I’ve been at my current job for nearly a decade. I joined just as the company had released its most-loved product and sales charts were hockey sticks. We were dominant in our market, everything was on the up-and-up and the company’s future seemed limitless. I participated in weekly new-hire meetings and on-boarding sessions, and each brought in dozens of bright-eyed new hires. It seemed like we could do no wrong. ...

Not many links this week - Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate! Tech CapCut App Review for Parents - My sons begged for this app to make videos, but I’ve found several highly inappropriate videos in the app. Parents beware! Culture

Tech Why doesn’t a jet engine melt? - Super cool (ba-dum-tss) explanation of the material science behind jet engines. The Little Book of C - A great introduction to C programming. Pointers, visually explained - One of the best explanations of pointers I’ve ever seen. 2025-11-18 CloudFlare Outage Post-Mortem - Interesting read on a recent CloudFlare outage. There’s been a lot of these recently. Google Are Killing XSLT - In another blow to web standards, Google is trying to kill XSLT support in Chrome. Culture Interactive World Atlas since 3000 BC - This is super nifty, especially as I’m close to wrapping up BIY. This clarifies the stories of the different tribes and civilizations I’ve read about. Fully Ramblomatic - A video game reviewer I’ve long followed and enjoyed.

Tech Firefox expands fingerprinting protections - This is great to see. Although Brave is my daily driver, I want Firefox to succeed as well, and I think focusing on its core strengths like privacy is an important way forward for them. Omarchy - I’ve been watching Omarchy from afar. I’ve been impressed enough to install it on my System76 Thelio (Sorry, Pop_OS!) and spent a few hours tinkering with it. It’s pleasurable, for sure, but I can’t separate from the Apple ecosystem. The thought of migrating to Omarchy for all of my computing fills me with dread (what will I do for backups? How will I manage parental controls for my kids’ devices? How will I store and sync notes, files, etc?) Windows 11 facing intense backlash over upcoming changes - Microsoft seems to be on a roll of late, making a lot of questionable decisions. It’s a shame, too. I cut my teeth on MS DOS, Windows 3.1, 95, NT, 2000 (the best Windows, ever), and XP before discovering Unix-like operating systems. I wish they would reverse course, but they won’t. Microsoft’s ecosystem is going to be all-AI-all-the-time (and continue being all-telemetry-whether-you-like-it-or-not) for the foreseeable future. Culture Washington sneaks a hemp ban into reopening the government - Once again, the government will not debate the issue isolated, but will instead jam a law through without debate. Ticker: Don’t Die of Heart Disease - Informative, if a little scary. I signed up for Function Health at the start of the year, so I fortunately have some data points to compare against. Faith What does the Bible say about Fear? - I’m facing a difficult season in life and need reassurance.

Tech Notion available offline - This is great news for Notion users. I haven’t used Notion in a while, but I found tremendous value in August Bradley’s Pillars, Pipelines, and Vaults system. I wrote more about that here Culture Grokipedia - A rival to Wikipedia that uses AI to generate articles. I’m not sure where this will go, but I think it’s probably a good thing to have a challenger to Wikipedia. Faith, Religion & Inspiration Why aren’t smart people happier? - An interesting secular discussion of happiness and how it relates to intelligence. I think the answer is because smart people might let their intelligence get in the way of their faith.

This week, I had the itch to develop my own Neovim configuration. Nearly a decade ago, I tried Emacs and fell in love with it. Well, DooM Emacs, specifically. It was elegant, powerful, and sleek. But, I just couldn’t ever quite understand Emacs Lisp and how the editor’s configuration was put together. I also found myself wanting to integrate more and more of my applications into the editor - which for some people is THE reason they love Emacs - but I found this to violate the principle of “do one thing well.” My brain just likes knowing “this is the tool for this” and “that is the tool for that.” Plus, it didn’t help that my Emacs config was breaking frequently (because of said elisp inscrutability). Once I realized I was spending more time shepherding my Emacs configuration than I was using it, it was time to move on. ...

This week’s theme was Emacs and IRC. Tech Scripts I wrote that I use all the time - I love this article because it shows real, usable scripts that solve real problems. AI in Emacs - Article on enabling AI features in Emacs. What happened to Apple’s Legendary Attention to Detail? - An interesting article about how Apple has lost some of its attention to detail in recent years. Meta axes 600 roles across its AI division - I’m confused by this. Meta has been offering $100m or even $1B compensation packages to AI talent. Why axe 600 roles? My cynical take is the $1b employee is going to need AI to do the work of 600 people. Culture Do you miss IRC and the Internet in the 90’s? - Yes. Yes I do. Unhinged GPU box art from the early 2000s - I’m also nostalgic for this era. Space Elevator - This is fun! Faith, Religion & Inspiration Prayer - GetUnlockd - A post from my other site about the importance of prayer. How Countries Pray Around The World In 6 Minutes - Inspiring!

InfoSec & Privacy Modern iOS security features - These features apply to the XNU kernel used in iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. Kurt got got - An entertaining and incisive read about a CEO getting phished. It can happen to anyone. Tech HTML’s Best Kept Secret - Interesting article about the HTML <output> tag. A critique of Apple’s new Liquid Glass - I’ve heard a lot of complaints about liquid glass. I’m ambivalent about it, but it’s interesting to read a critique of it from a design studio. I’m in Vibe coding Hell - This resonates with me as someone who’s never been able to produce a useful program that was more than a few hundred lines of code. I’ve been in “tutorial hell” in many languages, so I sympathize with those in “vibe coding hell”. Programming types and mindsets - A thoughtful article from DHH that highlights how a person matures over time. Mitchell Hashimoto describes how to vibe code well - On the topic of vibe coding… Rift - a budding tiling window manager for macOS - I’ve used Amethyst on-and-off for years, but Rift looks interesting. Emacs agent-shell and ACP - I don’t use Emacs much anymore, but I like to check in from time to time. Self-hosting email: The idea of the IndieWeb and decentralization is appealing. What stops me from implementing this is that I don’t have the time! Culture It’s time to go - I wasn’t aware that Kahneman chose suicide. Faith, Religion & Inspiration Wisdom from the Book of Sirach - I’m journeying through the Bible in a Year podcast, and this section of Sirach resonates with me. I wish I knew all of this when I was 20.

Tech Ghostty 1.2.2 Release Notes - The latest release of Ghostty, a wonderful terminal emulator. AI and the Occult - Interesting conversation about AI’s roots in the Occult. US Mobile - A “super” carrier I found out about from a work colleague. Interesting plans and pricing, especially for families.(Note: I have no affiliation with US Mobile) The least amount of css for a decent looking site - I’m a huge fan of minimalism. Block “Facebook” user-agents to prevent surprise bills - As the admin for two small websites, I found this useful. CloudFlare makes this easy to do by navigating to Security > Security Rules > Create Custom Rule. Culture Numa Numa - One of the first memes I recall seeing on the internet. I shared this with my kids who also loved it.