Author: Matt

Last week I did a soft launch of the revamped Blockagram platform that I’ve been working on for the last while. Blockagram is a service that allows you to send messages to people for marketing purposes with a small amount of Bitcoin to incentivize them to both subscribe to your marketing list, and act on…

Last night I was attempting to learn a little bit of Chinese after being inspired from a series of documentaries and travel vlogs (ChopStick Travel) that I’ve been taking in over the last 3-4 weeks. Anyway, I opened up DuoLingo and was quickly disappointed. Then I tried Memrise, which was slightly better, but it suffered…

Over the last week I ran into a difficult problem to solve with my B lockagram application that I have been working on for the last few months. It required some deep thinking. I spent three days with some sensory deprivation to really focus my thoughts and avoid even the slightest distractions. An eye mask…

“Are you distracted by breaking news? Then take some leisure time to learn something good, and stop bouncing around.” – Marcus Aurelius It can be difficult to block the media from your view. Over the last year or more I have been trying to limit my access. Several years ago, I was having a conversation…

Leaving my job and subsequently taking a month long vacation to visit family and reset was quite disruptive to my usual routines. Focusing again on my entrepreneurial adventures is very different now that I’m back.  On the one hand it is amazing to be fully in control of my schedule, I can allocate time between…

After thinking about how to make better beer at home last week and a successfully brewed cerveza I wanted to up my game and build a fermentation box to lager. The number one objective is to make the brewing process with the least amount of effort – no lifting heavy things, transferring fluids around as…

It’s been a while since I last did any homebrew beer but for some reason I had the motivation to put on a new brew when I got back from vacation.  Nothing fancy, just a simple kit. The one new piece of equipment I got was a conical fermenter.  The Fermentasaurus is a pretty neat…

Over the last week I have been driving 3000km across Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to kick off a summer vacation.  We took the opportunity to stop and see a few things along the way. So many things to see in this country. Quebec City was a particular surprise. It was a beautiful…

Time for me to get a new Laptop and for the last couple of months I have been delaying on the purchase. I’ve been a Mac user for the last 12 years and used Linux before that. The last time I actively used a Windows PC was around the year 1999. So a switch to…

Since I stopped running due to ankle pain several years ago nothing has really filled the void of regular exercise to keep me fit and healthy. Every now and then I do use percussion massage guns to ease my back pain, but the pain due to no exercise just comes back. For several months now I’ve…