I’ve written guides on sewing and embroidery, and quilting is where both skills meet. You piece fabric together the way you would for any sewing project, then stitch through three layers, top, batting, and backing, to hold it all together. Done well, it turns leftover fabric and a bit of patience into a beautiful blanket that lasts. I looked at courses that teach quilting as a repeatable process rather than a one-off project: how to cut accurately, piece a block so your seams line up, and fini

In Q4 2025, Duolingo announced it would let go of $50M in bookings to reach 100 million daily active users (DAUs) by 2028; a strategy Class Central covered in detail last month.  2026 is its “investment year,” and Q1 was the first quarter of execution. So far, the plan seems to be working. The Expected Results: Low Bookings, High DAUs Duolingo is running multiple tests to improve the free experience: spoken tokens for speaking practice, Speaking Adventures for real-world conversations, and fla

Both Coursera and Udemy started 2025 with new CEOs. Greg Hart took over at Coursera in February. Hugo Sarrazin started at Udemy in March. Less than a month into the job, both CEOs were in conversations to sell their companies. On April 8, Hart and Sarrazin met for the first time at ASU+GSV. The rest, as they say, is history. In my 5,000-word analysis of Coursera’s acquisition of Udemy, I called the deal rushed. Two new CEOs, both less than a year into the job, merging two public companies. I w

Is PHP dead? Absolutely not. Laravel (83K+ stars) is the undisputed industry leader. Its $57M Series A raise in 2024 proved it’s here to stay, cementing its status for one simple reason: Speed. It lets you ship complex apps faster and happier. The market agrees. Senior salaries are hitting $120K+, and giants like Pfizer and the BBC rely on it. But between serverless deployment (Vapor), real-time broadcasting (Reverb), and high-performance concurrency (Octane), the ecosystem is huge. Where to s