Cool Things - February 11, 2026
Went through some tabs while mostly ish paying attention to a webinar.
From Laptop
- In an age of delivery apps and convenience, hotels shouldn’t overlook the minibar – (subscription wall) This is about intentional care. It is so good.
When a guest has to rely on a delivery rider to meet basic needs, does it not signal a failure of hospitality? By outsourcing feeding, hydrating and comforting guests to apps, hotels aren’t just losing revenue – they’re also surrendering a chance to connect. Convenience might be king but hospitality is supposed to be about care.
- Cover to Cover – local one-day conference on print magazines (another of my vices.) I missed going to the inaugural one last fall, but have tickets for this one.
- AWS says you’re on your own if media codec patent owners come knocking – could be something, could be nothing. But if you are using AWS to manipulate media, you should at least know about.
- How to Beat F.O.B.O., From the Expert Who Coined It – (subscription wall) I love the idea of FOBO (Fear Of Better Option) and am 100% adding that phrase into my lexicon. This paralyzes startups. Just ship.
From Phone
- ‘Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass’ Review: The Quay Brothers’ Surreal Stop-Motion Fantasia Is a Mouthful, an Eyeful and a Mind-Melt – I feel like this needs to be seen in an old-school moviehouse.
- The DJ’s Guide to the Camelot Wheel and Harmonic Mixing – Some music theory
- Fast database queries are not always better – the slow log doesn’t necessarily lie, but it also doesn’t always tell the truth
- Debugging a FUSE deadlock in the Linux kernel – Nerding debugging at Netflix scale
- Beyond Measure - The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants – The sort of nerdiness I consume
- Lost parks: What happened to Raleigh’s five original squares?
- The Documentation System –
There is a secret that needs to be understood in order to write good software documentation: there isn’t one thing called documentation, there are four.I suspect this also needs some rethinking with AI consumption. But I’ve got to get out from code to focus on this stuff. - I Thought I Heard You Speak - Women at Factory Records – Factory is/was such and important label
- The 30 Most Engrossing Fashion Books of All Time – This could be a very expensive list
- Ghost Walk dance explained
- Empire Roller Disco – I don’t need this book. However, I have another similar themed one, so would match…