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Welcome back to the third annual Recommengine.
As a brief review, a Recommengine is a recommendation engine, something I invented around the campfire in 2008. My friends laughed at me, not because it was a bad idea, not because someone else had already done it, but because I lacked any of the relevant skills to build such a thing. Nothing happened until 2023, and while this is a blog post and not a search engine filtered through personalized interactions and a social graph, it still may be of use to you.
What follows are the things I stumbled across over the past 12 months that I’ve recommended to friends, family, coworkers, and now, readers.
I do this annually as my last post of the year.
If you follow all the links, read all the books, and watch all the videos below, we might not see you again until this time next year. But you should totally do it.
Before you get started, let me say thank you.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for another fantastic year at Win With Flynn HQ. I love creating this content and hope you find the posts both useful and entertaining.
If you enjoy the blog, please share it with a friend. We grew readership by 400% in 2025 because people shared. I’d like to do that again in 2026. It’s fun, and it feeds my fragile ego.
If you really enjoy the blog, check out the books. They’ll make you look and feel smarter.
Already have the books? Circle back and give them 5 stars. It’s easy, fun, and it will make you feel less dead inside. I want that for you.
One more thing: if you’d like these posts delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to the email list. I’ve got a new book coming, and subscribers will get the preorder discount when it launches.
Okay, without further delay, enjoy this year’s Recommengine.
Quote of the Year: Charles Bukowski from the Los Angeles Free Press, March 3, 1967
I stumbled across Charles Bukowski again this year. Of course, I knew the name, thanks to Dylan (below), but his stuff was hard for me. I don’t really read much poetry, and I’m not a clever, snarky, melodramatic, drunk.
“That’s the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”
–Charles Bukowski, Women, 1978
Although not our quote of the year, that’s a great line. And when you spend your formative years in Burien and Pullman, well, let’s just say there’s a version of me that relates to what Bukowski is talking about.
Some of his work is difficult, and the other stuff is really challenging, but he has a wonderful free spirit and an inspiring perspective on the world. Like many, I entered via Post Office, just the tip of the Bukowski iceberg. I particularly like his interviews, because he says stuff like this:
“I see men assassinated around me every day. I walk through rooms of the dead, streets of the dead, cities of the dead; men without eyes, men without voices; men with manufactured feelings and standard reactions; men with newspaper brains, television souls and high school ideas.”
Now that, is our quote of the year.
This was his response to a question about the JFK assassination. Most would zig, he zags, and he does it with a style all his own. Learning more about Bukowski, I want nothing of his life, except the ability to see. To avoid the newspaper (Instagram) brain, television (YouTube) soul, and high school (high school) ideas.
Somehow, through the haze of vodka sevens, he was able to see things very clearly.
Videos:
Okay, Bukowski was kind of a heavy way to get started, so let’s lighten up a bit. This one is all over the internet and makes me laugh every time.
Next, we’ll get back to learning a bit about the world around us.
Sheehan Quirke, Cultural Tutor: How Did The World Get So Ugly?
The Cultural Tutor puts out a lot of content on the socials, and he is yet another creator that I just didn’t get. I’m not really into design or architecture.
But this long form video found me when I was properly primed. Just prior, I’d seen some pictures of Washington Road. Do you know it? I’m sure you know something just like it. For me, it’s called Pac Highway.
Washington Road runs just outside of the Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters. Augusta is one of the most pristine golf courses on earth. Every spring, I have one of my best naps while the Masters plays, azaleas in full bloom, birds chirping, Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo describing the action in hushed voices. That is my tradition unlike any other.
I was surprised to learn that when the players leave the friendly confines of Augusta National and head for their hotels, they are transported into a whole new world, one that feels much more familiar to me than the manicured landscapes we see on the Golf Channel.
This is common, at least in the United States. It’s mullet culture. They say it’s business in front, party in the back, but what is it really in back? Let’s be real. It’s trash. I mean, maybe not rat-tail trash, but trash all the same.
In Quirke’s video, he takes us on a tour of places that are mostly unseen, places that have every right to be Washington Road, but they’re not. They’re beautiful while still being utilitarian, and the downstream impact of living and working in and amongst beauty and quality can’t be understated.
He argues that the design of public spaces and infrastructure reflects a society’s values, contrasting the Victorian era’s approach with modern priorities.
I for one am with him.
Casey Neistat, Will AI Slop End Creativity?
Casey has made this list before—he is the WebLog GOAT—but this video leaves me asking whether he’ll ever make the list again.
OpenAI’s new AI video-generation app, Sora, an “AI TikTok clone,” is at the center of it, although at the time of this writing, other companies have entered the space.
The main takeaway has to do with the funnel. The content creation funnel. And that funnel is getting really, really big.
Constraints for creativity, and the sharing of your creations, are going away. To the point where, in this latest iteration, even the creativity part is gone. The robots do it for us, and it’s called AI Slop.
My take? The bottom of the funnel will always be constrained. Regardless of how you define quality, the measure is if people watch, listen, or read. The constraint is attention. And there are only so many hours in the day. With a massive top of the funnel, and the same old bottom, the long tail gets longer. People get more customized content. And the world gets fewer shared cultural moments—like showing up to Camelot Elementary School on a Monday morning to talk about one thing and one thing only: In Living Color.
Sad.
Streaming:
For an ‘80s child, two must-see documentaries are Being Eddie on Netflix, and I Like Me on Amazon Prime.
Eddie Murphy and John Candy were a huge part of my childhood. The documentaries reveal how talented both were, how big they both got, and how each dealt with their fame. I just wish Candy actually liked himself as much as Del Griffith did.
If the story has special forces, I’m pretty much all in. I love them all, and Warfare did not disappoint. It is a down and dirty, action-packed war movie that is 100% focused on a single hellish encounter during the 2006 Battle of Ramadi. I heard about the movie from Jocko Podcast #486 where he interviewed the real-life Elliott Miller and Joe Hildebrand. This podcast was particularly interesting, because Jocko’s own SEAL Team 3 (Task Unit Bruiser) had turned over to Miller, Hildebrand, and SEAL Team 5 just a month before the events.
Shrinking on Apple TV+ delivered literal LOLs over two seasons—what more do you want from a sitcom? And quietly, Apple TV+ is turning into one of the top streamers. My wife and I also enjoyed Your Friends & Neighbors and Presumed Innocent. I loved Mr. Scorsese and, of course, Severance—one of the best shows in recent memory.
Speaking of Scorsese, Taxi Driver is a classic for good reason. If you like your violence on the frontier, American Primeval will do the trick. And after you’re done, lighten things up with some suburban violence in No Good Deed. All on Netflix.
Podcast of the Year: Rick Rubin, Tetragrammaton
If you want to hear economist Tyler Cowen talk about choral music, Rick’s got you. If you are more interested in Tony Hawk discussing the skill required (pain tolerance) to make it to the top, Rick’s got you too. And if your preference is a deep dive on jazz flute from hip-hop legend André 3000, just leave it to Rick Rubin and Tetragrammaton.
When Rick Rubin decided to leave Broken Record, I was super bummed. I really enjoyed his perspectives on that show. But he left for a good reason. Rubin is best known for his work as a music producer, but he has a variety of interests. Tetragrammaton is allowing him to explore all of them.
One of the gripes I hear about this blog is that I’m not focused. Apparently, successful blogs cover one subject. Readers know what they’re going to get. Same goes for podcasts. Huberman talks health. Founders does biographies. Jocko tells war stories. But I like to ramble. So does Rick. And what I like even more is when someone like Rick lends his experience to new domains, or when he allows others to do so. Like Cowen.
So when Huberman strays and has his old neighbor Steven Pressfield on to talk creativity and resistance instead of heart disease, I’m down.
Pod Clip of the Year: Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
This video came through my feed just as I was going to publish, and I’m glad it did. It’s so damn funny. And sad.
Grief, gallows humor, whatever you want to call it.
When your time comes, wouldn’t it feel good to get one last laugh with the fellas and the family?
I sure think so.
With all the pain, laughter really is the best medicine. Such a relief. And the more trouble you’ve got bottled up, the more that release comes pouring out. Good friends help you find that release valve.
Snack of the Year: Protein Pudding
Truth be told, I had this on the list last year and removed it at the last minute. Why? I don’t know—I guess I didn’t want to be a health influencer (yet!). But over the past year I’ve told a number of people about this dirty little secret, and the reviews have been extremely positive.
I’m a big kid, and based on the current broscience, I need about 180 grams of protein a day. It used to feel almost impossible to hit that target. Then I found a simple recipe from Kelly Starrett: Protein Pudding. All you need is your favorite plain yogurt and a scoop of protein powder (add a little milk if it get’s too thick). Stir it together, and you’ve got a thick, satisfying pudding that packs in 30-50 grams of protein. I love it, and it makes hitting my daily protein goals a whole lot easier. If you want to be a bit more gluttonous awesome, add a big-ass scoop of peanut butter with your chocolate protein, and create a healthy (although not low-calorie) alternative to those Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups you’ve been sneaking from the kid’s stash.
Purchase of the Year: Spalding 54” Momentous Basketball Hoop
What? You thought I’d go small? Recommend a tongue scraper?
Okay, maybe you don’t need a basketball hoop. Maybe you’ve got better things to do. But at our place, we have Bocce Ball and Croquet. We’ve got wiffle ball and frisbees. We’ve got a trampoline, an archery set, Spikeball, and even a fun Scandinavian game called Kubb.
I love them all, but they don’t come out much. Why? Well, I said it right there, “come out.” Once they are neatly stored away, there they sit.
It is a tenet of environmental design. If you want to change your behavior, change your surroundings. And while I don’t really care if my basketball game improves at this point, I do want to improve my surroundings with more play. Play has all sorts of wonderful benefits that we’ll get into on a later post, but the biggest one is that long lost art of having fun. Regardless of how you choose to do it.
And I’ll be damned if that isn’t the case with our family and this basketball hoop. Every time you leave the house, you’re walking past the hoop. And why wouldn’t you put up a few shots while you wait for everyone to get their shoes on? Or on the way to the mailbox? My son comes home from school every day, and just leans his head in, “Dad, wanna play?”
My answer? YES!
And so, we play a lot of basketball these days.
Ands this hoop sure beats the hell out of a dart board.
Technology: Segway Navimow
I have a post coming up about working with robots where I’ll get into the nitty-gritty on all the ways I’m embracing our new overlords, but for now, a simple recommendation. The Segway Navimow knocks out 95% of your mowing needs. I have the i105N but you’ll need to choose based on yard size.
A uni-tasker like this is slightly less likely to become our overlord. It does one thing and does it well. So while Navimowers won’t rule the world, they will put a lot of humans out of business.
We call ours Bacon, and he saves hours of time and thousands of dollars.
Why not just hire a yard guy? I’ll tell you, because I’ve hired a few. They suck. “Yard Guy” is synonymous with “Gardener” but that is just untrue. Gardeners are very expensive, and in my area, very hard to find. It is specialty work that is not going away.
What most people have—and what I had—is a Yard Guy who just walks behind a mower and sprays for weeds. They don’t bend at the waist. They’ll walk right past or mow right over a dandelion…and it pisses me right off. Their constant leaf blowing is a nuisance to neighborhoods across America, also pissing me off.
So Yard Guy got replaced by a whisper-quiet robot.
They don’t edge (yet!), so I go out with the weed eater every week or two for some touchup, but otherwise, my lawn care is taken care of. And, as a teaser for the upcoming post, I really enjoy working alongside Bacon, and I think this is an underrated side effect we’ll see in the coming years.
Social
@Naval
Naval is the undisputed King of Tweets. Like a good quote, a good tweet has meaning. If it’s really good, it has meanings. It’s also memorable. It gets stuck in your craw.
In the accompanying post and podcast, Naval breaks this down further. “Working for yourself” doesn’t just mean being a business owner. Plenty of entrepreneurs are still working—stressed, burned out, doing stuff they hate. Naval means something else: doing work because you genuinely want to, because it matters to you. That can happen whether you run the company or work inside it.
This is really what I’m going for, and I think I’m doing it well, outside of the actual money part, but hey, OpenAI isn’t profitable either.
How we come to select what we work on is what we’ll cover next.
@TheCinesthetic
This one inspired me.
You know what most of the comments were about? You don’t really want to know. Lots of religious this and political that. But the point of this post is about imposter syndrome and leadership.
How do we choose what to work on?
Well, let’s start with this: It should be something so challenging your first instinct is to decline—to push back, to defer to someone better. Like the first stage of the hero’s journey; denial of the call.
The second part of selecting what to work on is this: it should be so unique that no one else can pull it off. Like the sword in the stone, only you can pull it out.
The bar should appear impossibly out of reach. You should feel outmatched.
And you should do it anyway.
Spielberg saw what Williams couldn’t—that only he, among the living, could do it. And he pushed him to take on the work. And for Spielberg? Making that scene, and that movie, had him feeling the same way. So really, he was asking Williams to join him on the journey.
Reading
Blog Post of the Year: 900,000 vs 9, by Seth Godin
47 words. So short I can just screen grab and share. I strive for this level of clarity.
Essay of the Year: Here’s How To Live: Create., by Derek Sivers
Here is the start…
“The most valuable real estate in the world is the graveyard.
There lie millions of half-written books, ideas never launched, and talents never developed.
Most people die with everything still inside of them.“The way to live is to create.
Die empty.
Get every idea out of your head and into reality.”
Don’t want to read on?? Check yourself for a pulse.
Makes me think of what Linda Rottenberg said to Reid Hoffman on Masters of Scale:
“The best ideas don’t die in the marketplace or in the laboratory—they die in the shower. People don’t even give themselves permission to walk out of the shower and write it on a napkin and take it into the world. Because they’re afraid of what others are going to think about them, or that people might say, ‘That’s just a crazy idea.’”
From The Vault: Fuckarounditis, by Martin Berkhan
Martin is the man behind the intermittent fasting phenomenon that took over the planet years ago. Celebrities and influencers adopted his 18/6 protocol to drop pounds and get shredded. Intrigued, I read his book.
One of the last chapters is “Magic Bullet,” where he describes the painful truth: none exists. Not even his precious intermittent fasting.
So, what actually made the difference with his clients?
What most people need is to identify and eliminate what he calls fuckarounditis. It’s the half-assed attempts—not exactly procrastination, something closer to going through the motions.
He says: if you’ve been working out 4 days a week for the last 15 years and still look like… well, like you do… you probably suffer from fuckarounditis.
And while his post is squarely in the domain of fitness, I think it applies to much of life. I read it. Then reread it. It had no new information, but I learned something. I had it. It put a name to what I was doing. And I didn’t like the name.
Give it a read and apply it to what you will.
Fiction: The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris
I watched the movie years ago. I was probably too young. I didn’t really understand the nuance. But it certainly was terrifying.
I read The Story Grid a few years ago in hopes of improving my writing, and the author, Shawn Coyne, pointed to The Silence of the Lambs as the perfect example of a thriller.
Some of these books, the “perfect” ones, I steer clear of. It’s hard to read them when you are trying to create your own work. It can make writing feel too daunting.
But I finally got brave and picked it up, and hot damn, it is terrific.
Nonfiction: The Choice, by Dr. Edith Eva Eger
I know there is a very famous account of Auschwitz from a very famous psychiatrist—Man’s Search for Meaning. I love that book. I’ve read it cover to cover several times.
This book is better.
Dr. Eger’s story is unbelievable, her lessons are unforgettable, and she is (gasp!) a better writer than Frankl. Please read The Choice. It will change you.
Meme of the Year:
If you have worked with clients in any field, you understand. But the people who need to see this are the clients themselves.
Travel:
It wasn’t a huge travel year, but I did manage a long weekend on the Big Island as well as the annual Burien Outdoor Adventure Club outing to Moab.
In Kona, I’d highly recommend doing a night snorkel with the manta rays. I’d heard it was cool, it was cool, so now I’m telling you: it’s cool.
Why? Because manta rays are BIG-ASS FISH and they are SO FRIGGIN’ CLOSE you might lose it. I was losing it. They brush against you, they glide under you, and if you’re like me, you giggle, hoot, and holler through your snorkel to the delight (okay, occasional annoyance) of your fellow snorkelers.
We used Sea Quest Hawaii, who not only took care of us on the trip but gave us cookies and hot chocolate upon our return. Yes, in winter, even in Hawaii, you can catch a chill after 60 minutes in the water.
Moab? I’ll likely do a longer piece on this trip down the line, but if you are looking for an outfitter to get you down the Green River, Tex’s had everything dialed. Boats, shuttles, last-minute supplies—even the travel shitter (a.k.a. the ass gasket)…an Apollo-era groover, forged from a single block of iridium, used by Buzz Aldrin himself in low orbit, and auctioned off on the outskirts of Houston during NASA’s lean post-Apollo years. Or, I mean, that’s what it looked like to me.
Last but not least, if you are looking for a place to sleep in the dirt for a few nights, the kids and I loved our stay at Bumping Lake. I’d recommend the upper loop for tent campers and the lower loop for RVs. Bring something to float on, bring some bikes, bring some cards. You know, camping, like we all did when America was younger and more vivacious.
New Follow: Dylan O’Sullivan, @Dylanoa4
Dylan O’Sullivan is a writer from Cork, Ireland, who somehow reads three books a week, every week, and has been doing it for the better part of a decade. I’m not going to test those numbers, but his feed is a gloriously overstuffed bookshelf with quotes and insights tumbling from every level. You know that kind of bookshelf where you pull down a title, only to discover another row of books behind it?
Here’s his magic: Dylan finds the treasures buried in books you’d never finish. That dense philosophy tome gathering dust on your shelf? He’s already excavated the one perfect passage that makes the whole thing click.
He packages centuries of wisdom into bite-size morsels—a single profound sentence that makes you need to know who said it and why. Suddenly “too long, too hard, too intimidating” becomes “maybe I could actually read this.”
Of course you won’t finish it. And that’s okay. We have Dylan. This is his gift to the normies like us.
Be warned: following him means accepting you’ll never keep up. None of us do. Your reading list will balloon. You’ll discover how many great books you still haven’t read.
But you’ll be better for having tried.
If your timeline could use more depth, beauty, and voices that have echoed through centuries, follow @DylanoA4.
Music:
We’re trying something new this year. Instead of recommending specific artists, here are the songs I “liked” this past year. Literally. And yes, they’re in order.
Did I have a country moment? Yep. Sure did.
Did I revisit some favorites like Led Zeppelin and Pearl Jam? You bet your ass I did.
And do I have a few that are somewhat embarrassing? Absolutely. But it’s not really worth posting if you’re not willing to show a little skin.
And there you have it.
Curious about past years? Check them out: Recommengine 2024, and 2023.
Wishing you all the best in 2026.
See you right here, next year!
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