Some meandering thoughts

n8n, Tolan, model personalities, and Linear

In the long while since I wrote last, I’ve travelled on a serpentine path through some fascinating domains…

For a while, I became obsessed with automating my daily workflows in n8n. I had fun building agents, adopting MCP for tool use, and working with vector stores for the first time.

Then I wandered into some delightful new consumer experiences and fell in love with these gorgeous Tolans:

I’m simultaneously fascinated and terrified about what AI companions do to human social relationships. To comprehend how human-model interaction will evolve, I recommend following Joanne Jang, who leads model behaviour and policy at Open AI:

and Amanda Askell on philosophy, consciousness, and crafting Claude’s personality (fwd to 2.50 in this podcast):

Along the way, I’ve enjoyed hearing how technical leaders are embedding AI in their companies. This podcast is a thoughtful articulation of how Canva is using AI at scale across product and code generation:

I’ve always wanted to try Linear, given how many PMs and developers rave about it. I saw an opportunity when I finally gave up on the sloooow Notion as my personal to-do list. Linear didn’t disappoint. The product is so fast, wonderfully intuitive, and this handy shortcut on my lock screen (circled green) makes capturing to-dos in the moment easy:

And finally, some entertaining tweets along the way: