The personal website of Brian Muenzenmeyer. Every page a new Circus McGurkus!
I'm almost 40, so that means it's time for me to get really into Dune . I have a 1990 Ace Books mass market copy . I don't remember how I got it. But it has stellar cover typography. It felt like an insurmountable task to start...especially with the dense opening scene. But after the movies it felt more like an old friend, and I picked it up during a rough patch. Sometimes the difference between a…
Watch the getting started video on Gorilla.tube So, I counted. I have 7 iPads in this house. Seven . School is a factor, as is the steady accrual of stuff . Readers will know we have four kids. I am not proud of this first fact, but the latter is a continual source of challenge and reward. It's perhaps then not a surprise that Megan and I don't have a lot of time. Yeah yeah everyone has the same…
I had the privilege to speak twice at All Things Open this year, and since it wasn't recorded I wanted to get a long-form copy out into the world. Read it over on the Approachable Open Source blog at approachableopensource.com/blog/2025-open-source-workshops/
Growing up, I played rec soccer, high school, and then more rec. The best moments were playing indoor with Jim. Professional soccer was 3 hours away in Chicago. Now, we are 20 minutes from watching our adopted home team, MNUFC. Let's go, you Loons! Here's a running playlist of games we've been to as a family and with friends. Jack and I also ranked all the MLS team crests if you are into that sort…
🌐 For immediate release, from my desk to your device... 📰 Saturday News Drop! 📓 New post: Open Source Pace Layers , now live on the approachableopensource.com blog! 🎙️ This idea percolated from a short conversation with Marty Henderson, into a Node.js-specific blog post , to a cozy Minnestar/Minnebar talk, to a great JavaScriptMN meetup night, and finally a full-stage OpenJS Foundation JSConf…
I've been an at-times a practicing and professional designer now for some 20 years. I've also been a supporter of the Loons MLS football club since moving to Minnesota in 2017. This is an opinionated breakdown of the Major League Soccer team crests and logos, ranked from worst to best. The world is far too serious right now. This is purely fun and not meant to offend. Don't like my list? Make your…
📣 Dependencies are great! Don't confuse this post as a refutation of the module system. Node.js has been so successful in part because of its healthy ecosystem on the npm registry. A healthy standard library is not designed to handle every use case. There is room for both here. It's been exciting contributing to the nodejs.org website . It's a five-way intersection of technology, legacy choices,…
When I started the Boy, This is hard series, I made clear that we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves. I'm not always great at following my own advice, especially at work. That's another story, and not the one I want to tell today. Approachable Open Source started its journey with A Book Apart, a very professional outfit. I mean, gorgeous production value, crisp messaging, stellar community, and…
The initial announcement for Approachable Open Source included a statement: my brief book about the open source movement! The phrase brief book was alliterative and pleasing to me, but I received some feedback almost immediately. You might want to reconsider calling the book "brief" if the price is $32 (or more) 😅 It decreases your book's perceived value, making $32 price tag hard to swallow.…
approachable open source Approachable Open Source APPROACHABLE OPEN SOURCE It's worth repeating! The 📀 "gold copy" of my book is off to the printer! That was my internal milestone to finally announce the title to the world. I'm looking at the well-worn proof right now. 🆕 Preorder at $27 for a paperback and digital bundle! Approachable Open Source is a perennial, full-spectrum primer on the open…
A short update on the book , for those interested! Publication Method I've decided to self-publish the book as a print, ebook, or bundled package. What open source book would be complete without an open source version too, right? My intent is to do that on some sort of delay, perhaps a chapter a month. A lot of that is predicated on my ability to mark it up accessibly, however. I thought about…
Dropping two links here for posterity. It's been a busy week! https://tech.target.com/blog/open-source-fund I was published on Target's tech blog outlining our new Open Source Fund. It was a major career highlight to see this grow and come to light. https://nodejs.org/en/blog/announcements/diving-into-the-nodejs-website-redesign I wrote about the gargantuan open source effort that went into…
If you've followed updates here for the last year or so, you know that I've written a book about open source software . Last summer started a period of radio silence, however. Under the most ideal of timelines, the book would be out by now. At risk of burying the lede, I'll put it plainly: I'm looking for new publishing avenues. By now the news is out of A Book Apart changing direction . The crush…
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? - Thou art more lovely and more temperate. + Thou code more lovely and more temperate. - Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, + Rough diffs do shake the reviews to dismay, - And summer’s lease hath all too short a date. + And day’s release hath all too short a date. - Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, + Sometime too hotfix our team semver…
Workshop: Building and Managing an Open Source Program Office Ibrahim Haddad, Ph.D., VP Strategic Platforms, LF IbrahimAtLinux.com Criticality of Open Source OSS is market accelerant direct + indirect product enablement = upstream development enables better products (screenshot) OSS improves talent and skills development. hire better people. attracts talent. OSS is building block of the innovation…
Open Source Summit EU in Bilbao, Spain : September 18th - September 21st Keynotes State of the Foundation Jim Zemlin, Executive Director, LF "Humble, Helpful, Hopeful" 800,000 developers across all projects "The sky is always falling" - but we work through it. Licensing Hashicorp to BSL. The sky is not falling in OSS. it is just getting sunnier. "only 9" examples of license changes like this. open…
Open Source Summit EU in Bilbao, Spain : September 18th - September 21st Keynotes Day 1 This year's hot topics: OSS is a pillar for vertical industries' digital transformation OSS and the public sector... it's complicated value of open governance open source (and) sustainability open source AI Open Source is not just about (big) tech. LF helps with networking, automotive, film, financial, energy,…
Open source software is improved as a movement when we all participate. But putting that thought into action can feel ill-defined or too large a task if we let it. I'm pretty passionate about changing these concerns . I've written a book about it. The participation that projects crave comes in many forms, not limited to coding. I was reminded again of the spectrum of engagement when watching…
T his week I joined the Node.js website team . It's been a fantastic way, however small, to contribute toward something larger. I believe that open source contribution takes many forms. In my short time here, I've triaged issues, discussed future plans, fixed some small things, and reviewed pull requests. Above all else, I've been learning. Here's a short list of things I kept track of in the past…
Today I attended an open source conference. The topics covered a healthy mixture of industry topics. But one throughline cut through attendees, speakers' off-hand remarks, and the schedule itself: AI and specifically ChatGPT. I directly observed: Pre-talk bro-chat about which model was better. Caveats that the Stack Overflow data didn't represent a time when ChatGPT was yet prevalent Quips that…
It hit me the other day that my draft wouldn't be what it is today without the generosity of many folks who believed in it, and me. So much of the fear to act comes from this central struggle in my mind between asking permission and asking forgiveness. For small things, I often quip that forgiveness is the better battle to wage. A plan, a hunch, or a shitty first drafts can often get you in the…
After scouring the 11ty plugins page for something similar, I thought to myself, " self, it's about time you tried writing a plugin ". And so here it is! eleventy-plugin-inline-favicon With a little shortcode magic, you can add an inline image of any link. The favicon of the host will be displayed before your link. I have more plans for this... such as configuration, a11y investigations, and most…
If the Twitter exodus yielded any good (aside from further outing Batman as a terrible role model), it's that we should control our content and our message as if it were a resource worth preserving. I've been excited to see folks blogging again. Not only blogging, but call-and-response blogging with one another. Call and Response Here are two examples: Chris Coyier writes The Great Divide in…
The draft is "done!" It feels good to say that. I finished late (early) one night, the final exhale of a marathon a year in the writing and a career in the making. My shitty first draft is now a sprawling chronicle of things said and not said. I've challenged much of what I thought I knew on this subject. I've confronted platitudes and pedestals. I've found deficiencies sitting right out in the…
The deeper I get into drafting, the more it feels like I am cutting onions. I've had broad, surface-level awareness of many topics I wish to write about for years and years now, and felt pretty darn good speaking to them. Stringing together these topics into a cogent argument felt and feels attainable, but what's been humbling is how far off I am in truly understanding these topics. The generalist…
I wrote a bit today between Max's birthday party drop-off and pickup. It didn't feel all that productive, maybe 6 paragraphs in total of shitty first draft material . But I feathered in 9 resources and bookmarked a couple more along the way, and even found myself contributing to an open source project (procrastinating much?). The weight of self-doubt crept in as I referenced so many other pieces…
This post is part of a series as I document my journey writing a book ! I've tried to live the ethos of shitty first drafts in my writing for a while now. I distinctly recall not doing this when creative writing in college and younger. I agonized over a single word at a time. I realized today while researching that shitty first drafts hold up for software development too. It's good little-a agile…
Oscar Wilde said that a cynic is a man that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. He would have been such a prolific Twitter shitposter. The wasteful and cheap consumption we live through reminds me of this quote, especially as we accrue and discard more stuff. We've had vacuum cleaners that don't last a year. Coffee makers that last about as long. Kids' shoes worn through after…
I win all the arguments I have with other people. I bet you do too. The problem is—all of these arguments are fictitious—taking place only in my head. They are a product of my insecurities and worries, manifesting perhaps as some sort of fight or flight training. But it never makes me feel better—instead stewing the stressors of conflict unresolved or conversations yet to be had. I've learned to…
For five generations there has been a Muenzenmeyer male named after their grandfather. Walter Rudolf Muenzenmeyer Paul Edward Muenzenmeyer James Walter Muenzenmeyer Brian Paul Muenzenmeyer Max James Muenzenmeyer
The right tool is the one that is fastest. The right tool is the one that is cheapest. The right tool is the one you have with you. The right tool is the one that doesn't break. The right tool is the one that is performant. The right tool is the one that you can afford. The right tool is the one that is open sourced. The right tool is the one that never regresses. The right tool is the one that…
It's been easy to think of walls as bad things, given the last few years. And then there's that saying about fences. Both add to evidence that walls act as barriers as their primary function. But of course, walls have more than one dimension. Our walls have helped display the warmth of our family. Our walls try to welcome and delight. Our walls tell a story. At our home on Tartan Curve, Megan got…
We found ourselves owning a Yamaha baby grand piano now for over 10 years. It was probably the first nice thing Megan and I ever bought together, after our 77k modest bomb shelter of a first home. The piano is an extremely durable good—like most instruments really—that still holds value and is a beautiful addition to our home. I remember doing yardwork and listening to Megan playing it inside. The…
The other day at work another engineering team reported a bug that should have been impossible. We distribute a custom ErrorBoundary for our users which implements the React lifecycle method componentDidCatch : componentDidCatch(error, info) { // Example "componentStack": // in ComponentThatThrows (created by App) // in ErrorBoundary (created by App) // in div (created by App) // in App…
We told the whole family at once about Megan expecting. We won't soon forget how some have reacted... but I want to capture how each of you responded then and since: Us: "Ben, we are going to have a baby. You'll have a baby brother or sister." Ben (2.5): "Me baby!" He might be in denial. Jack (5) (in Megan's words) "claimed the baby as his own" and immediately started creating plans to have the…
I never met my grandfather—he was the perfect relative. My middle name is his name. I have his wristwatch and his hammer. I am told stories here and there at family gatherings and see the odd photo. I see his impact on others in my orbit, like my father, who lost him when he was barely 17 years old. I cannot fathom that void. And I cannot stop thinking about this as I grow older and now have 3…
I never thought a box from a warehouse grocer would create typographic inspiration, but here we are. The object of my obsession: I sat playing with my kids in the driveway and this curiosity caught my eye. There it was, just inside the garage, a bulky box holding other broken-down cardboard. The contrasting shadows and lettering really played nicely against the black-to-yellow-striped gradient.…
Sundays are for RSS 🦝 — Dave Rupert (@davatron5000) February 28, 2021 After setting up my RSS feed last month, I set out to reconnect with my web design community roots. I want to extinguish or lessen the idle/doom-scrolling of Twitter and Reddit and tame the always-another email newsletter. Setup and Awareness Dave suggested feedbin , which looked like the right balance of power and simplicity…
Inspired by Dave Rupert’s post . 5-6AM I usually wake between 5 and 6AM, with healthy snoozing. I will catch up on news and newsletters, email or fun coding. This being the only consistent time that doesn’t impact family life—I sometimes game. My go-to is Battlegrounds, which I enjoy as an FPS but also as a game I can play despite frustrating wrist issues that Halo or anything twitchier seems to…
Update: Since this article was written, I've retired from active involvement in Pattern Lab . The ideas I lay out in the below post made stepping away the right decision at this time. Pattern Lab development is stagnating. The evidence is everywhere. My 3.0 milestone is almost 1 year overdue. Release frequency is down. Questions increasingly go unanswered. Issues remain in a triage, unresolved…
This post is an opinion about CSS-IN-JS. There are many like it but this one is mine. It started on my bus home. How 'bout that CSS-in-JS? [pic.twitter.com/mcR9scUhQq](http://pic.twitter.com/mcR9scUhQq "") — Brad Frost (@brad_frost) May 8, 2018 I cannot help but be slightly triggered by the tweet. The code snippet demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of React and how to apply styles to…
By now the news of some changes to the core team of Pattern Lab is making the rounds . The Node version of Pattern Lab is forging ahead with increasing momentum from the community and an inspiring roadmap. I welcome a renewed partnership from the PHP platform. We already have some slick shared features planned. While I am excited for the future, I want to take a moment to thank the person…
Hey there. Along with Brad Frost and Dave Olsen , I help build Pattern Lab . We just finished a great workshop at WebDesignDay and want to tell you more about it. Go read about it on Smashing Magazine: Making and Maintaining Atomic Design Systems with Pattern Lab 2 . There's plenty of info there about what's new & how to get up and running. We can't wait to see what you build with Pattern Lab! Try…
I've had a soft-spot for style guides, ever since seeing http://pea.rs/ at An Event Apart a couple years back. When Pattern Lab emerged soon after, I was hooked. Since, I've maintained the Node version of Brad Frost's and Dave Olsen's Pattern Lab and used it in a number of personal and professional projects. At the company I work for, I use Pattern Lab as the style guide for our next-phase web…
Dave Rupert sparked a conversation today about Patternlab after some initial usage, which elicited a nice round of feedback from others. Brad Frost summed it up nicely: It's been a process to make Pattern Lab simultaneously flexible and robust I want to put some thoughts to paper about how this process has played out for me. Patternlab-PHP was rather feature-rich when I started. I likely missed…
This post refers to an old version of brianmuenzenmeyer.com , but the lesson is important. When creating the masthead for this site, I was quick to ensure support in Chrome, Firefox, and IE 10-8. It was easy, I suggest too easy , to test the fluid layout and media queries by resizing the window, or using a tool like this one to gut-check various viewports. None of this, however, could satisfy the…