Derek Sivers

What I’m doing now

(This is a now page, and if you have your own site, you should make one, too.)

Updated October 22nd, 2024, from New Zealand.

Useful Not True” is done

You can buy “Useful Not True” now at sivers.com. The paper books are coming back from the printer now.

I’ve been working on this almost full-time for two years, and I’m super-happy with it. Setting up international warehouses to ship it.

going to China next month

Going to Shenzhen and Chengdu for my first time, just to meet people. Any suggestions for who I should meet? Email me, if so.

spaced repetition flashcards in PostgreSQL

For years, I’ve used and loved Anki for learning anything, both for myself and my boy. But I wanted something simpler and felt it could be done directly in PostgreSQL functions.

It was about 50 hours of hard work to adapt the work by Open Spaced Repetition and convert it into SQL functions. See github.com/sivers/srs and give it a try. I’m going to use it to learn Chinese.

output projects

After pushing aside all other projects for two years, I’m back in the mode of getting things done. It’s a big change for me, because for two years I’ve had basically one job, (finish the book), and now I have 15. Interesting side-effect is that I don’t want to learn anything new, since I just want my TO-DO list done. Lots of programming.

posted /met notes

See my notes from the people I met while travelling.

trying an Android ebook reader

I forgot my Kindle in a hotel in Amritsar India, so I just got an Onyx Boox Android e-ink tablet to see how I like it. Arrived today, and it’s surprisingly hard to transfer EPUB files to it from my computer. (I prefer direct transfer over USB, not some cloud service.) Any suggestions appreciated.

cuddly pet rats

I would never have predicted this, but my boy heard from a friend that rats are wonderful pets, so a few months ago we got two twin boy rats. They just want to cuddle and sleep all the time. They’re so sweet, never bite, and don’t even smell. (They poop in a litter box!) They lick me to show affection. They fall asleep in my lap as I work. Little pocket puppies. They’re as gentle as Golden Retrievers.

See this video for an example of what rats are like as pets. They’re so adorable that a local friend here in Wellington fell in love with mine, then adopted her own pet rats too. Now hers are friends with mine, so we can house them together when the other is out of town.

rat