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May 2025 update

May was an eventful month!

Website

After a prolonged absence, and having grown tired of the blog’s old theming (no native dark mode!) and general state of disrepair, I modernized the site by migrating SSGs from Jekyll to Astro. I don’t have much front-end experience so you’ll notice that I’ve mostly just repurposed an existing theme while I’m getting comfortable with Astro. Not yet 100% sure what theming direction I’d like to pursue, but I’m thinking of drawing inspiration from the Tufte aesthetic. I’ve also been browsing the Kagi Small Web a bunch lately; it’s a super cool way to discover thoughtful prose written by actual humans and to dig into the design choices they’ve made. Sidebar: Kagi’s search experience is incredible. Well worth the $10 monthly cost for the Professional tier.

I also took some time to customize the site’s typography. After some experimentation I think I’ll stick with the Braille Institute’s Atkinson Hyperlegible Next. It’s eminently readable, which I appreciate as someone whose eyesight is generally non-cooperative, and it looks great too. Linus Boman has a good YouTube video if you want a high-level overview of the font.

Also, the site is now reachable via https://danielspracklin.com in addition to the old GitLab Pages URL.

On the substantive content side, I managed to finish a post about the problem with continuous improvement. Not sure I quite stuck the landing, but I’m out of practice writing non-day-job content, so hoping things get smoother. I’m also working with nonzero velocity on a few new posts:

  • what 1960s Japanese photography theory can tell us about product “value”
  • how stream-aligned teams interact with governance and its artifacts
  • what “fast flow” looks like when you have 30 to 40 hours of meetings every week

Arts

In entirely unsurprising news, I didn’t finish any books this month but added three titles to the backlog anyway. A half-marathon is on the docket this year, so I got a copy of Pfitzinger’s Faster Road Racing. Independent People by Halldór Laxness is next on my list of Nordic Nobel laureates in Literature. And on the strength of Byrne Hobart’s recent review, I picked up Bernstein’s A Splendid Exchange.

In terms of non-book reading, I highly recommend Clayton Ramsey’s “I’d rather read the prompt” post. I also enjoyed the characterful posts on hanki.dev, which I discovered via Kagi Small Web.

I saw ten feature films this month (mostly Hollywood or recent arthouse work) but didn’t love any of them. Need to find time to watch the new Mission Impossible, although if it’s anything like the overblown and ponderous Dead Reckoning then my expectations are low. Seasons two of Andor and of Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal are also on the watchlist.

Of the May music releases, I really enjoyed the new billy woods album, although I still prefer Maps. Haven’t gotten around to Jenny Hval or Model/Actriz but am looking forward to both.