Hey friends!

I hope you had a good Pi Day (3/14) yesterday! My week was a long one, but it was nice ending it with some tasty pie with friends and family. Let's learn!

Was this forwarded to you? You can subscribe here!

Web links of the week

What do coders do after AI?
Too Much Color
The Odometer Effect (without JavaScript)
Trash Talk - Understanding Memory Management (video)

Something that interested me this week

The most exciting thing of the week was my round in the MadCSS tournament! It was very fun. I screamed. You'll see.

I also did a video for work about the GitHub Copilot CLI, and then... I got a stye in my eye. It's relevant because I recorded this video about this newsletter's anniversary and had to wear sunglasses because it is not a cute look.

But anyway! Speaking of that! My newsletter's 9th anniversary is coming up in a couple weeks. Every year I offer giveaways from a variety of companies, from credits to swag to gadgets to tickets to coupons! If your org would like to donate a prize, hit reply here and I'll happily slot you in.

Sponsor

DatoCMS is the headless CMS that won't make you regret your stack choices at 2AM.

GraphQL and REST APIs out of the box, a smooooth content modelling system that actually makes sense, cache tags, great CLI, layered MCP, and an editor experience your non-technical folks will love (we know that's a low bar, but still). Speaking of the box, it comes with all the buzzwords your content team's going to ask for — SEO, i18n, Visual Editing, plugins, modular content, asset optimization, collaboration, versioning... you get the drill. It's bootstrapped, got a great free tier, fast, plays nicely with all your frameworks, is DX-first, and refreshingly AI-light.

Give DatoCMS a try →

Interview question of the week

Last week, I had you swap characters to get an alternating string. Yayayay David, Ten, Paul, Micah, Amine, Christian, AJ, Matt, Donato, Toni, and the cool kids in the Ruby Users Forum!

This week's question:
You're given a 2D grid representing a city where each cell is either empty (0), a fire station (1), or a building (2). Fire stations can serve buildings based on horizontal + vertical moves only. Return a 2D grid where each cell shows the minimum distance to the nearest fire station.

Examples:

> fireStationCoverage([
  [2, 0, 1],
  [0, 2, 0],
  [1, 0, 2]
])
> [[2, 1, 0],  
   [1, 2, 1],
   [0, 1, 2]]

> fireStationCoverage([
  [1, 0, 0, 1],
  [0, 0, 0, 0],
  [0, 0, 0, 0],
  [1, 0, 0, 1]
])
> [[0, 1, 1, 0],
   [1, 2, 2, 1],
   [1, 2, 2, 1],
   [0, 1, 1, 0]]

(you can submit your answers by replying to this email with a link to your solution, or share on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Mastodon)

Cool things from around the internet

Keyboard with Black Big Legend Keycaps
Does culture make emotion?
On Neutrinos | Physics Girl | Physics (video)
David Altrath photography diary

Joke

Did you know vending machines kill more humans than sharks?
Maybe it's because sharks rarely use vending machines.

That's all for now, folks! Have a great week. Be safe, make good choices, and clean your face!

Special thanks to Ben, Kinetic Labs, and Marta for supporting my Patreon and this newsletter!

cassidoo

website | blog | github | bluesky | youtube | twitch | twitter | patreon | codepen | mastodon

​ ​ The 2026 Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge starts in just FOUR DAYS! Join us to reset your life, refocus on what's important, and renew your motivation. ​ SIGN UP NOW It’s a timeless problem. Old or young. Rich or poor. Married or single. Successful or struggling. Modern or ancient. What we do as people is accumulate stuff. We accumulate, accumulate, accumulate…until our homes, our cars, our minds, and our schedules are cluttered. In Meditations, Marcus joked about people “whose abundance leaves their owner with ‘… no place to shit.’” And that’s just the physical stuff! We also accumulate problems and grudges and anxieties and commitments and opinions—piles and piles of them. Our mental load grows and grows. Our to-do list grows and grows. It all builds up slowly, until we feel overwhelmed, stuck, and weighed down. There’s only one way out of this mess: ruthlessly decluttering. We have to eliminate, eliminate, eliminate. Get rid of stuff. Get rid of baggage. Let go of beliefs…let go of worries. Let go of people. We have to stop buying things. We have to stop saying yes. We must free ourselves from the weight of excess. Shed what’s unnecessary. Clear away what’s holding us down. Is there a better time to do this than right now? Spring is coming, and it’s the perfect time to clean up and clear out. That’s the beauty of the idea of spring cleaning. We’re only a few months into the year and already, we know we could use a reset, that we’d benefit from wiping the slate clean. ​And that’s what The Daily Stoic Spring Forward Challenge is all about.​ Starting on the first day of Spring, March 20, we’ll take on 10 days of Stoic-inspired challenges. These will help you tackle the physical and mental clutter weighing you down, like: Digital distractions—inputs that constantly pull us away from what matters Commitment overload—saying yes to everything and spreading ourselves too thin Mental baggage—resentments, unfinished business, and unspoken apologies We spring clean so we can spring forward. We clear the clutter to make room for what truly matters. We eliminate the unnecessary to focus on the essential. Are you ready? Then join us for the 2026 Daily Stoic 10-day Spring Forward challenge! Reset your life. Refocus on what’s important. Renew your motivation and your purpose without all of the things currently holding you back. Sign up now at dailystoic.com/spring. The Daily Stoic 10-Day Spring Forward challenge begins March 20, 2026. *** Read on DailyStoic.com Listen to Today's Podcast ​Unsubscribe (this is from everything) | Update your profile​ ​906 Main Street #274, Bastrop, Texas 78602 | info@dailystoic.com is not a monitored email ​

Kill the Newsletter! feed settings