Welcome to Notes from the Rabbit Hole

What I’m focused on right now

Analyzing the Proposed HHS Budget Cuts: Impacts on Vulnerable Populations The recently leaked Office of Management and Budget (OMB) document dated April 10, 2025, outlines dramatic changes to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This “passback” document, which represents an early stage in the budget process, proposes significant funding reductions and structural reorganization that would fundamentally alter federal health services. While these changes would affect all Americans, vulnerable populations would likely bear a disproportionate burden of these cuts. ...

Productivity in 2025: What’s Actually Working Now Let’s be honest—the productivity space has become a bit of a circus lately. With everyone and their cousin launching an AI-powered tool promising to revolutionize how you work, it’s getting harder to separate what’s actually useful from what’s just shiny and new. As someone who’s experimented with more productivity systems than I care to admit, I wanted to cut through the noise and share what’s actually moving the needle for people right now. So I dug into the latest research, tested several trending approaches myself, and compiled this guide to what’s working in April 2025. ...

The Silicon Panopticon: Palantir’s Militarization of AI and the Erosion of Digital Liberty In the dystopian fiction many of us grew up reading, surveillance states weren’t built by governments alone—they were constructed through public-private partnerships with corporations eager to profit from omniscience. Today, that fiction has materialized in the form of Palantir Technologies, a company whose very name—drawn from the corrupting “seeing stones” of Tolkien’s Middle Earth—betrays its function: to watch, to know, and to enable action based on that knowledge. ...

The Battle of the Brains: How OpenAI and Anthropic Are Shaping AI in 2025 Ever wondered what’s happening at the cutting edge of AI right now? I’ve been on a journey to discover the real differences between today’s top AI assistants, and I’m excited to share what I’ve learned with you. If you’ve been following tech news, you’ve probably heard about large language models (LLMs) from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. These powerful AI systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and they’re changing how we work, create, and solve problems. ...

Ever feel like you’re stuck on the content creation hamster wheel, constantly producing new material but never seeing those sweet passive income benefits everyone talks about? I’ve been there too. After diving into research and filling countless notebook pages, I’m excited to share this weekly content system I’m developing that transforms a single idea into multiple income streams across blogs, videos, and digital products. This is definitely a work in progress. I’m basically developing this plan out in the open, so your thoughts and experiences would be incredibly valuable as I fine-tune this approach. Have you tried something similar before? Why Multi-Channel Content Strategy Creates Better Passive Income Opportunities Think about the creators who are actually making passive income work - notice how they’re rarely putting all their eggs in one basket? The successful ones aren’t just course creators or just bloggers – they’re strategic content remixers who let each platform amplify the others. ...

If you’re a developer who spends hours in the terminal, a well-tuned Zsh configuration isn’t just nice to have—it’s a productivity multiplier. I’ve covered the basics of Zsh in previous articles, but today I want to dive into specialized configurations for specific programming languages that can transform your development workflow. Over the years, I’ve constantly refined my Zsh setup, and I’ve discovered that language-specific customizations make a tremendous difference in daily coding efficiency. Let’s explore how to optimize Zsh for Python, JavaScript/Node.js, and Rust development with practical examples you can implement today. ...

When the Master Meets the Method Imagine capturing a brilliant story idea while walking in the park, connecting it to a character sketch from last month, and discovering a theme that ties them together—all within minutes. This is the promise of what I call the “King-Kasten Method.” Stephen King collects ideas like finding shells on a beach. Niklas Luhmann built an academic empire with index cards. What happens when we merge these approaches in the digital age? ...

Ever wanted a pet that defies the laws of nature, climbs walls like Spider-Man, and actually talks back to you with adorable chirps? Let me introduce you to the mourning gecko (Lepidodactylus lugubris) – nature’s own little rule-breaker that’ll completely change how you think about reptile pet ownership. Have you ever looked at your living space and thought there’s no way you could have an exotic pet? Or maybe you’ve been searching for something truly unique that won’t have your landlord running for the hills? I was exactly where you are now. ...

This article is way more heavily written by AI than most content on this site. Usually I’m the one doing the writing, but I’m using AI as an assistant. In this one, this article is mostly the output of a learning experiment to create a team of agents that would research, write, correct, and optimize an article based on a topic prompt. This one was written by OpenAI GPT-4o based agents. How New US Tariffs Are Shaking Up the Tech Industry in 2025 Thinking about upgrading your phone or laptop anytime soon? You might want to hold off; at least until the latest wave of US tariffs settles in. And even if you’re not planning a purchase, these changes could still hit where it counts: your wallet, your cloud storage, even your upgrade timeline. ...