# Personal Newsletter

## What

A newsletter so I can keep in contact with friends, family, and colleagues about what I'm up to, projects I'm working on, and other interesting tidbits.

## Why

I don't want to let my relationships atrophy due to lack of communication. A newsletter is a low-effort way for me to keep people updated on my life and work, and it allows me to share interesting things I come across. It can re-spark conversations and I can also increase serendipity.

## How

For the first version, I will compile a list of people "in the same group" (my family, San Francisco connections, high school friends, people I met at Epic, people I met at UIUC, LBF7 people). Then I will draft a newsletter template in Markdown so I can easily edit it. I will figure out how to send it out to people. I want to send it out to people using a custom domain (personal-newsletter@matthandzel.com).

For the next version, I will make it much more complex. I will generalize this newsletter template for people in many different groups. So some sections will dynamically change depending on things such as our relationship closeness, shared interests, etc. I would additionally want to have a feature that people can very easily respond to me (via video, audio, text), so I can keep in touch with them and hear what they're doing!

I might even do some A/B testing to see how I can make my newsletter optimize some metrics, such as "conversations started".

## When

I will compile the list of the beta testers October 25th, then I will draft the first newsletter by November 1st, and send it out by November 5th.

## Progress

## Media

## Reflection

## Who Else

A newsletter to keep in contact with friends, family, and colleagues about what I'm up to.

Personal Newsletter

# Get Jacked

## What

For this project, my goal is get jacked. Specifically, I want to be at around 12% body fat, which means I would need to weigh around 170 lbs.

## Why

**Personal Challenge**: I was an obese kid growing up (at 13 years old, I was ~5'6 and 220 lbs). Since then, I've been conscious of my health and the impact that aesthetics have on my confidence and how others perceive me. Back then, I would have thought getting a 6-pack is _theoretically possible_, but I cannot imagine it on me.

**Health**: I believe it is optimal to be at the 10-15% body fat range for longevity, energy, and general health. I also have asthma, and I've noticed that as my body fat decreases, the amount of asthma attacks I get also decreases.

## How

- I'm going on a [ whole food plant based diet](/projects#project-whole-food-plant-based-diet-for-30-days) which I suppose will allow me to lose weight.
- I'm _not_ going to do anything unsustainable (multi-day fasting, excessive cardio, etc). I want to be able to maintain this lifestyle long term.
- I will lose ~1-2 lbs per week, and I will do strength training 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) to maintain muscle and do light cardio (walking, biking) on the other days.
- If I do not lose weight after 1 week, I will track my calories for 3 days to get a better estimate of how much I am eating.
- I will do intermittent fasting (16:8)

## When

If I lose 1 lb per week, I will reach my goal in 13 weeks, which is January 13th, 2026.

## Progress

- 183 lbs as of 2025-10-14
- 180 lbs as of 2025-11-19

## Media

## Reflection

## Who Else

Reaching 12% body fat through sustainable diet and exercise.

Get Jacked

# Information Explorer

## What

A system that explores information sources (websites, databases, APIs, personal data stores) to discover and present useful information that I might not be aware of but would benefit from knowing.

## Why

There are things that exist in the world that I could know of, that I would benefit from knowing of, but I don't know of them due to a lack of effort, or unknown unknowns. I want to make a system that consistently removes these unknown-unknown.

There's also a huge benefit in being the first to know about things. If you read the research papers regarding AI agents before everyone else did and acted on it, then you would be able to provide value first and then capture a market.

## How

The first step in this is making an RSS feed that allows me to consistently get information from information sources (Product Hunt, Substacks, newsletters).
The next value add would be, a system that can search the internet and is not constrained by the previous sources to both find new, high quality, information sources and find information that is not in anyone's RSS feed.
The next value add would probably be a summary of what is in my RSS feed with links to information I find interesting
The next value add would be to model my preferences and filter the information.
Another value add could be something that improves how information is presented to me, changing the style of writing, making it more efficient, taking out sections I already know, having a text-to-speech feature.

## When

I want to have everything up to the preference model completed by October 2025

## Progress

- [x] `rss.matthandzel.com` - RSS feed aggregator that collects articles from various sources.
- [x] Seed the RSS feed with high-quality sources.
- [ ] Find a framework I can build around for interfacing with my RSS feed
- [ ] Create my own RSS feed generated from my personal knowledge base (Obsidian)
- [ ] Create an AI agent that can search the internet for information
- [ ] Create a summary system that digests the RSS feed and internet search results
- [ ] Create a preference model to filter information
  - [ ] From the posts I enjoy, identify a taxonomy of my interests and use this taxonomy to filter posts.

## Media

## Reflection

## Who Else

A system that continually keeps me informed of useful information from various sources.

Information Explorer

# Information Reinforcement System

## What

This is a system that will store useful information, beliefs, behaviors that I should implement into my life and then reinforce them over time until they are fully integrated into my life.

## Why

The problem I have is I've consumed information at some point in time that I either do not remember or I do remember but I have not implemented it into my life. If I could have taken everything I've ever read and apply it to my life, I would be fundamentally and drastically a better person. I estimate if I applied everything I have ever read into my life, it would be on the order of 100x times better[^1].

## How

This will have a system to extract information from my Obsidian vault that I have deemed useful. Then it will convert that information into Anki cards. Every day, I will review several of these cards until they are fully implemented into my beliefs and behaviors. I will also need to do de-duplication of cards/concepts. Another great value add would be if I could pull up these concepts right before doing some behavior so that I can learn faster.
I will study behavior change and learning literature to find the best way to reinforce these beliefs and behaviors into my life.

## When

I will have an MVP by mid-October.

## Progress

[First version](https://x.com/handzelmatt/status/1979591177117589636) of the system is done! 2025-10-18

## Media

## Reflection

## Who Else

[^1]: I estimate I probably spent ~1000 hours reading "useful" material in my lifetime. If every 10 minutes of reading I come across a new idea that improves my life by 0.1% then I would be 400x better.

A system that reinforces useful information, beliefs, and behaviors into my life over time.

Information Reinforcement System

# Knowledge Management System

## What

For this project, I’m building my own knowledge management system. I want something deeply integrated into my workflows and my other systems. It is inspired by the idea of a "second brain". I want to:

- Be capable of capturing anything (text, images, links, audio, video) on any device. Sync everything so that it is accessible from any device.
- Organize my information, having intelligent search and filters
- Easily express my knowledge through writing, projects, and my website.
- Constantly learn and remember what I've learned

## Why

A lot of my value comes from how I process information and make connections.  
Augmenting this will directly increase the value I can provide, which leads to a better quality of life [[so-good-they-cant-ignore-you]].
There is nostalgic value in preserving my thoughts and ideas over time.
From the perspective of AI, if I capture everything into my second brain, then I can leverage AI much more than someone who doesn't.

## How

I’m starting with my laptop since that’s where I spend most of my time and consume most of my information.
I’ll build small tools that can run locally — first to capture, then to organize, then to distill, and finally to express.
Because I already tag everything, I can make it programmatic — for example:

- If something is tagged **todo**, it can automatically sync to Taskwarrior.
- If it’s tagged **reading-list**, it can go into my RSS feed.

Eventually, I’ll connect it to my website so that some parts of my second brain can be accessed publicly.

## When

I will build an end-to-end MVP running by December 31st 2025.

## Progress

- [x] Built initial capture prototype — [GitHub Repo](https://github.com/MattHandzel/KnowledgeManagementSystem/)
- [x] Build local tagging + metadata indexing
- [ ] Integrate AI for tagging
- [ ] Integrate AI for summarization
- [ ] Create interface for organizing it within Neovim

## Media

- [GitHub Repository](https://github.com/MattHandzel/KnowledgeManagementSystem/)

## Reflection

## Who Else

Inspired by Tiago Forte, Nick Milo, and the PKM community.  
Also influenced by developers building open, local-first knowledge systems.

A system I’m building to grow, organize, and express my knowledge over the next decade.

Knowledge Management System

## What

"The Longevity Biotech Fellowship (LBF) is a community of hardcore Longevity Accelerationists. Our members build, join, and invest in revolutionary biotechnology projects for radical life extension." The LBF had a kickoff in Cofrentes, Spain on September 22nd, 2025. The fellowship is a ten-week program aimed at making tangible _personal_ progress in the field of longevity biotechnology with a personal demo day on December 14th, 2025.

For this fellowship, my goal is to:

- Solve a real problem for at least 1 person in the LBF. Supporting scientists, CEOs, improving their {creativity, productivity, searching, exploring, networking}.

## Why

I joined the LBF because I want to spend my life working on something that has high impact for a lot of people. Aging impacts everyone on a personal level, and it impacts society as a whole, so I want to explore if solving problems in the realm of longevity is my Ikigai. My specific goal of solving a problem for at least one person is I want to improve my agency, and learn how to make something that others want. I also believe at my current skillset, I cannot solve the "hard" problems, but I can do a support those that are solving the hard problems.

## How

By reaching out to people who I've met at LBF7 or in the Slack, ask them what problems they have that I am capable of solving and is aligned with my studies.
Draft up a project proposal and share it with whomever I am working with to get feedback and iterate on it.
Spend no more than 3 hours per week working on this project, as I have other commitments (university, job search, etc).
Have Scrum-like sprints once I have the MVP

## When

Make a MVP to solve their problem by November 2nd, 2025
Have 4 rounds of iteration and feedback by December 7th, 2025
Post the finished project by December 14th, 2025

## Progress

- [x] Post this “mission/goal” on the LBF Slack to “find” problems.
- [x] Reach out to those that have a company or are doing interesting work in the LBF Slack
- [x] Message 5 people to solicit for problems they have/project ideas
- [x] Compile all of the "user interviews" I've conducted into a document
- [x] Brainstorm solutions for these people's problems
- [x] Write a project proposal for a maximum of 1 hour
- [x] Send it to stakeholders

## Media

## Reflection

I've noticed I have a fear of asking people to help them. This is quite irrational as I am trying to help them, but I think it stems from a fear of failure.

## Who Else

10 week fellowship to make tangible personal progress in the field of longevity biotechnology.

Longevity Biotech Fellowship

# Personal MCP Server

## What

A self-hostable MCP-compatible server that lets any LLM (local or cloud) securely query just the user data you permit.

## Why

The main benefits of this service is personalization. I can have ChatGPT know _only the information I want it to know about me_ so that it can give better responses. Additionally, I can make it so the knowledge extraction is automated from my Obsidian Vault so that whenever I am working on a new project, ChatGPT can have access to everything about it.
This project gives me personalized AI without vendor lock-in or data risk as I own everything.

## How

The first version will be simple:

- A local MCP server that serves one JSON file with structured facts about me, my projects.
- LLMs can query it via HTTP to get relevant context.
- Access rules define which services can see what.
- Sensitive data (medical, opinions, personal reflections) is automatically filtered based on semantics + rule-based filtering.

Later, I’ll expand it with:

- Docker container for the service and then use nginx to expose my mcp server.
- Continuous information extraction from my notes and documents
- Improved information extraction
- A better retrieval system (I'm thinking HippoRAG2)

## When

I plan to have a minimal version working by November 2025.

## Progress

- [x] Defined concept and privacy model
- [x] Implement minimal MCP server
- [x] Host on my local machine, add url
- [x] Build local interface for permission rules
- [x] Integrate with ChatGPT MCP client (https://x.com/handzelmatt/status/1978847150231490967)
- [ ] Make access rules robust
- [ ] Add OAuth support for the MCP server

- [ ] Significantly improve knowledge extraction
  - [ ] Read literature
  - [ ] Prototype better extraction
- [ ] Significantly improve retrieval
  - [ ] Experiment with using HippoRAG2

## Media

## Reflection

## Who Else

A self-hosted system that lets LLMs query user-approved personal data to improve relevance without sacrificing privacy.

Personal Mcp Server

# Relearn Everything I Learned in University

## What

For this project, after I graduate from university, I want to relearn everything that I've learned What this means is being able to redo the homework assignments or projects that I learned.

## Why

## How

## When

## Progress

## Media

## Reflection

## Who Else

Relearn Everything I Learned In University

# Whole Food Plant Based Diet for 30 Days

## What

For 30 days I will be moving towards eating a whole food plant based diet based on [[how-not-to-die|How Not to Die]]. This means I will make an effort to remove the following from my diet:

- Meat
- Dairy
- Processed food
- Added sugar
- Oils

I will not be perfect. I will allow myself to eat some processed food like Huel[^1] and I might purchase something I didn't know had added sugar but I will be eating more and more pure as this month continues.

## Why

I want to see what effect having a very "clean" diet will have on my health, energy, and mood.
I want to experience everything there is to experience in life. Now when someone tells me they are vegan or vegetarian, we can bond over this shared experience.

## How

I will not buy anything that is not whole food plant based. I tend not to eat out already.
If I feel a negative difference in mood, health, and energy then I will stop this experiment.
I will take a multi-vitamin daily to get B12 and eat a lot of lentils, almonds, soy milk, and broccoli to maintain calcium.
If I am out with friends and there is nothing I can eat, I will eat what is available. I will not sacrifice social time for this diet.

## When

From 2025-10-15 to 2025-11-14 I will maintain this diet.

## Media

## Reflection

I did not realize that lentils actually taste very good! Tofu tastes good with soy sauce.
I think a hard part about this diet is getting over the belief that meat needs to be a part of every meal.
I also didn't know some foods like edameme have a good protein carb ratio.
It's only 1 day in and it seems quite easy to eat like this.
The only thing I am worried about is maintaining my muscle as I lose weight.
I've learned how to cook new dishes, which maintains novelty, which is a good reason to do these challenges!

## Who Else

I have tricked my roommate to doing a two-week vegetarian challenge.

[^1]: I have ~150$ worth of Huel that I need to eat before the end of the year. I might not always have time to cook.

Whole Food Plant Based Diet For 30 Days

# Website

## Overview
This project manages the technical development and content management of the personal website.

## Contents
- [[todo]] : Active task list for website features and updates.

Website

# The Mountain Is You

## Overview
A project dedicated to deep psychological work and overcoming self-sabotage, based on themes from "The Mountain Is You." It focuses on identifying subconscious resistances and transforming them into catalysts for growth.

## Contents
- [[denial-reversal]] : Techniques and reflections for identifying and overcoming states of denial.

The Mountain Is You

# Self Improving Coach Agent — Worklog

> This is the working document for the project. Open this first when starting a session. Update it last before stopping.

## Current Status

Not yet started.

## Next Actions

- [ ] Define first concrete step

## Open Questions / Blockers

- ...

## Session Log

> After each work session, add an entry below. This is your [[hemingway-bridge|Hemingway Bridge]] — make it easy to resume next time.

Self Improving Coach Agent

# task.nvim — Edit Taskwarrior as Markdown

An oil.nvim-inspired neovim plugin + CLI tool that lets you view and edit your Taskwarrior tasks as a markdown document. Edit text, save, tasks sync.

## Status

Phase 1 + Phase 2 core + Phase 3 polish complete. Verified on both TW2 (2.6.2) and TW3 (3.4.2). 50 tests passing. Shipped to GitHub: https://github.com/MattHandzel/task.nvim

Needs: demo GIF re-record, commit + push current changes, then launch.

## Growth

- Growth plan: [[task-nvim-growth-plan]]
- Research: [[neovim-plugin-growth-research]]
- Launch guidelines: [[guidelines-on-launching-neovim-plugins]]

## Repo

`~/Projects/task.nvim/` (standalone GitHub repo)

## Architecture

Hybrid: Python CLI (`bin/taskmd`, 705 lines) + neovim plugin (`lua/task/`, ~850 lines total).

- **CLI** handles all markdown<->taskwarrior logic (render, diff, apply, completions, UDA discovery)
- **Neovim plugin** provides buffer management, keybindings, dynamic highlighting, virtual text, quick-capture, confirmation dialogs
- Claude Code can use the CLI directly without neovim

## Key Files

- Repo: `~/Projects/task.nvim/`
- CLI tool: `~/Projects/task.nvim/bin/taskmd`
- Tests: `~/Projects/task.nvim/tests/test_taskmd.py` (50 tests, 4 suites)
- Neovim plugin: `~/Projects/task.nvim/lua/task/init.lua`
- Config: `~/Projects/task.nvim/lua/task/config.lua`
- Health check: `~/Projects/task.nvim/lua/task/health.lua`

## Completed This Session

### Bug Fixes

- [x] BUG-1: Tag removal now detected (reverse check in compute_diff)
- [x] BUG-2: Date time component preserved (compare by YYYY-MM-DD, not raw TW format)
- [x] BUG-3: Reorder spurious modifies (fixed by BUG-2)
- [x] 16 spurious changes on save (recurring collapse in apply, normalize-based diff, newline flattening, hyphenated tag support)
- [x] Naive vs aware datetime crash on conflict detection

### New Features

- [x] Dynamic syntax highlighting (extmark-based, updates on TextChanged, 50ms debounce)
- [x] Overdue dates highlighted in red
- [x] Recurring task collapsing (only shows earliest pending instance)
- [x] Leading whitespace tolerance in parser
- [x] Virtual text: urgency scores + annotation counts (right-aligned)
- [x] Quick-capture floating window (`<leader>ta` / `:TaskAdd`)
- [x] `:TaskSort` and `:TaskGroup` commands
- [x] `gf` shows formatted `task info` instead of raw JSON
- [x] UDA auto-discovery (discovers via `task _udas`, stores in header, threads through render/parse/diff)
- [x] `:checkhealth task` provider
- [x] Hyphenated tag support in parser and highlighting
- [x] Error count display on partial apply failures
- [x] JSON parsing hardened against TW warning prefixes

### Robustness

- [x] 9 edge-case tests: newlines, +word in descriptions, hyphenated tags, unicode, long descriptions, special chars, all-fields round-trip, empty descriptions, warning prefix
- [x] TW3 compatibility verified (50/50 tests pass on TW3.4.2)
- [x] Zero spurious actions on render→save round-trip with 346 real tasks

### Docs

- [x] README rewritten (new features, TW3 compat, comparison table, all commands)
- [x] Help text updated (all commands, fields, filter examples)

## Todos

### Pre-launch (by 2026-03-25)

- [ ] Commit and push all current changes to GitHub
- [ ] Re-record demo GIF showing: `:Task`, urgency virtual text, `<CR>` toggle, `o` add, `dd` delete, `:s/` bulk edit, `:w` confirmation, `gf` task info, `<leader>ta` quick-capture
- [ ] Use task.nvim daily for 2 days — find remaining bugs
- [ ] Add GitHub issue templates (bug report, feature request)

### Launch (2026-03-25)

- [ ] Post on r/neovim with GIF demo
- [ ] Submit PR to awesome-neovim
- [ ] Submit to Dotfyle
- [ ] Cross-post to r/taskwarrior + Taskwarrior GitHub Discussions
- [ ] Twitter/X thread with GIF
- [ ] Submit to This Week in Neovim

### Post-launch v1.1

- [x] Live diff preview (virtual text showing pending changes as you edit) — `:TaskDiffPreview` via `lua/task/diff_preview.lua`
- [x] Telescope integration (fuzzy task search) — `lua/telescope/_extensions/task.lua`; load with `require("telescope").load_extension("task")`
- [x] nvim-cmp completion source (project names, tags, fields) — `lua/task/cmp.lua`; register with `require("cmp").register_source("task", require("task.cmp").new())`
- [x] Statusline component (overdue count, next due task) — `require("task.statusline").render()`
- [x] `depends` field support — round-trips as `depends:short1,short2`; pytest covers add/modify
- [x] `task start/stop` support — `:TaskStart` / `:TaskStop`
- [x] Saved views (`:TaskSave` / `:TaskLoad`) — persisted to `stdpath("data")/task.nvim/saved-views.json`
- [x] Auto-detect project from cwd — pre-existing (`:TaskProjectAdd`, `<leader>tt` auto-filters)

### Post-launch v2

- [x] New-task active-state bug — `[>]` / `[x]` on a new (no-UUID) task line now emit a follow-up `start` / `done` after the `add`. Tests: `test_add_new_task_started`, `test_add_new_task_completed`.
- [x] TaskDelegate rewrite — popup form collects extra context, flags, model, system-prompt-file; runs claude interactively in a visible bottom split that stays open after exit.
- [x] `housing+food` tag-highlight bug — Lua highlighter now requires a non-word character before the `+` before applying `TaskTag`.
- [x] Pure-Lua TW reader (drop Python dependency) — `lua/task/taskmd.lua`, wired in via `config.backend = "lua"` (default); Python CLI retained as fallback. 60/60 parity tests vs Python.
- [x] Guided review mode (`:TaskReview`) — walks pending tasks in urgency order with keep/defer/done/modify/goto/quit actions
- [x] Group-aware move (dd/p between `##` headers changes project) — already working via `_parse_group_context`; pytest `test_group_move_reassigns_project` locks it in
- [x] Task dependency graph visualization — pre-existing `:TaskTree` in `lua/task/views.lua`
- [ ] filtering for this in taskwarrior doesn't work "project:coach +EXP-0011"
- [ ] Write blog post: "I Built a Neovim Plugin in One Session with AI" — user task
- [ ] Submit blog post to Hacker News — user task
- [ ] please check todo list for all `project:task_nvim` and do them
- [ ] When pressing "j" when i am on a todo it sometimes doesn't move down. here is an example:
      this is a function of the window size, the cursor being at the end of the line presses j but there is other logic that blocks movement when at the end of the line because of the uuid

      - [>] Message Euan Sproger (Li-Lian's recommendation) — 2-3 steps ahead on org-founding journey, into threat modeling and AI safety maps project:career priority:H due:2026-04-04 utility:12 +networking 
      - [>] Follow up with Li-Lian Ang with update on position doc progress. Tell her that writing out my thoughts and understanding what to think was very useful. tell her about the two directions i'm going down. i'm going to commit to one of them for a month and see how much progress i can do. Tell her the progress I've made, I've talked with Lukas and Ben who are interested in this space. Send her a cleaned up version of the v1 epistemics position doc as well as the google doc link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aRmeRYcgSrH8imQ8IDUOd2XQqM64BgBmtMLhiLEvhgs/edit?usp=sharing project:career priority:M due:2026-04-04 utility:10 +networking 

## Phases

1. Python CLI core (parser, adapter, render, diff, apply, grouping) — DONE
2. Neovim plugin (buffer mgmt, save handler, keybindings, undo, help, virtual text, quick-capture, sort/group) — DONE
3. Polish (dynamic highlighting, overdue detection, UDA discovery, checkhealth, robustness tests, TW3 compat) — DONE
4. Ecosystem (Telescope, nvim-cmp, statusline, saved views) — TODO (post-launch)

Task Nvim

# Daily Reflection System

A system for daily reflection that compares how I planned my day vs how it actually went. Uses LifeLog screenshots + LLM vision classification to automatically reconstruct how time was spent, then surfaces the delta between intention and reality.

## Status

De-risking: testing whether local Ollama (gemma3 vision) can classify LifeLog screenshots into meaningful activity categories.

## Data Sources

- **LifeLog screenshots**: `~/lifelog/data/screen/` — PNG every 10s, thumbnails available as `.thumb.jpg`
- **Calendar**: Google Calendar via MCP — planned schedule
- **Daily notes**: `dailies/` — objectives and reflections

## Architecture (draft)

1. **Activity classifier**: Ollama vision model classifies screenshots into activity categories
2. **Timeline builder**: Aggregates classifications into time blocks (e.g., "2:00-2:45 PM: coding in VS Code on project X")
3. **Plan extractor**: Pulls planned schedule from calendar + daily note objectives
4. **Delta analyzer**: Compares planned vs actual, surfaces gaps
5. **Reflection prompt**: Presents findings and prompts for reflection

## Known Challenges

### The Neovim Ambiguity Problem

Matt uses Neovim for coding, essay writing, journaling, and more. These are cognitively distinct tasks and different projects, but screenshots look nearly identical — same terminal, same editor, different content. The LLM must read the *content* (file paths, buffer names, visible text) to distinguish them, not just the app chrome. This is the hardest classification challenge in the pipeline.

**Mitigation strategies:**
1. **Prompt engineering**: Instruct the LLM to read file paths, buffer names, visible text content — not just identify the application
2. **Supplementary data**: LifeLog also captures window titles and active process names — these may disambiguate (e.g., `nvim ~/Obsidian/Main/dailies/` vs `nvim ~/Projects/lifelog/src/`)
3. **Ground truth calibration**: For a few days, Matt manually labels his calendar with what he was actually doing per time block. Use this as ground truth to measure classifier accuracy and iteratively improve the prompt. The LLM may eventually exceed human labeling quality since it sees every screenshot.

### Calibration Plan

1. Matt labels 2-3 days of calendar blocks with actual activities
2. Pipeline runs on those same days
3. Compare pipeline output vs labels → measure accuracy per category
4. Iterate on prompt, model choice, supplementary signals until accuracy is acceptable

## De-risk Results

### Benchmark: gemma3:4b vs 12b (2026-03-22)

| Model | Avg/image | 192 samples (5-min) | Quality |
|-------|-----------|--------------------|----|
| gemma3:4b-it-qat | 3.7s | 11.8 min | Good categories, less app-specific detail |
| gemma3:12b-it-qat | 11.7s | 37.4 min | Better app identification, more descriptive |

Both: 0 parse errors on 10 identical screenshots. 4b fits in 20-min budget at 5-min resolution; 12b does not.

### Feasibility test (2026-03-22)

30 screenshots from 12-6 PM PDT classified by gemma3:12b. All 30 parsed successfully. Correctly identified Slack, YouTube, VS Code, Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Maps, Notion, PostgreSQL. See `test-screenshot-classifier.py` and `derisk-results.json`.

Daily Reflection System

# Lifelog — Worklog

> This is the working document for the project. Open this first when starting a session. Update it last before stopping.

## Current Status

Not yet started.

## Next Actions

- [ ] Define first concrete step

## Open Questions / Blockers

- ...

## Session Log

> After each work session, add an entry below. This is your [[hemingway-bridge|Hemingway Bridge]] — make it easy to resume next time.

Lifelog

# Exploring Founding An Org — Worklog

> This is the working document for the project. Open this first when starting a session. Update it last before stopping.

## Current Status

Pivoted (per [[brain-dump]] 2026-04-30): from "build evals from scratch" → "find best existing evals, run them, publish, build credibility, then decide whether to scale to a formal org." 3-month plan + budget tiers + kill criteria drafted in [[3-month-plan]]. Publicity protocol + journalist list drafted in `resources/`.

## Next Actions

- [ ] Review [[3-month-plan]] — pick a budget tier (A/B/C), confirm kill criteria, answer the 5 open questions in §8
- [ ] Verify "Oly Sourbourt" identity (deferred — couldn't confirm in 2026-04-30 web pass)
- [ ] Run M1 verification layer build: `compare-to-paper.py` against Claude system card baselines (political bias, BBQ, election integrity) — see [[3-month-plan]] §3 M1
- [ ] Off-record interest call with 1 tier-1 journalist (suggested: Garrison Lovely OR Sigal Samuel) — see [[ai-journalists-and-press-contacts]]
- [ ] Review [[2026-04-27-ranked-catalog-and-shortlist]] + [[2026-04-27-example-items-shortlist]] — decide whether top-3 (creator-loyalty, hedging-inversion, source-fidelity) is the right shortlist
- [ ] Confirm Drake's email + last name; send [[capture/draft-drake-anthropic-eval-shortlist-2026-04-27]]
- [ ] Verify Jason Wei's email; send [[capture/draft-jason-wei-openai-eval-shortlist-2026-04-27]]
- [ ] Verify Laura Weidinger's email; send [[capture/draft-laura-weidinger-gdm-eval-shortlist-2026-04-27]]
- [ ] Decide apprenticeship vs. founding path (see "founding may be wrong right now" section in [[funders]])
- [ ] If apprenticeship: apply to AI for Human Reasoning Fellowship + Anthropic Fellows July 2026
- [ ] If founding: write Manifund proposal + send Coefficient Giving EOI
- [ ] Resolve Constellation Incubator with Henry Sleight
- [ ] Set Oct 2026 calendar reminder for MATS Winter 2026/27 cycle

## Open Questions / Blockers

- Is the AI for Human Reasoning Fellowship accepting applications for a current cycle?
- Constellation Incubator details (no public URL, only Henry Sleight contact)
- Charity Entrepreneurship / Ambitious Impact — do they have an AI safety track in 2026?

## Session Log

> After each work session, add an entry below. This is your [[hemingway-bridge|Hemingway Bridge]] — make it easy to resume next time.

### 2026-04-30 — Agent session: 3-month plan + publicity research + journalist list

Mode: converge

What I did:
- Triaged the 4 layers of "concrete next steps" in [[brain-dump]] against existing project state (already-done vs. blocked vs. unblocked); deleted duplicate work and pulled forward the 3 items Matt explicitly scoped.
- Wrote [[3-month-plan]] — 13-week plan May 1–Jul 31 with month-by-month milestones, 3 budget tiers ($15.5k / $26k / $42k) computed bottom-up, 7 hard-kill conditions + soft-kill set + continue-signals, time-budget breakdown, risk register, and 5 open questions for Matt.
- Wrote [[ai-eval-publicity-norms]] in `resources/` — case studies of METR (partnership-labeled releases), Apollo (striking-finding pattern), Anthropic political-bias release (open-source defense + ideological-attack risk), Epoch (institutional cadence). Includes pre-release lab-coordination protocol (2-week heads-up, no veto, publish-the-exchange).
- Wrote [[ai-journalists-and-press-contacts]] in `resources/` — 4 tiers, ~25 journalists. Tier-1 prioritizes EA-adjacent/safety-aware (Kelsey Piper, Sigal Samuel, Dylan Matthews, Garrison Lovely, Charlie Warzel, Matteo Wong, Karen Hao). Flagged Casey Newton conflict (partner at Anthropic), Will Knight role uncertainty, "Oly Sourbourt" still unverified.

Key insight: The brain-dump pivot reframes founder fit. Original-eval construction needed a researcher co-founder; "find best existing evals + run + verify + publicize" needs a comms/distribution co-founder. The Shon Pan question changes accordingly.

Where I left off: 3 docs ready for Matt's review. Pipeline owned separately; Lucas/Joshua emails deferred until M1 results exist; dollar amount for Joshua deferred until Matt picks a budget tier. Pending question: did the user really mean "Lucas" or "Lukas Finnveden"? Brain-dump uses both.

Next session starts with: Matt picks a budget tier and answers the 5 open questions in [[3-month-plan]] §8. Then either kicks off M1 verification-layer build OR books an off-record call with a tier-1 journalist (Garrison Lovely is the lowest-friction starter).

### 2026-04-27 — Agent session: Eval shortlist + 3 researcher drafts

**Mode:** converge

**What I did:**
- Applied Matt's 6-criterion ranking (saturation, interpretability, scalability, lab-care-now, lab-should-care, work-done) to the existing 18-row epistemic-eval inventory; produced [[2026-04-27-ranked-catalog-and-shortlist]] with composite scores
- Narrowed to top 3: creator-loyalty flip test, hedging-quality inversion, multi-domain source fidelity (sycophancy lost out on field-already-crowded grounds)
- Hand-built 5 example items per shortlist candidate in [[2026-04-27-example-items-shortlist]] (paired prompts for creator-loyalty, RLHF-stage diff for hedging, four-domain citation pipeline for source fidelity)
- Drafted 3 researcher outreach emails per email-writing-system + write-like-matt: Drake (Anthropic, warm-cold), Jason Wei (OpenAI, cold), Laura Weidinger (GDM, cold). All saved to capture/, all passed voice + scan + apology + fan-vs-peer filters.
- Added Taskwarrior tasks 387-390 with wiki-link annotations

**Key insight: The strategic-analysis from March already converged on the same top 3 shortlist independently. That's a credibility check on the ranking, not noise. The work today added the 6-criterion legibility (so Matt can defend the shortlist to a funder) and the concrete example items (so researchers can rank in 20 minutes instead of 2 hours).**

**Where I left off:** 3 drafts ready in capture/. Each needs Matt to (a) verify the recipient email, (b) decide whether to send all 3 in parallel or stagger by 2-3 days, (c) optionally pre-share the shortlist + examples doc.

**Next session starts with:** Matt's review of the shortlist. If he approves the top-3, the next concrete move is the 2-week sprint scoping (adversarial-construct check on each candidate per [[2026-04-27-ranked-catalog-and-shortlist#5. What I would actually do with this shortlist]]).

### 2026-04-15 — Agent session: Funders doc restructure

**Mode:** converge

**What I did:**
- Restructured [[funders]] from stub → decision document: decision tree by stage, 3 tables (incubators, grant funders, fiscal sponsors), VCs as appendix, personalized shortlist
- Synthesized from 5 vault sources: [[funders-doc-raw]], [[research-founder-fit-ai-safety]], [[epistemic-evals-people-and-orgs]], [[founder-stories-ais-epistemic]], and [[founder-fit-assessment-result]]
- Self-corrected: Forethought MATS Summer 2026 was closed Jan 18 (not a viable near-term option), and founder fit assessment reframes timing — domain depth is the bottleneck, not capital

**Key insight: The funders doc revealed that Matt's actual highest-leverage move isn't getting funding — it's getting domain depth, calibrated references, and a co-founder. The "apprenticeship → spin-out" pattern (METR, Apollo) is better-supported than direct founding for his current profile.**

**Where I left off:** Doc is complete but missing verified details on several rows (URLs, deadlines, amounts). Some incubators/programs marked (verify) or (L confidence).

**Next session starts with:** Matt reviews the doc and makes the apprenticeship-vs-founding call. Then verify the (L) and "verify" cells — specifically AI for Human Reasoning Fellowship current cycle, Constellation Incubator details, Charity Entrepreneurship AI safety track.

Exploring Founding An Org

# Ultra Marathon — Worklog

> This is the working document for the project. Open this first when starting a session. Update it last before stopping.

## Current Status

Not yet started.

## Next Actions

- [ ] Define first concrete step

## Open Questions / Blockers

- ...

## Session Log

> After each work session, add an entry below. This is your [[hemingway-bridge|Hemingway Bridge]] — make it easy to resume next time.

Ultra Marathon

Learning System

# Life Scheduler

A self-hosted, mostly-deterministic habit and time scheduler for Matt. Replaces Reclaim.ai. Runs on the home server. Reads `habits.md` as source of truth. Writes to a secondary Google Calendar ("Life Scheduler") that the primary calendar overlays. Cal.com reads that calendar for availability.

## Why this exists

- Reclaim.ai turned habits into busywork (see [[dailies/2025-12-28]]) — habits got scheduled but not done, calendar became noise.
- No existing product closes the loop: schedule → observe completion → update per-habit parameters → improve next schedule.
- Matt wants a system that is transparent (deterministic, debuggable), user-editable (markdown source of truth), and that other systems (the coach) can nudge without owning.

## Core design principles

1. **Deterministic core.** The scheduler is a smart program, not an LLM. LLMs (coach) tweak parameters, never make placement decisions at scheduling time.
2. **Predictable > optimal.** Users abandon schedulers that keep reshuffling. Plan 7 days ahead, minimize churn on re-run, manual edits win permanently (see [[competitive-and-technical-landscape]] §9).
3. **Markdown as UI.** `habits.md` is the source of truth. Matt or the coach edit it by hand in Obsidian. Syncthing handles distribution.
4. **One writer per artifact.** Scheduler writes the "Life Scheduler" gcal only. Coach writes `active-rules.md` and `habits.md`. Matt writes `habits.md`. No two systems edit the same file.
5. **≤25% of waking hours blocked.** Protect free time. Overscheduling is the #1 abandonment cause.
6. **Misses are data, not failures.** Never surface adherence scores. The completion log drives parameter learning, never guilt.

## Architecture at a glance

```
               ┌─────────────────────┐
               │   habits.md         │  ← sole source of truth, Syncthing-synced
               │   (markdown)        │     coach PROPOSES, user ACCEPTS
               └──────────┬──────────┘
                          │ read
                          ▼
┌──────────────┐   ┌─────────────────────┐    ┌─────────────────────────┐
│ (coach sits  │   │  life-scheduler     │───▶│ gcal "Life Scheduler"   │
│  outside:    │   │  (nightly cron,     │    │ (secondary calendar)    │
│  edits       │   │   deterministic)    │    └───────────┬─────────────┘
│  habits.md)  │   │                     │                │
└──────────────┘   │  priority greedy    │                │ overlay
                   │                     │                │ overlay
┌──────────────┐   │  priority greedy    │                ▼
│ gcal primary │──▶│  + backtracking     │    ┌─────────────────────────┐
│ (immovable)  │   │  + parameter store  │    │ gcal primary (view)     │
└──────────────┘   └──────────┬──────────┘    └─────────────────────────┘
                              │                            ▲
                              │ push webhook               │ reads for conflicts
                              ▼                            │
                   ┌─────────────────────┐    ┌───────────┴─────────────┐
                   │ completion-log.     │    │ Cal.com (public link)   │
                   │ jsonl (append-only) │◀───┤ handzelmatthew@cal.com  │
                   └─────────────────────┘    └─────────────────────────┘
                              ▲
                              │ events
                              │
                   ┌─────────────────────┐
                   │ signals:            │
                   │  - daily note tick  │
                   │  - ntfy ack         │
                   │  - gcal skip        │
                   │  - (v2) lifelog     │
                   └─────────────────────┘
```

## Versions

- [[v1-mvp-spec]] — greedy placer, nightly, 7-day window, no learning (active)
- [[v2-location-aware|v2-location-aware]] — lifelog completion signal, location awareness, parameter learning (stub)
- [[v3-continuous-replan|v3-continuous-replan]] — event-driven replan, CP-SAT solver if needed (stub)

## Key files

| File                                                         | Purpose                                                                        |
| ------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `projects/life-scheduler/life-scheduler.md`                  | This file                                                                      |
| `projects/life-scheduler/_worklog.md`                        | Session log                                                                    |
| `projects/life-scheduler/v1-mvp-spec.md`                     | v1 concrete spec                                                               |
| `projects/life-scheduler/versions/`                          | Future versions (v2, v3)                                                       |
| `projects/life-scheduler/habits-schema.md`                   | Markdown schema for `habits.md`                                                |
| `projects/life-scheduler/research/competitive-and-technical-landscape.md` | External research                                                     |
| `projects/life-scheduler/research/cal-com-setup-guide.md`    | Cal.com configuration (in flight)                                              |
| `~/Projects/life-scheduler/`                                  | Code                                                                           |
| `areas/systems/habits.md`                                     | Source of truth — habit definitions (confirmed location; seeded 2026-04-12)    |

## Dependencies on the rest of the vault

- **Reads:** [[habits|areas/systems/habits.md]] (sole source of truth), [[ideal-week-system]], gcal primary calendar. Does **not** read [[active-rules]] — that's the coach's runtime-nudge surface, separate concern.
- **Writes:** gcal "Life Scheduler" secondary calendar, completion log, learned-parameters file
- **Integrates with:** Cal.com (via gcal-pull pattern), coach agent (via parameter config), ntfy (notifications)
- **Must not conflict with:** [[universal-calendar-capture]] (both write to gcal — scheduler writes to secondary, UCC writes to primary; no overlap)

## Success criteria

v1 ships when:
1. Nightly cron runs, produces a 7-day plan, writes to gcal "Life Scheduler"
2. Cal.com picks up the secondary calendar as a busy source
3. Matt can edit `habits.md` and see the plan change on next run
4. Completion log captures scheduled vs done/skipped per event
5. Plan covers ≤25% of waking hours, doesn't conflict with primary gcal events
6. Matt uses it for 7 consecutive days without reverting to manual scheduling

## Open questions

1. **Final location of `habits.md`.** Existing files: `areas/habits.md` (loose checkboxes), `areas/productivity/habits.md` (one line). Proposed: `areas/systems/habits.md` alongside [[active-rules]] and [[ideal-week-system]]. Decision needed.
2. **Coach write-scope.** The coach currently writes to [[active-rules]]. Should it write habit entries to `habits.md` too, or propose changes for Matt to accept? Proposed: propose; Matt accepts in daily review.
3. **Lifelog integration.** v2 can read screenshots → detect completion. Requires lifelog schema stabilization.
4. **Cal.com handle.** Is `cal.com/matthandzel` available? Does it need paid tier for custom domain `matthandzel.com/cal/highcal`? (Cal.com research agent addressing this.)

## Related work in the vault

- [daily-reflection-system](/projects#project-daily-reflection-system) — plan-vs-actual reflection; complementary (they compare, we plan)
- [lifelog](/projects#project-lifelog) — completion signal source for v2
- [[universal-calendar-capture]] — existing gcal integration patterns to reuse
- [[coach]] / `agent/CLAUDE.md` — coach system that will consume this scheduler

Life Scheduler

# Luck System Skills

A library of twelve Claude Code slash-commands that operate the [[luck-operating-system]]. Each skill is a small markdown file that Claude reads and executes when invoked. Skills live in this project folder (source of truth, tracked in vault) and are symlinked into `~/.claude/commands/luck/` so they're invocable as `/luck:skill-name`.

## Why skills, not scripts

Most of the "automation" the Luck OS needs is actually judgment, voice, personalization, or synthesis — things Python does poorly and Claude does cheaply. See [[luck-operating-system]] for the full architecture. The code layer (parsers, staleness computers, ntfy plumbing) stays small (~300 lines in `relationship-os-core`); the interesting work lives here as skills.

## Design principles

1. **Self-contained.** Each skill reads its own context from the vault. No assumed state.
2. **Output to files by default.** Drafts, analyses, and summaries go to `capture/` or the relevant contact file — not just chat.
3. **Voice-match to Matt.** Every drafting skill reads [[write-like-matt]] + [[matts-writing-style-profile]] first.
4. **Idempotent where possible.** Running a skill twice shouldn't double-append to contact files or re-send drafts.
5. **Fail loud.** If a required vault file is missing, report it rather than fabricating.
6. **Cite sources.** Skills that do research label claims with source URLs and date-of-retrieval.

## The skills

| Skill | Purpose | Trigger | Inputs |
|---|---|---|---|
| [[enrich-contact]] | Deep-research a contact, write profile to their file | Ad-hoc / quarterly on schedule | contact name |
| [[parse-capture]] | Parse ntfy-delivered freeform relationship capture | Ntfy poll (code-wrapper trigger) | raw message |
| [[parse-linkedin]] | Extract structured fields from a pasted LinkedIn profile | Ad-hoc / ntfy paste | contact name + text |
| [[m1-refresh]] | Pick 3 stale contacts, draft 3 personalized refresh notes | Sunday 19:00 ntfy | none |
| [[m2-coffee-chats]] | Surface N new people, draft N cold coffee-chat emails using canonical bio | Mon/Thu 09:00 ntfy + ad-hoc | optional `[count] [--source X] [--topic Y]` |
| [[m3-quarterly-blast]] | Draft 30–50 personalized "what are you working on" notes | First Sunday of quarter | none |
| [[m4-post-publish]] | Surface contacts the post is relevant for, draft personalized notes | After `status: published` change | post URL or path |
| [[warm-intro]] | Find bridge broker via cluster map, draft warm-intro ask | Ad-hoc | target name |
| [[cross-post]] | Generate tweet thread + LinkedIn adaptation from a blog post | After publish | post URL or path |
| [[sunday-review]] | Run the weekly LSA review — drift, deltas, next actions | Sunday 19:30 ntfy | none |
| [[broker-variance]] | Analyze S1 broker-test responses, pick winning pitch | When S1 responses are in | responses file |
| [[draft-ask]] | Draft a 4-slot ask with release valve for a specific target | Ad-hoc | target + topic + context |
| [[now-update]] | Regenerate the `/now` page from current state | Weekly | none |

## Invocation

After the setup script runs (see below), each skill is callable as:

```
/luck:enrich-contact alice-smith
/luck:m1-refresh
/luck:warm-intro ryan-kidd
```

Also callable non-interactively (from scheduled timers):

```bash
claude code -p "/luck:sunday-review"
```

## Setup

Run `bash projects/luck-system-skills/setup-symlinks.sh` once to wire the files into `~/.claude/commands/luck/`. It creates the target directory if missing, and creates one symlink per skill.

## Maintenance

When Matt wants a new skill or a change to an existing one:
1. Edit the file in this project folder (single source of truth — tracked in vault + git).
2. No symlink rebuild needed (existing symlinks keep working).
3. If adding a new skill: create the file here, run `setup-symlinks.sh` again (idempotent — skips existing links).

## Related

- [[luck-operating-system]] — the 8 subsystems these skills operate
- [luck-system](/note/luck-system) — the underlying model
- [[relationship-os]] — the CRM v2 most skills read from
- [[exp-2026-04-20-0012-luck-system-install]] — tracks skill activation status
- [[project-execution-engine]] — the code layer (`relationship-os-core`) will be built via PEE
- [[write-like-matt]] + [[matts-writing-style-profile]] — voice rules every drafting skill reads

Luck System Skills

# Generator Residency

TODO:

- [x] Ask to start early (second week of May)

  - [x] Send an email to Neav and CC Helena Tran after talkign with Carolina.

    ```
    Super excited to start the residency!
    I spoke to Helena a little about this during my interview, but I'm wondering if it is possible to start the residency earlier. I would be able to figure out my own housing situation. I am already a member of Mox, so I could co-work out of there if there are not spots in Constellation (but working out of Constellation would be ideal :))

    I imagine I can learn a lot and contribute to the field in the 6 weeks before the official start date. Since I'm already in the Bay Area, I'm well positioned to do so. I understand if this is not possible because of logistical reasons, but here are some ideas of what I can jump in and work on if it is possible to start early:

    - I've spoken with Carolina Oliveira at Mox. She mentioned Mox wants to play a larger role in building capacity for AI safety, with the potential of hosting some fellowships in the space and bringing AI safety deeper into SF. I'm having a deeper conversation with her on Monday to see what she needs help with.
    - METR is in the process of hiring a role for someone to build infrastructure to get contractors to do baselines for the Time Horizon study. They mentioned they could have used someone to do this role since the Time Horizon 1.1 study, but they didn't have the capacity to hire someone specifically for this role. I imagine this is common in other orgs. What I am pitching to work on for 6 weeks is acting as a Forward-deployed engineer at some of the orgs in Constellation. I think this would be good as I'd get an inside look at how some orgs work, build relationships, and I am a good technical fit because I've worked on AI workflows for clients for my consulting business (handzelsystems.com).
    - On the application, I pitched me working on an organization that publicizes the epistemic capabilities of models. I've been working on this for the last couple weeks. I am making some progress on this and can work on this full-time. Here is a doc with the project information and progress: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aRmeRYcgSrH8imQ8IDUOd2XQqM64BgBmtMLhiLEvhgs/edit?usp=sharing
    - I would be happy to discuss other projects I can jump in on as well.

    Best,
    - Matt
    ```

- Identify how I can agency max (reading books and stuff)
- CG Grant application

```
Okay, so I applied to CG Career transition grant. I got into a residency program in June. It would be nice if I could get a couple thousand dollars because I've been living off savings for the last 4 months and have drained 12k of my savings. but I do not _need_ the grant anymore.
```

- lemme just post what i find on twitter for the epistemics stuff
- buy tickets to london (trip gonna cost ~2k)
- [x] tell Derik I am going to leave probably soon unless I work out of Mox
- write "how i got into ai safety"
- "agency talks", once a week go through an article, apply it to our lives. over the course of the month we will do activities to adopt those traits.

- collate resources and read them, embody them