Reading through the comments under this thread, there are many users who swear by a plain text file, but who then build quite a lot of snowflake software to regain functionality offered by more structured TODO applications. That includes:

- having your computer alert you to things that come up

- being able to tag notes

- being able to add events to a calendar

- being able to set priority of tasks

- expecting prioritized/currently relevant tasks to be at the top of the agenda

- being able to add recurring tasks

- full-text search (grepping)

- formatting features (markdown)

Some of the laborious (or, in my opinion, plain unholy) solutions include:

- feeding TODOs to an LLM to filter for the currently relevant ones and send Telegram notifications

- hand-copying currently relevant tasks to the top of the TODO list

- running a script on a VPS to sync notifications

- set up cron job with git commit

- writing post-it notes by hand

I would encourage everyone to try out emacs with org-mode. It takes some time to get used to the editor and its keybindings (though provisions exist for vim users), but _every_ item on the list above is handled out of the box, or is offered through a free and maintained plugin.

The author of the OP claims to have tried _every_ todo app, and has afterwards moved (regressed?) to writing notes in a plain text file, but there is a path extending from this point that the author has not walked yet. I strongly suggest that, especially for people with a computing or technical background, it is an undisputed upgrade. https://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html being the bible, of course.

Only the type of food we eat in an “advanced” society

Are teeth closer to exposed bone or enlodged rocks?

On the one hand, that isn't necessarily a problem. It can be just a useful algorithm for tool calling or whatever.

On the other hand, if you're telling your investors that AGI is about two years away, then you can only do that for a few years. Rumor has it that such claims were made? Hopefully no big investors actually believed that.

The real question to be asking is, based on current applications of LLMs, can one pay for the hardware to sustain it? The comparison to smartphones is apt; by the time we got to the "Samsung Galaxy" phase, where only incremental improvements were coming, the industry was making a profit on each phone sold. Are any of the big LLMs actually profitable yet? And if they are, do they have any way to keep the DeepSeeks of the world from taking it away?

What happens if you built your business on a service that turns out to be hugely expensive to run and not profitable?

No it isn't.

> My ability to get interviews at 22 even without a degree was orders of magnitude higher than it is now despite being 20x more competent.

Then you're doing something very wrong. Also, you may be comparing apples to oranges if you're comparing across different economic condition and seniority roles.

In any case, I think this paragraph says a lot

> He is implying rushing is bad, it’s not. Tech industry is so enamored with young people that learning Next.js and making a dog app is deemed superior than really getting into the nitty gritty.

You're maybe selling yourself poorly or in the wrong places if this is what you see. Maybe your "nitty gritty" doesn't actually solve the customers problem or, if they're solving the wrong problem you're not effective at showing them what they should solve instead and why should they hire you for it.

Norvig's point about acquired wisdom over time is great and your quips sound like a you problem.

Calling Norvig's insights garbage says a lot about you. How did you ever come with that strawman?

> If you want, put in four years at a college (or more at a graduate school). This will give you access to some jobs that require credentials, and it will give you a deeper understanding of the field, but if you don't enjoy school, you can (with some dedication) get similar experience on your own or on the job. In any case, book learning alone won't be enough

Where exactly does Norvig advocate not to have a career earlier?