Microblog: Decoy Font
A typeface you can view in two ways by focusing or unfocusing your eyes. This lets you show two different messages using the same ‘space’.
roo.se
Blog posts and microblogs by roo.se
Latest posts
Microblog: Bootstrapper EU stack
A nice overview of European alternatives for online services when you want to host your own website or app. Think hosting, analytics, email services, and payment systems.
Creativity and AI
As a creative person, I think a lot about the impact of AI on my work. If it's possible to create something by giving a chatbot a text prompt, what does it even mean to be creative?
Microblog: Edit videos in your browser with Tooscut
Right now, I use Shotcut to edit videos every now and then, but next time I’m going to try this online tool.
Microblog: Minecraft clone
Minecraft is cool, and I used to play it a lot. However, since Microsoft acquired it, I’ve noticed that it’s become more difficult to get the game to run properly on multiple platforms. Perhaps this clone, Luanti, could offer a solution?
Moving Away from Big Tech
Big Tech companies such as Google, Apple, and Meta offer free services in order to profit from your personal data. Shareholders are more important than users. That is why I am switching to companies and services that have a different revenue model. I will explain which services I have switched to and why.
Microblog: Argument with AI
Dystopian but also funny: a developer gets into an argument with an AI agent in GitHub discussions, who then writes a blog post to discredit the developer.
Microblog: Publishing your work increases your luck
Aaron Francis has a point when he writes that you have to share your work if you want more people to see it. The more people that see your work the bigger the chance someone valuable might take notice. That’s why, this year, I want to try and share more of what I’m doing on this website. “How can we increase the odds of finding luck? By being a person who works in public. By…
Microblog: Willpower Doesn’t Work. This Does.
According to Angela Duckworth willpower doesn’t work but you can make your life easier by making smart use of physical distance. Want to read more? Put a book on your table and put your phone as far away as possible. Want to eat healthier? Fill your cabinets with healthy options and leave the junkfood in the store. “You cannot change the conditions of modern life, but you are the…
Microblog: Life is a videogame
And Mark Manson shares his cheat codes. I found this one particularly interesting because I’ve started doing daily Morning Pages since last year (writing three full pages): “To observe your own thoughts and not be a fuckface, you need to get your thoughts out in front of you and pretend that they aren’t yours. Only then can you hear how utterly ridiculous they sound. One common way to…
The best of 2025
Just like in 2022, 2023 and 2024, here's a list of the best media I consumed this past year.
Microblog: The news, but with a fourty year delay
I’ve already written about why I try to avoid reading news . This project by David Guttman, which shows news but with a forty-year delay, clearly demonstrates how sensational news can be. Because although the front page from decades ago looks very important, the issues that were being played out then are no longer relevant. How does that relate to the questions that are featured on…
Microblog: Drawing Dungeons
Dave Rupert shares a YouTube video where Odd Artworks shows the process of drawing, lining and colouring a Dungeon. Always fun to see how someone gets to a creative result.
Gaming and kids
Screen time for my kids remains a tricky issue for me. At first I always thought a child should grow up with as little screen time as possible. But the more I learn about it, the more I also see the positive side of certain screens. Especially gaming.
Microblog: Everything is television
Derek Thompson argues that Social Media is hardly used for being social anymore but mostly for watching short form video’s, like television: “Social media has evolved from text to photo to video to streams of text, photo, and video, and finally, it seems to have reached a kind of settled end state, in which TikTok and Meta are trying to become the same thing: a screen showing hours and…
Microblog: Ryan Holiday about writing a little bit, every day
“While a book requires many, many hours of work, these hours come in rather small increments. If I get to the office at eight thirty, I could be done writing by eleven. Just a couple hours is all it takes. Just a couple crappy pages a day, as one old writing rule puts it. The discipline of writing is about showing up. No delays, no procrastination, no digital distractions. Just…
Positive climate news
In the news, you mainly read about doom scenarios regarding the climate problem. But it's not all doom and gloom. I see more and more reports with a positive perspective, and that's why I want to share them here.
Microblog: Apparently Bob Odenkirk is jealous of people like me
A thoughtful answer of Odenkirk when he is questioned of who he is jealous of: “Anyone still with young kids at home growing up,” he answers. “There’s no question I knew what I was doing when I had kids growing up. I was being a dad. I mean that was my job, and I didn’t have to ask myself: what am I doing here? How can I be a part of this world? How can I be meaningful today? “I didn’t have to ask…
Why rucking is the ideal way of exercising for me
Rucking is walking with a heavy backpack on. It is the perfect combination of strength training and cardio. Additionally, you can do it alone or together outdoors in nature.
Bore yourself to death
Nowadays, you don't have to be bored anymore. In the queue at the checkout, you pull out your mobile to read the latest football news, and during a long, boring car ride, you listen to a podcast. That's a pity because by boring yourself to death, you come to insights and ideas that you wouldn't have otherwise.
Do it every day
If you want to become better at something, whether it's playing the piano, writing songs, or speaking a language, make sure you engage with it every day.
I create, therefore I am
Why I find creating something important and how that feeling is confirmed by science.
A more uncomfortable but better life
The book 'The Comfort Crisis' by Michael Easter is full of advice, backed by scientific research, that make your life less comfortable in the short term but better in the long term. In this blog, I share some of these insights that I have started applying in my daily life.
Everyone is just doing whatever
When you look at others, it sometimes seems like they have everything perfectly sorted out. The reality is that everyone is just figuring things out as they go. So, don't let that hold you back; just go ahead and do your thing.
Microblog: Windows 11 without all the junk and on every (unsupported) device
This October support for Windows 10 will end. I would like to switch to Linux but this tool Flyoobe offers an alternative where you can install Windows 11 without all the AI bloat.
Microblog: Irvine Welsh on writing
Last week I read some articles about Irvine Welsh’s writing proces. Being on of my favourite authors this particular quote strung a chord with me: “You sit down there. Certainly for the first drafts, I tend to let the subconcious do the heavy lifting. Do all the work. You don’t really know basically. You just sit down and type. Get lost in it. You go into this place and next thing you…
Experiment: Writing a Novel with AI
I'm going to try writing a novel with AI. This doesn't mean I'll let AI write my novel, but that AI, in this case Claude, will become my writing partner.
Microblog: Don't outsource writing to AI (LLM's)!
It’s easy to outsource writing (and thinking) to Artificial Intelligence, but in the proces we lose something important: “However, writing is not only about reporting results; it also provides a tool to uncover new thoughts and ideas. Writing compels us to think — not in the chaotic, non-linear way our minds typically wander, but in a structured, intentional manner. By writing it down,…
Microblog: Why it is important to stimulate kids to read
From the opinion piece “Thinking Is Becoming a Luxury Good” by Mary Harrington: “Long-form literacy is not innate but learned, sometimes laboriously. As Maryanne Wolf, a literacy scholar, has illustrated, acquiring and perfecting a capacity for long-form, “expert reading” is literally mind-altering. It rewires our brains, increasing vocabulary, shifting brain activity toward the…
Microblog: Switch from WhatsApp to Signal
I had already started with this but then came across this article. The author makes a few good points about why you shouldn’t trust Meta, the company behind WhatsApp, with your data and conversations.
Microblog: AI will create a ‘white-collar bloodbath’
According to Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, in the news item on the website of CNN. Analist Allison Morrow is skeptical because ‘AI’ mostly consist of hallucinating, quasi-trustworthy text predictors. This quote by Mark Cuban also piqued my interest: “Someone needs to remind the CEO that at one point there were more than (2 million) secretaries. There were also separate employees to…
Microblog: Trump makes digital EU sovereignity great again
As Europe we need to break free from our dependency on American digital services. What if Trump decides to use access to these services as a geopolitical chess piece? It can severely hamper a country. Take for example the total integration of Microsoft within the Dutch government. From getting access to cloud work spaces to all the communication within Microsoft Teams. Time to choose for European…
Microblog: RSS Feeds as antidote against social media
David Oliver says following RSS Feeds can be an antidote to the bite-sized fast paced consumption of social media. You need to make time to decide which RSS Feeds you want to follow. This ‘garden’, as he calls it, needs periodic maintenance to prevent from being overwhelmed by all the information.
Microblog: Are there exceptions to the ‘avoid multi-column forms’ rule?
As a designer you feel the need to put form fields in multiple columns next to each other. It looks clean and you neatly make use of the available space. Adam Silver once again points out that you should avoid this at all cost. Time again research shows that putting the form fields in one column works best for users. And it might not be the prettiest solutions, but that’s something we need…
Microblog: 100 quotes that can help with writing
Austin Kleon shares 100 quotes that can help with writing. Such as this one from Percival Everett: “I’m pretty sure everything I’m writing is s—t. I’m just trying to make the best s—t I can.”
Microblog: 'Epictetus was right when he said it’s not that you read but what you read.'
I got this quote from a blog by Ryan Holiday where he shares his favourite books read in 2024. What he wants to say is that it’s important to be selective of which books you pick up (and put down if they are not your cup of tea).
Why grid systems are no longer needed
Rigid grid systems have become outdated and unnecessary in a world where the screen widths of our devices are increasingly diverse. The solution is a flexible system that can be applied in any situation.
Microblog: How to deal with multiple submit buttons on the same page?
Adam Silver discusses several complicated technical solutions to finally arrive to a simple, but smart solution: dividing the form into multiple pages.
Microblog: 'Perfect' designs within large organisations
Working as a designer in a large organization and getting your ‘perfect’ designs actually built can be a challenge. According to Andy Budd this has multiple reasons but it’s important to: Embrace the progress even though your design won’t be built pixel perfect. Ask the right questions in order to determine where the problem lies with your designs. Be tactical on which…
Microblog: Cool visual trick with WebGL
WebGL is a technique that is available in all the major browser which can be used to make this interactive smoke and light visual.
The best of 2024
I always enjoy other people's year-end lists, so that's why I'm sharing which media have occupied my mind in 2024.
Fasting
Why I don't eat for 16 hours on a day and the positive effect it has on me.
Microblog: Read a book and gain advantage
Nikhil Suresh argues in this blog that the simple fact that you are willing to read in a specific domain gives you a head start. Suresh claims this is because few people make the effort to continue reading within their specialization.
Microblog: See me standing
A month after I became the proud owner of a sitting/standing desk, I came across this article. It’s about how standing the whole day is just as bad as sitting all day. Luckily, the solution, as always, is variation. It’s especially important to take a walk now and then.
Microblog: Should destructive buttons be hard to find?
Adam Silver, an expert on UI/UX design, had a discussion with his colleague: should a button that can do harm, such as deleting an item, be hard to find? Eventually, they reached the conclusion that it shouldn’t be hard to find the button, but you have to build in a safety net if a user deletes something accidentally. This way, users who need to delete something can still easily find the…
Microblog: The aesthetic-usability effect
In this article the aesthetic-usability effect is explained by the UX experts of the Nielsen Norman Group. This effect makes users believe something (like a website or an app) is easier to use because it looks pretty. A solid argument to pay attention to how something looks besides of just making something user friendly. Author Kate Moran does warn there is a limit to this effect and that, even…
Microblog: Full Focus
A small blog with a big message: Bill Wear argues that everything you do, you have do it with your full attention. This requires practice. Giving your attention to the things that truly matter.
Microblog: Hemingway effect
How to strategically make use of the ‘Hemmingway effect’, which basically means to stop in de the middle of a creative endeavour even though you feel you can go on. By doing this it’s easier to get yourself motivated to start up the project the next time you’re having a go.
Microblog: Excessive screen time also harmful for adults
There is a lot of talk about screen time being bad for kids. But adults are not exempt to the downsides of being glued to a screen all day. It’s bad for your eyes and passive screen time is being compared to sugar for your brain. That’s why scientist advise to avoid screens for the first hour of the day. Instead you can read a book, listen to music or prepare a healthy breakfast.
Microblog: Skies before screens
Hannah Bussey emphasizes that it’s important to go outside as soon as possible after waking. Bathing in the sunlight, even on a cloudy day and before you check your phone, works towards a good cardiac rhythm. Meaning you will sleep better at night.