Frank’s NOW
March 22th 2026
Canary Islands
I spent a week in the Canary Islands on a small boat with family and friends. The quarters were quite spartan. In my bunk, the distance between my head and the ceiling was only a couple of inches! I bumped my head during the night a few times, but eventually I got the hang of it, even while I was asleep.
The slight discomforts were more than made up for by joy of spending days with my loved ones just relaxing, hiking, eating, exploring.
Creating my own digital environment
Many of the apps I use aren’t a perfect fit for my needs. The current generation of AI coding agents is so powerful that I can now build my own versions that work the way I want them to.
I built my own Android web browser, and use it 95% of the time. I only go back to Chrome when a website uses a feature that I haven’t yet bothered to implement on my browser. E.g. file downloads.
The new app that I’ve started working on replaces multiple apps that I use regularly. It’s a unified media reader/viewer for RSS, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
January 12th 2026
Battle Zone
I’m using my new AI coding superpowers to build a game that I’ve wanted for many years, but never had the time, the focus, or the energy to actually make it.
The game is like Dice Wars, or Risk. But it fixes the balance issues with Dice Wars, and is not turn based, so any play can attack at any time; which I hope will make the gameplay more exciting. My goal is to make a game that people enjoy playing.
Previous updates
3rd of january 2026
AI coding
I have jumped on the AI coding bandwagon. It feels like a superpower being able to create software at the speed of my ideas, rather than the speed of my coding ability! It’s so much fun that I’m
hitting the limits on my Claude Code subscription every day. In fact, right now, I’m waiting for my Cloud Code timeout to end so that I can go back to working on my Dice Wars inspired game.
24th of December 2025
Advent of Code 2025
I’m doing the Advent of code this year. It’s a series of fun little Christmas themed coding challenges. The problems come out once a day in December. In general the problems get progressively harder. To make it more fun, there can be a social aspect by doing it with friends, having a leader board, sharing solutions, etc.
In previous years, I never finished all of the problems. But this year I have the goal of getting all the way to the end!
Focusing on focus
For years I’ve been battling against distractions caused by my phone. And I finally have a solution that works!
It’s the Brick, and I love it! It’s a hardware/software combo that allows me to selectively disable (aka brick) my distraction apps. A small piece of hardware is required to “unbrick” those apps, and that extra step adds just enough friction to prevent me from using the apps I want to avoid during certain times of the day. When running on Android 16 the Brick app isn’t yet perfect. The automatic brick/unbrick scheduling doesn’t always work, but hopefully they’ll be able to fix that bug soon. The great thing is that since I have kicked my phone distraction habit, I don’t even realize if the phone is bricked or not. My brain has learned new habits, and just assumes that I can’t access the bricked apps when I have decided not to.
Building apartments
I’m building 2 apartments in my backyard. They are going to be 2 x 1200 sq ft (110 sq meters). Construction started in December 2025, and should be finished by September 2026. Currently the existing garages are being demolished to make room for the new building.
Back Pain
Applying the method described in the Back Mechanic book has been very effective!
While bending over picking something up off the floor, I experienced sudden back pain for the first time in my life! Luckily I had watched, Peter Attia’s interview of Stuart Mcgill. Mcgill’s explanations and solutions made sense to me. So I bought his book, and followed his method for fixing back pain. The first step is simple: identify movements that cause discomfort, and stop doing them!! I know that sounds obvious. But here’s one example of what I was doing wrong: back stretches. I thought they were good for me, when they were contributing to my discomfort! Often doing less (e.g. stopping bad habits) is more effective than doing more. Of course that’s only the first step in Mcgill’s method. Buying, reading, and applying this book has been a great investment for me.