gratitude haiku

the cold shower slams
a bolt, then a tingling calm
my lungs full of thanks

How to be real in a relationship

I regret my behaviour in a relationship if I don’t integrate all these aspects.

Importantly, relationships should evolve out of this single-person diagram.

The best advice I've ever received came from passing remarks in blog posts and interviews, therefore I really don't mind the death of non-fiction books, I am afraid of the death of odd-seeming (half-)sentences that perfectly explain something I've been grappling with

There’s something glamorous about how such remarks, which the author themselves seemingly didn’t think much about, stick out from otherwise homogeneous points.

I believe the fact that these sentences haven’t been run through an editing or reasoning chain is what makes them special.

The Cornetto Ice Cream Cone Framework for Prompting

Four C’s for clarity on complex tasks

Here’s a simple framework I use for improving the performance of your fav agent on (semi-)complex tasks:

I think it’s all mostly obvious how the four C’s improve your prompt, which means I won’t explain each part of the framework. The only subtle part is the control loop. Designing the control loop to be more “independent” is supremely useful; in practice it means the control loop doesn’t know about the other three C’s. I usually use AI agents with a fresh context window for this. But the independent design principle can materialize in all sorts of things: static tests in programming, a screenshot of the website the agent is working on, or, if you want, a human in the loop.

Maybe, just maybe, you can let the control loop know about some of the constraints.

I never go overboard with my prompts, and I think the framework is simple enough to scale well with model intelligence.

You can also call it the “Four C” framework.

If you think you will forget about this anyway, put something like this in the system prompt:

# ask for these c's for medium to big tasks
Medium to big tasks are tasks that are not one off, aren't a simple question or something like filling out a form or parsing a pdf, it's building something new or synthesizing multiple things. Research doesn't fall under this.

## context
the why

## constraints
the how, and the how not

## control (aka, the loop)
the controlling, importantly, the control doesn't know about the context and constraints, usually subagents or more static control like red-green tests.

Peter Thiel on Identity

Identity is this strange word, it means two opposite things: your identity is that which makes you unique and your identity is that which make you identical, the same as other people [in the group]

~ Peter Thiel

After the ecstasy

during the ecstasy
the lovely
the i-forgot-life-can-be-so-lively lovely

between me and the ecstasy
the lonely
the i-did-not-know-this-about-me lonely

after the ecstasy
the laundry
sometimes, the dirty laundry
the i-see-it-now-and-i-am-sorry laundry

It is that deep, mon ami

I

A counter for overthinking, “it is not that deep” has found a place in our culture. And I kind of like the saying, but as every trendy saying, it gets overused.

I am obsessed with minute details of life, and most of my day I spend in my head. However, I am the opposite of an overthinker. I don’t think about the future at all, for example, it’s not that I am against thinking about the future, It just never occurs to me to think about it.

I am wise enough to not share most of my thoughts, as giving an intro to the minute detail I am thinking about can take many minutes. Whenever I, however seldom, share the microscopic interpretations of things I am thinking about, I often hear “it is not that deep, bro”.

II

What I love about religion is that it is intention-based: everything is weighed against the intention behind it, rather than only by its consequences. This keeps me happy, as I believe most people are good-natured (and if not, well, they’ll get karma’d for that), it keeps my own intentions in check.

The second thing I love is that its underlying message is absolute, almost tyrannical: everything is under inspection, nothing is above judgement.

In fact, what I love the most, is there is no “it’s not that deep” in religion. In everything that is divine, the true meaning is always one layer deeper.

III

Some people say I think too much I don’t think they think enough

~ Danny Brown

You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t.

~ David Foster Wallace

How you do anything is how you do everything.

~ Unknown

Istanbul notes

Human resiliency fascinates me. Expats in Europe say the Turkish inflation is not too bad, Istanbul people say it’s really bad. Every person I met worked more than 10 hours per day.

Merchants in the bazaars have gotten arrogant. Nobody is ready to be haggled down from the high prices. They used to cater to German tourists, but now the dynamic has changed to rolling out the carpet for Arab and Russian tourists.

While I was there, two big things happened: Türkiye was eliminated early in the World Cup, and there was a trans pride march. For both, I was surprised that no cab driver gave too many shits about it. Turkish cab drivers remain abnormally funny, though.

Previously, people would’ve flipped out over these topics. Everything seems a little gloomier now. People are more tired, less invested in the workings of the city. Mostly, Istanbul people just want new political leadership.

All in all, Istanbul remains an amazing place. Everything and everyone is worn down, but remains resilient.

Lawless

Airports are lawless areas. Just slam your beers at 5 a.m., my friend, nobody bats an eye. Also go back to sleep on the floor in a spine-bending position after, we don’t give a fuck.

Marathons have this property as well. I was shocked to see how people deal with liquids during marathons. Another area I remember is university amenities right before a heavy exam. It’s not unusual to see people with a cigarette and coffee in hand who haven’t slept in 30 hours.

There’s something to be said about the mutual understanding of pain and suffering here, and how that enables deep empathy for queer behaviour. Is empathy the antidote to disgust? And therefore, is a well-travelled and well-experienced life the secret to tolerance?

Travellers would say yes, of course, but I am much more inclined to think that humans are only temporarily tolerant of anarchy. Everyone is too compromised to police anyone else in these lawless areas. Until takeoff, then back to bickering and collective complaining.

You will get the stupid version

I am an almost objectivist (the aesthetic kind) when it comes to great art and ideas. What I mean by that is I believe great art is more likely to break through than bad art, and will likely endure longer. I am also an objectivist (the Ayn Rand kind) when it comes to the role of the artist: that the perseverance of the artist guides the perseverance of the art. And most of all, I believe great art is done in small groups, with small audiences.

I love following emerging subcultures on the internet, and I love following their development of an aesthetic and the ideas they rally around. Some of these ideas even get adopted by the mainstream, and inevitably lose nuance during the adoption. Aka the mainstream gets the stupid version of the idea. There are countless examples: effective altruism and charity, therapy and boundary culture, and the worst offender of them all, agile software development.

On one hand, it’s depressing that the ideas we hear are usually a watered-down, stupid version. On the other hand, it’s invigorating that maybe we can dig a little deeper, that mainstream ideas are deeply underrated because there’s almost always a smarter insight, a greater artist behind it.

hazn's 6 (7) rules for young CS graduates

At 30 years old, I am saddened that I beat all of my computer science students when it comes to AI workflows. On X (formerly known as twitter), much younger people beat me, and I am aroused and inspired by that.

The world of computer science and math got way more rough for young graduates. Therefore, each lecture I start with a little speech about how doomed they are if they don’t adopt AI as fast as they can. Here are the 6 (7) rules I teach them to prosper in this age:

1. AI is better than you
2. Don’t do everything with AI
3. Be ambitious
4. Keep it simple
5. There is content on everything
6. Most content is wrong

They are contradictory and self-referential by nature.

Here is the secret seventh rule:

7. Work hard

Bittersweet

1. Accepting that capitalism is truly compounding for human flourishing means we have to accept that income disparity compounds too
2. Believing that humans can find meaning in an age of AI means accepting that intelligence and taste are not uniquely human features
3. Loving Uber and Waymo means I have to accept that my old dad, a classic cab driver, is outcompeted

I have a British lad in my head going “bit bittersweet, innit?” on all these things.

roon on analytical thinking

roon

@tszzl

humans are really not built for first principles analytical thinking. even smart people find it incredibly exhausting. what we consider analysis is usually anxious panicking and avoiding something or the other. it is clear we are going to be massively outclassed in this soon

Jun 17, 2026 Link ↗︎

AKA. “analytical thinking is the differentiator” is just as outdated as “taste is the differentiator”

What I love about LLMs is that they do a bulk -> cut process of thinking naturally, they research and reason -- a lot -- and then cut down the logic chain. If I had the stamina, that’d be my modus operandi on every question.

Also, try out the best LLMs, people, pay for the 100 USD sub, they really are better.

hazn

@hazn_com

first of all, what you say AI will never be able to do it can do right now if you’d pay for the subscription dumbass

May 6, 2026 Link ↗︎