This week in squirrels…
Summary
- Enshittification Etsy
- Etsy now prevents you from seeing shipping information on the phone unless you use their app. If I open it on my desktop (or use a fake browser), I can click through to get this, but they make it inaccessible on the mobile website for the only reason they really want access to your phone’s data.
- Low Key Week
- I was sick, so having a quiet end of the year isn’t too bad
- Happy New Year
- I spent mine with some people who are very special to me; it was very low-key, but that’s what I needed
- My new favorite use for Claude Code
- using AI to write Nix code for packaging apps. I have been using Claude to add any missing applications directly into my own flake. It’s working shockingly well. Hopefully, I can upstream some of these, too.
Books
- The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t a Guy at All Vol 3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
- This one is improving for me, the characters are becoming a bit less one-dimensional and “shouty” in their personalities, while MC really starts to evolve and come out of her shell.
- However, this is one of those yuri series where nobody is actually gay, which isn’t for me normally, but this is a great run of this kinda manga.
- I Love Amy Vol 1 ⭐⭐
- This volume has a lot of potential, but there are too many “beneath the surface” elements that we don’t get in the book. The author is always hinting at the next underlying motive or trauma, but never reveals them before moving on to the next one, making it hard to understand the characters. It’s also difficult to empathize with them because they’re all exaggerated caricatures. The volume also ends abruptly without resolving anything or leaving a hook for the next one, leaving it feeling incomplete.
Music
- Sonic Mayhem’s “Metal Eden: Corrupted Memory Edition”
- I haven’t thought of Sonic Mayhem since the Quake days. This new album that dropped at the very end of the year is an industrial metal banger, the likes of which I haven’t heard since the Doom 2016 soundtrack
- Oklou’s “choke enough”
- Going through more “best of” Albums from 2025, and this chill electronic pop album is indeed a great find.
- Geese’s “Getting Killed”
- I am still listening to this dang album, seeing if I can make it stick for me, and if I can sink in right
- JPEGMAFIA & Danny Brown’s “SCARING THE HOES”
- After how good Stardust was, I keep going back to this, which is also so good
Reads and Videos
- What’s In/Out in 2026! #shorts #newyears #expedition33 #heatedrivalry - YouTube
- More in and out
- Which Mario Kart World Characters Can Say 🏳️🌈The Word🏳️🌈 | A Definitive Tier List - YouTube
- I was wrong about AI… - YouTube
- I am seeing this a lot more. The use of AI in content creation is causing way more harm to artists and the consumers than any of the help it is giving
- From prophet to product: How AI came back down to earth in 2025 - Ars Technica
- A retrospective of all the promises made, and forgotten, where things have stalled, but more interestingly to me, where things have pivoted into. Reflecting on the hype and the reality we now have helps temper our expectations for where we are going.
- How To Apply These Therapeutic Principles to Sexting | Autostraddle
- Not a long or deep article, but good things to think about.
- ProPublica’s Reporters Have Gotten Pushback for Asking for Comment — ProPublica
- Imagine being accountable to the media and public as a politician. That sounds like some kinda democracy thing.
- Software engineers should be a little bit cynical
- I am the person they talk about in this article, the cynic
- The Honey Files Expose Major Fraud! - YouTube
- After working three years in the deals and affiliate marketing space, I 100% believe the content in this video is true. Just saying.
- Stop Guessing: Debug Your Nix Code Fast | Nix REPL - YouTube
- omgosh I needed this video a year ago
- THE AI SLOPOCALYPSE - YouTube
- I think about this a lot, every time I open something.
- GitHub - jamesbrink/nxv: nxv — Nix Version Index. A blazingly fast CLI for finding any version of any Nix package.
- A great tool for finding just the right version
- the most dishonest discourse on the internet - YouTube
- More talking about “rap fatigue”, a good breakdown.
Quote of the Week
Facebook is malware.
- @LoganFive