Lately, I’ve become proficient at creating project resource plans for presales using Claude Code. It turns out very cool. That is, you create an interactive model with sliders that shows the final cost of the project for the specified team and specified flexibility (more or fewer roles, some stages have a larger or smaller buffer). The main thing is that such a model is very specific to a particular project and generally useless as a template for the next, but the principle of building models is the same. In the end, you adjust the sliders to what looks believable and satisfies the level of risk, and you see the sum, and then you generate artifacts for the client, which after manual refinement (sometimes major) are ready to be shown to the client.
Category: Business
Politeness Index: Cleaning Up Social Media and Profiting from Civility | September 15 2026, 23:34
Politeness Index: How to Clean Up Social Media from Rudeness and Profit from It
Social networks have long needed a “politeness index” for each post and comment. The idea is simple: an algorithm directly ties displays to the tone of the message. Aggressive comments are not removed, but simply shown less frequently in the feed.
Write a calm and diplomatic comment — you gather a normal audience. Come to be abusive and quarrel — your comment will be seen by no more than three people.
How it works in practice. Technically, it’s all possible now: neural networks easily assess the tone of text in the background. The main thing in this system is to give the user clear feedback.
For example: A commentator gets personal. The social network sends him a notification: “Your text could have been twice as noticeable if you hadn’t used foul language towards the author and hadn’t belittled that woman in the white coat.”
People receive a clear signal: audience attention depends on how the thought is formulated, not on the loudness of the scandal. Initially, this function can be tested not on everyone, but only on a portion of posts.
Why do users and businesses need this? Would platforms themselves want to spend money on moderating tone if their business is built on views and endless emotional debates? It’s a complicated question.
But a solution could be a premium “clean feed” feature. Many would happily agree to watch additional advertising or pay a small subscription fee for an ecological information space. We pay cleaners to clean our houses — paying for cleanliness in social networks is no worse. In the long run, the habit of communicating politely for likes may change people beyond the internet. Or did I fall from another planet?
Mastering the Art of Russian Paints: A Guide to Rare Pigments and Where to Buy Them | September 15 2026, 00:29
I brought the paints. It’s a rare case when something made in Russia is worth buying and bringing to the USA or Europe. So, if you have artist friends, you can bring them some, they’ll be 100% happy (but only the Master-Class brand). Moreover, even China doesn’t make decent paints that you could order cheaply from AliExpress with shipping to the USA. To be precise, there are some, but they aren’t highly valued by artists outside of China.
The most valuable here is Volkonskoite. It’s a rare mineral pigment, mined almost exclusively in one place in the world (Perm region), and in tubes, it’s essentially only made by “Nevskaya Palette”. The only option on our market — dry pigment Rublev Colours: Volkonskoite Pigment, from $26.40 for 10 grams (raw material from the same place, Yefimych in Perm region), needs to be ground into oil by oneself. In Russia, I bought it for 1200 RUB ($14).
Second is Glauconite — another natural Russian green earth paint. You can buy alternatives, but basically, only from Rublev. You need to order it, plus there are many imitations, but this is pure pigment (Rublev writes that most “green earth” paints from other manufacturers are not natural minerals, but a mix of chromium oxide and ochre).
Third — Pink Ultramarine. This pigment is rare, offered by literally two or three brands – about $17-$25 plus shipping. In Russia, I bought it for 780 RUB ($9).
Two cobalt violets (dark and light) are expensive in their own right — cobalt violets everywhere fall into the highest price group, but buying them in America is not difficult (Winsor & Newton, Gamblin, Williamsburg, etc.). The value is more in the price than in the rarity. For example, Williamsburg Cobalt Violet Deep 37 ml costs $46.01 (Michaels / Jackson’s), it’s currently $53.68 at Jerry’s with a list price of $76.69. And I bought it for 1200 RUB ($15).
Cerulean. In the USA, you can buy the same class Gamblin Cerulean Blue 37 ml, from $28.80, while I paid $15. Like cobalt blue, they’re just wonderful, absolutely standard paints, easy to find anywhere. I just bought them at the same time, it turns out cheaper that way.
All these paints are artist grade, the very top. The brand “Master-class”. In Serbia, I went into five Art Supplies stores and from the Nevskaya Palette range, they only had “Sonet” – those are the simplest ones in their line (there’s also Ladoga, between Master-Class and Sonet).
After 2022, “Nevskaya Palette” almost disappeared from American and European stores. You can carry them on a plane, but in case someone objects that you can’t bring such items onboard, it’s advisable to have an SDS with you (I have one, can send it). But they’ve survived three flights over the last week, and successfully so.
Nostalgic Business: Selling Websites on CDs in the Early 2000s | August 18 2026, 16:31
In the early 2000s, I had a “business” selling the internet at retail – on CDs. I would make agreements with content providers – websites like algolist, openbsd, and cooking recipes to place a “buy this site on CD” banner on every page, and in return I invested time in creating a static version with search functionality and recording it onto discs. Links from the pages led to .nadiske.ru, where there was a large order button and upsells from other projects, related and not. A percentage from each disc went to the content owner. Delivery was done by cash on delivery through the Russian Post (meaning, I sent the discs without prior payment), and I collected the money at the post office. The site effectively had two pages – a product list with checkboxes and an order form. However, there were as many sub-sites as there were partners – on each of them, the main product was listed first, and the rest were upsells. The idea was that since we’re already ordering, let’s get something else too”.
So, several interesting problems arose back then. How to match the money received with the orders posted? For each order, I dynamically formed a price – adding pennies so the price was unique. For the end customer, it made no difference whether they agreed to a price of 150 rubles or 150 rubles and 12 kopecks, but for me, it was convenient for matching. Together with the date, it was quite reliable.
The second problem was where to manage orders with statuses and the like. In the end, I chose Microsoft Access. It pulled XML with new orders from the website. I developed the whole system on Access in a couple of hours. It was ideal. By the way, has Access died out yet?
Interestingly, the top sellers were discs that I had produced just to expand the selection – Unixes and Linux. Understandably, there weren’t any links from partner websites to these, but they were bought as add-ons, and ultimately they topped the sales and were the easiest and cheapest to produce.
Also, I developed a search engine for the CD to search through this content. I don’t remember how, but back then it was possible to embed executable code in the browser that opened index.html from the disc. Either there were ASP inserts and DLLs, or something of that nature.
I closed the project when it became clear that decent internet would eventually reach the regions, and the demand for discs would someday wane. Plus, everything was heading in that direction. Additionally, the disks required updates, and it was a pity to invest more effort and time, especially considering the first point.
Exploring the Booming Business of Pet Waste Removal Services | August 13 2026, 02:05
By the way, a car with the logo Pet Waste Removal periodically drives up to our neighbor’s place. It was a revelation to discover that in the USA there is an entire niche—special services that clean up lawns from dog poop so that little children can more safely run around the same lawn. There are dozens of such companies around me. I never imagined such a thing existed.
(But the funny thing is that the neighbor has a cat. And here my imagination really took a hit. I don’t know, maybe he just has a friend working there, but there are litter box services. They come once or twice a week, completely change the filler, disinfect the litter box, and take away the waste)
So, Pet Waste Removal is indeed a huge industry with a rich internal culture. They have their own professional association — aPaws (Association of Professional Animal Waste Specialists), which holds an annual International Pooper Scooper Week” in April. Some franchises cost tens of thousands of dollars to join, and the market is estimated at hundreds of millions. The logic is simple: the average dog produces about 100 kg of waste per year, there are nearly 90 million dogs in the US, and most owners genuinely hate this part of dog ownership.
There’s even a surreal branch—PooPrints service. Residential complexes and HOAs require residents to submit their dogs’ DNA to a database, and when an “unidentified” pile is found on the lawn, it’s sent for genetic testing to identify the offending owner. Fines range from $150 to $500.
Our Yuki has never (or seems like once in five years) done his business in the yard. Well, never at home, even as a puppy, and never once made a puddle. So he, too, looks at all this with puzzlement. And in the US, dogs are let out through a door, they do their thing, run around— and back inside. Many dogs in the suburbs for years do not know what it’s like to walk on a leash in the usual sense familiar to us.
Redefining Recruitment: AI Agents as the Future of Resumes | August 11 2026, 20:19
I have published a new article about how the interaction between companies and candidates for positions within these companies may look. The main thesis is that we’ve sat too long with these PDF resumes. It feels like a greeting from the last century. There is an interesting trend – essentially, interactive resumes in the form of AI agents for candidates and AI agents for companies, communicating with each other 24/7. Agents in the sense that celebrities and athletes have them. I was quite surprised that there is no movement in this direction, even though technologically, it seems, the required level has been reached.
From Bar Joke to Millionaire: The Unbelievable Success of the Pet Rock | August 05 2026, 00:55
Today I found out that the most successful product of Christmas 1975 was a rock. Just a regular rock. Gary Dahl, an advertiser from California, was sitting in a bar and listening to his friends complain about their pets – feeding them, walking them, cleaning up after them – and jokingly said that he had the perfect pet – a rock. It doesn’t need feeding, doesn’t poop, doesn’t die. The joke turned into a business plan over the course of the evening. Dahl bought smooth pebbles from Rosarito Beach in Mexico for about a cent apiece and sold them for $3.95 each. Every rock was shipped in a cardboard carrying box – with air holes “for breathing” and straw bedding inside. And here’s the kicker: the product wasn’t the rock. The product was the accompanying 32-page care and training manual, written stone-faced (pardon the pun): commands like sit” and lie down” are learned instantly, come here” and fetch” are a bit harder, and it executes the command “die” brilliantly.
Within a few months, over a million units were sold, Dahl became a millionaire, he was written about in magazines and invited on television. By early 1976 it was all over, warehouses remained filled with unsold rocks, and attempts to replicate the success with other novelty products failed. Dahl died in 2015, but the Pet Rock brand lives on: the rock in its original packaging can still be purchased today.
(How I came across this. I am currently reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and came across the phrase “They were the Pet Rock of parenting.” – referring to Amy’s parents. I did not understand it and went to google what this Pet Rock was.)
The Rise and Fall of the Pet Rock Craze | August 05 2026, 00:55
Today I learned that the most successful Christmas product of 1975 was a rock. Just a regular rock. Gary Dahl, an advertiser from California, was sitting in a bar listening to his friends complain about their pets — feeding them, walking them, cleaning up after them — and jokingly said that he had the perfect pet: a rock. It doesn’t need to be fed, doesn’t poop, doesn’t die. What began as a joke that evening turned into a business plan. Dahl bought smooth pebbles from Rosarito Beach in Mexico for about a cent apiece and sold them for $3.95 each. Each rock came in a cardboard carrying case — with “breathing” holes and straw bedding inside. And here’s the main point: the product wasn’t the rock. The product was the accompanying 32-page care and training manual, written with a stone-faced (pardon the pun) seriousness: the commands “sit” and “stay” are learned instantaneously by the pet, “come here” and “fetch” not so much, and it performs the command “die” brilliantly.
In a few months, more than a million units were sold, Dahl became a millionaire, and he was written about in magazines and invited on television shows. By the beginning of 1976, it was all over, warehouses remained with unsold rocks, and attempts to repeat success with other novelty products failed. Dahl died in 2015, but the Pet Rock brand lives on: you can still buy a rock in its branded box today.
(How I found this out. I’m currently reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and came across the phrase “They were the Pet Rock of parenting.” – about Amy’s parents. I didn’t understand it and went to Google what this Pet Rock was.)
The Invisible Merchants of Spain: The Manteros of Top Manta | July 31 2026, 18:59
Here in Spain, they are called manteros (mantas sellers)—from the Spanish word manta (blanket or cover). And the process of such illegal street vending is called top manta.
Since their activity is illegal, they have developed a rigorous system of alerts. As soon as one of the vendors spots the police, they signal (often yelling the code word “Agua!”—water). After this, all the manteros on the street in a split second gather their blankets into bags and melt into the crowd. If someone had managed to give them money – apparently, they will run together with them.
The vast majority of manteros are migrants from sub-Saharan African countries (most often from Senegal, Gambia, and Mali). They are not doing this for an easy profit: most of them are status sin papeles (without documents), making legal employment in Spain impossible.
In Spain, the police fight not only the supply but also the demand. By law, if the police catch you in the act of buying a bag or sunglasses from such a blanket, you, as a buyer, can be fined up to several hundred euros.
In Barcelona, the vendors have united into the “Union of Street Vendors” (Sindicato Popular de Vendedores Ambulantes) and made a brilliant marketing move. They registered their own legal brand of clothing and footwear, calling it Top Manta. Now they produce quality sneakers and T-shirts, giving migrants the opportunity to leave the streets and work legally.
Exploring the Rise of Brown Robotaxis: Will Uber and Lyft Partner with Musk? | June 18 2026, 20:24
In the meantime, we are slowly seeing the emergence of such tight robotaxis in poop color. Are we betting on Uber or Lyft being bought by Musk’s companies?
