Nothing hits harder than a 1987 PC Magazine editorial cartoon

I'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.

This is why I still love email newsletters. The best filter for What to Pay Attention To remains a thoughtful, human Knower

i'm not a huge fan of how everything is either literally or metaphorically on fire.

“Aim for Protopia. A protopian future is one that is only a little tiny bit better than today.” – Kevin Kelly

Protopia

For over a decade I have been talking about protopia, but I have never written out my description of it.

open.substack.com

Kevin Kelly on the new economy: “When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied. Well, what can’t be copied? There are a number of qualities that can’t be copied. Consider “trust.” You can’t purchase trust.” open.substack.com/pub/kevinkel...

Better Than Free

In the analog world, it takes great effort to make a copy.

open.substack.com

👀 Interesting rebuttal to Jonathan Haidt's "Anxious Generation" > "As a society we have almost a knee-jerk reaction to believe that the solution to any problem experienced by kids is to deprive them of yet one more freedom" archive.ph/uIcCC

Writing code is no longer a hard or rare skill, and that changes things. Great post by @thorstenball.com: "I want to shake them and go: man, don’t you see? All of it was built on the assumption that code is expensive! It doesn’t make sense anymore." registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/joy-and-cu...

Joy & Curiosity #78

Interesting & joyful things from the previous week

registerspill.thorstenball.com

When more people can build software, what happens to the value of software? In economics, when you increase the supply of something, its market value goes down (and so does the price). Up until now, software was valuable because it was hard to make. You needed a team of engineers, money, and time.

When more people can build software, what happens to the value of software? (Software that would have taken years to build now takes days) justinjackson.ca/software-fable

The value of software in a Fable world

What happens to the price of software when everyone's building software?

justinjackson.ca

Whenever I can, I ask "normal people" (friends at the coffee shop, Uber drivers, people I meet at meetups) how they consume podcasts. This is the general trend:

I'm having my son replace the AI-generated art on my blog with his hand-drawn art. He just finished his first piece for my popular "Calm Company" post: justinjackson.ca/calm-company

We need more calm companies

Calm companies are profitable, value freedom, have a purpose, and improve the team's lives. Frenzied companies are crisis-driven.

justinjackson.ca

Big companies aren't hiring juniors anymore, which sucks for young people. This year we hired Ian, a CompSci student, as our summer intern at @transistor.fm He's been making a podcast about his experience, and just interviewed me: share.transistor.fm/s/abfc686a?c...

4 - Video! Video! Video! (w/ Transistor Co-founder Justin Jackson) | High Low Piccolo with Ian Steyn | Episode 4

In the show's first ever video episode, Ian is joined by Justin Jackson, the CEO and co-founder of Transistor.fm (and the reason this podcast exists)! As it turns out, video has found its way into eve...

share.transistor.fm

It's wild to me that even with the best AI coding models at its disposal, Google still hasn't made Google Forms better.

To find a new business opportunity, ask: "Where are people/businesses spending money right now?" and "Where are people/businesses looking to spend money right now?"

tech people: "Claude Code and Claude Design are going to revolutionize websites!" government website: "hello."

Live in 2 hours! @justinjackson.ca and @jordangal.bsky.social tackle what it's like to run a SaaS these days. youtube.com/live/ch8Jqug...

THE PANEL LIVESTREAM - Jordan Gal, Justin Jackson

YouTube video by The Panel Podcast

youtube.com

the first surgery simulation game

You don't need to "know your customer." You need to know what your customer is actively searching for.

I think when people say your idea isn't "niched down enough" or "specific enough," what they're really telling you to do is find an idea with resonance. But it is possible to have a more general positioning and still find resonance through other factors (brand, design, features, etc.).

Wild to think some people are paying for Claude by CHECK

I’ve been enjoying @kyla.bsky.social’s analysis lately, especially on the stock market.

New post: We have a communication problem. (This message thread could have been a meeting) justinjackson.ca/communication

We have a communication problem

This message thread could have been a meeting.

justinjackson.ca

One thing business owners forget is that the very top of every sales funnel is “overall customer demand.” The volume of customer demand in a category (and the amount of competition for that demand) determines everything else downstream.

"I keep coming back to how much of our frustration isn't really a systems problem — it's an expectations problem. We keep waiting for things to settle down. For the schedule to clear up. For life to get back to normal. And then we'll really get started." – @mikevardy.bsky.social

Come watch us live, and hang out in the chat! (Feels like this podcast is really starting to cook now. 🔥)

The Panel Podcast@thepanel.bsky.social · 2mo ago

LIVESTREAM TODAY A bit later than normal: 12pm Pacific / 3pm EST Possible topic: "Fable feels like the first time that AI dev is moving away from egalitarian access and back toward big budgets meaning big advantages" youtube.com/live/HZJ5IOH...

Working on "the hardest thing" doesn’t mean “working on the thing that makes you work the hardest.”

"AI is taking a lot of the easy work, so now, all that's left is the hard work." – @jeremyenns.bsky.social

big dad jeans energy

Is Apple cringe?