https://mbuffett.com/
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Aug 3Replacing ngrok with
ktunnel
Aug 1The CLI tools I use while doing full-stack ...
https://mbuffett.com/posts/chess-move-prediction/
Getting better at chess is really hard. My theory is that it’s at least partially because of the feedback lag. Imagine learning to play the violin, but you have to play each song with earplugs in, then listen to the recording after. This is roughly what chess learning feels like, outside of focused drills. You play a game, ignorant of which moves are good and bad, then you get feedback from the computer at the end of the game – way past the point where you made the move. I don’t think this is c...
https://mbuffett.com/posts/chessbook-year-review-2024/
Last year, I quit my job to work full-time on a chess app I created. It’s my first time working full-time on a project of my own, and it’s been both terrifying and gratifying.
To close out my first year, I’m sharing an honest account of the mistakes I’ve made as a founder as well as the the things I felt I did well.
Marketing 2/5 Ugh. I’ve tried paid ads virtually everywhere (Meta, X/Twitter, Reddit, Google), I’ve tried affiliate programs, word-of-mouth stuff like free merch to people going to t...
https://mbuffett.com/posts/maintaining-motivation/
One of the biggest sticking points of being a solo dev is maintaining motivation. I’ve been keeping a journal entry about how to hack my motivation, what works and what doesn’t. Here are the things that have worked.
Convert external sources to motivation I’ve always known that I’m more extrinsically than intrinsically motivated, so I have a couple systems that help to give me bursts of external motivation. For example, the Money Bots, which pop up every time someone subscribes.
https://mbuffett.com/posts/wasting_time/
I spend way too much time on reddit, hacker news, twitter, feedly, coinbase, robinhood, email, etc. I’d like to spend time on things that are more meaningful - chess, digital painting, side projects, reading, video games, exercising, meditating, etc. This has been a problem for years.
This post is only slightly adapted from my personal notes, so excuse the lack of structure; I didn’t want to try to twist this jumble of thoughts into a narrative.
https://mbuffett.com/posts/chess_improvement_thoughts/
I played chess briefly with my friends in high school, where I had a rating of around 1100 online. I gave up the game for about 10 years, then picked it back up again recently, in May. I’ve tried a ton of different approaches in the past 6 months, switching things up whenever I stopped seeing results. I’ve improved from 1238 to 1802, and based on my win rate currently I think I’ve got another 50 points in me before I plateau again. From what I’ve seen online, this is solid improvement for an “ad...
https://mbuffett.com/posts/most-human-chess-bot/
Chessbook-1, Maia-3 and Allie 2.0 at a glanceCapability scorecard: a 0-100 grade per measurement, and whether the model has the capability at all. Predicting human moves Matching strength Time scramble play Predicting think time Predicting who wins Chessbook-1 199M parameters 96 / 100 81 / 100 84 / 100 98 / 100 97 / 100 Maia-3 79M parameters 85 / 100 56 / 100 57 / 100 No 80 / 100 Allie 2.0 5.6B parameters 99 / 100 48 / 100 99 / 100 73 / 100 99 / 100 Everyone knows playing against an engine like...
https://mbuffett.com/posts/deep-cut-book-recs/
Here are some lesser-known books I’ve loved, that you won’t find in typical recommendation lists – the deep-cuts.
Replacing Guilt: Minding Our Way This book is all about the role of guilt. When is it useful, when is it not, what can be done about it.
This could have easily been packaged like a best-selling pop-psychology book – padded to 200 pages with a sampling of the same anecdotes we’ve all read 100 times, fitting a narrative to the life of a celebrity or two to lend credibility, and repeat...
https://mbuffett.com/posts/onboarding-babies/
One of the biggest realizations I’ve had when building Chessbook is that onboarding a user is really hard. A user that’s coming in from some generic marketing, or from a blog post they found, or from organic search… well, the closest mental model is that they’re precocious toddlers.
They won’t read more than a couple sentences of explanation. Usually they’ll skip that entirely and just hit the shiniest button. You have to keep snapping your fingers in front of their face every 10 seconds or so, ...
https://mbuffett.com/posts/prevent-temporary-code-production/
I have a chronic problem of committing debug code to production. I often adjust code while testing out assumptions, reproducing issues, or trying alternative ways of implementing a feature or fixing a bug. When I’m committing thousands of lines per week, and with no-one reviewing my commits, occasionally some of this code slips through.
A couple months ago I had one particularly annoying piece of debugging code make it to production. We ended up in a loop of fetching user’s data when they visite...