I’m speaking at two events coming up:

I was at a musical performance the other week. A couple of groups playing as a send-off to Fiddle Tunes. Maybe a few hundred people in an old blimp hangar. The audience area was slightly staggered, so there would be like 8 rows of chairs, then a stair, then 8 more, etc. So if you […]

You don’t need a special app for YouTube playlists. On any given video, there is a decently easy-to-find “Save” option that allows you to add to a playlist. You can have multiple playlists, and they are also decently easy to find and edit. So it’s an uphill battle for an app like Play ($2.99 on […]

I’m always filled with temporary dread when I see a huge semi truck pull up to a busy intersection to turn. How are they going to orchestrate everything to make this turn happen? They must be way to the left in the turning lane, cutting off lanes to their right. They have to swoop into […]

She writes: myth: everyone should blog I sometimes see advice to the effect of “blogging is great! public speaking is great! everyone should do it! build your Personal Brand!“. That’s me, I say that. I don’t know about personal brands anymore, but I like the idea that it helps you think. Blogging isn’t for everyone. […]

That’s what WordPress.com is asking for web hosting, domain ownership, and support for a hundred years. They are essentially saying they’ll be helping your anointed heir with the /wp-admin/ password after you die. Pretty cool. Mostly, I love the strong marketing play: you can trust us to be around for the (very) long haul. Is […]

Baldur wrote up some thoughts about how companies don’t typically reward refactoring code. There isn’t a lot of incentive at many companies for slow work, rewriting old code, refactoring toward better ideas, paying down technical debt, and that kind of thing. I get that impression anyway, I don’t have much first-hand experience as I’ve spent […]

Keith Grant in Scope vs Shadow DOM: But here’s the thing: CSS @scope and shadow DOM are not competing standards. They’re complementary. They meet different needs entirely — but with enough healthy overlap in functionality so there isn’t a gap. I like that phrase “enough healthy overlap” when it comes to web platform features. Grid […]

I love the idea of the Bird Buddy. Somebody was like: what if a Ring doorbell camera except a bird feeder? Then totally did it. But they went the extra mile by making the app that shows you visiting birds actually kinda good. It must use some kind of machine learning model to identify the […]

When I talked about saving links, what was helpful for me is to think about my behavior in terms of when I’m going to need that link, so I broadly bucketed like: I like how Juha-Matti Santala didn’t just think in terms of those categories for themselves but re-bucketed like: If I were to use […]

Miranda and I went to Vegas the other week. A bit of a late 6th-anniversary celebration. Miranda had also never been there, despite being a way more accomplished world traveler than I, and it seemed like a place she would enjoy, what with all the dressing up. We left on a Thursday afternoon and had […]

Robin, after noticing that most print books are perfectly fine (decent type, decent cover, decent paper), notices that most websites are not fine: The baseline for websites is not great. Okay, fine: most websites are pure, unadulterated, straight-up bad. Bad from top to bottom, bad from left to right. There’s no denying it, as much […]

When I was looking at what looks like the “official” online personality test for Meyers-Briggs when I was spouting off about personality tests, I noticed that their radio button choices were actually kinda cool: I like how, visually, the larger radio buttons imply “more”. I can’t 100% vouch for the accessibility of their solution, but […]

By Zach, named Educational Sensational Inspirational Foundational. I might add Stevey’s Google Platforms Rant.

If you’re blogging like I’m doing here, it’s nice to be able to kick your posts out automatically to social networks (in addition to RSS). A reasonable list right now: There are many more sites we’d consider social networks, but they aren’t as obviously a good fit for sharing blog posts. Instagram is a big […]

I think there are some personality traits that are pretty damn useful to know about yourself and others. For example: the spectrum between introversion and extroversion is real and has really helped me understand myself. But some personality trait frameworks seem like utter nonsense to me. Some people put stock behind their astrological signs. But […]

I never even ask what the WiFi is at coffee shops and hotels. I have AT&T cell service, and the plan I have includes a “Mobile Hotspot”. I flip that sucker on, and now my phone is my WiFi. I find it’s usually faster and more reliable to use than some arbitrary shared WiFi, and […]

My birthday! I got to sleep in a bit. 7:30! What! It was even planned that way because we had a big day ahead. 43. Prime number. It’s always easy to remember how old I am since I’m an “eighty baby”, as in, born in 1980. Nice even number. It’s not hard to figure out […]

I saw this funny comic in Outside magazine from Brendan Leonard where he did a one-minute plank every day for four months. Did it turn out to be… good? It sounds like not really. Like possibly, his core is a little stronger, but that’s unclear, and he certainly didn’t develop any love for doing it. […]