Ain't Enough To Go 'Round In This World
What’s going on, Internet? December crept up fast and suddenly it’s twenty three days until Christmas. I’ve been enjoying getting out more and seeing live music. There’s so much more happening up here in Auckland and it has been good getting back into gigs. I started the month with Tom Scott’s Anitya show at the Civic . A week later I questioned my own sanity by going out to another gig with some wonderful friends on a Tuesday night right before flying to Sydney for the first of two work trips. Sydney was great. It was good catching up with and see work mates in person, but also mentally exhausting. Flying back to Auckland for the weekend added to the fatigue, but I liked the change of pace. I even managed to catch up with some of my cousins and aunt for dinner. Having the chance to do that on work trips is a nice bonus. Meanwhile the house hunting and weekends of endless open homes finally came to an end. My wife viewed a place while I was in Sydney and pushed it through the offer stage. The offer was accepted conditionally before I’d even seen the house. We went unconditional a week later and only then did I walk through it for the first time. After more than sixty open homes this year, buying a place that needs work makes more sense for us than blowing our budget on something “liveable” but missing basics like linen cupboards, wardrobes, or a proper laundry. This way we get to shape it how we want. I’m excited for the new year. While catching up and surfing the web, one particular link making the rounds that claimed personal websites are dead, which I obviously disagree with and replied to . Finally, I finished up my Firefox Container configuration and shared it for anyone to try out . Let me know if you found the container setup useful. With all that going on, I still found time to watch a bunch of shows, listen to a lot of music, pick up tonne of new records, and make a few updates around the site. Here’s November in full. I watched a bunch of episodes on the flights back and forth from Sydney. No movies this month. What happened there. I carried on with The Chair Company, which wrapped up its first season yesterday. Such a bizarre show. No idea when the next season is coming but I’ll be sticking with it. I finished Andor season 3. What a damn good show. I’ve got Rogue One queued up to wrap up the story, even though I’ve already seen it three times. I’m still watching South Park. It’s fun, but I’m tired of the White House plot line (I’m sure Matt & Trey are too). I miss the boys just being kidsw. I’ll probably go back to season 1 soon to remind myself how the show has changed and evolved over the years. Some absolute classic episodes around seasons 6-7. Plu1bus caught my attention and I’m working through it as episodes release. Interesting premise and am enjoying watching the story unfold. On the flight I spotted the UK show Dope Girls and gave it a go. I forgot about it once I landed, but I’ll finish the remaining four episodes soon now that writing this post has reminded me. I started and finished season 2 of The Vince Staples Show. It leans into the same bizarre energy as later seasons of Atlanta. Low stakes, easy to watch, and fun. I also started Educators. Silly, very New Zealand, and perfect fifteen minute episodes when I don’t want to think and have an awkward laugh. I got through three books this month. Gabriel’s Bay by Catherine Robertson was a solid read with plenty of local flavour and a warm story. 7th Circle kept me hooked as it pushed further into the Shadow Grove universe I got into last year reading through the Maddison Kate books. I’m fully here for the messy plotlines and the drama threaded between the raunchy sex scenes. I’m here for it. I also read Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Her books are always epically tragic and beautiful at the same time, and this one absolutely delivered on both fronts. Trying to decide if I want to read the rest of the 7th Circle books this month or dive into something heavier like Project Hail Mary. This month saw my usual mix of pop, hip hop, and early-2000s. Mokomokai ended up as my top artist of the month, with Olivia Rodrigo, D12, Tadpole, Eminem, and Westside Gunn all getting steady playtime. Top albums were a mix - SOUR by Olivia Rodrigo at the top, followed by Tadpole’s The Buddhafinger, Mokomokai’s latest release PONO!, and both Heels Have Eyes records from Westside Gunn. MGK’s Tickets to My Downfall also crept back into rotation with the (All Access) release of five new tracks to the orignal album. MGK has a gig here next year - do I want to go see him in concert? I mean I like Tickets To My Downfall but think he’s a ballbag. Dilemas. Track of the month was “Verona” by Elemeno P, with “Kitty” by The Presidents of the United States of America, (thanks to riding in the car with my son) and a few Olivia Rodrigo singles scattered through the top ten. Mokomokai showed up again with “Roof Racks”, because sometimes I’m just in the mood for something agressive. November 2025 saw my largest vinyl haul ever. I took advantage of the 20 percent off vinyl sale at JB Hi-Fi, burned through a stack of saved vouchers, and grabbed a few special pieces elsewhere. The links are a bit of a mix this month and there’s a lot of them. Enjoy. Not a huge month for website work. I fixed up some CSS, finished rolling out categories and tags across all my posts, and cleaned up a few lingering bits of front-matter. I still need to build the individual category pages and rethink how this data is displayed on the posts index and on each post. The posts page itself needs a refresh too. I’m not loving the masonry card layout anymore. This update was brought to you by Alright by Tadpole Hey, thanks for reading this post in your feed reader! Want to chat? Reply by email or add me on XMPP , or send a webmention . Check out the posts archive on the website. Tom Scott – Anitya from the gig MOKOMOKAI – PONO , WHAKAREHU , and Mokomokai all direct from their website in a special bundle which included the last remaining copies of the Mokomokai Vinyl 1st pressing in Red & Black Marble Fleetwood Mac – Rumours — JB Hi-Fi Eminem – The Slim Shady LP (Expanded Edition) — JB Hi-Fi Stellar* – Mix — JB Hi-Fi Tadpole – The Buddhafinger , and The Medusa — JB Hi-Fi D12 – Devil’s Night (IVC Edition) — Interscope Vinyl Collective, orange variant with posters and D12 sticker in a beaufiful, heavy gatefold sleeve The psychological cost of having an RSS feed Filip explores the anxiety that comes with writing a blog knowing it has an RSS feed. My first months in cyberspace Phil Gyford remembers the excitement and optimism of being online in 1995. Steps Towards a Web without The Internet AJ Roach imagines a web that could exist without the internet, built from small, local networks instead of centralised infrastructure. Should Your Indieweb Site Be Mobile Friendly? MKUltra.Monster experiments with making old-web design mobile-friendly without losing its classic feel. I ❤ shortcuts #3: read a random blog post Hyde shares a neat script to help randomly surf the independent web. In Praise of RSS and Controlled Feeds of Information rkert writes about why syndication still matters and how sharing content across the open web helps sites stay connected. Who’s a blog for? Cobb thinks through who a blog is really for and why writing for yourself remains the most sustainable approach. Maintaining a Music Library, Ten Years On Brian Schrader reflects on maintaining his personal music library over a decade and why owning your collection still matters. ChatGPT’s Atlas: The Browser That’s Anti-Web - Anil Dash Anil Dash argues that Atlas isn’t just an unusual browser but an anti-web tool that strips context from sites and traps users in a closed, distorted version of the internet. I know you don’t want them to want AI, but… - Anil Dash Anil Dash questions how we should react to Firefox adding AI features. He suggests die-hard fans need to look past the knee-jerk outrage and ask whether Firefox is actually trying to offer a safer, more privacy-minded version of tools their non-technical friends are already using. Early web memories - roundup post Winther rounds up early web memories from the recent Bear Blog Carnival - gutted I missed this as it was happening! Blogs used to be very different. Jetgirl looks back at how blogs used to work, from tight-knit communities to slower, more personal writing, and how different that feels compared to today. PicoSSG Pico is a tiny static site generator focused on simplicity, giving you a lightweight way to build plain HTML sites without a full framework. Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next? Disassociated writes about the return of personal blogs and why niche blogs might be the next wave as people move away from algorithmic platforms. Feeds and algorithms have freed us from personal websites Disassociated pushes back on the idea that platform feeds are “good enough,” arguing that treating Medium profiles as websites misses the point, and that personal sites still matter because they give you control rather than renting space inside someone else’s algorithm. Small Web, Big Voice Afranca writes about how the small web still carries real weight, showing that personal sites and hand-built spaces can have a bigger impact than their size suggests. How to Protect Your Privacy from ChatGPT and Other Chatbots Mozilla explains how to protect your privacy when using ChatGPT and other AI tools, focusing on data control, account settings, and reducing what these systems can collect about you.
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