Learning Log, December 2025

Life-wise, it was a pretty chill month. We had a mid-month family get-together for a three-in-one celebration; the holidays, a birthday, and my parents’ anniversary. The festivities started with light snow and an impressive Titanic exhibition. We closed the day with a wonderful dinner in a castle where the owner was kind enough to bake a custom-made anniversary cake for dessert.

Projects

• Built notebin for myself. It’s a super minimal web app that’s made for quick, transitory notes – no organization or syncing. This was an idea I’d had in my backlog for a long time. Since I’ve been testing Claude Code with superpowers, I was able to build, launch, and test iterations in no time. Which is a trend I’ve seen from other people using Claude Code… curious to see how quickly this evolves in 2026.
• Built a book cover search tool, another just-for-me project. This one allows me to search for high-res book covers that I use to populate my bookshelf. It’s a simple HTML file that runs locally and works like a dream.

Digital gardening

Bookshelf

• A Conspiracy of Tall Men by Noah Hawley. Noah’s first book and (I realized) the third book of his I’ve read. I guess that makes me a fan? Other writing credits he’s known for include the Fargo TV series, Alien: Earth, etc.
• The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. The book adds color and nuance that didn’t make the cut in the movie adaptation.
• Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod. I picked this up when it was on sale briefly in November-ish and really enjoyed the book.

Other reading

• Everything I’ve learned about homeowner’s insurance, natural disasters, and recovery aid in 2025. Great post by Matt Haughey sharing things many people don’t realize about insurance and relatively easy steps you can take to improve your coverage
• Things I’ve Learned by Tyler TK. I’m drawn to posts like this, and many of Tyler’s lessons really resonated. There’s a lot of great content to absorb, but self-care and big life stuff are great places to start.

MEMEX

A few favorite visuals that I’ve added to MEMEX, my ever-growing swipe file:

• Nieman Lab’s Predictions for Journalism 2026. I’ve been drawn to card-based designs for a while, so this was an easy add.
• Stüssy Spring 2023 collection. The framing of the subject caught my eye.
• Too Due list by Andrew Neyer. Pro tip: Andrew’s shop rewards a deep dive.
• Tyco catalog cover. The marker-texture and sense of movement made me save this one.

N.B. Inspiration for this post format comes from Melanie Richards’ monthly learning logs.