Recently updated blogs

A deeper understanding of the relationship between seeing and thinking is necessary to designing for sustained attention. The connection between the eye and the mind is mysterious. It’s not that it is completely opaque to us; we understand many aspects of how our sense of sight interacts with the brain. But the obscurity of the eye-mind connection is also well represented by common phrases we often use in describing the …

My relationship with photography continues to evolve. Lately it’s become much more personal, useful for holding memories of family and travel close to the heart and less to discover poetry in light. Yet there are moments, camera by my side, that still speak up and scream for attention. Most times they are the calm ones, between sentences, when my mind actually has a moment to focus on the wider world …

Today, on the tenth anniversary of Overcast 1.0, I’m happy to launch a complete rewrite and redesign of most of the iOS app, built to carry Overcast into the next decade — and hopefully beyond. Like podcasts better than blog posts? Listen to ATP #596 for more! What’s new Much faster, more responsive, more reliable, and more accessible. Modern design, optimized for easily-reached controls on today’s phone sizes. Improvements throughout, …

Growing Up in Alphabet City: The Unexpected Letterform Art of Michael Doret. Hardcover, 10 × 10¾ inches, 328 pages (including 7 concertina fold-outs).Get your copy Doret is a lettering legend whose instantly recognizable artwork has helped define the look of popular culture for over fifty years. Since the 1970s, he has brought his unique style to magazine covers, posters, signs, and typefaces. He created logos for sports teams and fast …

In the US, it's common for local governments to focus on tax revenue produced by a property, without considering the costs it adds to the city's budget. This is like measuring how far a car can drive without considering how much gas it uses to get there. Different properties create different long-term cost burdens for the city. One of the biggest contributors to that variance is the amount of infrastructure …

🏳️‍⚧️ Today marks 5 years since I came out as trans on the internet. Time for a little ✨ gender update ✨. 💖 Check the release notes for all the details!

The more I think about my life, the more of a loser I realize I am. There might be a tinge of regret of not making different decisions, of ultimately taking the safe path in life. But we’re told that regrets are for losers. (Things are getting quite circular here.) Nevertheless the inner gothpunkrebel of my teenage years would spit on my face now seeing how ultimately petit-bourgeois I have …

You know those last five seconds of a green light? The ones where the guy in front of you suddenly has to stop for a bit but just enough so that you can't escape? Yeah, that one. Yesterday when returning from the office I faced a similar situation but I had already crossed the white line and I could either move forward or stop in the middle of the road. …

A new children's book now available, and updates about other projects

I got a dog passenger for this ride around Lake Merritt in Oakland. He’s sitting in my bike basket, and I got my Seatylock Mason attached to the frame, as well as my anti-theft bike lights. The PUBLIC C7 bicycle: a relaxed upright dutch style cruiser bicycle with a step through frame that has gears for hill climbing abilities. The PUBLIC C7 bicycle delivers surprising power with a great commute …

I’ve been unsatisfied with how entity creation works in Dinghy (now renamed “Zinc”) for a while. I said as much a few months ago on the forums and I’ve been mulling it over ever since. Specifically, the more you lean into using ECS, the more the requirements around interfacing with it tend to grow like a virus in your codebase. Especially for “real” ECSs where you shouldn’t ever really be …

Dear readers: I appreciate your patience as I navigate some life changes (some negative, ultimately positive), which have taken much of my time away from listening and reviewing. I do hope to return to the ECM fold soon enough, as the universe allows. Those who’ve been following me for a while may know I’ve been known to moonlight as an academic, and my latest book is a testament to all …

Never in my life have I been so violently confronted by my brokenness than in the first year of separating from my husband in early 2023. My body and mind, both of which had historically existed as a kind of backdrop to my life thus far, suddenly took centre stage as grotesque, malfunctioning vessels of pain. I began looking for answers. I scrolled through hours of TikTok, desperately browsing the …