We live in strange and amazingly-wasteful times, where our care with politics and habits matter a lot for those who come after us. By Gerry McGovern Rating: 3.5 / 5. Every use of the word “digital” as a noun was tough, and there were a lot of them. It strikes me as an outdated ex … | Continue reading
Space adventures of a charming rogue part-human, part-robot assassin. By Martha Wells Rating: 4 / 5. Linda Thompson recommended this and I’m glad I jumped straight into the six-book series. They were fun, quick-reading stories with a unique and charming protagonist that blends a … | Continue reading
Interoperability and regulation can fight monopolies and make tech work for people. By Cory Doctorow Rating: 4 / 5. This was a great read that went into a lot of interesting detail without ever living up to the promise of being a disassembly manual. Doctorow’s cogent writing made … | Continue reading
I’m trying to get more comfortable being uncomfortable in public. I started writing all over the place late last year. Every time I found a new blog platform I wanted to try, I started writing there. It was freeing that nobody knew where these things were, and I found myself post … | Continue reading
Improve everything by being kind to yourself. By Dr. Kristin Neff Rating: 4 / 5. Hopefully this is all obvious to you, but it wasn’t for me! I needed to read this. It felt long and started getting redundant toward the end—or maybe my interest waned—but the message was clear and c … | Continue reading
What I learned down the mouse rabbit hole. Did you know that the plural of computer mouse is “mouses”? Me either, but that’s what I learned from mouse reviews—a rich and expansive genre of reading and YouTube surfing. I’ll keep calling them “mice” though because that’s funnier an … | Continue reading
An uncomfortably-relatable, funny, and seemingly brave memoir. By Maria Bamford Rating: 4 / 5. I have this idea that people with the weirdest perspectives struggle with some things most don’t and see other things with clarity that most don’t. That’s why great comedians so often r … | Continue reading
It’s a secret to everyone! Read more about RSS Club. Building in public, one week in. Last week I wrote and shared a little Laravel app for monitoring RSS feeds. I got it using a queue to regularly check for 200 responses, make sure feed XML is valid, and send email notifications … | Continue reading
It’s a secret to everyone! Read more about RSS Club. Nearly learning in public. Even with automated tests, I still manage to break my RSS feed sometimes without knowing. This is a bummer, of course. I scratched an itch and made a simple feed-checking app, and in an unusual-for-me … | Continue reading
Plugins and practices for managing my digital brain. Obsidian is the first stop for thoughts that leave my head. It’s daily short-term memory, weekly and monthly reflection, and a place for sparks of thought that sometimes catch and light up adjacent villages. It’s also just a he … | Continue reading
If you work at a large company and haven’t ever considered unionizing, you probably should. By Ethan Marcotte Rating: 4.5 / 5. The fresh release of this book was hard to miss, and I quietly assumed it’s not for a solo worker like me. Then I read Blood in the Machine and my mind c … | Continue reading
My favorite regular reading this year. That last default apps post was fun, and I’m often sharing things I read without giving enough credit to what I enjoy reading in the first place. Backstory Pandemic-era dread inspired me to audit my news sources and replace algorithms with a … | Continue reading
Apps I’ve been using regularly this year. Blogging is fun! I noticed this post from Marc Amos, in a format borrowed from Chris Coyier, Matt Cool, Tracy Durnell, and a whole bunch of people catalogued by Robb Knight. So here’s me taking a turn, in a year where I’ve been transition … | Continue reading
Luddites were pro humanity, not anti technology. By Brian Merchant Rating: 5 / 5. I think I first encountered the idea of “social cost” in an interesting book about people and vehicles. In the U.S., we often don’t pay for the impact we have on those around us: exhaust emissions, … | Continue reading
It’s a secret to everyone! Read more about RSS Club. Showing your work means showing your work. I am afraid to be so unguarded that you’ll find my ignorance, cowardice, laziness, and bad judgment. I want you to know what I’ve been thoughtful about, what I know I’ve been wrong abo … | Continue reading
It’s a secret to everyone! Read more about RSS Club. Secret society for nerds and a place for weird articles? It took me a while to catch on, but I noticed Dave Rupert’s secret RSS-only posts and I love every part of it. I’ve started writing more for myself, little pieces that ar … | Continue reading
Mystery adventure expedition at sea. By Brandon Sanderson Rating: 4 / 5. Quick, enjoyable read. It didn’t seem like a whole lot happened, and I might need to keep notes with these stories because I way too easily forget characters and context I should already be familiar with. | Continue reading
A case for declarative programming illustrated with Collections. By Adam Wathan Rating: 5 / 5. I’m many years late getting to this, but it was still a great read! It was not a glorification of Collections, but a hands-on case for declarative programming and clear expression. If y … | Continue reading
Curmudgeon alone at sea, with friends. By Brian Doyle Rating: 4.5 / 5. I didn’t connect with the characters quite as well as I did with Martin Martin or Mink River, but it was another satisfying Brian Doyle tale. It included unexpected twists beyond the seafaring setting that’s u … | Continue reading
I don’t know what I’m doing. I didn’t know what I was doing when I chose to study design in college, but I always loved art and wanted to be able to find a job and the years of coursework were challenging and great fun. I didn’t know what I was doing when an interactive agency to … | Continue reading
Practical tips for imperfect agency work. If your work is perfect this doesn’t apply to you. I was recently walking through some work I did for a web agency, and I ended up demonstrating some tools and services I use to try and look smart. I’m not afraid of looking dull, and I fi … | Continue reading
Immortalizing the words of a dead bird. A theme in nature documentaries is that one creature’s death is new life for others. I recently followed another dead-end Twitter link and realized anyone with a website could self-host their tweet archive and make them available however th … | Continue reading
Run the business you want to see in the world. By Derek Sivers Rating: 4 / 5. What a brief, inspiring read! When you make a company, you make a utopia. It’s where you design your perfect world. Sivers writes without a trace of hype or self-importance, candidy sharing his business … | Continue reading
What a newfangled TypeScript CMS looks like to a Craft CMS fan. I’ve been curious what years of Craft CMS client work might look like if I was entering the job market with fresh eyes. These are my notes from looking around and spending time with Payload CMS, not a guide or comple … | Continue reading
A buffet of distilled, self-contradictory words worth considering. By Derek Sivers Rating: 5 / 5. This read like a long fortune cookie and a daily devotional had an exceedingly well-educated baby. It’s organized into chapters that are basically movements, centered around a succin … | Continue reading
Advice that’s helped me in times of yikes. I thrive on little nuggets of wisdom I can recite in my head to guide me through life’s parade of seasons and challenges. I’m limited to what I can understand and remember, so often my response to new insight is to boil it down into a ma … | Continue reading
Curated selection of Steve Jobs’ speaking and writing along the blazing arc of his work. By Steve Jobs Rating: 4 / 5. I read this on my Kindle, which is an insult to the glorious web presentation. (If you’re planning to read this, an iPad would be ideal!) It’s funny how much read … | Continue reading
Documentation is more than writing. One time, I said to some people “I could be your technical writer” and they said “okay.” And then I was a technical writer. Everybody looked around for a bit and then went back to their computers, so I started doing things. I read a book and so … | Continue reading
How a person can overthink something with purpose. I’m not sure when a person is allowed to declare themself a writer. Is it enough that you write in a journal, or in long emails, or blog posts, or some kind of learning materials? What if you write for yourself so you can turn th … | Continue reading
My very important take on tweet versus toot. Andy Bell wrote about Mastodon ick and straddling it with Twitter, and Louie Mantia Jr.’s post reminded me that arguing via reply can be a sort of boorish grab at someone’s platform. I remember when people wrote on their blogs and resp … | Continue reading
How and why I collect notes from Kindle books. I’m not a sophisticated reader with tote bags and cats, ripping through stacks of titles from a favorite chair. I can prove it by telling you that I didn’t really start reading for myself until I got a Kindle. Paper I read textbooks … | Continue reading
Short, inexpensive e-book with tips for publishing short, inexpensive e-books. By Steve Scott Rating: 3 / 5. I love reading about how people write and try to catch whatever tips and insight they might have about the process. This was 54 pages that read more like a blog post than … | Continue reading