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

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

What I did in last month

I published How to host web apps on a Mac Mini, a follow-up to my piece A mini data center. It's a technical guide to hosting web on a Mac Mini, and includes a new open-source repo I made called Toolbox.
I got a gravel bike and have been riding it a few times a week. The Bay Area is so dense with cycling options, and it's such a fun form of exercise.
I've been using OpenAI Deep Research a lot lately. For instance, I used it to find cycling clothes that match my preferences (its top recommendation was Sigr, though it missed The Black Bibs). I used it before a meetup to give a background on the companies that would be presenting. I recommend asking it to summarize learnings with a table at the beginning.
Emma's company Velvet was acquired.

Articles: The Age of the Double Sell-Out. Signal comes installed by default on CIA computers. Is the Restaurant Good? Or Does It Just Look Good?, How This Former Apple Engineer Uses Coffee Equipment to Create 5 Minutes of Bliss - "Good products are not born in labs or factories. I think they are born in workshops." Scott Rao's Coffeehouse Stories. Glydways, a company I invested in in 2022, just made some exciting product announcements.
Books: Art and Fear, which all new Chroma employees receive.
Coffee: Noma's first batch of coffees arrived - wash-processed coffee from Mexico and a natural from Ethiopia. Both are good, though the natural is a little too funky for me.
Videos: Probably Riding in Tokyo was relaxing. TBPN, a daily tech talkshow by the founder of Soylent, seems to be blowing up right now. James Hoffman - 3 Rules for Life. Bad Bunny Tiny Desk.
Podcasts: Tyler Cowen DJing for Rick Rubin was a fun podcast to listen to on a plane.
Tools: I love that Craig Mod built a private social network for his members. Make the web quirky again!