My conclusion for now is that being human is the only value I will have. Not because I think AI won’t be able to do human-like tasks; even things that seem inherently human, like understanding other humans, will be conquered by AI.

But because humans will want to see themselves in other people. AI can teach people how something is done. But teachers, coaches, and role models—other humans—will always be necessary to show people that it can be done—that they, too, can do it if they try hard enough.

“You have to see it to be it.” — Billie Jean King

For almost a decade, I’ve used an Xbox One controller to play the majority of my Steam catalog. It requires a wireless adapter to work with my Windows desktop, but otherwise no issues.

Recently, I installed Steam on my MacBook M1 Pro and tried to play Firewatch. My Xbox controller connected to the laptop via Bluetooth and appeared to be working.

The controller showed up in macOS System Settings:

And it showed up in Steam as “supported” by Firewatch:

However, the controller didn’t work and on-screen button icons were replaced with an “X”:

I tried the following, but none of it fixed the issue:

• Forgetting and re-pairing the controller
• Launching the game with Steam Input enabled
• Launching the game from Steam Big Picture mode
• Giving Firewatch.app “Input Monitoring” permission in System Settings

The Fix

Thankfully, I stumbled upon a YouTube video which demonstrates the fix, namely, to find and enable a hidden setting called “Increase controller compatibility.” (sigh)

First, click the “+” icon in the lower-left corner of macOS controller settings:

Then find the .app for the game you want to play. In my case, I needed to find Firewatch.app, which was located in: mack -> Library -> Application Support -> Steam -> steamapps -> common -> Firewatch.

Note:  At first, I couldn't find the "Library" folder, so I had to use a keyboard shortcut to display hidden files and folders: <Ctrl>-<Shift>-.

Once I clicked on Firewatch.app, it was added to the macOS System Settings page where a “Increase controller compatibility” toggle appeared. I enabled the toggle and clicked “Done.”

And when I launched the game, my controller worked!

I normally wouldn’t make a blog post for something so mundane and seemingly straightforward, but I spent hours trying to figure this out. If this post helps just one or two people, then it’s served its purpose.

The event mostly centered around networking. About a week before the event, I used Google Gemini to analyze the attendee spreadsheet and recommend who I should connect with, and this mostly worked.

I spoke with a few folks with similar backgrounds and goals to mine—career technologists looking to increase their impact—along with some folks with drastically different interests and cause areas: the environment, animal welfare, global health, etc. The conversations were engaging but it’s unclear whether they actually benefitted either party. (There were exceptions of course, such as a chat with an ex-teacher who shared good insights and advice, and with whom I hope to maintain a connection.)

The talks I attended were quite good—highlights include a keynote by Sjir Hoeijmakers, the CEO of Giving What We Can, and an overview of the current state of AI policy by New York Assemblymember Alex Bores—but there weren’t enough of them to keep me busy, so it was back to networking.

By the end of the first day, I was completely burned out and had to take a nap in the designated nap room, which was actually quite nice. (Air mattresses organized neatly into rows, gentle lighting, etc.) I decided to opt out of the second day of the conference in favor of some other tasks that needed doing.

Immediately following the conference, I wasn’t quite sure I got my money’s worth ($500 is the regular price of attendance) but upon further reflection I think I gained some valuable perspective that made the whole thing worth it:

• Most people at EA Global didn’t fully subscribe to the “maximum impact at any cost” philosophy that I previously assumed was pervasive. The fact that other people didn’t neglect their own needs and desires—as irrational as they might be—makes me feel better about attending to my own, too. Teaching might be low-leverage to some, but if it makes me happy, who’s to say I shouldn’t do it?

• Along those same lines, I think I’ve finally realized that I don’t need—or want—to change the whole world. As a human being with finite energy, it’s exhausing and depressing to think about things at that scale. Instead, I think I much prefer being a big fish in a small pond, making a big difference for the people closest to me.

• Almost everyone I spoke with wanted to know how they could get a job like mine, something adjacent to AI safety at a top research lab. It made me realize that, despite the suboptimal parts of the job, I’m incredibly lucky to be where I am. It reinvigorated my desire to do good work and hopefully steer us—ever so slightly—towards a better future.

It reminds of the search for a perpetual motion machine. Lots of interesting ideas, none of them actually work, and somehow no one realizes that they’re attempting to violate the laws of physics. The lure of returns is simply too tempting to think clearly.

Yes, there are inefficiencies. Yes, people get rewarded for finding them. But those people aren’t you and me. They’re big companies that spend ungodly amounts of money to be the best at what they do. They employ brilliant people to build incredibly complicated systems to compete with other big companies. There is no value left over for you or I to extract.

For the average person, winning in the market is no different than winning at the casino; you had a good day, but it wasn’t because you studied long enough and hard enough to beat the house. There is no edge to be had; it’s all luck. The only way to win is to refuse to play—to stop trying to beat the market.

I don’t fault people for playing. The whole thing is counterintuitive and confirmation bias is one hell of a drug. But I’m growing weary with the total imbalance of “timing the market” versus “time in the market” content. We need more channels like Ben Felix, The Plain Bagel, and Personal Finance Club—or perhaps they exist and I just need to find them.

• What: 2025 Buffalo Marathon
• When: Sunday, May 25, 2025
• Where: Buffalo, NY
• Distance: Run 26.2M
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/14592749372
• Finish time: 5:10:22

Discussion

Sometime within the last year or so, I discovered joggling and it struck me as something particularly quirky and challenging—right up my alley. I added “joggle a race” to my bucket list and got back to whatever I was doing, most likely a YouTube rabbit hole.

Months later, I attempted joggling for the first time during the Lockport 10 race. Surprisingly, it was easier than I thought. (The running candence and the juggling cadence actually line up quite nicely.) Then and there, I decided that I wanted to joggle a full race, start to finish, by the end of the year.

With not much else on the calendar, the Buffalo Marathon struck me as a good opportunity to try long-distance joggling. So, I decided to give it a shot. I wasn’t originally planning on joggling the whole thing, but the first half marathon went better than expected so I decided to keep going. Plus, I had promised a bunch of spectators that I’d joggle the whole way and I’m not one to disappoint.

It took me over five hours, but I actually joggled the 2025 Buffalo Marathon. To be clear, I had a bunch of drops and I stopped at the aid stations, but otherwise I juggled the entire time.

A few random notes:

• Spectators loved it. Almost everyone I passed cheered me on, expressed disbelief, and/or shouted jokes. (My favorite was, “Nice set of balls!”). Some kid told his friend, “He’s him.” Other participants were less enthusiastic, especially the ones I passed towards the end: “Oh, come on!”
• The trickiest part about joggling is not actually juggling, it’s seeing where you’re going. I relied on Zach’s guidance during the first half marathon and made a few wrong turns during the second half.
• Sunglasses are an absolute must. They prevent dry eyes (sometimes you forget to blink) and save you when the sun just-so-happens to be exactly where your looking while juggling.
• The farthest I had joggled up until that point was three miles. I should’ve trained better, because by the end of the race my forearms were killing me and I ended up with a minor case of tendonitis.
• All in all, it was a 10/10 fun experience that I never want to do again.

Life lessons:

1. Embrace challenge: meaningful experiences happen outside of your comfort zone
2. Drops happen: nobody is perfect, mistakes happen, pick yourself up and keep going
3. Pace yourself: life is a marathon, not a sprint, slow and steady wins the race
4. Appreciate the journey: don’t just rush to the finish line, smell the roses
5. No one does it alone: behind every successful person is a society

Media

My day started at 4:30am. I woke up, showered, and then walked to the Mamaroneck Senior Center, the polling place where I was serving. Upon arrival, I met a few other poll workers and we started following the procedures for setting up the site: opening polling machines, posting signs, setting up booths, etc.

Our first voter arrived at 5:50am, 10 minutes before the polls officially opened. They had to wait until 6:00am to obtain their ballot. From then on, it was a steady stream of 1-2 voters every 5 minutes until we closed the polls fifteen hours later, at 9:00pm. The same seven people worked the entire shift, though we took short breaks throughout the day. It went faster than I thought it would.

Each person at the site had a role: someone to greet, someone to check voter registration, someone to distribute ballots, someone to assist with the voting machine if necessary, etc. We rotated responsibilities throughout the day, but I spent most of my time distributing ballots and giving verbal instructions to voters: “This ballot has two sides. Make sure to read all instructions carefully, fill in the ovals completely, and make sure to only fill in one bubble for the candidate you’re voting for.”

At the end of the day, we printed out “receipts” from the voting machines, packed everything up, and called in the results the board of elections.

The Good

It was really cool to see people from all walks of life participate in our democracy

• A woman brought two of her daughters to vote for the first time
• A middle-aged man walked in with his elderly mother, arm-in-arm
• Two men coincidentally arrived at the same time as their motorcycle-riding father
• There was a couple that resembled the rich parents from Gilmore Girls
• There were police officers, construction workers, teachers, and more

The people that I worked with were fantastic

• They were helpful, knowledgeable, and treated everyone with respect
• They made it their mission to ensure everyone who could vote, did
• They were impartial (obviously)
• They navigated some complicated situations with affidavit ballots

The voting process and machines were very secure

• Machines were not connected to the internet
• All bags and latches were sealed and labeled
• There were three types of records: printed receipts, memory cards, and paper ballots
• There was an audit log for all affidavit ballots
• There was a tally for all non-standard ballots

The Bad

I felt underprepared

• I had to learn how to handle change-of-address and misspelled names.
• I never quite felt comfortable walking someone through the affidavit ballot process.
• The day-of instructions for how to handle double-voting (accidentally filling in two bubbles for the same candidate) didn’t match the training videos; we decided to be cautious and issue new ballots every time.

Logistics weren’t perfect

• We didn’t have a Spanish translator, and some voters only spoke Spanish. Luckily, one of my coworkers knew enough Spanish to help them.
• The iPad for checking voter registration (narrow search) and the iPad for checking polling locations (broad search) gave different results for the same person. This made the latter unusable.
• Many people received letters telling them to go to the wrong polling location. We think that the polling location was changed at the last minute and voters were never notified.
• A voter asked for water, but we didn’t have any to give them.

The Ugly

Some voters were antagonistic

• Someone tried to enter the polling location wearing a shirt endorsing Trump. When I asked him to zip up his jacket, he gave me a hard time: “Why? Where are my freedoms?” I didn’t dignify his questions with a response.
• Someone complained about voter suppression when his pen ran out of ink. The fix? We gave him a new pen. (It’s not a conspiracy, buddy.)
• People got upset that we didn’t check their ID. “What if someone else tried to vote under my name? What if someone is lying about who they are?”

One poll worker was tactless

• While people were voting, he listened to TikTok out loud and announced results from other states
• He took people’s ballots to feed them into the voting machine (we were supposed to let the voters do it themselves)
• He constantly scolded people for filling out the ballots incorrectly
• He talked poorly about his wife and about his real estate clients
• Interestingly, he seemed to know many people in the town and he was somewhat charming

Conclusion

I have a mixture of feelings from this experience. I feel both more patriotic and less so. I feel both hopeful and hopeless. There are good people in the world, but society is captivated by antagonists. (Here’s a great game by Nicky Case that illustrates this point: https://ncase.itch.io/wbwwb)

Elected officials are supposed to represent the will of the electorate. But when people are proudly declaring their vote for, “dictator on day one,” it really makes you wonder if they deserve to participate in the democratic process.

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country.
–Theodore Roosevelt

I’m sure it’s obvious, but a bunch of people (myself included) are really hurt that Trump got elected again. To me, he represents the worst parts of society and it stings that the people I care about endorsed him. You really mean to tell me that a bully, a felon, a cheater, an abuser, and a racist got elected… again?! And that’s not to mention all of the ways the people that I love might be affected by his party’s policies—things like women’s reproductive rights, funding for education, affordable health care, climate change, etc.

I understand it’s nuanced and that I don’t have the whole picture. I realize that we have different opinions of him due to differences in our information diets. And I acknowledge that people on the other side of the aisle have very real and valid concerns.

But it stinks nonetheless. You taught me to be a good person. To do the right thing, even when it’s hard. To have empathy for others. To want to enrich the lives of the people that I love. To stand up for people who don’t have a voice. To debate with substance, not name-calling. To celebrate diversity and teamwork. To listen, to think critically. To be curious about different ideas and perspectives. To believe that other people are inherently good, even when I disagree with them.

When I look at Trump, I see none of those qualities. And to know that the people I love voted for him feels a bit like finding out Santa isn’t real. It’s heartbreaking, in a way.

Of course, our relationship is bigger than politics. But the wound is still raw and it’s going to take a long time to heal.

For $837—yes, almost $1000—I got:

• A ferry ride to the swim start
• A “bucket list” swim experience
• A forgettable ~20 mile bike ride
• A forgettable ~8 mile run (sand ladder notwithstanding)
• A heavy-duty grocery bag
• A hooded towel

Personally, I’d recommend folks just do the Alcatraz Swim with Odyssey Open Water Swimming instead, which “only” costs $245 $295. In case it’s helpful, here’s my review of that event.

• What: 2024 Dipsea Race
• When: Sunday, June 9, 2024
• Where: Mill Valley, CA
• Distance: Run 7.4M
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11614167430
• Finish time: 1:38:52 gun, 1:12:51 chip

Discussion

Today, I ran the 113th Annual Dipsea Race in Mill Valley, California, the oldest trail race in America. The race is unique for a bunch of reasons:

• Getting in is difficult. I was lucky enough to snag a spot via the “first-come, first-served” method of entry thanks to USPS Priority Mail.
• There’s an incredible variety of runners who participate: kids as young as seven, adults older than seventy, and everyone in between. Lots of past race winners, too.
• There’s a “head start” mechanic based on gender and age, which makes it possible for any age group to win the race. You’re either chasing or being chased the entire time.
• Some parts of the course—especially the stairs—were bottlenecks. Navigating these bottlenecks while remaining respectful of the other runners is part of the challenge.
• The course is point-to-point, and shortcuts are fair game. In fact, because the race is so old, there’s a wealth of lore surrounding the course and which routes are fastest.

The race was challenging, chaotic, charming, and scenic. I fared well, managing to finish without any major falls or stoppages. I decided not to take any shortcuts, to avoid twisting an ankle, and I’m happy with that choice. I got a side stitch around mile seven, but thankfully it didn’t last too long. I finished in 770th place overall, just shy of my goal of finishing in the top 750, but I’m still really proud of how I did.

In lieu of a bunch of pictures, I made a video containing the footage I captured during the race. Click on the picture below to watch!

• Flossing whenever I brush my teeth
• Listening to an audio book whenever I run
• Stretching whenever I watch reality TV
• Watching movies whenever I Zwift

Apparently this is already a thing, and it’s called habit stacking.