I joined Twitter in 2007 and my brain slowly morphed over the next 15 years from hopelessly verbose to nihilistically pithy. I've kicked the Twitter habit, but the takes keep flowing. That's why I post them here and format them as a social network of one. You're welcome to bookmark any of these takes, though I'm not sure why you would.
By the way, the hearts and like counts are fake. They're just there to make you feel safe.
Been a fun couple of weeks touring more remote parts of Japan, and I'm happy to report I've now stayed at least one night in 46 of Japan's 47 prefectures. I'm saving the last—Hokkaido—for next year. RubyKaigiかな justin.searls.co/posts/all-the-pretty-prefectures/
Someone asked me for an explanation of how KameSame's synonym detection works, which I never actually shared before. To save myself some time, I had Cursor analyze the codebase and answer for me and… wow! I remember how hard this was now. gist.github.com/searls/a6f5e6d2eb178e342b2224f2bcc4b439
Just sent out this month's edition of Searls of Wisdom. It's a creative one. If you're curious about what it's been like buying a second home in Japan, sign up and you'll get it justin.searls.co/newsletter/
My heart goes out to Mikeal's friends, family, and loved ones upon hearing of his passing. We interacted at a handful of conferences in the early Node.js days and he was always kind, thoughtful, and present. b.h4x.zip/mikeal/
I checked to see what the Internet thought about Apple's WWDC keynote, and I gotta say that I'm very impressed to see that despite the woke backlash, every stereotypical tech bro is suddenly an accessibility advocate.
In about 20 hours, I'm chatting with The Changelog guys about Apple's WWDC announcements. Send your takes so I can incorporate your thoughts into the show! podcast@searls.co
If Apple does decide to curry some nerd favor by introducing a DeX-like desktop mode for iPhone, the thought that I could travel and code with an iPhone, Xreal glasses, and portable keyboard is extremely appealing.
Startup bros can be insufferable, but I suppose if I lived in San Francisco I'd be really focused on exiting, too.
If American universities continue to see enrollment decline so precipitously, don't be surprised if in 2050 we're having to explain to young people that the teams in the NCAAF football league used to be associated with schools.
Since Poolside's (now Poolsuite) iOS app slowly fell apart over the last few years, summer hasn't felt like summer without it. Out of nowhere, a brand new rewrite is out today—and it's a screamer. Never been more excited to float in a pool with a cocktail apps.apple.com/us/app/poolsuite-fm/id1514817810
I mean no offense to Addy here, but isn't most of this advice banal and obvious? How much of "prompt engineering" is just basement-dwelling incels being told they finally need to learn how to communicate effectively? addyo.substack.com/p/the-prompt-engineering-playbook-for
My wish for iOS 26 is that, in preparation for the 20th anniversary all-glass iPhone, the new UI design will pave the way for system-wide pass-through video (just as visionOS uses) so as to feel like your content is the device. No more static background wallpaper. Truly transparent-seeming.
This mode probably won't debut until iPhone 20, however, since it will depend on a higher baseline of camera and sensor hardware (as Vision Pro did).
It's been six months since I posted my eulogy for dad. Just re-read it and cried three times. justin.searls.co/mails/2024-12/
Just heard for the thirtieth time: "who out there is asking for a thinner phone? For whom is the current phone too heavy?"
Me. That's who. It's absurd how thick and heavy each and every single piece of electronics I own is. My phone should weigh a third this much.
Took a month off from application programming. Coming back to it today, man, why did I ever do this? This sucks.
With any luck this take will be published in the future (my future, your present) automatically, thanks to the diligent efforts of the loyal employees of Searls LLC and as demonstrated in this example repo github.com/searls/static-site-enhancement-concept
To any AI skeptics out there: if you take the time to use the latest tools and find them to be a net negative on your output, I completely respect that. I've been using LLMs for coding since late 2022 and until Copilot Agent landed in VS Code, I definitely think the benefit was a wash at best. Now I can see a real acceleration boost.
If you refuse to use these tools on ethical grounds or simply don't bother to keep up with them, I fear your employment prospects are likely to suffer in the short and medium term.