A Roundup (November 2023)
A collection of podcast and reading recommendations, cool people or projects I have found online recently, any new tools or tips, and some personal updates.
Howdy! Each month I post a roundup post like this one sharing the best reading, podcasts, projects, and people I’ve discovered from my month. Be warned, it is a long one!
Podcasts
1.) Priority Bicycles, How I Built This
Dave Weiner is a programmer who is obsessed with biking. He went on to invent a new kind of bike, that doesn’t need to be maintained. Listen to this for a great peek behind the curtain of manufacturing hardgoods, launching crowdsourced projects, and more.
2.) Dean Phillips, All In Podcast
Dean Phillips is a former congressman running against Biden in the Democratic Primary race. I was super impressed with his balanced thinking on complex issues where other Presidential Hopefuls (Vivek, RFK, etc) fall into the trap of exaggeration and the vice of virality.
3.) Patrick and John Collison, The Social Radars
Patrick is on the “smartest people I know” list of many of the smartest people I know. Patrick and his brother John co-founded Stripe and are clearly focused on doing much more. Delightful recap of the founding of Stripe, Patrick and John meeting Paul G as teens, and more.
Reading
1.) Open Letter in defense of innovation, Carlos Pendas
If you read one thing this month, read this. Carlos is the founder of Meticulous Home, the brilliant inventors of the Meticulous Espresso Machine. Recently, a cowardly “competitor” filed a lawsuit against Carlos.
“Gideon did the math [on suing us]. He knows that at some point it will be cheaper for us to give him what he wants than to continue fighting. I will not do the math. I will act on principle only.”
This is one of the best things I've read in a while. Tessa and I read it together late into the night and I was literally fist pumping, jumping out of my seat over and over again. @cpendas shows us what a true inventor (and leader) does when cynical people try to interfere with the magical work of creation.
2.) How to Walk and Talk, Craig Mod
Craig has started a tradition of gathering up interesting people and walking with them from town to town for 10 - 20 days. Here he gives a bit of behind the scenes on how to make this successful.
3.) Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan
A magical blend of technology and art. And my copy glows in the dark, which I discovered on a late night trip for a glass of water. Longer essay on this coming soon.
Side note: I am currently on the hunt for good Biographies (currently reading the Caro one on LBJ + the Alan Turing one). If you have a good rec comment one!
Projects and Personal Updates
I’ve had a fantastic November. It started with a wonderful trip out to Marfa, TX with Tessa and her mom Carla. We were celebrating two birthdays and an anniversary and had delicious food and saw strange lights in the sky.
After that, I flew out to San Francisco for three solid days of working on Printernet and exploring. I snagged a copy of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore from City Lights (read it insanely quickly, it’s so good), drove around in my rented Model 3, ate delicious vegan food at Wild Seed and BAIA, met up with @davidhoang IRL at the Replit offices, saw strange lights in the sky, and drank the best Martini of my life. San Francisco is special. Longer essay coming soon on Marfa and SF.
I ended the month by flying down to visit my family in Tampa for Thanksgiving. I am reminded of the lovely Vonnegut quote:
“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”
While in Florida, we challenged my youngest brother Hank that if he could memorize the first 25 digits of Pi, we’d give him $25 bucks. He did it in about 20 minutes with coaching from my sister (“chunking” a new word and method we taught him). As a result, Abby and I now know the first 28 digits of Pi. I decided every birthday I want to learn one additional digit so that I always know the digits up to my age.
In the week since, I’ve wanted to maintain my new party trick. I began hunting for a cool website to quiz myself and all I found were glitchy ugly things. So I decided to build a better one. Go ahead and test yourself!
The past week we saw the annual wave of Spotify Wrapped discourse. I always enjoy seeing the music other people spend the most time with and every year people tell me why I shouldn’t. But I know the criticisms of Spotify, and to each their own.
This year I was reminded of the cool site I built in June using Spotify’s APIs, iPodify. iPodify turns your Spotify into a generation 1 iPod and is currently featured on the Replit homepage.
And one more thing: if you want help building a cool site (like Pi Site, iPodify, or a more traditional personal or business site) let me know! I am looking for 2-3 new folks to worth with. I like working on anything but especially quirky ideas.
Have a great December, see you at the end of it!