Welcome!

I'm Kevin Today, former Palantir engineer, founder of Kurtosis, and writer.

Here you'll find links to my writing, tools I've built, gear I use, favorite books, and more.

Github | LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Chat With Me

Personal Writing

On Substack. Some of my popular posts:

• The Sleep Guide, a detailed how-to manual on battling insomnia.
• The Leverage Series, an exploration of leverage and how to get it.
• Building Ben Franklin, an analysis of why Ben Frankling was so effective.

Tools I've Built

Live:

• cmdk, an "access anything" shortcut for the terminal just like Notion, Slack, Discord, etc.
• Wealthdraft, a financial planning tool for tracking your assets, monitoring net worth changes over time, estimating yearly tax, calculating changes needed to rebalance your portfolio, and more
• FIRE Calculator, a Python script to calculate how much money you need today to never need to work again (FIRE)
• FitPages, a web app for displaying data from the popular Fitnotes app
• Overpowered Writing Tools, a collection of tools for managing a writing repo as defined in An Overpowered Writing System (TODO LINK)
• CLI Journal, a CLI for writing and searching a repository of tagged journal entries
• CLI Journal, an automated pipeline for pumping Brazilian bank account transactions into YNAB
• Teact, a React-like framework for the Bubbletea TUI library
• ActivityWatch Screentime Loader, a tool for regularly pushing ActivityWatch screentime data to a webhook
• My Bash and Vim dotfiles
• safebrew, a tiny Homebrew backup system
• A script to download your Kindle highlights as JSON
• A tool for querying the US Treasury website to get the value of a multiple savings bonds at a time

Dead:

• Wunderpy2, Python bindings for Wunderlist (RIP)
• Smooth Mechanism, my very first attempt at automating my GTD system
• Unbox, a tool for symlinking things on your filesystem (e.g. your dotfiles) into Dropbox so they're always up-to-date
• file-vacuum, which attempted to do what sftp does before I knew sftp existed

Tools I Want To Try

A list of tools built by others that I want to try, on Notion.

Music Playlists

• Chillout Cafe, a playlist of almost exclusively nonvocal, groove-heavy, lofi-focused tunes that I've been building since 2015 in preparation for the cafe I plan to open one day
• Focus Time, a list of hard-driving tunes for when I'm amped up on coffee and want to get into the work zone
• Gym

Books That Were Important For Me

Mental Health/Life Mindset

• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Naval Ravikant
• Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
• Too Perfect by Allan Mallinger and Jeannete Dewyze
• The Way Of The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
• The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
• The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer
• The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck by Mark Manson

Productivity/Career Success

• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Naval Ravikant (listing again because it's just so good)
• Getting Things Done (2015 ed.) by David Allen
• Deep Work by Cal Newport
• So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport
• The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim
• Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram
• Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss

Finance

• Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb
• The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb
• Antifragile by Nassim Taleb
• I Will Teaach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi

Other

• Sapiens by Noah Yuval Harari
• The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

2024-02 Gear

Everyday Carry

• Buffway minimalist wallet:
  • Chase Sapphire primary credit card
  • CapitalOne VentureOne backup credit card
  • Ally bank debit card
  • Driver's license
  • Insurance card
• Samsung Galaxy S10E in a Otterbox Commuter case with an MP-MALL glass screen protector
• Keyring:
  • Yubikey 5
  • TRUE CashStash, loaded with local currency
  • Mack's Blackout keychain earplugs
  • OLight I3T pocket flashflight
  • Victorinox MiniChamp Swiss army knife
• Bose QC45
• Wazoo firestarter necklace or Wazoo whetstone necklace
• Homemade paracord bracelet in quickrelease braid
• Levi's 511 jeans
• Banana Republic Custom 078 Wash button downs in Grant Fit (these have lasted me years, and I'm very happy with them)
• Florsheim Lodge boots

Mobile Office

• Everki Atlas backpack
• M1 Macbook Pro 16", 2021 model
• Roost foldable laptop stand
• UPERFECT 15.6" 4K portable monitor
• 10ft braided USB-C cable to charge portable monitor
• KABCON foldable portable monitor stand
• Polarspex polarized sunglasses
• Anker PowerPort cubical power strip
• BYEASY USB-A hub
• Microsoft Sculpt ergonomic keyboard
• Aproca hard-sided storage case for Sculpt keyboard with 2 spare AAA keyboard batteries inside
• Panasonic Eneloop Pro AAA batteries
• Techkey USB wifi adapter for getting wifi when signal is weak
• Evoluent vertical mouse
• Mousepad
• Passport
• Villini leather passport & boarding pass holder
• Backup Yubikey
• Cord tacos for cable management
• Mack's earplugs for blocking noise during travel and drumming
• North American Rescue Ocho IFAK

Hermitcrab Home

I carry my "home" around with me in my suitcases

• Osprey Farpoint 55L travel backpack (everything you need and nothing you don't; highly recommend)
• Large Victorinox luggage case with roller wheels and suit storage
• Ledger Nano X for cryptocurrency storage
• Gonex Dopp kit:
  • Philips Norelco multigroom with attachments (I've used the same one for years across 6 continents with no issues; highly recommended)
  • Sensodyne extra-soft toothbrush (antidote to brushing too hard and getting gum recession, though this toothbrush is becomingly increasingly hard to find and electric toothbrushes seem to do better job)
• Panasonic Eneloop Pro wall charger
• Daily Supplements:
  • Mindlab Pro nootropic (I did a good amount of research into nootropics, and this was the only one I found that had research-backed ingredients in the right active dose)
  • Centrum Men multivitamn
  • Vitamin D, 5000IU

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