Hacker Residency: Day #6

Hey everyone!

Waking up this morning, I realized I wouldn't be able to keep going like this much longer if I can't get my sleep rhythm back on track. I usually get close to 8 hours per night, but lately I've been closer to 6 hours. I can already feel the impact it's having on my work capacity and my mood.

Goal for tonight: get over 7 hours!

Anyway, after a quick breakfast (I wasn't super hungry after my double meal last night lol), I arrive at the villa around 9am. We're supposed to leave for badminton at 11am, so I dive into 1.5 hours of pure focus: I have a ton of overdue messages, I'd like to finish everything before leaving.

To give you an idea, here's how many messages I had this morning:

• 37 emails
• 12 DMs on X
• 5 messages on LinkedIn

Needless to say, it wasn't the most pleasant time 😅.

While going through my emails, I come across one from someone I don't know, saying they found security vulnerabilities in the new version of Uneed 😱!! These vulnerabilities are pretty serious, and I quickly realize I can reproduce one of them, which I rush to fix. The stress 😅.

I reply, and we schedule a call for this afternoon.

Then, it's badminton time with Josef, Mellie, and Rob! Even though it was really hot inside the gym, we had a nice time playing together 🏸.

I've played badminton my whole life but decided to stop last year, so it was really great to hit the shuttlecock (I learned that English word today) again 😊.

After a quick shower and a good meal, it was time to get back to work. I have my call with the security researcher, a really nice guy whose profile I'll send you tomorrow: if you're looking for someone to find security issues on your site, look no further 👀!

He helps me understand how he reproduced the vulnerability. I'll admit it takes me a while to figure out how to fix it, it's pretty complicated 😅. I finally manage it after a good hour (thanks Claude for the documentation and explanations!) 💪🏻.

I continue my work afternoon: I fix some bugs, write a blog article on Uneed, respond to an interview for IndieHacker[.]com, answer new emails, etc. I'm super productive, it's nice :).

And then around 5pm, I realize I've finished all the tasks I'd assigned myself for today. I have a little habit: when this happens and I finish early, I almost never take on new tasks. Either I stop working, or I allow myself to do something more fun.

And this something more fun had been on my mind for a while 👀. I want to make an online sudoku game, simple but gamified, free, with difficulty levels, and playable with keyboard. Handy to play while waiting for Cursor to work, right?

I found a great domain name haha, and I'm going to try to finish it in the next few days and launch it quickly 😊. There's no specific goal behind it, but who knows 👀.

The end of the day approaches, and Lilian asks me if I want to participate in one of her videos again: she wants to interview me!

I don't really like talking about myself 😅 but hey, it'll help me practice my English, and it helps Lilian, so let's go!

The interview goes really well, I really like the questions Lilian asks, which, unlike almost all the interviews I've done, are more focused on life choices and mental health than product or technical stuff. I find that much more interesting!

After this interview, I feel like I've exhausted almost all my social batteries for the day 😅 and I decide to go back to the hotel to continue working and write this blog post.

There's a typhoon off the coast of Vietnam tonight, it's quite impressive to see! The hotel has completely barricaded its doors and is making people come in from the side. I also find a letter in my room with safety instructions 😱! Scary, right?

Before finishing this post, I'd like to make a quick aside about the Hacker Residency, and something I noticed today.

I mentioned my "social batteries" a bit earlier. Spending all your days in a villa surrounded by lots of people isn't necessarily ideal when you struggle to stay in groups, is it? haha 😂 If you add to that the fact that I have to concentrate to speak/understand everyone's English, it's quite exhausting, and I often need my little space to recover or take a break.

Well, this is something that's totally accepted and respected by everyone, and it doesn't prevent building connections every day! I find that quite incredible 😊. Everyone shows great kindness, it's genuinely pleasant.

That's all for tonight, see you tomorrow 👋🏻

Thomas

PS: I didn't have time to finish the article about the launch day debrief of Uneed Community 🙈. Coming tomorrow!