Honeycode looks interesting. However, I think the ideal scenario for a no-code app would be something like a @webflow frontend connected to an @airtable database with @zapier for automated tasks.
aws.amazon.com
Notes from 2019–2020
189 notes
Jun 2020
This makes me incredibly sad. Slate Star Codex, one of my favorite blogs, is now gone because a @nytimes reporter was going to reveal the author's name.
It's such a shame.
slatestarcodex.com
May 2020
I really miss the days when the Instagram simple. There is just way to much going on.
How many designers are out there consistently renaming their Sketch/Figma layers? If you are doing this, why?
@zapier is there anyway to trigger a rule when a User bookmarks something on Twitter?
@dkrape Part of our problem is we don't have separate rooms. We have a 1000 sq ft studio—it's just one big room.
My girlfriend and I are going mad trying to book meetings that don't overlap. It's especially difficult when most of my meetings are ad hoc.
In a normal environment I'd go to the lobby or a coffee shop. That's not an option right now.
Google Pixel Lens plus Copy Text to Computer is some wild technology.
Curious does anyone have a personal wiki? If so, how do you go about organizing it?
Is there a service I can connect to @zapier that takes URL and returns the readable version of that page? Something like the Pocket read view.
I love reading about designing complex tables. archive.jlongster.com
Personally, I'm a Sketch fan, but this is amazing.
I am very curious to see how higher ed changes. It's obvious nobody is paying regular tuition for online classes.
apnews.com
This is a spectacular thread!
Varun@varun_mathur
I am a time-traveller from 2025. I lived through the events of 2020 which ruptured the fabric of society as we knew it then. As humans, we adapted, and survived.
Here is what my world looks like now. This is my new normal.
A thread..
Apr 2020
Is time to build a16z.com
I am unreasonably excited for the new @Jira navigation. I know it's weird.
Product designers—how close are the components in your Sketch/Figma library to those in your UI kit? Are they 1-to-1 does one have more than the other?
Applications that prevent users from passwords from having sequential characters are silly. Discourages uses from using long pass phrases.
So I bought Diablo 3 and the New Boarderlands in the Xbox spring sale. What else is worth picking up?
How did I not know this? Amazing macOS pro tip.
Matt Stauffer@mattstauffer
This is your regular reminder that macOS has built-in bulk file renaming and it's insanely simple to use. 🙌🍎
@RossFloate @Apple Unfortunately, I want the iMac's real estate for design work. There's no way to do that without handling company files on my personal computer, which I don't want to do.
It has taken a month, but I feel like I'm getting in the swing of working from home. Maybe I'm managing all the impromptu meetings better?
I still wish I was able to use my @Apple iMac as a second monitor though. I don't think I can match my productivity with only a laptop.
I'm a fan of the @SlackHQ UI refresh. Search, Nav and History make sense together on their own. Plus it makes the channel details feel a lot less cluttered.
Here I go
Starting wash again
There I go
Turn the page
For Android users looking for a Dark Sky alternative, I reviewed a few different apps last summer. I ended up just using Google's Weather applet.
productdork.com
Mar 2020
@digitalocean I've spent the last 15 minutes picking out pictures of cats. Can I please access my account now?
Since I started working from home about 3 weeks ago, mostly stopped listening to my audiobooks and podcasts. I haven't found a good way to get back in that habit.
When you accidentally click the wrong @zoom_us link and end up in somebody's one-on-one...
@notdetails @maxvoltar No matter what I'm working on, the Zoom UI is always in the way. I'm not entirely sure how to fix it though.
Love this Skynet Simulator game. Really good use of constraints.
skynetsimulator.com
Show me your favorite @zoom_us background. I'm currently using The Office Aside room.
Absolutely love this idea.
Kyle Chayka@chaykak
.@kait_tiffany’s ongoing quarantine blog, which I love indoor-voices.blogspot.com
Thinking about purchasing some new wireless over-ear headphones so my gf doesn’t have to listen to all my meetings about drawing squares. Most important features: Comfort, Battery Life, USB-C charging. Noise canceling is a plus.
@TStephens914 Appreciate the comment. Not seriously concerned. Still, the FDIC needs to work on their messaging.
Honestly, I wasn't concerned about money sitting in the bank until the FDIC posted this video. Now I'm a little concerned.
One thing I've noticed about working from home—my morning shower is now at noon every day.
“The decisions people and governments take in the next few weeks will probably shape the world for years to come. They will shape not just our healthcare systems but also our economy, politics and culture.” buff.ly
I am certain @zoom_us has more important features to work on, but a thumbs down reaction would make it a lot easier to disagree in a meeting.
If all the @hgtv shows, Hometown is probably the best. @ErinRNapier and @scotsmanco are incredibly talented. Most of the renovations aren't my taste and I still think they're great.
The Xbox 360 iteration was just about perfect. That design has mostly carried over to the X. It's significantly more comfortable than the Sony controllers.
I am concerned that we're at the beginning of this crisis and the Fed has exhausted its conventional tools. Are we moving to negative interest rates? Direct purchase of equities?
A concern of mine about herd immunity as a solution to #COVID19. A possible problem is that immunity may only last months, not years. We don't really know. If that's the case, it will vastly reduce the effectiveness of flattening the curve and vaccines.
reddit.com
I wonder if people will ever shake hands again? I think not.
If you're looking for some perspective on the #COVID19 numbers, I've been following Dr. John Campbell's commentary on YouTube. His videos are excellent.
youtube.com
You're forgetting something important—the em dash.
Mark Davis@MarkFonts
− minus sign.
- hyphen.
Know the difference.
If police did this in the U.S. there would certainly be armed confrontations. Like guns or not, that's the 2nd Amendment at work.
Ava@noampomsky
the contrast between police in hazmat suits breaking into apartments to yank people out and WELDING entire buldings shut vs “oh, multiple community-spread cases in multiple states? I guess that’s chill” is incredible
I want to be able to @ myself in @InVisionApp comps so that I get an email as a reminder to update the comp. Please make this happen!
A strange trend I've noticed—recruiters putting #hashtags into recruiting InMails. Not sure if it's an automated message, but it sure feels that way.
Question for other product design teams—how strict are you about layer/group names? Why?
Feb 2020
Hanging out in Denver this week. Thought I'd start a thread with some pics.
The beard is out. The stache is in.
KMOV@KMOV
CDC recommends shaving facial hair to protect against coronavirus dlvr.it #KMOV
Every time I try and find cool spots near me on Instagram, I seem to only see posts from real estate agents and hair stylists. I just want to find a cool place to grab a beer.
I work with PMs and research to draw squares. Then make sure engineering is building those squares properly.
Maxim Leyzerovich@round
If you can’t articulate what you do (what you work on – not what your title means) to a person outside your field in a few sentences: then you don’t actually grasp the importance, let alone impact, of your work.
Neomorphism is visually interesting, but seems to have the same flaws of flat design without any of the benefits.
Low contrast in most of the designs are certainly a discovery/
accessibility problem. At the same time it would be time-intensive to build complex elements.
Meng To@MengTo
I know some hate it, but here are my observations on Neomorphism.
- Diagonal light & shadows
- Gradients (optional)
- No textures
- Buttons look more tactile
- Can adapt to dark mode
If you don’t exaggerate, implementation is adding 2 shadows and 2 inner shadows (optional).
Company size is probably the most important factor in determining whether startup advice is applicable. SidePrize had different needs at 3 vs 10 people, which was very different than SalesLoft at 100 or 500 people.
I'm a sucker for a good card deck—and this Starcraft-ish deck is rad.
lunarsaloon.bigcartel.com
As much as I want to see Rage Against the Machine, I'm not sure I can justify spending $400-$500 on tickets. Maybe if they were coming to Atlanta.l
I'm skeptical that this T-Mobile, Sprint merger is going to be good for consumers.
Recently, I've tried moving my analog to-do list methodology into a giant txt file. Each new day is added at the bottom of the list.
- > New Task
/ > Task carried over from the previous Day
X > Completed Task
? > Outstanding Question
! > Priority Item
What is this, The Fountainhead? nytimes.com
Looking for some tutorials on creating hand-drawn isometric illustrations. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Jan 2020
Anyone know an awesome product designer in Indianapolis? @SalesLoft is hiring.
salesloft.com
Finally finished my 2019 year-in review! It contains a little bit of commentary of everything I built, wrote and read last year. solomon.io
lol, I stumbled upon an @Adobe @Illustrator tutorial video I did about 9 years ago. It's pretty amazing. youtube.com
Some pretty amazing lines in this essay. “The innovators (lords) capture the majority of the gains, and the 99% (serfs) get an awesome phone, a $4,000 TV, great original scripted television, and Mandalorian action figures delivered within 24 hours.” profgalloway.com
A very interesting side effect of two-factor authentication everywhere is I now have a knack for remembering random combinations of numbers.
Happy New Year Twitter friends!
Dec 2019
Disappointing fantasy championship with three players getting hurt, but I'll take second place and season high scorer. Everyone that laughed at my two TE set can take a hike.
I'm very skeptical about the value of smart home appliances. However, if there's one company that could make it work, it's probably @IKEAUSA. theverge.com
What’s one product you discovered this year that improved your life?
I've been on Twitter for a decade now. That's amazing.
Memories would be a good name for a college bar.
People that own a Nespresso machine—what do you think about it? Does it use the original or vertuo pods?
The composition of the pictures in this photo essay are spectacular. buff.ly
If I have to wait in line for support chat and support email isn't offered, it looks like you're deflecting support cases. Support email should always be offered.
Facebook's notification system is such a disaster. Are the notification settings even wired to the application?
So, initially I thought the ending to the Iron Bowl was pretty climatic considering how wild that game was. Turns out that 4th down play was designed to trick Alabama.
Nov 2019
This was such a wild end to this drive.
CBS Sports@CBSSports
HOW DID THIS JUST HAPPEN!???!?!?!
There are some real gems in this thread.
Patrick McKenzie@patio11
I love professionals taking works of fiction very, very seriously with regards to their specialty, both for incongruent humor value and because this is a great learning device for the underlying truths about the real world.
Not sure how this flight attendant meme has gained so much traction on Twitter. It's more annoying than funny. I'm on the verge of muting "flight attendant" in my feed.
Tesla's new truck is perhaps the first time a production vehicle has looked like the concept.
theverge.com
Even though I have IA Writer on my personal computer, I've found myself doing most of my writing in VS @Code. I'm not entirely sure why though. solomon.io
How much has macOS Catalina improved in the last month? Should I hold off a bit longer? I'm considering making the upgrade.
It is absolutely the right move, but I can't help but be amused by how prominently Apple features the escape key on their Macbook Pro marketing site.
Discussions like this are exactly why HN is my favorite site on the internet—Interesting video about heavy-lift ships. Discussion about warranties and why a ship might need this. Comment about the ship's pump system. A naval architect chimes in. Amazing. news.ycombinator.com
I've never been much of a superhero movie fan. However, it has occurred to me that a potential reason the dialogue is so poor is because it is going to be dubbed in a ton of different languages. The intent needs to be clear in all of them, which leaves little room for nuance.
Today in interesting articles that cover obscure details—How Pixar generated realistic sand in Piper. fxguide.com
Tiempos is such an exceptional typeface.
klim.co.nz
This is cool—30 years of scrollbars. Unfortunately, the site itself doesn't have a horizontal scrollbar. scrollbars.matoseb.com
Super-helpful Gmail shortcut: Press the J and K keys to move from message to message in your inbox. It's cut the time needed to get through my Monday morning emails in half.
“Make friends over the internet with people who are great at things you're interested in. The internet is one of the biggest advantages you have over prior generations. Leverage it.” patrickcollison.com
Oct 2019
Amazing! This technology didn't exist until a few years ago now a guy is doing it with his hobby rockets—Build Your Own Thrust Vectored Rockets For Vertical Landings Like SpaceX makezine.com
The internet does a good job of helping people pursuit obscure interests.
I recently decided to see if I could turn Visual Studio @code into a decent Markdown Editor. Oh, man it's an exceptional option. Wrote a bit about my settings and extensions yesterday. solomon.io
Starting to think about my 2019 year in review. What should I include this year? What should I get rid of?
For reference here's my review from 2018.
solomon.io
In @Sketch tend to use the ESC to select parent groups and find this a nuisance on the 2019 MBP. Is this something I can remap? If so, what key should I map it to?
I am not so sure that ISAs are the real innovation in education—it's just a loan with some different terms. The value is having incentives aligned by having the School be the issuer.
So,m I'm not crazy. Text colors in Sketch 59 get slightly lighter every time I edit them. Please patch @sketch. This is an incredibly annoying bug.
Thinking about dual-booting Windows 10 on my iMac because of the MacOS Catalina update. I'm going to loose access to a bunch of my games. How big should that partition be? 128GB?
Print newspapers may be dying, but the scale required to print 80,000 newspapers per hour is both beautiful and impressive. buff.ly
There are few products as magical as @airtable. If you're thinking about building a software product, it's an excellent way to model out ideas.
A spectacular piece of fiction from one of my favorite blogs—Sort By Controversial slatestarcodex.com
Discovered this newsletter through a Hacker News comment. Excellent commentary on the 737 MAX issues—The Coming Boeing Bailout? thebignewsletter.com
Sep 2019
This is a really cool tool for designing color schemes—ColorBox by @lyftdesignteam colorbox.io
I haven't owned a car for almost a year. I still get "last chance" spam calls trying to sell me an extended warranty.
Interesting. A Google Photos version of stories?
Phones cameras are getting spectacularly good. I've already mostly abandoned my @Sony a6300 in favor of my @Google Pixel 3. Mostly because the workflow is 10x easier and the quality is good enough. It's really a marvel. austinmann.com
This place looks rad. It's on my list to check out.
Luke Beard@LukesBeard
It’s attached to playkefi.com a ‘Playtainment Paradise’ for kids. The founder was previously Lucasfilm and Disney.
Kinda like the coolest toy store you have ever seen. The wall of dancing robots was neat. 🤖
Native button support in @sketch? Can't wait.
Sketch@sketch
Get ready to supercharge your symbols and create powerful, responsive components. Smart Layout in Sketch 58. Coming to a Canvas near you, next week. 😎
Some photos from my sister's wedding in India. More in my Instagram story instagram.com
Aug 2019
Just in case you missed it—I recently wrote about my favorite time-saving shortcuts in @sketch. solomon.io
This thing is rad.
Luke Beard@LukesBeard
What a hunk.
When you avoid conflict to make peace with others, you start a war within.
Designers, what are some of your favorite Sketch shortcuts? I'm compiling some of my favorites into this article. solomon.io
The good news is that my moka pot seems to be working again. The bad news is I accidentally, put cayenne pepper instead of cinnamon into my first cup of coffee this morning.
Circles are just rounded squares.
Maxim Leyzerovich@round
Design is the rendering of rectangles.
It's not so easy to distinguish the drunken master from the drunk. They both walk the same.
I had forgotten how stressful commuting by car is. I dropped my gf at work today and don't think I could go back to doing that.
I'm not sure I agree with UBI as a solution, but I think you're absolutely right about the problems. Look forward to seeing you in more debates.
Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸@AndrewYang
I don’t expect people to agree with me on everything- that would be odd. My main hope is that people trust that I’m trying to solve problems and I’m open to different approaches - particularly if the data drives in a particular direction. Changing one’s mind is not a bad thing.
I've got a few @dribbble invites that are apparently expiring. Any designers out there who want an invite?
Some vary cool photos from inside Tokyo's audiophile cafes. ra.co
Jul 2019
Some cool charts showing camping trends in National Parks. jordan-vincent.com
The new poolside.fm design is so rad. Love it @marty
My Atlanta design peeps: A few of my co-workers are putting together an enterprise design meetup. See you there?
meetup.com
This is cool.
Ivan Reese@spiralganglion
This is my new project, Hest.
• A drawing tool with visual programming features.
• Everything is both code and data.
• Execution happens in time and space.
• You control time.
Here it is doing "shitty math" — where your operators are little boxes. #screenshotsaturday
The team put ton of work into @SalesLoft Mobile. It's been cool to see it come together.
Salesloft@Salesloft
Introducing SalesLoft Mobile! Bringing the power of Sales Engagement to your iOS mobile device: ow.ly
Overall, I'm a pretty big fan of the new @twitter desktop redesign. The only thing that throws me off is the 'X' appearing in the top-left.
Man, I miss the old Android blob emojis.
jennifer daniel@jenniferdaniel
Though they were retired before my time, I still take the time to update the blob character set for my own amusement. I miss these little dudes, the world is better with them in it. 💋
Android friends, what weather app do you use and how do you like it?
I can't stop watching this giant paper airplane made of falafel wrappers.
linkedin.com
Where Are All the Bob Ross Paintings? buff.ly
A 2016 article from @paulg on fragmentation in America. The individuality enabled by the Internet is going to be literally extraordinary, for better or worse. paulgraham.com
I'm unsure what this is. However, it is interesting. wiki.xxiivv.com
Wrote about a little trick I use to organize my color palette in Sketch. solomon.io
I wonder if she saw my post about this from 2011. Running FB ads helped me get my first interviews out of college. Cool to see that it still works!
solomon.io
Jason Fried@jasonfried
Out of everyone who applied for the Basecamp Head of Marketing job, only one person used an ad on LinkedIn to get an extra ounce of notice. This doesn’t get her the job, but it’s a clever, thoughtful technique to stand out against 1000+ other applicants.
Jun 2019
@maxlind Not really. Keeping list topics in drafts makes it easier to find. I also don't have a ton of these lists. Things like books to read, restaurants to try and blog post topics. Sometimes they get too complex for an email—like my kitchen remodel, which got moved to a spreadsheet.
@maxlind I've tried a ton of different products always come back to email drafts. It's easily searchable, doesn't require any new apps and constraints make me keep things simple.
I don't understand why some websites limit passwords to 20 characters?
@reckless For me it's almost exclusively when I'm walking places or on the train. I can't listen to words and work.
May 2019
Some cool pictures from the @modatl espresso exhibit.
Just finished the Idea Factory, which follows the rise and fall of Bell Labs. One concept I'm left with—Markets are excellent at optimizing existing technology for consumer desires. However, they are poor at producing impactful, world-changing technology like the semiconductor.
@JasonShen I've been looking at the @WithingsEN watches. Steel has 8 month battery life and the Steel HR is about 30 days. If you just want the data and don't care about watch apps or notifications, it's probably a good bet.
@ow Well, there's Light/Dark UI Toggling.
Twitter's far from perfect, but outside a couple newsboards and subreddits it's probably my favorite social network.
@ow To be fair Twitter's current UI regularly receives updates. As a product, Facebook hasn't noticeably changed in years. The only thing that has changed is the addition of new notifications, which have made the product unbearable.
@maxlind I begin rearranging my desk and then realize, that I prefer the previous arrangement.
@tranhelen @3030vision @thinky FWIW, I live in Midtown Atlanta and don't own a car. Everything is a short walk, Uber or train ride away. If you live outside of Midtown, Downtown or Buckhead you probably need one though.
“The purpose of quadratic voting is to determine whether the intense preferences of the minority outweigh the weak preferences of the majority...” bloomberg.com
This is an excellent thread on the Uber S-1 filing.
modest proposal@modestproposal1
So UBER. Tough to make sense of it. Have seen people citing aggregated stats to get at unit economics but the US is 26% of trips and ~53% of revs, so aggregates not very helpful. There's some disclosures on adjusted platform revs and geos, but not enough to be useful. No cohorts.
Interesting thoughts on @facebook's supposed new UI.
Brian Lovin@brian_lovin
Seems like people interpreted my last tweet about this as being negative or inferring that I thought the update is bad. What I really meant though, was that I literally have questions about this. Here are my questions so far:
Apr 2019
I feel incredibly fortunate to work at such a great company with so many talented people— @SalesLoft Raises $70 Million Series D to Fuel Growth salesloft.com
Here are a few of my favorite pictures from Streets Alive @CityofAtlanta.
Some rad artwork from #CS19's Ink Wars.
Our design team recently moved from @Dropbox to @googledrive. Drive seems to be syncing thousands of icons and elements within files individually. Should I be concerned? It has been running for 3 days and is still syncing.
Twitter design peeps—anyone headed to @CreativeSouthGA this week?
I wish more consumer applications followed @sketch's lead on subscription pricing. People must keep paying for updates and new features, but they can continue using the application.
Mar 2019
Love this idea.
I appreciate this type of detailed commentary on the design of @apple's new credit card. arun.is
Love this commentary on misleading charts from @TheEconomist. buff.ly
How North Korean hackers became the world’s greatest bank robbers buff.ly
Love this thread on product design.
So @business got rid of their beautiful sparkline charts and that makes me sad. bloomberg.com
Probably the best read I've come across on the 737 MAX issues.
ramón cacho - pr/acc@ramoncacho
Super interesting read on the failed systems design of the Boeing 737 MAX:
mailchimp.com
cc @levelsio you’ll enjoy this one
It's outrageous to be wait 20m only to have a @Postmates order cancelled. I understand merchants get busy. But accepted orders should be fulfilled.
I knew Waffle House cooks used pickles as a way to keep track of some orders. I did not know that system was so elaborate or clever. flickr.com
Want to track cheap flights out of Atlanta? Today I've made my flight tracker available for everyone. solomon.io
I love the comments presented here in this post about @Medium's design critiques. It shows both the level of detail detail and the type of discourse that takes place when designing such a feature. buff.ly
That retro vibe is the best part about the MARTA brand!
It's interesting to see signalvnoise.com move away from @medium. I was a fan of the pre-medium design, but also like the outrun vibes of the new look. signalvnoise.com
FWIW, this is one of my favorite coffee table books.
Product Dork@productdork
1975 NASA Graphics Standards Manual
Well, at least until prices become sane.
Ryan Hoover@rrhoover
I can’t imagine my future son/daughter going to a traditional university
Feb 2019
Looking for some Twitter follow suggestions. What people are consistently doing interesting things?
I can appreciate someone who's built systems around them that make life easier and more productive. writings.stephenwolfram.com
I cannot get over the mesmerizing cinematography of this documentary about the Mauritania Railway—Backbone of the Sahara vimeo.com
Really amazing thread about things @AustenAllred has learned starting @LambdaSchool. Absolutely worth a read for anyone interested in education. threadreaderapp.com
Don't be too clever with login forms. If you're going to look for a time to follow established patterns, it's probably here. @brad_frost gets a lot right in this piece. bradfrost.com
@nestsupport Do you have backplates in alternative sizes for the Nest Protect? The electrical box in my ceiling requires the screws to be 3.25" apart. The backplate that it came with has the screws 3" apart.
Rainy Monday here in Atlanta.
Some amazing views from the roof of @newrealmbrewing yesterday.
Hey @jcrew is there any chance that the gray NB 1400s are going to return anytime soon? It's easily my favorite shoe—it's attractive, comfortable and durable. Love the all-suede build. Please bring it back!
jcrew.com
“While most of us focus on consuming information that we won’t care about next month, let alone next year, Buffett focused on knowledge and companies that change very, very slowly or not at all. ” pxlme.me
Just in case you missed it here's my Year in Review—Notes on things I made, read and learned in 2018. solomon.io
Jan 2019
I can't stand @instagram's quick reactionsb on now stories. Accidentally sent one a dozen times.
“...it was the divorce of “readers” from “potential customers” that prevented even the largest publishers from profiting much from the massive amounts of new traffic they were receiving. ” stratechery.com
I've spent the last 3 months with dialup speeds from my phone's hot spot. Today that @googlefiber was installed. I can rejoin society.
I've spent the last two months writing about everything I built, wrote and learned in 2018. My review for 2018 is now live! solomon.io
@lyft for the last couple of rides tipping has either been broken or slow on my Pixel 3. After the ride ends I just get a blank screen. Please fix so I can tip these awesome drivers.
What the hell. Alabama must miss more field goals than any team in the country. #CFBChampionship
An interesting thread about missed career expectations.
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼@Noahpinion
1/Alright, so folks wanted me to expand on this idea, so here we go. Elite disaffection and the return of the American Left.
As you may have noticed, we're seeing an upsurge in young Americans who reject capitalism. Why? forbes.com
Quesadillas are just big, flat tacos.