Philip I. Thomas

Here is my monthly newsletter about what I'm up to, which I send in place of social media. What I did in November• Just got back from a holiday in Tokyo and Hakone. I explored Ametora, noodles (tsukumen, breakfast soba), jazz (kissas + live), coffee (Leaves, Glitch and Onibus are favorites), and infrastructure (Shinkansen + pervasive public bathrooms)  • Stopped over in Vancouver for transition days, enjoying Revolver coffee and a seaplane flight. • Published Introducing Workshop, Disaster recovery, and Snail mail. Also, my old article Craft in the Digital Era had renewed popularity last month. • Got back into fiction by reading Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on the plane. • Tried a Eugenoides coffee for the firsts time (very good!) Things to share• Podcasts: Found this podcast episode by Cal Newport to be thought-provoking - it explores why women are leaving tech, dispels return-to-office generally by comparing higher participation in in-person medical jobs, and highlights a study showing that unpredictability is the root cause (loose working hours, plus ad-hoc communication + tasks outside working hours).  • Articles: "Collaboration sucks". Bankers Rounding. "Otaku".  • Apps: Tablelog is the best way to find restaurants in Japan - even better than Michelin Guide. • Quote: “I’ve come to feel that a café or restaurant banning phones themselves (never mind laptops; phones always strike me as the real vibe-killer (but of course, dingdongs rocking video calls in cafés will forever be the ultimate boss of sanity)) would provide some kind of utility to the world, would self-select for a certain kind of customer craving shared silence from the algorithms, from the news, from the din of endless horror and outrage.” - Craig Mod in No Phones in the Tendon Shop. Plans for December• I'm co-hosting a book launch party for Sinan's Building Agentic AI at Chroma HQ on Dec 18 - come join.  • In Boulder for the holidays