Thoughts on programming, design, and creating digital experiences
Not quite sure what happened this year but I definitely feel like it was momentous. In no particular order: Traveled to China for the first time. Got to see Shanghai and met my wife’s extended family. Grew my following on social media considerably. Mainly in Threads which somehow surprises people as a place that exists. Earned 4 figures on an app I built. Which gave me validation to try new ideas…
Some AI-positive random thoughts with some internal deliberations: The other day I posted an image about the underwhelming launch of GPT-5 and it seemed to have had quite the reaction I was half kidding with that image I am impressed by the improvement in error correction and less hallucinations, etc. But it made me realize that true revolution in AI for me was to think about how it’s evolved my…
Supppp. I’m here vibe coding on a plane as I write this. I’m actually updating yet another blog that will inevitably be neglected. But I love writing so I gotta keep trying to make this a habit lol. Anyway, I’m hoping to reflect about how I broke the “cycle of presumed importance” when it comes to building things. I’ll explain. I wrote an article last year about how personal projects can take…
New video talking about some cool developments on Bleep and my plans for the next few weeks. Update 2025-08-04: Not really as back on YouTube as the video was hinting at, but happy to have this on the blog as part of my experience building Bleep. I do still want to make more videos in the future, though.
January. January. January. Always an odd month for me. While most people are working towards their New Year Resolutions, I kinda use it as a “buffering” month. I slow down my productivity and try to not have plans. So… Games Finally got to try Balatro over the holidays… Man… I’m in awe that such a polished and well designed game can be made by one person. I won’t lie, I’m inspired but also very…
It’s the best kinda game that I can enjoy at the moment. It’s very fast, mentally demanding, and quite creative. It’s also challenging in ways that weren’t obvious to me immediately: it’s intimidating. Both intellectually and socially. Especially socially. That’s because it is intimate. You are doing an activity and only that activity with another person. In silence (usually). Your mind is also…
The guy from mmm.page just posted an update showing how he just reached 1.0 even though from my perspective he was already launched. Obviously he’s already gained traction and is validated the concept, probably not long after he started building it (web builders are such an accessible space). Bleep so far has been a bit stagnant on the marketing department. I’ve kept building and rebuilding the…
The app is coming together nicely. Definitely rough around the edges, but it gets better from here on out. Get it👇 Bleep for iPhone Bleep for Mac If you have it installed in both iPhone and Mac, it should sync your data between devices (and backup on your private iCloud). If that’s not the case, or if you have any other feedback or ideas, shoot me a message using the Feedback option in the app.…
Today I launched my new website over at rolando.is . I worked on it for about a week at the end of last year when I was considering freelancing again (decided against it.) I am no longer looking for side projects but I do want to continue to build over a public space to express myself in whatever form I want, so I decided to tweak some of the animations and get it done in the past week. The…
Like for most of us, opening my computer or phone is stressful. It means either several messages that need my attention, random promotions from products I forgot existed, or simply social media posts piling up. Yuk. I decided that my mental health was more important, so I turned the big switch off. I went to my settings and put all my devices in a permanent Do Not Disturb mode. After a month of…
Wanting to organize myself and my thoughts goes deeper than just “getting things done”. It’s how I make sense of my life and what makes me feel excited and grateful every day. In theory, technology should help us get to a point where we truly understand ourselves, and what steps to take to become the people we want to be. But we’ve really only touched the surface. The “productivity” software…
I am coming out of a creative block after spending a very strange month. Not only have I been out of my comfort zone for most of it, but I also felt the least productive I’ve felt in a while. I felt useless. Not “useless” in a hopeless kind of way, but more in the “what am I supposed to do with my free time?” kind of way. Let me explain. First of all, I left my job in late March in what I would…
How do you know what you want to do with your life? Can it really just be one thing? Chances are you have many interests between topics, skills, or activities. You wish you had all the time in the world to engage in all of them, and yet, you hope that eventually this will show you a “passion”. When I was in my early teens I drew pirate ships or cars every day after school, I also made incomplete…
A recent idea that I’m just beginning to accept is the fact that it’s okay to make decisions on a “gut feeling” and finding logical reasons for them later. I mean, that’s the definition of intuition. While it may seem like common sense, it may be a bit more difficult if you’re obsessed with “truth” and you feel like you have to make an informed decision or otherwise you’ll label yourself…
My relationship with hand-written notes has been spotty. If I have a notepad next to me, I’m very likely to doodle, take notes and write down my thoughts. If I don’t, I’ll just go back to taking notes wherever makes sense on my computer or phone. Lately, I’ve been using sharpies and watercolor paper for quick sketches for Bleep and it’s been quite enjoyable: the thick lines of a marker feels…
In this talk, video game programmer Jonathan Blow speaks of the sometimes unnecessary complexity that comes with writing software. Systems that would initially be well understood (e.g. a single person can read and change them) are now split in different services and abstractions that are harder to inherit and could eventually lose meaning (the collapse of civilization). I’m a bit more optimistic,…
When it comes to taking advantage of your larger displays, having a tool that helps you split and arrange windows quickly goes a long way. In this guide, I take this concept further by helping you create a workflow where every corner of your screen has a purpose, and apps can be launched and rearranged quickly with keystrokes. All with a dose of beautiful a e s t h e t i c s . Choosing the right…
I’m not trying to imply an authority when I use the word “lesson”. Rather, I speak out of my ignorance and a most recent learning that comes after years of doing the wrong thing when designing new digital products: not talking to people enough. There are two main reasons why I think this happened to me and probably to you, the reader: Ego. You think you are expected to know the answers to…
In less than three years, my open source project Salvattore is helping more than 2K web designers and developers create multi-column layouts like Pinterest. It is not the first tool to accomplish this, nor is really my project. I simply had an idea for an algorithm that I couldn’t code myself (at the time) and I asked for help to my programmer friend Giorgio . I’m glad I did. Not only because I…