Cool Things - October 04, 2026

Say what you want, but Happy Hardcode is a fantastic genre.

• If you are in retail, the easiest scheduled post should be ‘$month Best Sellers’. Is there a Saas equivilent? Maybe. But it won’t be as simple to derive.
• Why I Stopped Arguing With People – some people in the testing world need to read and take this article to heart. Like 25 years ago (so it would, selfishly, be better when I showed up a few years later.)
• git worktree gotchas – agents == worktrees == a whole new set of ‘oh shit git’ problems
• This is a modern motherfucking website. – I need to add this to my robot instructions. But also, this is an ongoing trend. Why need a composer package when you make one api call from one place? Or WordPress when GH static hosting works?
• Amped up – I’m going to use Bloom I think as the agentic framework, but the rules in this are pretty good. I’ve been tweaking mine, including what models to use for what things.
• Ruthless prioritization while the dog pees on the floor – This is a much nicer way to phrase my ‘manage by fire (because everything in a startup is always on fire)’ approach. But it is the same outcome.
• Logarithmic auto-scaling for Laravel Horizon – Putting this here for later. At $dayJob we’ll need to be sending 30k+ messaging s on the 1st of every month. All queued.
• A Series of Unfortunate Jobs – #6 is one I need to really worry about at $dayJob since I have the force eager loading flag turned on in production. Yes, I am a monster.
• Blush Cuff Leather Eyes Gloves – do I think these would fit me? Not for a second. But they are great. (But also, I prefer mittens.)
• The Quality Halo Has a Price Tag. Here Is What It Actually Costs to Ignore – why I am so bullish on print media. They are simply the environments where a reader’s brain has already decided it does not need to defend itself.
• The One Spreadsheet Tab Most Magazine Founders Are Missing – I think this applies to SaaS as well. People talk about churn, but I’ve not seen a discussion (that I can remember) that slices the churn metrics and/or risk against acquisition channel. And I think that’s important.
• ‘Entry Level Luxury’ is a phrase living rent-free in my head. There is a whole shift in the market apparently where people while anguish over the purchase of a $4000 bag, but have no problem with buying 4 pairs of $1000 shoes. There is a parallel to SaaS somewhere here.
• Why restaurants still matter in an enshittified world – Good restaurants move beyond signaling. Lighting, acoustics, service choreography, experiential design, and, of course, artful food, combine into a multi-disciplinary encounter that nourishes at a slower, human pace. A great restaurant doesn’t just feed you, it engages you tangibly through their vision—a menu can be a manifesto. Now swap our ‘restaurants’ with ‘SaaS’.
• The perfect lobby can be many things but a buzzing, multi-purpose room is not one of them – this trips a lot of my things-I-believe flags to the on position.
• Innotrans – while I’m not a ‘train nerd’, I’m also not not a ‘train nerd’. This industry fair would be fascinating.
• The Burberry Trench: Crafting an Icon – Toronto needs a museum that has exhibits here. I actually don’t like trench coats preferring instead perferring the Mac Coat, but…
• As fashion struggles in today’s economic realities, it’s time for brands to cultivate a true following – the same applies with SaaS companies.