Briefs
Saturday, October 19th, 2024
The path out of loneliness is always a path of action.
Bret Stephens, If Israel Is Alone, What Do We Do About It?
Monday, April 8th, 2024
Via Hacker News, this Chrome for Developers post dives into browser colors beyond RGB.
Monday, February 12th, 2024
For the past few months I’ve retreated from working on a software product to, well, for a month after October 7th I didn’t seem to get much work done, then I was working on software systems for clients. Now dipping my toe back into RSSDeck, the biggest edifice I’ve ever created, I’m inspired by this short piece by Jason Fried, “To Make”:
I’ve consulted. I’ve done client work. I’ve advised. I’ve served on boards. I’ve invested. I’ve written books. I’ve spoken on the circuit. I’ve blogged for years. I have to say, I’ve found no greater professional joy than working with a tight group of people to ship and support our own products.
Wednesday, June 21st, 2023
Jakob Nielsen has written a series of articles (8 so far) on UX in the age of AI. They are:
- AI Is First New UI Paradigm in 60 Years
- AI Vastly Improves Productivity for Business Users and Reduces Skill Gaps
- AI vs. Metaverse: Which Is the 5th Generation UI?
- UX Needs a Sense of Urgency About AI
- Prompt-Driven AI UX Hurts Usability
- ChatGPT Does Almost as Well as Human UX Researchers in a Case Study of Thematic Analysis
- How Much UX Do You Need for AI Projects?
- “Prompt Engineering” Showcases Poor Usability of Current Generative AI
Wednesday, June 7th, 2023
At Why Svelte?, the homepage states “CSS is component-scoped by default” — the “by default” being the compliment vice pays to virtue. Because at the Github discussion on this issue (Ability to disable css scope across entire application #4764), Svelte Core Member/Maintainer @Conduitry, 2nd in commits only to founder Rich Harris, writes:
In general, using global CSS everywhere is something we want to steer people away from, and doesn’t feel like something we want to natively make easy or tacitly endorse.
The “C” in “CSS” stands for “cascading” yet the purpose of scoping CSS in components is to neuter that cascade. For the poster of this issue, Svelte’s stance was a dealbreaker, as it would be for me too. Scoped CSS components are the wussy option, which is fine and in many cases perhaps more viable, but the wussy option they should remain.
Thursday, March 2nd, 2023
Via Paul Graham, who chose Gerald Ford’s portrait as his favorite, “every american president, but they’re all cool and they all sport a mullet” by Cam Harless.
Thursday, September 22nd, 2022
A good ol’ rant by everyone against Microsoft in this Hacker News thread, this time about Teams. When o when will this monstrosity of a corporation die already. “Developer-friendly”; may the GitHub guys get what they deserve for selling out to the Borg.
Tuesday, September 20th, 2022
So ifixit are really excited by the repairability of the new iPhone 14, the internals of which have been totally redesigned. This was barely mentioned at the launch, and interestingly did not carry over to the 14 Pros.
Saturday, July 30th, 2022
Wednesday, June 8th, 2022
Thursday, May 12th, 2022
A reminder to just ship it:
I was scrolling their landing page and I was happy and furious at the same time. Someone solved the problem that I was solving. It was like someone literally read my mind and started coding. WHAT.
I have previously sent a video of my app to a couple of people (closest I came to shipping it) so I started getting suspicious if someone actually shared the video of my app with these people because they were solving literally the same problem, and they most of the features that I had.
I started getting this overwhelming happy, sad, and panicky feeling. I literally cannot explain how I felt while scrolling their page.
Thursday, April 14th, 2022
In an interview on Israel’s national broadcaster Kan, this is a fair-minded well-informed backgrounder on Temple Mount tensions.
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2022
The kids wanted a Nintendo Switch. I thought — and was advised — a used Wii would be wise. Because kids, we now have both. Ever since my first computer, an Apple //c, your churlish host has considered a gaming console redundant and wasteful. But, like Apple, Nintendo it seems is a universe of excellence into which to dive. Yamauchi No. 10 Family Office is the website of the Nintendo founding family. Cool scrolling, ambitious mission, constant motion, and the music sounds like Son of Jeff Lynne.
Tuesday, February 8th, 2022
eVTOL Innovation YouTube channel extols the Lilium as the most promising of the upcoming ways we will fly.
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022
Tuesday, February 1st, 2022
The design of Lotus’s upcoming electric vehicle looks like a sleeker Esprit, reports Hearst’s Road & Track; when it’s released we can say we saw the blueprints for this car two years ago.
Friday, January 28th, 2022
As of Jan 14th, Marco Arment’s iOS podcasting app Overcast is now using Apple’s system font. Many commented on the change — (a few) people do care. Marco writes tantalizingly:
The way forward for Overcast is to use system fonts. You’ll see.
Monday, December 13th, 2021
I do get assigned to projects I am not excited about, but my job is to figure out what it is about that project that is exciting.
Joe Rohde, Imagineer, The Imagineering Story, s01e06
Sunday, December 5th, 2021
Because the Marvel intro music is replaying in my mind’s ear (composed I believe by the great Michael Giacchino), I went to YouTube and found Every Marvel Intro. Turns out the first time we heard this brief yet potent bit was Dr Strange.
Thursday, November 18th, 2021
At Starter Story, Ed Baldoni, founder of Concrete Countertop Solutions, tells the story of how his business has reached $1.1m in monthly revenue.
I was a developer/ home builder for over 40 years. As a builder, I was always looking to stay ahead of the curve and offer new ideas to my clients … Our Z Counterform System for countertops and Z Poolform System for concrete pool coping are the go-to solutions for cast-in-place concrete forms. With a small but dedicated team, we grew this business from an idea to over $12M in revenue in 10 years.
Exciting story, exciting product.
Wednesday, November 10th, 2021
The best Star Trek starships by Josh Tyler at Giant Freakin Robot.
Thursday, October 14th, 2021
Hiconsumption presents the lovely Lambos.
Monday, October 4th, 2021
Londonist visits the two new Tube stations, Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms.
Sunday, September 26th, 2021
Safari in iOS 15 is enough of a redesign to warrant reading a primer. Thanks, TidBits, for Josh Centers’ “Hot New Features in Safari in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15”
Want to close all open tabs so you can start fresh with Tab Groups? Press and hold the Done text label to reveal the secret option. Why Apple hid it there is baffling, and there’s zero indication that “Done” would have any secondary function.
Wednesday, July 28th, 2021
Awesome triangular semi-transparent Japanese sauna by architect Taichi Kuma.
Wednesday, July 14th, 2021
Some negative-space logos.
Friday, May 28th, 2021
Federico Viticci of MacStories tours Apple’s new store on Via del Corso in Rome, saying it’s one of Apple’s most ambitious restoration projects to date.
Tuesday, May 25th, 2021
Witness within a modern miracle, it’s iFixIt’s teardown of the M1 iMac!
Saturday, May 8th, 2021
Sometimes a cool story is strong enough to override my current aversion to The New York Times, and this interactive piece about Oval Office art qualifies.
Wednesday, April 21st, 2021
Thursday, February 18th, 2021
Andy Bell outlines new CSS functionality in Smashing Magazine.
Thursday, January 21st, 2021
Dated but still interesting: The Guardian looks at the rather disappointing design of Japanese newspaper websites.
Monday, December 14th, 2020
Dave Rupert does a nice job (April 2018) listing the pitfalls of card UIs. I’m beginning to think though that for Rupert, a long list of drawbacks is throat-clearing for “I’m going ahead with this.”
Thursday, November 26th, 2020
3D model of Fallingwater by sighty for sale, including a portion of Bear Run, which interestingly gets cuts off even before the bridge that obviously crosses it, making this a model not of the house but of a model of it.
Boy, there are other models too. Here’s an interactive Fallingwater by archimore. It has the interior, even the raised rocks around the fireplace! (Though missing the grand swinging water heater.) The non-Wright dining-table chairs that Mrs Kaufman brought. The portrait of Edgar on the wall! Yet no walkway up to the Guesthouse, and no Guesthouse.
And another Fallingwater by Myles Zhang which does have the Gueshouse and ramp, even the steps into the swimming pool. And a very long stretch of Bear Run. It does have the round red water holer, but no furniture.
Would be good to merge these magnificent efforts to make a more detailed, canonical model.
Tuesday, November 17th, 2020
Tuesday, October 27th, 2020
I’m so pleased about the Apple blues.
Thursday, August 20th, 2020
The iPhone matters more than anything … it is the foundation of modern life.
Ben Johnson, “Apple, Epic, and the App Store”
Wednesday, August 5th, 2020
In wake of Phil Schiller’s ascent, Cult of Mac lists all the Apple Fellows.
Tuesday, August 4th, 2020
Friday, July 31st, 2020
The Smithsonian posts a nice little piece on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Laurent House, designed for the wheelchair-bound client who clearly adored his wonderful home, which is now thankfully a museum.
Sunday, July 12th, 2020
A work-in-progress web rendering of Moby Dick by Jason Pamental, with Rockwell Kent’s woodblock illustrations. Glorious!
Sunday, July 5th, 2020
The animated line-drawing illustrations at Ralph Ammer’s blog definitely make me want to read every post!
Poolside.FM, the lovely Mac throwback to 1997.
Ash Kyd built his web site to look and act like Windows 95 — cool!
Sunday, May 17th, 2020
The Making of Prince of Persia
Jordan Mechner
Video game maker Jordan Mechner wrote a rich diary of his life in the mid-1980s. This book covers the creation his second hit game, Prince of Persia, so we gain access of unique immediacy to the heroic tale of producing a universe-dent-making hit.
I wanted this book, which I discovered via Tyler Cowen’s most recent What I’ve been reading, as inspiration during a small lull in morale as I work on a digital product of my own.
Thirty years on there is some poignancy in that this early period of Mencher’s life was the peak: after graduating Yale, already dreamily successful, he shuttles between San Francisco and Hollywood creating video games and pushing screenplays, a digital Orson Welles (in his later game The Last Express, Mechner combines these passions, relying on cinema to produce an impressive commercial failure).
That said, perhaps it is no failure at all that one can point to the creative peak of a life — Mechner’s arguably was working within the memory constraints of the Apple II to create a foe, Shadow Man, based on the hero character. Here I’m reminded of Ken Kocienda’s not dissimilar Eureka moment when up against a constraint, that of using a dictionary to help create the iPhone keyboard.
Perhaps it would have been a better book if he had fleshed out the journal with an italicized retrospective written now, but count me a late-arrival Jordan Mechner fan. And don’t get the Kindle edition lacking the illustrations; I think I’m gonna need to buy the actual book.
Thursday, May 14th, 2020
In the morning I put in the stair-climbing, and in the evening, the sword-sheathing.
Jordan Mechner, The Making of Prince of Persia
Friday, March 6th, 2020
Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs
by Ken Kocienda
In one of those books where we see it’s perhaps more useful to be a doer who latterly writes than a professional writer, the author scaffolds a theory of success around his own respective failures and two giant successes: creating Apple’s Safari web browser for OS X and creating the iOS keyboard, no less.
We get to share the Eureka moments when these two significant dents in the universe came together. And the story of their creations serve as perfect illustrations of his theory, derived from Darwin’s.
Must-reading for many, surely.
Sunday, March 1st, 2020
DesignBoom’s sauna page. This is just great work about great work about great living.
Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of an Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader
Brent Schlener and Rick Tetzell
Although the simple thesis gets repeated interminably, nonetheless it’s a nice one: that Steve Jobs’s greatness stems muchly from his constant becoming, constant learning, constant trying to overcome himself (hence the title, which can be read as descriptive).
It’s great to be in his company, which you feel you are, as one of the authors was himself repeatedly so for decades.
One thing new to me was Pixar’s role in maturing Jobs; we don’t often read about who and what shaped the shaper.
Friday, February 28th, 2020
In CSS-only fluid modular type scales, Trys Mudford lays out the code for letting type grow appropriately (and uses the Golden Ratio for the steps). Very nice!
And I love the applied musical modular scale, which I’d not seen before, one of those great things that in retrospect seem obvious.
I’ve been fumbling towards all this without stopping to actually systematize it as they’ve done. And they did it here in Brighton, at Clearleft. Kudos.