From the Couch of Ben Johnson

Father, Principal Engineer at Prodigy Education, serial hyperbolist.

What was VW thinking with its “Voltswagen” prank?: Can we all just agree that corporate April Fools jokes are never a good idea?

My son is going to grow up thinking that the one inalienable rule of life is that adults are broken and do not function until they finish their coffee. ☕️

The Roccbox is hot. Might as well roast some marshmallows. 🔥

First pizzas of the spring. Amazingly I still kind of remember what I’m doing. 🍕

Ecobee is yet another company that has rebranded into an incredibly boring brand. They used to have this adorable bee icon and now it’s just a flat “e”. Not enjoying this modern trend.

Is there a service to match up a single boot for those who have lost a boot? Asking for a friend.

I can’t believe it took me this long to realize that Readwise.io has an API. Adding highlights from everything via Shortcuts is now possible.

I never realized how often I use the mac proxy icons until Big Sur. I generally like the update, but I bump on the hidden proxy icon every time.

✴ Goodbye, Nest

The iPhone revolutionized more than just phones. When Tony Fadell first started taking about Nest, his startup that would take the battery and processor innovations from the iPhone and put it in something as boring as a thermostat, it was a revelation.

Nest had an incredible early run. With an extremely small team (less than 130 people) Fadell essentially created the smart home industry. The original Nest had Apple’s insane focus on out of the box experience, app design, and delight applied to a device that hadn’t changed in decades. It meaningfully improved user experience and the…

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This is how I feel today.

I bought enough school supplies on Amazon in the last few days that it’s trying to upsell me to Amazon Business.

Ok fine… I’ll install it so I can read this article… and the link still doesn’t work. This is the worst of Apple’s services push. If you’re going to build services at least make them good.

Apple should be ashamed of this experience. AMP is garbage but at least it includes a link to the original article. If you’re going to break links at least do something for those not on Apple devices.

It turns out that my son legit believes that boxers punch boxes. Like… 📦. I don’t really have the heart to explain it.

Spoke to a super nice contact tracer. This is definitely one of these jobs that doesn’t get paid enough or get enough appreciation.

With the theory that the rumoured Mac renaissance is due to the departure of Jony Ive, I wonder if we’ll see a mouse that you can charge while using it. Asking for a friend.

This really resonates with how I think about Lemur: My product is my garden

I figured I should cut my son’s hair before he goes back to school. Now he’s ready to impress his kindergarten friends by looking exactly like a Romulan.

I love Carrot Weather so much.

My five-year-old and I spent the whole day making an Among Us cake. Nailed it. (I’m sticking to bread and pizza.)

The Besties has hands down the best podcast theme song. (Great video game podcast if you’re into that kind of thing). the-besties.simplecast.com

God I miss Survivor

Lemur also fits well into Reid Hoffman’s famous quote: “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” There’s a lot in Lemur that I’m going to keep iterating on over the next year. But you’ve got to start somewhere.

Happy New Year Everyone! In honour of starting a fresh year right, Lemur, my little app for meal planning is now on the iOS App Store. I’ve been working on this idea for ~4 years and it’s a labour of love. If you plan your meals, I think you might enjoy it. lemurapp.com

2021 will be the year where all the React devs discover that server rendering has all the advantages that it has had all along.