I've been working on a side project that stitches together videos from multiple rendering APIs. Think of it as a pipeline where different services generate clips, and I need something to combine them all into a final output and upload it somewhere.

At first, the FFmpeg logic lived inside the main project. But as I added more rendering sources, the code got messy. So I did what any reasonable person would do — I pulled it out into its own service.

Lately I’ve been paying attention to how my mindset changes when I code with AI. It’s not just that things are faster. It actually feels like switching between different mental modes.

Sometimes I’m in what I think of as vibe coding. This is the experimental phase. It’s fast, playful, and driven by momentum. There’s a bit of an adrenaline rush in seeing ideas turn into code almost instantly. In this mode, my critical thinking is intentionally dialed down. I’m exploring what’s possible, not worrying too much about being right yet.

I started rebuilding this site on Christmas Day, once everyone had gone to bed. One of my first ships of 2026.

I wanted to keep the pixelated look that Serge designed last year, but with a throwback to the early days of my career... WordPress in the late 90s, and the K2 theme.