me roll my eyes and stop reading.
Internet is flooded with AI slop now, full of generated text, images, audio and videos. How do you filter it from authentic human creation? Do you have a strategy?
My phone time has reduced my content consumption.
So I’m more conscious of what I read and watch.
These days I’m more into blog aggregators and bookmarking social media profiles instead of scrolling feeds.
Are you hopeful for a better future with A.I. or a dystopian one?
It’s hard to be hopeful when CEOs use AI as the goat for layoffs.
But overall as humanity, we’ve always progressed.
With AI, it isn’t the exception.
In any case, I’m doubling down on my creative side to thrive in the AI era.
If you’re curious, here are my answers to the (Bear) blog questions and the ten pointless facts challenges.
29 May 2026 #mondaylinks
Hey there.
Yesterday marked the 7-month anniversary of Street-Smart Coding, my first oficial book. Wow!
It taught me a lot about writing and marketing. “Do good work and people will come” isn’t 100% true. It should be “do good work and tell people about it.” That applies for a book, a SaaS, or a job promotion.
If you haven’t already, grab your copy of Street-Smart Coding here to build future-proof coding skills.
And as usual, here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week:
#1. Claude isn’t your software architect (8min). It fails at the #1 task of an architect: saying no. Use it for implementation instead.
#2. Deitel’s C/C++ was the first technical book I studied. In college, I devoured one about Vim and RegEx, learning by typing out examples. But these days, it seems nobody opens technical books anymore (5min)
#3. At the last Google I/O, they pushed AI snippets harder. The search engine feels dead. If you don’t want AI in your search results, here are 6 alternative search engines (7min)
#4. If you’ve ever had bad interview experiences, you’re not alone. Here’s someone’s worst job interview (4min). Quick tip: Keep your answers work-related.
Last week, I didn’t write much about coding. But in case you missed it, I wrote about 7 random but interesting ideas I found (2min) and my notes from Derek Sivers’ Useful But Not True (2min), totally recommended if you want a book that makes you think.
(Bzzz…Radio voice) This email was brought to you by… My Gumroad store where you can find free and premium books and courses to level up your coding skills and grow your software engineering career.
See you next time,
Cesar
28 May 2026 #misc
Inspired by Herman’s idea of resurfacing old posts, here are some of my old posts on note-taking:
#1. Back in 2020, I learned about the Zettelkasten method.
I was so intrigued that I read How to Take Smart Notes, probably the most popular book on the subject.
#2. Being a plain text lover, I started my own perverted digital version.
Instead of using separate “literature” and “main” notes, I kept them in the same file.
I realized I had notes of books I didn’t remember reading.
I was collecting notes without purpose. Just a hoarder.
Eventually, I stopped using the method.
#3. After learning about being an Idea Machine, I ditched my second brain and started to write 10 ideas after reading a book.
#4. More recently, as an experiment, I decided to start a physical Zettelkasten.
As a creative constraint, I considered writing a book only from my notes.
#5. Looking for a how-to book, I found How to Make Notes and Write.
A simpler approach: two types of notes—source and point—focused on writing as output.
27 May 2026 #misc
Daily blogging gives you a time capsule.
After 500 daily posts, I can start revisiting any date and see my thoughts:
#1. One year ago, I wrote my notes from James Altucher’s Skip the Line.
It debunks the idea of 10,000 hours for mastery.
My favorite learning strategy is the 10,000 experiments rule.
Instead of counting hours, run experiments:
Quick and cheap actions that teach you something.
With that idea in mind, I ran my February book experiment.
#2. Two years ago, I wrote about my experience applying to FAANG.
After a layoff, I desperately applied to a big tech company, despite rejecting the idea of joining Silicon Valley.
Overconfidence and poor preparation led to rejection.
It hurt then, but it became material for future writing.
If you’re curious, here’s what happened on my blog around Feb 2025 and Oct 2025.