🔗 Physicality: the new age of UI

lux.camera • June 3, 2025

Sebastian's concepts for Apple's rumored OS redesign feel spot on. I'm curious how this will play out on macOS, where most modern software is merely a web wrapper. As a fan of 'Mac-assed Mac apps', I hope this redesign elevates apps that adopt the platform's UI, making web wrappers feel clunky and dated.

Edit: Looks like Gruber has a similar take.

🔗 Sam and Jony Introduce io

youtu.be • May 23, 2025

The collaboration between Jony Ive and OpenAI imbues me with great optimism and excitement. If anyone can leverage generative AI to serve humanity, it’s the star-studded cast Ive has assembled.

This comes just a day after Google's I/O, where they flexed Veo 3’s terrifying ability to generate lifelike video.

It took time for us to learn how to live with smartphones in a nondestructive, healthy way. I feel as though generative AI will be no different. It’ll likely go too far before we find reasonable boundaries and tools to mitigate the downsides.

Becoming a Father #2: Hello

April 29, 2025

The day after my birthday, ‘A’ and I were sitting on the floor of the nursery late. (It was 8pm, which is considered late now.) I was using my leg in a V-shape to hold him upright, his head near my knee.

For some unexplained reason, he was fixated on me. I tried what I had been doing for weeks: making faces and sounds to get a reaction out of him.

The first few weeks of this was like performing a comedy routine to an audience of bricks. (Screaming bricks, specifically.) While ‘A’ has become more expressive capable of eye contact over time, there still hasn’t been a clear “call and response” between him and I.

Becoming a Father #1: Day and Night

March 16, 2025

Preface: Last week, my wife (Cassidy) and I became parents! While I plan on writing more extensively about our time at the hospital, this series is intended to process stray thoughts and memories as they happen.

Here are a few notes from our first few days home with our son, who I refer to as ‘A’. (Perhaps we'll call the second and third ‘B’ and ‘C’?)

🔗 Why We’re Bringing Pebble Back

ericmigi.com • January 28, 2025

The Pebble was my first smart watch. I purchased a the original model in jet black not long after release. I was in high school at the time, and I recall it drawing a bit of attention at the summer camp I worked at. Maybe it was my age, but I certainly felt dorky wearing it!

Now, in 2025, you wouldn’t glance twice.

I had really, really, really hoped that someone else would come along and build a Pebble replacement. But no one has. So… a small team and I are diving back into the world of hardware to bring Pebble back!

I’m thrilled it’s making a comeback. A hackable, affordable e-ink watch? I don’t care how dorky it looks.

The emphasis is on sustainability. I want to keep making cool gadgets and keep Pebble going long into the future.

This is the right idea.

🔗 Have Kids

writing.nikunjk.com • January 23, 2025

You think you understand love before kids. You don't. Every other relationship comes with implicit conditions. Partners choose each other daily. Parents love you deeply, but there's history. With your child? It's different. It's a love so fundamental it becomes part of your operating system.

🔗 The hard truth: Americans don’t trust the news media

washingtonpost.com • October 29, 2024

Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion.

Newspaper endorsements never made sense to me – especially in a low-trust environment. Shouldn't a publication's aim be to build credibility with readers? I agree with Bezos: a failure to build trust will drive people further into social media and podcasts, where standards for news and journalism can be near-zero.

Camera Roll: Formula One Day

October 22, 2024

Sunday was Formula One day in Austin, Texas. The infrastructure to move 400k people to-and-from a suburban race track is enormous! Pictured is one of the (hundreds) of buses leaving, after dropping us off back at our parking lot on the north side of the city.

🔗 Cabel Sasser’s Talk at XOXO Festival

youtu.be • October 14, 2024

I've always been a huge fan of the folks at Panic. Talks like this demonstrate why.

Camera Roll: Supercharger

October 13, 2024

Straight out-of-camera from the Fuji X100VI (because editing photos takes too long). Years into the advent of EVs, and the supercharging experience is still unparalleled.

Issues With Apple Photos and Fuji X100VI HEIF Images

September 20, 2024

After placing an order in February, and waiting many agonizing months, I got my hands on the Fujifilm X100VI – perhaps the most coveted modern camera (and my first non-Nikon purchase).

One of the enticements of this camera (albeit minor), is its ability to shoot HEIF images out-of-camera, as opposed to standard JPEGs. HEIF is a modern image format (created in 2015), that provides better image compression. JPEG was created before I was born.

I’m a modern man, and a modern man demands modern image formats.

🔗 Iterative Building and Decision Making

blog.jim-nielsen.com • August 31, 2024

If everyone can see the whole, they won’t ask why it was built a certain way. They’ll see all the ways you built then backtracked, all the ways that didn’t work. And the same obviousness in your decision making that’s clear to you, will be clear and obvious to everyone else.

Self Driving Is All or Nothing

April 6, 2024

The graveyard of self-driving car projects is full, and for good reason. I think the technology must reach near-100% perfection before it can become a part of our day-to-day reality.

Spatial Memories

February 11, 2024

Friday (the 2nd) was launch day for Apple Vision Pro. Two days later, I found myself on a newly-installed L-shaped bench in the Apple Store, sitting next to Nick.

While Nick explained how the demo would work, a different employee silently placed a Vision Pro on wooden platter between us.

Camera Roll: Christmas

January 8, 2024

Where Cassidy and I spent Christmas. Also, where Cassidy grew up. Taken with my Nikon Z f, on December 28th, 2023.

Canyon Lake, Texas

November 28, 2023

After a few rolls processed with this new film camera – I’m learning things!

1. People love the look of film!

For me, this photo (of my wife) from our recent trip to Canyon Lake evokes a strong emotional response. I immediately feels like I’m looking at a fond yet distant past, in spite of this occurring just days ago.

Lyft Conversations: Drunk Whisperer

November 3, 2023

A conversation with my Lyft driver, around 3:45am this morning, paraphrased:

Me: “You out early or late?”

Driver: “Oh I’m out late. I get all the partygoers. Some people don’t like driving the partygoers, but I’m fine with it. I’m the drunk whisperer. 11,000 rides and only two times they’ve puked in my car.

Derping Around With a Toy Camera

October 31, 2023

My recent YouTube bender, Nick Carver, has sent me on a minor film-photography bout. Watching him scout, compose, and execute a single frame with surgical precision was kindling for me to start derping around with film. (Seriously – this guy will take days, if not weeks going after a single photo!)

As with any addiction, I need to start small. So I bought a Kodak Ektar H35N. This is the first roll of film (Kodak Ultramax 400) I've ever developed on my own! (Excluding a few disposable cameras I had as a child – but I didn't even know they used film.)

Camera Roll: Balcony

September 22, 2023

Taken on September 14th, 2023.

🔗 The Mystery of the Bloomfield Bridge

tylervigen.com • September 12, 2023

Almost everything around us is overflowing with history and story, including something as pedestrian as... a pedestrian bridge. I absolutely found myself enthralled in this piece by Tyler Vigen investigating how this oddly-placed piece of infrastructure came into existence!

Here's a PDF of the article for archival purposes.

New Little Guy

September 10, 2023

About one month ago, on August 7th, we appended a new little guy to our life: a dachshund named Picasso! (His larger-than-life name makes us laugh.) This is the first time we (Cassidy and I) have been responsible for any living being on our own.

It's been fun to see our dynamic change as we gradually move from “couple” to “family”. He’s not a child, of course – but when a couple adds a dog to their life, is it appropriate to begin calling them a family? I don't know.

🔗 like a fool i have always forgiven the dc metro system

visenyaism.tumblr.com • August 19, 2023

I loved riding the DC metro when I lived there – especially its spurious waterfalls.

Ben Thompson's Take on Apple Vision

June 6, 2023

Ben Thompson – a fellow Wisconsinite and among my favorite tech writers – has what I think is a bullish, yet balanced view on Apple Vision.

I agree with Thompson that productivity could be the most compelling use case for the device. A keyboard, mouse, and Apple Vision Pro could make a killer (and much more portable) workstation.

As Apple hones in on the device’s purpose, I wouldn't be surprised to see a “workstation” version of Apple Vision in the future – with external compute for more power (similar to how the battery pack is external on the Vision Pro).

Camera Roll: Sunlight

March 21, 2023

Just a few photos from the last week – filtered to look more dramatic, of course. While filters may not do a good job of representing reality, they can do a good job representing how the moment felt.

🔗 Gasoline Car Review

geoff.greer.fm • March 18, 2023

After taking delivery of the car, my first hurdle was getting it to do anything. I opened the door (the handles are very prominent), sat in the driver’s seat, and… nothing happened. No screen showed any messages. The climate control didn’t turn on. The car seemed dead.

🔗 The Courtyard

cabel.com • March 5, 2023

Whatever you’re working on right now, whatever it might be, I ask: try to leave a little space for a courtyard.

🔗 20 Things I’ve Learned in my 20 Years as a Software Engineer

simplethread.com • January 21, 2023

A fantastic list that I keep returning to, over and over.

Austin FC Mural

November 7, 2022

A new mural appeared on the east side of the city – celebrating Austin FC's kickass 2022 season. (I did a double-take when I saw giant Driussi while driving on I-35!)

I captured a few (decent) photos. This is the best I could do without literally removing street signs. Full-res download links are under each image. Feel free to share/post them anywhere!

If anyone is aware of the original artist(s), or the story of how this came to be, I would love to know.

Lyft Conversations: Chewable Aspirin

November 5, 2022

My Lyft driver, this morning, paraphrased:

“One time I was suspended from Lyft for taking drugs while driving. Can you believe that? It was aspirin! I was taking chewable aspirin gummies. I had the bottle right here in my cupholder.

Austin in One Day

September 30, 2022

Recently, a dear friend came to visit me in Austin, TX. I had exactly one day to convince him to move to the city.

I wanted to hit as many tourist-y Austin-y spots as possible, so this is exactly what we did, in this order (starting around 6am on a Friday).

Camera Roll: Distant Utopia

September 26, 2022

A hazy, distant view of downtown Austin from the Pennybacker Bridge overlook. It almost looks like a little utopia from here – but drive once on I-35 and you quickly realize it isn’t.

This was taken late morning, on September 23rd, 2022.

Camera Roll: Downtown at Dusk

September 22, 2022

The Google building is a fine addition to Austin’s skyline, in my tiny opinion. This was snapped at dusk, on September 21st, 2022.

🔗 Industrial literacy

rootsofprogress.org • July 19, 2022

When you know these facts of history—which many schools do not teach—you understand what “industrial civilization” is and why it is the benefactor of everyone who is lucky enough to live in it. You understand that the electric generator, the automobile, the chemical plant, the cargo container ship, and the microprocessor are essential to our health and happiness.

New Masking Tools in Adobe Lightroom

November 14, 2021

Maybe I’ve been living in the stone ages, but up until yesterday I’ve used the brush tool in Adobe Lightroom to make selective edits to photos. Take this photo for example:

It was taken during golden hour – lovely! But the sky feels a little gray. Normally I would whip out my brush tool and, like a caveman, begin a vain effort to select the sky by hand.

Hiking Hidden Lake Trail, Glacier National Park

May 16, 2021

I wanted to share photos from one more hike at Glacier National Park (taken during a trip last September). Like the Highline Trail hike, we got an early start from Logan Pass (about an hour’s drive from the park entrance).

Hiking Highline Trail, Glacier National Park

May 12, 2021

Last September, some friends and I made the long-haul drive from Wisconsin to the far side of Glacier National Park. (The East side was closed due to COVID restrictions.) While there’s an album full of images, I wanted to share a few of my favorites from our hike on Highline Trail.

Highline Trail spans 15.2 miles round-trip, with a steep side trail that cost us an additional 2.4 miles (more on that later).

We started the journey around 6am at Logan Pass, where we were greeted with violent winds that nearly knocked us over.

Side note: The pit toilets at Logan Pass had a shared reservoir. Pressure changes in the reservoir (due to the wind) caused strong gusts of air to blast upwards from the toilet. It was a rather unpleasant experience for the user.

We started early on the trail, as common wisdom had it that the Logan Pass parking lot fills by 7am. (If you plan on hiking the full 17.6, you’ll need to start this early anyway.)

The trail greets you with a ledge, as well as a thick cord to hang on (to make sure you’re awake, of course). Luckily, after this, the majority of the trail is smooth-sailing.

Snowy Landscape

February 6, 2021

Another photo of the snowy landscape outside our home.

Driveway

January 3, 2021

Yup, just a photo of the driveway at golden hour. Living back home in Wisconsin has been a silver lining of the remote-work-pandemic world.

Shoveling Snow and Testing iPhone’s Night Mode

January 2, 2021

I’m always surprised by how much I’m able to suppress. The mind needs space to breath, let things rise to the surface, and be creative. Sometimes it needs freedom from podcasts, work, and endlessly scrolling feeds.

A few hours of shoveling a Wisconsin driveway does the trick! This was also an opportunity to test my iPhone mini’s “Night Mode” photography. This is the road just outside our home:

🔗 Nova by Panic

nova.app • September 24, 2020

From the homepage of Nova, a new code editor for macOS created by Panic:

If we're being honest, Mac apps are a bit of a lost art. There are great reasons to make cross-platform apps — to start, they're cross-platform — but it's just not who we are. Founded as a Mac software company in 1997, our joy at Panic comes from building things that feel truly, well, Mac-like. Long ago, we created Coda, an all-in-one Mac web editor that broke new ground. But when we started work on Nova, we looked at where the web was today, and where we needed to be. It was time for a fresh start.

These are people that care about craft. I‘ve been using Nova for months, and I‘m certain it will sit in my dock for years to come.

Playing with Pixel Sorting

September 21, 2020

A few years back I wrote a small program to “pixel sort”, or rearrange the pixels of an image to create surreal distortions. This is a photo of a dancer, taken when I was in college:

🔗 Dithering

dithering.fm • July 6, 2020

Two of my favorite technology writers, now collaborating on a podcast with a fun constraint: each episode must be exactly 15 minutes long. (Something tells me this constraint is more for one of them than the other!)

Loops

April 5, 2020

I’m up late, and I’m making scrambled eggs because that’s what I have left in the fridge.

Here’s a foggy sunset in my neighborhood; this was on my way to the grocery store a few days back. I’ll need to go back in the morning.

It’s not as apocalyptic as it looks of course – just apt timing for the photo. The following afternoon was sunny, with plenty of folk playing/walking/running in the park (with a safe distance between them).

Lake Michigan This Evening

March 4, 2020

Just a nice photo of Lake Michigan this evening.

Lyft Conversations: John McAfee

February 1, 2020

My Lyft driver, a few weeks ago, paraphrased:

“In order for society to work, people have to act a certain way. There’s a norm, there’s behavior we consider normal, you know? There are expectations.

“You are young, so I expect something different from you than someone who is older. But you are educated, yes? Then I expect you to speak as an educated person in society.

“Someone who is older, well, we expect wisdom from them.

A Small Handful of Mac Apps

July 5, 2019

I freaking love macOS. I joined the club when cat names were cool. My first Mac was a Mac mini rocking Mountain Lion.

Apple’s WWDC19 revealed a glimpse into the future of building software for macOS. No longer will it be siloed with its own UI framework. Instead, apps can be composed with UIKit and SwiftUI, neither of which is Mac-only.

As someone that loves a good native Mac app, the future of the platform looks bright.

Before Apple opens the floodgates with the release of Catalina, I wanted to share my list of beloved Mac apps that are here and now.

Push Your Shoes Down the Stairs

November 10, 2015

I was sitting in a large open stairwell, with gaps beneath each stair that led to the lobby area below. I work as a leader at a children’s summer camp, and right now we’re in what we call “small group time”. I’m sitting in this stairwell with several other kids (think 8 to 11 years old) discussing what we learned today.

Clearly bored with the discussion, one kid decides to push objects through the opening in the stairs, sending them plummeting into the lobby below.

The first object he chooses is his own shoe.