Nagpur ⟶ Toronto · MMXXVI № 31 — this page was built thirty-one ways; this one stuck [email protected]

Sora Kalden


I build things, learn things, and create entire worlds.

— and the best friendships in my life started with someone pulling one of these threads. Everything below is one of mine; pull whatever looks interesting.

This month shipping Flua · drilling French for the Toronto move · conducting a fleet of AI agents · still trying to actually sing

Sora Kalden, leaning in a doorway, hat and sunglasses, golden light
Plate I · ZVE10 M2, 16mm Sony, Budapest

Nº 01 The work, right now · four things, all real, all mine

01 An app · live on the web

Ten years of anime taught me five words of Japanese. Twenty focused hours taught me a thousand.

The method existed all along — buried under a part-time job of setup that made everyone I showed it to quit. So I spent a year building Flua: the same honest engine, zero setup. Open it and start. The web app is live today; the app stores are the paperwork boss-fight I'm mid-swing on.

How Flua began → tryflua.com ↗

the actual app, not a mockup — recall first, then reveal

02 A board game · in the works

I think Jenga is the worst game ever made. So I designed its opposite.

Kuzure is an adversarial stacking game: you and your friends build one shared tower, but you place each block to sabotage the next player, not to keep it standing. The tower survives across rounds as a growing, precarious sculpture — brutal architecture, inevitable collapse, last block standing wins.

See Kuzure →

the box, as designed · build to break · last block standing wins

03 An app · live

“It gets good after episode fifty, trust me.” So I built the chart that checks.

PeakCharts plots every episode of any show, straight from IMDb, and scores the whole run 0–100 — with a penalty for bad endings, because endings matter.

Try it live ↗ the story →
BREAKING BAD62 EPISODES · PEAKMETER 96

Breaking Bad ends on a 9.8. Game of Thrones ends on a 4.0 — that's why the penalty exists.

04 An experiment · in progress

I had zero viewers. So I coded my own entire Twitch chat.

Dozens of AI chatters — personas, lore, grudges, memory — listen to my mic and heckle in real time. Then I blind-tested it against a real streamer's chat, with his blessing: a judge model still catches mine 90% of the time. Two identical real chats score 47%. Closing that gap is the game.

the story →

GOONSAI · LIVE FEED

  • dropfox_ he's been debugging this for 40 min I love it here
  • morisummer chat is he cooked
  • null_pilgrim @morisummer he said that last time and shipped it at 4am
  • bea_trice is typing…

none of these people exist

Nº 02 The index · everything else, sorted onto shelves

Everything else, on seven shelves.

Tap a shelf to open it. Each entry has its own page; most of them link to three more.

01 Apps & toolsSmall, honest software — the kind I'd actually want to use.6
02 Systems & experimentsThe weirder builds — infrastructure for a one-person studio.4
  • kaldenOSthe fleet
  • GoonsAIfake chat, real test
  • SubStepperpaused
  • Blue Squarethe family showroom, digitized
03 GamesTake a system apart, find the fun, build it back better.5
04 Worlds & writingI've been building worlds since before I could finish them.3
05 Words & voiceRebuilding the half of myself I used to outsource — badly, on purpose, in public.3
06 The eyeOne camera, one prime, and a long argument with the color wheel.2
07 Learning itselfThe meta-skill under all of it — and the part I find most interesting.6

Nº 04 Someday · rabbit holes I haven't gone down yet

Lives I haven't tried on yet.

I keep a monthly goals calendar, and the method means none of these are wishes — they're fittings waiting for their month. A few from the queue:

  • Write a TV show — I've watched thousands of hours of film and anime, only the best, mostly to take apart why they work.
  • Make the manga — the "next Death Note or GoT": a complex plot that's somehow easy to follow, written script-first so it can become anything.
  • Spend a month on a competitive debate team.
  • Voice acting — more useful than acting, and nobody notices you learning it until you're good.
  • Shoot a zero-budget short film.
  • Make Westworld real, as a game you can actually live inside.
  • Open a café that's a third place for serious makers — writers, artists, builders, all in one room.
  • And further down the calendar: martial arts, social dancing, digital painting, a research paper, a real debate about whether mewing counts as a hobby. Find the talented, curious people I'd do all of it with.

Nº 05 Plates · through the lens

SORA KALDENA camera · a single prime

Nine stops, each one a chapter — tap a code for the story. Also loved along the way: Tokyo · Kōyasan · Budapest · Lisbon.

SEAT 23A the eye →

Correspondence · let's learn something together

I'm looking for people who are excellent at something and curious about everything.

Collaborators, co-conspirators, fellow rabbit-holers. If any of these threads is also yours — or you just want to compare obsessions — say hi. The best things in my life started as a five-hour first conversation with a stranger. No pitch required; just tell me which thread pulled you in.

Write to me [email protected]

— or, if you came for something specific

Consulting An hour of my brain one problem · a full action plan · $25 books it

One hour on one concrete problem; you leave with a complete action plan and pages of notes. $300 an hour, subsidized by need — only a $25 booking fee upfront. Which problem is yours?

Courses Teach me the fundamentals live small groups · growth over grades · $10 holds a seat

Mathematical, Computational, and Statistical Thinking — the basics redefined, taught for genuine growth with struggle as the point. Every course takes seat reservations now; runs are scheduled in waitlist order.

Sponsor · Invest Back me — or reach my audience sponsored segments · direct investment

Two honest ways in: a sponsored segment on the blog or the channel — small audience, unusually curious — or investing directly in one of my projects, Flua first among them. Reach out with a quote or a question; I'll answer honestly either way.