Finn – Finn Smith — Product + Data

M. The Son of the Century: 1919

I’ve finished 1919, the first part of M. The Son of the Century. Scurati does an amazing job of showing how Mussolini was able to turn Italians’ discontent into authoritarianism. I wanted to share some background information that could be helpful for non-Italians who are reading the book. Who was Mussolini? Benito isn’t an Italian… Continue reading M. The Son of the Century: 1919

Tell me what’s painful in US immigration

I’m building tools for people navigating the US immigration system—both visitors/international students and the folks who help them (think immigration lawyers and international student advisors). Right now I’m focused on making currency conversion easier and building data products around immigration processes. So far I’ve been looking at visa wait times, currency trends, and similar patterns… Continue reading Tell me what’s painful in US immigration

What’s old is new. A fascism book club.

I’ve started a book club about fascism with some friends. Our first book is “M: Son of the Century”, an Italian novel about Mussolini’s rise to power. I’m reading in Italian, but I also have an English translation for when it gets tough. I’m a little over 100 pages into it, and so far, it’s… Continue reading What’s old is new. A fascism book club.

Data marketplace launch

My team at Candid just launched our datasets on Snowflake Marketplace. This is a big step for us — it’s the first time we’ve made our nonprofit data available through a marketplace platform. If you’re not familiar with Candid, we’re essentially Dun & Bradstreet for the philanthropic sector. We collect data from government sources, direct… Continue reading Data marketplace launch

Italian Certification: Level B2

I just received my CELI B2 certification in Italian! For those unfamiliar, CELI (Certificato di Conoscenza della Lingua Italiana) is an official Italian language certification recognized internationally. The levels correspond to the CEFR, and B2 is what you need to enroll in an Italian university. From zero to fluent I started learning Italian in college… Continue reading Italian Certification: Level B2

Learning Blender

I’ve started learning Blender, the 3d art software.

Absolute Beginners

I’ve started a podcast with a friend. We’ve been chatting for a few months about our mutual interest in games. I’ve been a huge fan of the game dev community for a long time. I’ve always found people who make games to be an amazing mix of creative and technical. We’re starting off by learning… Continue reading Absolute Beginners

How to mute an email address in Gmail

Last year I started working at OpenTable and quickly discovered that we get a lot of unsolicited sales emails. I’m guessing people just figure out our standard email format, then look up all employees on LinkedIn. If you work for a well-known company, you’ve probably seen these before. The subject is something like “Checking in… Continue reading How to mute an email address in Gmail

@FriscoEdits

Edit 2025: I’ve shut down this Twitter/X account, along with everything else I had on that site. I’m working on a new bot on Bluesky. A few months ago, I forked and launched a Twitter bot. The original bot that I forked from was called @congressedits and was developed by Ed Summers. Congress edits was… Continue reading @FriscoEdits