It’s been a long time since I was out late on a school night for a rock show, but when Justin mentioned that FACS was playing in town on a Monday night, I was game to check them out. I’ve been a fan for a while and their 2025 release Wish Defense is fantastic. They ripped through a solid set consisting of both old and new songs, and sounded great.
The REI flagship store in Seattle this morning. Photo by Dustin Kingman. If it couldn’t be the Steelers, I’m glad it was the Seahawks and happy for my co-workers who are getting a 2nd Lombardi Trophy brought back to their city. 🏈
It’s Bandcamp Friday, where Bandcamp waves their cut and passes 100% of all proceeds on to artists and labels. I always try to grab some wishlist records on these days. Today I picked up new releases from Mandy, Indiana and Ratboys. If you’re a Bandcamp freak like me, what’s on your list?
We’ve been trying to expand the recipes in our family dinner rotation. I’ve always struggled to make Asian cuisine, but I think I finally nailed a dish with this Thai fried rice. Everyone loved it.
Wikipedia, clearing up any confusion about Groundhog Day and Punxsutawney Phil:
While the tradition remains popular in the 21st century, studies have found no consistent association between a groundhog seeing its shadow and the subsequent arrival time of spring-like weather.
Standing on a frozen-solid Lake Arthur, Moraine State Park.
I’m loving this new EP IV of Wands from Boston-based Main Era. Super noisy, but with enough structure to chill with. Some might say shoegazey slowcore. Whatever you wanna call it, it’s rad. Bonus points for using jigsaws, power drills and hammers as instruments.
Congratulations, Mother Nature. You did it. You crushed the record low by 7 degrees. I know it was hard and has taken you more than a week of close attempts. Can we please now return to more livable conditions? Anything above 0F would be wonderful. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. JDI.
Watched: Secret Mall Apartment 🍿
This documentary follows a group of RISD artists who squatted a hidden & unused space in the Providence Place Mall between 2003 and 2007. I really enjoyed this exploration of mall culture, youthful risk taking, and blurring of the line between art and life.
Pull-ups are an activity I’ve wanted to be good at for a long time, however the truth is I hate them. I’ve tried to work them into my exercise rotation many times but they’ve never stuck. For as long as I can remember I’ve despised doing them, probably because I’ve got a runner’s body with toothpicks for arms.
Well, 2026 is the year I will get better at pull-ups. A few days ago I bought a pull-up bar and hung it from the door frame of my office. I chose this location because it’s unavoidable as I pass through this threshhold numerous times a day. I wanted an undeniable way to establish muscle memory and create a habbit.
For the past few days, each time I enter and leave, I do as many pull-ups as I can. Entering in the morning, pullups. Grabbing a refill of coffee, pullups. Hitting the head, pullups. Leaving for the evening…you get the picture.
It started on Monday when I could not complete just one good-form rep. Today is Thursday and I just completed five pull-ups as I entered the room to sit down and write this, which feels like a small milestone. My goal now is to progress to the point of being able to do ten perfect-form pull-ups.
I’m not sharing this to humble brag, although I am proud of the progress. I’m sharing as an acknowledgement that the human body and mind are amazing things. All I needed was the persistent reminder to keep trying. Repitition and consistency are the enablers of rapid growth and progress. I’ve known this, but it’s interesting to see tactile results so clearly in just a few days.
Feels like -5F this morning. Buddy’s got the right idea.
Greetings from the Blizzard of ‘26. Just finished my first round of shoveling. We have about 7” so far, and the forecast looks like another 10”-12” are on the way today. To those in the path of the storm, stay safe and warm!
Watched: Send Help 🍿
This was a fun, over-the-top flick. Nothing earth shattering cinema-wise, but I enjoyed it as a distraction and escape from the day’s news.
I respect Alex Honnold as one of the greatest climbers ever, but his Skyscraper event on Netflix feels like an attempt at spectacle to me. The “live on TV” angle seemingly positions a viewership more interested in watching him fall than summit. I won’t be watching live, but perhaps will when I know he makes it to the top safely.
Casey Newton in Platformer:
One of the more famous papers about artificial intelligence last year came from METR, a nonprofit that evaluates frontier AI models. In July, it published results of a randomized controlled trial studying experienced open-source developers. It found that when they use AI tools, completing tasks takes them 19 percent longer than when they go without. That was surprising enough. But the real twist is that when these same developers were asked what AI had done for them, they reported that it had sped them up by 20 percent.
This was a fascinating dive into the professional productivity that’s promised by our AI overlords. We’re starting to learn that much of this productivty is perceived. I’ve felt this in my own professional life, and have drastically reduced my use of Copilot at work because I found myself spending far too much time reviewing and correcting incorrect output from the model.
I also found many of the outputs, when accurate and correct, were just OK and simply not up to my professional standards. So much of my daily work requires communicating effectively through writing – explaining value and impact to leadership; acting as a translation layer between engineering, design and the business; and aligning stakeholders to broad, complex initiatives – all of which need to be buttoned-up to my highest standard. I’m simply not getting that quality from any AI model I’ve tried.
Last week I posted about the differentiation opportunity for companies and organizations who publicly lean into humanity and away from artificial intelligence. Since posting that, I’m starting to notice some examples of this in the real world.
I think it’s important to raise the visibility of Companies With Guts. Therefore, this post is will become an evolving list of organizations that take a public, pro-human, anti-AI stance. If you know of good examples, please share via email and I will update the list here ASAP.
Last updated 2026-01-21
Scott Belsky writes about the promise and vitality of ‘Superhumanity’ in a world that’s becoming ever-obsessed with artificial intelligence. Several of the ideas in this piece resonate with me.
First, I think Scott’s definition of taste as a combination of INPUTS, FILTERS and DISCERNMENTS is really smart. As AI evolves, humans will remain tastemakers. How we lean into the experiences we seek out (INPUTS), the things we actively choose to ignore (FILTERS) and the decisions we make (DISCERNMENTS) based on our inputs and filters will be the key to thriving in a post-AI world.
He rightly points out that establishing human taste will not be enough. We will need to activate our human agency to act upon our tastes. This often resembles – and in the post-AI world it should continue to resemble – audacity. Our human-centric audacity that we can achieve the impossible or be the first to accomplish something. AI can only know the past, but humans can envision a future.
I also thought his jazz-based approach to using AI is unique and worth considering:
You must engage AI with flexibility rather than having a fully formed sonata in your head and no willingness to deviate from it. You must discover the “instruments” AI is best at, and you must complement AI with what it lacks - your taste, agency, and natural human tendencies.
I highly recommend this piece, as well as Scott’s other writing, for anyone who thinks critically about technology and our human experience living with it.
Finished reading: What Is Wrong with You? by Paul Rudnick 📚
This was a fun read. I enjoyed this one a lot. Great plot, pacing and character development.
Watched: Bone Lake 🍿
This was wild. Completely crazy from the opening sequence to the final credits. It’s graphic and gory at times, but artfully done. I’m not sure if I loved it or hated it, which is a weird place for me to be after watching a movie.
Here, I fixed ChatGPT’s value prop for including advertising for you:
In the coming weeks, we’re also planning to start testing ads in the U.S. for the free and Go tiers, so more people can
benefit from our toolsrace to the intellectual bottom with fewer usage limitsor without having to payby conflating plagiarism with marketing.
Emphasis is mine.