Regarding this present moment, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg offers a prayer. In part:

“Notice all the layers of emotion you might be having about this–

the terror, rage, despair, helplessness, anguish, hope, heartbreak, and/or something else.

Just notice?

The great lie that we're separate from each other – that hate is logical, that stealing human beings or hurling bullets makes sense – is related to the lie that we're separate from the Earth and all things.

However you do it, find a way to lift something up from your heart today.”

— “how to face the horrors of now” by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg

Fun

• Need some encouragement to blog? Ava’s got some GIFs for you.
• Eric Mill posted 10 games he loved in 2025. This massive Sudoku Metroidvania jumped out at me. I’ve started on it and expect it to be a loooong one.
• Ekul.me is a newer member of the IndieWeb community and has a lot of fun things on his site: a retro computer terminal aesthetic, icons showing other visitors’ mouse movements on the page, tracking Monster Energy intake, and a map that IndieWeb people can add themselves to.

Music

• New earworm: “Divorce Horse Court” by Queen Frog

Tech

• Cory Doctorow wrote this great bit. No notes:

  I'm sorry. As a technology writer, I'm supposed to be telling you that this bet will some day pay off, because one day we will have shoveled so many words into the word-guessing program that it wakes up and learns how to actually do the jobs it is failing spectacularly at today. This is a proposition akin to the idea that if we keep breeding horses to run faster and faster, one of them will give birth to a locomotive. Humans possess intelligence, and machines do not. The difference between a human and a word-guessing program isn't how many words the human knows.

  — Sorry, eh by Cory Doctorow

Health

• duringcovid.com: I was feeling some frustration with people’s use of “during covid” and thought about setting up a single-serving website. I was pleased to find someone else already did.
• Loved Ava’s post “yes, i still wear a mask.” Don’t be mean to people who are wearing masks!

Media

• My friend Sheryl started up a video podcast! The first several episodes are up; here is the first one.
• I recently watched Dispatches from Elsewhere. I loved it and keep thinking about it. Beautiful stories about human connection and a fantastic cast. I might re-watch it and write some more about it.

Music

• I’m digging Placebo’s cover of “Running Up That Hill”. It’s the first song I’ve added to my 2026 playlist.

Fun

• infiniteballdrop.com takes the New Years Eve NYC ball drop and extrapolates the countdown to the whole year. Fun visualization! Note: turn your volume down before you click “Start” since the audio is a bit loud.

Health

• Crawford Killian wrote a good overview of what we’ve learned about COVID in its first six years:

  “Long COVID can last for years; it’s a personal disaster for those suffering from it, and a social and economic disaster for the country. Worse yet, a study in The Lancet Regional Health — Americas found repeated infections increase the risk of incurring long COVID.

  The COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2, isn’t only a respiratory threat. It can migrate through the body, doing damage to many organs. One study found that the virus can invade the brain, causing injury and cognitive deficits.

  A recent Australian study reported that brain damage inflicted by COVID-19 can last years, long after people feel recovered from the disease. The consequences include problems with memory, cognition and overall brain health.”

  — COVID-19 Is Six Today. What We’ve Learned (archived) by Crawford Killian

A while back I came across AJ Hawkins on TikTok. I really enjoyed how she talked about accessibility and community care in the context of the Kalma shop they opened in Port Townsend, WA. The staff wears masks, they purify the air, they invite/encourage guests to mask, and they provide free masks at the entrance. They were also intentionally making it a third space with community gatherings.

I really like their Values page and recommend reading it in full. A good summary, in part:

“WE ARE BUILDING A MORE CARING WORLD. We pursue equality by pursuing equal access to joy. Equal access to joy requires equal access to safety, community, opportunity, play, creativity, expression, self-determination, and the natural world.”

I was reminded of this today when another of her videos came across my feed. She talked about using affirmative language for our values since it communicates better who we are and can provide a roadmap for what living out those values looks like. A quote from it that is an evergreen reminder for me:

“My husband recently reminded me of the quote, ‘Hating my neighbor's oppressor is not the same thing as loving my neighbor.’ I wonder what our protest looks like when it’s no longer rooted in a hatred for the way that things are, but in a love for the way that things could be.”