A nicely laid out story of how we got where we are in software product design.

Mitchell Hashimoto:

This is my journey of how I found value in AI tooling and what I’m trying next with it. In an ocean of overly dramatic, hyped takes, I hope this represents a more nuanced, measured approach to my views on AI and how they’ve changed over time.

Derek Thompson:

Stalin and Hitler: Both terrible, but also mutually destructive. Cancer and Alzheimer’s: Also both terrible and also, weirdly, mutually destructive. Apparently—and I never knew this—Alzheimer’s patients rarely have cancer. Doctors have studied the association for years without understanding the root cause. Maybe it’s mere selection effect, where people who don’t get cancer survive long enough to get dementia. Or maybe something more interesting is happening.

decryption:

Over a decade ago I got into FIRE - Financial Independence, Retire Early. I’m currently in the position where I’m closer to the end of a FIRE journey than the start, so here’s a big dump of knowledge on various finance topics relevant to me. This post exists primarily so I can get it out of my head and stop thinking about it.

A well written summary with loads of references.

Cate Hall:

It’s easy to extend this framework to explain burnout. You can think of the rider and the elephant as having agreed to a sacred pact: In exchange for doing what the rider asks, the elephant is promised certain rewards. When things are going well, the needs of both rider and elephant are satisfied, even if the balance isn’t exactly even day-to-day.

Burnout results when the rider asks the elephant, over and over again, to commit a tremendous amount of energy to a task, but then fails to provide the reward the elephant is expecting. As a result, the link between effort and reward breaks for the elephant, with catastrophic consequences for the rider.

Simon Willison:

It’s become very apparent over the past few months that a comprehensive test suite is enough to build a completely fresh implementation of any open source library from scratch, potentially in a different language.

This has worrying implications for open source projects with commercial business models. Here’s an example of a response: tldraw, the outstanding collaborative drawing library, are moving their test suite to a private repository.

It’s great to see Noah’s work collected again.

Casey Handmer, Matt Weickert:

This post explains our current views on how humanity will achieve Kardashev Level 1 status by exploiting the full energy resources of an entire planet. More specifically, how pure solar+batteries will power AI scaleup beyond gas turbine manufacturing limits.

Hitting the streets and Margaret River in January.

A nice end to a 40 degree day.

Thank you, stonking solar flare—we received your shipment.

My annual recap of media and products I enjoyed over the year.

Music

Getting Killed and Heavy Metal – I’m on the Cameron Winter and Geese train along with everyone else.

The Thief next to Jesus – Spiritual stuff.

Manning Fireworks – MJ is a talent.

Dream River – I’m catching up on all the Bill Callahan.

Strange Love – My kind of supergroup.

Here is my 2025 playlist of songs I enjoyed throughout the year.

TV Shows

The Pitt – My show of the year. Bringing back the medical procedural.

Task – Tight and sharp.

Andor season two – Smart Star Wars.

Invincible – I watched all three seasons. It’s violent. It feels like a comic book show in a good way.

The Eternaut – Strong start. Faded a little.

Department Q – The plot shouln’t work and yet it does. Team Akram forever.

Adolescence – Incredible achievement. Brutal watch at times.

The Studio – Made me giggle.

Movies

Sinners – Loved it.

Black Bag – Slick.

Anora – Decent. Can’t believe it won the Oscar.

One Battle After Another – Made me laugh.

Predator: Killer of killers – I enjoy seeing good takes on the Predator universe.

Killers of the Flower Moon – Evil pricks everywhere. Too long. Still good.

The Wild Robot – Beautiful art. Pulls at the heartstrings.

Books

I still don’t read enough books.

Project Hail Mary – Like a science puzzle. Second half picked up steam. Good fun.

The Wager – A mad story of survival.

Count Zero – Getting my old school Gibson back on.

Products

Gozney Arc – Gas fired pizza oven.

Dictador 20 year old rum – Good booze.

Didgeridoona cooler bag – Good for transporting booze.

Huski Champagne Flutes and cooler – Good for drinking booze.

I finished my black and white photo a day in 2025 project yesterday.

I only had one close call when I forgot to take a photo but still managed to find one on my phone camera roll that I could use.

I enjoyed how the project forced me to practice shooting more often.

I think I’ll get the photos printed up into a book.