Sit back and enjoy the ride.
I tried Claude Design yesterday and I have a theory for how this whole thing shakes out. As product teams scaled and design needed to justify itself inside engineering orgs, it was pushed toward systematization — and Figma invented its own primitives to make that work: components, styles, variables, props, and so on. Some concepts are borrowed from programming, some aren’t, and the whole thing…
There is a certain kind of computer review that is really a permission slip. It tells you what you’re allowed to want. It locates you in a taxonomy — student, creative, professional, power user — and assigns you a product. It is helpful. It is responsible. It has very little interest in what you might become. The MacBook Neo has attracted a lot of these reviews. The consensus is reasonable: $599,…
When I started designing, building, and testing iOS apps, I over-indexed on the happy path. Which would be fine if everyone used your app exactly as intended, with your exact phone model and your exact system settings and your exact same physical/cognitive abilities. However, scientists have recently discovered that humans are different. And they will use your software in novel, inane ways. As the…
You probably don’t know me, but you know my greatest hits: “Birds aren’t real,” “5G causes cancer,” “JFK’s head just did that.” I’ve been freelance-writing conspiracy theories since 2001 (the industry really took off that year). Back then, this was an art. I’d spend months researching, building off of preexisting foundations, photoshopping red arrows onto the grainiest JPEGs I could find. Back…
Recently, I made a social media post asking why we eat some wood (almonds) and not other wood (teak, mahogany). This raised some questions, so I figured a slightly longer form medium would be appropriate to address some questions and concerns about what wood we can and cannot eat. What follows is my non-comprehensive list of things that is edible wood and things that is inedible wood. Edible Wood…
Hey man, do you wanna come to my poetry reading? You’ll love the venue, it’s got peeling lead paint, rusted pipes, the whole post-industrial vibe. It’s in the basement of an operational kill shelter, you’ll know it when you see it. I know you’re on the Upper West Side; it’s super easy to get to from there — just stay on the M train after the last stop in Queens, wait for it to turn around beyond…
Look at this absolute roach motel they want you to go through to delete your account. That’s New York Times -level bonkos. https://seatgeek.com/account/delete/ . You’re welcome. I haven’t seen this linked anywhere in their account settings, but the iOS app links to it because they have to .
As a savvy investor, I’ve always been on the lookout for the next big thing. I’ve dabbled in stocks, real estate, and even cryptocurrency, but nothing has ever quite captured my attention like GapCash. For those who don’t know, GapCash — issued by the Gap clothing company — is legal tender in all Gap retail locations, of which there are at least a baker’s dozen. And let me tell you, this is the…
Recently, I was at a restaurant where the menu was mostly French. There was a dish I wanted to order (Oeufs en meurette), but I didn’t know how to pronounce it so I had to do that thing where I said the familiar syllables super loud and the mystery syllables in basically a murmur (“I’ll have the OOFS EN M eurphme ETTE”). I had to do that twice so the waiter could hear it and it was utterly…
Something something web design. You get the idea.
It's 2022. Why are we still using fiber?!
An experimental Caesar Shift web utility inspired by Saul Bass.
Navigating my first year of web development
A humble proposal.
How switching to Localhost saved me tens of millions of dollars