things i learned

Things I learned in 2025

2025-12-01

I borrowed this concept from Tom Whitwell as a way of cultivating a habit of curiosity.

My 2025 highlights: It was a year of exploration. I left Macro Oceans. I “interned” at Roo Code and got an early peek at how AI is changing software development. I had so many coffee chats. I launched a podcast about building with AI, built a an agent orchestration prototype and spent a lot of time hacking on HeyRecap. I started working with Istari Digital using AI to build aerospace / high performance hardware systems.

Here are 52 things I learned along the way:

1. The U.S. Mint estimates that there are 300 billion pennies in circulation, about 3 times more than the number stars in the Milky Way Galaxy — The Atlantic
2. Coca Cola didn’t became cocaine free until 1929 — the Associated Press via Stan Veuger. No wonder the market crashed!
3. There are more people under the age of 25 today in Africa than there are in all of Europe — Stephen Kotkin
4. The Centers For Disease Control estimates that a baby born in the United States is 10 times more likely to be killed during its first day than at any other time in life — Pacific Standard. Bonus: about 1 in 2,500 women are in denial about their pregnancy until birth.
5. Shows like MTV’s 16 and pregnant led to a 5.7 percent decrease in teen births, 1/3 of the decline in teen births during the period — Liam Delaney
6. International adoptions in the US are down 94% since the peak in 2004 — Pew
7. Japan now produces more diapers for incontinent adults than for infants — London Review of Books
8. There are more senior citizens than children in 11 states and half of the counties in the US — US Census
9. The under 20 population in the United States is 20% smaller than it was in 1990 — Aaron Becker via Cremiux
10. For the first time in 35 years, there are no rap songs are in the top 40 — Rolling Stone
11. “In 2022, adults spent an additional 99 minutes at home on any given day compared with 2003.” —Derek Thompson via Bucco Capital
12. Monarch butterflies produce a super generation that live 8 times as long as the other generations and allow them to complete their migratory cycle — Country Living. Could you imagine if once every four generations, you had a set of humans that lived more than 500 years??
13. Brand Mascots can measurably influence the eating behavior of children — Obesity Review
14. The more males and females of a bird species look alike (e.g. cranes), the more likely they are to mate for life.  The more males and females of a bird species look dissimilar (e.g. mallards), the more likely they are to be promiscuous — my friend Oriana
15. Male snakes have two penises — Nautilus 
16. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. A group of jaguars is a shadow — Brevard Zoo via ChatGPT
17. Costco’s Kirkland Brand drives more revenue than all of Procter and Gamble combined — Eric Ries
18. Silicon Valley companies will cross reference each other’s patents more when their employees frequent the same coffee shops — National Bureau of Economic Research. See also Austin’s 3 types of luck.
19. Non-linear ethnic niches: 90% of grocery stores in Detroit are owned by Chaldeans; 95% of Dunkin Donuts stores in the Midwest are owned by Indians; 90% of the liquor stores in Baltimore are owned by Koreans; 60% of Dunkin’ Donuts stores in New England and New York are operated by Portuguese immigrants — Aporia Magazine. I guess you file this under the importance of networks, tacit knowledge, and the availability bias?
20. The only right protected in the main body of the US Constitution is the right to intellectual property — ChinaTalk. Bonus: The first patent examiner for the United States was Thomas Jefferson.
21. Peacock is the name of the males only; the female are peahens. The species is called peafowl— The Animal Book
22. A single mushroom can live for thousands of years — Scientific American via The Long Now. Bonus: They are among the oldest life forms on earth, predating plants by more than 300 million years.
23. Humans are unique among mammals for not creating their own vitamin C — Survival of the Sickest via my friend Chris
24. China installed more industrial robots last year than the rest of the world combined — Gizmodo
25. German chocolate cake was invented in United States — the Kroger App
26. Marie Antoinette never said “Let them eat cake” — The Rest is History
27. Life expectancy for dogs has been growing faster than life expectancy for humans — Frontiers of Veterinary Science via my wonderful friend Uri
28. We call them piggy banks because of the type of clay (pygg) that was used to make jars for holding coins. Shaping them like pigs was a visual pun (probably) — BBC
29. Badgers air out their beds to keep them clean — Secrets of the Forest
30. The Pangolin is the only mammal with scales — The Animal Book
31. The air that the dinosaurs breathed had substantially more oxygen in it than the air we breathe. Jurassic Park couldn’t happen because the dinosaurs would asphyxiate — John Cramer
32. Saturn’s rings are younger than the dinosaurs —  Rohit
33. Squirrels in Berkeley and Oakland are becoming carnivorous — Smithsonian Magazine
34. In Switzerland, you are never more than 16km from a lake — About Switzerland
35. The English Monarchy asserted a claim to the French Monarchy until 1801, only releasing it after Napoleon had become dictator — The Rest Is History. Some would say it’s been all downhill for France since then 🤣.
36. 12.3M hectares of US cropland was abandoned between 1986 and 2018 — Environmental Research Letters. Note that this figure does not include cropland taken out of use via urbanization or development.
37. More than 98% of new vehicle sales in Norway this September were EVs — Elective via Anton
38. Chicken tikka masala originated in Scotland; kilts did not — Sukhi’s and Wikipedia via  Jason Crawford
39. Home field advantage in the NFL is real. We know this because it disappeared in 2020 when there were no fans in the stadiums — The Ringer via Crémieux
40. 79% of American adults report making at least one drunk purchase in the past year; the average amount of drunk spending was $444 per year — The Hustle
41. The value of returned purchases in the United States would make it the 16th largest economy in the world — Rohit
42. D.A.R.E. anti-drug interventions in schools seem to have have increased drug use among suburban students — Drug Library via Atoms vs. Bits
43. Holding back students in the 3rd grade improves long term performance for the students who were held back — The 74 million
44. Half of recorded history came before the Old Testament was written down — The Literature and History Podcast
45. More Romans were killed at Cannae than Americans in the entire Vietnam War — The Rest is History
46. The distance elasticity of trade (the rate at which trade between two cities drops off as they get farther away from each other) seems to be the same today as it was in ancient Assyria — Maximum Progress
47. The oldest bond in the world dates from December 10, 1624; pays €13.61 of interest a year — the Financial Times via The Browser
48. Pine needle tea has more vitamin C in it than orange juice — Nautilus
49. All of the world’s gold is estimated to fit in one 20 meter cube — BBC
50. Eyes have evolved more than 50 times — Salon via Rohit
51. The largest newspaper in California by subscribers is the New York Times —Ezra Klein
52. Walmart takes 25% of all SNAP dollars — Kyla Scanlon

Previous lists: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020

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Most of my professional energy right now is spent on how AI changes creative work and the electric tech stack. If either of these is of interest to you or if you just think we’d have a good conversation, drop me a note (hello @ jdilla.xyz) or put time on my calendar).

Have a wonderful holiday season and stay curious!

Good Tokens 2025-11-21

2025-11-21

Worth your time

The GLP-1 rollout continues.

The number of Americans taking GLP-1 drugs continues to grow substantially. There’s no official tally, but Circana believes that 23% of US households — about 30 million — had at least one GLP-1 user in September, suggesting there are tens of millions of users. By 2030, five years from now, it expects GLP-1 households to purchase 35% of food sold in the US (measured by units), up from 24% today.

Elephants not unicorns.

ChinaTalk on acquisition reform.

Children need independent peer cultures. The Montessori-pilled in the audience will not be surprised.

Filed under “age as the next generational battle ground”.

Ground robots in Ukraine.

Thoughts on the future of autonomous vehicles.

Blake Scholl’s conversation with Tyler.

Things I learned

Japan now produces more nappies for incontinent adults than for infants. Also, the top ten states for fertility are all red states; the bottom ten are all blue states (Vermont is last, chased by Oregon — London Review of Books.

The US mint estimates that there are 300 billion pennies in circulation, more than 3x as many stars as there are in the Milky Way — Pennies Are Trash Now

60% of SF Unified School District 8th graders are not proficient in math.

Musings

I can’t remember where I saw this, but it resonated: “You’re not avoiding failure, you’re avoiding the feeling of failure”

LLM corner

Gemini File Search API. I’ll be trying this one out.

AI will not make you rich.

Thoughts about code sandboxes.

Good Tokens 2025-11-14

2025-11-14

Worth your time

The Palace of Catalan Music

The Goon Squad:

Many respondents have been regular porn viewers since the fourth grade; few were older than twelve when they picked up the habit. This seems like an unsustainable equilibrium.

The K shaped economy. Think old vs. young rather than rich vs. poor.

Alaska experiments with voting by phone.

Things I learned

There’s been a 20% reduction in the under 20 population between 1990 and 2024.

The largest newspaper in California by subscribers is the New York Times. Ezra Klein.

Walmart takes 25% of all SNAP dollars.

LLM corner

This seems so insane I have to try it. And the link to the GitHub.

Not all tokens are created equal.

90 Days at Complex

Musings

Chuck Klosterman: “All art ends when it reaches self awareness”

🪦 Project Graveyard: Papagei Terminal 🦜

2025-11-06

I’m trying to get better at building in public and at celebrating projects that end up as dead ends. Take this in that spirit.

What it was

Papagei Terminal allowed a user to spin up virtual machines like they were slack channels to make it easier to use >1 Claude Code instance at the same time and make it easier to use Claude in --dangerously-skip-permissions mode.

Here is an early prototype. Future versions were way better!

What went well

I think I had a really clear idea of who this was for and the need that it was serving.

This is by far the most ambitious technical project I’ve built. I was able to use it to make meaningful code changes across several projects. I learned a bunch about working with AWS and with agents.

I actually got to the point where a tool I built was able to make code changes to other projects. That was really motivating.

Why it didn’t work / why I’m shutting it down

At the beginning of the summer, there really wasn’t a product that allowed you to use more than one Claude Code at the same time without putting real effort into understanding Git Worktrees. Conductor was experimenting here, but it was all local.

Between May when I started working on this seriously and when I got it to the point where I was really starting to enjoy using it, everyone launched a version of this and I was no longer convinced that I had something unique to bring here.

What I learned / what I would do differently next time

Realistically I probably started building this too late. I also don’t think I am embedded enough in the community of software developers to get a following here.

I wasn’t active enough in recruiting early users.

Good tokens 2025-10-31

2025-10-31

A very happy 🎃 Halloween 🦇 to you and yours.

Worth your time

The most American Building. My grandfather slept in it while it was unfinished in between training stops in World War 2. My father took classes in it. I went to it on field trips. It’s a wonderful building.

Preach, Nabeel, Preach. I wonder why “education” rather than “age” has been what has sorted our politics 🤔.

On relationship between growth and trust, arguing that living through periods of higher GDP growth leads to higher societal trust. On one level, this squares well with the idea that trust is a mixture of competence, commitment, and character, with societies delivering growth being seen as competent. On the other hand, I would expect higher levels of trust to also unlock opportunities for faster growth.

Things I learned

Home field advantage in the NFL is actually real and it basically disappeared in 2020 when no fans were in the stadiums. Via Crémieux.

More than 98% of new vehicle sales in Norway were EVs in September. From Elective via Anton.

Unconfirmed but from a reliable source: Amazon drivers are paid 12 cents per packaged delivered.

A growing share of Americans (+13%) say Religion is gaining influence in American life according to Pew. I’m not sure how to square this with the thing I learned last week, that support for declaring the United States a Christian Nation is falling amongst Christians or that the fastest growing Catholic sects are the strictest ones. Strange things are happening!

For the first time in 35 years, no rap songs are in the top 40. Rolling Stone.

Musings

Should we care about process or outcomes? Some really successful people (see Tom Brady here ) seem more to favor the process over the result while others favor the result over the process (see Phil Knight / Nike and Sam Altman). How should I make sense of this?

What would have to change for Western Society to become less individualistic? Is it possible for Western Society to become more individualistic? What would it look like to short individualism?

LLM corner

Episode 3 of Dangerously Skip Permissions is next week: LLM pricing is broken, but not in the way that you think with my friend Anjali Shrivastava.