Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 6hI just did the "make it faster" prompt on my Neomd email client, as I had a slow internet connection today. 110
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 29/09/2026Seventeen years of note-taking, and the hardest part was never writing the note. It was finding it again two years later. www.ssp.sh/blog/proces...ssp.shThe Process of Smart Note-TakingSeventeen years of note-taking distilled: use connected links instead of folders, keep your notes in plain text Markdown, and publish your second brain to learn in public. 240
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 28/09/2026Writing code by hand might be dead, but the problem isn't AI code; it's that nobody knows anything anymore. 2100
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 27/09/2026Picasso would not have bothered to start a painting if he knew the outcome. That line stuck with me while sitting near a beach in Italy, writing without knowing where it leads. www.ssp.sh/blog/on-cre...ssp.shThe Act and the Outcome of CreationA reflection on why we create: for joy, for flow, for others, and for the self. On creation as a gift with no strings attached and success beyond outcomes. 151
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 26/09/20264 things I learned over the years with AI: 1. If consumed by a human, it should also be written by one 2. It's hard to finish an idea that's not yours 3. If you start writing today, there's no way to know if you can write without AI 4. AI won't replace human writing (as writing is thinking) You? 171
Reposted by Simon Späti 🏔️Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 25/09/2026If you want to be a data engineer, learn these concepts. de-concepts.ssp.sh 121
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 25/09/2026Proud of what I have achieved with writing online. It's hard to consolidate writing in a form that makes sense and not being irrelevant after a week. Especially these days. 130
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 25/09/2026> Own your own website, buy a domain, and start with a static website, or if you can’t, use Substack or others, but link it to your own domain, so later you can move and keep all the links and traffic via the domain. Once you have your domain, reshare everywhere else on each social media.ssp.shWhy you Should have your own Website (and Syndicate Everywhere)Own your own website, buy a domain, and start with a static website, or if you can't, use Substack or others, but link it to your own domain, so later you can move and keep all... 011
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 25/09/2026If you want to be a data engineer, learn these concepts. de-concepts.ssp.sh 121
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 24/09/2026Nothing to see here, just me traversing my little universe at ssp.sh. 011
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 24/09/2026Writing code by hand might be dead, but it certainly helps.ssp.shWriting Code by Hand Might Be Dead, but it Certainly HelpsThat's my answer to "is writing code dead?" as of 2026-09-24. 061
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 24/09/2026Engineers care about two things in production, says Ciro Greco from Bauplan: downstream consumers never see corrupted data, and nobody debugs failures under pressure. His answer is git for data. No job writes to production tables directly. www.ssp.sh/brain/git-f...ssp.shGit for DataGit like versioning on top of object storage/Data Lakes and databases. 120
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 23/09/2026Here are three things I learned writing with AI as a full-time author: 1. If consumed by a human, it should also be written by one 2. If you start writing today, there's no way to know if you can write without AI 3. AI won't replace human writing (and thinking) 000
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 23/09/2026A smarter cd. zoxide remembers the directories you use most and jumps there in a few keystrokes. Works on all major shells. The trick I added: seed it with folders I never cd into, so fuzzy finding in yazi has everything available. www.ssp.sh/brain/zoxidessp.shZoxideA smarter cd command. Supports all major shells. 150
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 22/09/2026If you can show you have written before using AI, people can trust you more easily than if you start today. If you haven't: > There's no way for readers to know if you can write without AI, whereas if you have written long enough, people know.ssp.shWriting with AI: What's the Best Approach?To me, AI writing always results in this: And if it's read by a human, it should also be written by a human. 100
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 22/09/2026You can drop DuckDB into a static webpage with one script tag. www.ssp.sh/brain/run-d... 173
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 21/09/2026Vim has thousands of shortcuts. Nobody memorizes them. You learn a grammar of verbs and objects and compose the rest. What if data engineering had the same? That is the idea behind expressions in Ibis and xorq. A grammar with four parts of speech. www.ssp.sh/blog/gramma...ssp.shThe Grammar of Data: Define Once, Run Anywhere with Cross-Engine ExpressionsLearn how declarative expressions with Ibis and xorq let you define data transformations once and execute them across any engine — DuckDB, Postgres, DataFusion — with full lineage and reproducibility. 150
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 19/09/2026I've written up Part 3 of my year using Omarchy: why Quattro took off, my favorite parts, and how it compares to my previous Omarchy versions. There are lots of videos and illustrations if you want to see it in action too. I hope you enjoy it, let me know what you think. www.ssp.sh/blog/omarch...ssp.sh Omarchy Quattro: One Year In — Part 3Omarchy Quattro isn't a better macOS or Windows, it's a new kind of OS. My take after a year full time: plugin marketplace, unified menus, and the hype. 010
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 19/09/2026Learn for life was the first slogan on my blog. It is still my principle number one. www.ssp.sh/brain/learn...ssp.shLearn for LifeLearn for life was my earliest Mantra and slogan in my blog. It has stayed with me to this day; it's My Principles number Anthony de Mello says in Awareness (Anthony de Mello, J. 100
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 18/09/2026People keep asking me how to get started with data engineering. I finally wrote it down in a dedicated place. www.ssp.sh/brain/getti...ssp.shHow to Get Started with Data EngineeringWhether you work in a different field or are curious about what Data Engineering is, this is the right place to start as a data engineer. 100
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 17/09/2026Swiss German is my mother tongue. High German is what I had to write in at school. English is what I chose. www.ssp.sh/brain/writi...ssp.shWriting in a Foreign Language: How English Gave Me My VoiceThis is how I found My Writing Voice and style. I initially read a lot of English books because I didn't know the language well when I was in CPH and was learning it. 110
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 16/09/2026You can actually just 𝚋̶𝚞̶𝚒̶𝚕̶𝚍̶prompt things. Here, I have a custom feedback page loading my book with reactions or comments on each paragraph. This is WIP and just testing the waters, but something like this is what I always wanted to get high-level feedback from multiple readers on parts of my book. 020
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 16/09/2026AI is the best and worst thing that has happened to open source, at the same time. www.ssp.sh/brain/open-...ssp.shOpen Source (OSS): Advantages, Challenges, and AIOpen source software refers to software projects shared online on GitHub, Codeberg, Tangled, or other GitHub Alternatives, usually with a git repository. 130
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 15/09/2026Ever wondered how to expand an Obsidian-style second brain to a company-wide brain? Wonder no more 🙂. I explore how to make a second brain multi-user-able, keep it consistent, and keep it up to date with agents securely. www.ssp.sh/blog/from-o... 4181
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 14/09/2026🔥 New services page. After having the old one for two years and not really updating it, I added more clients, a better description of my services, and some more stats. services.ssp.sh Wdyt? 110
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 14/09/2026Fifteen years of data engineering built Airflow, Dagster, Prefect and Kestra. This year we started building them again, for AI agents. For a while, new AI orchestrators appeared almost daily. www.ssp.sh/brain/are-w...ssp.shAre We Reinventing the Tools of Data Engineering for AI?With data engineering and 15 years of building Data Orchestration tools like Airflow, Dagster, Prefect, and Kestra, we are now doing the same for AI agents. 110
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 14/09/2026Code is consumed by a computer. Writing is consumed by a human. That difference decides where AI belongs. www.ssp.sh/brain/the-d...ssp.shThe Differences between Writing and CodingAI Writing differs from coding because it's consumed by different stakeholders. One is a computer running the code; the other is a real human being. 120
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 13/09/2026I've landed on the front page of Hacker News 19 times, one of the most visited tech sites. Already 7 times this year, and 9 times in 2025 as well. It still amazes me. Meanwhile, I've collected more than 10k upvotes on Reddit. On Google Search, I've had ~1 million impressions in the past 28 days. 150
Reposted by Simon Späti 🏔️Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 11/09/2025Today's Office. New machine, same OS. Tuxedo Laptop, 128 GB RAM 🤯. Very smooth. #Omarchy 4351
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 11/09/2026I just saw a question on Reddit: How do I replicate Google Docs in Obsidian? I use a Git repo with GitHub & HackMD. HackMD acts as the GDocs for collaboration. Git lets me push and pull between my personal, private Obsidian and the collaborative HackMD. Works great if there aren't too many changes.ssp.shHackMD: Collaborative Markdown (Google Docs for Obsidian)Markdown is awesome, the only disadvantage is it's not collaborative. HackMD seems to solve this. 120
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 11/09/2026It's Friday, let's fight. That's how the story of my guest's writing started. Today, he is one of the most prolific writers out there, and he publishes every Friday with that tagline. Benn uses analogies in his writing (discovered through giving presentations) & deadlines to get something shipped.ssp.shIf You Always Enjoy It, You're Not Pushing It Hard Enough—Benn Stancil (Show Your Workflow #1)Benn about his writing-process and how to come up with storytelling, inspired by his presentation-style 140
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 10/09/2026The Process of Smart Note-Taking. This showcases how I take notes, make connections, and distill them into blogs. It's what I've learned over the years, heavily inspired by Smart Notes and the Zettelkasten philosophy. But tailored to how my brain & writing work with Obsidian. youtu.be/RXuF0jnJAgE 130
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 09/09/2026I added converted Callouts to Marginal Notes on my blog and second brain. Before: Callouts inline, TOC on the right. After: Callouts notes on the right side, TOC moved to the left. It's amazing how much vertical space you can save, too, and it looks so beautiful, IMO. 110
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 09/09/2026Defining your analytics solution end-to-end in one sentence would be a dream for most data teams. If we use a grammar that helps apply all steps of the data lifecycle, we can define, manifest, test, and run a full ETL workload with one expression. I tried exactly this. 220
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 08/09/2026> Writings are for humans to read mostly, so they should be written by a human. Code is mostly a tool to achieve something, read by a computer, so it's less relevant to write by hand unless you work in a team or need strong maintainability.ssp.shIf Consumed by a Human, Should Be Written by HumanI like Naval's take, as elaborated above, which says it all depends on who the customer is. Also, I pondered on the question of Should I Change My Writing because of AI? 020
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 08/09/2026If you use RSS feeds, you can follow the latest updates on my second brain more easily. I updated the RSS feed to show full notes (not only summaries) with all images and links. You'll also see updated notes, since before you only saw newly added notes. See the before-and-after view in the images. 120
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 07/09/2026I added most of the ramen I've eaten to the gallery below my homemade ramen recipe. IMO, best food. What's yours? If you want to get hungry, check them out 😉. www.ssp.sh/brain/home-m... 040
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 07/09/2026Is this how AI-scraping looks like? I got like ~4.5k total visits/h, 4-5 visits on each of my pages (notes & blogs). The source is unknown. 437 agents simultaneously on my `posts`, scraping every page? 🤔 I guess I need to ask the next versions of each LLM and see whether they use my knowledge. 340
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 04/09/2026Lately there's been a lot of talk about context and how agents can profit from and curate it. I've always wondered how they differ from a semantic layer and what we gain from it. Ontology is another term I've heard more lately; I was curious whether it's connected. That's why I wrote about it.motherduck.comContext, Semantics, and Ontology: A Primer for the Agentic Era | MotherDuckA primer on the context layer, semantic layer, and ontology: what each term means, how they fit together, and why AI agents still need a human to decide what's true. | Reading time: 19 min read 130
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 03/09/2026Happy birthday to me 🎂, 40 years of age. www.ssp.sh/memories/202...ssp.sh40 years of age.Today is my 40th birthday; happy birthday to me 🙂. With every milestone birthday, it’s time to look back on the years before. In doing that, I’m thankful for where life took me and what I was able to ... 120
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 28/08/2026A little bit of an announcement! If you like writing, or the process of it, and how to come up with stories, please follow along with a new series I'm starting. The first interview is in the books, and I'm distilling it now into a blog, interview-style. www.ssp.sh/blog/writing...ssp.shWriting really is an Emotional Rollercoaster[[Writing]] has become my passion over time; I have built a whole company based on technical writing services (even though most say that’s impossible). After doing it for 11 years publicly (much longe... 221
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 27/08/2026I really love an easy way to publish my thoughts, notes & blogs. Here's my workflow, from an Obsidian MD file to a second brain note with one command. No conversion/formatting, no copying from a note-taking tool to email or Substack. The original always lives in Obsidian; the rest is automated. 181
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 26/08/2026It's so hard to finish an idea that is not yours (and suggested by AI). Some commented that it's also hard to finish an idea that is theirs—read the comments on HN now 😉. 160
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 26/08/2026News acquisition ongoing: @ducklabs.com joins AWS. @duckdb.org and the Foundation stays as is; only the team moves to AWS: > We are not acquiring the DuckDB project, which will remain free and open source under the independent DuckDB Foundation and available under the MIT license as it does today. 3102
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 26/08/2026Testing the open-source DWH engine Exasol, running locally and integrated with MCP. I built a little demo sales app to run some dbt runs and analyze the data. What requirements would you have for data analysis? For me: 1. one-command setup 2. built-in DWH features 3. easy to scale up What else? 000
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 25/08/2026Uploaded some pictures of my mechanical keyboards, including the build process and sound tests. Check out the overview at: www.ssp.sh/brain/my-mec....ssp.shMy Mechanical KeyboardsMy KBDFans DZ65RGB: Custom build, see full built My Kinesis Advantages 2: Ergonomic (Find How I Lubed and Dampered the keyboard) 130
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 25/08/2026I've been using this prompt for 2-3 years with all models, with a more or less exact outcome I want. What's yours? 150
Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 25/08/2026Apparently, there's a new 'vim motion' plugin for Obsidian that I didn't know about. But beyond that, many still don't know the underlying power of 'vim motions' or 'vim shortcuts'. I'm here once again advocating that you check it out in Obsidian, Sublime, VS Code, whatever text editor you use. 230