Helium

Throughout my years of using computers, I have tried many browsers. Nowadays, I always find myself using Helium. It checks many of my boxes:

• vertical tabs
• split view
• good ad-blocking
• natively handles bangs
• minimal layouts for maximal screen real estate usage
• chromium based

“best privacy and unbiased ad-blocking by default. no adware, no bloat, no noise. made for people, by people.”
— Helium Team

And it’s open source. Everyone I’ve convinced to try Helium has loved it. I also recommend Zen. I daily drove it for over a year after Arc’s shift in direction, and it was a good experience, despite not being chromium based. My slight disdain for non-chromium browsers is worthy of its own post. Anyways, Zen has tons of customization and what they call “tweaks”, and it checks many of my boxes too. Too bad it’s not Chromium based.

Ghostty

Ghostty feels instantaneous. If you’re a professional developer logging multiple hours a day in a terminal, that reduction in micro-latency actually reduces brain friction. It’s fast, native, and feature rich. I enjoy the raw speed of GPU acceleration while also having the native feel of a high quality macOS or Linux application. I have tried to optimize my development environment for the best possible feedback loop, and Ghostty furthers that goal. It’s also the perfect home for my Neovim setup.

Zsh & Oh-My-Zsh

I have zero quarrels with Bash, I’m actually quite fond of its’ creator, Brian Fox. But for the past three years or so, I’ve been using Zsh (pronounced zee-ess-eight-ch, argue with the wall) and never seriously considered daily driving anything else. Although I do hear good things about the Fish shell, so maybe that’ll be the next shell I shill. Zsh’s enhanced autocomplete, vast plugin ecosystem thanks to Oh-My-Zsh, and improved history are just no-brainers for me.

Feel free to checkout my .zshrc file, I am very proud of my aliases, which are designed to relieve developers of excessive keystrokes and spare their future wrists of some pain. There are also some fun touches, like Interstellar quotes that greet you on every new terminal window.

Tmux/Oh-My-Tmux

Tmux is already great. Oh-my-tmux makes me love it even more. It has a nice out of the box polished look and powerline styled prompt, with a great default config. Once you start using tmux, the idea of having to manually re-open your project tabs every session becomes unthinkable.

GPT 5.4

For coding, I have preferred OpenAI’s models for a long time now. I’ve always gotten the best outputs when using the GPT models, and Codex is great too. Try using Wisprflow or another dictation tool to prompt your AI, it feels more way natural and intuitive.

For my day-to-day personal life AI needs, I typically find myself reaching for Google’s Gemini, as it’s ability to access the entire Google Workspace suite is incredible.

Raycast

Once you try Raycast, you’ll never use Spotlight on a Mac ever again. It’s faster, more tailored for powerusers, and can also just get out of the way and work.

The custom keybinds changed my entire workflow. At all times, I can access my terminal with Shift + ⌘ + 1, browser Shift + ⌘ + 2, and IDE Shift + ⌘ + 3. No more ⌘+Tab’ing to cycle between the many applications I may have open at any given time.

Like I said earlier, I try to eliminate as much friction as possible. I also love having a color picker, clipboard history, or AI prompting just one ⌘ + Space away, plus there’s a ton of other extensions I haven’t even mentioned.

Fedora & macOS

I daily drive my MacBook Pro (M4 Pro 24GB RAM) for work or any side programming work, which is still running macOS Sequoia (I’m holding out on updating to Tahoe and it’s Liquid Glass as long as possible).

My homelab is currently built on top of the Fedora Linux distro, frequently getting SSH’d into for more computing power, self-hosted LLM’s with Ollama, self-hosted cloud storage using Immich and Nextcloud, and my glorious media server with Jellyfin.

I highly recommend getting into self-hosting, and more specifically setting up your own media server using either Plex or Jellyfin. If you already have one, checkout Tailscale as well.

Berkeley Mono

Yes. I paid $75 for a font. But for me personally, it’s worth every penny. It’s a beautifully crafted typeface, one that I enjoy looking at for long periods of time, as it has great readability and evokes the warm and fuzzy feeling of interacting with vintage technologies that I personally love. Berkeley Mono satisfies me in all the right ways. I mean, just look at it:

Notion & Google Keep

I’ve fiddled with plenty of solutions for note taking. Lots of them I’ll bet you’ll just find yourself wasting more time setting up a system that “feels productive”, more than it actually is. This meme sums it up rather well:

Over time, I’ve learned that the best solution for notes is the one that satisfies these two conditions:

• low friction for use
• you'll actually use it

Personally I landed on Notion, as it solves all of my current use cases. And I’ve stuck with it. Depending on your needs, Apple Notes may be the best solution. Don’t overcomplicate this, or try to “productivity-maxx” your note taking systems, it’ll turn into more work than it’s worth.

Although recently I have dabbled with Google Keep, as Gemini can interact with the Google Workspace suite and it makes my life a hell of a lot easier. Being a literal couple clicks away from converting a todo list I dictated on the way home, to automatically created calendar events based on importance & urgency in just seconds is amazing. That system I do recommend you try out.

Bitwarden/1Pass/ProtonPass

Humans are notoriously bad at creating–and remembering–truly random strings of characters. That’s why password managers are the single most important tool for the average person to secure their digital life.

Whether it’s Bitwarden, 1Password, Proton Pass or even Apple Passwords, let the tools generate a strong and secure password for you, or use a strong client side password generator (like this one I created), and make your accounts more secure.

You should also be using two-factor authentication as well.

Safe Password Generator

The most important factor in password security is length, as it exponentially increases the number of possible combinations an attacker must test in a brute force attack.

Leading organizations like the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommend a minimum length of 16 characters or more, to remain sufficient against advanced, modern attack vectors.

I built a password generator that uses 3x that requirement, following a philosophy of “security through over-engineering” in order to provide the highest practical level of entropy and future proof credentials.

Always use a password manager with this tool.

Brain.fm

It seriously works. Whenever I want to focus and get some deep work done, I reach for Brain. Here’s a 30 minute focus track, similar to what I use for Pomodoro sessions.

YouTube

It’s easily one of the best tools for continuous learning. Whether it’s deep diving into a new framework or keeping up with industry trends, these are some of the channels I recommend that consistently provide high signal content.

• The Programming Podcast – Leon and Danny are the best. On the Programming Podcast they frequently travel through “Gem City”, dropping the best knowledge on how to succeed in the tech space today, while also keeping you up to date on the software engineer space in general. Check out 100Devs as well, it’s an amazing program and community.
• Lex Fridman – Lex brings on a diverse list of guests (many of them being experts in their respective field), oftentimes having very long form conversations with them about tech, or the future of humanity from both technical and interesting persepectives. You can tune in and hear deep conversations on tech with DHH (creator of Ruby on Rails), or my favorite episode so far, a conversation with the US’s most wanted cybercriminal Brett Johnson. I also enjoy his interviews with tech CEO’s and with those on the frontier of AI.
• Theo – Opinionated deep dives on modern software engineering, based on his experience and expertise. All wrapped up in an approach that includes no nonsense and just a bit of fun controversy at times.
• Syntax – Wes, Scott, and CJ do a great job of blending fun and technical expertise into one. They use their real world experience to weigh in on trending tools and frameworks, and also use their skills for fun challenges and games that scratch an itch many dev channels do not. The guys over at Syntax provide both a fun and insightful high level perspective on web development.

Serato

It’s the industry standard for a reason. I’ve used variations of Serato software for 10+ years, starting with Scratch Live and Itch, to now Serato DJ Pro. Nothing else comes close. If you are serious about DJ’ing, use Serato. You’re welcome.

If you have been on Tech Twitter (I’ll probably never call it X) for the past 6 months, you’ve probably consumed enough dystopian level rhetoric to fuel a minor manic episode. Developers left and right are screaming to the sky about artificial intelligence replacing their livelihoods completely. Why? Let’s talk about it.

On one hand, I find it completely fair that people are skeptical about the future of their careers. It’s natural. Since that is how they provide for themselves and their loved ones, they’d be fools not to stay up to date with industry trends. And there are many, quite honestly, amazing tools out there that are free for use and can provide an unimaginable amount of value in the right hands.

On the other hand, why are so many software engineers making it seem like they are the ones in the most danger, and that this has never happened before? It’s a classic pattern throughout history: every time a “job killing” tool arrives, it actually ends up raising the floor of what a single person can achieve.

We move from being the engineer of the work to being the orchestrator of the work in many capacities. If the “AI is the end” crowd were around for the last two centuries, they’d have run out of breath a long time ago. Let’s explore some disruptions that were supposed to leave us all in the breadlines years ago.

The Carpenter vs the Saw

Back in the 1800s, building a house meant every piece of wood was to be cut by hand. It was backbreaking, slow, and prone to human error. You fast forward to circular and miter saws, and now carpenters stopped spending 40% of their days on tedious grunt work and instead spent more time building more complex, ambitious projects. Did carpenters disappear? No.

Architects vs CAD

Ask an older architect about “the good old days”, and you’ll hear about their world of tactile precision and physical gravity that today’s digital native designers might find tedious.

In the 1950s, drawing was a full body experience. The smell and feel of cedar pencils, ammonia from blueprint machines, the satisfying slide of a heavy parallel bar or the precision of a solid brass drafting compass. (That experience compared to the roars of an overheating Windows machine, does seem quite lackluster though)

They might miss the “think twice, ink once” mentality–because making changes was difficult, architects spent more time mentally resolving a building before a single line was drawn–today it’s easy to iterate 100 versions of a floor plan in an hour.

You may hear horror stories of an ink blot ruining weeks worth of work. Then CAD, Revit or Rhino arrives and offers unmatched speed and complexity, and architects lose the human printer aspect of their day.

Today one architect could design a skyscraper that would have required a room of 50 people in 1950. We didn’t get fewer buildings; we got better, more technical, and more artistic ones.

Programmers vs Compilers

In the early days of computing and programming, engineers didn’t code. Instead, they toggled switches or used punch cards to speak directly to the hardware in binary or Assembly. Then, Grace Hopper–the legend she is–struck gold and developed the first operational compiler, the A-0 System, which translates mathematical notation into machine code. Following that up with FLOW-MATIC in 1958, which is the first programming language to use English like syntax, making programming far more intuitive and efficient.

Her work fundamentally changed how programming was approached, and machines could now understand human language. Odds are, there were hardcore Assembly programmers still thinking that punch cards were the only viable option and that “real programming was dead”. While I do acknowledge the idea that there would’ve been some truth in saying that, the slow adoption and hesitancy as an industry would’ve unncessarily halted innovation.

Fast forward to the development of higher level languages like C, then Java, then Python and boy those Assembly and COBOL diehards were probably clutching whatever pearls they had left. But instead of the industry dying, the abstraction allowed us to build the internet, mobile apps, and train the AI itself that scares so many today.

By making coding “easier”, we made the world run on software. I’ve spoken with developers who were well into their careers when more and more no code tools were released. People were worried and saying the jobs were gone then too. Just think how ridiculous it would sound today if someone told you Wix was going to remove the need of having great web development teams, or a large amount of web developers at all.

The storm feels scary because these tools are new, but history doesn’t suggest we are being replaced, we are being upgraded. The core skills of a great engineer remain invaluable:

• logical and critical thinking
• problem solving
• passion for building
• attention to detail

AI will augment these skills, not replace them. If you are a builder, someone who uses whatever tools around them to solve a problem for themselves/their company/the world, this is your time to shine. Innovation always comes with a price, and we’ve seen it many times in the past.

The Safe Job Delusion

Let’s be honest. In this world where AI is capable of replacing a massive amount of jobs, software devs are probably amongst the last to actually see true extinction. It seems people are forgetting that enterprise is typically slow when it comes to implementing cutting edge technology, and I find it quite safe to say that the general public will be even slower than that in its’ adaptation.

In this imaginary land where all jobs are replaced by AGI and robotics, what jobs are actually safe? I challenge you to take the idea a bit further. If we continue this line of thinking about AI replacing dev jobs completely, it only makes sense that you also believe that eventually most careers are gone as well. If the people with the actual technical capacity to maintain, innovate, and build these systems are not safe, then everyone else is doomed.

Let’s say the infrastructure for robots was ready today, and we replaced all the essential careers the world has depended on, what’s to say that general society would accept it?

We could have fully replaced cashiers with self checkout machines years ago. Why haven’t we? You have to properly handle theft, system errors, or even the elderly not knowing how to operate the system. As we’ve known for years now, cutting edge software still needs to have practicality.

We already have the power today for AI assisted brain surgery, and if not yet then soon will have full AI powered robotic surgeries as well. Are you putting your child’s life in the hands of experimental technology? (It will take many years for the general notion of these systems to not be experimental)

Let’s say the boiler in someone’s home is malfunctioning. Do you think the average person is going to call the company who can have a AI robot technician come out in a full-self-driving Tesla (the majority of people are still cynical and skeptical about this too) at 4am, or would they wait the extra ~12 hours for the tech with 10 years of experience to come out?

I’d argue the average person would elect to wait for the human to come out to their home, because like I mentioned before, the convenience of the robot is great and all but one error is all it takes to make a possible simple fix, a huge fix. The amazement and convenience of a machine is great until a hallucination becomes a house fire, and you lose what’s most important to you.

Do people seriously think that as large of an industry as artificial intelligence is & will grow to be, that governments will not interfere with it? I could easily see a world where if companies choose to do massive layoffs and replace their engineering teams with AI, that there could be some serious regulatory friction by way of taxes or fines.

In lots of discussions on the impact of AI and its’ future, I don’t think the economy is touched on enough. Governments are not going to let AI be the downfall of life as we know it. More powerful models and tooling will be gatekept from the average consumer and companies, the average cost-of-use will eventually dramatically increase and the market itself will see a rise in demand of human content and interaction.

It is after all, in a countries’ best interest to keep unemployment low, and I believe there will always be a demand for human based creativity and innovation. I doubt the world will just openly and happily accept the fallout of society and rush to replace all careers ASAP. iRobot is not happening any time soon.

A Reality Check

2026 makes it the fourth year I have heard the idea that developer jobs are done. Please. Stop. Overreacting. Programming stretches far wider than web development, which is primarily where these current models excel anyway. While AI is a powerful tool for developers, it isn’t without it’s growing pains, and as it moves from novelty to infrastructure, several societal concerns arise.

There are issues with copyrighting and the data these models were trained on. As of today, the fuel for these models is human generated data–books, art, and the very code you write–and the fair use vs theft argument is a massive legal and ethical gray area. Is using copyrighted work for training “transformative” or just unlicensed copying? Depends on who you ask. Some could easily say yes, and others could say the models aren’t copying materials and instead are learning, referencing and understanding them like you or I would.

AI is incredibly thirsty. Training a large model isn’t just a software task, it’s a heavy industrial process too. By the closing of 2026, data centers are expected to consume over 1,050 terawatt-hours of electricity. That’s roughly the equivalent to the energy needs of Japan.

Keeping thousands and thousands of GPUs from overheating requires massive amounts of water. Estimates suggest AI could be responsible for withdrawing up to 6.6 billion cubic meters of water by 2027.

Dan Vega shared some thoughts about AI on Twitter recently:

I’ll be honest, as someone who creates videos and courses as part of my job and something I genuinely enjoy doing, I have real anxiety about the future of that too. Are developers still watching long form content when AI can answer questions on demand? Analytics don’t lie and the landscape is shifting.

Let’s be clear: the growth in capability and technical knowledge of artificial intelligence does not remove the human desire for connection. We are nowhere close to AI understanding humans better than humans. It means something to hear someones story, to see their journey, and to see their humanity. Humans are social creatures by nature, and that will not change within any of our lifetimes. While AI is a powerhouse at pattern recognition and understanding systems, it still lacks the accountability and contextual nuance that remains with humans.

So, how about we take a step back, take a deep breath, and acknowledge the reality of the current day and future. Instead, we should spend the brain power figuring out how to wield this incredible new power. The developers who learn to effectivelty partner with AI, who embrace it as a force multiplier, will be the ones who define the next era of innovation.

The format will be: the quote, who gave it, when I came across it and some of my personal favorites will be in bold. Anything underlined, is a link redirecting you to where I saw the quote.

If you have any that you believe deserve a spot on this list, please share them with me here or send it in an email here. Lastly, if any quote deeply resonated with you, I’d love to hear about it so please let me know :)

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.
— Vivian Greene · 04/06/26

Cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection to think: no matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.
— Brené Brown · 04/05/26

Comparison is the thief of joy.
— Theodore Roosevelt · 03/04/26

First impressions last. If you start behind the 8 ball, you’ll never get in front.
— Harvey Specter · 02/27/26

Embarrassment is an underexplored emotion, go out there and make a fool of yourself.
— Austin Butler · 02/21/26

Extreme results require being extreme.
— Kevin Naughton Jr. · 02/18/26

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.
— Corrie ten Boom · 02/16/26

Time is the only thing we cannot create, but we can change how it feels.
— Bradley · 02/13/26

Bigger dreams call for healthier habits and healthier habits require more self discipline.
— ??? · 02/12/26

I don’t know if you get to live more than once but if you live right the first time, once is enough.
— Danny Thompson · 02/11/26

One who looks around him is intelligent, one who looks within him is wise.
— Matshoma Dhliwayo · 02/11/26

We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.
— Anaïs Nin · 02/11/26

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
— Buddha · 01/28/26

Measuring programming progress by lines of code is like measuring aircraft building progress by weight.
— Bill Gates · 01/17/26

Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live. Code for readability.
— John F. Woods · 01/04/26

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.
— Charles R. Swindoll · 01/04/26

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.
— Robert Frost · 01/01/26

Turning worries into actionable steps can truly transform our daily lives. By identifying which concerns are within our control and separating them from those that aren’t, we free up mental space for productive thinking.
— Joseph Vale · 12/10/25

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
— Chinese Proverb · 10/10/25

Many inexplicable feelings of depression, rage, and anxiety are actually reactions to hidden false beliefs.
— Martha Beck · 06/16/25

But you can always, no matter what your circumstances, find and follow it yourself.
— Martha Beck · 06/02/25

Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. To know all is to forgive all.
— Dale Carnegie · 01/06/25

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
— Socrates · 01/01/25

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
— Steve Jobs · 09/24/24

Reach beyond your grasp, have immortal finish lines, and turn your red light green, because a roof is a man-made thing.
— Matthew McConaughey · 08/18/24

Many people shy away from healthy self-acceptance because they insist upon identifying themselves with their mistakes. You may have made a mistake, but this does not mean that you are a mistake.
— Maxwell Maltz · 05/02/24

So remember, “You” make mistakes. Mistakes don’t make “You”–anything.
— Maxwell Maltz · 05/02/24

The purpose of conscience is to help make us happy and productive–not the other way around.
— Maxwell Maltz · 05/02/24

Once an implementation intention has been set, you don’t have to wait for inspiration to strike.
— James Clear · 04/03/24

You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.
— James Clear · 04/02/24

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.
— Friedrich Nietzsche · 01/01/24

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
— Carl Jung attributed by James Clear · 09/02/23

There is nothing holding you back in life more than yourself.
— Brianna Wiest · 06/26/23

What you believe about your life is what you will make true about your life.
— Brianna Wiest · 06/23/23

We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.
— Confucius · 03/02/19

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.
— Albert Einstein · ~2018

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.
— Seneca · 12/02/17

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
— Martin Luther King Jr. · ~2011

If you focus on what you left behind, you will never be able to see what lies ahead.
— Chef Gusteau · ~2007

With great power comes great responsibility.
— Uncle Ben · ~2006

Braces, quotes, and repeated field names, all count toward your LLM costs and total context length. That’s where TOON comes in as a tiny and friendly rescue format built just for this problem, making it both easier and cheaper for AI to parse your data.

TOON keeps every bit of structure and meaning from JSON, but trims the fat.

So, What Is TOON?

TOON is a compact, human readable encoding of the JSON data model for LLM prompts. Think of TOON as a translation layer. You keep using JSON for your code, but you convert it to TOON when sending it to AI.

Why TOON?

Being that it uses fewer tokens than standard JSON, you can fit more data into a single prompt or across multiple prompts for that matter. This will ultimately save you money, while also giving you the best of both worlds.

TOON uses indentation like YAML to show how data is nested, but switches to a table-like layout (like CSV) for lists. This design was specifically implemented to help AI parse your data with ease.

Here’s a comparison of the formats visually:

{
  "users": [
    { "id": 1, "name": "Alice", "role": "admin" },
    { "id": 2, "name": "Bob", "role": "user" }
  ]
}

Standard JSON is great for machines, but it’s still a token hog. It’s verbose and token expensive. For uniform arrays of objects, JSON repeats every field name for every record.

users:
  - id: 1
    name: Alice
    role: admin
  - id: 2
    name: Bob
    role: user

YAML reduces some of that redundancy by using indentation rather than braces.

users[2]{id,name,role}:
  1,Alice,admin
  2,Bob,user

TOON cuts the bloat even more, declaring your headers once and then streaming the rest of the data as compact rows.

When Not to Use TOON

According to the TOON documentation, there’s definitely times where this encoding is not the best choice. Deeply nested & irregular structures might not benefit as much from TOON encoding, but for tabular or repeated patterns it’s a no brainer optimization.

The following are examples of when not to use TOON, according to the documentation:

• Deeply nested or non-uniform structures (tabular eligibility ≈ 0%): JSON-compact often uses fewer tokens. Example: complex configuration objects with many nested levels.
• Semi-uniform arrays (~40-60% tabular eligibility): token savings diminish. Use JSON if your pipelines already rely on it.
• Pure tabular data: CSV is smaller than TOON for flat tables. TOON adds minimal overhead (~5-10%) to provide structure (array length declarations, field headers, delimiter scoping) that improves LLM reliability.
• Latency-critical applications: benchmark on your exact setup. Some deployments (especially local/quantized models) may process compact JSON faster despite TOON’s lower token count.

When You Should Use TOON

TOON shines with uniform arrays of objects, data with the same structure across items. Think of uniform arrays of objects, like rows from an API, event logs, listings, or any pipeline where token cost is a real factor. It’s optimized for specific use cases.

It aims to:

• Make uniform arrays of objects as compact as possible by declaring structure once and streaming data.
• Stay fully lossless and deterministic – round-trips preserve all data and structure.
• Keep parsing simple and robust for both LLMs and humans through explicit structure markers.
• Provide validation guardrails (array lengths, field counts) that help detect truncation and malformed output.

All of this contributes to lower API charges, more usable context and often smoother parsing results when you’re programmatically interacting with models.

Let’s Look at an Example

The following is a simple experiment showing the difference in token usage between JSON & TOON formats:

{
  "context": {
    "task": "Our favorite hikes together",
    "location": "Boulder",
    "season": "spring_2025"
  },
  "friends": [
    "ana",
    "luis",
    "sam"
  ],
  "hikes": [
    {
      "id": 1,
      "name": "Blue Lake Trail",
      "distanceKm": 7.5,
      "elevationGain": 320,
      "companion": "ana",
      "wasSunny": true
    },
    {
      "id": 2,
      "name": "Ridge Overlook",
      "distanceKm": 9.2,
      "elevationGain": 540,
      "companion": "luis",
      "wasSunny": false
    },
    {
      "id": 3,
      "name": "Wildflower Loop",
      "distanceKm": 5.1,
      "elevationGain": 180,
      "companion": "sam",
      "wasSunny": true
    }
  ]
}

That JSON input would total 229 tokens and is 680 characters long. Here’s the same data, encoded with TOON:

context:
  task: Our favorite hikes together
  location: Boulder
  season: spring_2025
friends[3]: ana,luis,sam
hikes[3]{id,name,distanceKm,elevationGain,companion,wasSunny}:
  1,Blue Lake Trail,7.5,320,ana,true
  2,Ridge Overlook,9.2,540,luis,false
  3,Wildflower Loop,5.1,180,sam,true

TOON encoding brings the token count down to 104 and the character count to 286, a 54.6% decrease. You can even make choices for delimiters, which could increase token efficiency even more.

TL;DR

TOON is a streamlined way to feed structured data to AI without the “JSON tax” we now understand. By cutting out repetitive formatting, it slashes your token costs and makes your data much easier for models to process reliably.

Whether you’re sending massive datasets to a model or asking it to generate structured responses, TOON ensures your AI interactions stay fast, cheap, and accurate.

Give it a try next time you’re passing structured data into a model, your bank balance (and context window) will thank you. If you’re ready to dive in and begin using TOON, here is the documentation and introduction guide.

We internalize this idea that we have to wait to do things, and this is where a considerable amount of our mental fatigue comes from. The internal audit we run on our choices and thoughts. When you realize you don’t need to justify your joy or explain your boundaries to an invisible jury, life gets much much lighter.

Sometimes it’s our fear of embarrassment, not wanting to seem “cringe”, perfectionism, or failing our first couple times that stops us from achieving the true happiness and success we deserve. I promise you, spending years waiting on some arbitrary “green light” to do the things you want most, isn’t going to be something you look at fondly on your deathbed.

In my own definition, just doing things is a mindset that prioritizes permissionless action rather than overthinking and finding a reason not to do something. It’s the mindset of one who has finally come to the realization that they do not need a formal invitation, a specific level of expertise, the circumstances to be perfect, or a “good enough” reason to start many of the things they internally know they want or need the most.

While I know that everything won’t be easy to work into tight budgets and busy schedules, I firmly believe you will not regret being intentional about showing up for yourself like you would for others. After all, you only live once (as far as I know), so you might as well, do the thing.

Gem City resident Danny Thompson once said, “I don’t know if you get to live more than once but if you live right the first time, once is enough”. Try not shooting yourself in the foot and having regrets about your life when you are 90 years old.

You can just do things, and the list of things you can do is virtually endless. Whether it’s a small gesture of kindness, a leap into a new adventure, or a quiet moment of self-care, the permission you’re looking for is yours to give. So, here’s a list of things you can just do. The most important ones are in bold.

You Can Just

• Tell your loved ones, you love them
• Remember this is your first time ever living (and everyone else’s too)
• Watch Interstellar 🙂
• Start before you are ready
• Value the only non-renewable resource, time.
• Be the “cringe” version of yourself
• Let people be wrong about you
• Read The Let Them Theory and apply it.
• Forgive yourself for mistakes you made 5 years ago
• Learn and dance Argentine Tango
• Go paragliding in New Zealand
• Have or adopt children
• Teach something to somebody
• Pay for the person behind you at the McDonald’s drive-thru
• Talk to random strangers on the subway
• Write a thank you letter
• Plant a tree
• Stop explaining yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you
• Change your mind about a long held opinion
• Stop worrying about the opinion of people you wouldn’t ask for advice
• Buy yourself flowers
• Forgive them
• Don’t work so hard for a life you’re too busy or too stressed to actually live
• Treat your life like an experiment, not a performance
• Ask a deep question instead of entertaining small talk
• Compliment a stranger on something they chose (like their hair or their shoes)
• Disconnect from your phone for a while
• Read The Mountain Is You
• Send a handwritten letter a friend
• Volunteer for a cause you believe in
• Call a relative
• Order and pay for a pizza for your neighbor
• Eat the frog
• Make a budget
• Rest. You can just sit there and do nothing for an hour. No productivity required.
• Give yourself grace
• Meditate
• Be mindful of your health
• Read a book then watch its’ movie equivalent, and write a post on why the book was better
• Do the opposite of the last one
• Say something nice to yourself, every day.
• Show up for yourself like you would show up for your loved ones
• Delete your social media apps for a weekend
• Ask for that promotion
• Take that vacation
• Start the weightlifting routine
• Lose the extra weight
• Learn the new skill
• Start the new hobby
• Reach the top of Mt. Everest
• Fall asleep under the stars
• Go to college
• Eat pizza and binge watch The 100
• High five yourself
• Use box breathing
• Pump up the jam
• Reach out to that old friend
• Spend time with your family
• Take more pictures
• Make more memories
• Volunteer at a soup kitchen
• Shovel your elderly neighbors driveway
• Show up for your loved ones even when you don’t want to
• Celebrate your birthday
• Read a book
• Write a book
• Watch a movie
• Journal
• Look into changing careers
• Go bowling
• Sign up for a marathon & walk it if you have to
• Read the full list of “the 100 books to read before you die”
• Learn a new language
• Take yourself out to dinner at your favorite restaurant
• Use the “fancy” dinnerware
• Go for a walk
• Take a nap
• Try hot yoga
• Watch the sunrise
• Watch the sunset
• Try a new coffee shop
• Try new a cuisine
• Visit a museum
• Build a puzzle
• Play Outer Wilds
• Follow me on Twitter
• Rewatch your favorite movie for the 108th time
• Go to a concert
• Go to a comedy show
• Go to a play
• Learn how to cook
• Try a new hairstyle
• Learn an instrument
• Listen to 100 songs in 100 different genres 100 times
• Take a pottery class
• Join a book club
• Join a church
• Go on a road trip
• Listen to Everybody Wants to Rule the World
• Learn how to DJ
• Go to a rage room
• Write a haiku
• Go fishing
• Figure out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop
• Go skydiving
• Live a day backwards (dinner for breakfast and breakfast for dinner)
• Buy new socks
• Clean your closet
• Put flowers on a grave
• Get a mani-pedi
• Write a song
• Lay in the grass and stare at the clouds
• Add one song a day to a playlist, for a year
• Cook a new recipe each week
• Start a garden
• Eat vegetarian for a month
• Go fossicking
• Play disc golf
• Start a YouTube channel
• Start a newsletter
• Email someone you admire and tell them specifically why their work resonates with you
• Apply for a job you feel 60% qualified for
• Ask for a coffee chat with someone 3 levels above you
• Leave your job if it makes you miserable
• Start a podcast
• Curate an exhibition of your favorite things on a Pinterest board
• Book a solo trip to a city you’ve never been to
• Wear special occasion clothes on a random Wednesday
• Adopt a pet
• Be silent for an entire day
• Say no to an invitation without giving an excuse
• Give a TED talk to your bathroom mirror
• Do 75 Hard
• Visit Japan
• Learn how to draw