Cool Links Vol. 19: January, 2026

Hey there, welcome to the first Cool Links digest of 2026!

Before I start with the links, I want to just mention that I just launched my first app on the App Store! It's not something I built from scratch, but I took my favorite Mastodon client and wrapped it around nicely into an iOS app that plays along better with the system. I wrote about it on this other blog post from today!

Fun

Wallpaper Theme Converter

You might have read before that I love the Catppuccin color theme. It's the same one I use on this website! I also love using that theme on the apps that allow me to, like Obsidian, VS Code and Vivaldi.

To match all of that, I need some wallpapers that fit the palette too. And I just came across this tool that automatically adapts the color palette of any image you upload to a theme of your choice! I've had good results with it so far. Definitely makes my desktop look way nicer :)

Ian's Shoelace Site

This is awesome: an entire site dedicated to shoelaces, how to lace, tie or simply learn about them. It even includes the “world’s fastest shoelace knot”, created by the website’s author himself! I gotta try it out.

The Truth About Lying (and why we do it) (video), by Miss Chalice

Excuse me, I'm in a Lies of P obsession right now. This video (which contains some light spoilers) talks about the Truth/Lie choices in the game, which are an incredible narrative device, and how that relates to what makes us human.

It's not surprising that a game based on the story of Pinocchio would have Lies and "becoming human" as parts of its theme, but I really like how they made it all make sense organically and not just like something they tacked in there because they had to.

Dev

jQuery 4.0.0

I definitely didn’t expect seeing a new major jQuery release in 2026, but here it is! This is the first major release in 10 years and it doesn’t bring a lot of new things on the surface, but seems to have been a major overhaul behind the scenes. Looks like a future v5 will bring in bigger changes.

jQuery might be old by JS framework standards, but it’s still very useful, and I actually still use it almost daily at my job.

Case Study: lynnandtonic.com 2025 refresh, by Lynn Fisher

Lynn talks through a really neat effect added to the latest refresh of their website: a “squishy” animation on the content whenever the window gets resized!

This means you won’t get to see the effect live on your phone, but there’s videos of the effect on the article just in case.

Love the paper-like aesthetic of the website, too.

Deep Read

A Website To End All Websites, by Henry Desroches

This is a very interesting read that compares the internet’s development to that of the automobile, but I also want to highlight the design of the article itself. So good 🤌

Wrapping up

Thanks for following along, and see you next month!