2025 Q3 Recommendations

A few recommendations from some of my 2025 Q3 experiences.

2025 Q3 Sardines

context

At CascadeCamp (like VibeCamp, but Pacific Northwest), Sep 13, 2025, I hosted a Sardine Celebration for tasting and appreciation of a showcase of sardine tins.

It resulted in four separate sessions (I brought so many sardines), each preceding the group meal period.

For the first session, a few small children joined, and they greatly enjoyed the sardines.

For the second session, we broke out the Nuri fancy sardines, and they immediately became the crowd favorite.

For the third session, the venue host even contributed a few tins of his own.

Sardines showcase from the first session (roughly in decreasing order of premium-ness)

tier list

Tiers roughly followed pricing, with some punching above their weight.

SS-tier:

• Nuri sardines – these are luxurious tasting in each bite, certainly premium – $8/ea, hand-packed from Portugal

S-tier:

• King Oscar sardines – solid people pleaser, excellent entry into sardines – available as 12-pack from Amazon for ~$30

• Brunswick gourmet brisling sardines – the fish were very nice looking, small, and flavorful – $3/ea individually on Amazon

A-tier:

• Brunswick Herring Fillets, Golden Smoked – this was a surprise delight for the salty herring, with a scrumptious delicate texture, a surprise crowd favorite – ~$2/ea individually on Amazon

• Wild Planet sardines – these are scrumptious solid sardines – available as 6-pack from Costco for ~$10

• Brunswick Herring Fillets, in lemon & cracked pepper – lemon goes well with herring fillets

B-tier:

• Brunswick sardines, mild red peppers – spicy, interesting take

• Brunswick Herring Fillets, kipper style – rather plain for the casual observer

C-tier:

• Everything else – budget fish protein nonideal for individual consumption

Opened sardines from the first session

duck egg peeling

I also hosted a Duck Egg Peeling contest — participants generally underestimated the challenge! Surprisingly, no one tried best practice techniques.

2025 Q3 music

Here’s a full playlist (first ~half is made up of new or newly salient songs, second half is complementary vibes):

Top recs

“Learn to Lose” by Bakermat — great vibes, great beats, I could play this on repeat

So it’s not how you get knocked down
It’s how you get back up
Don’t play safe
It’s how you break that makes you strong enough

Context: recommended by a British friend

“POST_NOUMENAL” — not on Spotify but on https://voidgoddess.org/songs. Great lyrics, meticulously AI-generated backing. excellent song to close out a night, although the spoken word bits kinda narrowly restrict the context to DJ-sets-at-clubs

Context: the DJ hosts a weekly gettogether and she plays this song a lot, and in my questing for community in Seattle, it’s also become something meaningful for me.

So hold me close, don’t let me go—
through the static and through the glow—
Out past our graves we’ll never die,
our names are written on the sky—

Hand in hand, we cross the line,
through the void, our hearts align—
we journey on, past the fear and fright,
together into the Long Dark Night.

2025 Q3 short reads

Caveat: I read few essays, and these are a few that stuck with me. Feel free to recommend me similar pieces!

Top recs

• “Four Magic Doors”, by Lars Doucet — https://www.fortressofdoors.com/four-magic-words (discord thread) – phenomenal, riveting post-AGI story, especially with the Author’s Note at the end.

• “ALIGNMENT”, vincent huang (discord thread) – bay area work-life vibes

ALIGNMENT

• “Press Any Key for Bay Area House Party”, Scott Alexander — self-aware satirical series, this entry is my favorite of the series thus far

Press Any Key For Bay Area House Party

• “The man who ran out of tokens”, Snow Fox — imaginative, poignant, and inventive “screenshot” usage, with some slight cringe

The man who ran out of tokens

• “Maybe you’re not actually trying”, Cate Hall (discord thread) – nonfiction, you can just do things!

Maybe you’re not Actually Trying