sage@afterdark~~/taste
·UPDATED · 2026-05-04
// the obsessions

Taste

What I'm watching, listening to, reading, and noticing. Updated when something replaces something. The list is short on purpose.

// music

Promises

Floating Points & Pharoah Sanders · 2021

Best ambient album of the decade. Writing music; thinking music.

All Melody

Nils Frahm · 2018

I have written more words to this album than any other.

Avalanches — Since I Left You

The Avalanches · 2000

Sample-based maximalism that aged perfectly. Joy as engineering.

// film + tv

Severance

Apple TV / Dan Erickson · 2022–

A show about software people written by someone who knows software people.

The Bear

Christopher Storer · 2022–

Operations as character study. Required viewing for founders.

Slow Horses

Apple TV / Mick Herron · 2022–

Office politics + spycraft. The best 'work' show on TV.

// books

Working in Public

Nadia Eghbal · 2020

The book I most often hand to founders. Maintenance > novelty.

The Mom Test

Rob Fitzpatrick · 2013

Customer interviews without the lying. Re-read every six months.

Working

Studs Terkel · 1974

What every job sounds like from the inside. Read once a year, slowly.

// notes + writers

Construction Physics

Brian Potter · Substack

Logistics, energy, and infrastructure history as engineering analog.

Bits about Money

Patrick McKenzie · Substack

Technical writing about boring systems is the highest form.