I am a writer turned software engineer working in news and media.
This is one of the coolest things I've seen in awhile. Jmail (via Daring Fireball). This whole thing is so clever, the way it mimics the look and feel of Gmail, including the supposed "AI Overview" explaining the site.
You are logged in as Jeffrey Epstein, jeevacation@gmail.com. These are real emails released by Congress. Explore by name, contribute to the starred list, search, or visit a random page.
I'll claim it. I was a fan of Tom King's run on Batman from 2016-2019. I ran a comic shop during that time, so in some ways, this is my Batman. So this piece from ComicBook.com caught my eye: Tom King’s Batman Run Was DC’s First Truly Mature Take on the Character (& That’s Why It’s Controversial).
I guess I didn't realize it was a controversial run.
King wanted to deconstruct the Caped Crusader and have him deal with his emotions (or lack thereof) in every story and that has continued to this day, well after King’s run. King famously uses comics to break down his own thoughts about grief and the emotions that come with it at all stages and it’s a tactic has given readers the first truly mature take on Batman. It’s why it’s so controversial.
The piece goes on to connect this to Batman finding peace (or not) and how that worked with his relationship with Catwoman. I was all-in on the on-again, off-again, what-even-is-going-on-here relationship with Catwoman during that run. A real highlight you should read if you haven't.
Anyway, then the article ends with this banger, which I did not know:
When Matt Fraction takes over in September with a new #1, it will be interesting to see how Batman evolves next
Matt Fraction is writing Batman next?! How did I not know this. Sign me up.
Wow, has it really been 10 years of Apple Music? In some ways, it feels like Apple Music has been here for longer than that. I was a Beats Music user before it became Apple Music. A decade is still a decade.
To celebrate, Apple has released a 10 Years of Apple Music: Top Songs playlist. It features the 500 most-streamed songs of the last decade of Apple Music. Some great songs in there, to be sure.
I've been keeping this playlist on shuffle and repeat.
I found Mitchell Hashimoto's My Approach to Building Large Technical Projects via Simon Willison's link post. Man, everything in this post is golden. I think I agree with every word. This is definitely how I approach building software. I especially love the focus on getting to something workable as soon as possible.
Building a demo also provides you with invaluable product feedback. You can quickly intuit whether something feels good, even if it isn't fully functional. These aren't "minimum viable products", because they really aren't viable, but they're good enough to provide an engineer some valuable self-reflection.
I love that phrase "self-reflection." We need more of that in software these days.
I also love the idea of building software for yourself. I've got some things I've been meaning to work on that I need to get back to. As I do, I'm going to get to a workable demo as quickly as I can. Maybe I'll have something to show here soon.
