Laracon and Big Sky Dev Con recap

Hey y’all, I am back in town after being gone all last week. Sorry that there was no newsletter last week! I spent the first part of last week in Denver, emceeing Laracon and the second part in Bozeman, Montana, emceeing Big Sky Dev Conf. Laracon was an absolute blast. It's a huge conference now, I think there were a thousand people there. I gave the opening talk and then emceed the rest of the show. (You can find my talk down below.) My goal for my talk was to set the tone of the conference: this is a kind and friendly community and we're all happy that you're here. I think I accomplished that. I put some people who were new to the community at ease, and reminded some people who have been around for a long time some of the things that are so great about the Laravel community. It was so fun to catch up with friends and meet internet friends for the first time. If you want a full recap, you can listen to this [week's Mostly Technical podcast](https://mostlytechnical.com/episodes/93-laracon-us-recap). Ian and I go into the whole thing. Lots of funny stories, lots of laughs. I stayed out until like 3am one night! First time in like a decade! If you're on the fence about going to Laracon next year, I would highly encourage you to do it. Bozeman was beautiful and I really enjoyed emceeing that conference as well. I got to meet a lot of my internet friends that I've seen only online for a long time and I also got to meet the CEO of HTMX, Carson Gross, who is extremely cool. One of the things I really like about Big Sky is that they keep the ticket prices super low and cater a lot to Montana locals. There's not a lot of tech that goes on in Montana and so this is a nice conference for all of them to come together. The organizers try really, really hard to keep that accessible for people. At the beginning of the show, the organizer asked who was from Montana and I think 90 to 95 percent of the room raised their hands. It’s just such a good mission to serve the local community like that. --- ### Thoughts from the week At Laracon, I got to talk to a lot of old friends, and many of them were *checking in* on me. I am super grateful to have friends that check in on me like that, but it did make me think… "am I doing okay?" Something that I told one of them was that this is a period of Type Two fun for me. Type One fun is where it's fun in the moment, and Type Two fun is that more deep, abiding stuff that you'll look back on and say, "that was really good," or "that was really fun." This is just a phase of Type Two fun for me! With so many young kids, it can be quite hard, but that doesn't mean that it's not good! And that doesn't mean that it's not fun! It's just a different kind of fun. It's not the same kind of fun as going to the lake or going out to the movies or something like that. It's a deeper, more long-term fun. With the business, it's hard, but it also is a Type Two kind of fun. I'm *building something*, and I think I will look back on this phase as a very rich and fulfilling time. I've been thinking a lot about happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction, and fun as it relates to this stage in life. I don't ever want to sugarcoat it and say that this is super easy, but I also don't want to be gloomy and say that this is not fun! It's just different. It's hard, but it's very good, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. --- 🎬 **YouTube** **You can just do things - Laracon US 2025** As part of my emceeing role at Laracon US, I kicked off the conference with a bit of inspiration that you can just do things. You don’t have to wait for permission. [Rewatch it here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgr-WAUgELw) **Vibe coding a visual email editor with AI, Laravel & Vue** [Watch me ](https://youtu.be/qsTb9Y99qcQ)as I live-build a fully functional block-based email editor using Laravel, Vue 3, and Maizzle with AI as my pair programmer. I use Claude, GPT, and Junie to scaffold components, wire up real-time previews, and build something that I’ll be using to build this newsletter each week. **Make your site faster with this one technique** When you hover over a link, it should feel like the page loads instantly. [In this video](https://youtu.be/gFiFS0XRpTE), we push Inertia and Vue a little further by prefetching not just the data, but also the heavy images users will see first so pages feel faster without any extra clicks. --- ### 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.* [](https://x.com/allie__voss/status/1953182700774261004) Boy, I love a rule that is both highly effective and easy to follow. I feel like thank you notes always end up kind of trite because I always do start with “thank you for the nice sweater.” This advice makes sense in hindsight, but it's not something I had ever thought of. --- [](https://x.com/Manhattva/status/1953224861876404452) This was sent to me by [Ben Otero](https://x.com/benotero) and it has big “Dudes Rock” energy. This guy has been into quilting and watchmaking and oil painting and photography and all sorts of random hobbies. I think one place I get caught up with hobbies is that I feel like I need to monetize the hobbies. That’s a failure of mine! So I super appreciate seeing somebody do these random hobbies with no profit motive. Probably just doing them for the joy of the thing itself. Seems nice. --- [](https://x.com/benholmen/status/1952407783007039799) Speaking of doing things just for the joy of it, this is one of my favorite internet stories to come out of this year. Ben is a friend of mine and I remember him DMing me a long, long time ago about his idea to make this giant pixel display. Six years later he has finished it. This is a 1000 pixel display that is wooden blocks that are turned by an XY plotter. It has a live webcam so you can watch it all happen. It's the most absurd thing that I have seen in a long time. He posted this to Hacker News and it got over a thousand points, which is very, very hard to do. It sat at the number one position for I think a full 24 hours, if not more. This is the kind of pure hobby internet that I feel like we're losing. This wacky stuff has a real place in my heart. --- [](https://x.com/ShowMeYourCIM/status/1953157494097764534) Truly one of the hardest quotes of all time. Bob Hoover was a fighter pilot, test pilot, flight instructor, and air show aviator. He said that if you’re faced with a “forced landing” (which sounds like a crash to me), then you should fly the thing as far into the crash as possible. Don’t give up! Don’t let go! Fly the damn plane! Keep going! (This applies to more than just airplanes.) --- [](https://x.com/lavitalenta/status/1952844349693411439) At Big Sky Dev Con, [Dennis Ivy](https://x.com/dennisivy11) gave a [great talk](https://x.com/dennisivy11/status/1952095666521751767) about mistakes developers make when trying to get hired. His very first slide was “People hire people they vibe with.” Which… seems super unfair. And maybe it is! But hey, it’s true. The real question we should ask ourselves is “given that this is true, now what?” I wouldn’t go so far as to say that being a good hang is a moral virtue, but there is absolutely truth to the idea that people will want to work with you if you’re easy to work with. If you’re friendly. If you’re affable. None of those things have anything to do with being fake, btw. You can, however, decide to be kind! Don’t pretend, but decide. You don’t have to agree with everyone all the time, but you also don’t have to be a jerk. People hire people they like is one of those things that maybe shouldn’t be true, but since it is, it’s probably in your best interest to adhere to it. (I also think that your life will be better generally if you’re friendly and likeable, but that’s for another day) --- [](https://x.com/RJScaringe/status/1952731316040204302) This is the kind of ad that I love to see! There's no ragebait, no drama. It's just pure nostalgia and storytelling. I think an interesting thing about this ad is I have no idea if AI was involved at all, and that's the way that it should be! People are focusing on all of the neat video things that AI can do, but are missing some of the fundamental parts of making videos or making ads, which is the storytelling. And this absolutely nails the storytelling. Bravo Rivian --- [](https://x.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1952254423432122878) Feynman on happiness! I've talked about Feynman in a few previous issues and I am listening to the audiobook Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman right now. The more I learn about this guy, the more I come to love him. This quote really stood out to me because oftentimes I feel like I don't know enough to be teaching, and that can hold me back. This is a nice reminder or a nice encouragement about what students *really* need. They need somebody who is excited and somebody who can translate that passion into the material. I think I can do that pretty well! So I may not be the best programmer in the world or the best DBA in the world, but I really do enjoy learning and teaching and I think that's probably enough. --- [](https://x.com/Gentleman_Ways/status/1951638013492039812) Type Two fun. Type Two happy. Something deep and durable. --- [](https://x.com/thogge/status/1951036620116799617) I have a framed piece of calligraphy behind my desk that says “These are the days.” We often look back on a period of life and say man, those were the days. It stands to reason that at some point you’ll look back on this exact phase of life and say “those were the days.” So instead, my wife and I have a habit of saying “these are the days.” These are the days we’ll miss when we’re older. But how lucky are we! We’re here! Right now! --- [](https://x.com/SandyofCthulhu/status/1951069417443635437) This made me laugh. That’s about it. That fool would be surfing every week in new adventures! --- [](https://x.com/LaocoonofTroy/status/1948775248624566469) Something weird happened the other day when this image came across my feed. I had an emotional reaction! Perhaps I'm discovering art from first principles, but art can make you feel things! Which is crazy! I’m the first person in history to have experienced this, I’m sure. I don't know what it is about this particular piece, but I just stared at it for like five minutes straight. I couldn’t look away. I later found out that the original is for sale for $5,000, so it's not quuuuuite within my discretionary budget at the moment, but hopefully in a few years it will still be for sale and this can be my first official piece of art that I own. --- 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." }}