🚀 Buzz & Boost: Ciarán Cotter aka monkehack

Hey Friends,

Welcome to my new series, "Buzz & Boost," where misfits, rebels, and hackers share their invaluable insights and personal projects.

Each issue, we dive deeper with someone who's crafting an extraordinary life through unconventional means. They'll share:

• Buzz: Their top 5 recommendations that genuinely moved the needle in their life (think favorite apps, books, habits, and more)

• Boost: One cool project (they're working on) that deserves more attention

The goal is simple yet powerful: to elevate your quality of life and propel you further on your journey to hack a life you love.

Let's get started! 🚀

Why monkehack?

Monke is a full-time bug bounty hunter who's always contributed to the community. As an early subscriber of the Hive Five, we've been in each other’s orbit for a while.

We were supposed to meet during DEF CON 30, but the universe had different plans. Although our paths didn't cross then, I'm delighted to see him grow continuously. He even started his own newsletter, which I'm an avid reader of!

Make sure to follow him on Twitter/X and subscribe to his newsletter.

Table of Contents

• Why monkehack?

• Self-description

• 🐝 Buzz

  • Gift

  • Digital Tool

  • Travel

  • Well-being

  • Music

• 🚀 Boost

Self-description

Irish-Japanese web hacker living in Scotland. I'm currently trying to build my own company, grow my weekly newsletter, and produce interesting web research.

🐝 Buzz

Gift

Custom Jigsaw Puzzle

Find an embarrassing picture of your friend, and use it for a custom jigsaw puzzle. 10/10 gift.

Digital Tool

Notion

Notion is excellent for organizing your life if you take the time to use it properly.

Travel

Japan

My opinion is biased but if you've not been to Japan before, do it! It's a very different world to the one we're used to in the West.

Well-being

Orienteering

If you are a jogger, I suggest trying orienteering. It's running but you use your brain to navigate as well.

Music

Elliott Smith

Acoustic guitar legend and soundtracked Good Will Hunting.

🚀 Boost

Instead of putting my own newsletter here, I'm going to shout out the Critical Thinking podcast here for putting out consistently excellent content.

Alright, that wraps up this first edition!

Hope you picked up a thing or two for your arsenal. Knowledge = power, so you just leveled up.

Don't forget to smash that follow button on Ciarán's socials. And if you've got questions, hit him up.

Now go put this stuff to work.

And remember, work hard and stay bumble 🐝