Cool
One cool tune, one cool thing, one cool quote. Every week.
Music selections are also in this convenient Spotify Playlist.
2025
Week 1
nx build system for monorepos. Even for personal projects it's a huge win and I won't do projects without it, and I despise complexity and over-engineering of tooling.
“What you're not changing, you're choosing.” ― Anonymous
Deutchland by Rammstein
Week 2
21 years of marriage
“What trillion dollar problem is AI trying to solve? Wages.” ― Professor Scott Galloway
Save your tears (Remix) by The Weeknd, Ariana Grande
Week 3
Small memorable games The movement towards short games that value players time and try to give them an experience.
“You either learn or you succeed, you can't fail.” ― Anonymous
Fantastic by King Princess, Arcane, League of Legends
Week 4
Black Widow remains consistently funny and engaging despite the usual MCU Act 3 over-the-top shenanigans. Yelena is my spirit animal.
“You cannot heal in the same environment that made you sick” ― Anonymous
Home by Shihad
Week 5
The reason to be a game developer Today I learned that accepted accounting practice in the US is that as a game developer you can expense Netflix, Disney plus, movies, game purchases, music subscriptions, internet, etc all as research.
“A toxic work environment is more likely to change you than you are to change it. Get out.” ― the best career advice I've ever received.
In My Mind - Axwell Radio Edit by Ivan Gough, Feenixpawl, Georgi Kay, Axwell
Week 6
3D Depth Effect on Sega Genesis Simple well designed and executed tricks that convince you this 16-bit system is doing 32-bit graphics.
“People don't abandon people they love, they abandon the people they're using” ― therapist rocking my world again.
Monsters by Ruelle
Week 7
The Gorge movie. Nails the action, the character building, the relationships, and sweet moments. Takes the time to get you genuinely invested in the characters before throwing them into the peril of the mystery. Best of all it sticks the landing, a perfect movie.
“Do you want to be right, or do you want to be effective?” ― Professor Scott Galloway
Spitting Off the Edge of the World by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Perfume Genius
Week 8
Pscyhology of a Hero: LOKI Breaks down the character of Loki by forcing him to confront all of his behaviours and values, revealing his root fears and insecurities, to shake him loose and choose a different path.
“Worrying is essentially worshipping the problem” ― another therapist mic drop
Demons by Hayley Kiyoko
Week 9
Gemini AI free tier limits are insanely great, coupled with a massive context window enables genuinely helpful coding assistance.
“You self sabotage because it allows you to predict what is going to happen, which resolves your anticipation anxiety and gives you the illusion of control” ― therapist mic drops continue
Stronger - Gunship Remix by SIERRA, Gunship
Week 10
Walking Outside every day for your mental health. Given how simple it is, it's almost annoying how wildly effective it is.
“Where focus goes, energy flows” ― Anonymous
Dangerous - Oliver Remix by Big Data, Joywave, Oliver
Week 11
That falling feeling when you're falling asleep? It's because your body feels your pulse falling rapidly and is like "I don't know if you're dying or falling asleep and I'm not willing to gamble" so it shoots you up with adrenaline to make you not die.
“Over-planning kills magic.” ― Anonymous
Girls Love Boys Love by secs on the beach
Week 12
The Residence show on Netflix. A densely woven Knives Out style mystery with a delightfully deadpan and effective detective Cordelia Cupp, that somehow sustains it's energy and mystery over the whole season to culminate in something that channels the wacky energy of Tim Curry in the Clue movie.
“What is human existence? Turns out it's pretty simple: we're dead stars looking back up at the sky.” ― Michelle Thaller, NASA astronomer and research scientist
Own Me by büllo
Week 13
Synthony in the Park a live orchestral performance of dance music with Cyril, Basement Jaxx, Darude, Kora, Ladi6, Th'Dudes. And a ferris wheel.
“Unsolicited advice is criticism. Always.” ― Anonymous
Opus by Erice Prydz
Week 14
Epic Universe superb detail, immersive theming and experiences - they have a burning windmill! Universal is throwing down with Disney and the winners are the consumers of both parks.
“Nothing for us without us” ― Accessibility engagement mantra. Always engage with the community, your assumptions about their needs will fail both them and you.
My Blood by Ellie Goulding
Week 15
“You can’t be lean and precise in coding unless you know the substrate you’re operating on.” ― anonymous
Softcore by The Neighbourhood
Week 16
Delivery Flight I've been working on the Future Aircraft Cabin Experience for Air New Zealand for the last five years. This week I got to fly over to the Singapore engineering workshops for the delivery flight of the the first aircraft fitted out with new cabin and inflight entertainment system back to New Zealand. One of the highpoints of my entire career.
“Rich people are protected by the law but not bound by it. Poor people are bound by the law but not protected by it.” ― Professor Scott Galloway
Welcome Home, Son by Radical Face
Week 17
Doug Chiang talks about how he struggles with drawing every time, and 9 times out of 10 his drawings are garbage and he has to keep going to get to the end product. Doug was the head of the Lucasfilm art department for 2 Star Wars movies and is now the vice president and creative director of Lucasfilm.
““Nostalgia takes you back to when you were not stuck. It takes you back to when you weren't overwhelmed and unable to cope.” ― therapist continues to kick me out of my comfort zone into the magic.
Samurai by Flecks
Week 18
Chrome browser request override tools are built into the standard Chrome Developer tools, you can override requests and responses and headers. It's an amazing tool to have in your toolbelt as a web developer.
“Apple treats developers as vendors to squeeze profit from, not as partners creating value. Apple should view developers as a precious resource to be cultivated, encouraged, and protected — not as a profit center to be squeezed.” ― John Gruber / Daring Fireball
Figuratives by MODERNS
Week 19
Baha Blast Mountain Dew It's ridiculous, it's not available in New Zealand, it was hugely appreciated when a friend brought some over on a work trip.
“If I’m not laughing or learning when my character does, then I’m probably not playing” ― Priscilla Snow on what matters when playing a game
Take Me Home by Giulio Cercato
Week 20
Cognitive Entrenchment the tendency for specialists to become overly reliant on established ways of thinking, making it difficult for them to consider novel solutions or perspectives causing them to struggle to adapt to new problems or changes in the field. Once David Epstein's book Range introduced me to the concept, I see it everywhere.
“...the world's richest man has been involved in the deaths of the world's poorest children.” ― Bill Gates politely yet accurately skewering Elon Musk for his obliviously cruel actions.
The Middle by Stillman
Week 21
Directors Directing realising that Christopher Macquarie and Steven Spielberg have really economical shot and scene designs. Every facet of the frame is an action, really clever, smart, and economical storytelling, there is no fat in what they do.
“The interface is the gameplay” ― Brenda Romero on the true UX of games
Again (feat. XXXTENTACION) by Noah Cyrus, XXXTENTACION
Week 22
Dennis Villanueva approach to script writing he writes his script, then creates storyboards from the script to figure our the mise en scène, then rewrites the script from the storyboards. He says it's remarkable how much that changes the script. When they're shooting they use the storyboards and the storyboard script, but if the location has something great and unexpected and cool it overules both.
“Your game is not complete until there's nothing else you can remove” ― Will Wright
Moi.. Lolita by Alizée
Week 23
Tokyo DisneySea park My wife and I spent the day in this theme park and the attention to detail and theme and story throughout was beyond superb. The lantern scene from Tangled was a stand out moment of beauty, but Peter Pan's Neverland Adventure ride was a magical experience.
“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust” ― Peter Pan
Typical Ways by Culture Wars
Week 24
Xbox Smartglass Whilst it never got much adoption, the concept and core execution was great.
“The 3 types of games
- Games where the designer is having all the fun
- Games where the computer is having all the fun
- Games where the player is having all the fun
- ”
Shy Girl by Haute & Freddy
Week 25
KPop Demon Hunters is perfect. It's not just fun, it's phenomenal. The perfect animation which balances style, moments, and movement without descending into the eye bleeding extremes of spider-verse. Then songs are beyond catchy and stay in your mind for weeks, and the story is universally appealling. Pixar and Disney just got put on notice.
“Every snowflake is special. But one snowflake is probably the best.” ― Iconically snarky awards presenter in KPop Demon Hunters
Golden by HUNTR/X
Week 26
Death Stranding 2 The fireworks, Flood creating healing rain, the improved pacing and story and gameplay. It continues to be unrelentingly strange and yet earnest, Hideo Kojima is hitting his stride as an indie studio.
“The creative life is intrinsically one of emotional risk.” ― Anonymous
Free by HUNTR/X
Week 27
Jellyfin home media streaming system, without the complexity and bonkers licensing of Plex (pay to stream your own content)
“Law of Sustainment - you can't sustain actions that are in conflict with your belief in your self.” ― Anoymous
What It Sounds Like by HUNTR/X
Week 28
Operation Aurora Google documentary series on security, following five teams through six stories of actual events. Really well produced and completely engrossing.
“Being an imagineer is using technology in service of making people happy.” ― Imagineering
The Feels by Labrinth
Week 29
Cross-pollinating elegant code ideas across languages Having to code review a particularly elegant Golang API codebase made me realise how I can write and structure better Typescript.
“Drawings are the artefacts of looking” ― Dean Deblois director, producer, writer at Dreamworks
Color You In by Yam Haus
Week 30
“The idea that it’s fraudulent for a chatbot to spit out a list that doesn’t have Donald Trump at the top is so performatively ridiculous that calling a lawyer is almost a mistake.” ― First amendment expert Evelyn Douek, Assistant Professor of Law at Stanford University on AI companies being legally threatened when Trump was listed last on requests to rank the last five presidents from best to worst.
Time of Your Life by Bob Moses
Week 31
“You must ride the front or the back, never the middle. The middle belongs to the chaos.” ― Icelandic horse pack riding. Also project management.
Love Story - Version Orchestrale by Indila
Week 32
Wednesday Season Two Bringing back Principal Weems to be Wednesdays spirit guide was perfect - so much delicious dialogue and wind ups. Nom nom nom.
“Congratulations, Miss Addams. Your hubris has yet again made you the architect of your own demise.” ― Principal Weems absolutely schooling Wednesday Adams in season 2.
Deftones by Ryutqc
Week 33
Denver airport sculpture is a 4 storey blue horse with red glowing eyes, Denver you're my kind of psycho.
“I was really focussed on it being a plot driven story. I didn’t want it to be a story about a man’s fight against crippling loneliness and isolation and the deep psychological aspects of that. I just wanted MacGuyver on Mars.” ― Andy Weir on The Martian
Waiting On A Miracle by Stephanie Beatriz
Week 34
The Imitation Game score. The movie is a steady build and charm, but the music is a complete delight - subtle and perfectly enhancing the scenes. The hounding of Turing in his private life is agnosing to watch as he erodes and struggles to endure.
“Sometimes it’s the very people who no one imagines anything of that do the things that no one can imagine.” ― Alan Turing
All Around Me by Luna Orbit, Master Produções Remix
Week 35
Andy Weir talks The Martian at Lawrence Livermore National Labratory and it's super entertaining.
“On the whole, humans are so inherently good and cooperative that it's not notable when they are.” ― Andy Weir
Last Forever by Bob Moses
Week 36
Herman Miller Chair After years of a series of cheap and really not great chairs, I splurged on a second-hand Herman Miller and my entire body is immediately grateful. I would never brand new, but you can get them second-hand for 20% of the new price.
“The art is knowing when to stop.” ― Jeff Vogel, indie game developer legend dispensing perfect advice yet again.
American Money by BØRNS
Week 37
PS4 User Experience The simplicity, speed, and directness of the Playstation 4 UI compared to the Playstation 5 is a breath of fresh air.
“It's better than good, it's good enough.” ― Community once again being a lot smarter than it pretends to be.
Shelter by Porter Robinson, Madeon
Week 38
Do the F*cking Work: Lowbrow Advice for High-Level Creativity is a fun book about creatively just going for it and figuring it out as you go, happily failing forward to success.
“The meaning of life is not discovered, it's created.” ― Do the F*cking Work: Lowbrow Advice for High-Level Creativity
Wait by M83
Week 39
Jony Ive conversation covering a bunch of topics, reveals nothing about the future, but how he thinks about things remains interesting.
“In our industry I think joy and humour has been missing... joy gets confused with being trivial.” ― Jony Ive
Diet Pepsi by Addison Rae
Week 40
Blade Runner 2049 I finally rewatched this on a large 4k HDR screen, and the subtlety and grace and emotion it has moved me - an experience entirely absent from my first viewing.
“One of the mistakes that people make is that simplicty is about removing clutter, and to me that means you would just end up with an uncluttered product - a desiccated souless product. That's what a lot of minimalism and modernism ends up manifesting as. Simplicity to me is to succinctly express the essence of something and it's purpose and it's role.” ― Jony Ive
Right Thing by Bayonne
Week 41
NZ Design Awards The work I did with my team for the Air New Zealand inflight entertainment system won second place for digital product of the year.
“Dreaming ain't doing. Curating is not creativity.” ― Anonymous
Speak In Tongues by machineheart
Week 42
Robert Rodriquez interview by Lex Fridman. He continues to be an inspiring film maker and general creative person. He's operating without fear simply because he's making things for himself, and if it entertains him then other people will probably like it too.
“If you’re accountable for outcomes but have no real decision making power, then you’ll be constantly locked in a state of stress with no real relief.” ― Anonymous
Hot Blooded by New Constellations
Week 43
Lando Norris website is a stunning piece of design and interaction. Not only is it on-brand and beautifully animated and interactive, it's FAST as well.
“As a designer you have to know who you are. Following your dreams is trying to find yourself.” ― Roland Mouret on being a fashion designer.
Sit Next To Me by Foster The People
Week 44
Claude AI agent mode is the realisation of the quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Being able to supply data sources and ask it to create summaries and breakdowns of trends, and see it write python code to generate web pages for the results is modern day magic.
“The greatest weapon to fight racism is aggressive whimsy.” ― Ron Funches
Jet Black Heart by 5 Seconds of Summer
Week 45
Fire and Water: Making The Avatar Films is a great two part documentary primarily about the making of the second film, and reminds me of everything I love about movies and movie making. The problem solving, the imagination, the world building, the team work and comaradery.
“Well formed ideas about the future are difficult to form because we have insufficient now to stand on.” ― William Gibson
I Remember (Strobelight Edit) by deadmau5, Kaskade
Week 46
Sword of the Sea game from the artist behind Abzû and Journey is epic. The movement and feel and vibes are astonishing, I picked it up and spent the next several hours skating over sand and ruins on my sword doing tricks. Highly recommended.
“Don't you people know anything about a coverup? This is like trying to hide pissing yourself by shitting yourself!” ― Josh Johnson on the republicans responding to the democrats releasing 3 Epstein emails, by releasing 20,000 pages of Epstein documents.
Mad World by Gunship
Week 47
Claude by Anthropic continues it's streak of being freakishly good at coding. With specific instructions and interation it not only writes code, it writes really good clean code.
“Frequently wrong but never in doubt” ― Kara Swisher on tech companies predicting anything, particularly the future.
Dream Steppin' by Two People
Week 48
Stranger Things Season 5 the first four episodes are tight, move the story and the people in all the right ways, threading the needle to earn the climax. The Duffer Brothers are nailing it.
“When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane, you also invent the plane crash. Every techology carries it's own negativity which is invented at the same time as technical progress.” ― Paul Virilio
BLEED FOR ME AGAIN by Johnny Goth
2024