I can’t believe this is how I discover Andrea Gibson but I’m also eternally grateful

I’m almost done with my first play through of Fire Emblem Awakening. What an amazing game and feels like it has a ton of replayability. Three Houses and Engage were both some of my favorite games ever, so this was my next step in the series. What should I play after Awakening? #JRPG #FireEmblem

Happy Father’s Day to my fellow dads! Becoming a dad is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, hope it is true for you as well!

I am obsessed with this song “Wednesday Baby” by Midnight Sister. Her voice scratches something in my brain.

Oh man, so excited for this as a lifelong #JRPG fan: “A Guide to Japanese Role-Playing Games” from @bitmapbooks.com. Look how beautiful it is! 😍

Me: We need to save money Also me:

Dude these Chrono Trigger boss fights are so much harder than I remember. How did teenage me do this?!

Law of parenting 122: no matter what or how much you bring on a trip, your child will ask you for the thing you did not bring.

Why do they make it their entire personality??

I’ve been playing Chrono Trigger on the Steam Deck, first time since the 90s. Man it holds up! Such an amazing game.

If you’re at @writethedocs.bsky.social in PDX, come find us for some Writer hats, socks, and stickers! Who better to give these away to than a bunch of writers??

“Science confers power on anyone who takes the trouble to learn it.” - Carl Sagan

The difficult thing about parenting a toddler is that they’re acting totally as expected and should at that age, it’s just that all of society and a functioning household does not work that way lol

All this talk of Ken Griffey Jr. taking photos at the Master’s made me remember one of my all time favorite SNES games: Ken Griffey Jr.’s Winning Run. I was *obsessed* with this game as a kid. Anyone else?

Finally upgraded my Kindle for my birthday after 10 long years! The size difference is wild. What are some of your favorite books over the last couple of years?

Giving Undertale a shot, I’ve heard lots of great things about it. I’m about 3 hours in and really digging the retro and Earthbound vibes. Have you played it?

I’ve been enrolled at night school at Dishes University lately, meaning I go through Coursera and EdX courses on math, comp sci, and ML while cleaning the kitchen every night. Gotta find the time you can when you’re working and parenting 🤷‍♂️

Can’t even fathom how many hours of insider trading and anti-corruption trainings I’ve gone through my whole career, being told that even accepting a gift >$50 is bribery, and now we have a sitting president openly manipulating the market.

Predicting that CS degrees are going to be in higher demand and more valuable in the coming years due to AI. There is way more to engineering than just writing code, and it will be increasingly difficult to prove competency as models get better at coding. What do you think?

One of my coworkers shared his transition and new name today and the response was so wholesome and positive. A really nice light in a dark time.

How it feels seeing all the Ghibli memes

Finally added "now" and "uses" pages to my site. I've always thought these were cool after learning about them from Derek Sivers and @wesbos.com. Great way to keep folks up to date about what's going on in your life & what tools you're using. Do you have either? Now: www.samjulien.com/now/

Beat God of War (2018) last night. What a great game. I was so surprised by the depth of storytelling and character development. Lots of fun! It’s too bad Ragnarok doesn’t work on Steam Deck.

TIL about `git rerere`, which stands for “reuse recorded resolution” and allows you to ask Git to remember how you’ve resolved a hunk conflict so that the next time it sees the same conflict, Git can resolve it for you automatically. 🤯

Unbelievable how kids just become walking talking sources of joy in your life

Please remember that no matter who you are and what you’re going though You (yes you, especially you) are valuable You matter The world is better with you in it

This has been my therapist-recommended textbook for the last year, highly recommend. “Full Catastrophe Living” by Jon Kabat-Zinn

One of the best and most underrated uses of personal knowledge management tools like Obsidian is creating a self-care handbook. I keep a “handbook” for myself on what helps my physical and mental health and it is incredibly useful. It’s like leaving notes for my future self when I need help.

The struggle of “I need to follow the news to be an informed citizen to protect the ones I love” and “I need to protect my mental health so I can continue to provide for the ones I love” is so real these days

Really enjoyed this conversation with @dthompsondev.bsky.social about the role of a director, organizational leadership, building cross-functional influence, and much more. Thanks Danny!

Life advice from Tolkein

As knowledge becomes increasingly commoditized, wisdom becomes more precious.

I ended 2024 twenty pounds lighter than when I started, largely thanks to @mybodytutor.com (thanks @joelhooks.com). The most surprising thing is that these overnight oats are doing a huge amount of heavy lifting. They keep me full in the morning & set the tone for the day.

Our picks of the top ~50 papers for AI Engineers to read from scratch to competent in 2025: latent.space/p/2025-papers Feedback welcome/enjoy!

Happy PR Review Catch-up Day to all who celebrate! 📋

Quarterly experiments > New Year’s resolutions www.samjulien.com/setting-quar...

Welcome to the most motivated day of the year. Don’t forget to channel some of that energy into building systems for when that motivation drops! Systems are more effective than willpower.

🥂 Happy New Year everyone! May this be your best year yet!

2024 marked 10 years in tech & my pivot to product/AI engineering. Leveled up fast while prioritizing family. Only regret was being too busy *doing* to do much teaching. 2025 is beast mode—but I'm bringing as many people with me as I can.

Cyberpunk 2077 is a great game but it’s so grizzly and gritty that I don’t really look forward to playing it with my precious little game time. Witcher 3 had some “adult” stories but was set in such a fantasy world that it didn’t hit so hard. Just me?

Did another major chunk of migrating my site from Gatsby to @astro.build. I love how clean Astro is & AI tools are supercharging the process. Steps and lessons from this session:

Welp, Bench just shut down effective immediately (not surprised tbh). Anyone have recs on QuickBooks vs Wave vs Kick vs something else for LLC books?

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all have had a wonderful day. 🎄 Grateful for all of you!

I have never seen the Jim Carrey version of The Grinch and we are remedying that now! 🎄

Possibly the nerdiest thing about me is how much I love the Lord of the Rings Living Card Game. It is so, so good. Difficult strategic deck-builder with amazing thematic mechanics. Solo or co-op. No concept of card rarity so easy to jump in. 10/10 will talk your ear off about it

Having a kid has curbed any thoughts of regret about past decisions. Every single choice, good or bad, important or trivial, led to the creation of the light of my life. I would change nothing.

What were your favorite Christmas/holiday specials and TV episodes growing up? I’m in a loop of the same set year after year for nostalgia. What’s your nostalgia loop? I’m so curious what my son’s will be.

Be the voice that brings old wisdom to new problems.

First trip to see Santa with my two year old went about as good as you’d guess haha. Iconic pictures though! 🎅😭

Spent a couple of hours with bolt.new rebuilding my site from Gatsby to @astro.build. I’ve been putting this off for a year and it’s nearly done after a couple hours. 🤯 Used screenshots & current code to guide it along, even created a script to move articles.