Friction, Bog Fashion & How to Burn Some Cash

I’m tired of optimizing. How do I un-optimize?

Tucker: Add friction.

The Internet is mainly now just a trade show of personal optimization products. Whoop will sell you a bracelet to tell you if you slept well so you can optimize your unconscious hours.

Making things better is good, but it turns out there are two issues with total optimization. First, most solutions are various forms of snake oil. Secondly, the most fun part of life is frequently the friction.

Out of the 12 total people who attended my recent Fancy Pants Golf Trip to Ireland, 11 of them were in first class. I was in a middle seat in coach. When we landed at Shannon Airport the rest of the crew complained their seats didn’t lie flat enough. I, however, arrived well-rested because both folks sitting next to me fainted in the galley and were evacuated from the plane before we took off (both safely and in good health). Result? I’m rewarded with an empty row all to myself because I embraced the friction.

Sleek interfaces and “solutions” have promised us a version of life that is seamless and safe. It is also somehow less fun.

I need a new job. AI is going to filter my resume. What should I put on it?

Naomi: You gotta make two: one resume for humans, one resume for robots.

The Coalesce team has been in a near constant state of recruiting for our little circus troupe here. We need more engineers, different types of engineers, UI designers, and occasionally a lobster-themed burlesque dancer (real thing but not a position that is currently open).

We schedule initial interviews based off of a robot-whittled list in addition to personal recommendations from friends and cold outreach from brave strangers. Guess what? The “Superpower” filter from our hiring site returns the same amount of good-fit folks that the other methods do. Yes, they’re doing some highly-structured keyword tango and portfolio micro-needling, but they simply can’t know if you’re weird in a good way or not. Only I can determine that.

The power of meeting real people and looking at their eyeballs and filling awkward silences is still the best way to find a job. It takes more work. (Friction, perhaps.) But we have to find ways to make connections. Then I’d recommend sending those people a decadently-designed (or eerily-minimalistic) art piece of a resume that represents you—a human being—a collection of feelings and preferences (and work experiences, too) so they can see how strange you are. Sure, start with a template. Then un-templatize it as fast as you can.

My tax return came in and it’s not a bill this year. What should I buy?

Naomi: Very small books. Very small books travel well and are more alluring, largely in part to Cute Factor. Very small books, especially when they are good books, are treasures. They delight strangers on public transit, for the masses no longer often see very small books in use.

The very small book I’m reading now is “So Many Books” by Gabriel Zaid, which reminds us that the book itself is one of the last forms of media where there are no third parties (advertisers) and all costs are paid by the public (the reader). Name one other medium where you can consume media that isn’t subsidized by corporations or doesn’t require a separate device for consuming it.

The other things Tucker and I have deemed you should buy, as they have brought us great joy and/or usefulness:

• A spell from an Etsy witch — “My cousin bought an anti-rain spell for her wedding. The father of the bride also buried a bottle of bourbon upside down in a field with the same goal. I can’t say for certain which method worked better, but the ceremony was dry and delightful.” —Tucker

• Hey Hae nail stickers — “Astonishingly long-lasting and un-bothersome.” —Naomi

• A portrait of John Oliver from Deadly Prey Gallery — “Naomi once declared that John Oliver was my Beyonce. It was both hurtful and correct. Fall down the rabbit hole of Ghanaian art with this wild collab.” —Tucker

• Snackyard dried organic mushrooms from Costco — “Extreme addiction alert.” —Naomi

• Paper composite cutting boards — “Retire the wood and hide the plastic.” —Naomi

• What’s Your Type typography game — “It’s Shag/Marry/Kill but for fonts.” —Barbara

• Le Lick electrolyte lollipops — “I’m biased because I helped start this company, but these suckers are the first healthy candy you’ll actually want to eat.” And here’s 10% off. —Naomi

• Silver Panasonic RX-5085 boombox cassette radio — “Why are y’all still on vinyl?” —Tucker

The AI Dumpster

All those AI landing pages won’t out-smart Google. (LilyRayNYC Substack) “If your content is trash, you will be punished by other robots who monitor what the humans like.” —Justin. There are no shortcuts to this…unless you have a friend who can make you a Wikipedia page.

“Why do all AI logos look like buttholes?” (VelvetShark) Wins for favorite headline of the year.

Vercel just open-sourced their internal security agent. (Vercel) Vercel says it can now pretty accurately find and fix vulnerabilities in your code. Free and runs on your machine with the AI subscriptions you already pay for. Spooky.

Things we can still beat AI at? Retail. (Andon Labs) In the “world’s first store run by AI,” guess what the AI did first? Hired humans to help it.

FINALLY: A reminder that we’re all building the future with a mischievous genie that has a goblin fetish. (BBC) The most recent system prompt for OpenAI’s coding assistant Codex was revised to say it should “never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user’s query.” Apparently, developers found that references to “goblin” (among other strange animals) had risen by 175% in ChatGPT responses since GPT-5.1’s launch. (Where the goblins came from, per OpenAI.)

To Ponder

Wish we woulda built that: Train Jazz. “Every dot is a real subway train. Eight hundred of them, give or take, form a small jazz combo.”

The Bog Fashion renaissance is here. Let us become swampy Victorian mysteries, dressed in peat moss and damp wool. (NY Times, Atmos Magazine, Elphaba’s cardigan commentary, Galifianakis in the garden)

The new Ferrari is a full-on squircle (square-ish circle, not to be confused with a rounded square). Do you like it? (LinkedIn, The Free Press)