Notes for people who build
Writing about vibe coding, AI dev tools, and turning ideas into products.
All posts
- What is Speculative Design · 7Whose Future Is It?What if a dystopia in the gallery is already someone's reality? A look at the criticisms aimed at speculative design, and at who the subject of the "preferred future" really is.
- What is Speculative Design · 6A Room for Breathing Future AirSuperflux made the polluted air of 2034 and put it in front of the UAE government. A look at what speculative design can do once it leaves the gallery for the place where decisions are made, and how far it can speak.
What is Speculative Design · 5The Questions Objects AskA battery charged by corpses, a clock that eats flies, a Britain split into four. A look at the landmark works of speculative design, and how design becomes a question.- What is Speculative Design · 4Props That Make You Believe: Design FictionHow do you make a future that doesn't exist yet feel real? This piece looks at the diegetic prototype borrowed from film props, how design fiction works, and how its language was absorbed into advertising.
What is Speculative Design · 3Factual and Value Judgments About the FutureThe futures cone, a staple of explanations of speculative design, began as a tool of futures studies. Following the history of the diagram, this piece looks at how the "preferred future" differs from the other categories.- What is Speculative Design · 2Design That Makes Questions Instead of AnswersWhere did speculative design come from? Following critical design from the 1990s and Dunne & Raby's A/B list, this piece looks at why designers began to doubt the premise that design is problem solving.
- Growing Your Project with Umtri · 5For the You of a Few Months From Now — The Wiki, Your Records, and TeamsHow to keep what the tree can't hold — why you built things the way you did — in the wiki, how to look back over your records, and how to work with a team, with prompt examples.
- Growing Your Project with Umtri · 4Recording as You Build — Plans, Saves and BugsDraw a new feature on the tree as a plan first, leave a record once it's built, and check how far a bug reaches when one shows up — with prompt examples.
- Growing Your Project with Umtri · 3Planting Your First Tree — Transplanting and SeasonsAsk your AI to move a project you've already built into a tree, split its growth into seasons, and take root to start recording — with prompt examples.
- Growing Your Project with Umtri · 2Connecting Umtri to Your AIFrom signing up and getting a token to connecting Umtri to AI tools like Claude Code and checking that it worked — step by step.
- Growing Your Project with Umtri · 1What Kind of Tool Is Umtri?Vibe coding is convenient, but it can leave you struggling to understand what you built yourself. Umtri gives you a way to visualize your project with your AI agent, so you can understand it at a glance.
- Notes · 2MQTT: A Protocol Designed for DisconnectionWhile the web asks and waits for an answer, the world of things has been talking a different way. An introduction to publish/subscribe, and to the design philosophy of a protocol that even prepares a last will.
- The Startup Prince · 7On the Risk of Making Every Judgment With Your Own Eyes Alone — Trust Only Your Own Sight, and the Organization Closes Its EyesThe third post in Part Two of The Startup Prince. A founder's judgment is the asset that carried the company this far — but the moment it becomes the only standard for every decision, it shuts the organization's eyes. We look at why Machiavelli made the choice of ministers the first measure of a ruler's ability.
- React Native for Mobile Apps · 2Expo and Your First ScreenThe fastest way into React Native is Expo. We create a project, get a first screen running on a real device in your hand, and look at what separates Expo from the bare workflow — and why Expo is the recommended starting point today.
- The UX Design Manifesto · 15Epilogue: Back to the UserAs this series comes to a close, we return to the question of what UX design is, and trace once more where the answer ultimately leads.