Opening line of a 2015 book: “It is becoming undeniably clear that Western civilization has entered a post-Christian age.” That didn’t age well. There seems to be a revival in America of both (on a large scale) nationalistic pseudo-Christianity and (on a smaller scale) more serious, engaged Christianity.

Christopher Schwarz making his woodworking books freely downloadable really is an extraordinary thing.

Electric vehicle demand is collapsing with the expiration of the tax credit.. While EVs were never going to be the silver bullet, it is remarkable how–its appears to me–that the mainstream conversation around climate change has evaporated. Or maybe I’m just missing it.

Going to be an usually wet and warm Christmas week. Should be pretty quiet here at work–a good time to catch up on some documentation and clarify plans for upcoming work.

Everything is so charged now that CPE classes for CPAs are now prefaced with a reminder that while policy will be discussed, politics (and, weirdly, even religion!) should be left out of any discussions.

ChatGPT has a TV ad showing a young farmer, working her multi-generational family farm, asking ChatGPT what’s wrong with her soybeans. But … but … sigh … never mind.

A good article about the current penny shortage. It’s unsurprising, I suppose, that this administration simply stopped minting pennies without providing any guidance on how the shift should be handled.

This Indian pudding (cornmeal custard) is really good! Some historical background in this video.

This video series on Suzanne Lupien just keeps on giving. The latest episode is about her half-century of spoon carving.

Reminding myself after failure: Having An Opinion is not your task. Your task is small, local, centered on your family. Your task is to live in right relationship, work faithfully, and do what good you can. Use fewer and fewer words, until they become unnecessary.

So this stuff is crazy, obviously. But could it not be the case that we’re in a fad period and everyone will be slightly embarrassed by it in a few years? Don’t people mostly return to a sane baseline? That’s not to say it won’t cause real destruction, but does it seem likely to redefine humanity?

As your accountant, I don’t recommend a fifty-year mortgage.

There are a few signs that my iPhone is nearing the end of its life, so I’ve been thinking about the Light Phone lately. Today I was discussing it with Rachel and she suggested turning my iPhone into something like a Light Phone to see how it goes. I took her advice.

Turns out, I didn’t end up with exactly a Light Phone equivalent, but it is drastically different than it was. No email, no YouTube, no browser, no micro.blog app. I did keep: Bandcamp, podcast app, craft, library apps for reading, and a variety of utilities that are actually helpful day-to-day but aren’t time wasters (reminders, Venmo, Walgreens).

The “time waster” apps are now only available to me on my iPad—and therefore slightly less accessible than a smartphone. My phone is now theoretically more a useful tool than an entertainment device. We’ll see how that works out this week.

My worldview is more aesthetic than rational—and I’m fine with that, since no one is looking to me for answers about anything.

Adam Kotsko: “That time I unexpectedly stopped ruining my own life” I’ve found Kotsko’s writing helpful for many years now—but I was never a fan of his relentless sarcasm. I’m glad he’s getting over that. It’s depressing how many good, intelligent folks are ruining their lives with social media.

Reading this by Alan Jacobs brought back to mind a question that occurred to me as I was reading Kingsnorth: why haven’t we seen something like the Timber Wars or Luddite machine breaking over data centers? I’m sure the answer is complicated. I wonder if leftists aren’t as worried about Big Tech?

James Bridle points out that solar panels are getting cheap enough that they’re being used as fencing in places. I still worry about Michael Moore’s argument that renewable energy is just as resource intensive as fossil fuel energy. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

Universally beloved IU football coach Curt Cignetti just signed a massive new contract, one clause of which stipulates that if universally hated IU president Pamela Whitten is not in her job, Cignetti’s buyout is cut in half. Keeping her job by holding the football team hostage. Classy.

Thich Nhat Hanh’s teaching on helping hungry ghosts is very good. Finding a way to compassion for your parents when the relationship has not always been good truly is as important as he says.

The confidence with which people tell others what to do, think, etc., just astonishes me. I had that sort of reckless confidence up until my mid-twenties. What happened (or maybe didn’t happen) to these other folks?

Webinar speaker: “All I can say is stablecoins are here to stay.” Ah, the argument from inevitability, the last refuge of all technologists. But we know that all this is the result of the choices of those with power. If they cared about something more than money, all of this could end tomorrow.

Gonna give Kagi News a try for a while. I like that it’s updated only once a day, and you can choose which categories of news you get. Comes from a variety of sources. The format is also cool: you can just read the story summary, or you can read further with all of the sources and background.

Nietzsche argued that Christianity is a slave morality—an argument best exemplified by Chik-Fil-A. 😄

Remember the video I shared about Suzanne Lupien a few days ago? Well, there’s also one about her bread baking that is even more beautiful.

🎵 I’m proud to be an American / where I know there’ll be a fee 🎵