Cozy eternal beta test mode
re: digital mindfulness! Not everything needs to be built at scale – sometimes it can just be for family and friends :)) Normalize creating playful and non- instrumental technology
For example, the gift I made for Anson for Valentines in 2022.
# An app can be a home-cooked meal
Source: Robin Sloan
Clay Shirky: “Situated software, by contrast, doesn’t need to be personalized — it is personal from its inception.”
I can, at this point, make the things happen on computers that I want to make happen. At the same time, I would not last a day as a professional software engineer. Leave me in charge of a critical database and you will return to a smoldering crater.
I am the programming equivalent of a home cook.
# Personal Software
# Spring ‘83
I love the disclaimer at the top: “It’s okay to share this link, but I want to underscore that I am sending it specifically to you with the hope that you will … really think about it! At such a primordial stage, a proposal like this doesn’t need diffuse, drive-by attention. It needs, instead, close consideration and generous imagination.”
- “There are no analytics, obviously. Nothing is counted. Boards can’t load tracking pixels, and they can’t ping remote analytics APIs. Sorry, folks … you’ve got to let go of the numbers. In 2022, they are not helpful feedback, but rather a clear warning you are in the wrong place.”
- When you operate a server, you get a universe for free (see also: world seed).
# Spatial Computing
fuck responsive layouts, all my homies hate responsive layouts
- There’s unexpected energy in the space of “being able to lay out elements visually on a 2d plane and know that the browser isn’t going to wrap them somewhere you didn’t mean”.
- Little towns of people’s plots :)) https://tilde.town/~troido/cadastre/town.html