Jim Nielsen

Jim Nielsen

@jim-nielsen.com

label = designer, developer, blogger homepage = https://www.jim-nielsen.com weblog = https://blog.jim-nielsen.com link blog = https://notes.jim-nielsen.com alt social = https://mastodon.social/@jimniels

2.3K followers202 following1.3K posts

📝 Reading & learning about the history of nuclear weapons started as a niche interest seemingly divorced from everything work-related. But now that history feels tied more and more to the current moment. blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/skip-re...

blog.jim-nielsen.comNo Need for Retirement When Utopia Is Around the CornerI’ve mentioned before my interest in the history and development of nuclear weapons . Currently, I’m reading The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War…

TBF I suppose that’s just the nature of reading history. It’s like when you buy a car and all of the sudden you start seeing it everywhere.

Another day, another problem w/Netlify. This time it seems to be an (intermittent?) issue where all of the sudden the cloud CI thinks it should be building off the `master` branch when my branch has always been `main` Nothing changed other than it decided to look for `master` today

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Idk if anyone else feels this way, but I'm increasingly having that feeling like maybe it’s time to start moving off Netlify — but to where? Things randomly break and I find myself devoting more and more time troubleshooting getting things working on their platform.

But they've got me hooked on a sweet free tier, so the economics just don't make any sense. Look at me, sounding like I got an MBA

Another day, another problem w/Netlify. This time it seems to be an (intermittent?) issue where all of the sudden the cloud CI thinks it should be building off the `master` branch when my branch has always been `main` Nothing changed other than it decided to look for `master` today

Yet another reason to stop using cloud CI and just build/deploy everything from my local machine. That's my trusty Plan B when these things stop working. Maybe I should just make Plan B the Plan A.

📝 One of my arguments against putting icons in every menu item was: “Apple doesn’t do it!” Then they started doing it. Now they’ve stopped doing it. Now I can say, ‘Even Apple tried doing it, and now they say “Don’t”.’ What more could I wish for? blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/icons-i...

blog.jim-nielsen.comNo More Icons In Every Menu By DefaultHave you heard the good news? I bemoaned the approach of putting an icon in every menu item by default which shipped with macOS Tahoe — but now it’s gone in…

Jim Nielsen reposted

If you're curious how all those newfangled domain names come to be -- I wrote a feature for WIRED on top-level domains and the people who make them I thoroughly enjoyed meeting all the kind and fascinating people in this wacky domain world. (And I promise it has nothing to do with cat thongs.)

WIRED@wired.com

Soon, hundreds of new top-level domains, including .meow and .fart, could be added to the internet. WIRED goes inside the backroom shenanigans of ICANN, the organization at the helm.

Jim Nielsen reposted

Replying to @wellerstein.bsky.social

Maybe because of the nature of the economic bubble they've created around it, and/or their own ideological biases towards its"inevitability," they appear to instead believe that if they just push as fast as possible, harms be damned, we'll all just be stuck with it, whatever happens.

📝 Really enjoyed this talk. Alex covers lots of great topics, like - When did “modernize” come to mean updating something that’s only ~5 years old? - Do technological choices have values tied to them? (Spoiler: they do) - HTML is amazing. My notes here: blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/talk-no...

blog.jim-nielsen.com“Getting off the Modernization Treadmill”My notes from this talk by Alexander Petros at Big Sky DevCon 2026 . Alex starts by noting how “modernize” used to mean something along the lines of “update…

Free app idea: It’s a timer. When you write blog posts, it adds time. When you code your blog, it subtracts time - at 2x the rate! If you’re out of time, your codebase is locked and you can’t work on it until you’ve poured more time into writing. I’d hate it & I’d be your first subscriber lol

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Jim Nielsen reposted

I was searching for a super simple interval timer to use when I jump rope. No nonsense. Minimal config. Set work, rest, and rounds, then have at it. Use it on the web. Save it to the home screen. Use it offline. Keep screen awake for the active duration. Maybe sprinkle in some web audio noises?

Unsolicited redesign for the github status page: remove the custom illustration and just display random devops memes.

Writing a .md file in a project where I’m undoing some complexity I added in the past. I’m creating the file as a way to document these evolving changes (so I don't redo past mistakes). At the end of the document, I came to this conclusion. Maybe one day I’ll actually learn this lesson.

Ok so here's my (totally unofficial) classification for how Apple’s icon changed from Tahoe to Golden Gate: 1. Got a bit more glassy 2. Got a bit more refined 3. Got a total overhaul First up: the ones that “got a bit more glassy” like App Store, Maps, and Stocks.

Next up: the ones that "got a bit more refined" like System Settings, Mail, and Podcasts. Nothing big changed, just smaller refinements like getting sharper.

Last: the ones that "got a total overhaul" like Preview, Chess, and Archive Utility. These represent larger changes to the design of the icon. I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether the changes are better or worse :)

Everyone claiming to be an OS these days: “OS for Logistics” - it’s a dashboard with a map “OS for Restaurants” - it’s a scheduling app “OS for Food” - it’s a smart toaster with an app

My new startup: “OS for Chocolate” (it's a shopify app w/inventory from a 3rd party supplier) Taking angle checks now...