macwright-com-5fr93r.txt (13800B)
1 [1]Tom MacWright 2 3 [email protected] 4 5 [2]Tom MacWright 6 7 • [3]Writing⇠ 8 • [4]Reading 9 • [5]Photos 10 • [6]Projects 11 • [7]Drawings 12 • [8]Micro 13 • [9]About 14 15 Auto Light Dark 16 2025 Year in Review 17 18 Well, nearly another year in the books. How did it go? 19 20 Books per year chart 21 22 It’s genuinely surprising to me how consistent my reading stays year-over-year. 23 I don’t set reading goals or have a predictable pace, and every year has at 24 least a month in which I’m reading nothing, my momentum growth to a halt. But 25 at the end of every year, it’s range-bound between 19 and 22 for the past five 26 years. 27 28 The count is 19 at the moment, but I’m reading a [13]fast-paced sci-fi so it’ll 29 probably be 20 by the end of the year. 30 31 [14]A Confederacy of Dunces was easily the most entertaining book this year - 32 an absolute riot, funny and unique. [15]Things Become Other Things, from [16] 33 Craig Mod, was the most affecting book of the year, the only one that made me 34 cry a little. And [17]The Fort Bragg Cartel was the most engaging, 35 can’t-put-it-down book. If you can stomach the difficult material - detailed 36 descriptions of war crimes and domestic abuse - I highly recommend reading it. 37 38 Race times 39 40 This was a decent year for running, too. I ran five 5ks and two half-marathons 41 in 2025, and achieved my simple goal of running sub-20 in the 5k. The thing 42 about running a mediocre 19:13 PR in high school and then running mid-19s 43 twenty years later is that now I’m in the top 10% of my age group! On a 44 relative basis, I keep getting faster. 45 46 Mostly I blame the extreme summer heat for some of the higher times: many of 47 the races had warnings about high humidity, high heat, and bad air quality, 48 warning people from overexertion. A sample from their pre-race email: 49 50 The weather forecast is for temperatures in the low 90s. Please dress and 51 hydrate properly, and avoid overexertion. The Air Quality Index is 52 predicted to be over 100 at race start, members of sensitive groups may 53 experience health effects. Limit outdoor exposure if you are sensitive to 54 ozone. This might be a great night to run easy or tempo effort, please 55 adjust your pace expectations! 56 57 That said, I think I could still do better. Running low 19 minute times would 58 be lovely and I think within my abilities. I’ve been following an ‘intuitive 59 training plan’ this whole time, which in other words means not having a plan. 60 2026 I plan to have a plan, and probably the cornerstone of that plan is 61 logging many more easy miles. 62 63 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 64 65 How’s work been going? I can point to the [18]Val Town Retrospective that I 66 wrote for most of the answer to that question. 2025 for [19]Val Town was a year 67 of big ups and downs. Simultaneously, the job became both more demanding and I 68 became more adjusted to it: it’s remarkable how adaptable people and 69 organizations can be. 70 71 On a day-to-day level, as an engineer, the codebase has grown to the point 72 where it’s a bit difficult to keep all in my head, and there are important 73 components that I shamefully haven’t directly worked on. For a ‘CTO’, needing 74 to have the system memorized might feel like an no-no, but for an organization 75 of this size my job is really to be a general-purpose builder, fixer, and 76 understander. 77 78 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 79 80 I was really into rhythmic instrumental music: SML’s take on jazz in [20]Small 81 Medium Large and [21]How Have You Been are amazing, the kind of music that 82 works for focused coding, a dinner party, or a long drive. 83 84 [22]Septet by John Carroll Kirby 85 86 I loved John Carroll Kirby’s alternative take on jazz too - which can sound 87 cheesy, like elevator music, until you get a minute in. 88 89 [23]Low on Foot by Slow Mass 90 91 Slow Mass’s [24]Low on Foot was probably my album of the year: almost every 92 song is marked with five stars in my music library in [25]Swinsian. 93 94 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 95 96 I feel unsatisfied with my productive output in 2025. But this is a permanent 97 condition I think. 98 99 First bike bag 100 101 Sewing was the big new thing. I sewed about five bags, including three for my 102 bicycle, and rode almost 1,000 miles with them. 103 104 Bag 2 105 106 It’s a fantastic hobby. Designing the bags exercises my brain in just the right 107 ways, it’s tactile and low-tech. My sewing machine was manufactured around 108 1970, and works great. I love the learning process involved: my first attempt 109 at sewing a bag for the front rack of my bike yielded clear lessons for bag 2, 110 things like using stiffer fabric where the bag needs support and trying to 111 minimize seams in areas that are on the top, to preserve waterproofing. 112 113 Pending another bike, I’m pretty much done with bike bags, but there are plenty 114 more projects on the horizon for the sewing machine. 115 116 Besides the flashy bags-from-scratch, it’s been useful for simpler things like: 117 118 • Restuffing my couch cushions and sewing them back closed 119 • Repairing the pocket in some running shorts that had developed a hole 120 • Hemming some jeans that were too long, and an oversized shirt 121 122 It’s been really rewarding, and sewing goes really well with instrumental jazz. 123 124 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 125 126 That said, my free-time coding projects have been fewer. I implemented [26] 127 indiepixel, a pixel-art rendering layer in Python for my Tidbyt display. And I 128 maintained [27]Placemark, putting time into simplifying it and adding a handful 129 of new features, like [28]drawing lines with automatic routing. 130 131 But that’s about it? The coding I’ve done on weekends has mostly been 132 work-related, and not much of that either. I still have fun coding, but I have 133 to say that it’s changed for me. The tech industry just feels bad in so many 134 ways, from its open embrace of fascism to the nihilistic startups that 135 advertise via rage-bait. LLMs have changed things a lot too: it’s hard to tell 136 what people value anymore, and how people have fun. I’ve [29]written a lot 137 about LLMs, so won’t repeat it all. See: [30]Would LLMs democratizing coding be 138 a pyrrhic victory?, [31]Hallucination City, [32]LLMs pivot to the aesthetics of 139 thinking, and more. 140 141 I’ve long aimed to diversify my joys: part of finding a love of music, art, 142 sewing, running, and so on is that they can serve as backup ways to feel happy 143 when the world’s tough. I see some of what’s happening now - people using 144 computers to do art, automating the skillful work they used to do, and I wonder 145 what this leaves time for them to do: in the excess time, where do you find 146 joy? 147 148 I’ve been finding most of that joy away from the keyboard, this year. I hope I 149 rediscover some of that spark in 2026. I have been having fun learning [33] 150 Effect and writing some Rust, and there are plenty of ideas left. 151 152 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 153 154 Brooklyn continues to be good to me. Living here delivers on my priorities in 155 life: things like never drive and live near friends. By those metrics, it does 156 great, and always surprises me with just how much of the world is packed into 157 the 97 square miles of the borough, and Manhattan and Queens nearby. 158 159 And yeah - the [34]election of Zohran Mamdani makes it even better. This year 160 was the first time that I knocked on doors for a mayoral candidate, and so did 161 a majority of my friends. It’s pretty exciting. I think that the next few years 162 will be great for the city, and though it’ll be really tough to deliver on all 163 of his promises, even just having a mayor in office who shows up to the job and 164 wants the best for his constituents will be a welcome change from the previous 165 administration. 166 167 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 168 169 I [35]started this blog in 2011 with a vague photo of San Jose and some 170 non-committal prose. So 2026 will be the 15th anniversary of the blog. 171 172 Blogging has been, for me, an unalloyed success. It has connected me to people, 173 given me a place to develop my thoughts, made some of my work on the internet - 174 a place always decaying and forgetting - a little more permanent. I absolutely 175 recommend everyone do it. 176 177 I know why most people don’t do it: not enough time and too much fear of 178 publishing ‘bad writing.’ Maybe ‘nothing to write about,’ too, though this 179 never seems that real to me, given how the average person I meet has 180 interesting thoughts and ideas to share. 181 182 I forget exactly when I removed analytics from the blog, but it was a long time 183 ago. Since then I don’t know what ‘takes off’ or ‘goes viral’ and it’s mostly 184 fine with me. Lately though, I have been discovering other indie blogs with 185 articles that reference or respond to mine, and I really want a way for this to 186 be slightly more social. Not fully social of course - no comments and this is 187 not part of any network - but I want to know about link-backs. That’s probably 188 the focus for 2026. 189 190 I think this idea has been going around - my friend [36]Waldo was discussing it 191 the other day, and [37]webmentions came up as an option. I’ve tried webmentions 192 in the past with little success - not many blogs supported them and I got a lot 193 of spam - but it’s worth another shot. It’s hard not to get a little 194 discouraged off the jump because webmentions have spam, their predecessor [38] 195 pingbacks were ripe with abuse, [39]trackbacks had even more spam, and even if 196 I try to find backlinks with [40]ahrefs.io, there are plenty of spam domains 197 there too or SEO schemes. The internet is an adversarial place. 198 199 In meta-blog news, this blog has been hosted on [41]Netlify since [42]2017 and 200 I can’t find a strong reason to switch off. It’s been rock-solid. I’ve been 201 using [43]Jekyll since I started in 2011 and it continues to work great, though 202 if I started from scratch I’d probably use [44]11ty. It would be nice to have a 203 little more power over server-rendering and deploy on [45]Hetzner, but it seems 204 like it’d be a step-up in complexity. 205 206 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 207 208 Riding the C&O Canal 209 210 Photo from riding the GAP trail + C&O Canal this year 211 212 every strange thing you’ve ever been into, every failed hobby or forgotten 213 instrument, everything you have ever learned will come back to you, will 214 serve you when you need it. No love, however brief, is wasted. - [46]Louise 215 Miller 216 217 December 7, 2025 [47]Tom MacWright 218 [48]@macwright.com on Bluesky, [49]@[email protected] on Mastodon 219 220 221 References: 222 223 [1] https://macwright.com/ 224 [2] https://macwright.com/ 225 [3] https://macwright.com/writing 226 [4] https://macwright.com/reading/ 227 [5] https://macwright.com/photos/ 228 [6] https://macwright.com/projects/ 229 [7] https://macwright.com/drawings/ 230 [8] https://macwright.com/micro/ 231 [9] https://macwright.com/about/ 232 [13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Is_No_Antimemetics_Division 233 [14] https://macwright.com/2025/01/25/a-confederacy-of-dunces 234 [15] https://macwright.com/2025/06/29/things-become-other-things 235 [16] https://craigmod.com/ 236 [17] https://macwright.com/2025/12/02/the-fort-bragg-cartel 237 [18] https://macwright.com/2025/11/11/val-town 238 [19] https://www.val.town/ 239 [20] https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/small-medium-large 240 [21] https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/how-you-been 241 [22] https://johncarrollkirby.bandcamp.com/album/septet 242 [23] https://slowmassmusic.bandcamp.com/album/low-on-foot 243 [24] https://slowmassmusic.bandcamp.com/album/low-on-foot 244 [25] https://swinsian.com/ 245 [26] https://macwright.com/2025/04/12/tidbyt-second-life 246 [27] https://www.placemark.io/ 247 [28] https://mastodon.social/@tmcw/115595261706919222 248 [29] https://macwright.com/2023/04/15/ai 249 [30] https://macwright.com/2024/07/18/llms-democratizing-coding 250 [31] https://macwright.com/2025/11/07/hallucination-city 251 [32] https://macwright.com/2025/11/05/llms-thinking-pivot 252 [33] https://effect.website/ 253 [34] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zohran_Mamdani 254 [35] https://macwright.com/2011/07/04/hello-internet 255 [36] https://mastodon.social/@waldoj/115670295623060834 256 [37] https://indieweb.org/Webmention 257 [38] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingback 258 [39] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trackback 259 [40] https://ahrefs.com/ 260 [41] https://www.netlify.com/ 261 [42] https://macwright.com/2017/05/08/https 262 [43] https://jekyllrb.com/ 263 [44] https://www.11ty.dev/ 264 [45] https://www.hetzner.com/ 265 [46] https://x.com/louisethebaker/status/1379961867922239497?lang=en 266 [47] https://macwright.com/about/ 267 [48] https://bsky.app/profile/macwright.com 268 [49] https://mastodon.social/@tmcw