It’s a secret to everyone! This post is for RSS subscribers only. Read more about RSS Club. I used to believe that the goal of the government should be efficiency. If the government was more efficient (waves hands broadly in the air), you could get rid of waste (again, waiving ha … | Continue reading
This might be my favorite song of all time. It’s by a slightly obscure Chicago punk band called The Broadways, made up of a couple members from the more well-known ska band Slapstick. It’s got everything you want in a punk song. Palm mutes, open meedly-meedly parts, yelling, spee … | Continue reading
The other day I sent my wife a link to a new set of ceramic pans and asked, “What do you think?” assuming she’d be as impressed as I was of the picture of eggs sliding off the pan. Her response: a grimace. Using my sixteen years of husbandly intuition, I surmised that we were not … | Continue reading
This week Raycast released a new feature called Raycast Focus. This hyped up the Raycast superfans in my social sphere, so I tried it out and I must say that I’m impressed. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Earlier this week I tried out a handful of browser extensions t … | Continue reading
Today I want to share with you a song that has stuck with me for a couple decades and has been a source of catharsis for shaking off that existential dread. I’m talking about Piebald’s 2002 single American Hearts. (video) [Hook] HEY! You're part of it YEAH! You're part of it HEY! … | Continue reading
I have a confession to make. You probably sensed it, but weren’t able to articulate what was happening. Your loved ones think you’re losing your grasp on reality. For the last six months I’ve been incrementally changing the color scheme on my website every single day. I boiled yo … | Continue reading
Now that I have a job where I’m writing web components full time, I see the this keyword more than I ever have in my whole life. It’s not a problem, per se, but you can see how it’s a little repetitive. I started wondering what my options were to fix this minor annoyance and the … | Continue reading
For last year’s check-in, I foreshadowed a year of changes for ol’ Dave Rupert and boy was I not kidding. New job, new car, new pets. But before we get into all that – for accountability’s sake – let’s check in on my resolutions from last year and see how I did… Activate an activ … | Continue reading
Hottest October on record. November weather was much nicer, but lacked the much needed rain. We now pass the solstice and crash into the new year without so much as a sneeze from the gods of winter. My son’s team took second in the Fall baseball championship game. My daughter’s c … | Continue reading
I always promised myself that if I was ever unemployed that I’d make a video game. When life dealt me an unpaid work hiatus though, the last thing I wanted to do was code in my spare time1. I worried I would have to let that dream, that part of me, die on the vine. But as intervi … | Continue reading
I’ve realized something obvious again, this time about CSS; that CSS wants to be a system. At the core of CSS is a series of cascading rules and classes marrying and mingling in an elegant symphony of style application. Dozens and dozens of declarative instructions for painting p … | Continue reading
I’m in the middle of a design tokens project and I thought I’d share something I’m learning that is probably obvious to everyone else; every design token is a feature. A token is a magical contract between design and engineering, if we agree to use the same name to abstractly ref … | Continue reading
⚠️ Content warning: Weight loss, feel free to skip if that is not a good topic for you. A doctor told me to look into intermittent fasting. Not for weight loss, but for ADHD. There’s some new data that suggests a link between ADHD and insulin in the brain. Based on that science, … | Continue reading
This month I got my official diagnosis for Adult ADHD. It’s fun to share experiences with friends. While ADHD presents some new waters to navigate, it isn’t exactly news to me. Thanks to Dr. TikTok, I’ve suspected this outcome for a few years now. It’s nice to have a proper diagn … | Continue reading
The people who found you in the alley called you Cowboy. We called you Moogs, Moogers, Moogerton, Mr Moogs, Meesta, Two Meestas, Beef, Roast Beef, Roast Beefy Weefy, Kitty, Kitty cat, Long cat, Kitty kitty, Pretty kitty, and Meow meow. Those were all your names. Today we had to s … | Continue reading
I bet if you were someone who could make a hammer that would have been a good stable job for years, centuries even. Almost everyone needs a hammer at some point in their life. “Hey, where’d you get that hammer?” “Oh, you gotta talk to Bartholomew.” Then some guy, Greg, would see … | Continue reading
In this job we need to think a lot about the tools we choose and why, so I cataloged all the places where web components (for me) feel like “the right tool for the job”. Your list may be different and I’d love to read it. And because I don’t want this to be 100% propaganda, I’ll … | Continue reading
School is back in session, sports are in full swing, we’re tossed and turned by the weekly routine. This past month has been a season of fixing and repair and I’m thankful everything went well and we’re (hopefully) through the hard parts. Fixing electrical problems Ramping up to … | Continue reading
Every two-to-four years my body chemistry changes and my armpits start to reject my deodorant with an intense itch. All that aluminum has gunked up the works I guess. Usually cycling out deodorants works fine, but this time it didn’t work because my armpits were overpowering all … | Continue reading
Brian LeRoux posted a few thoughts about forms and the idea of a “good form” resonated with me so I dogpiled some of my own thoughts and experiences on it. Here’s a compilation of those ideas. I’m sure this is incomplete and would love to see your list. Good forms work without cl … | Continue reading
I saw a tweet awhile back that sent my brain to a far off galaxy… Most people are proud of their reading habit. But for many, it’s just an act of productive procrastination. I’m looking at you “I read a book a week” club Here’s how you know: Are you reading to find answers to que … | Continue reading
Weeks ago I was looking in to a performance issue for our animated spinner component and stumbled across a tool in DevTools I hadn’t used before: The Performance Monitor Panel. In you open Dev Tools > More Tools > Performance Monitor you’ll see some helpful high-level charts and … | Continue reading
The temperatures soared over 100ºF and the yard is dead and everything smells roasted. But the ten day forecast shows a ten degree dip and that is cause for celebration. Another school year has started. My son has started middle school and my daughter is now in third grade. It’s … | Continue reading
I’ve become a bit obsessed with how much it costs to fuel my body during the working hours. Item Cost/Serving Qty/Day Cost/Day Qty/Month Cost/Month Snap Kitchen 500cal meal $10.00 1 $10.00 22 $220 Fairlife 42g Protein Shake $3.50 1 $3.50 22 $77 Liquid Death $1.75 1 $1.75 22 $38.5 … | Continue reading
4:05am The windows are open, hoping to capture the faint winds and convert them into a mythical cooling cross-breeze. A gust passes through vacuuming all the doors shut, cancelling hope for a miracle. I’m awake. It’s cool but I’m on top of the covers and not cool enough. The plas … | Continue reading
The algorithm sucked me into another model craft hobby: Mini 4WD racing (ミニ四駆). A Mini 4WD is a 1:32 scale model that is a mix between slot cars and RC cars. You don’t control these cars with a remote control nor do they drive in an electrified slot, rather you place your racecar … | Continue reading
The cicadas hum their ancient alien tune in the treetops above. The asphalt is hot to the touch. Cars and homes fill with the white noise of air conditioning in attempts to keep those inside alive. My enemy, the Sun, beams its photonic radiation at me –only me– and mocks my every … | Continue reading
It’s a secret to everyone! This post is for RSS subscribers only. Read more about RSS Club. Play Mundango I’ve got something for you. Lately I’ve been getting a lot of joy from life’s small moments; like texting an old friend, seeing a cool bug, or a watching the cardinals zip th … | Continue reading
Through stalking the #WebComponents hashtag and my Frontend Masters course, I’m privy to a lot of developers’ first experiences with web components. There’s a wide range of people digging in, but the most common first-time experience I come across is a developer coming from a cla … | Continue reading
Last Monday was my first day as an official employee of Microsoft where I’ll be working on web components as part of the Fluent design system team.. As longtime readers already know, I’ve had a long term relationship with Microsoft – from Paravel’s 2012 responsive redesign of the … | Continue reading
I wanted to experiment with the new CSS function light-dark() and get a sense of how to use it in a CSS architecture of nested (web) components. I think it’s going to be a powerful in the new responsive world of component architecture but I don’t want to recommend a tool unless I … | Continue reading
An unseasonable gloomy spring in Austin, TX. The kids are nearly done with school for the year and summer plans are shoring up. My son goes to middle school next year. Unbelievable. We’ve battled some on-and-off sicknesses these past couple months and with all the holidays every … | Continue reading
A fine post by Ethan Marcotte called The negotiation cycle led me to an incredible essay by Alan Jacobs called From Tech Critique to Ways of Living. It references an old idea called “The SCT1” which is new to me but based on thinking by the likes of Ursula Franklin and Neil Postm … | Continue reading
Matt Houghey wrote a blueprint for his “Dream CMS” and we had him on ShopTalk to talk about it. That got me thinking about what features I’d want in my dream CMS. It’s fun to think of what a modern CMS might have like inline editing, asset serving, monetization/membership functio … | Continue reading
At the end of each MSNBC YouTube video right now they have a 30 second post-roll of Ali Velshi explaining the 5-step process on how to install the new MSNBC app. Tap on the App Store on your phone Hit “Search” on the bottom right corner Type in “MSNBC” Click on the MSNBC app Clic … | Continue reading
I bought a 40 pound weighted vest for $40 dollars on Amazon. The workout term for this is “rucking” and has connotations with being outdoorsy and/or in the military. Load up a backpack full of weights (or in my case, a vest full of sand bags) and head outdoors. The marketing bene … | Continue reading
“You know those body builders with the big arms and skinny little legs? Your jaw is like that.” My dentist is explaining this to me while both her hands are inside my mouth clenching the left and right sides of my jaw. She explains that my right jaw muscle is three times larger t … | Continue reading
Hank Green posted a video about four lies he believed. It’s a great video because it’s embarrassing to be wrong on the internet and here is smart person™️ Hank Green admitting he believed some bullshit. As you travel through the internet you’re constantly working against a lot of … | Continue reading
A couple weeks ago I joined a conversation about John Romero and prototypes. Tyler posted some thoughts about Romero’s autobiography, Matthias shared a quote from a Tim Ferris podcast where Romero chided prototypes, and Matthias looped me in because I love prototypes. No prototyp … | Continue reading
Howdy. It’s March already. Let’s catch up. In January, Austin had a freeze but thankfully uneventful. Brings up a lot of “my dumb hyper-capitalist ultra-Libertarian government has created failed state” trauma though. In February, my family and I have been battling sickness on and … | Continue reading
I’ve been co-hosting a weekly podcast for nearly 12 years with over hundreds of guests and I want to tell you the secret to getting invited on a podcast. Are you ready? Here it goes. Already be talking about something. If you want to go on a podcast and talk, the best thing you c … | Continue reading
Duolingo does a great job capturing the novel delight of learning a new language. You hop on, take a short quiz, and a little green owl waves at you and hops towards a trophy. You can add friends, join group challenges, and there’s a weekly ranking system to compete with users al … | Continue reading
It’s been a couple years of working full-time on Luro and we’ve travelled through at least three (or four?) different distinct architectures. If that sounds like a lot, I’d agree. It’s been educational to say the least. I think it’s interesting to think about how apps grow and ad … | Continue reading
I’ve read the entire internet so you don’t have to and here’s some links I found. Is this the start of a newsletter? 🤷♂️ I tried this two years ago. Anyways. Here’s some links. Web platform news CSS Working Group resolved to add Mixins - Styles, now even more reusable Cu … | Continue reading
“UI is a function of state” is a pretty popular saying in the front-end world. In context (pun intended), that’s typically referring to application or component state. I thought I’d pull that thread a little further and explore all the states that can effect the UI layer… First-p … | Continue reading
AI. It’s the talk of the town (or at least this year, that is). I’ve been in dozens of conversations about AI in recent days. The likelihood that the next big feature or product I build involves AI seems to be going up. No idea where it’s all headed – and reserve the right to cha … | Continue reading
Two years of working on Luro full time has taught me a lot about #startuplife. While I could probably fill a book with what I’ve learned so far, the biggest takeaway is you’re always busy if you’re on a small team. Here’s a list of jobs that you always need to be doing when creat … | Continue reading
CoraQuest is a “family cooperative dungeon crawler” created by adorable dad-daughter duo Dan and Cora Hughes from Huddersfield, UK. Feeling the boredom of pandemic lockdown, Dan and Cora (8yo) decided to design a board game and put it on Kickstarter. I’ve wanted an easy “Dungeons … | Continue reading