Adding this to my “projects I’ll build when I get a 3D printer” list. It’s beautiful.

If you aren’t getting anything out of a book, put it down and pick up another book. Every hour you spend inching through a boring book is an hour you could’ve spent plowing through a brilliant one.

When it comes to books, quitters finish more.

It helps if you choose the right books in the first place. Stop reading what you think you should be reading and just read what you genuinely want to read. Read what you love.

Great advice here from Austin Kleon. I have been applying it to all of my forms of media consumption: music, television, and movies. And YouTube. And long form internet reads.

I think it’s important to recognize that reading can also include these newer forms of media. You can learn just as much from a well-made YouTube essay as you can from a well-made book.

When you drag your thoughts through multiple disparate pieces of art, you end up arriving at deeper, richer conclusions.

Claire Benton, vice-president of the British Academy of Audiology, suggests that by blocking everyday sounds such as cars beeping, there is a possibility the brain can "forget" to filter out the noise.

"You have almost created this false environment by wearing those headphones of only listening to what you want to listen to. You are not having to work at it," she said.

"Those more complex, high-level listening skills in your brain only really finish developing towards your late teens. So, if you have only been wearing noise-cancelling headphones and been in this false world for your late teens then you are slightly delaying your ability to process speech and noise," Benton suggests.

I got a pair of active noise cancelling headphones for Christmas this year, and it took a few weeks of use before finding them comfortable to wear.

As opposed to my Powerbeats Pro (which offer “noise cancelling” as a result of the little plastic dinguses I shove into my ear canals), these Bose headphones actively filter out background noise.

If I have them on in my office for more than a half hour, it will hurt when I take them off. Everything sounds so loud, even the din of the white noise that gets piped into the office seems irritatingly noticeable.

Truly inspiring. Instead of fretting about all the horrible stuff going on that’s out of our control, here’s a prime example of how you can fight back and make a difference.

I had a blast making this mix CD for my wife for Valentine’s Day.

Yeah, I know, it’s 2025. But who cares? Mix CDs are way cooler than giving someone a playlist (which of course I did).

The process of acquiring a blank CD, meticulously crafting a playlist of songs that made me think of my wife, making the album art in Pixelmator, and handing it to her when I was done gave me the biggest feeling of pride I’ve felt in years.

And yeah, it was just a dumb, impractical CD filled with mushy songs.

But it was fun as hell to make, and that’s what it’s all about.¹

Here’s the track list:

1. The Proclaimers - I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)
2. Seals & Croft - You're the Love
3. The Bird and the Bee - Birthday
4. Kate Nash - I Hate Seagulls
5. Bonny Light Horseman - Lover Take It Easy
6. Donna Lewis - I Love You Always Forever
7. Sonya Spence - Let Love Flow On
8. The Mountain Goats - San Bernardino
9. Lily Allen - Littlest Things
10. Paul Frees - Although I Dropped $100,000
11. Freddie Scott - (You) Got What I Need
12. Hall and Oates - You Make My Dreams
13. Belle and Sebastian - If She Wants Me
14. Exile - Kiss You All Over
15. Stars - My Favourite Book
16. RuPaul, Lawrence Cheney, Bimini Bon-Boulash, Tayce, Ellie Diamond - A Little Bit of Love

If you wait for Apple to deliver on its promises, you’re going to miss out on the most important technological shift in a generation.

The future is here today. You don’t have to wait. With Ollama, you can start building the next generation of AI-powered apps right now.

I am a huge fan of NSHipster. When I was first learning Objective-C, NSHipster provided the weird, quirky back stories about the language that truly helped me understand how to best use the language.

If you’re one of those programmers who is putting your head in the sand about this tech, I think you’re gonna regret it. Not because it’s gonna make you better at your job (though it probably will), but because it’s so much fun.

This is a great option if you’re looking for an example of how to get an LLM running entirely on your own hardware.

A virtual museum of video game levels. I spent a few minutes reliving the good ol’ GTA San Andreas days, as well as perused the Mario Kart 8 levels, and this is extremely impressive and fun.

(Thanks for the tip, Matt!)

Pass this article along to literally everybody you know who would say “I’m not a tech person.”

It walks you through how to install Signal, how to use a password manager like 1Password, how to use a VPN, and how to make yourself safer on social media.

If I were going to add onto this post, I’d say you should learn how to use an ad blocker (I use Ghostery on my Mac and 1Blocker on my iPhone) and consider Backblaze if you don’t back up any of your data.

Gonna give this a try for a couple weeks. Maybe it will tide me over until Ladybird comes out.

This Wikipedia page is a firehose of fascinating, bite-sized pieces of trivia.