Blog

  1. Releasing HappyView 2 Into the Wild

    Published 3 min read
    HappyView v2 ships as a single binary with native OAuth, built-in backfill and real-time indexing, SQLite support, and a new WASM plugin system. No more companion services required.

  2. What If Lexicons Knew How to Look?

    Published Updated 8 min read
    The Atmosphere is growing beyond 'one app per lexicon.' Here's a thought experiment on shared rendering context.

  3. Proof of Work

    Published Updated 8 min read
    After my critique of Bluesky's 2026 Report resonated across the Atmosphere, the company's new interim CEO reached out. We talked about what went wrong, what collaboration should look like, and why private data is the next test of whether the words match the work.

  4. The Marshmallow Test

    Published Updated 6 min read
    At AtmosphereConf, Bluesky celebrated its community, then signaled it's willing to eat them alive. No context. No acknowledgment. I was in the room.

  5. ATProto Has a Profile Problem. Lexicon Generics Could Help.

    Published 8 min read
    As the Atmosphere grows beyond Bluesky, assuming every user has a Bluesky profile won't hold up. A base profile sounds like the fix, but the UX gets weird fast. Lexicon generics — a pattern built from existing ATProto concepts — could make profile-type records discoverable and translatable across apps without flattening them into a single record.

  6. Discord Isn't Requiring a Face Scan — Your Legislators Are

    Published Updated 10 min read
    Yesterday's headline in The Verge had people planning their Discord exodus overnight. But the real story isn't about Discord — it's about legislators demanding surveillance infrastructure.

  8. "Tabs vs Spaces" Is All Sorts of Messed Up

    Published Updated 9 min read
    The debate about tabs vs spaces is as old as the internet itself (I assume), and the way that we go about deciding which one to use is far more selfish than you realise.

  9. Melody: A New Way to RegEx

    Published Updated 7 min read
    Writing RegEx has always felt like using blood to draw runes in the dirt for the purpose of enacting an arcane incantation, but... maybe it doesn't have to be that way. 🤔

  11. What would you do if your computer caught on fire?

    Published Updated 2 min read
    Have you ever wondered what you'd do if you spent the day working on a huge new feature, only for your machine to catch on fire before you push the code? Well… I'll bet you're wondering about it now. 🙃

  14. Building Web Apps with Firebase

    Published Updated 8 min read
    Data modeling makes everything easier when you're building an app. I'll explore my own data modeling process and discuss how I decide what data I need in my database.

  15. Loading Images with Web Workers

    Published Updated 8 min read
    Web workers are magical. They allow for multi-threading in JavaScript, a language that has been single threaded *since the beginning*. Their practical applications cover pretty much everything we do in web applications... so why isn't anybody using them‽ 🤔

  18. Why Is Browser Caching So Hard?

    Published Updated 6 min read
    Browser caching is one of the best ways to take care of your users while also speeding up your website... so why is it so hard?

  19. On Handlebars and Template Tags

    Published Updated 3 min read
    Handlebars is **awesome**. I can separate my template logic from my application logic? Yes, please. When I try to use Handlebars in my local editor, though, it vomits all over those ugly `<script>` tags. Fortunately there’s an awesome, future-friendly, spec-compliant solution.

  20. How to do Amazing Things

    Published Updated 7 min read
    A response to Raymmar Tirado’s 7 Reasons Why You Will Never Do Anything Amazing With Your Life

  21. On Dropdown Menu Transitions

    Published Updated 6 min read
    The CSS transition property allows for a lot of really cool effects in your design, but it's caused me to bang my head against the desk more than a couple of times. Let's talk about some of the less well-documented parts of the transition property.

  22. On Advanced Box Shadows

    Published Updated 2 min read
    `box-shadow` is arguably one of the coolest things to come out of CSS3. However, I’ve been creating shadows in Adobe Fireworks and Photoshop for years, so I feel like CSS3’s `box-shadow` implementation is just too constrained. In an effort to expand my boxy horizons, I set out on a quest to create some cooler shadows.

  23. On Saving Characters

    Published Updated 2 min read
    Recently I discovered something mind-blowing that I feel like I should have known for years.

  24. On Variables, Calculations, and New Units

    Published Updated 5 min read
    Web designers were begging for variables and calculations in CSS well before LESS and Sass came along However, Sass and LESS output can sometimes bloat your CSS and, while it's pretty fun to play with, it's a pain to have to recompile your CSS after every change. Fortunately, the W3C has come in like the proverbial Mary Poppins and to give them a spit shine, making everything all fresh and new again.

  25. On CSS Tooltips

    Published Updated 4 min read
    Pure CSS tooltips have been a thing for a while now, but all of the solutions I've found have had severe limitations. After reading through Louis Lazaris's article — Pure CSS Tool Tips Revisited over at ImpressiveWebs — I decided to take a stab at making some powerful CSS tooltips of my own.

  26. On Responsive Design

    Published Updated 3 min read
    After reading through A List Apart's article — What I Learned About the Web in 2011 — I decided I needed to make a second effort at getting into mobile web design. This article chronicles the epic struggle between myself and the perils of designing for a screen that fits in my hand.