Drink the biggest beer possible
I'm back from NYC and my wife and I are already missing it. I can't tell you how many conversations we've had about just biting the bullet, packing up our lives, and moving there. Maybe one day.
I've got 10 articles for you this week. Here are the highlights:
- AI can write your code. It can't figure out what to build, when to push back, or whether to ship.
- Roles are blurring. When AI lets generalists do specialist work, everyone starts asking what a job title even means.
- 50 ways to add friction back into your digital life. Record players, handwritten letters, dumb phones, showing up to things—a toolkit for feeling human again.
- And more...
Most Interesting
What does it mean to be a designer in the age of AI?
A look at how product roles are blurring as most builders now wear multiple hats. The piece questions whether traditional titles still matter when AI tools let generalists do specialist work.
Design + Development
An invaluable reference guide that names how people actually see and use interfaces. There's also a poster and card set you can buy to keep these laws handy at all times.
Pantone's Color of the Year 2026
Pantone unpacks their 2026 Color of the Year through expert commentary, design applications, and cross-industry collaborations. Cloud Dancer isn't just a color pick, it's a signal toward simplicity and mental clarity.
This article breaks down four ways designers can build credibility when defending their work. It covers adapting your process strategically, using data to back decisions, getting regular feedback exposure, and tailoring communication to what each stakeholder actually cares about.
Tech + Innovation
A chronological catalog of 20+ CSS and HTML features shipped by the Google Chrome team, organized by capability type.
Monocle: Noise-cancelling for your screen
A modern take on window dimming for macOS. A sleek, minimalist app that removes distractions by elegantly blurring everything but your active window, giving you the focus you need.
Has the cost of building software just dropped 90%?
A sharp breakdown of how AI coding agents will reshape the entire dev industry, not just make things faster. It walks through the economic forces at play: cost collapse, demand explosion, and the shift from syntax skills to domain knowledge.
Work + Mindset
Drinking the largest beer at the airport makes everything better
This piece is a love letter to pointless airport time, turned into a tiny, intentional ritual: find your gate, hunt down the biggest possible beer, and let it absorb the chaos around you. A really good piece of writing and the layout and illustrations are just as good.
AI can write your code. It can't do your job.
A sharp breakdown of why AI won't replace software engineers, even as it automates more programming tasks. The argument centers on the gap between writing code and doing engineering work: judgment, context, problem definition.
The analog life: 50 ways to unplug and feel human again
Tanner Garrity compiled 50 specific tactics for cutting screen time, organized into 6 categories that range from old-school daily rituals to ditching tracking apps entirely. The whole collection is built around a simple idea: add friction to your digital defaults and replace them with analog-adjacent alternatives.
