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The Age of Slop
"Advertising… Advertising… Fix Vista." We laughed at this ad in 2007 because (obviously) the best way to solve Vista's problems was to spend your budget fixing it instead of advertising. But eventually, companies decided that this wasn't just acceptable,…
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Technotes
A few months ago, I posted this image on Mastodon, because the Apple documentation website sometimes feel… err, underwhelming. Many people have already pointed this out, so I won't repeat their complaints. When people complain about Apple's documentation,…
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The Lunch Machine, Part 2
(This is part 2 of a two-part series. Read part 1 here.) After the cook left the village, some villagers decided to open their own restaurants. Every morning, they all ran to the Large Lunch Machine. There, they cooked lots of food and brought it to their…
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Eight-Nation Alliance
In 1894, the Qing dynasty lost the First Sino-Japanese War. After this loss, China signed a treaty agreeing to pay a lot of money to Japan. The treaty also gave Japan access to Chinese markets for their ships and goods. This opened the door for other…
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Then What?
Yes, you can vibe code a ChatGPT wrapper that turns users' photos into Studio Ghibli style. Yes, you can do this without learning how to code. Yes, you can do a lot of marketing to get people to pay. Yes, you can make tens of thousands of dollars before…
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Weird Chinese Snow White Picture Book from 1939
In June 1938[^1], Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was released in China and quickly became very popular. But due to certain circumstances[^2], the release was limited. If you were not one of the rich people in Shanghai, the movie was probably out of reach…
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Idea: A Modern Potion Store
Have you heard of Potion Store? No? It was made by Potion Factory. Still no? How about The Hit List? That's also by them. Still no? Oh gosh, now I feel old. Potion Store was a web app that let developers sell their apps online. It was built with Ruby on…
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App Review Phobia
I think I might have a case of app review phobia. So a while back, I launched an app called Teleplayer. It lets you AirPlay a list of videos to your TV. It also has a feature where you can rewind twice with the Apple TV remote at the start of a video to…
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Turning off Your Brain
There's a video from Technology Connections that's been making the rounds on the internet. If you haven't seen it yet, go watch it, it's worth your time: The video talks about "algorithmic complacency", where many people would rather let computers do the…
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Yelling at the Cloud
Politics Since the new US administration took office, I've noticed a significant drop in activity on Mastodon. A few people switched to activist mode and mostly post political content. Others try to pretend everything is normal and keep posting about…
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Why the Job Market Sucks Now
I haven't looked for a job or hired anyone in a long time, which means I'm pretty out of touch. But from what I can see, the job search process is broken on so many levels. I'm not sure why it's so broken, but I have some guesses.[^1] [^1]: The worst case…
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Interview with Indy D. Loper
Host: Welcome to the first episode of our fictional show! Today, we have a special guest, Indy. Indy, could you introduce yourself and share what problems you're currently facing? Indy: Hi, I'm Indy D. Loper. I'm good at making apps. I have programming…
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Why People Subscribe to Creators but Not Apps
Recently, I stumbled upon some discussions where people talked about their favorite artists. I was surprised to see that fans are willing to pay $10 to $20 a month to support these artists. I dug a bit more and realized that many regular people are…
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Don’t Kick the Underdogs
John Gruber (Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads): I agree wholeheartedly with the headline, but if you own your website, why would you code it to cover the bottom third of the page, including all article text, with a newsletter signup popover form? I see this on…
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Draw Snake, Add Feet
There's a Chinese idiom called 畫蛇添足, which means "draw a snake and add feet." The story goes like this:^1 Once upon a time, a rich man held a snake drawing contest for his servants. The winner would get a bottle of wine. One servant quickly finished his…
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Techno-Juche
In the year 1954, our dearest leader Kim Il-Sung locked himself in a hut atop the sacred Paektu Mountain. For 7 days and 7 nights, he meditated on the future of our nation. When he emerged from his solitude, he proclaimed that every nation should be…
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Dogfood Eater
When I was making Spool, I only wanted 2 features: a reverse chronological feed, and a way to muffle keywords like Twitterrific. Later, I added a feature that allows you to use the mobile app as a Threads browser because I didn't want to open Safari to…
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Hundred Schools of Thought
During the Warring States period, China was divided into many, err, warring states. The kings of these states wanted to take over the others. To do this, they needed the help of experts. So, many experts emerged during this time and became advisors to…
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Super Men
When I was a kid, Ultraman was called 鹹蛋超人 (salted egg super man) in Chinese. Because his eyes kinda looked like salted eggs. But I always knew him as just 超人 (super man). Then when I first saw Superman (which also translates to 超人), I thought, "Yuck,…
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About That Facebook Sewing App
I've been trying to use Threads for a few weeks now, and I still can't make sense of it. Most Threads posts are like empty calories and I couldn't get any real substance. It really felt like a digital town square. In that I don't know anyone in the…