USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving.
Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free.
I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these."
"They just come with the table, man."
They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner.
This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat.
I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared.
"Did we…?"
"Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless."
Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined.
My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude."
Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man.
I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy.
Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived.
I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most.
Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.
I DoorDash. The obvious move would be for a fast food restaurant to be completely automated and connected to a drivers location so every order is made at precisely the right time for it to be as fresh as possible. McDonalds is set up the best for this. Mcds + deep DD integration?
Introducing Ponder: the agentic video editor.
It’s a new paradigm for filmmaking, where powerful creative agents and humans collaborate to tell world-class stories.
We're also announcing our $2.5M pre-seed, led by Liu Jiang from Sunflower (@seedtosunflower), with @Joshuabrowder and @MattHartman.
Joined by @levie (Box), @emerywells (Frame), @JaredLeto, @CommaCapital, the @nyuniversity venture fund, @cory, @darian314, @shiffman, and many more incredible founders, investors, and creators.
🚨 JUST IN: Free credits to build video games w/ Shipper Max.
Everyone should become their own game dev studio. We've decided to give out free credits randomly, just repost + comment "SHIPPER" below.
Let the games begin!
My submission for @anything’s Nonchalant Hackathon.
I was at the beach, thought of Tanline, and built it right there with Anything over iMessage.
It helps you know the best time to tan based on UV, weather, and time of day.
BREAKING: Apple is scared of vibe coding
they removed Anything from the App Store so we moved app building to iMessage
good luck removing this one, Apple