#100 – A Basecamp Upon The Mountain:

Sights To Behold:

Welcome to Tech Time By Tim ?#100. As befits such a milestone, this is by far the lengthiest, most jampacked issue of the newsletter to date!

There are no ‘current events’ news items in this issue, though I have included snapshots from across my time writing the newsletter. I’ve included one of my very first prototypes, some items from my first full year of writing the newsletter, as well as plenty of self-reflection and anecdotes.

I’ve always done my best to make each newsletter issue as evergreen as possible. Yet I feel as if this milestone issue fulfills that ambition particularly well. You can truly take your tech time with it! The newsletter is packed with so much goodness that it's even a bit too 'stacky' for LinkedIn. So, make sure to get the full read here: LINK

Without further ado, let’s dive right in!

They Who Climb Mountains:

Have you heard of the saying that if you put 1000 hours’ worth of time and effort into something, you can master it? Well, that’s obviously not true in the most literal sense. Rather, it means that you have to slowly but surely make your way up the mountain of mastery one step at a time.

It’s a rookie error that I’ve made plenty of times in the past to see the sheer scale of the mountain, compare its size to your own, and think ‘nah mate, that’s impossible.’ I’ve done that plenty of times myself. But back in August 2022, I decided to take that first step, and to just keep going, step by step.

Another proverb goes that the journey of 1000 miles (1609.344km) starts with single step. Unless I’m mistaken, Mt. Everest stands at about 8.8km above sea level. That’s an important detail because the deep sea has some thoughts about our landlubber sense of scale.

The journey of 8.8km also starts with a single step. How convenient! According to my napkin math, this makes it about 7x more daunting to start climbing. Yet people have climbed it. Ambition is also often referred to as a mountain, with the realization of ambition being considered the peak.

There are two kinds of climbers. The first is obsessive and impatient. They only see and value the destination. These manic mountaineers don’t care how they get to the summit, so long as they get there immediately. This is the self-destructive climber.

I know what you’re probably thinking. We’ve all rolled our eyes at least once at the proverb “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.” Or some variant thereof. Don’t you lie to me. This proverb isn’t quite right if you ask me. I’d phrase it like this “The destination and journey grant one another meaning.” You enjoy and relish reaching your destination because of the effort involved in getting there. You can find the motivation to set off on a journey in the first place when a destination inspires you.

Milestones, basecamps, whatever you want to call them, these are sub-destinations. They aren’t the end goal, but they do allow you to reflect upon the journey thus far. A basecamp lets you savor a momentary victory whilst preparing adequately for future triumphs.

Who sets up and maintains such facilities? The mindful mountaineer. Mindfulness has been overcommercialised to hell and back so it’s understandable how the word ‘mindful’ might strain some tethers.

All I mean here though is that the mindful climber is simply aware of their present circumstances, capabilities, and limitations in the moment. To be mindful of these things is something everyone in tech should strive for. This is unironically how you fulfil your ambitions, regardless of what their exact nature might be. ?

Most manic climbers destroy themselves well before they reach the summit. We call those who do make it to the top the big winners of society, but are they? When such people reach the top they are engulfed by the infinite emptiness around them. Uncertainty and regret fill the void with questions such as “Is this it? Is this my peak? All that sacrifice and for what? Just another horizon beyond my reach?”

The mindful climber looks at the endless horizon stretching out in front of them and thinks ‘My god, there’s so much left to learn, so much left to explore!’ They are able to look back at how far they’ve come over the course of their journey and remember all the trials, tribulations, disappointments, and triumphs that brought them to where they are.

Truthfully, I am mindful of my impatience and desperate desire to reach my destination ASAP. We’re all manic climbers every now and then. And that’s ok. I still want tech titans to speak my name with fear and reverence. I still want to have university professors at the best houses of learning in the world look to me as their?teacher.

But It’s not like there’s a deadline for that. Maybe I will get there in the end, or maybe I won’t. Looking back at the hundred newsletters I’ve traveled so far, I am content. I’ll set off from this basecamp when I’m good and ready.

The Journey So Far:

Since we’re still vibing in the basecamp, let’s reflect back on the journey so far. For this section, I’ll be providing a chronological overview of my past content for you. It’s a journey through Tech Time!

The contents of past newsletters are in cursive to make it easier to distinguish between them and my current writing for this special issue.

August 2022 – Prototype 4:

This was the first prototype of the newsletter to be published internally at Triple. Look how short these items are! ‘The Week That Was’ focused on the ‘news’ part of the newsletter, providing a very brief summary and then linking to the article I’d summarised.

I had ‘Rules of Engagement’ to go a bit more in-depth. ?‘A Nice Cup Of Serendipity’ got its start back then as well. It’s probably the part of my newsletter that has remained the most consistent over time.

Here are two example items from the prototype, in no particular order:

Gadgets Marked For Death:

Ever noticed how gadgets always seem to break down just outside of the warranty period? Do you wonder how the issues with your device so often seem to be just outside the scope of what the manufacturer has to cover? If you think it's just bad luck on your part, think again. The term for this is 'planned obsolescence' otherwise known as the death warrant companies sign for devices before they even leave the factory. Curious what the life expectancy of your favorite gadget is? Have a look LINK + LINK

The Credit Devil’s Due

One of the most powerful brakes on our spending is the physical sensation of having money in our hand and being made to think 'damn, that's a lot of money' as we eye a pricey purchase. No such thing happens for digital payments. Humans are a lot worse at making sense of abstraction than we like to think. A thousand euros on your screen feels way less weighty than 10 euros in your hand, both literally and proverbially. In the past few years, a new means of purchasing has risen to prominence 'buy now, pay later.' This is exactly what it says on the tin, it's almost cruel in how honest it is, Psychologically, it feels like a purchase is free because you can 'check out' without paying in the webshop. As the sayings go, however, the devil's in the details and he always gets his due. LINK

The First Year That Was, 2022 Edition:

Since I’d just begun, this version of ‘The Year That Was’ was a relatively short and concise affair. Unlike the prototype, I’d moved on to publishing newsletters via an email mailing list for external readers.

Back during these first few months, I was bouncing off the walls throwing as many ideas, connections, and associations as I could think of in the newsletter. This certainly kept things varied and surprising. Yet it wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to follow along with. Have a look for yourselves: LINK

2023 – The First Full Year Of Tech Time By Tim:

The Snackable Tech Take Experiment:

The ‘Snackable Tech Take’ experiment involved posting tweet chains of my newsletter items on Twitter. I was curious to what extent the situation had truly degraded since Elon Musk’s takeover and also wanted to practice ‘putting myself out there’ on social media.

I quit doing Snackable Tech Takes after 4 months because I had concluded my experiment and gotten the results I’d wanted from it. The conclusion was that there wasn’t much of a point in trying to ‘Twitterfy’ the newsletter. The texts were still too long to be considered snackable, and Twitter had long since stopped being an effective growth vector for fledgling creators.

The experience would prove invaluable for figuring out just where to ‘trim the fat’ of my newsletters though. The harsh word limits forced me to really buckle down. It forced me to write more concisely and to consider fully reconciling with the full stop.

I also started doing a better job at breaking up paragraphs, so they’d be less intimidating.

The Year That Was, 2023 Edition:

This 6162-word behemoth was the first time I fully got to do a yearly retrospective-style document. In retrospect, it was kind of representative of 2023 as a whole for me. My writing skills and efficiency improved significantly over the course of the year. I was able to focus better, and make sharper judgment calls, and overall writing quality was on a steady upwards trajectory.

Even so, I was impatient, I was anxious. I was too desperate to prove myself though. I was too insecure about whether or not I was truly providing enough content. I was anxious not to miss stuff people might want to know. So I crammed more and more into the newsletter until it was bursting at the seams!

Heading into 2024, I knew that I’d need to do something about both confidence and word count. And so I did: LINK

2024 And Beyond:

We’re still in 2024 at time of writing, so no retrospectives yet! Have a funny anecdote instead.

A colleague of mine recently said that one could tell that these newsletters aren’t being written by a grizzled 40+-year-old veteran. They supposedly had a certain childishness to them, which I was very happy to hear. That’s because I had chosen to share the writing workload with my inner child.

We hadn’t talked or seen eye to eye for a very long time. This was a good way to reconnect with one another. I’m particularly happy about how much more spontaneous and playful my items have become, as well as becoming more robust and easily digestible.

It now takes me much less time on average to produce more content of higher quality. Mission accomplished! For this final quarter of 2024, and heading into 2025, I want to continue having fun with the actual writing process itself. At the same time, I’ll continue my efforts to make things even more concise and elegant without sacrificing overall quality and depth.

By the time I get to the next base came, I want to have writing that’s as pleasant and intuitive to grasp as a children’s book, yet with the analytical acumen and depth of a cum laude post-doctorate thesis.

You be the judge about how close I’ll end up getting over the course of 2025.

Occasionally Asked Questions:

For this special issue of one more thing, I thought I’d do an FAQ, but instead of Frequently Asked Questions, I felt it would be more entertaining to highlight some of the most thought-provoking questions that people asked me ‘occasionally,’ since I started writing this newsletter.

The closest to a frequently asked question would definitely be what my workflow is like though. So let’s start with that.

Tim’s Workflow:

Several times in the past, people would ask me about my workflow. Back then I was still figuring it out. I wasn’t able to provide a satisfactory answer then, but I can do so now. Here is my workflow at the time of writing.

Thursday – Monday Afternoon:

I process 3500-5000 articles on average per week. I’ve done as much as 9000 on particularly busy weeks though! What does processing mean? It means that I arrange my handpicked sources into tiles via my news aggregator and then scan through them. I mark the ones that seem interesting to cover, saving them for later.

When I need more information, or I’m not quite sure an item is a good fit, I read it. Generally, though, I only read the headlines, check the cover images, and make a snap judgment call then and there. I’m a one-man editorial department!

Monday – Tuesday:

I organize all of my saved items into a ‘resource doc’ as I call them. Since I go from newest to oldest, all items are also kinda of chronological as well. I mostly just pick what I find the most interesting or relevant for the actual items.

My newsletters have a time lag of one week because Tuesday afternoon is the absolute cutoff point no matter what. That’s right! It’s called ‘the week that was’ for a reason haha! I write my items to be as evergreen as possible, but it can’t be helped that readers who prefer breaking news coverage might sometimes consider me a bit late to the party.

Fortunately for me though, being fashionably late has yet to go out of style. Not only that, but most readers can pick up any given item days, weeks, or even years later, and still benefit from it in one way or another. ?

Wednesday Morning – Wednesday Afternoon:

Also known as ‘deadline day.’ I write the newsletter in a single sitting, writing to the best of my abilities from early morning until I’m done. In the early days ‘until I’m done’ frequently meant all-nighters and frantic finishing touches at the office on Thursday.

As I’m writing I double-check my chosen sources to make doubly sure they’re relevant/interesting enough. I also do my best to make sure I’m not getting key facts wrong.

These days, when life doesn’t get in my way, I’m able to produce my newsletter neatly within my allotted working hours.

Even when life does get in the way, delays are now down to only around 2-3 hours, barring particularly extenuating circumstances. It is thanks to this drastic increase in sustainable efficiency that I am now in a position to take a more active role in the publication of my content.

Wednesday Afternoons At The MidJourney Casino:

Ok, so the writing is done and sent. Time for the images! What is a solo writer with an hour or two to spare to do? Had I the time and the talent, I’d draw my own images, but alas. Whilst I aim to make my pen flow like water, my pencil flows like gravel…for now.

This is my use case for MidJourney and other generative AI. They are not artist’s easels; they are slot machines. You pull the lever and hope you hit the jackpot. I think this is fun, I wouldn’t have a nice cup of serendipity so often if I hated surprises.

I do have three golden rules though:

• No human artists or signature styles in the prompts. To do my job I need to use this tech. That’s simply a fact of my work life. However, I find it distasteful and boring to use artists and their signature works as direct prompts. We can’t close pandora’s box again with regard to how these models were(and continue to be) trained. We can, however, be as transparent and honest as possible about how we choose to employ them. So no editing before publication, only resizing. Simple, human-readable prompts in natural language. That’s it.
• The image needs to look presentable enough to meet my minimum standards of quality. This is why you’ll often see robots and architecture but never human beings. I just don’t think MJ does a good job on them without significant behind-the-scenes work.
• I want the images to be relevant to the topic at hand, or to be personally entertaining to me. Usually, the first item of any given week will serve as the prompt inspiration. Sometimes I just come across something that I just vibe with and roll with it.

Getting that killer combo of topic relevance and ‘presentable enough’ does sometimes take quite a while. That’s just how fickle Lady Luck is. It is what it is. If you want to precisely dictate the exact characteristics of a work, I hear artist commissions are pretty neat!

Is ‘One More Thing’ Inspired By Steve Jobs?

No, it’s inspired by my boss. Who was inspired by Edward H. Land, who also inspired Steve Jobs. It’s hard to talk about one’s boss without coming across as disingenuous. However, please do give me a chance to explain here.

The reason why I specifically enjoy and continue to work at this company is because the particular bosses that I work under inspire and motivate me. We were just talking about casinos, so with regard to bosses and colleagues, I do genuinely believe I hit the jackpot. ?

One such boss has Edward H. Land, the inventor of the Polaroid camera, as a great source of inspiration. It is via him that I first learned and looked into ‘one more thing.’ It’s not about the phrase. It’s about the showmanship. After a long, exhausting presentation, people are zoned out. They’ve already checked out mentally and are preparing to also leave physically. ?

A person who can blow minds with one more thing under such circumstances is truly powerful. It’s the personal touch that elevates the presenter to a true showman. And that happens via anecdotes and glimpses at the person beyond the rank

This boss sharing anecdotes of his personal life and interests inspires me. I hope to do this for my readers as well with just one more thing.

Why Is Tech Time By Tim Published By Triple?

Up until now, the newsletter has been published directly by Triple on the company's LinkedIn page for both practical and personal reasons.

Practically speaking, I wanted any initial attention and engagement generated by the newsletter to go toward the overall company brand. In those very early stages, I felt that it would be a good way to prove that Triple’s claims of genuinely believing in its employees and supporting them weren’t just corporate bollocks.

The tech world is a world of cults, be they cults of personality or brand loyalty. No matter how big I may or may not get in the future, I reasoned that Triple believing in me back when I was ‘nobody’ would serve to prove its earnestness in a world full of duplicity.

On a more personal level, my lack of experience when I started Tech Time by Tim meant that I just couldn't handle self-publication. I was supported through those initial growing pains by my colleagues, and they also allowed me to focus on honing my skills even after the starting jitters passed.

I am now ready to take those reins. Over the course of the next few issues, I will be moving toward publishing content myself.

This basically means that Tech Time by Tim will start being published directly by Tim on LinkedIn and reposted by Triple. Up until now, it was the other way around. I’ll also be more directly involved with publication on whatever future channels might crop up.

What Kind Of Hobbies Do You Have?

None, sorry to disappoint! Ok that’s not a particularly helpful answer, is it? Let’s elaborate a bit.

If we go back to the example of the two kinds of climbers from earlier. I was the manic mountaineer for sure. The kind that sacrificed everything for the sake of their ambition and would have found emptiness at the top.

However, before I knew it, I wasn’t climbing alone anymore. People supporting and looking after each other is something I’m still getting used to slowly but surely. But they’ve helped me be more mindful of my strengths, instead of just my weaknesses.

I was convinced for quite a long time that the only way to succeed was as a lone wolf. I know better now. Lone wolves aren’t actually as cool and enviable as society has convinced us they are. They’re sad and lonely, and no one will be there to celebrate their accomplishments in the end. I prefer my current pack life, actually…wait a minute.

Since I was going with a mountain climbing analogy this whole time I probably should have picked like uh…a mountain goat or something. Well, shit. What are mountain goat groups called? Uh…moving on!

The things I’m looking to pick back up as part of a healthier work/life balance going forward include:

• Cooking: I love all cuisines but am personally most familiar with the Italian and Japanese kitchens.
• Writing: What a shock, it turns out that I enjoy writing. I want to keep getting better at it.
• Making Visual Art: Using AI image generators has made me more appreciative of human artistic expression, not less. As such, I want to become more visually artistic. ?
• Game Design: I want to make my own games, or at the very least understand game creation on a deeper level.
• Sports: A sound mind dwells within a sound body, so I’m going to see about sorting that out. Lord knows what sport it’ll end up being though! Perhaps I actually should just take up mountaineering…

And that’s a pretty good note to end on if you ask me. Though in all honesty, I’ve never been too good with endings. That’s one more thing I’m excited to work on. Thanks for joining me on this journey. It means the (tech) world to me.

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