index.md (9594B)
1 --- 2 title: "Dispatch #45 (November 2026)" 3 date: 2026-11-08T00:05:24-05:00 4 draft: false 5 exclude_music: true 6 tags: 7 - dispatch 8 references: 9 - title: "Jailbreaking my Kindle and using RSS" 10 url: https://somethingwonderful.eu/jailbreaking-my-kindle-and-using-rss.html 11 date: 2026-11-04T21:10:44Z 12 file: somethingwonderful-eu-cwpeyl.txt 13 - title: "Introducing Overmind and Hivemind—Martian Chronicles, Evil Martians’ team blog" 14 url: https://evilmartians.com/chronicles/introducing-overmind-and-hivemind 15 date: 2026-11-08T04:54:46Z 16 file: evilmartians-com-yestli.txt 17 - title: "Slower Living Club: A field guide to disconnecting and the life that opens up" 18 url: https://slowerliving.club/ 19 date: 2026-11-08T03:43:43Z 20 file: slowerliving-club-zrlqis.txt 21 - title: "Most people are conservative | /dev/urandom's dev site" 22 url: https://devurandom.xyz/thoughts/most_people_are_conservative/ 23 date: 2026-11-08T03:43:47Z 24 file: devurandom-xyz-ohxr27.txt 25 - title: "Vivek Ramaswamy Is Going After The Abusive Parent Vote | Defector" 26 url: https://defector.com/vivek-ramaswamy-is-going-after-the-abusive-parent-vote 27 date: 2026-11-08T03:43:55Z 28 file: defector-com-z0cjp4.txt 29 - title: "The Brand Ledger | Worse on Purpose" 30 url: https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/ 31 date: 2026-11-08T03:43:59Z 32 file: ledger-worseonpurpose-com-ewcvxv.txt 33 - title: "A growing list of brands to avoid because they are “actively..." 34 url: https://kottke.org/26/11/0049940-a-growing-list-of-brands- 35 date: 2026-11-08T03:44:00Z 36 file: kottke-org-yr02fa.txt 37 - title: "Vibe coding is turning the music gear world upside down | The Verge" 38 url: https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/1013493/vibe-coding-ai-music-gear-hacking-custom-firmware 39 date: 2026-11-08T03:44:15Z 40 file: www-theverge-com-hoihvb.txt 41 --- 42 43 Big chuffed about the election results this week. Not that I think a Democratic congress can _do_ all that much for the next two years. I just appreciate the majority of Americans being like no, f--k this. My own state of North Carolina showed up big. Gives me hope for the future of our country. 44 45 <!--more--> 46 47 In October, We spent about a week up in DC for some work + family time. We had the company all-hands and then team offsites. My coworker [Nick][1] put together this "dungeon crafter" activity, where we split into teams and created a party of adventurers and a multi-level dungeon, and then each team took their party through the other team's dungeon. Super fun, and certainly more ambitious than anything we'd have done before the age of Claude/Codex. The kids got a few days with my folks (who live nearby), then we all spent a few days together. 48 49 [1]: https://www.viget.com/about/team/ntelsan 50 51 We did our annual trip to [Fairy Stone][2] to camp with friends, which is always a great time. We gave Nev a walkie-talkie and let her range a little bit more than she has in the past (though one of the older kids must've gotten ahold of it at some point, because I awoke from a nap to someone calling me "diarrhea breath"). Then Halloween; Nev went as [MerCat][3], Nico as [Marshall][4]. 52 53 [2]: https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state-parks/fairy-stone 54 [3]: https://www.gabbysdollhouse.com/characters/mercat 55 [4]: https://pawpatrol.fandom.com/wiki/Marshall 56 57 {{<dither IMG_3852.jpeg "782x600">}}Two children sit on a large pumpkin-shaped bench surrounded by pumpkins, dried cornstalks, scarecrow decorations, and red and yellow flowers at a fall festival.{{</dither>}} 58 {{<dither IMG_1088.jpeg "782x600">}}A child wearing a plush elephant hat sits at a table, holding a spoon beside a bowl.{{</dither>}} 59 60 {{<dither IMG_7917.jpeg "782x600">}}Close-up of a child with curly blond hair and colorful face paint, including blue-green shapes, purple accents, a pink nose, and whisker lines on the cheeks.{{</dither>}} 61 {{<dither IMG_7938.jpeg "782x600">}}A child in a red firefighter helmet and Dalmatian costume carries a purple bucket while holding hands with an adult on a residential street lined with autumn trees.{{</dither>}} 62 63 Finally, here's my boy upon finding a squishy toy inside some underwear Nev put onto a stuffed brontosaurus: 64 65 <audio controls src="/journal/dispatch-45-november-2026/brontos-penis.mp3"></audio> 66 67 Huge progress on our new deck. It's all framed in, the floor is down, and the roof (and skylight!) are on. Hopeful we can have this thing wrapped by the end of the year, though I'll miss our house being the center of so much activity. 68 69 {{<dither IMG_1104.jpeg "782x600">}}A house with a large elevated wooden porch under construction, showing exposed roof framing, support posts, temporary diagonal braces, and ladders amid fallen leaves and lumber.{{</dither>}} 70 {{<dither IMG_1098.jpeg "782x600">}}Partially built covered porch with exposed wooden rafters and posts, brown decking, plywood sheets, sawhorses, and construction materials, surrounded by trees.{{</dither>}} 71 72 ### Music 73 74 I made some enhancements to the website to surface my music a little bit better: the most recent track displays in the site header, and the music persists between page transitions. If you're reading this via RSS or email, [check it out][5]. 75 76 [5]: /journal/dispatch-45-november-2026/ 77 78 I'm in the process of taking the music I've made over the last year and a half and turning it into a proper album. I'm working with a local [illustrator][6] on the album art and learning a little bit about audio mastering to put extra polish on the tracks. Hope to have it up on streaming services by the end of the year. More to come! 79 80 [6]: https://www.kristensolecki.com/ 81 82 ### Kindle Dashboard 83 84 Here's a fun weekend hack. I read [a post][7] about loading [KOreader][8] onto a Kindle e-reader. I have an old Kindle, and while I've more than enough reading devices, it did make me curious about what else I could do with it. ChatGPT suggested using it as a dashboard, then Codex helped me set up [Tesserae][9] (and the [associated plugin][10]), then helped me with a script to extract and format my daily todo list out of Apple Notes that I could embed in the dashboard. Pretty slick stuff. Bonus: [Overmind][11] for managing multiple processes (Tesserae + the note bridge in this case). 85 86 [7]: https://somethingwonderful.eu/jailbreaking-my-kindle-and-using-rss.html 87 [8]: https://koreader.rocks/ 88 [9]: https://tesserae.ink/ 89 [10]: https://github.com/dmellok/tesserae-koreader 90 [11]: https://evilmartians.com/chronicles/introducing-overmind-and-hivemind 91 92 ### This Month 93 94 * Adventure: Philadelphia + Albany for Thanksgiving 95 * Project: getting my album ready for release 96 * Skill: audio mastering (probably with [BandLab][12]) 97 98 ### Reading & Listening 99 100 * Fiction: [_The Thrice-Bound Fool_][13], Christopher Buehlman 101 * Non-fiction: [_The Art of Organizing Thoughts_][14], Shigehiko Toyama 102 * Music: [_Soft Bulletin_][15], Flaming Lips 103 104 [12]: https://www.bandlab.com/mastering 105 [13]: https://christopherbuehlmanauthor.com/book/the-thrice-bound-fool/ 106 [14]: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/837511/the-art-of-organizing-thoughts-by-shigehiko-toyama/ 107 [15]: https://shop.darksiderecords.com/products/flaming-lips-soft-bulletin 108 109 ### Links 110 111 * [Slower Living Club: A field guide to disconnecting and the life that opens up][16] 112 113 > How to be less online, and what to do with the time you get back. 114 115 * [Most people are conservative | /dev/urandom's dev site][17] 116 117 > One of my strongly-held opinions, and one that helps understand a lot about both politics and real life, is that most people are conservative. This is distinct from as being a conservative in the way that those who want to deport undocumented immigrants or pay as little taxes as possible or allow prayer in schools are, but rather simply that (aside from whichever issues happen to specifically matter to that specific person) most people want things to generally stay the same or slightly improve, and not be bothered otherwise. 118 119 * [Vivek Ramaswamy Is Going After The Abusive Parent Vote | Defector][18] 120 121 > Some of that is ideological, but a great deal of it is just reflex. Trump, who only understands things in terms of size and leverage, would personally identify with that predation and the worldview behind it; he's made his life out of that. But Trump would also choose abuser over abused because he would not ever want to be confused for the weaker half of any binary. Trump would identify, instantly and instinctively, with the person doing the most harm, because they would seem to him to be winning. 122 123 * [The Brand Ledger | Worse on Purpose][19] ([via][20]) 124 125 > Tracking the brands that got worse on purpose — and the ones that didn't. The Brand Ledger tracks 466 brands, from the tools in your garage to the pans in your kitchen. Who owns them, what they used to be, whether they're still worth buying. Updated as things change. 126 127 * [Vibe coding is turning the music gear world upside down | The Verge][21] 128 129 > These sorts of custom firmware were exceedingly rare in the pre-LLM days and required both deep expertise and an incredible investment of time. It could take weeks or months to add a simple feature like velocity sensitivity to a Korg Volca. Now, hobbyist hackers are able to turn Temu synths into full-fledged grooveboxes in a matter of days. 130 131 [16]: https://slowerliving.club/ 132 [17]: https://devurandom.xyz/thoughts/most_people_are_conservative/ 133 [18]: https://defector.com/vivek-ramaswamy-is-going-after-the-abusive-parent-vote 134 [19]: https://ledger.worseonpurpose.com/ 135 [20]: https://kottke.org/26/11/0049940-a-growing-list-of-brands- 136 [21]: https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/1013493/vibe-coding-ai-music-gear-hacking-custom-firmware