Today’s Surprise From History - 🔗 I should do more Snickelcasts
Small developers (especially generalists) have a new competitive advantage
Not just developers methinks ….
Said it before - saying it again
🔗 Futility Closet isn’t always futile
Émile Zola described a work of art as “a corner of nature seen through a temperament.”
Not my first link to 🔗🔎 Umair - and probably not my last - and I really don’t do it all the time.
Finished reading: 📚🔗 A Cold Wind From Moscow by Rory Clements - and yeah - not really - just way too slow for my taste.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Finished reading: 📚🔗 The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman - and every bit as good - better(?) as the first four.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
My three words for 2026 are 🖇️ Engage - Enable - Excite. But there’s a catch. Underpinning all of that is a requirement to both stop and start. Stop what’s bad for you, what isn’t working, what’s draining you. And start what’s good for you, change things up, do something different when something clearly isn’t landing.
That’s where the tension lives. One voice says when things aren’t working, change the game. Do something different. Move it up. Stagnation demands disruption. You’ve got agency, the ability to reframe, introduce new variables, step outside the rules you’ve been playing by. This voice won’t accept circumstance as fixed.
The other voice says if things aren’t working, they’ll persist anyway. Be patient. All will be well. Not wishful thinking, but confidence in process. The recognition that what’s broken right now is already being worked on by time and circumstances you can’t control yet. Patience here isn’t inaction. It’s understanding that some shifts simply require waiting.
Both are right. And so - by definition - both are wrong and the decision is made by applying the real skill of ‘sensing’. Very useful!
When does the system actually need you to disrupt it, and when is your job to hold steady whilst deeper shifts take hold? Get that distinction wrong and you either exhaust yourself with constant pivoting or you surrender to inertia. Sometimes both.
For me this is not theoretical. It’s the fork in the road. It’s not about the new year - it’s about life that continues to get harder and harder.
This all came to mind this afternoon when this popped up on my phone.
Song For The Post
Today’s Surprise From History - 🔗 Syria - 2019 - Subject - Oil
🔗 David Sacks sees 2 cities replacing NYC and SF as finance and tech capitalswww.businessinsider.com/david-sac…)
In case you are wondering .. Miami and Austin … right!