Robb Owen

Interested in setting aside the magical prompter and learning some web standards skills the old fashioned way? You can sign up for my online Web Components course for free until Oct 31 with the code markitzero. If you find it useful, please consider letting folks know! 🎃

The quality of recommendations on here is honestly absurdly high

it's a new season for technology & for technologists, and our labor and its impact to the world are both more greater and more dangerous than ever. how do we make sense of work in an industry many of us no longer recognize?

Dead night calm over the back field, a yellow slab of window sitting on the grass. Craneflies tumble around the sitting room, dragging hair shadows across the walls. A sharp voice from down the hill in the wood, bouncing off the clouds up to our back door.

We're just over a week out for WDC2026! It's going to be another awesome event thanks to you! If you still haven't picked up your ticket yet there is still time! webdevconf.com

After careful consideration and a look at where the industry is spending it's funding we've decided to pivot #FFConf in a "new" direction. I present to you: ffconf.ai Please share with bots and humans alike.

Next time I've done a shit job of something, I'm just going to tell people it's too dangerous to show them. The PowerPoint that I threw together last minute could actually pose a risk to humanity at large

Friendly reminder that Duolingo was initially concieved to trick people into translating articles for free, which they later used as training data for MTL algorithms. Duolingo's primary purpose has NEVER been about teaching you a language, even from the start! slate.com/technology/2...

New on the blog

If you have a Switch 2 and someone to play with, I can't recommend Orbitals highly enough. @evadage.co.uk and I are making our way through it and it's chaotic good fun (Also worth pointing out that with only one copy of the game you can still play online co-op or share it locally with a Switch 1)

[intense choral music starts] Gentle Bean Patch Sentinel ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓

Quiet man cleans toilets and tends plants

One of my favourite things is that the Japanese Wikipedia entry for katsu curry has a whole section devoted to Britain getting this distinction wrong. It also mentions a group calling themselves the Katsu Curry Police, set on documenting cutlet-less katsu dishes ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%...

Heading home from London after a weekend spending quality offline time with some dear online friends. Reminds me that the internet can be very good sometimes

Do I know anyone who’s built a website that’s needed to be accessible from China? Any tips / pitfalls etc I should be aware of?

Lovely to see a new website from Suitcase Type (whose Tabac superfamily I used for Lagom a few years ago): www.suitcasetype.com

The way some folks post on LinkedIn reminds me of a client I once had who would very confidently (and unironically) pronounce it as "Linkydink", and how nobody else in the room ever tried to correct him

Summer is here which means WDC2026 is just around the corner! Tickets are just £99! We have an awesome lineup of speakers including @hidde.blog , @amyhupe.bsky.social , @cjforms.bsky.social @joshtumath.uk, @paavandesign.com and @duncanpetrie.com (more TBC!) webdevconf.com

Hello! Long time no post. 🌸 Here's some new work from my residency at the Mokuhanga School in Karuizawa, Japan. This woodblock print features the sumo referee's 'gunbai' fan combined with peonies, my favourite flower. Signed limited edition of 10. www.geridrawsjapan.com/art-prints-m...

Hey, that's a nice [THING YOU DO FOR PERSONAL PLEASURE], be a real shame if somebody were to [CONVINCE YOU TO MONETIZE IT, TRANSFORMING YOUR RELATIONSHIP INTO AN OBLIGATION AND ROBBING YOU OF JOY]

Spent the last hour in holiday traffic, behind an imported Mazda Bongo Friendee mini-camper It was enough time that, likely by the name alone, I have convinced myself I now need to own one

Have to wonder if there's a greater sign that the industry's haunted than a system bugging out so badly that it invoices billions of dollars, whilst at the same time being believable enough that people are pausing to check their usage. Truly cursed business models

👋🏿 it’s been a while. I’ve been on Threads, but I wanted to post here as well: I’ve definitely caught that KNICKS IN 5 energy 💙🧡💙🧡, and made a little update to my website

"Your vulnerability is your strength. The mistakes shrink down until they are almost nothing, dwarfed by the enormity of the mountain you’ve climbed. You’ve achieved the impossible. This is where you’re meant to be." @michelleb.bsky.social Very relatable read 🩷 michellebarker.co.uk/writing/stag...

This reminds me of the time that, in an effort to stop people signing out of the game, typing /pizza in Everquest 2's chat would take you directly to Pizza Hut's website

Made a little time to work through this and I have two things to share: @scott.is's writing remains undefeated and @arielsalminen.com has made an absolute banger of a library. If you haven't tried using Elena yet, I can't recommend it highly enough and this post is the perfect intro

Sam Neill on tackling depression and imposter syndrome when you’re between jobs.

I made a website that lets you cut out old magazines from the internet archive (or any PDFs you own) and make collage art out of them: ✂️ clipart.studio

In the meantime, I’ve got space for new projects. I help teams look at problems from fresh angles through playful exploration and a wide mix of inputs and cultural context, then turn that into meticulous, detail-oriented direction. If that sounds useful, please give me a shout. 2/2