Delightful Reveal #60

“The number of ducks I want to see is MAX_INT” - overheard at Flagrant

What we did:

• Presented at DevFest WI, part of Wisconsin’s largest tech and entrepreneurship event: The Forward Festival about “Nothing New Under the Sun,” exploring the recurring cycles of human behavior and advancements in tech.
• Recorded an episode of Dead Code podcast, hosted by Jared Norman
• Drafted a blog post on how to tell if you might need Product Management
• Learned about how to allow a user to upload and attach an avatar
• Designed a flow for generating QR codes
• Drafted a blog entry about design tokens and color systems based on some work we did recently with a client
• Wrote a technical guide for troubleshooting problems with Figma’s variable modes feature (which maybe wasn’t ready for general release…So. Much. Mystery. And. Troubleshooting.)
• Designed a t-shirt for RubyConf 2024
• Began working on branding for an internal project, Yeeot
• Final touches in implementation of a marketing website for Improv Effect
• Made it simple to add metadata to a JWT (JSON [JavaScript Object Notation] Web Token) so it can be passed to various webhooks
• Used Jumpstart to build a quick AI driven document discussion app

What we’re reading:

• The Social Animal by David Brooks
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• Float Up, Sing Down by Laird Hunt
• Slow Noodles by Chantha Nguon
• Started The Four Pillar series. Apparently I bought the third book but it didn’t say it was the third book and the other two books were not next to this one so I accidentally started the last book in this series 🫠
• Listened to The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon
• Green Frog by Gina Chung

What we’re playing:

• Stardew Valley
• Path of Titans
• Peglin
• King of the Bridge
• Gisnep

What we’re watching:

• Alien
• The House of the Dragon S2
• Smartypants
• Alien: Romulus +1
• Dìdi +1
• Women’s Tour de France
• Why Lego Is So Expensive by Business Insider
• The DNC
• Invisible Beauty
• Sasheer Zamata: Pizza Mind

What we’re listening to:

• Cibo Matto
• Raye live at the Royal Albert Hall 
• The Damned
• Mac Miller’s Swimming
• Peaches
• Nobody’s Soldier and That You Are by Hozier
• Pink Floyd 
• Chappell Roan
• More of 99pi’s series on The Power Broker
• Not Built for This
• Slippery People by Talking Heads
• Khruangbin

What we’re interested in:

• Painted Door Test
• Playing tennis
• Riding a bicycle over all of the bridges in the San Francisco Bay Area
• Skateboard cruising around the park again
• “I made a new daily puzzle. It’s called Gisnep!”

What we’re struggling with:

• Hiccups
• Existential dread, pessimism and negative mental attitudes
• Sports Injuries
• Starting crochet
• Working alone on a project
• A basement being gutted
• Writing—it takes so long and it’s hard to put words together coherently
• Sharing secrets in different deployment environments
• Salads made of words +1
• How loud Barry’s classes are
• The unreal amount of time it takes to wash & dry a single down sleeping bag that includes 17 hours listening to tennis balls ping pong around the inside of the dryer

What we’re buying:

• Rolling knife sharpener
• Tuxedo cat Legos
• Baked lemon ricotta
• Conversational Spanish classes
• A hanging pot/pan organizer
• A puzzle! +1
• A few nights in a hotel in Madison for an upcoming trip
• A ceramics workshop by Studio B-Du
• Tickets to a Western-themed fundraiser to help cover expenses for a friend’s breast cancer recovery
• The Future is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarashinha
• An in-person drawing class
• Tri-tip
• More yarn (again)

What we’re celebrating:

• Jen Remsik and Jim Remsik delivering separate talks at DevFest WI, a positive, inclusive conference for all technologists.
• Jen & Jim’s 25th anniversary
• Jaxons arm is healing up well and he only needs a week and a half more in a cast. Really cool to see how his arm is growing so much bone in the X-ray after just 4ish weeks
• a mold-free basement
• gutters being installed
• The death of an above-range microwave presenting an opportunity for a ducted range hood and a cool tile backsplash to make my nerdy ceramicist heart go pitter patter
• Got to see Hozier and Ateez in concert
• The DNC nominations

If you’re looking for a team to help you discover the right thing to build and help you build it, get in touch.