Projects, experiments and toys by Rafał Pastuszak
Friend, I l o o o o o v e cigarettes! 🎶 I love nicotine, the Tammy to my Ron, the Shams to my Rumi, the fire of my lungs. 🎶 I also love having a healthy body and generally not feeling like I've rented an Airbnb in Serge Gainsbourg's mouth. And, I've gotten pretty good at quitting, I quit all the time, sometimes for a day, sometimes for a year or two. So, I made myself a little web app I open…
Hey there. We're getting very close to the release of a new Ensō , and I'm at the stage where I need to stop coding and start talking about it. Why invest so much time in working on something if we don't give people a chance to decide for themselves if it's valuable? As any cryptozoologist will tell you: the procrastination ogre feeds on time — the longer we wait, the bigger it gets . Thinking…
433 is a font that masks visible text and replaces it with dots. I'm using it in the new version of Ensō along with Coffeeshop Mode . You can see it in action here: Beautiful. Why In short: because it's the simplest way to add Coffeeshop Mode to the app. (Also, because I was curious) (OK, mainly because I was curious, Dog mode ) Longer version: The previous note on Ensō ended up on the front page…
I was going to share a different note today but found it hard to focus on writing instead of working on Ensō ( How to Balance Making vs. Sharing - working title ), so I thought we could work on something together instead. By working together I mainly mean getting my shit together, or rather — getting all of my notes into one place so I could use them in the future and stop repeating myself. So,…
Hi there, Look! The new version of Ensō (codename: Occult Vampire Keanu) is available for public testing! Download it here This is a temporary icon I used for testing. I am considering creating a simplified version of it. PS. here's the original image (on potato.horse , of course) What's included Following MISS , my focus is on removing distractions over adding new features. This can be…
Hello there. It's been a long time. I needed to take care of my health which meant spending some time away from the big shining rectangle. (I'm good now.) Longer breaks from writing make it harder to get back on track. Thus, in the spirit of Sharing our unfinished, scrappy work , I wanted to break the ice and challenge myself a little bit, pet the tarantula . So no Disclaimers this time, just…
Embed No it's NOT fine! Let's Hold Hands is a tiny web app where you can: hold hands. You can use it in two ways: invite a friend via a link wait for a person to join the pair (new users are automatically assigned to the first available pair/room) The entire thing takes 34-45 seconds. Give it a go and let me know what you think! Why I made it Short version: it's a fun communication problem! I…
This one will be quick. I've started accumulating projects, but have gotten much worse at sharing them. So, in the spirit of sharing unfinished, scrappy work , let's take a look at: Link in a Box ! What (can you spot the secret message hidden in this link?) Link in a Box is a simple web app that allows you to share otherwise censored links via DMs on Twitter. It's pretty rudimentary, as I built it…
At the time of writing this I've had about 300 Say Hi calls! Many of the people I meet share their art with me (digitally or analog via mail, if I'm lucky). A recent caller made made a graffiti with an anglerfish . I have a few anglerfishes in my notebook too, so I thought I'd share mine. There are three four things I liked about this drawing. One, it looks like it was made by a kid. It tickles my…
I'm trying to get back into a regular posting schedule , so I hope you won't mind keeping things a bit less techy for a minute (or sixty). I'll do my best to follow the rules of this site: spark your curiosity , entertain you or, at the very least, inspire you (because you'll realise you can do it even better!). Now, enough with the disclaimers , it's Moonworm time™: I used to be an insomniac, the…
This is a follow-up to default apps from December 2023. Defaults Having reviewed the note, I realised that the changes are more interesting than the list itself, so for the sake of visual clarity I've pulled it into a separate page. You can find the complete list here here . What changed The point still stands that most of my apps still fall into the categories of Indie , Walled Garden and…
I've gathered sooo much direct feedback for Ensō over the past few years! The nice thing about relying on people messaging me directly (via email or Say Hi calls, instead of analytics) is the quality of that feedback. I can actually engage with people using the product, bounce off ideas in an email thread or a call. Besides being a good motivator, this lets me feel like I have something concrete ,…
A few weeks back I felt bored and somewhat nihilistic, so naturally I went where people go to when they want to scream into the void. This time the void didn't gaze back at me, but served me this: Programmers have a Pavlovian Engineering Response , so 20 minutes later with a bit of prompting I made Gregglogger, excuse: me Gregglogger ✨. What is Gregglogger Gregglogger records every time you copy,…
(don't overthink this, I didn't ) I'm playing with a "coffeeshop" mode for Ensō . It's pretty simple: hit shift twice to toggle between visible and masked text: Why am I doing this: Immediate reason: I usually write my Stream of Consciousness Morning Notes at home, but this time I was in a crowded coffeeshop with people breathing down my neck. Original title: My guardian angel putting me to sleep…
Original title: When you realise that you forgot the egg Hi there! I've been taking things slow this week (no writing, no coding besides client work, Mango 's gotta eat). I'm happy I took a break instead escaping into the more comfortable nook of my brain... with one small slip . Then this masterful toot caught my attention: Fuck, it's Egg Day! Thank you for the nudge Matthias. Here are some of my…
I liked Steph Ango's avatars almost as much as the Notion design team , so I decided to share some of the ones I made for myself ages ago. Before we get there: this was meant to be a silly little note I'd share to warm up a bit and get back to a more regular writing schedule, but it seems that I (accidentally, and against my better judgment) DID learn something: Kepano and kepasa (which is how…
Hi there! The new site's up, standing on its three (mostly finished) and one (slightly wobbly) leg. I'll continue working on it and share what I've learned along the way. Enough with intros and disclaimers . This site is the Snail of Theseus after all. Let's goooooooo! What's xitter.png xitter.png is what I use to embed tweets on this site with respect for your privacy. By that I mean that none of…
Hi! How have you been? I'm starting my holiday in about 10...9 minutes, so I'll keep this one quick: I want to extend my experiment indefinitely and have a space to write, think and build in public with as little friction as possible. I've been consciously avoiding leaving Obsidian Publish yak shaving during the past few months, so I could focus on what then felt scary -- writing! So I left the…
Meta Reminder: this site is an iterative experiment , so let's put on the janitor hat welcome this festive sock because we reached 111 posts you handsome beast ! This week's summary 111! Embed – yours truly, some time last year A few days back I read a post by someone who said that what prompted them to write was a thing I wrote/shared here. This wasn't the first time it happened. And every time…
Hi there! This one will be quick. Let's let the code speak for itself for a change. A week back or so I saw a video by a channel called Texture Labs explaining a simple shading technique using gradients, grain and posterise. I thought it would be a fun thing to play with, so here you go. Just Some Innocent Gradient Fun is a simple graphics editor demonstrating the technique mentioned in the video.…