Cool Things - February 18, 2026

Apparently closing tabs is faster the more you go back in time as companies close, re-index their site (404s), or people close their Medium account, etc. Ish 100 tabs closed in an hour, with 14 things worthly of linking to. 649 tabs left.

From Phone

• The Taste Deficit, Part I – I used to work for Jeremy. Now that he’s retired, he’s doing long form writing. Taste and Aesthetic is what professionals need to lean on now. That can be taught/learned.
• Notes on The Power of Habit – A [book] summary post, in a [tab] summary post. So meta.
• A History of Canada in Ten Maps – The sort of nerdiness I would buy. And is why I hunt the discount shelves.
• The Best Debut Albums Ever, Ranked – That the Stone Roses is not on list list undermines its entire premise, but other than that, its pretty good.
• The Strange, Hidden Story of Harley Quinn – B:TAS Harley is the best Harley. Followed closely by the HBO Max version.
• Job Characteristics Model: A Practical Guide – Unsure why I clicked this. Maybe defining career ladders and/or job descriptions?
• Writing better strings with type-safe placeholder rules – Internationalization is hard. Also, bring back nerdy company blogs. They are marketing.
• Five big things we’re learning about localization – This one techncially is before the previous one, but I’m working through tabs backwards.
• All Hail the ‘God of Sod,’ Groundskeeper for All 57 Super Bowls – Be really, really, really good at one thing.
• Apple Demos vs. Amazon Memos – I feel like with the rise of AI, the amazon approach is going to get more attention. I’ve kinda always leaned into that. I love the idea of press-release-driven-development
• worksome/request-factories – Part of me really like this. But also, this feels like testing the framework. Maybe my requests are too simple.
• Canals of Britain - The Comprehensive Guide – Narrowboats and Canals are fascinating to me.
• Architectural Conservancy Ontario Toronto – Important, but also can be abused to prevent development