---
title: "2025 archives"
description: "{% for post in site.posts %} {% capture year %}{{post.date | date:"
canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/archives-2026/index.html
---

> For AI agents: a documentation index is available at https://idratherbewriting.com/llms.txt. Markdown versions of all pages are available by appending .md to any page URL.

# 2025 archives

1. [Building machines that work with other machines](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/building-machines-skills-for-tech-comm-workflows) | Oct 12, 2026
2. [Building out my agent skills course and rethinking product skills](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/building-out-agent-skills-course) | Oct 8, 2026
3. [AI Book Club recording: I Am Not a Robot by Joanna Stern](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/book-club-stern-i-am-not-a-robot) | Sep 20, 2026
4. [Six new books in tech comm: a roundup](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/new-books-tech-comm-2026) | Sep 7, 2026
5. [Buying a car in the age of AI](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/buying-a-car-in-age-of-ai) | Sep 7, 2026
6. [Why biking to work fails when commuting from Renton to Seattle](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/biking-renton-to-seattle-work-commute-fails) | Sep 5, 2026
7. [Writing for an audience of agents — podcast with Ethan Palm from Mintlify](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/podcast-ethan-palm-agent-traffic) | Sep 2, 2026
8. [Review of The MANIAC, by Benjamin Labatut -- thoughts on logic and the end of play](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/review-maniac-labatut-rationality-end-of-play) | Aug 20, 2026
9. [AI Book Club recording of The MANIAC by Benjamin Labatut](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/the-maniac-labatut-ai-book-club) | Aug 16, 2026
10. [Reflections on Ai4 conference - some absences from a tech writer's POV](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/ai4-conference-reflections-tw) | Aug 9, 2026
11. [Orchestrating docs instead of writing them yourself — podcast with Sarah Deaton of Anthropic](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/podcast-deaton-anthropic-tw-automation) | Aug 2, 2026
12. [Building out a course on agent skills](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/course-on-skills) | Jul 21, 2026
13. [The gap between academic and industry technical writing: What it is, why it exists, why it's important, and what we can do about it (Part II)](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/gap-between-industry-and-academia-tw-part2) | Jul 12, 2026
14. [The gap between academic and industry technical writing: What it is, why it exists, why it's important, and what we can do about it (Part I)](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/gap-between-industry-and-academia-tw-part1) | Jul 12, 2026
15. [Tom's opinionated guide to skill building 101](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/all-about-skills-intro) | Jun 30, 2026
16. [AI Book Club discussion of The Infinity Machine by Sebastian Mallaby](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/book-club-infinity-machine-mallaby) | Jun 28, 2026
17. [Judging beautiful docs, AI fatigue, and tool slop -- podcast with Fabrizio](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/judging-beautiful-docs-ai-fatigue-podcast) | May 31, 2026
18. [Review of Max Tegmark's 'Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence'](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/book-review-tegmark-life-3-0-ai) | May 17, 2026
19. [AI Book Club discussion recording of 'Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence', by Max Tegmark](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/book-club-tegmark-life-3-0) | May 17, 2026
20. [Developing internal skills for recurring documentation processes like release notes](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/internal-skills-release-docs) | May 4, 2026
21. [Looking back at the AI Book Club one year in](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/looking-at-book-club-one-year-in) | Apr 28, 2026
22. [On pace and value -- why is moving slow boring?](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/pace-value-moving-slow-boredom) | Apr 27, 2026
23. [Frenetic thinking](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/frenetic-thinking-vs-careful-measured-analysis) | Apr 26, 2026
24. [Work expands to fill the space allotted](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/work-expands-to-fill-the-allotted-space) | Apr 26, 2026
25. [Too much coffee?](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/too-much-coffee) | Apr 24, 2026
26. [AI Book Club discussion recording of 'Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future', by Dan Wang](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/book-club-breakneck-china-wang) | Apr 23, 2026
27. [Some thoughts after using AI to help with taxes](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/taxes-thoughts-using-ai) | Apr 20, 2026
28. [Podcast: How valuable are agent skills? Conversation with Larah Vasquez and Fabrizio Ferri-Benedetti](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/ai-skills-agentic-workflows-larah-fabrizio) | Apr 12, 2026
29. [The Emerging Picture of a Changed Profession: Cyborg Technical Writers — Augmented, Not Replaced, by AI](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/cyborg-model-emerging-talk) | Apr 5, 2026
30. [Will tech writers survive AI? Perspectives from two professors, Nupoor Ranade and Jeremy Merritt](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/will-tech-writers-survive-ai-academics-nupoor-jeremy) | Mar 21, 2026
31. [AI Book Club recording of 'If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies'](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/ai-book-club-if-anyone-builds-it) | Mar 17, 2026
32. [Recording of Automation Engineering 101 for Tech Docs presentation at WTD West Coast Supermeetup](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/auto-engineering-101-presentation-wtd) | Mar 12, 2026
33. [Cracking the code on corporate visibility](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/cracking-the-code-on-corp-visibility) | Mar 8, 2026
34. [Podcast: Doc testing, skills files, and the guardians of knowledge -- with Manny Silva](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/podcast-silva-guardians-of-knowledge) | Mar 8, 2026
35. [Nobody knows what it will look like in 2 years](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/nobody-knows-two-years-from-now) | Mar 3, 2026
36. [Good shot, GUS!!!! How to win at pickup basketball even if you're not all that great](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/win-at-pickup-basketball-praising-comments) | Mar 1, 2026
37. [10 principles of the cyborg technical writer -- brief notes and bullet points on how to use AI to augment your role](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/10-principles-of-cyborg-technical-writer) | Feb 27, 2026
38. [World Brain: No Experts podcast - Three tech writers and a photographer walk into a bar (with Tom Johnson and Floyd Jones)](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/world-brain-no-experts-podcast-guest) | Feb 25, 2026
39. [Using curiosity to decenter](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/using-curiosity-to-decenter) | Feb 16, 2026
40. [AI Book Club recording, notes, and transcript for Sarah Wynn-Williams's Careless People](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/careless-people-wynn-williams-ai-book-club) | Feb 16, 2026
41. [Bakhtin and model collapse: How to use AI with expressive writing without generating AI slop](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/bakhtin-collapse-ai-expressive-writing) | Jan 30, 2026
42. [Podcast: Tech comm predictions for 2026 (Phase One)](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/predictions-2026-tech-comm-podcast) | Jan 25, 2026
43. [AI Book Club recording of God, Human, Animal, Machine](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/ai-book-club-god-human-animal-machine) | Jan 24, 2026
44. [Podcast: Writing as telepathy: AI tools, automation, and an intentionally offline life -- conversation with CT Smith](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/ai-tools-automation-ct-smith) | Jan 4, 2026
45. [Book review of 'If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies'—why AI doom isn't as visceral as nuclear war](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/book-review-if-anyone-builds-it-everyone-dies) | Jan 3, 2026
46. [12 predictions for tech comm in 2026](https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/tech-comm-predictions-for-2026) | Jan 1, 2026