Brad Barrish

With all of the messing around with AI that I’ve been doing, mostly with Claude Code, I’m spending a lot more time in Terminal. Working with a machine and instructing it using natural language is absolutely wild. Over the last few months, the time I spend in in a TUI is upwards of 50% of my time and I absolutely love it. What I’m about to share assumes that you have some familiarity and comfort on the command line and already have Homebrew installed. And, hey, if you don’t, ask your favorite AI for some assistance. These are just a few things that have genuinely enhanced my experience:

1. iTerm instead of Terminal
2. Oh My Zsh for some handy enhancements to the command line experience
3. Powerlevel10k theme for Oh My Zsh

Gabe Perez has an easy-to-follow guide to help and so does Steven Chim. I used them both to get my command line set up. So much of it is subjective. My suggestion is to start simple and minimal.

I was lucky enough to attend XOXO a few times. Cabel’s talk really was one of the best. I was floored to see that he posted a behind-the-scenes backstory that is utterly fantastic.

Finally doing something with the ~68,000 bookmarks I’ve been hoarding.

Tom Morello plays First Avenue in Minneapolis.

Love the upcoming Bruce Lee Forever stamp from the USPS.

What did Bowie do at your age?

Saw Jeff Tweedy tonight at Largo. Such a great show, even though I wasn’t familiar with most of the songs. I haven’t spent much time with his solo stuff. Judd Apatow did some standup to open, but Jeff might have actually been funnier.

If you are a California resident, the state now has a portal where you can demand deletion of your personal data from 500+ registered data brokers with a single request form, for free. I’ll probably keep paying for Incogni as well. I’ve definitely noticed a difference.

Excited to dig into this beautiful new book from Stewart Brand. I can get enough of Stripe Press books. They’re always so lovely.

No international travel this year, which was a bummer, but I did get to spend some time in NYC, which I had not done in a while.

I love my Oura ring, but for all the focus on making it feel smarter I still get notifications about stretching my legs when I’m on planes and driving, which feels pretty dumb.

Disclosure: I’m a former employee and shareholder.

I was sad to learn that James Grauerholz passed away on January 1. While it had been some time since I spoke to James, I was lucky enough to spend some time with him and William when I was going to school in Lawrence, Kansas in the 90s. James was visiting Los Angeles not long after I had moved there and we spent some time together. He was especially supportive of me when I started my short-lived record label. He was also encouraging of my writing, which meant a lot. Farewell, James.

Speaking of RSS, I’m using it more than ever. Every newsletter I subscribe to goes into my feeds now and I made major progress unsubscribing from most newsletters that were coming into my email inbox. In 2025 I added 74 new feeds, bringing the total number of sites in Feedbin to 3,651.

The fine folks at Buttondown made a tool to combine multiple RSS feeds into a single feed. I don’t currently have a use for this, but I think it’s a neat idea.

Happy New Year.

I had not previously read Chenyang “Platy” Hsu’s blog, but their post Times New American: A Tale of Two Fonts was delightful.

Finished Pluribus last night and really enjoyed it. Is it about disconnection and loneliness? AI? Vaccines? Politics? Culture? Feels like I need time to process more and maybe write about it. Definitely made me think.

Also watched one of the new episodes of Stranger Things with the daughter.

This PhotosExport tool from Rui Carmo looks really great. I just exported my Google Photos library using Takeout and am consolidating everything on an instance of Immich on PikaPods.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, from a snowless and balmy Colorado. It’s 52 here (probably over 60 in the sun), which is pretty crazy.

Having a little time off means I’ve been spending some time on my blog. I’ve been wanting to catalog as many of my music playlists as I can find, whether they’re online or not. You’ll see a new Playlists menu item if you’re visiting my blog on the web. I’ll be adding more over time.

If you’re looking for a list of lists when it comes to music released in 2025, look no further.

Absolutely incredible! Wow! It’s Not That Serious is a dance film by Ricky Ubeda.

In no particular order, these are ten albums released this year that I enjoyed. Are they the best? I dunno. Who cares? I don’t want to argue or invite discussion about that sort of thing. I do, however, want to introduce people to music they might not otherwise hear. There’s nothing quite like getting a note from someone telling me they really enjoyed some album or song I told them about. My thirst and excitement for new music hasn’t wavered. I suspect it never will. Most of my music listening is a never-ending quest not just for new, but new and interesting. I live for that initial feeling of being moved in some way by a song or album. Much of what stirs something in me tends to be some form of jazz, classical, electronic or some combination of thereof. All of that to say, I hope you find something to like from this list. If you do, let me know.

Panda Bear - Sinister Grift

Pulp - More

Patricia Bennan - Of the Near and Far

Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out

SML - How You Been

Geese - Getting Killed

Turnstile - NEVER ENOUGH

Okonski - Entrance Music

Rocket - R is for Rocket

Djrum - Under Tangled Silence

P.S. I’m still working on my usual year-end playlist, which will certainly include music from these albums and more.