Cool Things - January 14, 2026

This week’s cool things are from device housekeeping. Here are 28 open links from my laptop and phone (only 1052 left.)

From the laptop

• Ligatures Talk Series #4 – A font meetup? Don’t mind if I do.
• Laravel Boost – I’ll need this when I teach myself augmented programming. All frameworks should do something like this.
• Pest’s withHost - browser testing subdomains in Laravel – I went looking for this the week before it was released. I still don’t know how it’ll work inside the container, but that’s a next week problem at this point.

From podcasts

• I can’t find the episode, but somewhere in the first part of 2025’s episodes (Archive) someone said something like ‘Customers buy the story, but pricing helps’ which stuck with me.

From phone

• Dignified Python: 10 Rules to Improve your LLM Agents – These are Python centric, but I like them a lot.
• Oxide – Remember when ‘private cloud’ was going to be a literal ‘you own the iron’?
• Lessons you can take away from my job search experience – I have to rewrite my resume. Which sucks, because I like it. But AI filtering systems do not.
• Professional Kubernetes Infrastructure for PHP Teams – Ignoring my thoughts on k8s, I like their pricing options.
• Ten Books to Add to Your Reading List in 2026 – According to one of my favourite magazines
• 6 incredibly hyped software trends that failed to deliver – From the Generative AI section ‘Some hyped technologies are praiseworthy, but need maturity and refinement in where exactly to apply them.’ And this is entirely the problem with tech right now where it is applied everywhere.
• Venture Deals – Book that is on my to-buy list, but pretty far down. Good to see it keeps getting updated, currently on 4th edition.
• Sometimes you just have to act – As someone who dislikes experiencial workshops, this sounds terrible. But a good field report from one of Google’s leadership workshops
• How (And How Often) To Write Investor Updates – I don’t have any investors, but it is not out of contemplation so let’s come back to this.
• Hi-NRG: How San Francisco’s Gay Bars Launched Disco’s Most Daring Era – I Love Hi-NRG.
• Tribal Rites: The San Francisco Dance Music Phenomenon 1978-88 – Another book I want, but not at this price.
• The Cooper and His Trade – I feel like I owned this book at some point.
• Nothing Prepares You for Your First Director Role… And That’s Kinda the Point – This explains why I raise an eyebrow at job descriptions that expect Directors to be in code all day. If they are, they aren’t directing.
• Operating Rules – Rules to live by when running a startup. Yes, I am breaking a bunch of these. I’m closer to Default Dead than Default Alive at this point though.
• Books on Management – A fairly comprehensive list.
• Grumpy Ghost Zipper Hoodie – Is this hoodie almost perfect? Yes. Almost because the hood covers part of the ghost. I need someone to knit me a cardigan with this ghost on the back
• Trust Me I’m A Doctor Tee – Same company. The olde english is great.
• The Truth About Men Who Buy Sex Dolls – File under ‘Research governance meetings I want to be a fly on the wall for.’
• Full-breadth Developers – Justin is super smart and all-in on AI workflows so has thought about this a lot.
• How Go 1.24’s Swiss Tables saved us hundreds of gigabytes – Super nerdy discussion of Go’s new memory system. I don’t know Go, but this level of nerdy is always welcome.
• Fatback Band - Backstrokin’ (Official Audio) – such a good bass line.
• How to Create Completely Clear or Transparent 3D Prints – maybe this year I’ll learn how to use my printer
• Conwing L-16 “Seaduck” - alternate build – TaleSpin was seriously underrated
• DT01DI CLASSIC STRAIGHT DOUBLE KNEE WORK PANTS – These jeans are great. And available in my size. I think.