I keep improving the blog bit by bit, adding new sections, tweaking the theme, and building everything I want around it. It's not a small task, but with my best friend Claude, we're making good progress.
My main problem
A trait I've always wanted to fix is the fact that I dive headfirst into different projects and fields all the time. I always thought it was a problem. Being interested in tons of different things, jumping into projects, starting a million things and never finishing any of them.
It is a problem in itself, but it can also be a strength. I've always wanted to become an expert in one subject. Be THE reference, and give it everything. The issue is that every time, I get bored and want to move on to something completely different.
Take hardware hacking for example. I bought everything you need to get into it, a full desk setup, a soldering iron, even a TPLink router just for that. I started, loved it, and from one day to the next I stopped touching it completely. And that's the case for many subjects. After digging into it recently, I think there's some ADHD in the mix, but that's still to be confirmed.
But what's interesting is that I've always tried to force myself into one specific direction, when it's not mandatory at all. And there are a lot of us in that situation, people who love tons of different fields, who want to explore everything, and who don't care about being the old bearded guy who's done cryptography his whole life (that was almost a dream of mine, being that big bearded dude).
So I've resolved to stop forcing myself in one direction and to keep exploring everything that excites me. On one hand it's super exciting, but on the other you might think, cool, but how do you make money?
The beauty of bug bounty is that it's massively multi-disciplinary. There are thousands of programs, in completely different languages, in completely different fields. So you can go everywhere and always find that little dopamine hit, and I think that's what a lot of us are looking for. Unfortunately, as I was saying recently, all of that is slowly changing. And honestly it's something that used to scare me, but not anymore.
On the other hand, we're discovering something new. Using AI daily, the ability to bring our ideas to life, whether it's building something or exploiting a creative bug we've been dreaming about for a long time.
And that's why this blog and this newsletter exist. I thought I was stuck in bug bounty only, but a lot of people read even when the articles have nothing to do with bug bounty. I really see this blog as a logbook of all my explorations, and I think I'm going to push it even more in that direction. I'm not stopping bug bounty at all, I still love it. I'm just giving myself other subjects. And that's been the case for a while already.
I'm still thinking about how to make this blog even more interesting and attractive so you keep reading every week, and I can't wait to show you all of that.
AI addiction
I don't think we realize it, but right now, we're all so focused on AI and Claude that it's becoming almost an addiction. Every person I talk to in our field spends their entire day throwing Claude at this or that program, this or that subject.
We're burning through all the tokens we still have before prices skyrocket. And I'll dig deeper into the AI and bug bounty vision in a dedicated article soon, but it's scattering us a lot.
The main problem with this way of working compared to before is that there's no break. Our brains are buzzing 24/7. Before, when you found a bug, you could move on to something else, or if you finished developing a feature, you could take a break. Now, the break is when you run out of tokens. You throw Claude at multiple programs at the same time, full throttle, until you have something to report.
Another major issue is X (it's always been the problem with a lot of things). Every day, new features. Every day, new mind-blowing stuff coming out. It's mentally exhausting. New prompts, skills, tools to install. And others that stop working overnight (goodbye openclaw).
That's why I set up an X blocker on my computer and phone for now, and I can only check it briefly at the end of the day. Otherwise it takes over your mind and you think about nothing else. The algorithms are way too good at hooking us. And going back to a simpler system can really help.
Focus on one thing and do it well. That's getting harder and harder because we want to go further and always do more. Especially since we're in a bubble. We're inside this tech bubble, but the outside world doesn't care. Most people I talk to who are engineers or work in any other field don't see any of this and keep working normally like before, using AI but in a simple and reasonable way.
Anyway, I don't know where all of this is going but I'm stepping back from the X world a bit.
Going analog
To help with all of this, I'd told you about my analog system, using notebooks and writing by hand.
I started at the beginning of the year, and after using Claude non-stop, you end up brainstorming with it and you stop thinking on your own and let it do everything.
I'm taking back some control, getting back to writing more on paper, brainstorming on my own too, and doing my tasks this way. It rests the brain and helps see things more clearly.
It's wild, it sounds like we're being weaned off Claude. Ridiculous.
I know I don't say this often, but if you like what I do and you read regularly, feel free to subscribe to the newsletter. It's free, I don't spam, you get one email per week max, on Wednesday if everything goes well and I haven't been too lazy.
Have a great rest of the day.
