Robbie Sapunarich

@michellechen my timeline has seen unprecedented cross-pollination in the last 24 hours

“In the promises of transhumanism and some posthumanist currents of thought, which seek an enhanced and almost disembodied humanity, we recognize a yearning that is of concern to us, namely the need for a fuller life, less exposed to limitations and suffering. Yet the Incarnation opens a different pathway. On the one hand, old and new ideologies alike urge humanity to overcome limitations through technology, and to rise above others by asserting dominance. Contrary to this, the mystery of the Son of God entering into our human condition promises something quite different. The living God descends into our history in order to free us from all forms of slavery. He takes upon himself our weakness and transforms it into a setting for salvation. There is no moment or human situation that is not worthy of God.” “Even when limitations are experienced as inner suffering, human wisdom teaches us not to deny or suppress it, but to integrate it. To eliminate suffering entirely would mean, in the end, extinguishing love and desire as well. Those who love and desire cannot avoid passing through trial and suffering; and over the years, we carry within us lessons that leave their mark like scars, the memories of a journey shaped by freedom and failure, dreams and disappointments. It is only thanks to the interplay of these elements that the wonders of the soul occur within us, allowing us to sense the richness of our humanity. To renounce this adventure, both tragic and splendid, in the name of a presumed transcendence of all limits, could mean many things, but it would no longer be human.” vatican.va/content/leo-xi…

friends who gift really good books are honestly carrying society

Thrice, That Hideous Strength youtube.com/watch?v=2t94ti…

Thrice, The Abolition of Man youtube.com/watch?v=8INTDC…

I'm sure there's chatter about The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength after the presentation of Magnifica Humanitas. I would like to remind everyone that the best explications of both C.S. Lewis books was done by a post-hardcore band from Orange County in the early '00s.

@michellechen Read Brothers K for a book club years ago and Demons has been beckoning ever since

ok so here’s the plan

I have another hand-writing code anecdote. This past week I spoke with a company that could be described as "cautiously optimistic" about AI-driven development, even in 2026. They are not industry dinosaurs. They've raised a series D with a multi-billion dollar valuation. Part of their interview process includes AI-assisted coding. Yet, a non-negotiable gate for candidates also evaluates their ability to write code unassisted, because, if models become unavailable or prohibitively expensive, they still want capable developers. That's what motivated me not to hand over the composition of that script to an agent— I needed to know that I could still do it. The coolest discovery though, was that the biggest help for me was also the thing that helps agents: a strongly typed language like TypeScript. Language Server Protocol and type annotations answered a majority of the questions when I couldn't remember a module name or a function's exact behavior. Turns out, determinism is always a more reliable friend than nondeterminism. The very simple problem I was solving (fetching podcast RSS feeds and saving them to disk for later comparison) could have been solved by throwing the feeds' XML files at an agent, but the best thing an agent could have done is draft a script that consistently evaluates the files' contents rather than forwarding them to a stochastic model.

The thing I missed most about this is the natural instinct to simplify, simplify, simplify. Discovering what to cut, what to add, as I went.

This morning I typed a script by hand like a psychopath. Googled questions like it was 2021. Nothing major, small CLI utility. It was kinda fun. And it felt good to know the old noggin has still got it.

@AltCulture If you go, check out Fadensonnen. Went years ago and we ate expensive cold cuts and drank good wine while someone played dark ambient. fadensonnen.com

Too many people are talking about New York. Who wants to take a weekend trip to Baltimore to hang out with OG freaks and not turn it into a Substack? Have intellectual conversations with the aristocrats and oligarchs about AI. Fancy restaurants. Hacker squats. Offlining.

Time spent listening to music will always be time better spent than listening to a podcast. This opinion will be my Alamo.

@kristianfreeman @Jilles soliciting workers mafia opinions

What's the go-to tool for events that cool kids are using now? Luma?

THE CHALLENGE WE CURRENTLY FACE IS NOT TECHNOLOGICAL, BUT ANTHROPOLOGICAL

Seculosity is a book about how everything has become religious, and it includes a chapter about work. It was published in 2019. I think it's due for a re-read.

This "two ways" language is also found in Psalm 1: there is the Way of Life, and the Way of Death. Contrary to Marc's dry-boned opinion, there are people full of spirit and life and virtue who don't fit neatly into his little dichotomy, and we'd all be better off thinking about the Way of Life and the Way of Death—and maybe even meditate on that Psalm today—more than a podcast soundbite. There are people very online who are the Way of LIfe, and people very offline who are on the Way of Death, and the measuring sticks and moral vocabulary will need to change.

I'm spinning up a prototype with EmDash for a possible client project, and I gotta say that developing a custom theme is absurdly easy because it's literally just an Astro project.

@JoshPhillipsPhD Douglas Preston for me

This, but Dan Brown.

Question for the chat: when you think of iconic Texas images, what comes to mind? What image is the ~essence~ of Texan?

ALSO I will say that while I like GCP support and prefer GCP UX to AWS, Google Play makes releasing an app a damn pain, even for a simple content-driven app that handles zero user data. On that note, if you would like to join closed testing for @mockingbirdmin Android app, DMs are open.