Subscription payments are the best thing that ever happened to software companies. And they’re arguably the worst thing that ever happened…

The Subscription Economy Sucks.

https://joanwestenberg.medium.com/the-subscription-economy-sucks-5324f402491a#7451-d71594e3b06a

 ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a common character encoding format, but has also found its way into graphic design through a technique commonly known as &quot;ASCII Art&quot;. It&#x27;s essentially a way to use letters, numbers &amp; symbols to draw images. In this article, I will explain how to implement a simple ASCII renderer in WebGL. You will be able 

The secrets behind rendering anything as ASCII

https://polar.sh/emilwidlund/posts/the-secrets-behind-rendering-anything-as-ascii

Trajectory is a new series from Joan Westenberg focusing on tech, economics and culture in sports - with an emphasis on the NFL.    Subscribe to The Index Plus for $7 a month    to access the weekly Trajectory post, along with all Medium Membership pieces and exclusive content.

The Apple Vision Pro is here. Football ain’t ready. — Joan Westenberg

https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/the-apple-vision-pro-is-here-football-aint-ready

https://designcaitlin.substack.com/p/creative-practice-for-ux-designers

We glance at our phones a hundred times a day, doomscroll endlessly, overshare, and online shop till we (mentally) drop. Experts label it digital addiction. But what if we're not battling chemical hooks in our brains? What if the overtures to connection, as shallow as they may be, are a reflection o

When connection is the cure, not the cause. — Joan Westenberg

https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/when-connection-is-the-cure-not-the-cause

Abin  Panda | GoReply

Kramer bursts into Jerry’s apartment, wearing an Apple Vision Pro headset. “Jerry, I’ve entered the next dimension!” he proclaims, narrowly missing the coffee table.

Jerry, skeptical. "Kramer, how much did that set you back?"

"Jerry, I found the perfect solution. I'm renting out my apartment on Airbnb to cover the cost!"

Jerry, eyebrows raised, sets down his coffee. "You're renting out your place? Where are you sleeping?"

"Oh baby, with spatial computing?! I’m never sleeping again Jerry!”

The old saying goes that anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps - if they work hard enough. There's this pervasive and poisonous idea that success or failure rests solely on the individual and their effort. And if you don't make it, if you don't lift yourself out of poverty, if you can’t 

Bootstrapped to death: why America's favourite saying is strangling mobility — Joan Westenberg

https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/the-trouble-with-bootstraps

The image is a meme utilizing a historically iconic photograph of soldiers raising a flag, which seems to be the famous image of the flag raising on Iwo Jima during World War II. The top text says “AI” in quotation marks, and the bottom text reads “OVERVALUED TECH COMPANIES.”

EBay to eliminate about 1,000 jobs, or 9% of full-time workforce    Jamie Iannone, eBay’s CEO, told employees in a letter published on a corporate blog, that the company will also “scale back the number of contracts we have within our alternate workforce over the coming months.”  Iannone said the jo

The worst part of tech layoffs? The corporate bullshit. — Joan Westenberg

https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/the-worst-part-of-tech-layoffs-the-corporate-bullshit

From writer Joan Westenberg comes a digital zine reflecting on how the internet has evolved over the past 20 years. Packed with nostalgia for the early days of niche communities, amateur content and anonymity, it explores the current state of corporatization, algorithms and pressure to constantly pr

I miss the internet: a zine — Joan Westenberg

https://joanwestenberg.com/books/p/c5xh9ob4qg0j8e6k05fjj6ptn7nydu

We suck at knowing what we want. Almost all of us.

The counterintuitive reason failure unlocks happiness.

https://joanwestenberg.medium.com/the-counterintuitive-reason-failure-unlocks-happiness-4fffc19486ac?sk=a510682167e2706a2a6605091870e008

Coming out as transgender made me feel 10 years younger. 

Or maybe it was just all the companies who decided that my decade in tech suddenly didn’t count and they needed someone “with more experience”

Either way, my skin is looking GREAT

Yes, it’s “just the price of one coffee a month,” but the combined cost of every app demanding one coffee a month means we’re paying for enough caffeine to poison ourselves.

https://joanwestenberg.medium.com/the-subscription-economy-sucks-5324f402491a#7451-d71594e3b06a

The reason the AI crowd are mad as all hell about anyone critiquing AI art: they absolutely crave legitimacy from traditional media. It’s a deep and insecure need that is not being met. It’s why they lash out.

If we really wanted to change the world, we'd make politicians' internet search histories public record

✨ Let's dive into the world of ASCII!

I've written a guide on a technique to render anything in ASCII. Feel free to check it out ❤️

https://polar.sh/emilwidlund/posts/the-secrets-behind-rendering-anything-as-ascii

Hyping the team and pushing things forward is hard. Any tips are welcome. I am all ears. Context: bootstrapping the company with two developer buddies.

No matter how beautiful, intricate and optimised my note taking system is there’s a 9 in 10 chance I’m just going to text myself

Today I decided to smile at strangers. Not a friendly smile, more like the "I know what you did" kind of smile.

You can't cancel me im a one season HBO miniseries

Modern work: 

you get a message in Slack with a link to the Confluence doc to prep for the meeting on Zoom, where you take notes in Notion, and track project progress on Monday and then update the Trello…

My sister and I are both bottom to top quintile movers. And there is no specific thing to point to (aside from my mother's insistence that we went to college). We have dozens of cousins who did not. This is a thing I would love to talk about more.

I have zero interest in 3rd party app stores or chromium based mobile browsers. 
 

I want my daily driver to be a device I basically never have to worry about in terms of security. Ever. 

Mfer, I’m trying to catch up on Melrose Place not install Norton on my iPhone

What if I build a browser extension that autocorrects every time someone types “we wish you the best of luck in your job search!” to “we sure hope you don’t lose your home and end up on the street!”

Fourth social app I’m joining in a year… I hope this one is the *good* one.

Will Apple Vision Pro be the spark that ignites a new generation of VR/AR innovation across the league? 
 
Right now - everything is possible. 

Partly because the NFL hasn’t done anything. 

https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/the-apple-vision-pro-is-here-football-aint-ready

Omg. I feel *so* seen here. My entire childhood was creating OCs and writing stories/fanfics... LOL https://designcaitlin.substack.com/p/creative-practice-for-ux-designers

Parenthood update 

My 7 year old says that Mighty Ducks cannot be from the 1990s

Because it's not in black and white

We glance at our phones a hundred times a day, doomscroll endlessly, and overshare. Experts label it digital addiction. 

But what  if the overtures to connection are a reflection of what we need? 

https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/when-connection-is-the-cure-not-the-cause

Trying out this new tool GoReply You can now book a personalized 1:1 consultation with me through my profile on GoReply. Let's connect and delve into your challenges or goals together! https://goreply.com/p/Abin/

When I was in my early 20’s, I hustled my ass off. I worked 2 jobs and a side hustle. I drank 8 cups of coffee a day and popped No Doz pills to work at night. 

And then I burned the fuck out. And crashed hard. 

And it wasn’t worth it.

Does anyone know of designers that stream on Twitch/YouTube? Be kinda cool to see people build stuff live.

It’s not an accident that “Side Hustle” culture emerged at the same time as corporations hit 70 year profit highs and wage growth hit a 40 year low. 

This shit is connected, folks.

My biggest product copy pet hate: 

“It’s like (x) on steroids”

…steroids are not a good thing. 

They’re associated with cheating and instability. 

Why are you using that analogy to market software?

Dead Kennedys x Whoopi Goldberg

This show would have fucking ruled.

Omg what🤣🤣🤣 CASTLE X CREATURE DALLIANCE? It reminds me of this one subreddit where people shipped countries and wrote one shots💀 honestly i was hooked

Grab the MacBook. Sit through 5 meetings about a pointless logo redesign.

Go 16 hours with no food. Not an eating disorder it’s intermittent fasting.

Move the needle by 0.1%. Get a shoutout on Slack. Finger snaps. Still can’t buy a house. 

Whoops now you're laid off.

Hot take (I won’t commit to) with all this auto layout talk: if figma outputs CSS, I should be able to add figma-supported css styles in a textarea for any layer. Maybe then there would be better parity between how figma and css does layout

Mismatch by Kat Holmes completely changed my design career!

Sure I could organize my life with free task management apps and focus on achieving my goals but I'd much rather spend $300/month subscribing to culty "productivity systems" run by some dude named Bülleit who posts pictures of sunrises and running shoes

Airport books are one trend away from "Finding Your Inner Oligarch: A Guide to Absolute Power and Where to Buy It."

Research shows that only about 30% of those born into the bottom quintile of income distribution will make it into the middle class. 

Most people remain stuck in the same economic class as their parents.  

https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/the-trouble-with-bootstraps

The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera 🖤

Any Trello users here? I got an email from Have I Been Pwned...

"You're one of 15,111,945 people pwned in the Trello data breach"

Date of breach: 16 Jan 2024

"Running a successful business like eBay requires making very difficult decisions, like cutting costs instead of my 8-figure salary. So, we decided to axe a bunch of jobs to boost our profits."

https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/the-worst-part-of-tech-layoffs-the-corporate-bullshit

I read 100 Years of Solitude maybe 15 years ago and I still think about nearly every day

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with shitposts dunking on Elon Musk

I wish more people would just come here and tap this market here more creatively instead 🥲

Using Arc Search counts as reading an article as much as Blinkist counts as reading a book. 

It 👏 fucking 👏 doesn't 👏

Ask not what your country can do for you,' because chances are, there's probably a form for that, and it's not covered by your plan

Hot take:

Apple Vision Pro's 2-hour battery life is a feature, not a bug.

No matter how many times we all pivot to video and then pivot back when the house of cards comes crashing down, the media industry never fucking learns.

The deepest circle of hell is reserved for assholes who complain about the ad-driven state of the internet and still whine about creators putting their work behind a paywall.

LinkedIn is an endless feed of shitty ads written by people you met once at a conference 5 years ago.

And that's when it's good.

I made a free digital zine reflecting on how the internet has evolved over the past 20 years. 

It asks - can we build a digital future that reflects the diversity, creativity and joy we once glimpsed online?

https://joanwestenberg.com/books/p/c5xh9ob4qg0j8e6k05fjj6ptn7nydu

This year, I’m excited to announce the launch of a new publication! It’s called Unfunded. It’s a tech news publication focused solely on startups and tech companies who are not venture backed. 

If that’s you - hit me up. I’d love to talk to you.

Keep getting it wrong, failing the test, and making the wrong choice. Because every time, you unlock a new piece of data about yourself. 

https://joanwestenberg.medium.com/the-counterintuitive-reason-failure-unlocks-happiness-4fffc19486ac?sk=a510682167e2706a2a6605091870e008

I’m looking for pen recommendations. 

I found the Baronfig pens remarkably disappointing. I want something beautiful but simple that doesn’t require a mortgage to buy.

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