David Brownman

It's' time once again for my Favorite Media of the Year post! I can't believe it's my 10th. I truly don't know where the time has gone. Please check it out and let me know what your favorites from 2025 were!

mmygod

Today's reading en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

Thinky Direct 2026 is LIVE!! 🎉 thinkygames.com/even...

🎉 Yes, it's true! Thinky Direct is returning for 2026, with a whole new line-up of exclusive trailers and reveals for the most amazing thinky games. Keep an eye out for more info very soon! Puzzle sicko content creators and journalists, reach out! More info below 👇

Pronouncing "tentacles" like a Greek hero

This is today! Hope to see you there!

⭐️Season 2 of Thinky Dailies has begun!⭐️ No account needed! No ads! Puzzles from the VERY BEST puzzle designers! Look at that artwork!

Ordered business cards from @jukeboxprint.bsky.social and they turned out SO WELL. Plus their support has been above-and-beyond helpful. Real people actually reading my email and solving my problem. Unreal awesome.

It's wild that they're still putting cameras on the back of iPads. People use them enough to justify the weight, cost, and inability to lie flat??

Gonna leave this open for another couple of weeks. Get in while you can!

Here's my 2025 day 3 #AdventOfCode solution (in #Python, per usual)! An extra clean little dynamic programming problem. advent-of-code.xavd.id/writeu...

PSA: if you use @mullvad.bsky.social with any openvpn-specific docker images, you should know that they recently sunset those servers and your stuff is broken. Luckily, there's a similar, wireguard-specific docker imager that takes just a little fiddling to get working.

Better late than never, but I've got a solution post up for #AdventOfCode 2025 day 1 in #Python. It turns out babies make you tired?? But we got there anyway. advent-of-code.xavd.id/writeups/202...

This post from @jhpot.bsky.social puts words to a feeling I've had for a while. It's a weird word out there and I'm glad (or at least hopeful) we can find joy in our own ways and places. justinpot.com/whats-worth-...

It's education stipend season! Any must-have technical books or courses you'd recommend? Topics could include: General software engineering, #Python, #Rustlang, #Typescript, or anything else extra cool.

We’re very excited to announce Thinky Dailies! 🎉 Follow our thinky friend on an adventure through handcrafted daily puzzles! thinkygames.com/dail...

Go play this! It's such a fun game and I'm excited that there'll actually be people in the queue finally.

This feels good and normal

Happy official #Pithon day to us all! It's got template strings, new interpreter options, some better error messages, and more! Big congrats to @hugovk.dev and all the #Python contributors that made this possible! mastodon.social/@xavdid/1111...

They talked about my recent TypeScript blog post in this episode. It's a cool listen!

Real life @xkcd.com 1105 sighting! xkcd.com/1105/

Wrote a little #blog post over the weekend about my favorite #TypeScript pattern: #Python kwargs! It's a great little pattern. xavd.id/blog/post/py...

#Python f-strings have a super powerful templating language built in! But I always forget the exact syntax. Well, no longer! h/t @the-compiler.org fstring.help/cheat/

If you look closely, you might recognize the byline on that article... 👀

I wrote a bit about my experience doing a bunch of Rust last year! As expected, there were good parts and less good ones. Neat language though. xavd.id/blog/post/my...

A new #AdventOfCode solution? In #python? It's more likely than you think. Here's 2024 day 16! I'll finish these yet. advent-of-code.xavd.id/writeups/202...

PSA: It's both Bandcamp Friday AND there's a new 8-Bit Big Band album out!! album.link/i/1813061416 It's available on streaming, but some stuff is fun to own. Plus you can support them financially!

Latest review is up! It's from one of my favorite studios, so no real surprise- it was a slam dunk!