Tyler Dickey

November 10, 2025

INTEROPERABLE 018 Wintering with well designed scissors and military surplus jackets

Photo: Collapsed Former Hotel, Amiens, France October 2025. Photo by the author.

Hello, beautiful INTEROPERABLE readers!

Tyler Dickey here. Yes, I am a dude, and my love language is sharing videos from the internet. Welcome to the 18th edition of this sporadic, sophomoric publication.

Late autumn into early winter is an excellent time to reflect and reset well before the craziness of the holidays or the social pressure of a New Year for a new you. An "autumn reset" is a practice most of us did as kids when returning to school, but might have strayed from later in life. Some new clothes, books, and fresh stationery can boost the mind and make winter a time to plant yourself like a bulb for a glorious spring

It's also a good time to:
  • Check your fire extinguisher and smoke alarms
  • Restock first aid supplies and cold/flu remedies
  • Renew any of your waterproof/technical clothing with a product like Nikwax

Craighill Chroma Scissors

By no means is this an endorsement to buy a pair of $48 scissors, but watching a design team talk through how they solve problems is always a shot in the arm if you're in a creative rut:

Draplin Design Discussion

Another design-y talk: Brad Frost, of Atomic Design fame, has a lovely interview podcast called Wake Up Excited. In a recent edition, Brad hosts the legendary graphic designer Aaron Draplin. I've seen Aaron speak in person a handful of times and have followed his work for nearly two decades. His voice is a unique beacon of hope, well worth a watch/listen.

Guide to Gear

Radio producer, podcaster, and frequent topic on this particular blog Avery Trufelman has returned with a new season of Articles Of Interest, this time focusing on the history of outdoor gear at the time of publication three episodes have dropped focusing on The American Military Uniform, The field jacket, and The lightweight revolution Articles of Interest is always a well researched, well presented amalgam of history and fashion. You might fight yourself in the market for some sweet, sweet military surplus. I recommend the fine people at Americana Pipedream Apparel(USA, international shipping), GOARMY (UK), or Varusteleka (Finland, ships internationally)
Articles of Interest Gear: Chapter 1 on Substack, Spotify, or Apple

Recommended Reading

book.sv is a free book recommendation engine built by scraping 43 million Goodreads users. I entered about six or seven of my favourite books, and the results were impressive, with some books I've never considered, and a few that have been on my radar for years that I need to get around to reading. It suggested other books I’ve read and loved, validating its taste-matching algorithm. Most exciting were the new titles it suggested: intriguing picks I hadn’t encountered before.

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I'm Tyler Dickey, and this is my newsletter, INTEROPERABLE. Here, I celebrate my never-ending love for reliable, available, and maintainable systems like RSS and telephony. I write about topics that interest me: art, reading, making things, and technology. Please consider subscribing or following me elsewhere on the internet:


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This publication will
  • always be free of charge.
  • always be informative and educational in nature.
  • always credit and link to sources to the best of the author's ability.
  • never be auto-generated or contain AI (LLM) generated content, aka slop¹.
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¹Slop describes AI-generated content that is both unrequested and unreviewed. (Source)