2026 Weeks 14, 15, & 16
TL;DR: It's been a weird 3 weeks. We adopted a new cat, a void named Minnaloushe. I also got completely sucked into the Artemis II mission, watching the livestream like it was my favorite TV show. Also featured in this post: more random crap and miscellanea than usual, because it's been a little while.
The Void Arrives
Well, it appears we have adopted a void. His name is Minnaloushe, and he is a very large, very black cat who is difficult to photograph. He started out a bit confused, licking everywhere but the water in his bowl, but he quickly figured out the important things, like napping and that he is a box cat, a tree cat, and that my closet is now his bed.
One particularly poignant moment was when Minnaloushe curled up in the last box that Catsby used. It was a gut punch, but also sweet. It led to a bit of an emotional spiral, culminating in the important question: WHO WOULD WIN? antidepressants OR one sleepy void in an old amazon box. The void won, obviously.






To the Moon and Back
I spent an inordinate amount of time glued to the Artemis II live stream. I was so invested, I was telling my cat to clear my calendar. I saw the astronauts group hug and cry in space. They named a crater for a fallen crewmate's wife. I wanted them to make a "moon's haunted" joke.
I pondered the engineering of GoPros on the solar arrays. The whole thing was just so incredibly rad, and I was genuinely sad when it was over. I even have a new desktop wallpaper to commemorate the event. And, of course, now I'm playing Kerbal Space Program again.
After all this, I've had the idea to build a web app that plays random NASA radio chatter throughout the day. We'll see if I get around to it.




Miscellanea
Finished reading Gideon the Ninth. It was a bit of a slow start, with all the necromancy and gloom, but Gideon's character really grew on me, and then Harrow's, and by the end, I was completely hooked. Now I have to read the rest of the series.
After years of complaining about my iPhone and iOS, I've been having fun setting up a new Android phone - a Pixel 10 Pro.
I've been using the Atari Theme Song, which has been a fun and nostalgic way to wake up, even if it did scare the crap out of me the first time.
I also briefly considered using the old K-Mart "All the things a great store should be" jingle, but I think that might be a bridge too far, even for me. Even if I have had the song stuck in my head all week:
Project Code Rush - a great documentary on the early days of Netscape and Mozilla, of which I was reminded this week. I happen to have this on VHS in my basement!
Also, I learned some Mayonnaise Lore. It's a thing.
My wife got me this sticker, which feels appropriate: "MY CAT DIED AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS DEEP GNAWING SADNESS."

I would be an annoying astronaut, just constantly rotating in space along various bodily axes:

A comment I made on TikTok got removed for a community standards violation. This was the content of that comment:

Some drama in the neovim-treesitter community about their unconventional release strategy, which has caused friction between maintainers and users.
I learned about DuckDuckGo's "Bangs", which reminded me of a similar feature we had on del.icio.us that let you create custom searches.
Are they nu metal bands or cognitive biases? A surprisingly difficult quiz.
People are not friction - a good reminder in the age of AI. This article discusses the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect and Optimism Bias, both of which are relevant to how we perceive AI-generated content.
A chatbot trained on Victorian-era literature, a fascinating project called "Mr. Chatterbox".
Copilot edited an ad into a PR. Yikes. Do not want.
Home Assistant has a Model Context Protocol Server, a thing for which I've not yet found a big use, but which has been fun for making my house feel haunted after I hooked it up to an agent.
A flexible ROM replacement for retro systems, using a Raspberry Pi RP2350 or STM32 microcontroller.
Under the hood of MDN's new frontend - A deep dive into the tech behind the new MDN frontend.
Password protecting static site content with WASM, a clever way to add security to a static site without a backend by using a WebAssembly module for client-side decryption.
The Hacker News tarpit and the power of community and network effects in building a successful online platform.
Anil Dash on how people love to work hard given the right environment of trust, autonomy, and clear goals.
More from Anil Dash on what coders do after AI, and the shift from crafting code to describing software.
A recipe for a Blonde Redhead cocktail, a whiskey-based variation on a Negroni.
AI might be our best shot at taking back the open web, a hopeful take on how open protocols and personalized AI could challenge the dominance of big tech.
This game ChainStaff looks like what if Roger Dean made Bionic Commando, a 2D platformer with a grappling hook mechanic.
Mouthwords - On the importance of refusing to engage with low-quality, AI-generated content.
Agentic slop PRs - A call for agents to have gates to prevent submitting low-quality pull requests.
Rules and Gates - A follow-up on the idea of gates for agents.
rack-mount hydroponics - Growing lettuce in a server cabinet.