Hey friends,

How many times have you written 2025 instead of 2026 already? 😅

Things I Wrote ✍️

This week's edition is slightly late because I was wrapping up my recent guide to making ambient videos in 2026.

There are so many nice NEW things that are dropping for use on the web, and this year looks no different. But in addition to CSS features, we get other nice things like new video compression codecs like AV1 and HEVC/H.265. In the guide I wrote up (so I can remember how to do it later) I show how to compress video files down to itty-bitty sizes (sometimes over 50% less than the original already compressed videos!) Check it out!

Interesting Web Bits 🍜

Web Stuff

• You CAN make up HTML tags but I don't think it's worth it (and you opt out of a lot of a11y behavior). A helpful HN commenter clarifies default browser behavior.
• Aaron Francis argues publishing your work increases your "Luck Surface Area".
• Addy Osmani shares 21 lessons from working at Google. I love how many of these focus around people and working with people (the hardest part of any job to get right!)

Other Stuff

• Need the entire year printable on one page? Neatnik has you covered.
• A high-school student used AI to data-crunch and uncovered 1.5 MILLION potential new objects in space. Pretty neat.
• I grew up watching Star Trek (Picard 4Lyfe) and someone put together panorama shots of Star Trek sets.
• I'm no musician, but I find these code-driven music creations fascinating.
• Or you could just convert songs to a Gameboy version with Wario Synth.

Weird, Watch, and Play

• 📺 Dominoes + 🛎️ = 🎵?
• 📺 🐼 + ❄️ = ??
• 🎮 Can you catch 1,000,000 shrimp? 🦐