avk

I’m in a similar boat. I do like the idea of code as material and this could be a version of that.

I find conceptual work is sending me back to paper and lower fidelity even more these days with AI. The fundamentals thrive with more freeform tools.

I still find system tests useful and more realistic, despite their speed. They’ve caught bigger, breaking changes for me than unit or controller tests.

Good read, but the abrupt end surprised me. It didn't dive deeper into the solution to evaluate whether it actually addressed the observed issue.

Also, isn't the accessibility of radio buttons for keyboard users something you simply learn? <Tab> isn't the panacea of getting around a web page with a keyboard. I think of <Tab> as navigating interactive elements by default, but within those elements the arrow keys allow more granularity. Several instances of that behavior, including radio buttons, shown here: https://webaim.org/techniques/keyboard/#testing

Have you seen the Short Story Substack[1]? I appreciate how forthcoming the editor is with the stats.

[1] https://shortstory.substack.com/

Yes, but it depends on where you submit. I've seen literary journals pay in contributor copies (aka nothing), token amounts—a few dollars, a rate per page, or a fixed rate up front. Genres like sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and crime or mystery are more likely to pay per word. Not sure why that is.

Congrats to superamit! Well done with your persistence and I hope Uncanny is receptive to your future submissions. I'm excited to read the story.

Disclaimer: light self-promo. Are others interested in more publishing posts like these? I've documented the journey to publication stories with stats, rejections, and a sense of the work involved for most of the short fiction I've published in literary journals. It's been cathartic and encouraging to share the entire process.

My most notable piece[1] ended up making it into The Best American Mystery Stories[2] a few years ago.

[1] https://arsenalofwords.com/2018/10/30/how-loathing-travel-pu...

[2] https://arsenalofwords.com/2019/10/01/how-a-regional-writing...

I've been tinkering with something similar too. This is for timing checklists not individual items—so typically multiple steps that repeat from time to time: https://tusklist.com

Can you say more about why it's useful to time routine work?

That's what I'm curious about. A consistent set of steps that you're committed to doing on some frequency—do you see value in timing things like that?

Has anyone else applied product or agile techniques to creative endeavors? Thinking about retro made me wonder whether doing a regular standup with my writing could lead to new insights, akin to freewriting or journaling.

you misspelled "test" as "tets" on the sign in page

Likewise, I found it distracting and off-putting.

Sorry for the resubmit. Just surprised this didn't garner any previous discussion.

The part that resonated most with me was: "What bone you were meant to have, no dog will drag away." It made me think that it's worth considering which bones are yours and which you only think you'd like to have and improve on. Maybe it's worth re-evaluating what you do spend time on versus what you never feel bad spending time on?

> "This is an instance of a more general rule: focus on users, not competitors. The most important information about competitors is what you learn via users anyway."

I found this to be the strongest way of saying don't obsess about your competition. Focusing on users will probably help address other issues as well (i.e. working on the wrong problem, building the wrong thing, not making as much of an impact as you could be, etc).

Cool hack. Have you considered linking to the startup's Github page or the pages of the developers?

My favorite quote: "What causes people to be poets instead of bankers? When you put that into products people can sense that. And they love it."

> It's like the idea of a to-do list: it's a list of things you don't really want to do, because the things you want to do are done already.

I found this comment interesting. I see a to-do list as a way to manage progress towards your goals in discrete steps. That includes things I want to do and those I don't but are necessary. Curious: how do you use a to-do list?

Cool concept. Why the email verification?

Also, maybe this is a common issue for email heavy / notification apps, but I almost wish there was something else to do after signing up. Can't think of anything useful though, just feels like there's an opportunity for more somewhere there.

Is this a big enough problem for average people? I know people create a "lost phone, need your number" Facebook group or event but is that enough of a pain? I've never seen more than one from the same person. So what exactly are you offering the average person with a messy, incomplete, and unsynced address book and why would they pay?

I like it because of the clean look and emphasis on viewing, creating, and searching events. All of the blue from the previous version now gets out of the way of the most important information and actions.

I also appreciate how the month view uses black text instead of white text on all day events. This makes them easier to read.

I really enjoyed this but as a writer, my favorite part was in the first P.S.: "...but that’s the great thing about words. The reader is an equal author of the meaning."

Agreed but for me, the uncertainty helps fight the procrastination. Not knowing how much is left keeps me humble and working.

I agree. There's also the social stigma of unfollowing. Most folks wouldn't unfollow a close friend, their boss, or a new client they're trying to woo.

Facebook has done more to alleviate this problem than Twitter with the default newsfeed being an algorithmically curated one (Top News) rather than the full firehose (Most Recent) and their hide functionality. I've always found hiding on Facebook could be more useful. Hiding a single update feels pointless. Hiding everything from a friend is rarely required. All that leaves is hiding an app, assuming their update came from one. That's where content-based filtering tools like http://slipstre.am/ (disclosure: my app) and http://proxlet.com/ excel, even though they're Twitter-only.

http://proxlet.com/ lets you do this. It's not a Twitter client, it's an API proxy, most prominently used in a Chrome extension for Twitter.com. I built something very similar with http://slipstre.am/ though without client filtering. In 6 months, no one has asked for it. Pattern filtering seems to be good enough (e.g. block tweets containing "4sq.com" vs. tweets from the "Foursquare" app).

This is why I built http://slipstre.am/ but honestly there doesn't seem to be a lot of demand for this. Even on Facebook, where the feature has existed for a while, the average user I've talked to was never even aware of it.

Thanks for sharing. I haven't worked with underscore yet. What about delay do you find superior to setTimeout() ?

Thanks for the idea but that's definitely much more complex than what I had in mind: just encouraging people to use more readable JS timers.

Feel free to build on top of my code though!

Author here. Point taken. Please use whatever works best for you. I mostly wanted to encourage people to write more readable JS timers. Ideally, after() and every() would make it into ECMAScript in some optimized form so you wouldn't need my code :)

By the way, the argument order and flexibility is what contributes to most of those lines.

Author here. Very open to feedback & criticism. Thanks!

Sure. I just don't get many unsolicited calls.

Instead of reading or replying to things as soon as they come in, I just silence everything on my phone except phone calls. That way, I check emails, texts, tweets, etc. at my convenience. It interrupts me only when necessary.