Honor and duty in the Texas floods

Hey y’all, I hope it's been a good week for you. This has been a complicated week for me, as you'll see in my thoughts down below. Business has been going well! I've been putting out a lot more YouTube videos and sending a lot more emails to the mailing list for my courses and sales have been coming in. So that part of the week has been pretty nice. But, it's been a very hard week for many Texans. This week I'm exceedingly grateful that I can go home and hug my four kids. --- ### Thoughts from the week I've been thinking this week a lot about honor and duty. If you aren't aware, there were some extremely devastating floods in Texas over the 4th of July, and sadly a lot of people lost their lives as a result of the those floods. It's been really hard to comprehend because a lot of the people that died were kids at a summer camp called Camp Mystic. Kids that are slightly older than my own. It's hard to read those stories without thinking about my own kids. I can't even type this paragraph without tearing up. There's another set of stories coming out of Texas, many of which are highlighted in the excellent reporting done by [Texas Monthly](https://www.texasmonthly.com/). Stories of heroism and duty and honor and bravery and courage. There's the story of the [Coast Guard swimmer](https://x.com/aarondfrancis/status/1942273039368155499) who was on his very first mission and saved 165 kids all by himself. His helicopter dropped him off to save other people and he was all alone. And when interviewed, all he wants to do is deflect the praise. He highlights the other people who were out there helping. He says that any Coast Guard swimmer would have done the same, if not better than him. He says he was just doing his job. There's the story of [Dick Eastland](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/dick-tweety-eastland-camp-mystic-legacy/), the owner of Camp Mystic, who died in the flood waters trying to save those kids. There are still noble people. There are still courageous people. There are still people committed to doing their duty. I pray that I can be one of those people. --- 🎬 **YouTube** **Laravel Serializable Closure: serialize the unserializable** PHP doesn’t let you serialize closures, but Laravel does, thanks to an underrated package that’s built into the framework. In this [YouTube video](https://youtu.be/SvSxH-iPpOc), I show you exactly how Laravel serializable-closure works, how Laravel uses it internally, and how you can use it safely (and securely!) in your own projects. --- ### Things I found this week *Just a heads up that each Twitter/X screenshot has a link to the original post if you want to go follow the account.*  [Sam Rose](https://x.com/samwhoo) (who writes incredible visual essays) sent [this article](https://medium.com/@barrytsmith/why-their-work-is-better-9375ce2c99fd) to me. It’s quite short, so read the whole thing, but here is my favorite paragraph from it. > The next time you stare down at your work and lament that it just doesn’t have “It,” don’t shy away from that feeling. Dive headfirst into your work, make it better, and hope you never lose that sense of taste. This is a great comfort to me because I often look at my past (and sometimes even current work!) and think that it’s not as good as it could be, or as good as it should be. It’s comforting because I want to get better! If I couldn't see why my work was bad, I would never be able to get better. So while it is *initially uncomfortable*, I'd rather it be this way than not be able to see my opportunities to improve. ---  Hiroshi Suzuki is the Japanese ambassador to the United Kingdom. I just came across him this week and he seems like an absolutely delightful person who apparently is quite enjoying his time in the UK! This tweet is interesting because David is correctly identifying, in my opinion, that everyone loves Hiroshi because he is publicly extolling the virtues of the UK with genuine enthusiasm. Here’s the trick though! This applies to much more than just being the ambassador to the UK! Excitement is contagious. Positivity is contagious. If you love something, don’t be afraid to say that sincerely and publicly! You’ll gather a whole set of people around you that similarly love that thing. Of course, I’d never recommend faking it. Don’t be a vapid yes-man (or yes-woman) or cult member. But if you like something, it’s ok to say so. We have enough cynics who are unimpressed by everything. Your enthusiasm will be a breath of fresh air. ---  We’ve had a couple nice turns of phrase highlighted in this newsletter, and this is no exception. The Art of Noticing! It is, in fact, an art. It reminds me of another spiritually similar phrase: “there are cathedrals everywhere, for those with eyes to see.” Noticing is hard when we’re consumed by our phones though, so maybe there’s a Discipline of Noticing as well? ---  New account alert! (New to me, at least.) I just started following this one and all the tweets are pleasing little works of art like this. Highly recommended if your feed is needs a little beauty. ---  If you weren’t there, I can’t explain it. ---  The anti-todo list! The to-don’t list! I need one. I probably agree with about 60% of these. I have no desire to get into Linux or write my own language, but boy do I want a 3D printer and to muck around with a Raspberry Pi. No time for hobbies these days, and that’s ok! But one day… one day I’ll build cool lil robots. ---  The interviewer asks Tolkein why he invented a whole world before he wrote the Hobbit and Tolkein hits him with the best shoulder shrug I’ve ever seen. “[Because I wanted to](https://aaronfrancis.com/2024/because-i-wanted-to-12c5137c)” is always a valid reason to do something. ---  Can you even believe how beautiful this office is? I want to find a space like this to rent somewhere in Dallas at some point. We don’t have as many Rust Belt factories as, well, the Rust Belt, but I’m sure I could find something. ---  In last week's newsletter, we talked about whether the government should be responsible for beautifying public spaces. I said that yes, they should. This is just another example of something beautiful in a public space that I think we should have more of. ---  One common criticism or critique that I see online somewhat often is you'll never be successful if you're just the “Uber for X” or the “Stripe for Y.” So when I saw that SpaceX set out to be the “Southwest Airlines of space,” I was quite pleased to see that common knowledge be challenged. ---  This is kind of dark, but it's a very good short story with a great ending. ---  Apparently there are some monks in Wyoming that are building a gothic monastery! They are not Luddites, they're using CNC machines to help speed up the process! And they're funding the entire thing by selling coffee. I know very little about their beliefs or who they are, but I did find their work to be quite inspiring. Here's a thread on Reddit with a photo album: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ArchitecturalRevival/comments/1bb9whf/wyoming\_monks\_construct\_their\_gothic\_revival/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ArchitecturalRevival/comments/1bb9whf/wyoming_monks_construct_their_gothic_revival/) ---  Every now and then I'll see a new Midjourney style come across my feed that is really pleasing and this is the latest example of that. --- ### Let's close the loop I send out all this random stuff every week and I often get great replies from people that know a lot more about the thing that I sent, or know about something related. This section is for the things that y'all send that are related to previous issues! (I’m still working on getting the previous issues online, so bear with me there) [](https://support.apple.com/en-ie/guide/iphone/iph6e3a6d4fe/ios) Last week I sent out a tweet about a lens that you can put on your Canon R5 that will take 3D videos, and I lamented how expensive it was. Anthony Mcclosky sent me this [guide](https://support.apple.com/en-ie/guide/iphone/iph6e3a6d4fe/ios) for the iPhone that shows how you can do spatial videos with just your iPhone. --- [](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOkBglCZSSk) Last week we highlighted a marble quarry and talked about how the marble was the mountain. Michal wrote in and said that this quarry was featured at the beginning of the Quantum of Solace! I found a [video ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOkBglCZSSk)showing it. --- [](https://mariozechner.at/posts/2025-04-20-boxie/) There was a tweet last week about a sort of retro cartridge device, and Florian sent me a [link](https://mariozechner.at/posts/2025-04-20-boxie/) to something similar but built for kids! --- If you’ve been enjoying the newsletter and think a friend may enjoy reading it each week too, please forward it to them! They can sign up to receive it weekly here: . 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." }}