Rocket.Chat is an open‑source team chat platform that lets you host your own messaging environment and keep full control over your data. It delivers real‑time messaging, video calls, and a flexible plugin ecosystem so you can adapt it to your workflow.

Key highlights for FOSS Friday

• Fully self‑hostable with end-to-end encryption, giving teams complete data sovereignty
• Native desktop, web, and mobile clients that sync seamlessly across devices
• Extensible with thousands of community-built integrations and a powerful API for custom bots

https://rocket.chat

Building Your “Universe” (How You Get to 51%)

Every campaign starts with defining the universe of voters you need to win.

• Your universe = who votes in this election, not everyone who lives there
• Two levers determine your path:
  • Turnout: getting your people to actually vote
  • Persuasion: convincing undecided or soft voters to choose you
• Winning is about math, not vibes. Know how many votes you need and where they come from

Voter Data in Virginia

• Virginia Democrats use NGP VAN (Voter Action Network) to manage voter data
• VAN data is accessed through or purchased via the party and is essential for:
  • Targeting doors and mail
  • Tracking support
  • Building turnout plans
• Even in non-partisan races, party data is often the best available data

Picking a Camp (Even in Non-Partisan Races)

Local races may be non-partisan on the ballot-but they are not neutral in practice.

• You need a base of support early
• Choosing a “camp” gives you:
  • Access to voter data
  • Volunteers
  • Endorsements
  • Credibility
• For Democratic-leaning candidates:
  • Build relationships with the local Democratic Committee early
  • Show up before you ask for anything
  • These relationships matter long before filing day

Key takeaway:
You don’t win local races alone and you don’t win them without data.

What Elected Officials Actually Do (By Level)

Federal (Congress / Senate)

• Vote on federal legislation
• Constituent services with federal agencies
• Oversight of federal programs
• National policy focus

State (General Assembly / Statewide)

• State laws and budget
• Education, transportation, public safety policy
• Oversight of state agencies

Local (City Council / School Board)

• Land use, zoning, development
• Schools (School Board)
• Local budgets and taxes
• Public safety funding
• Infrastructure and quality of life issues

Rule of thumb:
Local voters expect problem-solvers, not ideologues.

Critical Virginia Campaign Basics (Know These Early)

Filing & Petitions

• Filing deadlines typically fall spring to early summer for November elections
• Many local offices require petition signatures to qualify
• Signatures must be:
  • From registered voters
  • In the correct district
  • Submitted by the deadline (no grace period)

Campaign Finance (Virginia-Specific)

• Virginia has no limits on contribution amounts
• All contributions and expenses must be reported to the Virginia Department of Elections
• Early fundraising matters-it signals seriousness and viability
• You will need:
  • A campaign bank account
  • A treasurer
  • Timely and accurate reporting

Timing & Viability

Before running, you should be able to answer:

• Is there a realistic path to victory?
• Who is voting in this election?
• Is turnout favorable, or stacked against me?
• Do I have a base, or can I build one?

Right time + right seat + right environment = opportunity

How Local Campaigns Actually Communicate

At the local level, mail still matters-a lot.

• Mailers are one of the most effective ways to reach voters in low-turnout elections
• Most campaigns rely on:
  • Professional mail firms
  • Targeted voter lists
  • Repetition, not one-off pieces
• Digital helps, but mail wins local races

First Concrete Next Steps

Before committing, do these things:

• Talk to 10-15 voters who consistently vote in local elections
• Attend local committee and civic meetings
• Meet with the local Democratic Committee leadership
• Draft a one-page “Why I’m Running”
• Learn the filing and petition deadlines for your specific office

If these steps energize you, that’s a good sign.

I recently was researching about how LLMs function and came across two very fun and interactive explanations that are screenshotted below. It further confirm in my head that everything is math. The generation of knowledge and words can be transformed into weighted matrixes with statistical outputs.

LLM Visualization

Transformer Explainer

Edit 2026-02-09, found more resources https://mlu-explain.github.io/neural-networks/ https://threads.championswimmer.in/p/why-are-neural-networks-architected https://visualrambling.space/neural-network/

Before we get to that we’re going to have to talk about operational security. I like privacy as a concept. It’s never fun when other people can track you without your knowledge or consent. But, I’ve realized over time that if I want to get anything done or collaborate with other people that I will have to have a public presence. This was further confirmed and ignited when I was doing a LinkedIn learning module on personal branding. If someone looks me up, I realize that I have the ability to create and show what I’ve done. I have the ability to fully consent to the publish of the information I want online.

Originally, the ideas of ‘making stuff’ didn’t really make sense to me because most things that I have learned have been from other people. That was until I was reading Simon Willison’s blog, ironically, of what to blog about. The quote that stuck out to me was this:

“I recommend adding “write about it” to your definition of “done” for anything that you build or create.”

It stuck in my mind because it was very similar in concept the Minimalist Guy’s espouse of a focus on creation rather than consumption. Or in other word - being results driven. I am extremely results driven.

While I am not attached to the results because failure is in every part of life – “Do not let the results of action be your motive”. I very much measure my past successes based on the gradual steps and actions I got to that specific goal.

To know, you must perform intellectual work, not merely be smart. I bet you are smart enough.

In college, when I first to weightlift I identified that the thing stopping me was not action but the underlying knowledge I needed to make a specific routine. In the same way today the thing stopping me from making and creating more was the knowledge that the documentation or log of my learning is as important as the end product itself.

It doesn’t matter if your project overlaps with thousands of others: the experience of building it is unique to you. You deserve to have a few paragraphs and a screenshot out there explaining (and quietly celebrating) what you made. - Simon Wilson

The Journey of making a good project starts with learning how a great one was made.

So why am I so bad at marketing? Because I thought my ideas needed to be hyper-original or on the cusp of groundbreaking research. While I still strive for that in my though process, I’ve found that over time most “original” ideas or problems are solved by finding the gaps in the way current solutions are solved or implemented. And once you find that gap, that’s where you can truly add value. But until that point in time comes your work and many others are a remix.

Being a DJ at life sounds fun to me, will you join the party?

Erik’s Law: “The tendency for any conversation related to technology to turn into ai discussion”

This law is within the same vein of Godwin’s law that states that “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one”. If restated word-for-word in Godwin’s terms the law would describe that “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of utilizing or involving AI, LLMs, or Neural Networks approaches one”.

AI is the extreme to which a human process can be replicated by a machine. Or in another sense, it is the extreme to which the human creative process can be abstracted into a perfect set of definitions, structure, and output of that found within code.

I’m using AI in the general sense in regard to Neural Networks or Large Language Models.

Here are some examples for how a conversation would unfold under the law:

• Cars > Self Driving Cars > Image Detection > AI
• Computers > Electricity Cost > Data Centers > AI
• Digital Task Automation > Digital Process Automation > AI agent automation
• Proof Reading > Grammar Correction > Sentence and Structure Correction > LLMs > AI
• Biology > Protein Structures > Alphafold > AI
• Media Creation > Text-to-Speech, Speech-to-Text, Image Generation, Video Generation > AI
• Food > Chef Robots > Robotic Automation > AI
• Therapy > Therapy Tuned LLM Models > AI
• Social media > Recommendation Algorithms > AI