I'm trying to build a simple, local, and semantic code + context search for coding agents like Claude Code.
I noticed that when trying to work with Claude Code I burned my token allocation really quickly and with parallel agents, no better. But when I looked at the other repos things felt really complex, for me at least.
I call it "contextd" and imagine it kind of like a context daemon you can always query in your repository for implementation plans, specs or code, etc. I always liked that git lived in your repo in the .git file, so I wanted this to work like that too but without 3rd party hosted databases or multi-repo pollution.
It's written in python at the moment, uses some local models and lanceDB but I might have it re-written in rust for speed :)
I think there's a lot of nuance here. I teach DJing (house/techno mostly) and there's never been more interest in electronic music & DJing. Folks who thought I was a bit out there in high school for liking electronic & dance music, have recently all now become more interested in DJing and raving. The DJ today is continuing to grow into the modern rock-star (albeit, in terms of real $ of music money, it's no where close).
Moreover, as several commenters have pointed out there has been a big growth in festivals and awareness. Lots of people talk to me about "house music" now, whereas before it was a relatively "underground" thing.
Now, I think there's a question about whether the scale of such events have maintained the same cultural ethos as the early rave days, and that, though I'm not old enough to have participated, is likely a categorical no. There's a greater focus on 'documenting' experiences at these events rather than living it. Here's a clip of an rising group called Kienemusik [tik tok link](https://www.tiktok.com/@as.anca/video/7359750430345186593?q=...), where you can see there's more video taping than dancing. I would venture to say, we are so filled with wonder sometimes that we forget that part of experiencing awe is letting go of ego and just experiencing.
I know what you mean, and I wish I kept at it. I DJ'd a couple raves back then but it was something that any of my friends were into so I naturally fell out of it even though I loved it so much. I later got back into it briefly and made a few house and trance tracks when computer DAWs became popular.
There was a sense of freedom and optimism on the dance floor that I've never found anywhere else. I made songs like the songs that I most liked to dance to. Most of it came from Europe back then, but I wish I followed my heart, or at least spent half my time following my heart.
I feel bad for the kids in the video. In my day, and maybe yours, it would have been very unusual to see a cellphone in the club or at a rave. My kids schools don't allow screens and they go away for a couple weeks each summer to a camp that doesn't allow screens. They tell me that they really enjoy it after a couple of days, and I think it gives them a chance to feel the way we did as kids... back then there wasn't a movement of people trying to live more in the moment because everybody lived in the moment all the time.
The freedom and optimism is always rooted to the communal and ritual release in dance, the freedom to be as you are, or dance as you are. This gets harder and harder when there is fear of "documentation', if one can't "dance right" or "doesn't fit in".
Don't beat yourself up too hard though, you can always pickup a DJ controller and start again :)
And too: the scene has radically shifted, so being a promoter is a large part of the work. It's kind of like eSports in a way.
Phoneless events are out there. This Never Happened bans phones from every event. I just went to Proper NYE which wasn’t a TNH event but had Lane 8 (label owner) on main stage and there was significantly less phones than other artists.
Indeed, I've written about this a little bit [1], they are growing in popularity due to a number of factors, one of which being, living in the moment. DVS1 has spoken with great eloquence on this subject as well [2]. These policies are the norm in Berlin places like Tresor. The industry culture has been really saturated by social media, live sets and destination sets [3], so many events are differentiating themselves by taking an different approach. It was a cool strategy when it started with Be At TV (RIP), (old) Boiler Room & (maybe) BBC R1 but it's lost its novelty at times I feel.
The party ends. Dancers look at each other and feel a connection, exhausted or refreshed. Why is there a connection between people on the dance floor?
Detroit, Berlin were spaces in which electronic music accelerated, reflecting an intent to go further into the future or outwards into space, including cyberspace, to escape the banality of the immediate environment outside the dance floor. A language develops to collectively approach a future previously experienced as private fantasy.
The DJ changes discs to keep the party going, deeply listening to the dancers' body movements as much as the music, dissolving, modulating the energy of the music in cybernetic flow. That's the mix. Waves of intensity, vastness, then resting down on the ground collectively staring at the sky, or recordings of Space Night projected on the ceiling... at this point, are we still strangers when we actually experience awe of an optimistic future?
The DJ can't foster this kind of environment when the ego is in the way, can't be a "rock star" or flashy. The DJ has to listen to make a humanistic virtual space that overrides the algorithmic dopamine-driven virtual space stored in everyone's pocket. It's possible. You have to want it for yourself. Otherwise... we drown in facades and cellphone pictures.
Somewhat off topic, does anyone use Paper/Pencil (specifically bullet journals), Apps and Digital Calendars with what feels like not much effort? I haven't been able to come to a happy medium between them all.
Also Concern #3, is there a subscription for things? o.O
I think the more tools you have, the harder it gets. I see some of these productivity guys, like Ali Abdaal, on YouTube and their systems look like a nightmare, with 8 different apps depending on the type of data.
The easier I make it on myself the better.
At work, after trying seemingly everything, I think I hit my stride with Obsidian. I have a plugin to show a calendar that works with the daily notes. I setup a template for that with a todo heading and a notes heading. I treat that kind of like a bullet journal. Each day I move over the stuff that wasn’t finished from the last day. The notes section is to give me a scratch pad for stuff that I only need that day. Other notes go to their own page to easily find later (with none of that zettlekasten nonsense). If I have a lot in my mind at the end of the day, especially on a Friday or before vacation, I’ll fill out the daily note for the day I plan to be back in the office, so I can remember where I left off. I can also open up a future daily note to add an item if I need to follow up on something on a certain day. For normal meetings I use Outlook, because I have to.
At home, the above system doesn’t work so well, because I have a lot less going on. I don’t need something that requires daily interaction like that. I have been writing up some ideas for an app I plan to write that will hopefully solve this problem for me. Time will tell how that plays out. In the meantime I’m using Apple Reminders and Calendar in a pretty basic form.
I use a notebook and pen. It's like having another screen, except it's my list of todo's and its always open and in front of me.
I write a list of todos, check them off as I go, then rewrite that list once the page is full or after a few days - leaving off those that are done. I've found it works better than any app (and I have tried many).
Side tangent: I love Ruby, but strongly dislike and discourage `unless` in the code base. It still trips me up having written Ruby 5 years at this stage. Maybe its just me but I still pause every time for myself when looking at `unless` with a multi conditional. Example:
Maybe a decade of doing ruby has rotted my brain, but I love `unless`, and use it often.
Yes, every `unless` could be rewritten with an `if` instead, certainly. But I like the implication of weight these keywords carry in English language. `unless` implies it's a minor condition, that the majority of runs should fall on the opposite side of the conditional, where as `if` does not -- both weights of the condition feel potentially equivilant-ish.
I've known a handful of people who can handle conditionals inside an unless, and dozens who can't. I'm in the latter camp. Banning conditionals in an unless is a very reasonable rule to follow
Built one of these as a ruby gem in case it's useful for others. I use as a dev log and mini issue tracker for projects where a project mgmt tool feels like overkill. It can sync to your local knowledge base (for me obsidian) if you want too. https://github.com/aquaflamingo/devlogs
This would be the contrarian perspective, and it's an interesting thought to consider. If memory serves, I think Marc A points out in an old Youtube conference video how most new technologies follow the Promethean myth in their relationship to society.
Funny enough your observation of
> "There are more accountants now than then."
could be extrapolated from in two ways
The optimistic perspective might suppose technological development gives rise to new marketplace adaptations and creation of new and tangential jobs. For example, Facebook / Social Networks / Search creating new roles like: Influencers, Social Media Managers, Search Engine Optimization, et cetera.
For the pessimist perspective, I think you could suppose the "end state" of all technological progress in human societies is, eventually, an oligopoly of two industries: bureaucracy (legal) and politics (marketing).
I noticed that when trying to work with Claude Code I burned my token allocation really quickly and with parallel agents, no better. But when I looked at the other repos things felt really complex, for me at least.
I call it "contextd" and imagine it kind of like a context daemon you can always query in your repository for implementation plans, specs or code, etc. I always liked that git lived in your repo in the .git file, so I wanted this to work like that too but without 3rd party hosted databases or multi-repo pollution.
It's written in python at the moment, uses some local models and lanceDB but I might have it re-written in rust for speed :)
https://github.com/aquaflamingo/ctxd