🦺 "Life's too short to be a pushover." - Kelly Clarkson

Hey friends!

I hope you had a good week. Mine was busy, but we got to see some family and friends, so that made it worth it! Let's learn.

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Web links of the week

Functional custom elements the easy way
CodePen Radio: Hot Trends of 2025
You no longer need JavaScript
CSS overrides without important using layers in Astro components

Something that interested me this week

I went on a major deep dive over the past couple weeks on physical notebook planners for 2026. I saw in some of my social media feeds a bunch of posts about how the Hobonichi planners came out, and was rapidly influenced to think that a physical planner could change my entire life for the better.

...I was then rapidly deinfluenced when I tried to visit Paper & Pencil, a local stationary shop, and the lines for said planners were literally FOUR hours long. FOUR. No?? There has to be a better way??

So anyway, I did not buy a planner, but I learned a lot about that world, which was cool. I also visited Atlas Stationers in person, which was a delightful experience, and if you ever get a chance to shop there (in person or online), they're a lovely, family-owned company here in Chicago!

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Interview question of the week

Last week, I had you implement a simplified version of the game Battleship! Yo ho Sreetam, Ten, Elke, David, Amine, Scott, and Kaartic!

This week's question:
For an array of numbers, generate an array where for every element, all neighboring elements are added to itself, and return the sum of that array.

Examples:

[]               -> 0
[1]              -> 1
[1, 4]           -> 10 // (1+4 + 4+1)
[1, 4, 7]        -> 28
[1, 4, 7, 10]    -> 55
[-1, -2, -3]     -> -14
[0.1, 0.2, 0.3]  -> 1.4
[1,-20,300,-4000,50000,-600000,7000000] -> 12338842

(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

The story of how RSS beat Microsoft
Why All Writing Sounds the Same Now (video)
Through the Eyes of an Angel: New York Photos by Anthony Angel
Banana keyboard

Joke

Police have just arrested the tongue-twister world champion.
If found guilty, they'll be given a very tough sentence.

That's all for now, folks! Have a great week. Be safe, make good choices, and get rid of your outdated cables!

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

cassidoo

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