I built a rock climbing wall for my kids

Hey y’all, I hope y'all have had a great week. Putting together this newsletter has become a highlight for me to be able to look back on things I did this week, what I've been thinking about, and what I've been working on. I think everyone should do this. If you have some sort of weekly update newsletter, please reply and let me know. I think the future might be less centralized platforms and more decentralized peer-to-peer type stuff and I want to be able to connect with y'all in that way. --- ### Thoughts from the week This past weekend I built a rock climbing wall in our house for our kids ([check out my Tweets for pictures](https://x.com/aarondfrancis/status/1916626887679303703)). My oldest set of twins is turning four in four days, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a good role model for them. One thing that I think is important is that my children see me working. I want them to see their dad doing work because I think work is valuable and important. I want them to internalize that from an early age. That's kind of hard given that I work on the computer all the time and they never see me on the computer. Even if they did, it would be hard to tell that I'm doing work. So I involved them in the building of this rock wall and they absolutely loved it. They had so much fun. I got them ear protection, eye protection, little kid tool belts, and we built this rock wall together. I'm hoping that it will increase their confidence to be able to climb on this thing by themselves. It's not big enough for them to hurt themselves. I feel like this is a very good way for them to be exposed to a little bit of risk in a controlled environment. --- ### Tweets from the week [](https://x.com/pourfairelevide/status/1916665015358071219) This is how I got into programming: I tried it, fell in love with it, and have never stopped pursuing it. I don't think I was ever a directionless slacker, but I did blow off a lot of other things to explore programming. That’s one of the reasons I believe it is important to do weird things even if they don't work out. Make weird projects, have weird hobbies, read weird books, anything that is not mainstream. You might fall into something that is completely fulfilling that you never would have run across had you not explored. --- [](https://x.com/TheCinesthetic/status/1915564665624519165) I usually hate these types of engagement bait, but I do follow the cinesthetic account and get a lot of good recommendations from them. If you’re looking for something to watch this weekend, it might be worth scrolling through the replies and quote tweets. There are some solid picks in there. --- [](https://x.com/bradenkeith/status/1916669199268618614) The guy in this video is named John Piper, an old-school Baptist preacher. Whether or not you’re religious, there’s a lot you can learn from him about public speaking. I grew up listening to Piper and have always thought he was an incredible pastor. In this video, he talks about ChatGPT generating prayers and argues that it’s ultimately useless because the universe wasn’t created for efficient language. It was created for humans to feel things. Even if ChatGPT can do something better than you, it can never be human because it can’t feel. It’s an interesting watch, especially if you’ve been feeling anxious about where humans fit into the future. --- [](https://x.com/JohnPhamous/status/1917266390572228853) Getting UI inspiration from Factorio? Totally sublime. It's good UI, but I have a soft spot for Factorio, so this one stood out to me. And if you've never played Factorio, don't start now unless you’re ready to lose hundreds of hours of your life because it is just unbelievably fun! --- [](https://x.com/ultralinx/status/1916428733470097856?s=46) I stole this one from Steve. The whole premise of this newsletter is that I find tweets and send them to you, but this one, Steve found and sent to me. We are constantly trying to figure out where to store all of these videos that we're creating. I’ve been using a Synology NAS, which works pretty well, but Steve prefers something directly attached that he can edit off of. This device looks like it might be the best of both worlds. We haven’t tried it yet, but next time we hit a storage limit, I’m pretty sure Steve’s pulling the trigger on this one. --- [](https://x.com/amandaorson/status/1915147754696855802) We haven’t done much cold email yet, but if we ever do, you better believe those emails are coming from Kelsey. This is one of those weird things where you have to ask, *should* it be true that people are more likely to open an email if it comes from a woman’s name? I don’t know. But apparently, it *is* true. So if we end up sending cold emails, don’t be surprised if they come from Kelsey instead of Aaron. And for the record, we’d never invent a fake person or use a pseudonym just to boost open rates. That feels a little too icky for us. --- ### This week at Try Hard Studios **📚 Blog Posts** A month ago I gave a [talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDuvi5eUqp0&t=7798s) at Kent C. Dodds’ Epic Web Conference called "Strategies for increasing your odds of success." I've taken that talk and started turning it into articles. I just published the first two! - [Strategies for increasing your odds of success](https://aaronfrancis.com/2025/strategies-for-increasing-your-odds-of-success-f5d19dbf) - [Become known for a thing](https://aaronfrancis.com/2025/become-known-for-a-thing-5738e314) 🎬 **YouTube** **Building a model reservation system with atomic locks** My latest YouTube video I show you how to use Laravel’s atomic locks and generated database columns to build a reservation system. I’m really enjoying creating these long-form videos. [Hope you like this one!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czHUFCWVY0c) **🎙️ Podcast Appearances** I don't normally put Mostly Technical down in this section because that is a weekly podcast and it might be annoying to see it every week, but [this week](https://mostlytechnical.com/episodes/80-the-big-announcement-w-taylor-otwell) we had Taylor Otwell on the show, the creator of Laravel. We announced something fun: we’re hosting a Mostly Technical pre-party before Laracon kicks off! It’s already filled up, but we’re working on getting a bigger space. So if you’re going to Laracon and want to come hang out, go ahead and add your name to the waitlist. We’d love to see you there! --- That’s it for this week! I enjoy reading all of your replies, so if you see something interesting or just have a thought you want to share, please hit reply and let me know. Talk soon, Aaron {{ ENV.unsubscribe\_personal | default: visitor.unsubscribe\_url | hyperlink: "Click here to unsubscribe." }}