From the Couch of Ben Johnson

Father, Principal Engineer at Prodigy Education, serial hyperbolist.

People add “reddit” to their searches to get results without SEO spam. What’s amazing is this works because Reddit has human moderators. We’re still not at a place where automatic moderation can fully do the job. And, I bet generative AI makes the gap even wider.

I can’t say enough good things about the Double Fine Psychodyssey series. It’s an incredible look behind the scenes of the making of Psychonaughts 2 over 6 years. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll empathize with people trying to do their creative best.

I hope that the success of Cocaine Bear convinces Hollywood to fund the Snakes on a Plane sequel that we all deserve.

I wonder how different the world would be if XML had won.

Startup idea: Start a call from the app and it’ll stay on hold for you until someone real answers and presses a digit and then it’ll warn you.

I’m going to be fascinated to see how much AI changes interaction design. There’s an opportunity here to make interfaces that fit what humans need.

Friends don’t let friends use AWS Glacier.

A disaster movie where all at once, for some inexplicable reason (aliens?), CRON stops working, everywhere.

Startup idea: a phone number you can use as two-factor for banks that removes the whole “phone” part of the equation.

I believe there’s room in the world for a really good Star Trek video game… but it hasn’t happened yet.

“In early 2021, Yachty was reported to be producing and starring in a live-action movie based on the UNO card game, which is being developed by Mattel Films.”

And I thought Battleship was a challenge. UNO is hard mode. Good luck to the screenwriter.

I was getting a bunch of spam calls every day. It was very frustrating, so I signed up for RoboKiller. Now I’m so used to not getting interrupted, I can’t cancel. It’s like an ad blocker — I’m stuck with it.

Me: Ok, time to go to sleep. I have to be up early tomorrow.

My Brain: It says here that the CIA developed exploding seashells in an attempt to assassinate Castro. This seems very important.

I’m really late to this party, but it turns out that Focus Modes are great.

My 7-year-old does not understand the “Hello Computer” joke from A Voyage Home. You can just talk to computers now… it’s no longer funny. (Unrelated: I’m old.)

The Besties 2022 Game of the Year two-part podcast was excellent. Lots of discussion about why people even like games at all, and some quality behind-the-scenes critical evaluation. overcast.fm/+nApkDoWs…

I’m trying to resist learning Rust SO HARD, but spending time on Hachyderm is not helping. Can’t. Fit. Another. Language.

Survivor, but to get food contestants need to write correct regexes.

The constant difficulty I have in choosing between programming languages makes me think I just really like programming. This must be how some people feel about shoes.

✴ A Fresh Coat of Paint for 2023

I love personal blogs as a place to experiment and play. In my day job, I don’t get to do much design work anymore, so my personal blog gives me a place to stretch those (very atrophied) muscles.

For this year my goals were to make something simple and clean, with more whitespace. The last few years have been somewhat suffocating. It’s time to crack open some windows.

The theme uses the Rosé Pine Dawn colour scheme (for both light and dark modes). It’s typeset in the same type as last year, Capricho by Hoftype. Check out those italics.

This site is powered by Micro.blog. Micro.blog is hard to…

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A Hanukkah gift from my mother and father-in-law. Happy Jewish cats!

Mug with happy cats wearing Jewish clothing surrounded by menorahs.

It’s like it gave up and was just like “yah, some winter stuff in a blender”.

Because YOU did that. You did it. It was you. You made the page look worse. You can fix it by taking the banner away. You have the power! Believe in yourself!

Overlay banner that says “this page looks better in the app”.

I’m old enough that it’s still amazing to me that with some simple HTML and CSS you can make something that everyone in the world can see. It’s incredible.