What I'm up to - August 2025 | 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 last month

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.