A Roundup (January 2024)
A Roundup (January 2024)
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. This is the first of 2024 and represents the coolest stuff I discovered this January.
Podcasts
1.) A Life of Lyrics, Paul McCartney + Paul Muldoon
Any Beatles fan will have a field day listening to the countless episodes breaking down familiar and new stories of Fab Four lore.
2.) DHH, Aarthi and Sriram Show
The iconoclastic inventor of Ruby on Rails and 37Signals reflects on his career and future.
3.) How to Discover Your Own Taste, The Ezra Klein Show
Taste is becoming increasingly important. This episode explores how to form your own taste and increase your variance.
4.) Chris Beresford-Hill, The Tim Ferriss Show
A masterclass on advertisements and doing your best work.
5.) Patrick McKenzie, Conversations with Tyler
A fun niche conversation with one of my favorite internet writers.
6.) Paul Giamatti, WTF with Marc Maron
Go see The Holdovers. Listen to this too. Paul is great.
Reading
1.) The Pathless Path, Paul Millard
Reflections on how to avoid rejecting your authentic self in favor of money and status.
Projects and Personal Updates
Overall, I started the new year feeling a bit more overwhelmed than I expected or have previously felt. I think it’s a bit of burn out if I am honest. I’d been sensing that an important theme for myself would be simplify and I think the first month of the year has confirmed that. But as the name of this blog and newsletter implies, that is often tricky for me to do. There are so many project ideas, existing projects, and past projects that I’ve thought of revisiting. I do feel fortunate that I rarely lack ideas… but I want to focus on prioritizing my long term ability to keep getting to work on the things that bring me joy. That probably means slowing down and making careful decisions about where I put my energy and time. Thankful to Tessa for being such an incredible partner to talk through these feelings with. More to come on it I am sure.
And still….
January was the best month in Printernet history! Not only from a sales perspective but there were some cool milestones too: we launched our second ever collaborative issue, finished some awesome work for some upcoming updates, and began exploring new collaboration opportunities. Plus one of my favorite podcasters became a Printernet reader!
I am extremely grateful for everyone who has checked it out so far. There are some exciting opportunities ahead for Printernet and some thorny technical challenges I plan on tackling this quarter too. It’s a bit overwhelming at the moment, but all in all I feel very lucky that this project continues receiving love, interest, and new readers.
Oh! If you happen to be a senior developer (or know of one) who wants to combine software and analog print to make beautiful things happen… we are on the hunt for a collaborator for a sweet new Printernet project. DM, comment, or email me if you have thoughts!
Some other updates:
Cubicle hit 10 users! We also got out first international user which is always a fun milestone. Cubicle was designed to be simple, self-contained and easy to build once + sell many times. 10 may not be a lot, but it has been a cool easy project.
I published a personal essay about my beginning of the year travel. You can check it out here. Each section is named after a song I’d downloaded for offline listening for my flights.
That’s all for now! Hope your year is off to a smooth start.