Podcasts about CSS

Introducing Rob Ruiz Meet Rob Ruiz, a seasoned Senior Full Stack Developer with nearly two decades of expertise in WordPress innovation and open-source magic. As the Lead Maintainer of WP Rig since 2020, Rob has been the driving force behind this groundbreaking open-source framework that empowers developers to craft high-performance, accessible, and progressively enhanced WordPress themes with ease. WP Rig isn’t just a starter theme—it’s a turbocharged toolkit that bundles modern build processes, linting, optimization, and testing to deliver lightning-fast, standards-compliant sites that shine on any device. Show Notes For more on Rob and WP Rig, check out these links: LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robcruiz WP Rig Official Site: https://wprig.io GitHub Repository: https://github.com/wprig/wprig Latest Releases: https://github.com/wprig/wprig/releases WP Rig 3.1 Announcement: https://wprig.io/wp-rig-3-1/ Transcript: Topher DeRosia: Hey everybody. Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m your host Topher DeRosia, and with me today I have- Rob Ruiz: Rob Ruiz. Topher: Rob. You and I have talked a couple of times, once recently, and I learned about a project you’re working on, but not a whole lot about you. Where do you live? What do you do for a living? Rob: Yeah, for sure. Good question. Although I’m originally from Orlando, Florida, I’ve been living in Omaha, Nebraska for a couple of decades now. So I’m pretty much a native. I know a lot of people around here and I’ve been fairly involved in various local communities over the years. I’m a web developer. Started off as a graphic designer kind of out of college, and then got interested in web stuff. And so as a graphic designer turned future web developer, I guess, I was very interested in content management systems because it made the creating and managing of websites very, very easy. My first couple of sites were Flash websites, sites with macro media Flash. Then once I found content management systems, I was like, “Wow, this is way easier than coding the whole thing from scratch with Flash.” And then all the other obvious benefits that come from that. So I originally started with Joomla, interestingly enough, and used Joomla for about two or three years, then found WordPress and never looked back. And so I’ve been using WordPress ever since. As the years have gone on, WordPress has enabled me to slowly transition from a more kind of web designer, I guess, to a very full-blown web developer and software engineer, and even software architect to some degree. So here we are many years later. Topher: There’s a big step from designer to developer. How did that go for you? I’m assuming you went to PHP. Although if you were doing Flash sites, you probably learned ActionScript. Rob: Yeah. Yeah. That was very convenient when I started learning JavaScript. It made it very easy to learn JavaScript faster because I already had a familiarity with ActionScript. So there’s a lot of similarities there. But yeah. Even before I started doing PHP, I started learning more HTML and CSS. I did do a couple of static websites between there that were just like no content management system at all. So I was able to kind of sharpen my sword there with the CSS and HTML, which wasn’t particularly hard. But yeah, definitely, the PHP… that was a big step was PHP because it’s a proper logical programming language. There was a lot there I needed to unpack, and so it took me a while. I had to stick to it and really rinse and repeat before I finally got my feet under me. Topher: I can imagine. All right. So then you work for yourself or you freelance or do you have a real job, as it were? Rob: Currently, I do have a real job. Currently, I’m working at a company called Bold Orange out of Minneapolis. They’re a web agency. But I kind of bounce around from a lot of different jobs. And then, yes, I do freelance on the side, and I also develop my own products as well for myself and my company. Topher: Cool. Bold Orange sounds familiar. Who owns that? Rob: To be honest, I don’t know who the owners are. It’s just a pretty big web agency out of Minneapolis. They are a big company. You could just look them up at boldorange.com. They work for some pretty big companies. Topher: Cool. All right. You and I talked last about WP Rig. Give me a little background on where that came from and how you got it. Rob: Yeah, for sure. Well, there was a period of time where I was working at a company called Proxy Bid that is in the auction industry, and they had a product or a service — I don’t know how you want to look at that —called Auction Services. That product is basically just building WordPress sites for auction companies. They tasked us with a way to kind of standardize those websites essentially. And what we realized is that picking a different theme for every single site made things difficult to manage and increase tech debt by a lot. So what we were tasked with was, okay, if we’re going to build our own theme that we’re just going to make highly dynamic so we can make it look different from site to site. So we want to build it, but we want to build it smart and we want to make it reusable and maintainable. So let’s find a good framework to build this on so that we can maintain coding standards and end up with as little tech debt as possible, essentially. That’s when I first discovered WP Rig. In my research, I came across it and others. We came across Roots Sage and some of the other big names, I guess. It was actually a team exercise. We all went out and looked for different ones and studied different ones and mine that I found was WP Rig. And I was extremely interested in that one over the other ones. Interestingly enough- Topher: Can you tell me why over the other ones? Rob: That’s a great question. Yeah. I really liked the design patterns. I really liked the focus on WordPress coding standards. So having a system built in that checked all the code against WordPress coding standards was cool. I loved the compiling transpiling, whatever, for CSS and JavaScript kind of built in. That sounded really, really interesting. The fact that there was PHP unit testing built into it. So there’s like a starter testing framework built in that’s easy to extend so that you can add additional unit tests as your theme grows. We really wanted to make sure… because we were very into CICD pipelines. So we wanted to make sure that as developers were adding or contributing to any themes that we built with this, that we could have automated tests run and automated builds run, and just automate as much as possible. So WP rig just seemed like something that gave us those capabilities right out of the box. So that was a big thing. And I loved the way that they did it. Roots Sage does something similar, but they use their blade templating engine built in there. We really wanted to stick to something that was a bit more standard WordPress so that there wasn’t like a large knowledge overhead so that we didn’t have to say like, okay, if we’re bringing on other developers, like junior developers work on it, oh, it would be nice if you use Laravel too because we use this templating engine in all of our themes. We didn’t want to have to worry about that essentially. It was all object-oriented and all that stuff too. That’s what looked interesting to me. We ended up building a theme with WP Rig. I don’t know what they ended up doing with it after that, because I ended up getting let go shortly thereafter because the company had recently been acquired. Also, this was right after COVID too. So there was just a lot of moving parts and changing things at the time. So I ended up getting let go. But literally a week after I got let go, I came across a post on WP Tavern about how this framework was looking for new maintainers. Basically, this was a call put out by Morton, the original author of WP Rig. He reached out to WP Tavern and said, “Look, we’re not interested in maintaining this thing anymore, but it’s pretty cool. We like what we’ve built. And so we’re looking for other people to come in and adopt it essentially.” So I joined a Zoom meeting with a handful of other individuals that were also interested in this whole endeavor, and Morton reached out to me after the call and basically just said, “I looked you up. I liked some of the input that you had during the meeting. Let’s talk a little bit more.” And then that eventually led to conversations about me essentially taking the whole project over entirely. So, the branding, the hosting of the website, being lead maintainer on the project. Basically, gave me the keys to the kingdom in terms of GitHub and everything. So that’s how it ended up going in terms of the handoff between Morton and I. And I’m very grateful to him. They really created something super cool and I was honored to take it over and kind of, I don’t know, keep it going, I guess. Topher: I would be really curious. I don’t think either of us have the answer. I’d be curious to know how similar that path is to other project handoffs. It’s different from like an acquisition. You didn’t buy a plugin from somebody. It was kind of like vibes, I guess. Rob: It was like vibes. It was very vibey. I guess that’s probably the case in an open source situation. It’s very much an open source project. It’s a community-driven thing. It’s for everybody by everybody. I don’t know if all open source community projects roll like that, but that’s how this one worked out. There was some amount of ownership on Morton’s behalf. He did hire somebody to do the branding for WP Rig and the logo. And then obviously he was paying for stuff like the WPrig.io domain and the hosting through SiteGround and so on and so forth. So, we did have to transfer some of that and I’ve taken over those, I guess, financial burdens, if you want to think of it like that. But I’m totally okay with it. Topher: All right. You sort of mentioned some of the things Rig does, compiling and all that kind of stuff. Can you tell me… we didn’t discuss this before. I’m sitting at my desk and I think I want a website. How long does it take to go from that to looking at WordPress and logging into the admin with Rig? Rob: Okay. Rig is not an environment management system like local- Topher: I’m realizing my mistake. Somebody sends me a design in Figma. How long does it take me to go from that to, I’m not going to say complete because I mean, that’s CSS, but you know, how long does it take me to get to the point where I’m looking at a theme that is mine for the client that I’m going to start converting? Rob: Well, if you’re just looking for a starting point, if you’re just like, okay, how long does it take to get to like, okay, here’s my blank slate and I’m ready to start adopting all of these rules that are set up in Figma or whatever, I mean, you’re looking at maybe 5 minutes, 10 minutes, something like that. It’s pretty automated. You just need some simple knowledge of Git. And then there are some prerequisites to using WP Rig. You do have to have composer installed because we do leverage some Composer packages to some of it, although to be honest, you could probably get away with not using Composer. You just have to be okay with sacrificing some of the tools the WP Rig assumes you’re going to have. And then obviously Node. You have to have Node installed. A lot of our documentation assumes that you have NPM, that you’re using NPM for all your Nodes or your package management. But we did recently introduce support for Bun. And so you can use Bun instead of NPM, which is actually a lot faster and better in many ways. Topher: Okay. A lot of my audience are not developers, users, or light developers, like they’ll download a theme, hack a template, whatever. Is this for them? Am I boring those people right now? Rob: That’s a great question. I mean, and I think this is an interesting dichotomy and paradigm in the WordPress ecosystem, because you’ve got kind of this great divide. At least this is something I’ve noticed in my years in the WordPress community is you have many people that are not coders or developers that are very interested in expanding their knowledge of WordPress, but it’s strictly from a more of a marketing perspective where it’s like, I just want to know how to build websites with WordPress and how to use it to achieve my goals online from a marketing standpoint. You have that group of people, and then you have this other group of people that are very developer centric that want to know how to extend WordPress and how to empower those other people that we just discussed. Right? Topher: Right. Rob: So, yeah, that’s a very good question. I would say that WP Rig is very much designed for the developers, not for the marketers. The assumption there is that you’re going to be doing some amount of coding. Now, can you get away with doing a very light amount of coding? Yes. Yes, you can. I mean, if you compare what you’re going to get out of that assumed workflow to something that you would get off like Theme Forest or whatever, it’s going to be a night and day difference because those theme, Forest Themes, have hours, hundreds, sometimes hundreds of hours of development put into them. So, you’re not going to just out of the box immediately get something that is comparable to that. Topher: You need to put in those hundreds of hours of development to make a theme. Rob: As of today, yes. That may change soon though. Topher: Watch this space. Rob: That’s all I’ll say. Topher: Okay. So now we know who it’s for. I’m assuming there’s a website for it. What is it? Rob: Yeah. If you go to WPrig.io, we have a homepage that shows you all the features that are there in WP Rig. And then there’s a whole documentation area that helps people get up and running with WP Rig because there is a small learning curve there that’s pretty palatable for anybody who’s familiar with modern development workflows. So that is a thing. So the type of person that this is designed for anybody that wants to make a theme for anything. Let’s say you’re a big agency and you pull in a big client and that client wants something extremely custom and they come to you with Figma designs. Sure, you could go out there and find some premium theme and try to like child theme and overhaul that if you want. But in many situations, I would say in most situations, if you’re working from a Figma design that’s not based off of another theme already that’s just kind of somebody else’s brainchild, then you’re probably going to want to start from scratch. And so the idea here is that this is something to replace an approach, like underscores an approach. Actually, WP Pig was based off of underscores. The whole concept of it, as Morton explained it to me, was that he wanted to build an underscores that was more modern and full-featured from a development standpoint. Topher: Does it have any opinions about Gutenberg? Rob: It does now, but it did not when I took it over because Gutenberg did not exist yet when I took over WP Rig. Topher: Okay. What are its opinions? Rob: Yeah, sure. The opinion right out of the gate is that you can use Gutenberg as an editor and it has support like CSS rules in it for the standard blocks. So you should be able to use regular Gutenberg blocks in your theme and they should look just fine. There’s no resets in there. It doesn’t start from scratch. There’s not a bunch of styling you have to do for the blocks necessarily. Now, if you go to the full site editing or block-based mentality here, there are some things you need to do in WP Rig to convert the out-of-the-box WP Rig into another paradigm essentially. Right when you pull WP Rig, the assumption is you’re building what most people would refer to as a hybrid theme. The theme supports API or whatever, and the assumption is that you’re not going to be using the site editor. You’re just going to kind of do traditional WordPress, but you might be using Gutenberg for your content. So you’re just using Gutenberg kind of to author your pages and your posts and stuff like that, but not necessarily the whole site. WP Rig has the ability to kind of transform itself into other paradigms. So the first paradigm we built out was the universal theme approach. And the idea there is that you get a combination of the full site editing capabilities. But then you also have the traditional menu manager and the settings customizer framework or whatever is still there, right? These are things that don’t exist in a standard block-based theme. So I guess an easy example would be like the 2025 WordPress theme that comes right out of the box. It comes installed in WordPress. That is a true block-based theme, not a universal theme. So it doesn’t have those features because the assumption there is that it doesn’t need those features. You can kind of transform WP Rig into a universal theme that’s kind of a hybrid between a block-based and a classic theme. And then it can also transform into a strictly block-based theme as well. So following the same architecture as like the WordPress 2025 theme or Ollie or something like that is also a true block-based theme as well. So you can easily convert or transform the starting point of WP Rig into either of those paradigms if that’s the type of theme you’re setting out to build. Topher: Okay. That sounds super flexible. How much work is it to do that? Rob: It’s like one command line. Previously we had some tutorials on the website that showed you step-by-step, like what you needed to change about the theme to do that. You would have to add some files, delete some files, edit some code, add some theme supports into the base support class and some other stuff. I have recently, as of like a year and a half ago or a year ago, created a command line or a command that you can type into the command line that basically does that entire conversion process for you in like the blink of an eye. It takes probably a second to a second and a half to perform those changes to the code and then you’re good to go. It is best to do that conversion before you start building out your whole theme. It’s not impossible to do it after. But you’re more likely to run into problems or conflicts if you’ve already set out building your whole theme under one paradigm, and then you decide how the project you want to switch over to block-based or whatever. You’re likely to run into the need to refactor a bunch of stuff in that situation. So it is ideal to make that choice extremely early on in the process of developing your theme. But either way it’ll still work. That’s just one of the many tools that exist in WP Rig to transform it or convert it in several ways. That’s just one example. There are other examples of ways that Rig kind of converts itself to other paradigms as well. Topher: Yeah. All right. In my development life, I’ve had two parts to it. And one is the weekend hobbyist, or I download cadence and I whip something up in 20 minutes because I just want to experiment and the other is agency life where everything’s in Git, things are compiled, there are versions, blah, blah, blah. This sounds very friendly to that more professional pathway. Rob: Absolutely. Yes. Or, I mean, there’s another situation here too. If you’re a company who develops themes and publishes them to a platform like ThemeForest or any other platform, perhaps you’re selling themes on your own website, whatever, if you’re making things for sale, there’s no reason you couldn’t use WP Rig to build your themes. We have a bundle process that bundles your theme for publication or publishing. Whether you’re an agency or whether you’re putting your theme out for sale, it doesn’t matter, during that bundle process, it does actually white label the entire code base to where there’s no mention of WP Rig in the code whatsoever. Let’s say you were to build a theme that you wanted to put up for sale because you have some cool ideas. Say, page transitions now are completely supported in all modern or in most modern browsers. And when I say print page transitions, for those that are in the know, I am talking about not single page app page transitions, but through website page transitions. You can now do that. Let’s say you were like, “Hey, I’m feeling ambitious and I want to put out some new theme that comes with these page transitions built in,” and that’s going to be fancy on ThemeForest when people look at my demo, people might want to buy that. You could totally use WP Rig to build that out into a theme and the bundle process will white label all of the code. And then when people buy your theme and download that code, if they’re starting to go through and look through your code, they’re not going to have any way of knowing that it was built with WP Rig unless they’re familiar with the base WP Rig architecture, like how it does its object-oriented programming. It might be familiar with the patterns that it’s using and be able to kind of discern like, okay, well, this is the same pattern WP Rig uses, so high likelihood it was built with WP Rig. But they’re not going to be able to know by reading through the code. It’s not going to say WP Rig everywhere. It’s going to have the theme all over the place in the code. Topher: Okay. So then is that still WP Rig code? It just changed its labels? Rob: Yeah. Topher: So, it’s not like you’re exporting HTML, CSS and JavaScript? The underlying Rig framework is still there. Rob: Yeah. During the bundle process, it is bundling CSS and HTML. Well, HTML in the case of a block-based theme. But, yeah, it is bundling your PHP, your CSS, your JavaScript into the theme that you’re going to let people download when they buy it, or that you’re going to ship to your whatever client’s website. But all that code is going to be transpiled. In the case of CSS and JavaScript, there’s only going to be minified versions of that code in that theme. The source code is not actually going to be in there. Topher: This sounds pretty cool. You mentioned some stuff might be coming. You don’t have to tell me what it is, but do you have a timeline? When should we be watching for the next cool thing from Rig? Rob: Okay, cool. Well, I’m going to keep iterating on Rig forever. Regardless of any future products that might be built on WP Rig, WP Rig will always and forever remain an open source product for anybody to use for free and we, I, and possibly others in the future will continue to update it and support it over time. We just recently put out 3.1. You could expect the 3.2 anytime in the next six months to a year, probably closer to six months. One feature I’m looking at particularly closely right now is the new stuff coming out in version 6.9 of WordPress around the various APIs that are there. I think one of them is called the form… There’s a field API and a form API or view API or something like that. So WP Rig comes with a React-based settings framework in it. So if you want your theme to have a bunch of settings in it to make it flexible for whoever buys your theme, you can use this settings framework to easily create a bunch of fields, and then that framework will automatically manage all your fields and store all the data from those fields and make it easy to retrieve the values of the input on those fields, without knowing any React at all. Now, if you know React, you can go in there and, you know, embellish what’s already there, but it takes a JSON approach. So if you just understand JSON, you can go in and change the JSON for the framework, and that will automatically add fields into the settings framework. So you don’t even have to know React to extend the settings page if you want. That will likely get an overhaul using these new APIs being introduced into Rig. Topher: All right. How often have you run into something where, “Oh, look, WordPress has a new feature, I need to rebuild my system”? Rob: Over the last four or five years, it’s happened a lot because, yeah, I mean, like I said, when I first took this thing over, Gutenberg had not even been introduced yet. So, you had the introduction of Gutenberg and blocks. That was one thing. Then this whole full site editing became a thing, which later became the site editor. So that became a whole thing. Then all these various APIs. I mean, it happens quite frequently. So I’ve been working to keep it modern and up to date over the past four years and it’s been an incredible learning experience. It not only keeps my WordPress knowledge extremely sharp, but I’ve also learned how various other toolkits are built. That’s been the interesting thing. From a development standpoint, there’s two challenges here. One of the challenges is staying modern on the WordPress side of things. For instance, WordPress coding standards came out with a version 3 and then a version 3.1 about two years ago. I had to update WP Rig to leverage those modern coding standards. So that’s one example is as WordPress changes, the code in WP Rig also needs to change. Or for instance, if new CSS standards change, right, new CSS properties come out, it is ideal for the base CSS in WP Rig, meaning the CSS that you get right out of the box with it, comes with some of these, for instance, CSS grid, Flexbox, stuff like that. If I was adopting a theme framework to build a theme on, I would expect some of that stuff to be in there. And those things were extremely new when I first took over WP Rig and were not all baked in there essentially. So I’ve had to add a lot of that over time. Now there’s another side to this, which is not just keeping up with WordPress and CSS and PHP, 8. whatever, yada yada yada. You’ve also got the toolkit. There are various node packages and composer packages of power WP Rig and the process in which it does the transpiling, the bundling, the automated manipulation of your code during various aspects of the usage of WP Rig is a whole nother set of challenges because now you have to learn concepts like, well, how do I write custom node scripts? Right? Like there were no WP CLI commands built into WP Rig when I first took it over. Now there’s a whole list. There’s a whole library of WP CLI commands that come in Rig right out of the gate. And so I’ve had to learn about that. So just various things that come with knowing how do you automate the process of converting code, that’s something that was completely foreign to me when I first took over WP Rig. That’s been another incredible learning experience is understanding like what’s the difference between Webpack and Gulp. I didn’t know, right? I would tell people I’m using Gulp and WP Rig and they would be like, “Well, why don’t you just use Webpack?” and I would say, “I don’t know. I don’t know what the difference is.” So over time I could figure out what are the differences? Why aren’t we using Webpack? And I’m glad I spent some time on that because it turns out Webpack is not the hottest thing anymore, so I just skipped right over all that. When I overhauled for version 3, we’re now not using Gulp anymore as of 3.1. We’re now using more of a Vite-like process, far more modern than Webpack and far better and faster and sleeker and lighter. I had to learn a bunch about what powers Vite. What is Vite doing under the hood that we might be able to also do in WP Rig, but do it in a WordPress way. Because Vite is a SaaS tool. If you’re building a SaaS, like React with a… we’re not a SaaS. I guess a spa is a better term to use here. If you’re building a single page application with React or view or belt or whatever, right, then knowing what Vite is and just using Vite right out of the box is perfect. But it doesn’t translate perfectly to WordPress land because WordPress has its own opinions. And so I did have to do some dissecting there and figure out what to keep and what to not keep to what to kind of set aside so that WordPress can keep doing what WordPress does the way WordPress likes to do it, but also improve on how we’re doing some of the compiling and transpiling and the manipulation of the code during these various. Topher: All right. I want to pivot a little bit to some personal-ish questions. Rob: Okay. Topher: This is a big project. I’m sure it takes up plenty of your time. How scalable is that in your life? Do you want to do this for the rest of your life? Rob: That’s a fantastic question. I don’t know about the rest of my life. I mean, I definitely want to do web development for the rest of my life because the web has, let’s be honest, it’s transformed everyone’s way of life, whether you’re a web developer or not. You know, the fact that we have the internet in our pocket now, you know, it has changed everything. Apps, everything. It’s all built on the web. So I certainly want to be involved in the web the rest of my life. Do I want to keep doing WordPress the rest of my life? I don’t know. Do I want to keep doing WP Rig the rest of my life? I don’t know. But I will say that you bring up a very interesting point, which is it does take up a lot of time and also trust in open source over the past four or five years I would argue has diminished a little bit as a result of various events that have occurred over the past two or three years. I mean, we could cite the whole WP Engine Matt Mullerwig thing. We can also cite what’s going on with Oracle and JavaScript. Well, I mean, there’s many examples of this. I mean, we can cite the whole thing that happened… I mean, there’s various packages out there that are used and developed and open source to anybody, and some of them are going on maintained and it’s causing security vulnerabilities and degradation and all this stuff. So it’s a very important point. One thing I started thinking about after considering that in relation to WP Rig was I noticed that there’s usually a for-profit arm of any of these frameworks that seems to extend the lifespan of it. Let’s just talk about React, for example, React is an open source JavaScript framework, but it’s used by Facebook and Facebook is extremely for-profit. So companies that are making infrastructural or architectural decisions, they will base their choice on whether or not to use a framework largely on how long they think this framework is going to remain relevant or valid or maintained, right? A large part of that is, well, is there a company making money off of this thing? Because if there is, the chances- Topher: They’re going to keep doing that. Rob: They’re going to keep doing it. It’s going to stay around. That’s good. I think that’s healthy. A lot of people that like open source and want everything to be free, they might look at something like that and say like, well, I don’t want you to make a paid version of it or there shouldn’t be a pro version. I think that’s a very short-sighted way of looking at that software and these innovations. I think a more experienced way of looking at it is if you want something to remain relevant and maintained for a long period of time, having a for-profit way in which it’s leveraged is a very good thing. I mean, let’s be real. Would WordPress still be what it is today if there wasn’t a wordpress.com or if WooCommerce wasn’t owned by Automattic or whatever, right? They’ll be on top. I mean, it’s obviously impossible to say, but my argument would be, probably not. I mean, look at what’s happened to the other content management systems out there. You know, Joomla Drupal. They don’t really have a flourishing, you know, paid pro service that goes with their thing that’s very popular, at least definitely not as popular as WordPress.com or WordPress VIP or some of these other things that exist out there. And so having something that’s making and generating money that can then contribute back into it the way Automattic has been doing with WordPress over these years has, in my opinion, been instrumental. I mean, people can talk smack about Gutenberg all they want, but let’s be real, it’s 2025, would you still feel that WordPress is an elegant solution if we were still working from the WYSIWYG and using the classic editor? And I know a lot of people are still using the classic editor and there’s classic for us, the fork and all that stuff. But I mean, that only makes sense in a very specific implementation of WordPress, a very specific paradigm. If you want to explore any of these other paradigms out there, that way of thinking about WordPress kind of falls apart pretty quickly. I, for one, am happy that Gutenberg exists. I’m very happy that Automattic continues. And I’m grateful, actually, that Automattic continues to contribute back into WordPress. And not just them, obviously there’s other companies, XWP, 10Up, all these other companies are also contributing as well. But I’m very grateful that this ecosystem exists and that there’s contribution going back in and it’s happening from companies that are making money with this. And I think that’s vital. All that to say that WP Rig may and likely will have paid products in the future that leverage WP Rig. So that’s not to say that WP Rig will eventually cost money. That’s just to say that eventually people can expect other products to come out in the future that will be built on WP Rig and incentivize the continued contributions back into WP Rig. The open source version of WP Rig. Topher: That’s cool. I think that’s wise. If you want anything to stay alive, you have to feed it. Rob: That’s right. Topher: I had some more questions but I had forgotten them because I got caught up in your answer. Rob: Oh, thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment. I mean, my answer was eloquent. But I’m happy to expand on anything, know you, WordPress related, me related, you know, whether it comes to the ecosystem in WordPress, the whole WordCamp meetup thing is very interesting. I led the WP Omaha meetup for many years here in Omaha, Nebraska and I also led the WordCamp, the organizing of WordCamp here in Omaha for several years as well. That whole community, the whole ecosystem, at least in America seems to have largely fallen apart. I don’t know if you want to talk about that at all. But yeah, I’m ready to dive into any topics. Topher: I’m going to have one more question and then we’re going to wrap up. And it was that you were talking about all the things you had to learn. I’m sure there were nights where you were looking at your computer thinking, “Oh man, I had it working, now I gotta go learn a new thing.” I would love for you to go back in time and blog all of that if you would. But given that you can’t, I would be interested in a blog moving forward, documenting what you’re learning, how you’re learning it and starting maybe with a post that’s summarizes all of that. Obviously, that’s up to you and how you want to spend your time, but I think it’d be really valuable to other people starting a project, picking up somebody else’s project to see what the roadmap might look like. You know what I mean? Rob: For sure. Well, I can briefly summarize what I’ve learned over the years and where I’m at today with how I do this kind of stuff. I will say that a lot of the improvements to WP Rig that have happened over the last year or two would not be possible without the advent of AI. Topher: Interesting. Rob: That’s a fancy way of saying that I have been by coding a lot of WP Rig lately. If you know how to use AI, it is extremely powerful and it can help you do many things very quickly that previously would have taken much longer or more manpower. So, yeah, perhaps if there was like five, six, seven people actively, excuse me, actively contributing to WP Rig, then this type of stuff would have been possible previously, but that’s not the case. There is one person, well, one main contributor to WP Rig today and you’re talking to them. There are a handful of other people that have been likely contributing to WP Rig over the versions and you can find their contributions in the change log file in WP Rig. But those contributions have been extremely light compared to what I’ve been doing. I wouldn’t be able to do any of it without AI. I have learned my ability to learn things extremely rapidly has ramped up tenfold since I started learning how to properly leverage LLMs and AI. So that’s not to say that like, you know, WP Rig, all the code is just being completely written by AI and I’m just like. make it better, enter, and then like WP Rig is better. I wish it was that easy. It’s certainly not that. But when I needed to start asking some of these vital questions that I really didn’t have anyone to turn to to help answer them, I was able to turn to AI. For instance, let’s go back to the Webpack versus Gulp situation. Although Gulp is no longer used in WP Rig, you know, it was used in WP Rig until very recently. So I had to understand like, what is this system, how does it work, how do I extend it and how do I update it and all these things, right? And why aren’t we using WebPack and you know, is there validity to this criticism behind you should use webpack instead of Gulp or whatever, right? I was able to use AI to ask these questions and be able to get extremely good answers out of it and give me the direction I needed to make some of these kind of higher level decisions on like architecturally where should WP Rig go? It was through these virtual conversations with LLMs that I was able to refine the direction of WP Rig in a direction that is both modern and forward-thinking and architecturally sound. I learned a tremendous amount from AI about the architecture, about the code, about all of it. My advice to anybody that wants to extend their skill set a little bit in the development side of things is to leverage this new thing that we have in a way that is as productive as possible for you. So that’s going to vary from person to person. But for me, if I’m on a flight or if I’m stuck somewhere for a while, like, let’s say I got to take my kid to practice or something and I’m stuck there for an hour and I got to find some way to kill my time 9 times out of 10, I’m on my laptop or on my phone having conversations with Grok or ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever. I am literally refining… I’m just sitting there asking it questions that are on my mind that I wish I could ask somebody who’s like 10 times more capable than me. It has been instrumental. WP Rig wouldn’t be where it is today if it wasn’t for that. I would just say to anybody, especially now that it’s all on apps and you don’t have to be on a browser anymore, adopt that way of thinking. You know, if you’re on your lunch break or whatever and you have an hour lunch break and you only take 15 minutes to eat, what could you be doing with those other 45 minutes? You could just jump on this magical thing that we have now and start probing it for questions. Like, Hey, here’s what I know. Here’s what I don’t know. Fill these knowledge gaps for me.” And it is extremely good at doing that. Topher: So my question was, can you blog this and your answer told me that there’s more there that I want to hear. That’s the stuff that should be in your book when you write your book. Rob: I’m flattered that you would be interested in reading anything that I write. So thank you. I’ve written stuff in the past and it hasn’t gotten a lot of attention. But I also don’t have any platforms to market it either. But yeah, no, I made some… I’m sorry. Topher: I think your experience is valuable far beyond Rig or WordPress. If you abstract it out of a particular project to say, you know, I did this with a project, I learned this this way, I think that would be super valuable. Rob: Well, I will say that recently at my current job, I was challenged to create an end to end testing framework with Playwright that would speed up how long it takes to test things and also prevent, you know, to make things fail earlier, essentially, to prevent broken things from ending up in the wild, right, and having to catch them the hard way. I didn’t know a lot about Playwright, but I do know how toolkits work now because of WP Rig. And I was able to successfully in a matter of, I don’t know, three days, put together a starter kit for a test framework that we’re already using at work to test any website that we create for any client. It can be extended and it can be hooked into any CI CD pipeline and it generates reports for you and it does a whole bunch of stuff. I was able to do this relatively quickly. This knowledge, yes, does come in handy in other situations. Will I end up developing other toolkits like WP Rig in the future for other things? I guess if I can give any advice to anybody listening out there, another piece of advice I would give people is, you know, especially if you’re a junior developer and you’re still learning or whatever, or you’re just a marketing person and just want to have more control over the functionality side of what you’re creating or more insight into that so you could better, you know, manage projects or whatever. My advice would be to take on a small little project that is scoped relatively small that’s not too much for you to chew and go build something and do it with… Just doing that will be good. But if you can do it with the intent to then present it in some fashion, whether it be a blog article or creating a YouTube video or going to a meetup and giving a talk on it or even a lunch and learn at work or whatever, right, that will, in my experience, it will dramatically amplify how much you learn from that little pet project that’s kind of like a mini learning experience. And I highly encourage anybody out there to do that on the regular. Actually, no matter what your experience level is in development, I think you should do these things on a regular basis. Topher: All right. I’m going to wrap this up. I got to get back to work. You probably have to get back to work. Rob: Yeah. Topher: Thanks for talking. Rob: Thanks for having me, Topher. Really appreciate it. Topher: Where could people find you? WPrig.io?  Rob: Yeah, WPrig.io. WP rig has accounts on all of the major platforms and, even on Bluesky and Mastodon. You can look me up, Rob Ruiz. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on all of those same platforms as well. You can add me on Facebook if you want, whatever. And I’m also in the WordPress Slack as well as Rob Ruiz. You can find me in the WordPress Slack. And then I’m on the WordPress Reddit and all that stuff. So yeah, reach out. If anybody wants to have any questions about Rig or anything else, I’m happy to engage.  Topher: Sounds good. All right, I’ll see you. Rob: All right, thanks, Topher. Have a good day. Topher: This has been an episode of the Hallway Chats podcast. I’m your host Topher DeRosia. Many thanks to our sponsor Nexcess. If you’d like to hear more Hallway Chats, please let us know on hallwaychats.com.

In this episode of Remote Ruby, Chris, Andrew, and David humorously discuss the rapid increase of 'wrapped' features in various apps, recount personal experiences with food apps, and then dive into their favorite conference moments of the year. They also explore the concept of UI affordances and its importance in web design and give a preview of upcoming conferences in 2026, and a brief discussion on modern CSS and JavaScript elements. Hit download now to hear much more! LinksChris Oliver XAndrew Mason BlueskyDavid Hill BlueskyJudoscale- Remote Ruby listener giftRBQ Conf, March 26 & 27, 2026Tropical on Rails, April 9 & 10, 2026Blue Ridge Ruby, April 30 & May 1, 2026Blastoff Rails, June 11 & 12, 2026Baltic Ruby, June 12 & 13, 2026Ruby Conf, July 14-16, 2026RubyConf Africa, August 21 & 22, 2026Rails World, Sept 23 & 24, 2026Ruby eventsAffordances: The Missing Layer in Frontend Architecture (Stephen Margheim) Chris Oliver X/Twitter Andrew Mason X/Twitter Jason Charnes X/Twitter

Wes and Scott talk about their bold predictions for web development in 2026, from WebGPU-powered design and modern CSS breakthroughs to JavaScript standards, AI-driven tooling, security risks, the future of frameworks, workflows, and more! Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:49 WebGPU and 3D experiences will finally take off Lando Norris 01:30 Web design will make a comeback Raycast shaders.com 04:03 Light mode returns (yes, really) 07:06 Modern CSS standards are about to have a huge year CSS Wrapped Graffiti 13:15 Will the Temporal API finally ship everywhere in 2026? 14:18 The rise of the standard stack 16:18 Are we headed toward standardized RPC? 19:41 What's next (and what's not) for React 21:07 Why we'll see more security failures in web dev 22:35 SvelteKit 3 lands in 2026 22:53 Where developer tooling is headed next Oxc Biome 26:44 More big acquisitions Anthropic Bun 28:02 2026: the year of durable compute 30:57 Frameworks will matter less as AI gets better 33:34 End-to-end AI workflows become the norm 36:04 Brought to you by Sentry.io 37:21 Personalized software for everyday people 39:11 MCP and MCP UI will pop 42:24 Developer skills will fall off 46:20 Crappy software will continue Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

Joel Klatt made one of the worst sports takes. Says NCAA March Madness tournament is not good. Says it is not set up right. CFB only wants the "best teams" in the playoffs. #joelklatt #marchmadness #cfbplayoff Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Joel Klatt made one of the worst sports takes. Says NCAA March Madness tournament is not good. Says it is not set up right. CFB only wants the "best teams" in the playoffs. #joelklatt #marchmadness #cfbplayoff Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Wes and Scott revisit their 2025 web development predictions, grading hits and misses across AI, browsers, frameworks, CSS, and tooling. From Temporal and AI coding agents to React, Vite, and vanilla CSS, they reflect on what actually changed, what stalled, and what it all means heading into 2026. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 866: 2025 Web Development Predictions 01:26 Temporal API will ship in the browser 03:33 On-device AI becomes common 06:14 WebGPU unlocks fast local machine learning TypeGPU 07:10 Models will plateau 10:32 Is there an actual use case for video and photo gen AI? 13:27 Text to UI tools get really good 16:25 Framework choice will matter less 18:53 Web components in Standard Stack, Web Awesome takes off 21:37 AI browsers and Copilot Workspace-style tools will become normal 22:56 AI browsera will become inevitable, OpenAI will launch a browser 27:51 Relative color will feel fully “safe to use” 29:02 Vanilla CSS will make a comeback 30:33 Brought to you by Sentry.io 30:58 CSS mixins and functions spec solidifies CSS Custom Functions and Mixins Module Level 1 33:25 Container style queries will ship everywhere CSS if statements 35:40 Vertical centering jokes will stubbornly persist 36:20 VS Code will reach feature parity with Cursor 38:47 More VS Code forks will appear 39:46 React Compiler drops Babel 40:34 React server components will pop 42:17 Remix re-emerges as something new 43:17 React Native will have its time 44:21 TanStack Start and Tanstack will pop 45:46 SvelteKit gets more granular data loading 46:06 Local first apps will take off 46:43 Bun keeps doing “wild but loved” non-standard features, Bun will launch a platform-as-a-service 48:22 Vite stays king 51:07 Laravel will release a CMS 52:44 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs Sick Picks Scott: DARKBEAM Flashlight UV Black Light Wes: WOOZOO Fan Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

Scott and Wes break down the biggest web platform features that reached Baseline in 2025, separating the genuinely useful APIs from the niche and forgettable ones. From same-document view transitions and the Popover API to Promise.try, content-visibility, and modern CSS goodies, they share what's actually ready to use today. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 01:37 24 new web APIs that reached baseline in 2025. 01:49 Same-document view transitions for single-page applications. 05:28 abs() 08:22 Brought to you by Sentry.io. 09:20 JSON Module Scripts. 10:10 Popover API. 13:07 Base64 to UInt8Array. Better Binary Batter Mixing 16:11 @starting-style Scott's A CSS Only Accordion with Scott's Mobile Nav 17:39 allow-discrete 21:31 Promise.try 22:51 content-visibility Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

Tulane and JMU lost big in the first round of the CFB playoffs. Everyone thinks non Power 4 teams should not make the playoffs. Is this a fair point? #tulane #tulanefootball #jmu #jmudukes Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Tulane and JMU lost big in the first round of the CFB playoffs. Everyone thinks non Power 4 teams should not make the playoffs. Is this a fair point? #tulane #tulanefootball #jmu #jmudukes Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Hola, soy Lorenzo y esto es Atareao con Linux. Seguramente te ha pasado: te atrae la potencia y la eficiencia de un Tiling Window Manager (TWM), pero en cuanto te asomas al abismo de su configuración, te das la vuelta. No tienes tiempo para pasarte semanas editando archivos CSS, configurando barras de estado a mano o intentando que tus aplicaciones no parezcan un "Frankenstein" visual donde nada combina con nada.En este episodio, te traigo lo que he bautizado como el Tiling Window Manager para seres humanos. Quiero contarte mi experiencia personal utilizando la combinación de Niri y Dank Material Shell (DMS), una pareja tecnológica que me ha hecho cambiar mis prioridades por completo y ha transformado mi escritorio en una herramienta de productividad pura.Mi transición: De GNOME a la eficiencia de NiriDurante mucho tiempo, mi escritorio principal era GNOME en un 80% del tiempo. Sin embargo, las tornas han cambiado drásticamente: ahora Niri ocupa casi la totalidad de mi flujo de trabajo, especialmente cuando me siento a programar. Pero Niri por sí solo puede ser austero; la verdadera magia surge cuando le añadimos Dank Material Shell. Gracias a esta capa, he conseguido tener un entorno de escritorio completo, moderno y espectacular sin las complicaciones habituales de los gestores de ventanas en mosaico.¿Por qué deberías probar Dank Material Shell?DMS no es solo un complemento, es una solución integral escrita en Go que utiliza Qt6 para ofrecerte todo lo que necesitas en un escritorio moderno. En este episodio te explico cómo esta herramienta centraliza elementos que normalmente tendrías que configurar por separado, como la barra de estado, el centro de notificaciones o el lanzador de aplicaciones.Hablamos sobre la personalización inteligente: cómo el sistema es capaz de generar paletas de colores dinámicas basadas en tu fondo de pantalla (al estilo Material You) y, lo más importante, cómo logra una coherencia visual total entre aplicaciones GTK y Qt sin que tengas que mover un dedo. Además, analizamos con total sinceridad el consumo de recursos y por qué, a pesar de usar algo más de RAM que una configuración minimalista, la fluidez y la comodidad que aporta compensan con creces la inversión.Instalación y ecosistemaYa seas usuario de Arch Linux o prefieras la estabilidad de Ubuntu, te cuento los pasos clave para que puedas replicar este entorno en tu propia máquina. También exploramos herramientas complementarias del ecosistema como Matugen y Stasis, que terminan de redondear una experiencia de usuario que, sinceramente, creo que es el futuro de los escritorios en Linux.Si buscas un entorno que se adapte a ti y no al revés, donde la estética y la funcionalidad vayan de la mano desde el primer minuto, acompáñame en este episodio. ¡Vamos directo al turrón!Más información y enlaces en las notas del episodio

Podpage Features For Podcasts: In this episode, I share the full story behind why I've rebuilt the Podcast Answer Man website using Podpage and why I now believe it's an excellent turn-key solution for podcasters who don't want to deal with custom design, WordPress architecture, CSS, plug-ins, developers, maintenance, or the expense and complexity of building a fully customized site. For three decades, I've used everything from WordPress to managed VPS hosting to Kajabi to power my online presence. Recently, I discovered Podpage and decided to rebuild my PodcastAnswerMan.com site on their platform. Today's conversation walks you through: Why I moved away from WordPress and external hosting The limitations I ran into inside Kajabi for podcast website needs How Podpage works as a complete website builder for podcasters The features that immediately sold me on switching How Podpage integrates with podcast feeds automatically Why Podpage is now the home of PodcastAnswerMan.com Practical reasons Podpage may be a good fit for your show too If you're a podcaster looking to build a professional presence online, without spending years managing plugins, code, hosting, updates, backups, and design headaches, Podpage is the solution I recommend you to try out. Try Podpage Using My Affiliate Link You can begin testing Podpage instantly by importing your RSS feed and seeing a live preview of your show website: https://PodcastAnswerMan.com/podpage This is my affiliate link. If you sign up using it, I will earn a commission. Links Mentioned In This Episode Podpage: https://PodcastAnswerMan.com/podpage Kajabi: https://PodcastAnswerMan.com/kajabi Kit (Formerly ConvertKit): https://PodcastAnswerMan.com/kit My Podcast Reviews: - http://PodcastAnswerMan.com/reviews Ready To Launch Your Podcast? If you want to launch a podcast but feel stuck, unsure where to start, or overwhelmed by the tech, Podcasting A to Z was created for you. This is a live, four-week guided experience where I personally help you launch a great-sounding podcast with clarity and confidence. Learn more and see if Podcasting A to Z is right for you at PodcastingAtoZ.com.

Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/training As a user, do you still use search engines or have completely defaulted to AI? How will this shift reshape the agency world? How will ads work when people are only getting the one answer they need? Most agency owners are still treating SEO like it's 2012 — optimizing keywords, buying backlinks, and praying to the Google gods. But search has already changed. People are asking AI for answers, not Googling for links. And if you want your agency or your personal brand to stay visible in this new era, the rules are completely different. Today's featured guest will unpack the shift from SEO to AEO and why most businesses are invisible to AI without even realizing it. Kasim Aslam is one of the world's leading voices on Answer Engine Optimization. He runs one of the largest AEO communities and leads a six person research team that has analyzed millions of AI citations to understand how large language models choose their sources. He is also the author of The AEO Blueprint and the founder of multiple companies, including a staffing agency, a mastermind, and AEO.co. Kasim has spent the past year deep in the trenches studying how AI crawlers gather, filter, and prioritize information. When it comes to AEO, nobody has more real data. In this episode, we'll discuss: SEO is over. Understanding AEO. Why brands may get lost in LLMs. The quiet Google change that just changed everything in AI citations. The future of ads. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources E2M Solutions: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by E2M Solutions, a web design, and development agency that has provided white-label services for the past 10 years to agencies all over the world. Check out e2msolutions.com/smartagency and get 10% off for the first three months of service. Why SEO Is No Longer Enough: The Rise of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) To understand Answer Engine Optimization, we must first understand that, despite what some agencies may be saying, it is not the same as SEO. Traditional search engines prioritize links. That is why entire industries exist around buying them. In the world of LLMs, backlinks barely matter. The number one ranking factor for AI citations is schema markup. And only 12.4% of websites have clean, validated schema. In other words, nearly 90% of brands are invisible to AI crawlers, regardless of how strong their SEO is. Schema isn't just another optimization tactic. It is the visibility layer. It is the metadata that helps LLMs understand and categorize your content. If your schema is broken or missing, AI cannot reference you even if your content is excellent. This is the equivalent of having a beautiful storefront on a street no one can find. The second key is social mentions. In the same way SEO relied on links, AEO relies on people talking about you. For instance, a TikTok comment from someone in the agency industry saying Jason Swenk is their go-to agency guy counts as an authority signal. LLMs weigh these human mentions heavily. Finally, a lot of the nuances on AEO are changing every day, but Kasim has learned that the real key is building authority, long-form content. That along with clear schema and personal brand is the future of staying in the conversation. Why Personal Authority Beats Brand Authority in AI Search One of the biggest shifts Kasim highlights is that answer engines prefer individuals. A person can write a book, earn a PhD, share opinions, create content, develop mastery, and build authority in a way brands cannot. That means generalists are in trouble. If your expertise is scattered, AI won't know how to classify you and won't choose you as an authoritative answer. Meanwhile, someone who goes deep in a single topic becomes the preferred answer. It is a shift away from corporate brand authority and toward personal authority. Authority is not spread across a company anymore. It sits with people. Agencies that hide behind a brand name will lose visibility. Personal brands that plant a flag will win. For agency owners, this is huge. You do not need a bigger brand. You need clear expertise tied to a real person. This is exactly why Jason positions all the Agency Mastery content around him. Personalities thrive. Brands get lost. Where LLMs Get Their Data (and Why That Just Changed Overnight) Kasim's research revealed that 21 percent of all AI citations once came from Reddit. YouTube followed at 18.8 percent. These platforms had deep context and raw human conversation, which LLMs love. Then Google quietly changed everything. Twenty two days before the interview, Google cut off 90% of the internet from AI crawlers by reducing search results from hundreds to ten. Because LLMs rely on deep search results (not the top ten), reducing the searchable depth limits the information AI can access - removing platforms like Reddit from the AI training pipeline. AI tools rely heavily on these deeper results for nuance. By limiting access, Google essentially removed Reddit and other community based sites from the AI food chain. This change sent shockwaves through stock prices and visibility, and most people never noticed. Google is protecting the content needed to train AI because only two organizations truly own the global knowledge graph: Google and Amazon. OpenAI and the rest are crawling, not casing, the internet, which means they operate at a major disadvantage. Google is playing statecraft. And according to Kasim, Google will win the AI race. The Rise of Screenless Search and Voice-Driven Results According to Kasim, we are quickly moving toward a screenless world. Eric Schmidt has said the screenless future is years away, not decades. And the younger generation is already there. Over 55 percent of people under 25 use voice instead of text. Voice queries require different markup, structure, and formatting, and only 0.3 percent of websites use voice schema. Meanwhile, 65 percent of all searches end in zero clicks. People are asking, getting an answer, and moving on. That number does not even include the people who have stopped using search altogether and have already shifted to answer engines. This means your future website is not for your audience. It is for AI. Kasim is rebuilding his personal site in Notion because he believes CSS-light, simple, stripped down sites will perform better for AI ingestion. We are entering a world where content is created for machines first and humans last. How Google Gemini Is Rewriting the Future of Advertising Here is a wild data point. When Kasim set up new Chromebooks for his kids, he discovered the default search engine was not Google. It was Gemini. Google owns Chrome. Google owns Chromebooks. Yet they replaced its primary revenue driver on its own device with a product that currently has no ads. This tells you where the company is headed. They are rebuilding a new knowledge graph optimized for answer engines, while competitors still reply on the old search-oriented graph. And the future ad model will be nothing like what agencies grew up on. If one answer becomes the default experience, where do ads go? How are they shown? What are users willing to tolerate? And will businesses have to give away deep content to earn visibility the same way early YouTubers and bloggers did? These questions will reshape the entire lead generation ecosystem. Data, Moats, and the K-Shaped Economy The people who win in this new world are those who own data. Not tool access or workflows. Data. Custom GPTs, custom models, and proprietary knowledge bases become your moat. We are entering a K-shaped economy. Twenty percent of people and businesses will become unstoppable because their productivity will outpace demand. Eighty percent will fall to zero. The middle disappears. That means agency owners must adapt, evolve, and lean into deep expertise. Vibe coding (the rapid, exploratory use of AI tools) and no code platforms are accelerating this divide. Kasim's team recreated a software that normally costs ten thousand a year in a weekend. Entire SaaS categories are about to be wiped out. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? Looking to dig deeper into your agency's potential? Check out our Agency Blueprint. Designed for agency owners like you, our Agency Blueprint helps you uncover growth opportunities, tackle obstacles, and craft a customized blueprint for your agency's success.

Hasta hace poco, MinIO era el rey indiscutible para implementar almacenamiento S3 autoalojado. Pero un cambio de licencia polémico (de Apache 2.0 a la estricta AGPL v3) y, lo que es peor para el usuario libre, la eliminación de la Consola GUI de la versión abierta, han forzado a muchos, incluido yo, a buscar una alternativa. ¡Y la hemos encontrado!En este episodio, te explico a fondo qué es S3, por qué este protocolo de almacenamiento de objetos es una pieza clave e indispensable para cualquier infraestructura de selfhosting o *homelab*, y te presento a RustFS, el nuevo servidor compatible con la API de S3 que está diseñado para la comunidad, manteniendo la promesa de ser libre, transparente, rápido, y lo más importante: con su interfaz gráfica de administración incluida.

The college price tag keeps climbing, but draining savings or delaying retirement doesn't have to be your only option. We sit down with Lance Morgan, founder of College Funding Secrets, to map out a step-by-step approach for turning smart real estate moves and tax strategy into a reliable engine that pays for tuition while protecting your future. Lance pulls back the curtain on why many high earners miss out on aid, how 529 plans can quietly work against you, and where short-term rentals can create the kind of “tax scholarships” that rival the cost of a private university.We get specific about the short-term rental advantage: active losses that can offset W‑2 income, the return of 100% bonus depreciation, and the FAFSA timing that makes junior year of high school a pivotal window. You'll hear how to underwrite an STR with real data—occupancy, average daily rate, and seasonality—using tools like AirDNA, and why design, amenities, and ranking on page one are the difference between middling revenue and top-percentile performance. Lance shares practical operating tactics for a hands-off model with management baked into the numbers, so you're not spending weekends washing sheets.We also dig into asset positioning to avoid common aid mistakes. Learn which accounts count against you, why retirement vehicles often don't, how to value property conservatively for aid forms, and when the CSS profile changes the rules for private schools. For liquidity and resilience, Lance explains using a properly structured life insurance policy as a source of low-rate loans for down payments and slow seasons, so you preserve compounding while keeping your real estate plan moving. By the end, you'll have a clear playbook to fund college through cash-flowing assets, reduce taxes, and keep your retirement on track.If this strategy guide helps, follow and subscribe, share it with a friend who's staring down tuition, and leave a quick review so more families can discover smarter ways to pay for college.How to connect with Lance?Website: https://collegecostsecrets.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/collegefundingeducation/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lance-morgan-college-funding-secrets/Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Lance_CollegeFundingSecrets Ready to scale your Amazon business? Click here to book a strategy call. https://calendly.com/firingtheman/amazon Support the show

In this episode, we take a look at meaningful and tax-wise ways to give as the year comes to a close. Host John Soukup sits down with planned giving expert Jim Gustafson, to explore simple year-end gifts, monthly giving, IRA charitable distributions, appreciated assets, grain donations, Donor Advised Funds, and more. If you're considering a year-end gift to CSS or another nonprofit, this conversation offers clear, practical insight on how your generosity can make a real impact.

Show DescriptionAfter a bit of gaming talk, Chris and Dave are sharing a bunch of cool projects that our Discord community members have been sharing over the past year including things like a web component based admin bar, shape CSS generators, new website portfolios, HTML-first web framework, email markup databases, miniature paintings, AI tools and ducks, and a lot more. ShopTalk will be taking a break after this episode until the new year. Happy holidays for 2025 and we look forward to a great year in 2026 sharing our love of all things HTML, CSS, and building websites. Listen on WebsiteWatch on YouTubeLinks BALL x PIT on Steam Overwatch 2 Call of Duty® | Best-Selling Video Game Franchise THE FINALS on Steam Welcome to Steam Home | Vulkan | Cross platform 3D Graphics Dota 2 Counter-Strike 2 Learn JavaScript, React, and TypeScript to Node.js, Fullstack, and Backend | Frontend Masters HTML for People GitHub - StfBauer/markshell: Markshell allows you to convert Markdown to a beautiful output on the shell, Ideal for any custom built NodeJS CLI. Admin Bar Component | Will Browar ship-shape.win Quina - Menu Crashlands 2 | Games | Butterscotch Shenanigans How Many Dudes? on Steam Unoffice Hours Webring Unoffice Hours - Dave Smyth Dynamic Dummy Image Generator - DummyImage.com Lynn Fisher Nestflix o(m)g:image | Question 1 Making o(m)g:image, Part III: The HTML - Jim Nielsen's Blog Outlyne - AI Website Builder | Create Stunning Websites with AI Greenwood I Hid a Dozen Easter Eggs on This Website – Unapologetic MacStories - Apple news, app reviews, and stories by Federico Viticci and friends. SotB14 | State of the Browser 14 The Email Markup Database (2) Post | LinkedIn Storybook MCP sneak peek Andy Ford - miniature painter Rubber AI Baseline Tennis - Ulimate Tennis ladder for competitive and casual players Intersecting Us - Where we explore math stories together. bitty - a web tool for interesting pages Dolphin Maker 2.0 Chris Enns + Lemon Productions SponsorsStudioworksManage clients and contacts, send branded invoices, receive payments, access educational resources, and connect with a supportive community. We're building the best business hub for freelancers who want a custom client experience that feels polished and professional — with much more in store.

In this episode:More security vulnerabilities in RSC landAnthropic tries to garner more OSS goodwillAnd we do a wrap up of CSS in 2025Timestamps:2:29 - More vulnerabilities in RSCs6:36 - Anthropic donates MCP to the Agentic AI Foundation16:04 - CSS 2025 wrap up25:05 - Disney to allow characters on Sora29:42 - What's making us happyNews:Paige - Anthropic donates MCP to the Agentic AI FoundationJack - More vulnerabilities in RSCs discoveredTJ - CSS Wrapped 2025Lightning News: Disney will allow characters on Sora AI video generatorWhat Makes Us Happy this Week:Paige - Twinkly Christmas LightsJack - 3D printed underwear for the multiboard desk organizationTJ - MammothThanks as always to our sponsor, the Blue Collar Coder channel on YouTube. You can join us in our Discord channel, explore our website and reach us via email, or talk to us on X, Bluesky, or YouTube.Front-end Fire websiteBlue Collar Coder on YouTubeBlue Collar Coder on DiscordReach out via emailTweet at us on X @front_end_fireFollow us on Bluesky @front-end-fire.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel @Front-EndFirePodcast

Ole Miss AD Keith Carter would not allow Lane Kiffin to Coach in the playoffs because he could steal players and staff. But, he is allowing the offensive staff that is going to be coaching at LSU next year say and coach in the playoffs. Make it make sense. #olemiss #olemissfootball #keithcarter #lanekiffin Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Chris and Andrew kick things off with some weather whiplash and snowblower talk before introducing a new guest on the show, long-time Rubyist David Hill. They chat about fast food and favorite shows, David's accidental path into Ruby and Rails, and various projects he's worked on, including an AED management application. The discussion also touches on the new open-source release of Basecamp's Kanban board, Fizzy, and some innovative CSS techniques used in the project. The conversation wraps up with upcoming Ruby conferences in 2026 and how Claude's AI assistance is helping with coding tasks. Hit download now to hear more! LinksJudoscale- Remote Ruby listener giftDavid Hill LinkedInDavid Hill WebsiteThe Ruby Gems PodcastAndorDispatch (video game)Vanilla CSS is all you need by Rob ZolkosFizzy Webhooks: What You Need To Know by Rob ZolkosFizzyRBQ Conf, March 2026 - Austin, TXXO RubyRubyConf, July 14-16, 2026 – Las, Vegas, NV Chris Oliver X/Twitter Andrew Mason X/Twitter Jason Charnes X/Twitter

Ole Miss AD Keith Carter would not allow Lane Kiffin to Coach in the playoffs because he could steal players and staff. But, he is allowing the offensive staff that is going to be coaching at LSU next year say and coach in the playoffs. Make it make sense. #olemiss #olemissfootball #keithcarter #lanekiffin Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Gotta catch 'em all! Including this episode, when Lex Lofthouse joins us to talk about her passion for collecting Pokémon cards. She's been collecting them since they first came out in 1999, taking a break as a teenager, and returning in 2016 when Pokémon Go's release reignited her passion. Lex explains how the pandemic and influencers transformed the hobby from an affordable niche into a volatile investor market, making it increasingly difficult for collectors and kids to access products at retail prices. She talks about her collecting strategies, why she prefers slightly damaged vintage cards, participating in Pokémon tournaments, and encourages former fans to reconnect with childhood nostalgia by opening a single pack.Guest BioLex Lofthouse (she/her) is a Senior Designer at Nzime, a digital agency in the UK. She has been working in the design industry for over fifteen years, she began her career in the cold regions of Scotland and now lives and works in Nottingham. She specialises in UX and digital design but her skillset also includes branding and print design. She's even semi-competent at some basic HTML and CSS but that's where she draws the line! Despite being a professional designer she has also gained an odd reputation as an advocate for Comic Sans, the world's most misunderstood typeface. In her spare time Lex is a massive Pokemon fan and has been since its release in the UK in 1999.LinksLex's website: https://loftio.co.uk/Lex on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/loftio.co.ukLex on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bulbioCreditsCover design by Raquel Breternitz.

Notre Dame decided to not play in a bowl game after not making the college football playoffs. They are saying they were not supported by the ACC. Showed that if you don't get what you want, quit. #notredame #notredamefootball Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Notre Dame decided to not play in a bowl game after not making the college football playoffs. They are saying they were not supported by the ACC. Showed that if you don't get what you want, quit. #notredame #notredamefootball Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

The Overtired trio reunites for the first time in ages, diving into a whirlwind of health updates, hilarious anecdotes, and the latest tech obsessions. Christina shares a dramatic spinal saga while Brett and Jeff discuss everything from winning reddit contests to creating a universal markdown processor. Tune in for updates on Mark 3, the magical world of Scrivener, and why Brett’s back on Bing. Don’t miss the banter or the tech tips, and as always, get ready to laugh, learn, and maybe feel a little overtired yourself. Sponsor Shopify is the commerce platform behind 10% of all eCommerce in the US, from household names like Mattel and Gymshark, to brands just getting started. Get started today at shopify.com/overtired. Chapters 00:00 Welcome to the Overtired Podcast 01:09 Christina’s Health Journey 10:53 Brett’s Insurance Woes 15:38 Jeff’s Mental Health Update 24:07 Sponsor Spot: Shopify 24:18 Sponsor: Shopify 26:23 Jeff Tweedy 27:43 Jeff’s Concert Marathon 32:16 Christina Wins Big 36:58 Monitor Setup Challenges 37:13 Ergotron Mounts and Tall Poles 38:33 Review Plans and Honest Assessments 38:59 Current Display Setup 41:30 Thunderbolt KVM and Display Preferences 42:51 MacBook Pro and Studio Comparisons 50:58 Markdown Processor: Apex 01:07:58 Scrivener and Writing Tools 01:11:55 Helium Browser and Privacy Features 01:13:56 Bing Delisting Incident Show Links Danny Brown's 10 in the New York Times (gift link) Indigo Stack Scrivener Helium Bangs Apex Apex Syntax Join the Marked 3 Beta LG 32 Inch UltraFine™evo 6K Nano IPS Black Monitor with Thunderbolt™ 5 Join the Conversation Merch Come chat on Discord! Twitter/ovrtrd Instagram/ovrtrd Youtube Get the Newsletter Thanks! You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Find Brett as @ttscoff, Christina as @film_girl, Jeff as @jsguntzel, and follow Overtired at @ovrtrd on Twitter. Transcript Brett + 2 Welcome to the Overtired Podcast Jeff: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. This is the Overtired podcast. The three of us are all together for the first time since the Carter administration. Um, it is great to see you both here. I am Jeff Severance Gunzel if I didn’t say that already. Um, and I’m here with Christina Warren and I’m here with Brett Terpstra and hello to both of you. Brett: Hi. Jeff: Great to see you both. Brett: Yeah, it’s good to see you too. I feel like I was really deadpan in the pre-show. I’ll try to liven it up for you. I was a horrible audience. You were cracking jokes and I was just Jeff: that’s true. Christina, before you came on, man, I was hot. I was on fire and Brett was, all Brett was doing was chewing and dropping Popsicle parts. Brett: Yep. I ate, I ate part of a coconut outshine Popsicle off of a concrete floor, but Jeff: It is true, and I didn’t even see him check it [00:01:00] for cat hair, Brett: I did though. Jeff: but I believe he did because he’s a, he’s a very Brett: I just vacuumed in Jeff: He’s a very good American Brett: All right. Christina’s Health Journey Brett: Well, um, I, Christina has a lot of health stuff to share and I wanna save time for that. So let’s kick off the mental health corner. Um, let’s let Christina go first, because if it takes the whole show, it takes the whole show. Go for it. Christina: Uh, I, I will not take this hold show, but thank you. Yeah. So, um, my mental health is okay-ish. Um, I would say the okay-ish part is, is because of things that are happening with my physical health and then some of the medications that I’ve had to be on, um, uh, to deal with it. Uh, prednisone. Fucking sucks, man. Never nev n never take it if you can avoid it. Um, but why Christina, why are you on prednisone or why were you on prednisone for five days? Um, uh, and I’m not anymore to be clear, but that certainly did not help my mental health. Um, at the beginning of November, I woke up and I thought that I’d [00:02:00] slept on my shoulder wrong. And, um, uh, and, and just some, some background. I, I don’t know if this is pertinent to how my injury took place or not, but, but it, I’m sure that it didn’t help. Um, I have scoliosis and in the top and the bottom of my spine, so I have it at the top of my, like, neck area and my lower back. And so my back is like a crooked s um, this will be relevant in a, in a second, but, but I, I thought that I had slept on my back bunny, and I was like, okay, well, all right, it hurts a lot, but fine. Um, and then it, a, a couple of days passed and it didn’t get any better, and then like a week passed and I was at the point where I was like, I almost feel like I need to go to the. Emergency room, I’m in pain. That is that significant. Um, and, you know, didn’t get any better. So I took some of grant’s, Gabapentin, and I took, um, some, some, uh, a few other things and I was able to get in with like a, a, a sports and spine guy. Um, and um, [00:03:00] he looked at me and he was like, yeah, I think that you have like a, a, a bolting disc, also known as a herniated disc. Go to physical therapy. See me later. We’ll, we’ll deal with it. Um. Basically like my whole left side was, was, was really sore and, and I had a lot of pain and then I had numbness in my, my fingers and um, and, and that was a problem the next day, which was actually my birthday. The numbness had at this point spread to my right side and also my lower extremities. And so at this point I called the doctor and he was like, yeah, you should go to the er. And so I went to the ER and, and they weren’t able to do anything for me other than give me, you know, like, um, you know, I was hoping they might give me like, some sort of steroid injection or something. They wouldn’t do anything other than, um, basically, um, they gave me like another type of maybe, maybe pain pill or whatever. Um, but that allowed the doctor to go ahead and. Write, uh, write up an MRI took forever for me to get an MRI, I actually had to get it in Atlanta. [00:04:00] Fun fact, uh, sometimes it is cheaper to just pay and not go through insurance and get an MR MRI and, um, a, um, uh, an x-ray, um, I was able to do it for $450 Jeff: Whoa. Really? Christina: Yeah, $400 for the MR mri. $50 for the x-ray. Jeff: Wow. Christina: Yeah. Yeah. Brett: how I, they, I had an MRI, they charged me like $1,200 and then they failed to bill insurance ’cause I was between insurance. Christina: Yes. Yeah. So what happened was, and and honestly that was gonna be the situation that I was in, not between insurance stuff, but they weren’t even gonna bill insurance. And insurance only approved certain facilities and to get into those facilities is almost impossible. Um, and so, no, there are a lot of like get an MR, I now get a, you know, mammogram, get ghetto, whatever places. And because America’s healthcare system is a HealthScape, you can bypass insurance and they will charge you way less than whatever they bill insurance for. So I, I don’t know if it’s part of the country, you know, like Seattle I think might [00:05:00] probably would’ve been more expensive. But yeah, I was able to find this place like a mile from like, not even a mile from where my parents lived, um, that did the x-rays and the MRI for $450 total. Brett: I, I hate, I hate that. That’s true, but Christina: Me too. Me too. No, no. It pisses me off. Honestly, it makes me angry because like, I’m glad that I was able to do that and get it, you know, uh, uh, expedited. Then I go into the spine, um, guy earlier this week and he looks at it and he’s like, yep, you’ve got a massive bulging disc on, on C seven, which is the, the part of your lower cervical or cervical spine, which is your neck. Um, and it’s where it connects to your ver bray. It’s like, you know, there are a few things you can do. You can do, you know, injections, you can do surgery. He is like, I’m gonna recommend you to a neurosurgeon. And I go to the neurosurgeon yesterday and he was showing me or not, uh, yeah, yesterday he was showing me the, the, the, the scans and, and showing like you up close and it’s, yeah, it’s pretty massive. Like where, where, where the disc is like it is. You could see it just from one view, like, just from like [00:06:00] looking at it like, kind of like outside, like you could actually like see like it was visible, but then when you zoomed in it’s like, oh shit, this, this thing is like massive and it’s pressing on these nerves that then go into my, my hands and other areas. But it’s pressing on both sides. It’s primarily on my left side, but it’s pressing on on my right side too, which is not good. So, um, he basically was like, okay. He was like, you know, this could go away. He was like, the pain isn’t really what I’m wanting to, to treat here. It’s, it’s the, the weakness because my, my left arm is incredibly weak. Like when they do like the, the test where like they, they push back on you to see like, okay, like how, how much can you, what, like, I am, I’m almost immediately like, I can’t hold anything back. Right? Like I’m, I’m, I’m like a toddler in terms of my strength. So, and, and then I’m freaked out because I don’t have a lot of feeling in my hands and, and that’s terrifying. Um, I’m also. Jeff: so terrifying, Christina: I’m, I’m also like in extreme pain because of, of, of where this sits. Like I can’t sleep well. Like [00:07:00] the whole thing sucks. Like the MRI, which was was like the most painful, like 25 minutes, like of my existence. ’cause I was laying flat on my back. I’m not allowed to move and I’m just like, I’m in just incredible pain with that part of, of, of, of my, my side. Like, it, it was. It was terrible. Um, but, uh, but he was like, yeah. Um, these are the sorts of surgical options we have. Um, he’s gonna, um, do basically what what he wants to do is basically do a thing where he would put in a, um, an artificial or, or synthetic disc. So they’re gonna remove the disc, put in a synthetic one. They’ll go in through the, the front of my throat to access the, my, my, my, my spine. Um, put that there and, um, you know, I’ll, I’ll be overnight in the hospital. Um, and then it’ll be a few weeks of recovery and the, the, the pain should go away immediately. Um, but it, it could be up to two years before I get full, you know, feeling back in my arm. So anyway, Jeff: years, Jesus. And Christina: I mean, and hopefully less than that, but, but it could be [00:08:00] up to that. Jeff: there’s no part of this at this point. That’s a mystery to you, right? Christina: The mystery is, I don’t know how this happened. Jeff: You don’t know how it happened, right? Of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Brett: So tell, tell us about the ghastly surgery. The, the throat thing really threw me like, I can’t imagine that Christina: yeah, yeah. So, well, ’cause the thing is, is that usually if what they just do, like spinal fusion, they’ll go in at the back of your neck, um, and then they’ll remove the, the, um, the, the, the, the disc. And then they’ll fuse your, your, your two bones together. Basically. They’ll, they’ll, they’ll, they’ll fuse this part of the vertebrae, but because they’re going to be replacing the, the disc, they need more room. So that’s why they have to go in through the, through, through basically your throat so that they can have more room to work. Jeff: Good lord. No thank you. Brett: Ugh. Wow. Jeff: Okay. Brett: I am really sorry that is happening. That is, that is, that dwarfs my health concerns. That is just constant pain [00:09:00] and, and it would be really scary. Christina: Yeah. Yeah. It’s not great. It’s not great, but I’m, I’m, I’m doing what I can and, uh, like I have, you know, a small amount of, of Oxycodine and I have like a, a, a, you know, some other pain medication and I’m taking the gabapentin and like, that’s helpful. The bad part is like your body, like every 12, 15 hours, like whatever, like the, the, the cycle is like, you feel it leave your system and like if you’re asleep, you wake up, right? Like, it’s one of those things, like, you immediately feel it, like when it leaves your system. And I’ve never had to do anything for pain management before. And they have me on a very, they have me like on the smallest amount of like, oxycodone you can be on. Um, and I’m using it sparingly because I don’t wanna, you know, be reliant on, on it or whatever. But it, it, but it is one of those things where I’m like, yeah, like sometimes you need fucking opiates because, you know, the pain is like so constant. And the thing is like, what sucks is that it’s not always the same type of pain. Like sometimes it’s throbbing, sometimes it’s sharp, sometimes it’s like whatever. It sucks. But the hardest thing [00:10:00] is like, and. This does impact my mental health. Like it’s hard to sleep. Like, and I’m a side sleeper. I’m a side sleeper, and I’m gonna have to become a back sleeper. So, you know. Yeah. It’s just, it’s, it’s not great. It’s not great, but, you know, that, that, that, that, that’s me. The, the good news is, and I’m very, very gratified, like I have a good surgeon. Um, I’m gonna be able to get in to get this done relatively quickly. He had an appointment for next week. I don’t think that insurance would’ve even been able to approve things fast enough for, for, for that regard. And I have, um, commitments that I can’t make then. And I, and that would also mean that I wouldn’t be able to go visit my family for Christmas. So hopefully I’ll do it right after Christmas. I’m just gonna wait, you know, for, for insurance to, to do its thing, knock on wood, and then schedule, um, from there. But yeah, Jeff: Woof. Christina: so that’s me. Um, uh, who wants to go next? Jeff or, uh, Jeff or Brett? Jeff: It’s like, that’s me. Hot potato throwing it. Brett: I’ll, I’ll go. Brett’s Insurance Woes Brett: I can continue on the insurance topic. Um, I was, for a few months [00:11:00] after getting laid off, I was on Minsu, which is Minnesota’s Medicaid, um, v version of Medicaid. And so basically I paid nothing and I had better insurance than I usually have with, uh, you know, a full deductible and premiums and everything. And it was fantastic. I was getting all the care I needed for all of the health stuff I’m going through. Um, I, they, a, a new doctor I found, ordered the 15 tests and I passed out ’cause it was so much blood and. And it, I was getting, but I was getting all these tests run. I was getting results, we were discovering things. And then my unemployment checks, the income from unemployment went like $300 over the cap for Medicaid. So [00:12:00] all of a sudden, overnight I was cut from Medicaid and I had to do an early sign up, and now I’m on courts and it sucks bad. Like they’re not covering my meds. Last month cost me $600. I was also paying. In addition to that, a $300 premium plus every doctor’s visit is 50 bucks out of pocket. So this will hopefully only last until January, and then it’ll flip over and I will be able to demonstrate basically no income, um, until like Mark makes enough money that it gets reported. Um, and even, uh, until then, like I literally am making under the, the poverty limit. So, um, I hope to be back on Medicaid shortly. I have one more month. I’ll have to pay my $600 to refill. I [00:13:00] cashed out my 401k. Um, like things were, everything was up high enough that I had made, I. I had made tens of thousands of dollars just on the investments and the 401k, but I also have a lot of concerns about the market volatility around Nvidia and the AI bubble in general. Um, so taking my money out of the market just felt okay to me. I paid the 10%, uh, penalty Jeff: Mm-hmm. Brett: and ultimately I, I came out with enough cash that I can invest on my own and be able to cover the next six months. Uh, if I don’t have any other income, which I hope to, I hope to not spend my nest egg. Um, but I did, I did a lot of thinking and calculating and I think I made the right choices. But anyway, [00:14:00] that will help if I have to pay for medical stuff that will help. Um. And then I’ve had insomnia, bad on and off. Right now I’m coming off of two days of good sleep. You’re catching me on a good day. Um, but Jeff: Still wouldn’t laugh at my jokes. Brett: before that it was, well, that’s the thing is like before that, it was four nights where I slept two to four hours per night, and by the end of it, I could barely walk. And so two nights of sleep after a stint like that, like, I’m just super, I’m deadpan, I’m dazed. Um, I could lay down and fall asleep at any time. Um, I, so, so keep me awake. Um, but yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s me. Mental health is good. Like I’m in pretty high spirits considering all this, like financial stuff and everything. Like my mood has been pretty stable. I’ve been getting a lot of coding done. I’ll tell you about projects in [00:15:00] a minute, but, um, but that’s, that’s me. I’m done. Jeff: Awesome. I’m enjoying watching your cat roll around, but clearly cannot decide to lay down at this point. Brett: No, nobody is very persnickety. Jeff: I literally have to put my. Well, you say put a cat down like you used to. When you put a kid down for a nap, you say you wanna put ’em down. Right? That’s where it’s coming from. I now have a chair next to my desk, ’cause I have one cat that walks around Yowling at about 11:00 AM while I’m working. And I have to like, put ’em down for a nap. It’s pathetic. It’s pathetic that I do that. Let’s just be clear. Brett: Yeah. Jeff: soulmate though. Jeff’s Mental Health Update Jeff: Um, I’m doing good. I’m, I’m, I’ve been feeling kind of light lately in a nice way. I’ve had ups and downs, but even with the ups and downs, there’s like a, except for one day last week was, there’s just been feeling kind of good in general, which is remarkable in a way. ’cause it’s just like stressful time. There’s some stressful business stuff, like, [00:16:00] a lot of stuff like that. But I’m feeling good and, and just like, uh, yeah, just light. I don’t know, it’s weird. Like, I’ve just been noticing that I feel kind of light and, uh. And not, not manic, not high light. Brett: Yeah. No, that’s Jeff: uh, and that’s, that’s lovely. So yeah. And so I’m doing good. I’m doing good. I fucking, it’s cold. Which sucks ’cause it just means for everybody that’s heard about my workshop over the years, that I can’t really go out there and have it be pleasant Brett: It’s, it’s been Minnesota thus far. Has had, we’ve had like one, one Sub-Zero day. Jeff: whatever. It’s fucking cold. Christina: Yeah. What one? Brett? Brett. It’s December 6th as we’re recording this one Sub-Zero day. That’s insane. Brett: Is it Jeff: Granted, granted I’ve been dressing warm, so I’m ready to go out the door for ice related things. Meaning, meaning government, ice, Brett: Uh, yeah. Yeah. Jeff: So I like wear my long underwear during [00:17:00] the day. ’cause actually like recently. So at my son’s school, which is like six blocks from here, um, has a lot of Somali immigrants in it. And, and uh, and there was a, at one point there was ice activity in the other direction, um, uh, uh, near me. And so neighbors put out a call here around so that at dismissal time people would pair up at all the intersections surrounding the school. And, um, and like a quick signal group popped up, whatever. It was so amazing because like we all just popped out there. And by the time I got out, uh, everyone was already like, posted up and I was like, I’m a, in these situations, I am a wanderer. You want me roaming? I don’t want to pair up with somebody I don’t like, I just, I grabbed a camera with a Zoom on it and like, I was like, I’m in roam. Um, it’s what I was as an activist, what I was as a reporter, like it’s just my nature. Um, but like. Everybody was out and like, and they were just like, they were ready man. And then we got like the all clear and you could just see people in the [00:18:00] neighborhood just like standing down and going home. But because of the true threat and the ongoing arrests here, now that the Minneapolis stuff has started, like I do, I was like wearing long underwear just, and I have a little bag by the door ready to like pop out if something comes up and I can be helpful. Um, and uh, and I guess what I’m saying is I should use that to go into the garage as well if I’m already prepared. Brett: Right. Jeff: But here’s, okay, so here’s a mental health thing actually. So I, one of the, I’ve gone through a few years of just sort of a little bit of paralysis around being able to just, I don’t know what, like do anything that is kind of project related that takes some thinking, whatever it is, like I’m talking about around the house or things that have kind of broken over the years, whatever. So I’ve had this snowblower and it’s a really good snowblower. It’s got headlights. And, uh, and I used to love snow blowing the entire block. Like it just made me feel good, made me feel useful. Um, and sorry I cough. I left it outside for a [00:19:00] year for a, like a winter and a spring and water got into the gas tank. It rusted out in there. I knew I couldn’t start it or I’d ruin the whole damn engine. So I left it for two years and I felt bad about myself. But this year, just like probably a month before the first big snowfall, I fucking replaced a gas tank and a carburetor on a machine. And I have never done anything like that in my life. And so then we got the snowfall and I, and I snow blowed this whole block Brett: Nice. Jeff: great. ’cause now they all owe me. Brett: I, uh, I have a, uh, so I have a little electric powered, uh, snowblower that can handle like two inches of snow. Um, and, and on big snowfalls, if you get out there every hour and keep up with it, it, it works. But, but I, my back right now, I can’t stand for, I can’t stand still for 10 minutes and I can’t move for more than like five minutes. And so I’m, I’m very disabled and El has good days and bad days, uh, thus [00:20:00] far. L’s been out there with a shovel, um, really being the hero. But we have a next door neighbor with a big gas powered snowblower. And so we went over, brought them gifts, and, um, asked if they would take care of our driveway on days we couldn’t, uh, for like, you know, we’d pay ’em 25 bucks to do the driveway. And, uh, and they were, he was still reluctant to accept money. Um. But, but we both agreed it was better to like make it a, a transaction. Jeff: Oh my God. You don’t want to get into weird Minnesota neighbor relational. Brett: right. You don’t want the you owe me thing. Um, so, so we have that set up. But in the process we made really good friends with our neighbor. Like we sat down in their living room for I think 45 minutes and just like talked about health and politics and it was, it was really fun. They’re, they’re retired. They’re in their [00:21:00] seventies and like act, he always looks super grumpy. I always thought he was a mean old man. He’s actually, he laughs more easily than most people I’ve ever met. Um, he’s actually, when people say, oh, he is actually a teddy bear, this guy really is, he’s just jovial. Uh, he just has resting angry old man face. Jeff: Or like my, I have public mis throat face, like when I’m out and about, especially when I’m shopping, I know that my face is, I’m gonna fucking kill you if you look me in the eye Brett: I used Jeff: is not my general disposition. Brett: people used to tell me that about myself, but I feel like I, I carry myself differently these days than I did when I was younger. Jeff: You know what I learned? Do you, have you both watched Veep, Christina: Yes, Jeff: you know, Richard sp split, right? Um, and, and he always kind of has this sweet like half smile and he is kind of looking up and I, I figured out at one point I was in an airport, which is where my kill everybody face especially comes up. Just to be clear. TSA, it’s just a feeling inside. I [00:22:00] have no desire to act to this out. I realized that if I make the Richard Plet face, which I can try to make for you now, which is something like if I just make the Richard Plet face, my whole disposition Brett: yeah. Yeah. Jeff: uh, and I even feel a little better. And so I just wanna recommend that to people. Look up Richard Spt, look at his face. Christina: Hey, future President Bridges split. Jeff: future President Richard Splat, also excellent in the Detroiters. Um, that’s all, uh, that’s all I wanted to say about that. Brett: I have found that like when I’m texting with someone, if I start to get frustrated, you know, you know that point where you’re still adding smiley emoticons even though you’re actually not, you’re actually getting pissed off, but you don’t wanna sound super bitchy about it, so you’re adding smile. I have found that when I add a smiley emoji in those circumstances, if I actually smile before I send it, it like my [00:23:00] mood will adjust to match, to match the tone I’m trying to convey, and it lessens my frustration with the other person. Jeff: a little joy wrist rocket. Christina: Yeah. Hey, I mean, no, but hey, but, but that, that, that, that, that’s interesting. I mean, they’re, they, they’ve done studies that like show that, right? That like show like, you know, I mean, like, some of this is all like bullshit to a certain extent, but there is something to be said for like, you know, like the power of like positive thinking and like, you know, if you go into things with like, different types of attitudes or even like, even if you like, go into job interviews or other situations, like you act confident or you smile, or you act happy or whatever. Even if you’re not like it, the, the, the, the euphoria, you know, that those sorts of uh, um, endorphin reactions or whatever can be real. So that’s interesting. Brett: Yeah, I found, I found going into job interviews with my usual sarcastic and bitter, um, kind of mindset, Jeff: I already hate this job. Brett: it doesn’t play well. It doesn’t play well. So what are your weaknesses? Fuck off. Um,[00:24:00] Christina: right. Well, well, well, I hate people. Jeff: Yeah. Dealing with motherfuckers like you, that’s one weakness. Sponsor Spot: Shopify Brett: let’s, uh, let’s do a sponsor spot and then I want to hear about Christina winning a contest. Christina: yes. Jeff: very Brett: wanna, you wanna take it away? Sponsor: Shopify Jeff: I will, um, our sponsor this week is Shopify. Um, have you ever, have you just been dreaming of owning your own business? Is that why you can’t sleep? In addition to having something to sell, you need a website. And I’ll tell you what, that’s been true for a long time. You need a payment system, you need a logo, you need a way to advertise new customers. It can all be overwhelming and confusing, but that is where today’s sponsor, Shopify comes in. shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US from household names like Mattel and Gym Shark to brands just getting started. Get started with your own design studio with hundreds of ready to use [00:25:00] templates. 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That was Jeff: Yeah. Cha-ching Brett: they got the chorus, they got the Overtired Christina: You did. You got the Overtired Jeff: They didn’t think to ask for it, but that’s our brand. Christina: shopify.com/ Overtired. Jeff Tweedy Jeff: What was, uh, I was watching a Stephen Colbert interview with Jeff Tweedy, who just put out a triple album and, uh, it was a very thoughtful, sweet interview. And then Stephen Colbert said, you know, you’re not supposed to do this. And Jeff Tweety said, it’s all part of my career long effort to leave the public wanting less. Christina: Ha, Jeff: That was a great bit. Christina: that’s a fantastic bit. A side note, there are a couple of really good NPR, um, uh, tiny desks that have come out in the last couple of month, uh, couple of weeks. Um, uh, one is shockingly, I, I’ll, I’ll just be a a, a fucking boomer about it. The Googo dolls. Theirs was [00:27:00] great. It’s fantastic. They did a great job. It already has like millions of views, like it wrecked up like over a million views, I think like in like, like less than 24 hours. They did a great job, but, uh, but Brandy Carlisle, uh, did one, um, the other day and hers is really, really good too. So, um, so yeah. Yeah, exactly. So yeah. Anyway, you said, you saying Jeff pd maybe, I don’t know how I got from Wilco to like, you know, there, Jeff: Yeah. Well, they’ve done some good, he’s done his own good Christina: he has, he has done his own. Good, good. That’s honestly, that’s probably what I was thinking of, but Jeff: It’s my favorite Jeff besides me because Bezos, he’s not in the, he’s not in the game. Christina: No. No, he’s not. No. Um, he, he’s, he’s not on the Christmas card list at all. Jeff: Oh man. Jeff’s Concert Marathon Jeff: Can I just tell you guys that I did something, um, I did something crazy a couple weeks ago and I went to three shows in one week, like I was 20 fucking two, Brett: Good grief. Jeff: and. It was a blast. So, okay, so the background of this is my oldest son [00:28:00] loves hip hop, and when we drive him to college and back, or when I do, it’s often just me. Um, he, he goes deep and he, it’s a lot of like, kind of indie hip hop and a lot. It’s just an interesting, he listens to interesting shit, but he will go deep and he’ll just like, give me a tour through someone’s discography or through all their features somewhere, whatever it is. And like, it’s the kind of input that I love, which is just like, I don’t, even if it’s not my genre, like if you’re passionate and you can just weave me through the interrelationship and the history and whatever it is I’m in. So as a result of that, made me a huge fan of Danny Brown and made me a huge fan of the sky, Billy Woods. And so what happened was I went to a hip hop show at the seventh Street entry, uh, which is attached to First Avenue. It’s a little club, very small, lovely little place, the only place my band could sell out. Um, and I watched a hip hop show there on a Monday night, Tuesday night. I went to the Uptown Theater, which Brett is now a actually an operating [00:29:00] theater for shows. Uh, and I, and I saw Danny Brown, but I also saw two hyper pop bands, a genre I was not previously aware of, including one, which was amazing, called Fem Tenal. And I was in line to get into that show behind furries, behind trans Kids. Like it was this, I was the weirdest, like I did not belong. Underscores played, and, and this will mean something to somebody out there, but not, didn’t mean anything to me until that night. And, uh. I felt like such, there were times, not during Danny Brown, Danny Brown’s my age all good. But like there were times where I was in the crowd ’cause I’m tall. Anybody that doesn’t know I’m very tall and I’m wearing like a not very comfortable or safe guy seeming outfit, a black hoodie, a black stocking cap. Like I basically looked like I’m possibly a shooter and, and I’m like standing among all these young people loving it, but feeling a little like, should I go to the back? Even like I was leaving that show [00:30:00] and the only people my age were people’s parents that were waiting to pick them up on the way out. So anyway, that was night two. Danny Brown was awesome. And then two nights later I went to see, this is way more my speed, a band called the Dazzling Kilman who were a band that. Came out in the nineties, St. Louis and a noisy Matthew Rock. Wikipedia claims they invented math rock. It’s a really stupid claim, uh, but it’s a lovely, interesting band and it’s a friend of mine named Nick Sakes, who’s who fronted that band and was in all these great bands back when I was in bands called Colos Mite and Sick Bay, and all this is great shit. So they played a reunion show. In this tiny punk rock club here called Cloudland, just a lovely little punk rock club. And, um, and, and that was like rounded out my week. So like, I was definitely, uh, a tourist the early part of the week, mostly at the Danny Brown Show. But then I like got to come home to my noisy punk rock [00:31:00] on, uh, on Thursday night. And I, I fucking did three shows and it hurt so bad. Like even by the first of three bands on the second night. I was like, I don’t think I can make it. And I do. I already pregame shows with ibuprofen. Just to be really clear, I microdose glucose tabs at shows like, like I am, I am a full on old man doing these things. But, um, I did get some cred with my kids for being at a hyper pop show all by myself. And, Christina: Hell yeah. A a Jeff: friends seemed impressed. Christina: no, as a as, as as they should be. I’m impressed. And like, and I, I, I typically like, I definitely go to like more of like, I go, I go to shows more frequently and, and I’m, I’m even like, I’m, I’m gonna be real with you. I’m like, yeah, three in one week. Jeff: That’s a lot. Christina: That’s a lot. That’s a lot. Jeff: man. Did I feel good when I walked home from that last show though? I was like, I fucking did it. I did not believe I wasn’t gonna bail on at least two of those shows, if not all three. Anyway, just wanted to say Brett: I [00:32:00] do like one show a year, but Jeff: that’s how I’ve been for years this year. I think I’ve seen eight shows. Brett: damn. Jeff: Yeah, it’s Brett: Alright, so you’ve been teasing us about this, this contest you won. Jeff: Yeah, please, Christina. Sorry to push that off. Christina: No, no, no, no. That’s, that’s completely okay. That, that, that, that’s great. Uh, no. Christina Wins Big Christina: So, um, I won two six K monitors. Brett: Damn. Jeff: is that what those boxes are behind you? Christina: Yeah, yeah. This is what the boxes are behind me, so I haven’t been able to get them up because this happened. I got them literally right in the midst of all this stuff with my back. Um, but I do have an Ergotron poll now that is here, and, and Grant has said that he will, will get them up. But yeah, so I won 2 32 inch six K monitors from a Reddit contest. Brett: How, how, how, Jeff: How does this happen? How do I find a Reddit contest? Christina: Yeah. So I got lucky. So I have, I, I have a clearly, well, well, um, there was a little, there was a little bit of like, other step to it than that, but like, uh, so how it worked was basically, um, LG is basically just put out [00:33:00] two, they put out a new 32 inch six K monitor. I’ll have it linked in, in, in the show notes. Um, so we’ve talked about this on this podcast before, but like one of my big, like. Pet peeve, like things that I can’t get past. It’s like I need like a retina screen. Like I need like the, the perfect pixel doubling thing for that the Mac Os deals with, because I’ve used a 5K screen, either through an iMac or um, an lg, um, ultra fine or, um, a, uh, studio display. For like 11 years. And, and I, and I’ve been using retina displays on laptops even longer than that. And so if I use like a regular 4K display, like it just, it, it doesn’t work for me. Um, you can use apps like, um, like better control and other things to kind of emulate, like what would be like if you doubled the resolution, then it, it down, you know, um, of samples that, so that. It looks better than, than if it’s just like the, the, the 4K stuff where in the, the user interface things are too big and whatnot. And to be clear, this is a Macco West problem. If [00:34:00] you are using Windows or Linux or any other operating system that does fractional scaling, um, correctly, then this is not a problem. But Macco West does not do fractional scaling direct, uh, correctly. Um, weirdly iOS can, like, they can do three X resolution and other things. Um, but, but, but Macs does not. And that’s weird because some of the native resolutions on some of the MacBook errors are not even perfectly pixeled doubled, meaning Apple is already having to do a certain amount of like resolution changes to, to fit into their own, created by their, their own hubris, like way of insisting on, on only having like, like two x pixel doubling 18 years ago, we could have had independent, uh, resolutions, uh, um, for, for UI elements and, and, and window bars. But anyway, I, I’m, I’m digressing anyway. I was looking at trying to get either a second, uh, studio display, which I don’t wanna do because Apple’s reportedly going to be putting out a new one. Um, and they’re expensive or getting, um, there are now a number of different six K [00:35:00] displays that are not $6,000 that are on the market. So, um, uh, uh, Asus has one, um, there is one from like a, a Chinese company called like, or Q Con that, um, looks like a, a complete copy of this, of the pro display XDR. It has a different panel, but it’s, it’s six K and they, they’ve copied the whole design and it’s aluminum and it’s glossy and it looks great, but I’d have to like get it from like. A weird distributor, and if I have any issues with it, I don’t really wanna have to send it back to China and whatnot. And then LG has one that they just put out. And so I’ve been researching these on, on Mac rumors and on some other forums. And, um, I, uh, I, somebody in one of the Mac Roomers forums like posted that there was like a contest that LG was running in a few different subreddits where they were like, tell us why you should get one of, like, we’re gonna be giving away like either one or two monitors, and I guess they did this in a few subreddits. Tell us why this would be good for your workflow. And, um, I guess I, I guess I’m one of the people who kind of read the [00:36:00] assignment because it, okay, I’ll just be honest with this, with, with you guys on this podcast, uh, because I, I don’t think anyone from LG will hear this and my answers were accurate anyway. But anyway, this was not the sort of contest where it was like we will randomly select a winner. This was the moderators and lg, were going to read the responses and choose the winner. Jeff: Got it. Christina: So if you spend a little bit of time and thoughtfully write out a response, maybe you stand a better chance of winning the contest. Jeff: yeah, yeah. Put the work in like it was 2002. Christina: Right. Anyway, I still was shocked when I like woke up like on like Halloween and they were like, congratulations, you’ve won two monitors. I’m like, I’m sorry. What? Jeff: That’s amazing. Christina: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Jeff: Nice work. I know I’ve, you know, I’ve been staring at those boxes behind you this whole time, just being like, those look like some sweet monitors. Christina: yeah, yeah. Monitor Setup Challenges Christina: I mean, and, uh, [00:37:00] uh, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, and I, I’m very much, so my, my, my only issue is, okay, how am I gonna get these on my desk? So I’m gonna have to do something with my iMac and I’m probably gonna have to get rid of my, my my, my 5K, um, uh, uh, studio display, at least in the short term. Ergotron Mounts and Tall Poles Christina: Um, but what I did do is I, um, I ordered from, um, Ergotron, ’cause I already have. Um, two of their, um, LX mounts, um, or, or, or, or arms. Um, and only one of them is being used right now. And then I have a different arm that I use for the, um, um, iMac. Um, they sell like a, if you call ’em directly, you can get them to send you a tall pole so that you can put the two arms on top of them. And that way I think I can like, have them so that I can have like one pole and then like have one on one side, one Jeff: I have a tall pole. Christina: and, and yeah, that’s what she said. Um, Jeff: as soon as I said it, I was like, for fuck’s sake. But Christina: um, but, uh, but, but yeah, but so that way I think I, I can, I, in theory, I can stack the market and have ’em side by side. I don’t know. Um, I got that. I, I had to call Tron and, and order that from them. [00:38:00] Um, it was only a hundred dollars for, for the poll and then $50 for a handling fee. Jeff: It’s not easy to ship a tall pole. Brett: That’s what she said. Christina: that is what she said. Uh, that is exactly what she said. But yeah, so I, I, the, the, the unfortunate thing is that, um, I, um, I, I had to, uh, get a, like all these, they, they came in literally right before Thanksgiving, and then I’ve had, like, all my back stuff has Jeff: Yeah, no Christina: debilitating, but I’m looking forward to, um, getting them set up and used. And, uh, yeah. Review Plans and Honest Assessments Christina: And then full review will be coming to, uh, to, I have to post a review on Reddit, but then I will also be doing a more in depth review, uh, on this podcast if anybody’s interested in, in other places too, to like, let let you know, like if it’s worth your money or not. Um, ’cause there, like I said, there are, there are a few other options out there. So it’s not one of those things where like, you know, um, like, thank you very much for the free monitor, um, monitors. But, but I, I will, I will give like the, the, you know, an honest assessment or Current Display Setup Brett: So [00:39:00] do you currently have a two display setup? Christina: No. Um, well, yes, and kind of, so I have my, my, I have my 5K studio display, and then I have like my iMac that I use as a two to display setup. But then otherwise, what I’ve had to do, and this is actually part of why I’m looking forward to this, is I have a 4K 27 inch monitor, but it’s garbage. And it, it’s one of those things where I don’t wanna use it with my Mac. And so I wind up only using it with my, with my Windows machine, with my framework desktop, um, with my Windows or Linux machine. And, and because that, even though I, it supports Thunderbolt, the Apple display is pain in the ass to use with those things. It doesn’t have the KVM built in. Like, it doesn’t like it, it just, it’s not good for that situation. So yeah, this will be of this size. I mean, again, like I, I, I’m 2 32 inch monitors. I don’t know how I’m gonna deal with that on my Jeff: I Brett: yeah. So right now I’m looking at 2 32 inch like UHD monitors, Christina: Yeah,[00:40:00] Brett: I will say that on days when my neck hurts, it sucks. It’s a, it’s too wide a range to, to like pan back and forth quickly. Like I’ll throw my back out, like trying to keep track of stuff. Um, but I have found that like if I keep the second display, just like maybe social media apps is the way I usually set it up. And then I only work on one. I tried buying an extra wide curve display, hated it. Jeff: Uh, I’ve always wanted to try one, but Christina: I don’t like them. Jeff: Yeah. Christina: Well, for me, well for me it’s two things. One, it’s the, I don’t love the whole like, you know, thing or whatever, but the big thing honestly there, if you could give me, ’cause people are like, oh, you can get a really big 5K, 2K display. I’m like, that’s not a 5K display. That is 2 27 inch, 1440 P displays. One, you know, ultra wide, which is great. Good for you. That’s not retina. And I’m a sicko Who [00:41:00] needs the, the pixel doubling? Like I wish that my eyes could not use that, but, but, but, Jeff: that needs the pixel. Like was that the headline of your Reddit, uh, Christina: no, no. It wasn’t, it wasn’t. But, but maybe it should be. Hi, I’m a sicko who only, um, fucks with, with, with, with, with, with, with retina displays. Ask me anything. Um, but no, but that’s a good point. Brett: I think 5K Psycho is the Christina: 5K Sicko is the po is the po title. I like that. I like that. No, what I’m thinking about doing and that’s great to know, Brett. Um, this kind of reaffirms my thing. Thunderbolt KVM and Display Preferences Christina: So what’s nice about these monitors is that they come with like, built in like, um, Thunderbolt 5K VM. So, which is nice. So you could conceivably have multiple, you know, computers, uh, connected, you know, to to, to one monitor, which I really like. Um, I mean like, ’cause like look, I, I’ve bitched and moaned about the studio display, um, primarily for the price, but at the same time, if mine broke tomorrow and if I didn’t have any way to replace it, I’ve, I’ve also gone on record saying I would buy a new one immediately. As mad as I am about a [00:42:00] lot of different things with that, that the built-in webcam is garbage. The, you know, the, the fact that there’s not a power button is garbage. The fact that you can’t use it with multiple inputs, it’s garbage. But it’s a really good display and it’s what I’m used to. Um, it’s really not any better than my LG Ultra fine from 2016. But you know what? Whatever it is, what it is. Um. I, I am a 5K sicko, but being able to, um, connect my, my personal machine and my work machine at the same time to one, and then have my Windows slash Linux computer connected to another, I think that’s gonna be the scenario where I’m in. So I’m not gonna necessarily be in a place where I’m like, okay, I need to try to look at both of them across 2 32 inch displays. ’cause I think that that, like, that would be awesome. But I feel like that’s too much. Brett: I would love a decent like Thunderbolt KVM setup that could actually swap like my hubs back and Christina: Yes. MacBook Pro and Studio Comparisons Brett: Um, so, ’cause I, I have a studio and I have my, uh, Infor MacBook Pro [00:43:00] and I actually work mostly on the MacBook Pro. Um, but if I could easily dock it and switch everything on my desk over to it, I would, I would work in my office more often. ’cause honestly, the M four MacBook Pro is, it’s a better machine than the original studio was. Um, and I haven’t upgraded my studio to the latest, but, um, I imagine the new one is top notch. Christina: Oh yeah. Yeah. Brett: my, my other one, a couple years old now is already long in the tooth. Christina: No, I mean, they’re still good. I mean, it’s funny, I saw that some YouTube video the other day where they were like, the best value MacBook you can get is basically a 4-year-old M1 max. And I was like, I don’t know about that guys. Like, I, I kind of disagree a little bit. Um, but the M1 max, which is I think is what is in the studio, is still a really, really good ship. But to your point, like they’ve made those, um. You know, the, the, the new ones are still so good. Like, I have an M three max as my personal laptop, and [00:44:00] that’s kind of like the dog chip in the, in the m um, series lineup. So I kind of am regretful for spending six grand on that one, but it is what it is, and I’m like, I’m not, I’m not upgrading. Um, I mean, maybe, maybe in, in next year if, if the M five Pro, uh, or M five max or whatever is, is really exceptional, maybe I’ll look at, okay, how much will you give me to, to trade it in? But even then, I, I, but I feel like I’m at that point where I’m like, it gets to a point where like it’s diminishing returns. Um, but, uh, just in terms of my own budget. But, um, yeah, the, the new just info like pro or or max, whatever, Brett: I have, I have an M four MacBook Pro sitting around that I keep forgetting to sell. Uh, it’s the one that I, it only had a 256 gigabyte hard drive, Jeff: what happened to me when I bought my M1, Brett: and I, and I regretted that enough that I just ordered another one. But, uh, for various reasons, I couldn’t just return the one I didn’t Jeff: ’cause it was.[00:45:00] Brett: so now I, now I have to sell it and I should sell it while it’s still a top of the line machine Christina: Sell it before, sell, sell, sell, sell it before next month, um, or, or February or whenever they sell it before then the, the pros come out. ’cause right now the M five base is out, but the pros are not. So I think feel like you could still get most of your value for it, especially since it has very few battery cycles. Be sure to put the battery cycles on your Facebook marketplace or eBay thing or whatever. Um, I bought my, uh, she won’t listen to this so she won’t know, but, um, they, there was a, a killer Cyber Monday deal, uh, for Best Buy where they had like a, the, the, the, so it’s several years old, but it was the, the M two MacBook Air, but the one that they upgraded to 16 gigs of Ram when Apple was like, oh, we have to have Apple Intelligence and everything, because they actually thought that they were actually gonna ship Apple Intelligence. So they like went back and they, like, they, they, you know, retconned like made the base model MacBook Air, like 16 [00:46:00] gigs. Um, and, uh, anyway, it was, it was $600, um, Jeff: still crazy. Christina: which, which like even for like a, a, a 2-year-old machine or whatever, I was like, yeah, she, my sister, I think she’s on like, like a 2014 or older than that. Like, like MacBook Air. She doesn’t even know where the MagSafe is. I don’t think she even knows where the laptop is. So she’s basically doing everything like on her phone and I’m like, okay, you need a laptop of some type, but at this point. I do feel strongly that like the, the, the $600 or, or, or actually I think it was $650, it was actually less, it is actually more expensive than what the, the, the Cyber Monday sale was, um, the M1, Walmart, MacBook Air. I’m like, absolutely not like that is at this point, do not buy that. Right? Like, I, especially with eight gigs of ram, I’m, I’m like, it’s been, it’s five years old. It’s a, it was a great machine and it was great value for a long time. $200. Cool, right? Like, if you could get something like use and, and, and, and if you could replace the battery or, you know, [00:47:00] for, for, you know, not, not too much money or whatever. Like, I, I, I could see like an argument to be made like value, right? But there’d be no way in hell that I would ever spend or tell anybody else to spend $650 on that new, but $600 for an M two with Jeff: Now we’re talking. Christina: which has the redesign brand new. I’m like, okay. Spend $150 more and you could have got the M four, um, uh, MacBook Air, obviously all around Better Machine. But for my sister, she doesn’t need that, Jeff: What do we have to do to put your sister in this M two MacBook Christina: that, that, that, that, that, that’s exactly it. So I, I, I was, well, also, it was one of those things I was like, I think that she would rather me spend the money on toys for my nephew for Santa Claus than, than, uh, giving her like a, a processor upgrade. Um, Jeff: Claus isn’t real. Brett: Oh shit. Jeff: Gotcha. Every year I spoil it for somebody. This year it was Christina and Brett. Sorry guys. Brett: right. Well, can I tell you guys Jeff: Yeah. [00:48:00] Brett Software. Brett: two quick projects before we do Jeff: Hold on. You don’t have to be quick ’cause you could call it Brett: We’re already at 45 minutes and I want Jeff: What I’m saying, skip GrAPPtitude. This is it? Brett: okay. Christina: us about Mark. Tell us about your projects. Brett: So, so Mark three is, there’s a public, um, test flight beta link. Uh, if you go to marked app.com, not marked two app.com, uh, marked app.com. Uh, you, there’s a link in the, in the, at the top for Christina: Join beta. Mm-hmm. Brett: Um, and that is public and you can join it and you can send me feedback directly through email because, um, uh, uh, the feedback reporter sucks for test flight and you can’t attach files. And half the time they come through as anonymous feedback and I can’t even follow up on ’em. So email me. But, um, I’ll be announcing that on my blog soon-ish. Um, right now there’s like [00:49:00] maybe a couple dozen, um, testers and I, it’s nice and small and I’m solving the biggest bugs right away. Um, so that’s been, that’s been big. Like Mark, even since we last talked has added. Do you remember Jeff when Merlin was on and he wanted to. He wanted to be able to manage his styles, um, and disable built-in styles. There’s now a whole table based style manager where you Jeff: saw that. Brett: you can, you can reorder, including built-in styles. You can reorder, enable, disable, edit, duplicate. Um, it’s like a full, full fledged, um, style manager. And I just built a whole web app that is a style generator that gives you, um, automatic like rhythm calculations for your CSS and you can, you can control everything through like, uh, like UI fields instead of having to [00:50:00] write CSS. Uh, but you can also o open up a very, I’ve spent a lot of time on the code mirror CSS editor in the web app. Uh, so, and it’s got live preview as you edit in the code mirror field. Um, so that’s pretty cool. And that’s built into marts. So if you go to style, um, generate style, it’ll load up a, a style generator for you. Anyway, there’s, there’s a ton. I’m not gonna go into all the details, but, uh, anyone listening who uses markdown for anything, especially if you want ability to export to like Word and epub and advanced PDF export, um, join the beta. Let me know what you think. Uh, help me squash bugs. But the other thing, every time I push a beta for review before the new bug reports come in, I’ve been putting time into a tool. Markdown Processor: Apex Brett: I’m calling [00:51:00] Apex and um, I haven’t publicly announced this one yet, but I probably will by the time this podcast comes out. Jeff: I mean, doesn’t this count? Brett: It, it does. I’m saying like this, this might be a, you hear you heard it here first kind of thing, um, but if you go to github.com/tt sc slash apex, um, I built a, uh, pure C markdown processor that combines syntax from cram down GitHub flavored markdown, multi markdown maku, um, common mark. And basically you can write syntax from any of those processors, including all of their special features, um, and in one document, and then use Apex in its unified mode, and it’ll just figure out what. All of your syntax is supposed to do. Um, so you can take, you can port documents from one platform to another [00:52:00] without worrying about how they’re gonna render. Um, if I can get any kind of adoption with Apex, it could solve a lot of problems. Um, I built it because I want to make it the default processor in marked ’cause right now, you, you have to choose, you know, cram Christina: Which one? Brett: mark and, and choosing one means you lose something in order to gain something. Um, so I wanted to build a universal one that brought together everything. And I added cool features from some extensions of other languages, such as if you have two lists in a row, normally in markdown, it’s gonna concatenate those into one list. Now you can put a carrot on a line between the two lists and it’ll break it into two lists. I also added support for a. An extension to cram down that lets you put double uh, carrots inside a table cell and [00:53:00] create a row band. So like a cell that, that expands it, you rows but doesn’t expand the rest of the row. Um, so you can do cell spans and row spans and it has a relaxed table version where you don’t have to have an alignment row, which is, uh, sometimes we just wanna make quickly table. You make two lines. You put some pipes in. This will, if there’s no alignment row, it will generate a table with just a table body and table data cells in no header. It also allows footers, you can add a footer to a table by using equals in the separator line. Um, it, it’s, Jeff: This is very civilized, Brett: it is. Christina: is amazing, Brett: So where Common Mark is extremely strict about things, um, apex is extremely permissive. Jeff: also itty bitty things like talk about the call out boxes from like Brett: oh yeah, it, it can handle call out syntax from Obsidian and Bear and Xcode Playgrounds. [00:54:00] Um, and it incorporates all of Mark’s syntax for like file includes and even renders like auto scroll pauses that work in marked and some other teleprompter situations. Um, it uses file ude syntax from multi markdown, like, which is just like a curly brace and, uh, marked, which is, uh, left like a double left, uh, angle bracket and then different. Brackets to surround a file name and it handles IA writer file inclusion where you just type a forward slash and then the name of a file and it automatically detects if that file is an image or source code or markdown text, and it will import it accordingly. And if it’s a CSV file, it’ll generate a table from it automatically. It’s, it’s kind of nuts. I, it’s kind of nuts. I could not have done this [00:55:00] without copilot. I, I am very thankful for copilot because my C skills are not, would not on their own, have been up to this task. I know enough to bug debug, but yeah, a lot of these features I got a big hand from copilot on. Jeff: This is also Brett. This is some serious Brett Terpstra. TURPs Hard Christina: Yeah, it is. I was gonna say, this is like Jeff: and also that’s right. Also, if your grandma ever wrote you a note and it, and though you couldn’t really read it, it really well, that renders perfectly Christina: Amazing. No, I was gonna say this is like, okay, so Apex is like the perfect name ’cause this is the apex of Brett. Jeff: Yes. Apex of Brett. Christina: That’s also that, that’s, that’s not an alternate episode title Apex of Brett. Because genuinely No, Brett, like I am, I am so stunned and impressed. I mean, you all, you always impressed me like you are the most impressive like developer that I, that I’ve ever known. But you, this is incredible. And, and this, I, I love this [00:56:00] because as you said, like common Mark is incredibly strict. This is incredibly permissive. But this is great. ’cause there are those scenarios where you might have like, I wanna use one feature from one thing or one from another, or I wanna combine things in various ways, or I don’t wanna have to think about it, you know? Brett: I aals, I forgot to mention I aals inline attribute list, which is a crammed down feature that lets you put curly brackets after like a paragraph and then a colon and then say, dot call out inside the curly brackets. And then when it renders the markdown, it creates that paragraph and adds class equals call out to the paragraph. Um, and in, in Cramon you can apply these to everything from list items to list to block quotes. Like you can do ’em for spans. You could like have one after, uh, link syntax and just apply, say dot external to a link. So the IAL syntax can add IDs classes and uh, arbitrary [00:57:00] attributes to any element in your markdown when it renders to HTML. And, uh, and Apex has first class support for I aals. Was really, that was, that Christina: that was really hard, Brett: I wrote it because I wanted, I wanted multi markdown, uh, for my prose writing, but I really missed the als. Christina: Yes. Okay. Because see, I run into this sort of thing too, right? Because like, this is a problem like that. I mean, it’s a very niche problem, um, that, that, you know, people who listen to this podcast probably are more familiar with than other types of people. But like, when you have to choose your markdown processor, which as you said, like Brett, like that can be a problem. Like, like with, with using Mark or anything else, you’re like, what am I giving up? What do I have? And, and like for me, because I started using mul, you know, markdown, um, uh, largely because of you, um, I think I was using it, I knew about it before you, but largely because of, of, of you, like multi markdown has always been like kind of my, or was historically my flavor of choice. It has since shifted to being [00:58:00] GitHub, labor bird markdown. But that’s just because the industry has taken that on, right? But there were, you know, certain things like in like, you know, multi markdown that work a certain way. And then yeah, there are things in crammed down. There are things in these other things in like, this is just, this is awesome. This Brett: It is, the whole thing is built on top of C mark, GFM, which is GitHub’s port of common mark with the GitHub flavored markdown Christina: Right. Brett: Um, and I built, like, I kept that as a sub-module, totally clean, and built all of this as extensions on top of Cmar, GFM, which, you know, so it has full compatibility with GitHub and with Common Merck by out, like outta the box. And then everything else is built on top of that. So it, uh, it covers, it covers all the bases. You’ll love it Christina: I’m so excited. No, this is awesome. And I Brett: blazing fast. It can render, I have a complex document that, that uses all of its features and it can render it in [00:59:00] 0.006 seconds. Christina: that’s awesome. Jeff: Awesome. Christina: That’s so cool. No, this is great. And yeah, I, and I think that honestly, like this is the sort of thing like if, yeah, if you can eventually get this to like be like the engine that powers like mark three, like, that’ll be really slick, right? Because then like, yeah, okay, I can take one document and then just, you know, kind of, you know, wi with, with the, you know, ha have, have the compatibility mode where you’re like, okay, the unified mode or whatever yo

In this week's episode, we take a look at six software tools for indie authors to help them write and improve their workflow. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Blades, Book #4 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: BLADES2025 The coupon code is valid through December 15, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT [This episode's content is not sponsored. Jonathan has not received any compensation for these reviews and has not received any free products or services from the companies mentioned in this episode. He does not currently use affiliate links for the products mentioned.] 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 280 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is a very snowy December 5th, 2025, and today I'm discussing six software tools that are useful for indie authors. Before we get into that, we will have Coupon of the Week and then an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So first up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Blades, Book #4 in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy), at my Payhip store. And that is BLADES2025. And as always, the coupon code and the link to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through December the 15th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for this winter or for your Christmas travels, we have got you covered. And now for an update on my current writing and publishing projects. As I mentioned last week, Blade of Shadows is out and it's available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store, and it's been doing quite well and gotten a good response from everyone. So thank you for that and I am looking forward to continuing that series. Now that Blade of Shadows is done, my main project is the fifth book in the Half-Elven Thief series, which is Wizard-Assassin. I had originally planned to name it Elven-Assassin, but decided Wizard-Assassin sounded a bit punchier, so I went with that instead. I am 46,000 words into it, which puts me on chapter 10 of 16. The final draft will have more chapters because one of the chapters is 11,000 words. I'm going to have to cut it up. I've also noticed that readers in general these days seem to prefer shorter chapters, so I've been trying to lean more into doing that and having books with shorter chapters. I think the rough draft is going to be about 70 to 75,000 words, give or take. So I'm hoping I can finish that next week, and I am cautiously optimistic I can have the book published before Christmas. If I can't get it published before Christmas, it is going to slip to my first book of 2026. But at the moment, and of course, barring our old unwelcome friend unexpected developments, I am cautiously optimistic I can have it out by Christmas 2025. So watch my website and listen to this space for additional news. My secondary project is Blade of Storms, which will be the third book in the Blades of Ruin series and the direct sequel to Blade of Shadows. I am about 6,000 words into that, and once Wizard-Assassin is done, that will be my main project. I'm hoping to have that out at the end of January, but if Wizard-Assassin slips to January, then Blade of Storms will [of necessity] slip to February. In audiobook news, Blade of Flames, the audiobook of the first book in the Blades of Ruin series, is now out and you can get that at Audible, Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Google Play, my own Payhip store, Spotify, and all the other usual audiobook stores. So if you're looking for something else to listen to during your Christmas travels this year, I suggest checking out Blade of Flames (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills). Cloak of the Embers, the 10th book in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy)…the recording of that is done and it is being proofed right now, so I am hopeful we can hopefully have that out before Christmas (if all goes well). In fact, after I record this podcast episode, I'm going to have to convert the ebook cover of Cloak of Embers into an audiobook cover for Cloak of Embers. So that is where I'm at with my current writing and publishing projects. There is definitely a lot going on. 00:03:40 Main Topic: 6 Helpful Writing Tools for Indie Authors in 2025 [All Prices referenced are USD.] Now we're going to move on to our main topic this week, which is six helpful writing tools for indie authors in 2025. Last year in 2024, I did a roundup of popular software tools for writers and I thought I would give a quick update for it. Some of these tools like Calibre and LibreOffice I use, while others like Scrivener and Notion just aren't great fit for my workflow, I still want to talk about them anyways since just because I don't use them doesn't mean that they're not good and a lot of writers do in fact use them. Many writers also have complex systems for organizing their files and would benefit from tools like that. Without further ado, here are six pieces of software used for writing and writing adjacent tasks. I should mention before we get going as well that none of these tools are explicitly generative AI tools because as you know, if you've listened to the podcast over the years is my opinion of generative AI remains mostly negative. I have and continue to do some marketing experiments with generative AI elements, but I remain overall unimpressed by the technology. So with that in mind, none of these software tools I'm going to mention are explicitly AI tools. Some of them do have AI elements that you can plug in and use if you want to, but they aren't part of the core functionality of the application unless you specifically seek it out. With that in mind, let's get to it. #1: The first one we will talk about is Scrivener. Scrivener is of course essentially a word processor and project management system specifically designed for creative or nonfiction writing, unlike a traditional word processor like Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer, or Apple Pages. It features tools for outlining, for breaking documents into chapters, tracking word count goals and et cetera. One of the major benefits of it is a one-time cost instead of as a subscription because it seems like everything is a subscription nowadays, but Scrivener is still $60 a pop. They also offer a free trial and student discount and occasionally [it will] go on sale during peak times like the holidays. The downside of this is that Scrivener has a sharp learning curve. For myself when I write, I write either in Microsoft Word or Libre Office and I just sit down and write. When I write an outline, it's one Word document and the rough draft is another document that I write until I'm done. Scrivener is definitely a more complex software application, which I have to admit is funny to say because Microsoft Word is ridiculously complicated and has, in my opinion, far more functionality stuffed into it than it really needs. But Scrivener is a different kind of functionality and therefore the learning curve could be quite high for that. Additionally, this may not be the right software tool to work with your style of writing or how you organize your files. A couple extra thoughts with that is it's important to know yourself. Will you actually use the extra features included with Scrivener or do they just look cool and shiny? Scrivener probably is best for those who take extensive notes on their work, especially if trying to organize research based on chapters where it's needed. So if you're a nonfiction writer or if you're a historical fiction writer or a thriller writer who is very concerned about accuracy in your books, this may be useful for you so you can put in notes about the proper way to address a duke in 19th century England or what caliber of ammunition your thriller hero's preferred firearm takes. It's maybe the best for the kind of people who enjoy curating their Notion and Trello accounts and are able to think about their book in a very visual way without letting that process be an excuse to keep them from writing. I'd also say it's good for people who extensively revise blocks of text within a chapter and move chapters around a lot. #2: Canva. Canva has been around for a long time and it is a platform that makes it easy to create visual content using a drag and drop interface that provides a variety of templates, fonts, and designs to use for things like social media posts. They currently have two tiers for individuals, a limited free option, and Canva Pro, which is $12.99 a month. Some of the pros for Canva are it is well-suited for using templates for writers to create images for social media posts and book marketing material. The learning curve is not very steep, especially compared with something like Photoshop. If you've used PowerPoint before, you can definitely handle Canva. The cons: although some people use it to create book covers, many books have been flagged by Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and some of the other publishing platforms for doing so. I would advise you to avoid Canva for creating book covers because of the potential for issues that could keep your book out of ebook stores. At the very least, read Canva's terms of use and the rules of KDP and the other ebook publishers very, very carefully before you would even begin to consider using Canva for this purpose. Many of the free features have been folded into the pro version such as sharing template links. The editing and design features are basic compared to something like Photoshop, though that may change as we're going to discuss a little bit here. Because Canva is so popular, there's a certain amount of snobbery out there about using its designs without significant modification. You may have encountered on social media or the Internet people who react very negatively to the presence of AI generated images and this exists to a lesser extent with Canva templates. "Looks like it was made in Canva" is sometimes used as an insult. If you want a unique style and look for your images, you'll have to work a little more to achieve that using Canva. Canva is quick for great one-time things like Facebook or BookBub ads, but I wouldn't recommend using it for book creation or book covers at this time because of the potential problems that can arise from that. For myself, I don't usually use Canva. I've had enough practice with Photoshop that I'm pretty confident in making whatever I want in terms of ad images or book covers in Photoshop, and I use Photoshop for that. However, since I organized the notes for this episode, there is a major caveat to that. Recently, Canva acquired a program called Affinity Photo Editor, which is essentially a much lower cost alternative to Photoshop. When this happened, there was a great deal of negativity around it because people thought Canva was going to jack up the price or make it into an overpriced subscription. But what Canva did surprised a great many people in that they made Affinity totally free and essentially are using a freemium model with it where you can use Affinity Photo Editor for free. It used to be, I believe like $79, possibly $69, and then any of the other features like downloading additional content from Canva would cost part of your Canva subscription. So I have to admit, I'm sufficiently curious about this, that when I write the tie in short story for Wizard-Assassin, I may use Affinity Photo Editor to assemble the cover for it just to see if it would work for that or not, because as I've said, I use Photoshop, but Photoshop is very expensive, Adobe frequently does business practices that are a bit shifty, and the idea of a freemium alternative to Photoshop is not necessarily a bad idea. So when I write a tie in short story for Wizard-Assassin later this month, I think I will attempt to make the cover in Affinity Photo Editor and see if that is something that would be good for my workflow or not, and I will report on that later. #3: Number three is Notion, which can be used to organize information, links, calendars, and reminders into one central dashboard. They have two plans for individuals, a free plan and a Plus plan, which is currently $10 to $12 per month (depending on whether you want a monthly or an annual plan). The Plus version offers unlimited file uploads, greater customizations, and integrations with Slack and Google Drive. The pros for using Notion is that it is popular with writers and content creators for being able to have project planning tools, notes, lists, links, trackers, and reminders all in one dashboard. If you enjoy customization and getting something set up exactly the way you want, you might enjoy setting up your lists, calendars, trackers, and notes through Notion. You can add images and adjust the layout and colors for a more "aesthetic" experience. It is easy to find customized templates [online], especially for writers and for things like storyboarding, word counts, and keeping tracks of sources for nonfiction writing. These Notion templates are shared by individuals, not the company and can be free or paid. Now, some of the cons with Notion. It didn't used to use very much AI, but the company is leaning increasingly heavy into AI, both as a company and in its features on the boards, if that is a concern. The amount of customization options and detail can be absolutely overwhelming. Someone who gets decision fatigue easily or doesn't want to customize a lot and might not enjoy using it. Some people are increasingly complaining that the software is getting too overloaded with features and is slow. For people who value being organized and love having complex and highly visual systems, Notion might be helpful. The downside is that maintaining your Notion boards can easily turn into what I call a "writing-adjacent activity" that gives you the illusion of productivity because of the time you spend managing and updating it aside from the business of getting actual writing done. So once again, this is a good example of "know thyself." If this is something that would be helpful for you, go ahead and pursue it. But if it's something that could turn into a tool for procrastination, it's probably better to avoid it. For myself, I am old enough that when I need to make lists and keep track of things, I have a yellow legal pad on my desk that I write things down on. #4: The next piece of software we're going to look at is LibreOffice. It is an open source piece of software that closely matches Microsoft Office, including Microsoft Word. Pros: It's free and open source. There's a minimal learning curve for those already familiar with Microsoft Word. The interface is a little different, but it's pretty easy to figure things out if you're familiar with Word or Excel. Some swear that that LibreOffice is faster than Word. It depends on the kind of document you're working on and the kind of computer you're using. So that's an area where your mileage may vary. It is also the best word processing option for privacy advocates, especially for those who are concerned about Microsoft and Google storing their work and possibly harvesting it for AI because by default, LibreOffice doesn't work with any AI elements. If you want it to work with any AI elements, plugins are available but they are not included. It's great for the writer who doesn't want to support Microsoft for any reason but still wants to be able to easily save documents in Microsoft file formats like .docx. It works. I've written entire books using it. I wrote all of Soul of Serpents and Soul of Dragons in it, and that was 13 years ago now, and the software has only improved since then. I wrote Silent Order: Eclipse Hand [using it] in 2017 and was very happy with the results, and I still use it for various projects every week, and I found a couple times if something was screwed up in the formatting of Microsoft Word, if I opened it up in LibreOffice, I could fix it pretty easily and much easier than I could in Word. It does have a few cons. The user interface compared to Word or something like Apple Pages does look a bit dated, but it's still navigable. It doesn't have any cloud storage functionality. You would need to piece it together with another storage option if you want to be able to backup stuff to the cloud. But overall, if you can't afford the Microsoft Office Suite, don't want to support Microsoft, and value your privacy, this is your best bet for word processing. Some people may not like its interface, but it's still an extremely solid piece of free software. #5: And now let's move on to our fifth software tool, which is Calibre. Calibre is a tool for ebook management. It can be used for file formatting, changing your books' metadata, or changing file formats. Many use it to create a custom ebook library. Pros include: the product is free and open source. It is easy to generate different file formats for book publication. Do you want to categorize and organize your books in a very specific way? Calibre works for that. The cons: some people find the interface a little clunky and it comes with a bit of a learning curve. To be honest, the interface does look like it came from Windows 2000 and some of the features rely on knowledge of HTML and CSS. Editing and formatting of the book itself is better done using other software. Final thoughts on that? The software is trustworthy, reliable, and has been maintained over the years. It does exactly what it says it does, without any real style but plenty of substance. And I've been a regular Calibre user for like 15 years now, and whenever I get a new computer Calibre is usually one of the very first things I install on it. #6: And now for our sixth and final tool, Inkarnate. Inkarnate is a very useful piece of software that is designed for creating maps. I believe it was originally intended to create maps for role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder and so forth. But it's also very useful for creating maps for fantasy novels. As I may have mentioned on the podcast a few times before, I really don't like making maps. I find it constraining and it makes the writing feel a bit crabbed at times. That said, I write primarily in the fantasy genre and people in the fantasy genre love maps, so I'm kind of on the hook for making maps. I used to draw the maps by hand and then import it into Photoshop and add all the locations and add colors and so forth. But that is a lot of work, I have to admit. Inkarnate makes it a lot easier, and I've used it for the last couple of maps I've made. The map of the city of Tar-Carmatheion in the Half-Elven Thief books came from Inkarnate. The map of Owyllain for Blades of Ruin came from Inkarnate, and the map of New Kyre and adjoining regions for Ghost Armor also came from Inkarnate. It's very affordable too. The subscription, I believe, is only $30 a year, and I've been using for a few years now and have never regretted it. So I'd say all the pros are all the ones I've already listed. The cons are that the learning curve is a little bit sharp, but there are excellent YouTube videos and tutorials for that. So, final thoughts. If you find yourself needing to make maps and don't enjoy the process of making maps, then Inkarnate is the software product for you. So those are six tools, software tools for indie authors that I hope will make you more productive and make your work easier. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to the Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the backup episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.  

In this episode of The Digital Marketing Podcast, Daniel Rowles introduces us to the process of Vibe Coding, a revolutionary approach to software development that leverages AI to make app creation accessible to anyone, regardless of coding experience. Vibe coding shifts the focus from writing manual code to guiding AI with natural language prompts, allowing non-developers to build interactive apps, tools, and even businesses. Daniel explores the three tiers of vibe coding, from basic one-page web apps to full-scale, secure, AI-powered platforms , and shares practical steps, tools and security tips to get started. The second half of the episode features a compelling interview with Christo Snyman, a podcast listener who used vibe coding to launch his AI assistant platform Traderly.ai. Christo takes us behind the scenes of building a real-world startup with no prior coding background, sharing his full tech stack, hard-earned lessons, and the mindset needed to succeed. In This Episode: What is Vibe Coding? Understand how natural language prompts can now be used to create working code, dramatically lowering the barrier to digital creation. The Three Levels of Vibe Coding Level 1: Build one-page apps using HTML, CSS, and React, no backend required Level 2: Add memory, interactivity, and live AI responses through API access Level 3: Create fully-fledged apps with user authentication, databases, and deployment Practical Use Cases - From interactive Google algorithm timelines to embedded AI tools for keyword research and content planning, Daniel shares how these tools are being used on Target Internet's own website. Christo's Journey - From Idea to Startup. Learn how Christo turned a common business pain point — small service businesses missing leads due to message overload — into a scalable SaaS platform. Discover his full tech stack including React, Azure Functions, PostgreSQL, Firebase, OpenAI, WordPress, and more. Key Takeaways: Anyone can now build apps using AI tools, whether it's a timeline, calculator, chatbot, or full customer-facing product. AI-assisted development removes fear and unlocks creativity, especially for entrepreneurs without a dev background. Start small and iterate, your Minimal Viable Product doesn't need to be perfect, it needs to be useful. Vibe coding is the bridge between ideas and execution - fast, flexible and increasingly powerful. The future of marketing and tech creation is conversational and it's already here.

В этом выпуске: почему всё так сложно на фронтенде, какие есть сорта CSS фреймворков и почему на книжке кабанчик. [00:02:02] Чему мы научились за неделю [00:09:39] Интервью с гостем Lit $mol framework CRUS DB mlut — make CSS exciting again! Методология Atomic CSS на фреймворке mlut. Часть 1: Знакомство — Интерактивный туториал — HTML Academy… Читать далее →

Niri, Sherlock y Stasis: El Atajo que Disparó mi Productividad en Wayland

Massenentlassungen, BIP-Rückgang und viel Unsicherheit: Die Schweizer Wirtschaft kämpft mit Problemen. Aus der Politik werden einerseits Forderungen nach einer Entlastung der Unternehmen laut. Andererseits kritisieren die Gewerkschaften die stagnierenden Löhne. Was ist zu tun? Die Schweizer Wirtschaft steht unter Druck. Die kürzlich publizierten Zahlen des Staatssekretariats für Wirtschaft (Seco) zeigen: Das Bruttoinlandprodukt ist im dritten Quartal 2025 um 0,5 Prozent gesunken. Gleichzeitig streichen grosse Firmen wie Novartis, Selecta oder Nestlé insgesamt mehrere hundert Stellen in der Schweiz. Was ist los mit der Schweizer Wirtschaft? Ist die Talsohle erreicht oder ist ein weiterer Rückgang der Wirtschaftsleistung zu befürchten? Und welche Rolle spielt dabei der Zollstreit mit den USA? Die Entwicklungen beeinflussen nicht nur die Arbeitslosenquote, sondern auch die Löhne. Der Gewerkschaftsbund fordert, dass es bei den Löhnen aufwärts geht. Der Arbeitgeberverband warnt: Es brauche Augenmass bei der Lohnrunde. Doch wie steht es tatsächlich um die Kaufkraft der Angestellten? Nimmt sie zu oder ab? Bund will Unternehmen entlasten Der Bundesrat hat vergangene Woche ein Paket von 28 Massnahmen verabschiedet, das zur regulatorischen Entlastung der Unternehmen führen soll. Zu den Massnahmen gehören unter anderem Entlastungen bei der Anmeldung von Kurzarbeit oder im Bereich der Mehrwertsteuer, der Verrechnungs- und der Stempelsteuer. Macht der Bund genug für die Unternehmen oder muss er die Bürokratie weiter abbauen? Und wie steht es um die Angestellten? Gemäss der Gesundheitsbefragung 2025 der CSS fühlen sich 69 Prozent der Befragten häufig erschöpft und müde. Muss die Politik Arbeitnehmende stärker schützen? Zu diesen Fragen begrüsst Sandro Brotz am 5. Dezember 2025 in der «Arena»: – Franziska Ryser, Nationalrätin Grüne/SG; – Benjamin Giezendanner, Nationalrat SVP/AG; – Daniel Lampart, Chefökonom Schweizerischer Gewerkschaftsbund; und – Stefan Brupbacher, Direktor Swissmem.

Savanah Tujague joins the show! She is a college football coaches daughter. We discuss growing up in a football house. Her college football insights, and much more in college football! #collegefootball #CFB #wolfpack #NCstate Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Savanah Tujague joins the show! She is a college football coaches daughter. We discuss growing up in a football house. Her college football insights, and much more in college football! #collegefootball #CFB #wolfpack #NCstate Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Are you an Angular developer? Do you how to correctly manage styles in an Angular application? Whether you do or don't, this episode will be for you! Come learn from Martine Dowden how to manage and structure styles correctly in an Angular application! Global styles, view encapsulation, modern CSS features, what to put in and what not to put in Component level styles, you name it we cover it!https://martine.dev/https://www.joshwcomeau.com/css/custom-css-reset/https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Guides/Containment/Container_querieshttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30898803Follow us on X: The Angular Plus ShowBluesky: @theangularplusshow.bsky.social  The Angular Plus Show is a part of ng-conf. ng-conf is a multi-day Angular conference focused on delivering the highest quality training in the Angular JavaScript framework. Developers from across the globe converge  every year to attend talks and workshops by the Angular team and community experts.JoinAttendXBluesky        ReadWatchEdited by Patrick HayesStock media provided by JUQBOXMUSIC/ Pond5

Lane Kiffin has made it offical and accepted the Head Football job at LSU. It has been quite the saga. We discuss what led to this, and what might be "fake news" on this story. #LSU #Olemiss #LaneKiffin Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Lane Kiffin has made it offical and accepted the Head Football job at LSU. It has been quite the saga. We discuss what led to this, and what might be "fake news" on this story. #LSU #Olemiss #LaneKiffin Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Scott and Wes face off in a CSS-themed round of STUMP'd, quizzing each other on shape functions, scroll snap types, obscure functions, and long-forgotten spec history. From ray() to cross-fade() to print-color quirks, this episode is packed with rapid-fire frontend trivia guaranteed to sharpen your CSS brain. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:54 Which of the following are valid CSS Shape Functions? 02:03 CSS Selectors 4 specification demo. 03:20 How many functions are there in CSS? 04:22 Brought to you by Sentry.io. 04:47 Explain the 3 CSS Scroll Snap types. 06:38 What does the xywh() do? 09:15 What about ray()? 11:25 What do CSS Namespaces do? 14:37 What year was CSS paint() bug tracker introduced in Firefox? 17:34 What does print-color-adjust do? 20:26 What is cross-fade()? 23:54 Name 3 reasons you might use CSS @property. 27:36 List all 10 CSS Filter Functions. 32:41 Name 5 font properties. Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

Use of CSS stuffing as an obfuscation technique? Phishing sites stuff their HTML with benign CSS code. This is likely supposed to throw of simple detection engines https://isc.sans.edu/diary/Use%20of%20CSS%20stuffing%20as%20an%20obfuscation%20technique%3F/32510 Critical Oracle Identity Manager Flaw Possibly Exploited as Zero-Day Early exploit attempts for the vulnerability were part of Searchlight Cyber s research effort https://www.securityweek.com/critical-oracle-identity-manager-flaw-possibly-exploited-as-zero-day/ ClamAV Cleaning Signature Database ClamAV will significantly clean up its signature database https://blog.clamav.net/2025/11/clamav-signature-retirement-announcement.html

In this episode of 180 with Katie, John and Katie take listeners through just over 180 seconds of highlights from an extraordinary month across all Catholic Social Services of Southern Nebraska locations. From record-setting assistance in Hastings and remarkable volunteer engagement in Auburn to significant increases in homelessness outreach and family support in Lincoln, October showcased CSS's mission in full motion.

I grew up in a Methodist church. After time away, I feel I need to go back to Church. In this video I talk about why I might convert to being a Catholic. #catholicchurch #catholic #catholicfaith Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

I grew up in a Methodist church. After time away, I feel I need to go back to Church. In this video I talk about why I might convert to being a Catholic. #catholicchurch #catholic #catholicfaith Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

In this episode, I sit down with developer and speaker Sagi Carmel to dive deep into Astro, why it's gaining so much traction, and how it compares to frameworks like Next.js, Nuxt, Remix, and SvelteKit. We explore what makes Astro uniquely powerful — from its server-first approach and island architecture to its simplicity, speed, and ability to integrate with any front-end framework you want.Sagi also walks me through real-world use cases, including how he built Israel's official Census website with Astro, why scoped CSS and server components simplify the development experience, and how tools like HTMX and view transitions make web UX buttery smooth. If you've been curious about Astro, this conversation is a terrific deep dive into both its fundamentals and its advanced capabilities.

On this episode, the ILL-INI segment! The Illini suffer their 4th loss in an embarrassing fashion to Wisconsin. Putting an end to big ten chances or playoff chances. #ILL #illinois #fightingillini #illinifootball Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

On this episode, the ILL-INI segment! The Illini suffer their 4th loss in an embarrassing fashion to Wisconsin. Putting an end to big ten chances or playoff chances. #ILL #illinois #fightingillini #illinifootball Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Lane Kiffin has brought Ole Miss into the national spotlight. With success, everyone will want to get you. Rumors are that LSU will throw all the money at Lane Kiffin. But, the grass is not always greener. I am here to tell you, Lane is going to stay at Ole Miss. Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Lane Kiffin has brought Ole Miss into the national spotlight. With success, everyone will want to get you. Rumors are that LSU will throw all the money at Lane Kiffin. But, the grass is not always greener. I am here to tell you, Lane is going to stay at Ole Miss. Please like, subscribe, review, and share out! https://linktr.ee/thecoachsteveshow Check out belly up sports podcast network! https://bellyupsports.com/ Head to www.guardiansports.com/guardian-caps and use the code: “15OFF” – good for 15% off Guardian Caps to help the impact for football players Get back to the basics with Coach Stone: https://www.coachstonefootball.com/ Get the best sunglasses in the game today! Use for any activity! Go to https://www.yeetzofficial.com/ use the code CSS for 10% off Looking for the cleanest nutrition drink? Looking for the cleanest drink to give you energy without the crash? Head to https://www.swiftlifestyles.com/ and use the code: coachsteveshow to get 15% off!

Una and Bramus recap the season! They share some new updates and re-visit some of their favorite tips and tricks.Season 6 covered inline if() statements and custom functions, scroll state queries, carousel APIs, view transitions updates, anchor positioning, command invokers and interest invokers, customizable select, and a whole bunch of other CSS functions! Resources: Same-document view transitions have become Baseline Newly available → https://goo.gle/4nCyFSe  Solved by CSS Scroll State Queries: hide a header when scrolling down, show it again when scrolling up (scrolled state query) → https://goo.gle/49uQMpN  css-extras – A collection of useful CSS custom functions → https://goo.gle/4qFjIS5  CSS Mixins Specification (ED): Defining Mixins → ​​ https://goo.gle/3JpX4MZ  Invoker Commands: Scroll Commands (OpenUI Meeting Notes) → https://goo.gle/47onsQB  Anchored queries → https://goo.gle/4oMCvJT  Customizable select → https://goo.gle/4r9Xsjv Una Kravets (co-host) Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube | WebsiteMaking the web more colorful @googlechrome  Bramus Van Damme (co-host) Bluesky | Mastodon | YouTube | Website@GoogleChrome CSS DevRel; @CSSWG; Scuba Diver

In this episode of The CSS Podcast, Una and Bramus cover a bunch of CSS functions from comparison functions to tree counting functions, the random function, and more. Resources: min(), max(), and clamp() Web Dev article → https://goo.gle/4nvMthu  Article by Ahmad Shadeed → https://goo.gle/3JvPznI  Comparison functions → https://goo.gle/3JmbJsx  sibling-count() and sibling-index() → https://goo.gle/3JCj33i  attr() CSS attr() gets an upgrade → https://goo.gle/3JCj33i  New capabilities for attr() → https://goo.gle/47inI3p  light-dark() → https://goo.gle/3X703wQ  shape() Use shape() for responsive clipping → https://goo.gle/47zSHH0  Better CSS Shapes Using shape() → https://goo.gle/47OZMop  ident() Article introducing ident() → https://goo.gle/4oHdYW9  ident() in the CSS Values and Units Specification →  https://goo.gle/3LgN8pK  random() Rolling the Dice with CSS random() → https://goo.gle/4oijnTO  Generating Random Values → https://goo.gle/4hFwj3K  CSS paint API: Being predictably random → https://goo.gle/3JEReau  Una Kravets (co-host) Bluesky | Twitter | YouTube | Website Making the web more colorful @googlechrome  Bramus Van Damme (co-host) Bluesky | Mastodon | YouTube | Website @GoogleChrome CSS DevRel; @CSSWG; Scuba Diver

Show DescriptionWhat do Balatro streamers do when the game is over, Random in CSS is so hot right now, Dave has a better idea for charts and graphs that would change the world, Quiet UI follow up, Dave tries vibe coding a tennis app and doesn't completely John McEnroe his laptop, Chris wonders about better cursor UI on the web, and debating affordances vs conventions. Listen on WebsiteWatch on YouTubeLinks Jynxzi - Twitch BALL x PIT on Steam Could Open Graph Just Be a CSS Media Type? | Scott Jehl, Web Designer/Developer https://webawesome.com Podcast Awesome Quiet UI A Beautiful Site Eleventy is a simpler static site generator Don't use custom CSS mouse cursors – Eric Bailey Home | Rach Smith's digital garden The Two Button Problem – Frontend Masters Blog SponsorstldrawHave you ever wanted to build an app that works kinda like Miro or Figma, that has a zoomable infinite canvas, that's multiplayer, and really good, but you also want to build it in React with normal React components on the canvas? Good news! tldraw is the world's first, best, and only SDK for building infinite canvas apps in React. tldraw takes care of all the canvas complexities — things like the camera, selection logic, and undo redo — so that you can focus on building the features that matter to your users. It's easy to use with plenty of examples and starter kits, including a kit where you can use AI to create things on the canvas. Get started for free at tldraw.dev/shoptalk, or run npm create tldraw to spin up a starter kit.

Scott and Wes dive into Remix 3, exploring how it embraces native web standards like Events, Signals, and Streams to become a truly full-stack framework. They unpack what “LLM-ready,” thin APIs, and a standards-based approach mean for the future of web development. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 03:21 Uses the platform - native Events, Signals, Streams, Fetch 04:16 Remix 3, Fully Fullstack. 04:57 LLM‑ready + thin APIs 05:53 Brought to you by Sentry.io. 06:18 My previous predictions. 07:44 The value of ‘Standards Based'. 09:13 Component model - JSX/TSX; state = variables; call this.render() 11:56 Adding reactivity to Remix. 15:15 Event‑based architecture - custom events, EventTarget, interactions 20:52 Context & type‑safe access. 22:46 Composing interaction logic within events. 24:25 Signals - AbortSignal to cancel async ops 25:21 Benefits of standards - bring your own tools/libraries Michael Asnong X Post. 26:42 CSS - built‑in CSS prop; Svelte‑like scoping 28:34 Server - Web Request/Response, Web Streams across runtimes 31:23 Frames - async URL‑addressable components with fallbacks 33:07 Tooling - ESM; use Vite or esbuild 34:47 Routing - code‑based named routes 35:57 Questions/Concerns - manual rendering vs reactivity 38:47 URL Pattern API - modern, fast routing foundations 41:33 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs. Sick Picks Scott: MoCA 2.5 Network Adapter Wes: Bosch Dishwasher Shameless Plugs Scott: Syntax on YouTube. Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads

Show DescriptionIn this episode we sit down with Tyler Sticka to discuss upgrading his project, Colorpeek. We explore the practical applications of web components and CSS, and how they are shaping the future of web development. Tyler shares his experiences with prototyping and the challenges of maintaining simplicity in design. Listen on WebsiteWatch on YouTubeGuestsTyler StickaGuest's Main URL • Guest's SocialI work with organizations to create and ship expressive, delightful and performant responsive experiences. I often design in the browser and I love to draw. Links Wirecutter: New Product Reviews, Deals, and Buying Advice Zojirushi SM-KHE48AG Stainless Steel Mug, 16-Ounce, Smoky Blue : Amazon.ca: Home Tyler Sticka (@tylersticka@social.lol) - social.lol Tyler Sticka (@tylersticka.com) — Bluesky Colorpeek 2 – Tyler Sticka Colorpeek · Simply Share Colors Emmet — the essential toolkit for web-developers AI Browsers, ad nauseam – Tyler Sticka ChatGPT's Atlas: The Browser That's Anti-Web - Anil Dash David Darnes - Designer, Front-end Developer & Writer specialising in Design Systems, Eleventy, Ghost & Jamstack David Bushell – Freelance Web Design & Front-end Development (UK)

Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president of Health Initiatives at the Community Service Society and co-founder of the Health Care for All New York Campaign, talks about what people can expect with next year's health insurance costs and how the government shutdown over ACA subsidies will affect open enrollment.The live-answer helpline to reach a Navigator at CSS is:  1-888-614-5400The New York State of Health Marketplace phone number is:  1-855-355-5777The Get Covered New Jersey (Official state health market place) phone number is: 1-833-677-1010