What I'm up to - August 2025 - Philip I. Thomas

What I did in last month

Here is my monthly newsletter about what I'm up to, which I send in place of social media.

Back to eating solid foods after my jaw surgery.
Playing with gpt-oss on my computers.
Spent a weekend in NYC, where I stumbled upon the reopening of my favorite hangout Lot Radio.
Spent a weekend in Illinois.
Saw lots of good music, including an audio-visual performance by Floating Points and the SF Bach Festival.
My projects Postcard and Toolbox were both featured in the Ruby Weekly newsletter.
I've been writing a newsletter for Chroma, which has been fun
Chroma got a mention in the NYT.

Articles: Daydreaming. Writing is thinking. "Tsundoku is the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them." Overtourism in Japan, and How it Hurts Small Businesses: "Some small shops that are set up explicitly for overtourism. I consider these a different category of place. They often don’t add to the texture of a city (they don’t provide anything for the community), locals rarely stand in their lines, and they’re usually thinly-veiled attempts to cash in on some trend."
Videos: Lots of coffee and baking this month. I enjoyed this behind-the-scene tour of Tim Wendelboe's coffee roastery - including learning some specifics such as having 2,000 subscribers and buying 80 tons of coffee per year. I enjoyed a similar video about another of my favorite roasteries, Prolog. I watched a few videos about being a baker, such as this one, which I found relaxing.
Podcasts: DHH on Lex Fridman dropped a lot of knowledge.
Books: Reading Richard Hart Bread and Cherry Bones magazine.
Music: Listening to Svaneborg Kardyb and Roniit.