I think it’s important to intentionally digest content in the vast sea of information we have nowadays. There’s so much content floating around, that the ones that you consciously choose are pieces that call out your name and seemingly become a part of you.
This page will serve as a recorded digest or personal algorithm for what I consume on a monthly basis. Each addition is organized in ascending-sequential order and will include a description of what I think about it.
202601JAN
still eating
202512DEC
I Am Thou by Martin Buber
A surprisingly fun, poetic, and interesting read on seeming idiosyncracies and depths of the simple words “I,” “You,” and “It” with an existentialist flare towards experience and relation.
Whenever I think of these words, this book comes into mind all the time.
“Every You in the world is doomed by its nature to become a thing or at least to enter into thinghood again and again. In the language of objects: every thing in the world can—either before or after it becomes a thing—appear to some I as its You. But the language of objects catches only one corner of actual life.”
Mall Culture: A Fake Capitalist Utopia and Filipino Anti-Intellectualism: A Symptom of Value Bipolarity by Manila Dialectic Society
To be honest, I have some reading bias for the Mall Culture article, I hated spending my vacation at the mall. There was nothing new, nothing that interested me, nothing I wanted to buy. I would’ve rather spent my time walking around a park or reading a library.
Not much to say about the Anti Intellectualism article. For me, it brought light into the issue, that’s about it.
What Color is Your Function? by Bob Nystrom, Futures aren’t ersatz threads by Marius Eriksen, and Let futures be futures by without.boats
I didn’t know async conversations about async could get so heated. It reminds me of today’s debates about AI, or rather a couple weeks ago. Now everyone’s on the Claude.
Do One New Thing A Day To Solve Your Problems by Algon33
Yes, this works.
Squad Wealth by Other Internet
A declaration of online groups and their powers. I personally wouldn’t use the term “squad,” but it’s a nice descriptor that’s used throughout the text to conceptualize this unique social system that these super online people have.
At first hand, if you don’t know what a squad is, if you don’t have one, and if you’re kinda online and young, the most public and well known Squad out there is 2025 FaZe Clan. If you read this post with them in mind, it’ll make more sense. If you’re kinda old, just think of the Trump 2 administration or the Epstein Island group.
“To be online today is to enter the global arena. Mass social media are hazardous PvP zones no one should traverse without team support.”
“Members of the squad may live in different geographies—but within this space, everyone is on SQUAD TIME.”
“SQUAD WEALTH is a rate of 5 memes per day, it’s the e-girls vacation, the TikToker hype house, the empty church your crew rented upstate. SQUAD WEALTH is when the Discord is popping off and it brings you more joy than a 70-hour-week hustle ever could.”
Downpour by ikigaifairy
Good doomed yuri, I can’t say more.
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
My favorite subject of this book was the first part of that detailed the epistemology of verbal and written mediums, how each one was the main communication for truth. Speakers would stand in crowds and literally speak their truth, giving context of the subject matter, and answering attentive curiosities. This led audiences to pure understanding becoming immersed in the content. Problems were local and understood by those who were affected, information was consumed intentionally with action and intellect.
If you fast forward to today, it’s clear how different the world is to what’s been described. It’s also kinda funny when you realize this book was made in 1985 speaking of possible horrors. The 2005 introduction of the book ironically interrogates you about how you’re reading a book rather than playing on your Game Boy, as if that’s the worse. Oh, man.
You’ve probably seen at least one video essay about a similar topic, but none of them are as serious or intentionally pure from a creator and an audience perspective. It’s not surprising, if you read this book.
The Gargoyle by Simon
Oh man, you have to read this. It’s entertaining for sure.
“So having assembled the crack team of Nick, his wife, his parents, his workout buddy and me, who’s getting paid $80/hr, with much straining, we manage to flip over the mattress. Why the fuck am I telling you all this.”
“(Talking about nerd stuff)…If you didn’t understand any of that, congratulations on getting laid.”
Koma by Simon
Damn. Speechless
“Maybe she comes here on the weekends too. Maybe I’ll meet her here. I played with the thought in my head, and drifted into a sort of fugue state. The kind where your eyes are open, but you aren’t seeing, because you’re deep in thought, and I realised I miss you.”
Temple Uncle by Simon
I genuinely like Simons writings. It makes me think of my own experiences, because sometimes I forget that I have a life.
”Yes, their skin is maybe dark brown and Indian, but their mind? It lives in New York City.”
”People will drop hints that they’re wacky. We reflexively cut them off without realising it every day. You gotta resist that urge. Go deadpan Nathan Fielder style. Smile. Ask them to elaborate.”
Chad Vision by Simon
Oh man, I wish I could experience Chad Vision at least once, not the gay part, but the Mongolian army part. The closest Chad Vision I had was drinking soju, lazing in a hot tub, and looking at the lucid stars in the isolated desert. Chad vision in terms of hyperbolic effect, but not the exact effect.
“Suddenly you have CHAD VISION. You realise that all your friends are actually really hot. Look at Mark’s jawline, dude. What a specimen of a man. What a chiseled lot of studs we all are. Your dick twitches a bit, not in a homoerotic way. Ok maybe in a slightly homoerotic way. But mostly because you’ve unlocked a primal blood memory.”
The Fortress by Simon
I read this somewhere in May, I didn’t quite understand it fully at first, but I viscerally knew it was beautiful. After living a bit and revisiting this out of chance, 7 months later, It feels like I’m reading something completely personal and cathartic. There’s a lot of quasi-truth in the world and it’s easy to surround yourself with it, creating a fortress of irrational beliefs and comfort. In this world, I believe there are no answers, but only experiences. It’s a mistake to hold onto answers as truth, since experiences at the same time thwart and vivify truth. If someone was a real truth enthusiast, fan, or dare I say seeker, they would simply live and experience life for what it is.
“If you’re hunched over the keyboard, pouring through PDF scans from history’s most irascible writers, finding choice quotes to support your position, thinking to yourself “at last have I discovered the TRUTH NUKE,” the demons have got you.”
Choose Your Failure Modes by Algon33
Failure modes, sounds kinda nerdy but who am I to judge? I love it when people verbalize frameworks! From what I understand, it’s apart of being intentional, accurate, and efficient with your actions, but more so focused on the correlations it has with potential outcomes and risks. I can imagine it mostly from the mundane, such as dressing correctly for the weather to prevent sickness vulnerability.
Wanderlust by Simon
I have the opposite experience of the White Boy, somewhat. Whenever I’m travelling in general, I feel more free than I do in my home town. Everything here has been explored and done. While the farther I travel, opportunity to express myself becomes exponential. Although, at the end of the day, “the grass grows where you water it,” and I’ll always be brought back to the suburbs. Maybe this is a sign that I’ve outgrown my pot, that’s a whole other challenge to face.
Also, the Tokyo suburbs look neat. I’m surprised you could walk 4 hours in a straight line in the Greater Tokyo Area without being blocked by vehicle infrastructure. Japan is sugoi desuwa.
piano and the lost symphony by Kenneth
Pretty. I love it when people spring life into the mundane, it’s an invitation to feel what it’s like to be them.
frictions create purpose by Kenneth
While I was reading this, intentional experience came to mind. I had a contrary thought; sure you can still experience life being frictionless, but is it really worth it? As of writing this, I’m sick, and staying at home has never felt this deathly. Everything is at my disposal yet I haven’t lived or experienced life for 7 days straight. This was a great reminder to go out to eat, visit a coffee shop, stay at a library, get groceries, and travel when I’m better. These activities aren’t really frictional, but it’s better than having life slide past.
Note to self, never run in the morning winter cold with just a shirt and shorts
“I like to frame my life as a story book. Every human is born with an empty book, and my purpose is to fill mine with engaging and meaningful stories. Without knowledge and inspirations, nothing can be written. Indeed, one is born without them, and frictions are there to fill the gap.”
A relevant read, a plea; Designing Friction. Nowadays, the logout button takes ~4 steps with the requirement of conscious confirmation, makes you think!
Toxic Performance by Ray
“Why is it so short?” Was my initial reaction reading this. Eh, I can’t complain, I’ll take any writing I can get from my mutuals. Ray doesn’t go into a direct answer against toxic performance, which is fair, because everyone has their own inevitable strategy to constantly mend it. Whenever I think about “toxic performance” and its many masks it wears, I always think of Simon’s Wraith of Silicon Valley. Kill the Husk or the Toxicity in this case, with love and comfort.
unemployment life by Alexine
That’s my unemployed mutual right there! Rooting for her! I believe in her like how I believe in myself. There’s one point that I wan to touch on; I really hate doing interview prep, I’m sure everyone does. I find myself loving my life more when I do things that matter with natural and visible progression as well. There’s better things to do that catapult you further than to go through corporate interviews. Maybe that’s just the unemployed in me and her talking.
202511NOV
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
Glad to be ending the month off with this essay. Overall, it helped me rework existential frameworks that I had and sharpened my general reasoning ability. I’ve read The Concept of Anxiety by Kierkegaard earlier this year, it was comical to see Camus shit on him for half the essay. I always had a weird feeling about “the leap” and didn’t really understand it. Reading this essay helped with understanding that and other uncertainties of my own that I couldn’t verbalize. This quote summarizes the essay perfectly:
“All that remains is a fate whose outcome alone is fatal. Outside of that single fatality of death, everything, joy or happiness, is liberty. A world remains of which man is the sole master. What bound him was the illusion of another world. The outcome of his thought, ceasing to be renunciatory, flowers in images. It frolics—in myths, to be sure, but myths with no other depth than that of human suffering and, like it, inexhaustible. Not the divine fable that amuses and blinds, but the terrestrial face, gesture, and drama in which are summed up a difficult wisdom and an ephemeral passion.”
on making soul friends | ep 91 by Christine
Short and sweet video. It’s nice to have someone verbalize and create a framework for what you’ve experienced. In this case; “a wall” for relationships. Not boundaries, but stopping points of intimacy based on compatibility and timing.
Vampire Girl and A Bleak Table by Simon
Are funny reads when read together. Japan kinda crazy. Go white boy go!
HYTALE IS SAVED!
Yay, I’m very glad. They spent 4 years on a multi-platform engine to just abandon it. Shoutout to Riot for giving the game back to them, I’m excited to play it next year! I’ve been following Hytale for so long.
Wraiths of Silicon Valley by Simon by Simon
This white boy keeps speaking his truth. It made me reflect a bit on my career journey. I was certainly going becoming a husk if I continued the way I was going. After reading this and other supplemental reads, I think I’m chill now, touching grass and letting people love me.
“I’m publishing this because if there’s one of me, surely there are more of me. I want this to be a wakeup call for the Husks out there. Working hard for a bit is fine, often necessary, but if you’ve done it wrong and for too long, and you feel like “I just need to achieve XYZ, and then I’ll finally be happy,” you’re wrong. You will not be happy. Please do not waste your life for this. There are people out there who want to love you. Let them.”
GUERLAIN - ENCENS MYTHIQUE review edp perfume - Les Absolus D’Orient fragrance
A mutual of mine has this fragrance so I decided to look up a review, I didn’t know fragrance enthusiast went this hard. This video transported me to another world, or rather a part I’ve never seen before. The reviewer verbalizes artistry into descriptions that would fit a novel. Such a fun watch, I wish I could smell it though.
The Fractal Apocalypse by Simon
This white boy has a way with words. On the relevant topic of modern media consumption and psyops.
“I imagine near-to-death Boomers hooked up to 24/7 AI Fox News, servings of dopamine delivered straight to their brains via Neuralink each time they raise their arms in amen for another segment of Shrimp Jesus Takes On The Wokes. Meanwhile in the Skinner box next door, an iPad Baby of Gen Alpha, now in his twenties, is entering his 37th consecutive day of gooning to Hentai Cocomelon.”
Here’s What’s Next in Agentic Coding by seconds0
A really interesting of insight on where agentic coding is going. Apparently this guy gives insight to people at Cursor which is cool. He talks about me in here, the person who is scared of the agent from auto completing. It made me try it, it’s not bad, but I can feel my brain deteriorating not gonna lie. I think to fully utilize and be comfortable with the agent, one must be senior or already have built the tasked structure by hand before. This is my first time building something like this, so I’ll just stick with using LLMs as concept engines. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really good for coding things and grabbing contexts that are mundane. Overall, this guy speaks truth.
“The developer of 2023 couldn’t imagine Cursor. The developer of 2024 couldn’t imagine Codex. We today can’t grasp the paradigm that emerges in 2026. The degree to which they’ll translate intent into working code will be mind-blowing.”
Has Google Quietly Solved Two of AI’s Oldest Problems? by Mark Humphries
Cool to see AI being used to translate historical documents. This was a good reminder that handwriting back in the day was shockingly unreadable but pretty. Google is cooking with Gemini 3.0.
“…not just performing text recognition: it is demonstrating an understanding of the economic and cultural systems in which those records were produced”
Chainsaw Man Movie: Reze Arc
Is Harry Potter for weebs. The music carries the movie so much, especially during the pool scene. It’s been so long since I last read the manga and the Reze arc.
AMERICA LIVE IN CENTRAL PARK 1979 FULL CONCERT HD
Perfectly captures the rosy era that the 70s and 80s was in the states with music and aesthetics. I can’t help myself from being nostalgic of a time that I never lived. To be a boomer that uses Facebook, damn.
kimj - KOREAN AMERICAN
Korean Skrillex. What else can I say? This korean guy rocks. He produced for Effie, SEBii, damazein, The Deep, and jackzebra. Dude’s a legend in the making, mark my fucking words, he’s so talented. This is what happens when you give a korean: abelton, many cases.
Giving Up Caffeine by Stephan Snyman
I forgot how I came across this, but I just found it interesting since I had a caffeine addiction too. I drank so much caffeine that it made me extremely unproductive, that I was drinking caffeine to reach baseline performance—I was experiencing reverse withdrawals. It’s funny how he experimented with abstinence and it had no effect on him. Quite the opposite for me.
What is “good taste” in software engineering?, Great software design looks underwhelming, and Everything I know about good system design by Sean Goedecke
Good insight on software engineering; using the right tools for the specific problem and opting in for simplicity. I think it’s just cool to see what veterans think. It baffled me when he mentions that there are engineers that very opinionated on problem solving rather than being nuanced.
“I’m not a plumber, but I imagine good plumbing is similar: if you’re doing something too exciting, you’re probably going to end up with crap all over yourself.”
Kipply’s Digest | Jul-Oct 2025
Is what inspired me to have my own digest!
learn to code with llms? i read a bunch of learning science so you don’t have to by Max Mynter
Confirmed my bias on using LLMs as concept engines and teachers rather than slot machines. Inevitably they’ll get more intelligent and wise where I’ll be obsolete. Whatever, I’d rather have fun and learn than to hedge against myself.
Becoming a Research Engineer at a Big LLM Lab — 18 Months of Strategic Career Development by Max Mynter
Excellent information for career chasing. I’m super glad Max Mynter posted his process.
unease by Ava
Made me ponder about ephemerality. She describes pain of living for yourself with no given narrative from the world. I find it rather blissful nowadays, but the thought really cuts deep. It also made me listen to Lana Del Ray intentionally, the songs don’t stab you hard when you’re a straight man.
The Three Body Problem
Is an amazing science fiction book that brought me back into reading novels in general. The latest sci-fi I digested beforehand was Brave New World and of course Star Wars, so this hit like a truck with how cool the plot and technology were. I plan to finish the 3BP series later.