Learning Log, Aug 2024
2024 continues to race by, and August was no exception. This month found me:
- Doing a bit of hiking and drawing en plein air
- Spending time with friends
- Catching the garment-sewing bug
- Clearing all my queues (to-read list on The StoryGraph, to-watch lists on streaming services)
Right at the end of August I had a minor injury that meant I was down for the count all of Labor Day weekend. It’s frustrating to be able to do nothing but binge watch TV for a few days, but I’m taking that as a signal from my body to slow down and do nothing, please!
In the blog-post-writing / parallel play group that I have going with friends, I was reminded quite suddenly that I used to have an eZine?! That people actually submitted their work to??? It was called Ego Bruise and had very “I’m in college” flair, so I’m equal parts mortally embarrassed and impressed that I had the bandwidth to organize this. Didn’t last very long, but you can find all the issues on Issuu: Issue 1, Issue 2, Issue 3.
🚀 Shipping
At Webflow, we added support for drop shadow filters natively into the Style panel. I’ve started compiling “tiny but mighty” updates from the Styles team; I’m the PM arm of that product triad.
🧶 Crafting
I sewed my first garment, a pair of Carolyn pajama bottoms! Later in August I sewed up a matching top and scrunchie from other patterns, though I have yet to take some awkward photos for a blog post.
On the internet
- Public.work, a search engine for visual art in the public domain
- A Brief History of Nobody Dresses Well Anymore, a chuckle-worthy Mastodon thread
- Video Games Skies
Reading
July was a big book-reading month, so of course in August I only read 2 books. My favorite of the two was “The God of the Woods” by Liz Moore, a quite literary thriller.
Product
- Ask Teresa: What Do You Do With Atypical Customer Stories? A recent favorite product read.
- Why High Growth, High Churn Products Never Seem to Work
- Your Customer Feedback Pile Needs a Makeover: A System for Sorting So You’ll Always Work on the Right Things
- This Likert Life
- The 4 Components of Product Quality: Performance, Bugs, Completeness, and Consistency
Accessibility
Web
- A New Path for Privacy Sandbox on the Web
- Things I’m Working On. I very much enjoy following along with Anh’s digital gardening.
AI
Work & productivity
Journaling & stationery
- Reader Question 9: How Long Do You Keep Your Notes?
- The Guilt of Missing Days
- How I Make Vision Boards to Set Intentions With My Bullet Journal
- Travel Journalling With Kids. Me if we ever have kids.
Other interesting articles
- ‘Dark Oxygen’ Discovered Coming from Mineral Deposits on Deep Seafloor
- Seattle Crows Are So Smart, They’re Challenging What We Know About Evolution, via Eric Bailey. Crows have cemented themselves as the beloved mascot of our writing group.
- Airbnb Unveils a Life-Sized ‘90s-Inspired Polly Pocket Home and You Can Book Your Stay Now. Ok but why do you have to sleep in a separate tent?!
- Nasal COVID-19 Vaccine Halts Transmission. Good news, also via Eric.
