link.dump.01.16.2026

learning to love work, unhappy Americans, boxcutters, gene therapy, and boardgames

dumptruck with box cutters driven by an unhappy American

1. The key to longevity is learning to love the work and the life around it. This really resonated. I especially like the dig on “follow your passion” which is a perfectly gilded piece of advice that frequently has lead under the gilding. You need to find some passion in work, I think, but the idea that work should follow a passion doesn’t fit with the world as I see it.

2. On the heels of that is Noah Smith’s hypothesis about one reason why Americans are so fucking unhappy right now

3. AI is taking a bite out of untyped languages. Yet another reason I can pick Go over Python, neat! I think this was an interesting quick read though that speaks to LLM limitations and how you sometimes have to adjust your work to the tools in your hand. Adaptability beats passion, you might say…

4. I’m always interested to read architectural reviews that explain why, sometimes, it doesn’t need to be as complicated as you thought it was. Or at least that sometimes there are other trades to make. Why we’re leaving serverless was one of these.

5. A fun screed on how much access and luck feeds into publicity and success even in the “high brow” arts like literature. Educational and well written and I don’t know who any of these people really are because it doesn’t have spaceships or dragons.

6. Really enjoyed this take on using a boxcutter and “unpacking” things.

7. Don’t fall into the anti-AI hype. Indeed.

8. Board games are good for kids seems…obvious?

9. Fixing hearing problems with gene therapy. I still think genetics is a frontier rich with improvements to be made.

10. I like this write-up of how senior engineers sometimes have to let things fail.

11. And then a thoughtful take on staff engineers beyond senior.