Jim Nielsen’s Blog

I like the job title “Design Engineer”. When required to label myself, I feel partial to that term (I should, I’ve written about it enough).

Lately I’ve felt like the term is becoming more mainstream which, don’t get me wrong, is a good thing. I appreciate the diversification of job titles, especially ones that look to stand in the middle between two binaries.

But — and I admit this is a me issue — once a title starts becoming mainstream, I want to use it less and less.

I was never totally sure why I felt this way. Shouldn’t I be happy a title I prefer is gaining acceptance and understanding? Do I just want to rebel against being labeled? Why do I feel this way?

These were the thoughts simmering in the back of my head when I came across an interview with the comedian Brian Regan where he talks about his own penchant for not wanting to be easily defined:

I’ve tried over the years to write away from how people are starting to define me. As soon as I start feeling like people are saying “this is what you do” then I would be like “Alright, I don't want to be just that. I want to be more interesting. I want to have more perspectives.” [For example] I used to crouch around on stage all the time and people would go “Oh, he’s the guy who crouches around back and forth.” And I’m like, “I’ll show them, I will stand erect! Now what are you going to say?” And then they would go “You’re the guy who always feels stupid.” So I started [doing other things].

He continues, wondering aloud whether this aversion to not being easily defined has actually hurt his career in terms of commercial growth:

I never wanted to be something you could easily define. I think, in some ways, that it’s held me back. I have a nice following, but I’m not huge. There are people who are huge, who are great, and deserve to be huge. I’ve never had that and sometimes I wonder, ”Well maybe it’s because I purposely don’t want to be a particular thing you can advertise or push.”

That struck a chord with me. It puts into words my current feelings towards the job title “Design Engineer” — or any job title for that matter.

Seven or so years ago, I would’ve enthusiastically said, “I’m a Design Engineer!” To which many folks would’ve said, “What’s that?”

But today I hesitate. If I say “I’m a Design Engineer” there are less follow up questions. Now-a-days that title elicits less questions and more (presumed) certainty.

I think I enjoy a title that elicits a “What’s that?” response, which allows me to explain myself in more than two or three words, without being put in a box.

But once a title becomes mainstream, once people begin to assume they know what it means, I don’t like it anymore (speaking for myself, personally).

As Brian says, I like to be difficult to define. I want to have more perspectives. I like a title that befuddles, that doesn’t provide a presumed sense of certainty about who I am and what I do.

And I get it, that runs counter to the very purpose of a job title which is why I don’t think it’s good for your career to have the attitude I do, lol.

I think my own career evolution has gone something like what Brian describes:

• Them: “Oh you’re a Designer? So you make mock-ups in Photoshop and somebody else implements them.”
• Me: “I’ll show them, I’ll implement them myself! Now what are you gonna do?”
• Them: “Oh, so you’re a Design Engineer? You design and build user interfaces on the front-end.”
• Me: “I’ll show them, I’ll write a Node server and setup a database that powers my designs and interactions on the front-end. Now what are they gonna do?”
• Them: “Oh, well, we I’m not sure we have a term for that yet, maybe Full-stack Design Engineer?”
• Me: “Oh yeah? I’ll frame up a user problem, interface with stakeholders, explore the solution space with static designs and prototypes, implement a high-fidelity solution, and then be involved in testing, measuring, and refining said solution. What are you gonna call that?”

[As you can see, I have some personal issues I need to work through…]

As Brian says, I want to be more interesting. I want to have more perspectives. I want to be something that’s not so easily definable, something you can’t sum up in two or three words.

I’ve felt this tension my whole career making stuff for the web. I think it has led me to work on smaller teams where boundaries are much more permeable and crossing them is encouraged rather than discouraged.

All that said, I get it. I get why titles are useful in certain contexts (corporate hierarchies, recruiting, etc.) where you’re trying to take something as complicated and nuanced as an individual human beings and reduce them to labels that can be categorized in a database. I find myself avoiding those contexts where so much emphasis is placed in the usefulness of those labels.

“I’ve never wanted to be something you could easily define” stands at odds with the corporate attitude of, “Here’s the job req. for the role (i.e. cog) we’re looking for.”

Reply via: Email · Mastodon · Bluesky

Excuse my rant^[1].

Nobel-prize winning CEO of DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, was on 60 Minutes and floored me when he predicted:

We can cure all diseases with the help of AI. [The end of disease] is within reach, maybe within the next decade or so. I don't see why not.

“I don’t see why not” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

As I’m sure you know from working on problems, “I don’t see why not” moments are usually followed by, “Actually this is going to be a bit harder that we thought…”

If you want to call me a skeptic, that’s fine. But “the end of disease” in the next decade is some ostentatious claim chowder IMHO. As one of the YouTube comments says:

The goodies are always just another 5-10 years ahead, aren't they

Generally speaking, I tend to regard us humans as incredibly short-sighted. So if I had to place a wager, I’d put my money on the end of disease not happening in the next decade (against my wishes, of course).

But that’s not really how AI predictions work. You can’t put wagers on them, because AI predictions aren’t things you get held accountable for.

“Yeah, when I said that, I added ‘I don’t see why not’ but we quickly realized that X was going to be an issue and now I’m going to have to qualify that prediction. Once we solve X, I don’t see why not.”

And then “once we solve _Y_”. And then Z.

“Ok, phew, we solved Z we’re close.”

And then AA. And AB. And AC. And…

I get it, it’s easy to sit here and play the critic. I’m not the “man in the arena”. I’m not a Nobel-prize winner.

I just want to bookmark this prediction for an accountability follow-up in April 2035. If I’m wrong, HOORAY! DISEASE IS ENDED!!! I WILL GLADLY EAT MY HAT!

But if not, does anyone’s credibility take a hit?

You can’t just say stuff that’s not true and continue having credibility.

Unless you’re AI, of course.

1. Serendipitously, a few hours after publishing this post, I was reading my copy of The Bomb: A Life by Gerard J. De Groot. In it, he notes how in 1936 Soviet physicist Igor Tamm confidently remarked that “the idea that the use of nuclear energy is a question for [the next] five or ten years is really naive.” The contrast between the mainstream hyperbole around AI vs. nuclear is striking. ⏎

Reply via: Email · Mastodon · Bluesky

In April 1945, as US soldiers overtook Merkers, Germany, stories began to surface to Army officials of stolen Nazi riches stored in the local salt mine.

Eventually, the Americans found the mine and began exploring it, ending up at a vaulted door. Here’s the story, as told by Greg Bradsher:

the Americans found the main vault. It was blocked by a brick wall three feet thick…In the center of the wall was a large bank-type steel safe door, complete with combination lock and timing mechanism with a heavy steel door set in the middle of it. Attempts to open the steel vault door were unsuccessful.

Word went up the chain of command about the find and suspected gold hoard behind the vaulted steel door. The order came back down to open it up.

But what to do about this vault door that, up until now, nobody could open? One engineer looked at the problem and said: forget the door, blow the wall!

One of the engineers who inspected the brick wall surrounding the vault door thought it could be blasted through with little effort. Therefore the engineers, using a half-stick of dynamite, blasted an entrance though the masonry wall.

To me, this is a fascinating commentary on security specifically [insert meme of gate with no fence]

But also a commentary on problem-solving generally.

When you have a seemingly intractable problem — there’s an impenetrable door we can’t open — rather than focus on the door itself, you take a step back and realize the door may be impenetrable but the wall enclosing it is not. A little dynamite and problem solved.

Lessons:

• You’re only as strong as your weakest point.
• Don’t miss the forest for the trees.
• A little dynamite goes a long way.

Footnote to this story, in case you’re wondering what they found inside:

[a partial] inventory indicated that there were 8,198 bars of gold bullion; 55 boxes of crated gold bullion; hundreds of bags of gold items; over 1,300 bags of gold Reichsmarks, British gold pounds, and French gold francs; 711 bags of American twenty-dollar gold pieces; hundreds of bags of gold and silver coins; hundreds of bags of foreign currency; 9 bags of valuable coins; 2,380 bags and 1,300 boxes of Reichsmarks (2.76 billion Reichsmarks); 20 silver bars; 40 bags containing silver bars; 63 boxes and 55 bags of silver plate; 1 bag containing six platinum bars; and 110 bags from various countries

Reply via: Email · Mastodon · Bluesky

Carson Gross has a post about vendoring which brought back memories of how I used to build websites in ye olden days, back in the dark times before npm.

“Vendoring” is where you copy dependency source files directly into your project (usually in a folder called /vendor) and then link to them — all of this being a manual process. For example:

• Find jquery.js or reset.css somewhere on the web (usually from the project’s respective website, in my case I always pulled jQuery from the big download button on jQuery.com and my CSS reset from Eric Meyer’s website).
• Copy that file into /vendor, e.g. /vendor/jquery@1.2.3.js
• Pull it in where you need it, e.g. <script src="/vendor/jquery@1.2.3.js">

And don’t get me started on copying your transitive dependencies (the dependencies of your dependencies). That gets complicated when you’re vendoring by hand!

Now-a-days package managers and bundlers automate all of this away: npm i what you want, import x from 'pkg', and you’re on your way! It’s so easy (easy to get all that complexity).

But, as the HTMX article points out, a strength can also be a weakness. It’s not all net gain (emphasis mine):

Because dealing with large numbers of dependencies is difficult, vendoring encourages a culture of independence.

You get more of what you make easy, and if you make dependencies easy, you get more of them.

I like that — you get more of what you make easy. Therefore: be mindful of what you make easy!

As Carson points out, dependency management tools foster a culture of dependence — imagine that!

I know I keep lamenting Deno’s move away from HTTP imports by default, but I think this puts a finger on why I’m sad: it perpetuates the status quo, whereas a stance on aligning imports with how the browser works would not perpetuate this dependence on dependency resolution tooling. There’s no package manager or dependency resolution algorithm for the browser.

I was thinking about all of this the other day when I then came across this thread of thoughts from Dave Rupert on Mastodon. Dave says:

I prefer to use and make simpler, less complex solutions that intentionally do less. But everyone just wants the thing they have now but faster and crammed with more features (which are juxtaposed)

He continues with this lesson from his startup Luro:

One of my biggest takeaways from Luro is that it’s hard-to-impossible to sell a process change. People will bolt stuff onto their existing workflow (ecosystem) all day long, but it takes a religious conversion to change process.

Which really helped me put words to my feelings regarding HTTP imports in Deno:

i'm less sad about the technical nature of the feature, and more about what it represented as a potential “religious revival” in the area of dependency management in JS. package.json & dep management has become such an ecosystem unto itself that it seems only a Great Reawakening™️ will change it.

I don’t have a punchy point to end this article. It’s just me working through my feelings.

Reply via: Email · Mastodon · Bluesky

I like to try different apps.

What makes trying different apps incredible is a layer of interoperability — standardized protocols, data formats, etc.

When I can bring my data from one app to another, that’s cool. Cool apps are interoperable. They work with my data, rather than own it.

For example, the other day I was itching to try a new RSS reader. I’ve used Reeder (Classic) for ages. But every once in a while I like to try something different.

This is super easy because lots of clients support syncing to Feedbin. It’s worth pointing out: Feedbin has their own app. But they don’t force you to use it. You’re free to use any RSS client you want that supports their service.

So all I have to do is download a new RSS client, login to Feedbin, and boom! An experience of my data in a totally different app from a totally different developer.

That’s amazing!

And you know how long it took? Seconds. No data export. No account migration.

Doing stuff with my blog is similar. If I want to try a different authoring experience, all my posts are just plain-text markdown files on disk. Any app that can operate on plain-text files is a potential new app to try.

No shade on them, but this why I personally don’t use apps like Bear. Don’t get me wrong, I love so much about Bear. But it wants to keep your data in its own own proprietary, note-keeping safe. You can’t just open your notes in Bear in another app. Importing is required. But there’s a big difference between apps that import (i.e. copy) your existing data and ones that interoperably work with it.

Email can also be this way. I use Gmail, which supports IMAP, so I can open my mail in lots of different clients — and believe me, I've tried a lot of email clients over the years.

• Sparrow
• Mailbox
• Spark
• Outlook
• Gmail (desktop web, mobile app)
• Apple Mail
• Airmail

This is why I don’t use un-standardized email features because I know I can’t take them with me.

It’s also why I haven’t tried email providers like HEY! Because they don't support open protocols so I can’t swap clients when I want.

My email is a dataset, and I want to be able to access it with any existing or future client. I don't want to be stuck with the same application for interfacing with my data forever (and have it tied to a company).

I love this way of digital life, where you can easily explore different experiences of your data. I wish it was relevant to other areas of my digital life. I wish I could:

• Download a different app to view/experience my photos
• Download a different app to view/experience my music
• Download a different app to view/read my digital books

In a world like this, applications would compete on an experience of my data, rather than on owning it.

The world’s a big place. The entire world doesn’t need one singular photo experience to Rule Them All.

Let’s have experiences that are as unique and varied as us.

Reply via: Email · Mastodon · Bluesky

I learned a new word: ductile. Do you know it?

I’m particularly interested in its usage in a physics/engineering setting when talking about materials.

Here’s an answer on Quora to: “What is ductile?”

Ductility is the ability of a material to be permanently deformed without cracking.

In engineering we talk about elastic deformation as deformation which is reversed once the load is removed for example a spring, conversely plastic deformation isn’t reversed.

Ductility is the amount (usually expressed as a ratio) of plastic deformation that a material can undergo before it cracks or tears.

I read that and started thinking about the “ductility” of languages like HTML, CSS, and JS. Specifically: how much deformation can they undergo before breaking?

HTML, for example, is famously forgiving. It can be stretched, drawn out, or deformed in a variety of ways without breaking.

Take this short snippet of HTML:

<!doctype html>
<title>My site</title>
<p>Hello world!
<p>Nice to meet you

That is valid HTML. But it can also be “drawn out” for readability without losing any of its meaning. It’ll still render the same in the browser:

<!doctype html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>My site</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>Hello world!</p>
    <p>Nice to meet you.</p>
  </body>
</html>

This capacity for the language to undergo a change in form without breaking is its “ductility”.

HTML has some pull before it breaks.

JS, on the other hand, doesn’t have the same kind of ductility. Forget a quotation mark and boom! Stretch it a little and it breaks.

console.log('works!');
// -> works!

console.log('works!);
// Uncaught SyntaxError: Invalid or unexpected token

I suppose some would say “this isn’t ductility, this is merely forgiving error-parsing”. Ok, sure.

Nevertheless, I’m writing here because I learned this new word that has very practical meaning in another discipline to talk about the ability of materials to be stretched and deformed without breaking.

I think we need more of that in software. More resiliency. More malleability. More ductility — prioritized in our materials (tools, languages, paradigms) so we can talk more about avoiding sudden failure.

Reply via: Email · Mastodon · Bluesky

The other day I was working on something where I needed to use CSS to apply multiple background images to an element, e.g.

<div>
  My content with background images.
</div>
<style>
  div {
    background-image: 
      url(image-one.jpg),
      url(image-two.jpg);
    background-position:
      top right,
      bottom left;
      /* etc. */
  }
</style>

As I was tweaking the appearance of these images, I found myself wanting to control the opacity of each one.

A voice in my head from circa 2012 chimed in, “Um, remember Jim, there is no background-opacity rule. Can’t be done.” Then that voice started rattling off the alternatives:

• You’ll have to use opacity but that will apply to the entire element, which you have text in, so that won’t work.
• You’ll have to create a new empty element, apply the background images there, then use opacity. Or:
• You can use pseudo elements (:before & :after), apply the background images to those, then use opacity.

Then modern me interrupted this old guy. “I haven’t reached for background-opacity in a long time. Surely there’s a way to do this with more modern CSS?”

So I started searching and found this StackOverflow answer which says you can use background-color in combination with background-blend-mode to achieve a similar effect, e.g.

div {
  /* Use some images */
  background-image: 
      url(image-one.jpg),
      url(image-two.jpg);

  /* Turn down their 'opacity' by blending them into
     the background color */
  background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.6);
  background-blend-mode: lighten;
}

Worked like a charm! It probably won’t work in every scenario like a dedicated background-image-opacity might, but for my particular use case at that moment in time it was perfect!

I love little moments like this where I reach to do something in CSS that was impossible back when I really cut my teeth on the language, and now there’s a one- or two-line modern solution!

[Sits back and gets existential for a moment.]

We all face moments like this where we have to balance leveraging hard-won expertise with seeking new knowledge and greater understanding, which requires giving up the lessons of previous experience in order to make room for incorporating new lessons of experiences.

It’s hard to give up the old, but it’s the only way to make room for the new — death of the old is birth of the new.

Update 2025-04-08

ShopTalk Show kindly pointed me at “Maybe there kinda is background-opacity?”. Looks like there’s a spec for a cross-fade() function in CSS, though it’s only been implemented by Safari and the time of this writing.

Building off Chris’ CSS-Tricks article linked above, you could do something like this (I put the gif as a custom property, for readability’s sake, not sure you could actually do this):

div {
  /* 1px transparent gif, base64 encoded */
  --transparentImg: data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7;
  
  /* 1px transparent gif, base64 encoded */
  background-image:
    /* 1st image */ 
    cross-fade(
      /* my image */
      url(image.jpg),
      /* transparent image */
      url(var(--transparentImg)),
      /* desired 'background opacity' */
      50%
    ),
    
    /* 2nd image */ 
    cross-fade(
      url(image.jpg),
      url(var(--transparentImg)),
      20%
    ),
    
    /* 3rd image, etc. */
   ;
}

Maybe once that ships 4real, we really will have a proxy for background-opacity!

Reply via: Email · Mastodon · Bluesky

I saw these going around, but didn’t think I’d ever see myself get tagged — then Eric assuaged my FOMO.

As I’ve done elsewhere talking about how I blog, I’m gonna try and impose a character limit to my answers (~240). I’m not sure if that makes my job as the writer easier or harder, but it should make your job as the reader easier.

Why did you start blogging in the first place?

I think I started because everything I learned about building on the web came from reading other people’s blogs online, so I wanted to be a “web person” like them.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?

At the time of this writing (April 2025):

• I write in iA Writer.
• Code for my blog and notes is on GitHub.
• Deployment/hosting is via Netlify.

I’ve arrived at this setup less from a combination of choice and evolution. As me and my writing evolve, my process and tools evolve too.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

Blogspot, way back in the day. It’s no longer up, which is probably for the best. I was posting stuff I made from following “make this in Photoshop” tutorials.

Or I’d practice trying to visually express silly puns.

Or I’d make visual mashups of culture at the time.

How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that’s part of your blog?

For a detailed history of changes on how I blog, I blog about blogging under #myBlog and I blog about microblogging under #myNotes. Read any of those posts for insights into my ever-changing process.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

When I read other people’s thoughts.

Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?

I’m a simmerer. Rarely does a post go from thought to published in one sitting. For example, here’s a screenshot of my current simmering drafts (note my sophisticated editorial process of assigning each draft a letter prefix for sorting based on my appetite for finishing it).

What are you generally interested in writing about?

Stuff I make.

Or stuff others make.

Or thoughts I think while reading thoughts others think.

I have a tags page that tries to capture what I write categorically — for example, I blog notes from books I read, and podcasts I listen to — but TBH it’s not the greatest taxonomy of my writing.

Reductively: I blog about web design and development.

Who are you writing for?

Whoa, that question got me more introspective than I expected. Gonna move on before this becomes an existential crisis.

What’s your favorite post on your blog?

I used to highlight some of my favs on my home page, but I stopped. Choosing favorites is hard.

My blog posts are like my kids: I love them all equally, lol.

I suppose my favorite blog post is the one I’ll publish next.

Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?

Will I redesign? Lol, the question is: when will you redesign?

Tag ‘em

Sorry if I mention someone who’s already been tagged:

• Piper Haywood — Love Piper’s mix of the personal and professional. Still have bookmarked to try grandma’s recipe.
• Tyler Gaw — Have loved and respected this dude since I met him at my first “real” webdev job in NYC.
• David Bushnell — Been enjoying David’s short- and long-form writing a lot as of late. Plus we feel the same about Deno & HTTP modules.
• Katie Langerman - Ah gotcha, that’s not a blog link. It’s Bluesky. But I’ve followed Katie on the socials and always enjoy her perspective. Not sure she has a personal blog, so this is a vote of confidence in her starting one :)
• Jan Miksovsky — Jan is doing really cool stuff with Web Origami (also just a super nice guy).

Sorry, I’m not gonna ping any of these folks. If they read my blog, they’ll see their names. Otherwise, dear reader, consider it a suggestion to go subscribe to their stuff.

Reply via: Email · Mastodon · Bluesky

Jack Johnson is on Rick Rubin’s podcast Tetragrammaton talking about music, film making, creativity, and surfing.

At one point (~24:30) Johnson talks about his love for surfing and the beautiful flow state it puts him in:

Sometimes I’ll see a friend riding a wave while I’m paddling out, and the thing I’ll see them do just seems like magic...I’ll think, “How in the world did they just do that?” And then on your next ride you’re doing the exact same thing without thinking but it’s all muscle memory and it’s all in this flow that you get into. That’s a really beautiful state to get into, to do something that feels like a magic trick, like something you shouldn’t be able to do, but all of the sudden you’re doing it.

I’m not a surfer, and I can’t do effortlessly cool. But I know what a flow state feels like.

Johnson’s description reminds me of that feeling when you get a little time on a personal project — riding the wave of working on your personal website.

You open your laptop. You start paddling out. Maybe you see an internet friend who was doing something cool and you want to try it but you have no idea if you’ll be able to do it as well as they did.

And before you know it, you’re in that flow state where muscle memory takes over and you’re doing stuff without even consciously thinking about it — stuff that others might look at and perceive as magic (cough anything on the command line cough) but it’s not magic to you. Intuition and experience just take over while you ride the wave.

Ok, I’m a nerd. But I don’t care. It’s a great feeling, regardless of whether it’s playing an instrument, or surfing, or programming. That feeling of sinking into a craft you’ve worked at your whole life that you don’t have to think about anymore.

Reply via: Email · Mastodon · Bluesky

Ever used a website where you toggle from light mode to dark mode and the web site changes but the chrome around the browser doesn’t?

To illustrate, take a look at this capture of my blog on an iPhone. When you toggle the theme from light to dark, note how the website turns white but status bar stays black.

Only once I refresh the page or navigate does the status bar then turn white.

When the user changes the theme on my site, I want it to propagate all the way to the surrounding context of the browser. In this case, to the status bar on the iPhone. Like this:

There we go! That’s what I want.

So what was wrong?

A popular way to indicate the active theme is to put a class on the root of the document, e.g.

<html class="dark">
  <style>
    html { background: white }
    html.dark { background: black }
  </style>
</html>

Then we simply add/remove the dark class when the user toggles the theme.

But that will only change the in-page styles. It won’t tell the browser to update the color of whatever ambient user interface elements its drawing. For that, you’ll need the meta theme-color tag:

The theme-color value for the name attribute of the <meta> element indicates a suggested color that user agents should use to customize the display of the page or of the surrounding user interface.

So when you respond to the user changing their theme, don’t forget to update the <meta name='theme-color'> tag in addition to whatever you do to modify the in-page styles.

That’ll give you the effect you want in the surrounding browser UI (for browsers that support it).

Oh, and it’s worth pointing out: don’t forget the color-scheme property either. That’s what will tell the browser to update other in-page UI elements it draws.

So, when responding to a user preference to update a website’s theme:

1. Toggle some global attribute that triggers style changes for all your custom, in-page elements.
2. Set the color-scheme property so the browser draws the things its responsible for correctly (form controls, scroll bars, etc.).
3. Set the <meta name='theme-color'> value appropriately so contextual browser UI can adapt to your site’s styles.

I wrote this post as a friendly reminder, because friends don’t let friends forget the meta theme-color tag.

Reply via: Email · Mastodon · Bluesky