Posts

I read 35 books, or 10726 pages, in 2025. A remarkable step up from the previous year. I have not read so many books since 2015 (36), and I never read so many pages before. Having read a few comic books helps pump up the stats, I reckon, and I suspect switching to ebooks played a role, too, as reading is more accessible than ever. I bought a first-edition Kindle back in the day, but never got around to using it much. After a few attempts to like it, it ended up in a drawer. Fast forward to 2025, I gave myself a second chance and got a Kobo Clara BW, a device I’m digging a lot. Yes, every time I finish an ebook I liked, I’m sad I cannot shelf it, but the advantages are many that I don’t think I’m going back to paper books anytime soon. There will be exceptions, I’m sure, but the norm will be ebook first. ...

As AI generated content becomes the norm, I believe that human-generated content and raw thoughts and emotion will become more valuable. In many ways, I’d rather read a raw, unproduced, and scrappy blog post with grammatical mistakes over perfectly generated content that serves little value. – Armeet Singh Jatyani, Importance of Writing

Every machine serves a purpose. People need purpose. The temptation to become the machine is higher than ever. The promise of the machine is alluring. If I can just keep chugging forward, I will end up somewhere that is not here. If I can turn myself into a mechanism that takes input and consistently works towards some goal, I will make it. [..] You’re not a machine. You’re a person. Play to your strengths. Be sharp and strategic like a scalpel, not blunt like a mallet. Stop fetishizing the grind. Dream bigger. ...

Yesterday, the kids came home for the Christmas holidays. Marco surprised me by telling me that on his flight from Brussels, he discovered and listened to “my podcast” on Spotify. I was stunned. I didn’t remember ever recording a podcast, even though I’ve given a few interviews here and there over the years. During my usual morning walk today, I went to look for it, and there it was, an interview I had done in 2021 that I had completely forgotten about. I got over the initial embarrassment (it’s always strange to hear your own voice) and resisted the temptation to turn it off, listening to it all the way through. I must admit that it captures that moment in my professional life, and much of the content is still relevant, especially regarding my experience as an open-source author and maintainer and my transition from C# to Python and back. ...

The Los Angeles Review of Books on The Bovadium Fragments, JRR Tolkien’s posthumous complete work, which was just recently published. Anyone who has read Tolkien’s letters will know that he is at his funniest when filled with rage, and The Bovadium Fragments is a work brimming with Tolkien’s fury—specifically, ire over mankind’s obsession with motor vehicles. Tolkien’s anger is expressed through a playful satire told from the perspective of a group of future archaeologists who are studying the titular fragments, which tell of a civilization that asphyxiated itself on its own exhaust fumes. Tolkien’s fictional fragments use the language of ancient myth, reframing modern issues like traffic congestion and parking with a grandeur that highlights their total absurdity. It is Tolkien at his angriest and funniest, making The Bovadium Fragments a minor treasure in his ever-growing catalog. ...

When I’m writing, I write. When I’m cooking, I cook. When I’m talking to someone, I put my phone away. The constant mental juggling that felt necessary before now feels exhausting. There’s something meditative about giving your full attention to a single task. – 47nil

We watched A Private Life in the theatre yesterday, a fine, funny and intriguing French film set in Paris with a solid Jodie Foster as protagonist. But I’m here for the closing piece of the soundtrack, the one you hear over the end credits: Don’t Go To Strangers, by JJ Cale. I immediately reached for Shazam while Serena looked it up on Spotify. Now I’m spending this whole Sunday morning listening and reading about the artist and the Tulsa sound movement he originated. Despite his reticence and all-around low profile, he was no small feat and inspired many a great artist in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Just to get your bearings, he’s the original author of Cocaine later brought to fame by Eric Clapton. ...

I reluctantly admit that it was Spotify’s Discover Weekly that let me discover Flea’s new solo single, A Plea. It’s jazz, and it’s beautiful. There are echoes of Fela Kuti and Sun Ra in it or, well, that was my first thought. The lyrics may sound naive at first, but they’re not. Instead, they strike me as lucid and match my general feeling about what’s going on lately, the risks we’re taking as a society, and what we should do to move beyond and improve ourselves. The video is 100% Flea, and it’s adorable (it is directed by his daughter). ...

AI can replace most of programming, but programming isn’t the job. Programming is a task. It’s one of many things you do as part of your work. But if you’re a software engineer, your actual job is more than typing code into an editor. The mistake people make is conflating the task with the role. It’s like saying calculators replaced accountants. Calculators automated arithmetic, but arithmetic was never the job. The job was understanding financials, advising clients, making judgment calls, etc. The calculator just made accountants faster at the mechanical part. AI is doing something similar for us. ...

I swear it’s not an impressionist painting, just a blurry photo I took yesterday during my forest walk. The deer were watching me from the edge of the woods, not far away. The moment lasted a long time, until I ruined it by pulling out my phone. At that point, they took flight. If you’re reading from the RSS feed or the newsletter, click here to see the actual image.