Currently reading: The Once and Future King by T. H. White 📚 I am only four chapters into this book I know NOTHING about, and it’s funny and wonderfully written. I cannot wait to see where this goes.

I am drooling over Good Made Better’s book warden and book weights. 📚 I didn’t know book weights were a thing, and the book warden is a brilliant solution to a problem I’ve always had (read: toting around too many books wherever I go).

Alvaro Montoro’s 100 days of CSS illustrations is so cool. Not only because she’s a good illustrator, but she can turn that into CSS, and that CSS can do that. It’s wild.

Maggie Appleton’s article on home-cooked softwares and barefoot developers is sooo interesting. As a designer who enjoys development but lacks the time, I’m stoked that I could actually develop apps that my family can use without having to go to a coding bootcamp or take a sabbatical.

So I read parts of Cixin Liu’s sci-fi anthology Wandering Earth. 📚 Fantastic, but I noticed some funny things:

• He hates Australia
• The sun is the enemy
• He thinks religion would disappear overnight by happening (doubtful)
• World government is GOOD and WORKS (also doubtful)

Still, 10/10.

My wife has no interest in Godzilla movies, but she walked in while I was watching Godzilla: Minus One and actually stuck around. 🎥 I loved the movie, and was so happy about [redacted] surviving to the end.

Okay, I just watched Jaws for the first time 🎥 and HOLY COW it holds up! The mayor! Quint’s speech! Richard Dreyfuss! And the dialogue—I loved how natural it felt, capturing fun banter and awkward moments. What a fun movie. And to think it was Spielberg’s first big break! (What a talent.)

I recently watched Mary and the Witch’s Flower from Studio Ponoc. 🎥 Charming movie. Two questions:

1. How did Mary and her grandmother both give up magic so easily? Proximity to hubris?
2. Fascinating how science and magic are so closely linked in the movie. C.S. Lewis (I believe) thought the same

Janet Vertesi, The Encyclopedia Project, Or How to Know in the Age of AI:

In the meanwhile, I’m reading the encyclopedia. And I’m enjoying the astonishing novelty of perusing otherwise hotly divisive topics absent the familiar sense of being inflated with rage. If not for Kung Fu Panda, I would never have realized—after 30 years of surfing the information superhighway—that it was possible to feel so, well, informed.

Last night, my kid discovered how to escape the play pen on his own. We put him to bed five times last night! Who needs a scary movie when suddenly your two-year-old pops up in the dimly lit doorframe, light off, crouching like a gremlin?

Damon Linker’s thoughts on the Israeli massacre model for me a key attitude in issues like this—acknowledging a hard problem as, well, hard (a lovely post by @ablerism I think about at least once a month). The Israel-Palestine issue is complicated; it is hard. God bless them with peace, somehow.

A welcome surprise—a new Brandon Sanderson novel just dropped this morning. 📚 There goes my next few days!

📚 My current book stack. I know I need to pick up fiction soon, but I’m happy with my reading for now!

This gloriously chaotic and quirky organizational tip from The Verge’s Andru Marino made me laugh out loud.

When I need to remember an important meeting, I place a slice of bread in my toaster oven, which is connected to a Wemo smart plug. Then, I ask my Google Assistant to turn on the toaster five minutes before the event. When I smell toast, it reminds me that I have a meeting in a few minutes.

Well, Loki was fun. 📺 By far Marvel’s most visually distinctive show, and the only one that has me replay the end credits for the set design. Excited to see what’s to come.

💬 A quote I meditate on often. Today, I’m thinking of my own, personal limits—mainly my ADHD. There are things I want to do, but I haven’t the attentional capacity to attend to them as vigorously and sincerely as I wish. But I make slow progress, saying no to many other things, and that’s enough.

This brilliant thread on Hebrew names by Ari Lamm is Exhibit 777 why I really want to learn Hebrew. Basically, I’m missing all the puns!

🍿Just watched The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. Just 40 minutes of delight and whimsy, boxed up in a Wes Anderson-style package of color and magnificent stage direction. Highly recommend!

I had no idea it’s Hobbit Day, but I am definitely adding this to my annual calendar. Any excuse to listen to Howard Shore’s incredible score—or even This Wandering Day, one of my favorite parts of the Rings of Power show—during my work day is something I am always taking up.