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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…
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How Not to Make Money from Apps
The more I think about it, the more it seems that my "advice" about selling apps to small business teams is outdated. It's much harder to sell business software now than it was 10 years ago. Why? Because of popular tools like Slack, Google Docs, Notion,…
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The 50th Post
Today is the one-year anniversary of my first post on Gibberish. And this is my 50th post. That's almost 1 post per week. I've never written so much in a single year. But in light of recent events, I'll keep the self-congratulations to a minimum: "Yay."
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The Diminishing Hawker Culture in Singapore
In the 1960s, if you wanted to make some quick money in Singapore, you'd probably become a hawker. You'd set up a pushcart stall, bring your cooking utensils and ingredients from home, arrange some tables, and voilà, you're in business. Not everyone…
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A Brief History of Dota
Blizzard has bundled a map editor program with their RTS games since Warcraft 2 and StarCraft, allowing users to create custom maps with their own rules. These maps could be shared on battle.net for everyone to download and play. The mapmaker scene took…
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Rethinking Enshittification
"Enshittification" is an overused word. Every time a company adds a feature we don't like, it's enshittification. Every time a company raises their price, it's enshittification. Switch to subscription? Enshittification. Redesign? Enshittification. Cory…
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Explaining Passkeys with Way Too Many Analogies
If you think about it, using passwords to log in is really weird. When you sign up, you're basically shouting a secret word over the ether to the server. The server hears your word, writes it down, and stores it. Then when you want to log in, you shout…
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Lucky Now Supports !Bang Syntax
It took some time, but I've finally added the 13,000+ bang shortcuts to Lucky. (It was a somewhat labor-intensive process.) Bangs in Lucky are faster than DuckDuckGo's because they don't need to go through a server. Random things about bangs you probably…
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Launch: Doomscroll
The story begins with me getting overwhelmed by RSS. When I first set up my RSS reader, I stupidly subscribed to some "general" news sites. Soon, I was flooded with news from all of them. Then I unsubscribed from them all. I concluded that RSS is good for…
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Generative AI is a Skinner Box
You already know about the Skinner box, so I'll keep it short: In the 1950s, a scientist named B.F. Skinner did some experiments with pigeons. He put them in a box with a button. In some experiments, pressing the button gave the pigeon food. In others,…
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Most People Don’t Care
Most people don't care about the colors of your websites. Most people don't care about the rise of artificial intelligence. Most people don't care about enshittification. Most people don't care about their privacy. Most people don't care about the open…
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Launch: Lucky Notes
A little while ago, I launched the Lucky app. It turns the Google search results page into "ten blue links." It also removes tracking and lets you block spammy domains. There's a problem, though. Since the search engine doesn't know who you are, it can't…
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AI Advertising
Remember the early 2000s when Google's search results were super accurate? People thought that if it continued to grow, it might become a singularity and control everything. Some even went as far as calling Google "SkyNet." Now people are saying if we…
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Why You Are Having a Hard Time Coming Up with Good, Profitable Ideas
The problem isn't about being "profitable," it's about being "good." Money-making ideas are everywhere. Many people seem to make good money with, say, a CRM. So what's stopping you from creating your own CRM and making some money? Because creating yet…