A Geek's Life

The Musings of a Prodigal Abroad

JUnited 2026

For JUnited 2026, updated with one link each day in June 2026

  1. You Must Remember This by Jonathan Weiner at The American Scholar: A reflection on hyperthymesia, autobigraphical writing, and a brother in the aftermath of a father’s death.
  2. Why Things Will Eventually Fall Apart by Gary Marcus on Substack: On the LLM-route-to-a-profitable-moat fallacy.
  3. A Word to my Readers by Beth Adams on Substack: A reflection on the (positive) feedback subscribing to a blog (or newsletter) gives to the author. Food for thought for me, given I am increasingly RSS first these days.
  4. Enshittification, Despotification, and the Open Internet by Mike Masnick: A reflection on the role social media plays – and continues to play – in de-democratising the internet; and a shout out for decentralisation. (Hat tip to AJ Jacobs)
  5. Dear Ollie: An endearing (to me at least) record of all the joys a growing toddler brings.
  6. What does it mean to be African by Yannick Deza on Substack: Football (the World Cup starts in two weeks!) and the spectre of African (dis)unity.
  7. Montreal Unfiltered by Jonathan Sa’adah: A photographic tribute to itsindustrial past.
  8. Judging people by their contribution, not their ancestry by MothCloud.
  9. How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like This by Hanif Abdurraqib at Read A Little Poetry
  10. Get Blogging by Ben Werdmuller: A concise guide to starting a blog in 2026.
  11. Washing My Mother’s Hair by Char March: A hauntingly beautiful poem which reminds me of Dan Howell’s Piano in more ways than one.
  12. Notes from my Middle Passage by Ikhide Ikheloa: On coming to America and finding out about blackness. An oldie which still slaps good!
  13. How to Learn Deliberate Practice by Richard: A deeply thought out reflection on deliberate practice which is close to my heart, particularly in my current season.
  14. The Truth about Englishness: Stumbled upon, found interesting. Added to my RSS reader
  15. Pagecord Principles by lead developer/ founder Olly. What’s not to like?
  16. Search is Broken by Kev Quirk: On workarounds for the SEOslopification of web search.
  17. Finding your Blogger Archetype by James’ Coffee Blog
  18. The Nomad Life, Week 1 by Jason E: A wee bit envious I must admit.
  19. Billionaire Industrial Complex,: In which some of my favourite thinkers tackle the Nigerian billionaire class (created by state capture, rather any true innovation in my view)
  20. Pot, Kettle, Soccer, Football by AJ Jacobs: A bit “shouty” but quite a few valid points made. That I will concede.
  21. Estonian Day Dreams: Chris Arnade on walking in Estonia.
  22. Selika, Mystery of the Belle Epoque by Susanna Forrest in the Paris Review
  23. All Roads Lead to Om by Matt M. A touching tribute.
  24. Walking Homeward by Erin Plunkett
  25. The Hardest Thing about Hard Things by Sumeet Moghe
  26. The Twilight of the Chatbots by Ethan Mollick: Happy-ish reading for this domain expert.
  27. The Woman who Armed Me, by Ekpen Omonbude: In praise of a great teacher.