1. The Week That Was

Summer is here and school’s out (well, my kids still have a week and a half left but the high-schooler doesn’t need attend most days––why?). During the next six weeks, Good Enough’s productivity will take a hit as some of us embark on vacations. Fear not, dear friends––the summer swelter will not stop us from delivering this exceptional newsletter and providing you with informative updates and engaging content.

In the past week: Lettini enjoyed a family vacation exploring the southern shores of New Jersey; Barry made a television appearance and still managed to find time to do some quacking at Good Enough; James packed up some exciting hardware for us as he prepared for his journey to the Americas; Arun wasn’t feeling well but he’s better now and has been fearlessly learning about native apps; Patrick had ants in his router (!?); and I’m finishing up the zine (titled, A Good Enough Zine). Here’s proof of us being Internet Professionals:

Yesterday the six of us had a video meeting. We traded stories about slot machines and turtle stew, and Patrick played his trombone. The next time all six of us will gather in a virtual room together will be in August. 🥲

We wish you a delicious weekend. ––SL

2. “I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares”

Saul Bass, world famous creator of excellent movie title sequences:

The fact of the matter is, I want everything we do, that I do personally, that our office does to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether the client understands that that’s worth anything, or whether the client thinks it’s worth anything, or whether it is worth anything. It’s worth it to me. It’s the way I want to live my life. I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.

Watch the full interview. –JA

3. Column or Snippet

I expected the arrival of my children to be accompanied by lots of stuff, but nothing completely prepared me for the never-ending stream of colorful plastic flowing into my house via the grandmother pipeline. Some of the toys are great, but a lot of them just end up in the landfill after a few hours of use.

I thought I’d use my space in this newsletter to tell you about some recent additions to our collection of things, and whether or not those things are Good Enough so you can avoid the same mistakes we were gifted.

• Bee Happy Narwhal Bubble Machine ($8.99 @ Aldi)Immediately set the kids off chasing after an impressive barrage of small bubbles, at least until the dangerous part of the swing set caught their attention. 6 minutes of peaceful play is 1000% GOOD ENOUGH

• Claire’s Club Light-Up Unicorn Wand ($8.99 @ Claire’s)These were an instant hit with my daughter and her cousins, but many of the lights stopped working after just a few MINUTES of real kid™ playtime. If your toy generates tears in the first 5 minutes it is most certainly NOT GOOD ENOUGH 

• Disney Encanto Sing-along Boombox ($29.99 @ Target)Disney obsesses over every last detail in their movies, but they’ll slap their name on any piece of junk and call it a toy. A heavy, $30 boombox that only plays one song over and over with an attached microphone that sounds like it was stolen from a NYC subway car is not a toy and it is definitely NOT GOOD ENOUGH

• Fisher-Price Sing-Along Microphone ($16.95 @ Wal-Mart)This microphone also only plays one song, but it’s small and light and when my daughter sings along with it she thinks she’s frickin’ Lady Gaga, which is most definitely GOOD ENOUGH

Happy shopping! ––PF

4. In Conclusion

Never could I have imagined we would publish a Professional Newsletter in which the words “light up unicorn wand” appear, but here we are. ––SL

1. The Week That Was

Dear friends, Chris Paul is now a Warrior. In the grand scheme of things, it means nada, but for little ol’ me who is interested in seeing the Warriors win one more championship with Steph Curry, it is a very big deal. What can I say? I spend a lot of time thinking about and fretting over these young men whose (very lucrative) job is to put an orange ball through a metal hoop.

A few weeks ago I promised to explain to you what we’re doing here at Good Enough, and finally I wrote a blog post about it. In short: we’re spending the rest of the year building prototypes and experimenting with different ideas. We’re a month and a half into it, and so far we have:

1. Built a prototype for an app called logloglog,

2. Made a little website called Chicken or Egg, which has led to a very interesting project that we hope to share with you soon.

3. Finished a zine. YES, a zine! More on it below.

4. Made Good Enough TV.

5. Put on the finishing touches of a simple online editor called Quack. (Maybe Barry will share it next week?)

6. And James has assembled the pieces for us to put together our own little thermal printer (which we’ll build in August).

And we’ve been writing! Not only have we kept our promise of writing this newsletter each week, we’ve also been writing on our blog:

• Barry explained how to deploy a Sinatra app to Render.com

• James tried to argue that cool URLs don’t die

• Lettini shared something he learned about the Web Manifest file

• Barry compiled a list of our favorite video games

• And Lettini wrote about his connection to a Marvel Winter Soldier cover

My family and I are going on a summer vacation next week, and my brave colleagues will carry on this newsletter. Have a fantastic summer, and I’ll see you all in mid-July! ––SL

2. Cosmic Challenges

While we’re hoping to land amongst the stars with our 2023 moonshot, this way of working doesn’t come without its challenges. Having the ability to build almost anything can also lead to a bit of mental lock-up due to a “paradox of choice.” Decision fatigue can also creep in, as we each are choosing what to work on, how to scope what we’re working on, and how to build the details of each prototype. We have also had to figure out on the fly how we’d like to organize each project, who will lead the decision-making process on a given project, and how to talk about all of our ideas for a given active project.

In particular, we need to determine the goal of each project. Is it to play with some technology, as a basis of building a piece of tech that we can use throughout future products, or to test the product we’re building itself? We are also fighting our tendency to apply all of our experience in order to make each thing we’re building into the best version of the thing that we’re building. At times it is difficult to focus as we consider all the possible useful paths we could go down with a given idea.

None of these avenues of thought are bad in themselves, but they can get in the way of our goal to try to play with many, many ideas this year. Thankfully we have a good grassroots effort in practicing idea generation. Thankfully we have a good sense of checking and balancing each other, raising concerns when our conversations get confusing or unfocused. Thankfully we’re aware of the challenges! —BH

3. A Good Enough Zine

Six weeks ago Arun suggested that we make a zine, and I thought: what a stupid idea. I told my wife about it, and she said, that sounds like a great idea and you should do it! And so I’ve started A Good Enough Zine.

The first issue documents the goings-on at Good Enough in May 2023. It’s at the printer right now, and I can’t wait to see the printed copies when I get back to Brooklyn in late July! ––SL

4. Open Tabs

This week I asked my fellow Good Enough colleagues what are some of their open tabs in their browsers, and here’s a short list of curious links for you to accumulate:

• Lettini: CJRB Pyrite is an edc pocket knife that’s all the rage right now (and I just Kickstarted a titanium version).

• Lettini: Seiko metronome watch is pretty cool. Was googling after watching this.

• Shawn: An interview with the designers behind the beautiful Le Puzz puzzles.

• Barry apparently have 80 (!) open tabs and he shared this: Entire nation of Liechtenstein (almost).

• Barry: I was reminded of Dragon’s Lair recently, and remembered it as stupid hard. So after all of these years I want to watch a playthrough.

• Patrick: Using Diatomaceous Earth on Ants: Complete DIY Guide: We had ants for a couple days (including in my freaking wifi router) so I was googling about how to use a non-chemical solution to control them. They seem to have stopped on their own???

• Patrick: The surprising geography of gun violence

• Arun: Pocketmod & one-page RPG systems

Happy browsing! ––SL

5. Lettini Screeni

This week’s Lettini Screeni is too scary and gruesome for children, but that’s when I first watched it. My exact age escapes me, so let’s say I was lucky number 13. I had stayed up too late watching tv, this came on HBO or something, and I watched the whole thing. It’s now one of my all-time favorite movies and the reason I like horror generally: Event Horizon. Watch it with your kids! [I did, and it’s totally not appropriate for kids! ––SL]

It’s about a ship that can create wormholes as a means to travel the galaxy faster than light, except it goes missing after creating a wormhole to hell. Now it’s back, and it brought hell with it. That sounds cheesy, and it is! But it’s also great. It also stars two sci-fi legends—Laurence Fishburne and a fresh-off-Jurassic-Park Sam Neill—so you know it’s good.

Horror and space don’t often mix well. Outside the Alien franchise, most movies that try to do scary-in-space just don’t work, for whatever reason. Ignoring some absolutely dated CGI in the beginning, Event Horizon is the exception—it’s fucking creepy, and pretty brutal at times. Highly recommended late-at-night watch. —ML

6. In Conclusion

1. The Week That Was

Last week Shawn talked about the good fortunes of his favorite basketball team. This week I get to talk about my favorite baseball team (Minnesota Twins) relinquishing first place in their division for the first time since April 10th. Actually, I don’t want to talk about it. Their division is terrible and the team is terrible and some big things will have to happen to make me care much about them for the rest of the summer. (This gives me more time for my burgeoning Immaculate Grid addiction.) Then maybe I can start getting excited for the fall and Timberwolves basketball. LOL. No.

Oh, we launched a thing! Quack (Beta) is a front-end implementation of an idea we had to provide a link to beautifully rendered markdown text. We think it’s quite pretty, fun, and a little unwieldy, but also useful! In case you’re curious, I wrote about the Why and the How.

Aside from launching Quack (Beta)… Lettini has also been hacking on one of our cosmic prototypes as well as helping us to give Spinal a try as a means to update the Good Enough blog. Arun has been playing with an elevated browser editing experience. And Patrick has been putting on his project management hat for a very exciting project or two. He’s feeling purple. ––BH

2. Taking a break

From late June to late July the Good Enough team has a flurry of absences. When Shawn and I started this company, one of our big challenges was wanting to balance our time between work and family. When our children are out of school in the summer, it is important to us to spend time with them and make memories as families.

It turns out our entire team is on a similar page as us! So almost everyone is taking a break in this stretch of time for various different vacations, downtimes, friend visits and more. The one person who isn’t taking time off now is planning for a good break later in the summer. Oh, and James is going to be visiting Patrick. We best have pictures soon! ––BH

3. At the Movies

Summer is a time for pools, beaches, vacations, getting outdoors, and getting indoors. Blockbuster summer movies have already started rolling in as a perfect way to catch some air-conditioned entertainment. Recently I was excited to learn about an entire, exhaustive playlist of Siskel & Ebert episodes from all of the show’s incarnations. I haven’t (re-)watched a single episode yet, but I surely will. My parents owned a small town movie theater for about fifteen years. In part because of that I would enjoy listening to Siskel & Ebert fight with each other about a movie on lazy weekend afternoons. If I had to pick a critic that I am most likely to align with, it would be Roger Ebert. (Check out the wonderful documentary, Life Itself, if you’re curious.) I don’t agree with him across the board, but we jive a lot more than we disagree.

This playlist also has me looking forward to summer movie season! I’m particularly interested in what my kids want to see this summer. One movie they’re excited about that I’m not too interested in is The Little Mermaid (live action). I’m not as strongly against Disney princesses as some are, but these live action remakes have generally felt, ironically, lifeless. They’d also like to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which brings about a morbid curiosity in me. We all want to see Barbie. The collection of talent around that movie is just too fascinating to resist.

And, yes, we’ve already seen, and loved, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse! ––BH

4. We Out

Thanks for catching up on our happenings here at Good Enough. With all the break-taking we’re doing, it looks like next week we’re down to one lonely soul, and that means no newsletter for the people. Look for us to be back at it in mid-July. In the meantime, please send us a postcard from your vacation! Our address is at the bottom of this email.

1. The Week That Was

It’s been a quiet fortnight. As mentioned in the previous newsletter, various vacations and visits meant that half of our team have been out of office for a good chunk of June and July. Shawn and Barry have travelled East, and I — this is James writing, btw — journeyed South and West.

But I’m back now! And I have seized been given the reins of this newsletter to share a little about what’s been going on in the world of Good Enough since we last met. Just give me a minute or two to catch up on Slack, Basecamp, Ponder, LogLogLog, Email, Github…

… OK. Phew.

On our blog, Patrick has shared his quest to find and listen to a song from the soundtrack of a pilot TV show from more than twenty years ago. He’s also been doing some deep thinking about an upcoming super simple site serving service, which we hope can become a great home for the Weird Web.

Lettini has been looking closely at Meta’s Tweet-a-like offering “Threads”, which leveraged Instagram to attract over 100 million users in less than a week. It remains to be seen whether or not Threads will supplant Twitter (and whether or not it can do it without becoming a dumpster fire), but in the meantime, it has some quite nice UX affordances that we are impressed with (for example, how images are handled).

Arun has been ideating and synergising, but more importantly, stepping away from the work to think about how we work, particularly during this rapid prototyping phase. When anything is possible, discipline and process become our rudder, steering us away from chaotic whirlpools of distraction and towards (hopefully) interesting islands of investigation and innovation. The codename for this nascent process is Next Steps. I’m excited to get involved.

My head is full to the brim. Vacations are great, but it’s also nice to be back, refreshed, engines humming with potential. Let’s go!

2. Printers

As part of my travels, I couriered the printer control boards I made a few weeks ago to Patrick, who had taken receipt of a few other necessary components, and between day trips to the pool and nights drinking cocktails and cheesecake (eating, not drinking, that’s insane, what are you talking about, no, I’m not jet-lagged, YOU are jet-lagged), I assembled and configured the printer units for dispatch to the rest of Good Enough.

Pretty soon we will have a bunch of these little buddies operating, and can start some material exploration. What might we find, a decade after the original project (and its commercial cousin) had their fifteen minutes of fame? I don’t know. Maybe you have some ideas?

In the meantime, I have a printer running on my desk here in London, and if you’d like to send me a message, head over to the little message app I built, and it’ll print out like a little charming telegram.

Click here to send our printer a message.

I await your urgent dispatches, dear reader!

3. Watch/Read: Two perspectives on the dawn of personal computing

Most of us at Good Enough are thoroughly enjoying this golden age of prestige television, and we like to share reactions and recommendations whenever possible. Over cocktails with Patrick and Lettini, I was reminded of one of my favourite shows, which follows a handful of characters through the very early years of the personal computing revolution: Halt and Catch Fire. I highly recommend it.

If you’ve already seen Halt and Catch Fire, you might also enjoy this comic, available to buy, or read online: Incredible Doom by Matthew Bogart. It’s set in roughly the same era and touches on similar things, but from a very different perspective. The tagline: “A comic about '90s kids making bad decisions over the early internet.”

Now, I hand you over to Arun:

4. Waterfalls

I asked for suggestions on what to write.

Patrick: "Give us 3 paragraphs of stream of consciousness"

Matthew: "I vote river of consciousness"

James: "I vote WATERFALL of consciousness"

All I can say is: be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

From a stream to a river to a waterfall. Which of course brings to mind this song. It’s darker than I remember. Because all I typically remember is the chorus. 

"Don’t go chasing waterfalls. Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to."

Out of context, it feels preachy. And a bit alarmist. Waterfalls are amazing! In context, it still feels preachy, but… I get it. We were collectively very worried at the time about drugs and HIV. We called them epidemics. We watched them take lives and steal souls (sadly, they still do – but then, so does being alive).

So I did the thing that some of us do these days – I googled the lyrics. And discovered, on the wikipedia page, that there was a Paul McCartney song with a very similar line before TLC’s song. It, too, was called "Waterfalls."

“Don’t go jumping waterfalls

Please, keep to the lake

People who jump waterfalls

Sometimes can make mistakes.”

I want to go hunting for meaning here. Perhaps there’s some mythic significance to waterfalls. The power and beauty of nature. The way water is soft but, given time, can carve its way through the hardest of rocks. Soft but hard. Yin but yang. Your mom meets your dad and now, against all the odds, you exist. 

Why did James mention a waterfall? Is it a coincidence that, just a couple days ago on a trip to Portland, I was riffing with a friend about this song? Was Jung right about the collective unconscious? And if so, what the hell is it trying to say here?

Stay away from waterfalls? As if.

People can sometimes make mistakes? Yeah, we know.

Life is pretty goddamn strange? You bet. ––AS

5. In conclusion

IJames again. Let me leave you with this, from 1999’s “The Beast is Near”, which was my introduction to the world of David Shrigley. I think about it quite a lot.

I’ve never been able to find it online, and so as the final act of this newsletter, I consecrate this poorly-edited photo into online Valhalla, with hopefully-sufficient metadata such that future humans might be able to find it, and forever appreciate it as I do.

Until next week: keep it foolish. ––JA

1. The Week That Was

Just when you think you’re out, they drag you back in. After editing last week’s newsletter, I thought I was done for a few weeks, but I’m back folks: It’s me, James.

The vast and resplendent halls of Good Enough are still quiet this week, with folks travelling during these summer months, but if you listen carefully, you can still hear the unmistakable hum of work being done, thoughts being thought, and ideas being conjured and dispatched into the maelstrom.

On our blog, I wrote a little about managing the software for our Printer project. Building and updating software for the web is not exactly easy, but it’s orders of magnitude easier than building and updating software for a little box that’s going to sit on a desk with no visible means of configuring it.

I’ve also just deployed the first alpha version of Chicken, which is the codename for the part of the Cosmic Maelstrom that I’ve been conducting. Exciting times.

And, Lettini and I have shepherded in a lovely new feature for AlbumWhale. See below!

Elsewhere, work on our super simple single site serving service (who needs Amazon S3 when you can get Good Enough S6?!, amirite?) continues, but with a less technical and more philosophical perspective. Who do we want as users? Who do we not want as users? How do we steer that? But dear reader, do not worry: as a subscriber of this humble newsletter, you are officially pre-approved.

—JA

2. Album Whale, Remember Us?

It’s been a minute since we checked in on Album Whale, the second app we launched (after DoEvery.Day, remember that?). With our recent focus on prototyping new ideas, we haven’t updated the whale in a few months. Well over the course of those few months, we’ve gained a few hundred users, and we wanted an easier way to see who has similar taste. This week we added a new feature: the album page.

Every album added to a list in Album Whale now has its own page where you can see who else added it to their list, and what they have to say about it. Now it’s even easier to find great music and curators that share your same taste. Here’s an example:

Haven’t checked in on Album Whale in awhile either? Get back into it with these great lists from our community:

• Trilogies by Robert Rackley makes great use of our 3-up grid on desktop.

• Hardcore by Rachel Cabitt takes us on a brief visual history of the art of hardcore music (see also her related newsletter!)

• Instrumental stuff for Steve by stumpnugget is a list that begs the question “Who’s Steve?” and makes you realize “We all are.”

—ML

3. Tom Cruise Runnin’

Hello, this is Shawn reporting from Taipei, where it’s currently a mild 92 degrees. I really don’t like it here in the summer. 🥲One of the highlights of our trip so far is seeing Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning in the movie theater. 

No spoiler here! Ok maybe a little bit: Tom Cruise / Ethan Hunt ran a lot in the movie, and I clapped and cheered every time. It was a 1pm showing and there weren’t that many people in the theater and I didn’t care what people thought.

Tom Cruise running is one of the best things on screen, and my Good Enough friends agree. Lettini shared this gem of a YouTube video, and Patrick shared an ESPN article analyzing Tom Cruise’s running (he’s fast, but running coaches think that he can run faster if he were to angle his body forward a bit).

The most memorable thing about the movie was that the theater had good sound, crisp projection, tasty popcorn, and a quiet & respectful audience––which we haven’t experienced in movie theaters back in New York City. Alamo Drafthouse has terrible sound and their theaters aren’t dark enough (because they’re more like a restaurant with a screen). Regal and AMC have terrible projections and serve stale popcorn. And we’ve had some bad luck with the audience (annoying grownups making stupid comments, or children crying at an R-rated movie).

Please hook me up If you know of a good movie theater in New York City! Also: if you’re a parent with little kids, please don’t take them to see R-rated movies! Thank you!

(As for the movie itself: the plot was kinda weak, but the stunts and running were excellent. Good enough!)

—SL

3. Barbenwhatnow?

Patrick here to continue the movie train. You’ve no doubt heard this weekend brings the theatrical releases of Barbie and Oppenheimer – aka Barbenheimer. The pairing of two movies so thematically opposite has seemingly sparked a return to theaters (for at least one weekend anyways) and a lot of fun internet memes. Go look for yourself!

Not that long ago, I would have absolutely been signed up for a double feature weekend. Instead, I’m in a bit of a movie theater drought brought on by a 6 month old who won’t yet let his mom get away for long enough to sit through a full movie. Getting to see one movie in the theater this weekend would be an incredible treat – the luxuriousness of seeing two is almost unimaginable.

In a world where going to the movies was actually on the table this weekend, I’d have a genuinely hard time picking between the two. Oppenheimer is better reviewed and seems like the kind of fare perfect for giant screens and speakers. I love the way the Barbie movie looks from the costumes to the sets to the pink (my favorite color). I mean, just look at how meticulously crafted the Barbie Dreamhouse set is!

I’m not sure I could pick so I’d probably just take Shawn’s advice and see Mission Impossible.

–PF

4. Hello From Seoul

Barry is currently in the city of Seoul and sent us this photo:

5. In Conclusion

Two weeks in a row? Maybe this is my newsletter now. Tune in next week (i.e. please don’t unsubscribe) to see what I do with this unchecked power, or, more likely, which of my colleagues has successfully ousted me from my editorial throne and changed all my British English spellings back to American English.

Anyway, I must apologise, I’ve been rambling for some time now. How are you?

—JA

1. The Week That Was

I AM STILL IN CONTROL. This is James. The coup is complete. The paperwork is filed to rename “Good Enough” to “James Enough”. 

There is nothing wrong with your email client. Do not attempt to adjust the font size. I control your horizontal alignment and your vertical spacing. I can change the lucidity of my prose to mindless gibberflibberwibberish, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. You are about to experience the awe and mystery that stretches from my inner mind to…

… the outer limits. Or at least, into your inbox. 

[a floorboard creaks]

Oh, shit, no, wait, I can explain, I ca– [muffled noises, suggesting a struggle; the sound of keyboard smashing into British hands, a desperate scream, and then… silence, except for ragged breathing.]

Barry and Shawn are back from their travels. We are, once again, quorate. I apologise for my hubris and disrespect. I only hope I can earn their trust and respect again.

Work continues on projects codenamed Chicken, S6, and a new prototype that I will, this very moment, christen Howdy [editor’s note: we will probably change this almost immediately]. 

With everyone back, the volume of coal being shoveled furnace-ward increases exponentially, deep in the belly of the SS Good Enough, and we push ever forward across the Sea of Innovation, through the dark, moonless night of “But, Why?”.

I return the helm to you, Captain, and I will see myself to the brig. —JA

2. Back From the Other Side of the World

Shawn and I just returned from the other side of the world – East Asia. I don't know about Shawn, but I'm still a little bit grogged out by the jet lag. (Kidding. I do know. Shawn is jet-lagged as well.)  I'm also a little thrown off by no longer being present in either the safe, clean, and polite borders of Japan or the vibrant activity of Seoul. We're home and everything is a little more dirty and rude while our surroundings are a little less exciting and new (to us).

The great thing is that today we had a weekly meeting with the whole team for the first time in a long time! We mostly discussed travel and right-sized dogs, but we also touched on some important improvements that we can make in how we work. As all readers could have predicted, project management is unavoidable even with a small team working cosmically. As the dog days of summer approach, we will also be considering how we can keep our team a little more focused and together on the projects at hand.

To keep our vacation memories alive, we have good smells from a spray one of our hotels gladly sold us ($$$), lava rocks from Mt. Fuji in our water, and snacks just delivered from H Mart. I'm sure these things will have a calming effect on our demeanors. Happiness won't help but grow in our hearts. —BH

3. Lettini Screeni

“Found footage” movies can be pretty hit or miss, but let me tell you about a hit you might have missed: Chronicle.

Chronicle chronicles the story of three young men who happen upon some real deal superpowers. One of the kids is an inspiring filmmaker, hence the found footage art style (the reason this is not headache-inducing like Cloverfield is because he unlocks telekinesis, which makes the camera work very smooth and not shaky). He also happens to be the school loser, frequently bullied, and now recognizing he’s the one with all the power.

Starring a young Michael B. Jordan and should-be-a-bigger-star Dane DeHaan, Chronicle was a surprise. It feels like what would really happen if a few young high schoolers really got superpowers — they discover and test their new powers, have some fun, get into some antics, and slowly but surely things start spinning out of control when their darker sides start to show. It’s an action thriller with an intense and uniquely filmed climax, and my favorite found footage movie to date. —ML

4. In Conclusion

Your chronicles may be fiction or fact. Your travels may be near or far. You may be groggy or alert. One thing we can all agree on is that you’re subscribed to this newsletter and you’re good enough. This newsletter was also good enough.

July is almost over. Summer is almost done. The kids are almost back to school. The first snowfall is almost here. Have a great weekend! —BH

1. The Week That Was

Konichiwa. This is Shawn (not James!). This past week was a hazy one for me, due to a combination of jet lag and a stomach bug. Maybe I should've asked Dr. James Adam to continue this column, but he was watching Barbie (the movie). I hope he enjoyed himself.

This week the fine people at Good Enough made great progress on the same three projects as last week (we'll tell you more soon!) and we wrote four blog posts:

1. Barry tried to convince us that Facebook isn't all bad,

2. James went deep on Turbo Stream and "You",

3. Lettini nerded out on System Colors, 

4. Barry also learned a thing about disabling password managers in a web form element.

I promise I’ve read at least half of those blog posts.  —JA SL

2. City Pop

I am deep in the throes of a City Pop addiction that I don’t think will ever subside completely. I’ve come back from Japan with the sounds of Plastic Love and Ride on Time on repeat in my head. Shiti poppu is a genre of crunchy eighties pop that swept Japan as the country’s tide rose along with their fortunes on the world’s economic stage. For whatever reason (nostalgia? happy music desires?) this genre is being rediscovered by young people in Japan, and through the power of YouTube it is crossing borders to be discovered for the first time by all sorts of listeners around the world.

This resurgence has led to glowing articles about the song Plastic Love. Many young Japanese artists have covered the song in YouTube videos, providing their own interpretation of the classic. Finally in 2019 Warner Music Japan released the first ever music video for Plastic Love. I agree with those articles – in my opinion the song is outstanding. The single sold 10,000 copies upon its release in 1985. In 2023, nearly forty years after its release, Plastic Love has now garnered over 100 million views on YouTube. Wow!

This whole City Pop thing is too big for even this award-winning newsletter. If you want to read more of my thoughts, please head on over to my award-winning blog. —BH

3. Would You Tell a Friend?

Our work here at Good Enough will not be successful if we are not able to get our ideas and products into the heads and hands of people around the world. The things we have built so far are on the border of useful, and we haven’t started charging for any of them to determine if they are valuable. We may not take that “value proposition” leap for a while, but getting the word out about what we are doing starts now.

If you find our newsletter interesting, we’d greatly appreciate it if you take a moment to think about your friends/family and consider if perhaps one of them would be curious enough to subscribe to our newsletter. Now that you have a name in mind, please share our newsletter with them. Use this link, or perhaps share a link to a specific newsletter or blog post that you think they would find interesting.

You’re reading A Good Enough Newsletter for a reason. I think that many of you believe there is still an Internet out there that isn’t terribly littered with ads and offers useful tools to help make our lives a little better. We believe that, too! The more people we can share our thoughts with, and who may be able to give us feedback on our experiments, the better. Thank you for considering! —BH

4. Interlude: The White Lotus Season Two Theme Be Like

If you’ve seen The White Lotus Season Two, then you’ll understand. If you haven’t, then… I don’t know, I’m not in a position to judge or anything, but… maybe you should?

(I was originally served this by the infinite machine of Never-Find-Again-ity that is Instagram Explore, but by the sweet grace of The Algorithm, it was just re-delivered to my eyeballs on Youtube, and I take that as a precise and unmistakable sign that I ought to share it here.)  —JA

5. In Conclusion

Now, may I tell you a story about R-15?

My family went to see the movie Oppenheimer while we were in Taipei. At the movie theater, a worker asked if our younger son was over 15 years old, I told the truth (he's not), and the theater guy told us that our son wasn't old enough and he couldn't let us in. Apparently the movie is rated "R-15," and by Taiwanese law they can't let a child under the age of 15 to see an R-15-rated movie, because can you imagine the damage an R-15-rated movie might do to the mind of an innocent child? 

I tried to reason with him. I told him we're his parents and we'll never tell the law authorities. I lied and said that our child was under-developed and he was actually almost 15 (he's 11). I reminded him that we're from America and the American government let us parents ruin their children by letting them see terrible, R-rated movies. I seethed and shook my head. I thought about crying and begging. My wife pulled me aside and said that she didn't want to watch Oppenheimer anyway and told me to take our 14-year-old son in (yes, he's under 15 but large enough that the theatre worker didn't bother questioning his age).

So our older son and I went in to see Oppenheimer (we missed the first 10 minutes because of all the aforementioned action), and we both thought the movie was excellent.

(And it was a good thing that the theater worker didn't let my wife and younger son in, as they would've hated it).

The moral of the story is that, if you're ever in Taiwan, check the movie rating if you plan to bring your children with you (and be prepared to lie about their age).

We hope you have a splendid weekend and we’ll see you again next week. ––SL

1. The Week That Was

May I start this week’s update with a joke?

What do you call an exploding monkey? (Punchline at the end of this newsletter.)

This was quite a week, and we’re finally ready to talk about what we’ve been cooking up during the past few weeks of Cosmic Maelstrom:

1. YAY.BOO –– The amazing duo of Patrick and Arun have been working their magic on this truly magical little site. It’s not completely ready yet, but if you’re curious, click here to try it out (at your own risk!).

2. Chicken –– This is a software for remote teams to quickly see who's around, who’s deep in focus, and (very very roughly) what other people are up to. We’ve been experimenting with an early version of this tool, and I really love it, but it’s not quite ready for public consumption (still lots of problems to work through). James is the lead on this project and he might, if you’re nice, tell you more about it next week.

3. Howdy –– The magnificent team of Lettini and Barry built this little site for you to make a simple “Contact Me” form. Why? Because some of us want there to be a way for people to get in touch without sharing our email addresses on the world wide web. (Of course you can easily make this page on a website builder, but some of us aren’t using Wix-space). We don’t know what to call this software yet. Let us know if you have any ideas!

Also––do you like zines? We’ve made a zine and it’s called A GOOD ENOUGH ZINE. Want a copy? Write us with your mailing address. USA only for now (sorry, we’re not making any money yet and international shipping is expensive!). —SL

2. Reframing Thoughts

Here’s a little step-by-step exploration of thoughts. It’s intended for any of us who, from time to time, struggle with intrusive or negative thoughts in any way.

Step 1: humans produce near-infinite rubbish thoughts

All you really have to do is look at any social media platform. People will just tell you all their garbage thoughts. All of them – and there’s quite a lot.

Or just look around at people. They think all kinds of things, and I’d be very surprised if you didn’t agree with me that most of the things people think and believe are, well, pretty silly.

Conclusion: humans generate a lot of thoughts, and most of them are not worth very much.

Step 2: it takes nothing not to believe in rubbish thoughts

Again, social media is very instructive here. There’s some stuff you agree with, surely, but a whole lot more of what you don’t. And it’s effortless to disbelieve those thoughts, to not be compelled to adjust your entire reality to fit the shape of those thoughts.

Conclusion: not believing thoughts is actually pretty easy.

Step 3: notice that you’re a human, too

We’ve established that humans think a hell of a lot of thoughts, and that most of them aren’t very good/productive/useful.

So here’s the critical step – a step of humility, really: you are a human, too, and so there’s a pretty good chance that not all your thoughts are winners.

And all you have to do is not automatically believe them! (see: Step 2)

Hard to believe, right?

See, part of the problem is that we seem to act as though a thought that happens in our head makes it special, automatically right in some way. It’s not. All it is is just another thought by just another human. And the more we notice and realize that, the freer we become from false or limiting patterns of automatic belief.

See for yourself: try thinking the thought "I am a panda with a unicorn horn." Almost certainly false, but you can think it. Just look at that – even your thoughts can be untrue!

Ultimately, a thought is just a thought – it’s not reality. And we might do well to extend a healthy skepticism toward ones that show up within, especially those gnarly ones that tell us stories about ourselves that are negative or harmful. Once we start believing thoughts, we start taking actions based on those beliefs, and that can lead to painful, uncomfortable, or just bad places.

Conclusion: you absolutely do not have to believe every thought you think. Do me a favor and think about that. ––AS

3. Tab Madness

One nice thing about having over 200 tabs in my mobile browser is that I can use those tabs as a sort of place to browse for writing topics. Like today when I was inspired to write a too-long and completely off-topic blog post about fixing things. After that, the very existence of all of those tabs (OMG SO MANY) led to this writing. So, yay?

This spring I had 500 tabs in that browser and had to declare TAB BANKRUPTCY, moving those tabs to a safe place where I'll never see them again. At least not until that day that I get my current tab overload handled and am frolicking around my browser looking for some hidden inspiration. Life is all about fooling yourself to believe that these types of scenarios will actually eventually occur.

I AM NOT ENCOURAGING THIS BEHAVIOR. All of the rosy ideas above are the tiny upside of having hundreds of browser tabs awaiting your attention. The downsides are numerous. For instance, every day you open your browser on your phone and wonder how you ever ended up here. Am I even a functioning adult?

Also, half of these tabs are related to a recent trip. I don't want to close them because I want to write a bunch of trip memories down. Why haven't I written those yet? Do I even care about that amazing trip and my intentions around remembering it?!

I recommend not using tabs as some awkward future to-do list. Document all of those things into actual to-do list software. Then you can feel this anguish at the appropriate time – when looking at your to-do lists! Keep your web-browsing pain where it should be, which is when you open x.com. ––BH

4. In Conclusion

Ba-Boom.

And what do you call another exploding monkey?

Oranga-BANG.

If you don’t like the joke:

1. Blame it on Dr. James Adam.

2. Send us better jokes (that will go to our little printer).

We hope you have a bangin’ weekend. 

1. A Good Enough Zine

Sometimes, something is so good that it’s worth repeating: dear friends, we’ve made a zine, and it’s called A Good Enough Zine. The first issue covers the events at our little business during the month of May. 30 pages of inside jokes and silly photos. Measures 6 by 9. Printed in color. 

Give us your address if you’d like a copy. ––SL

2. The Week That Was

Even though we’re a remote team, sickness still somehow spreads among us. Arun was sick in the beginning of the week, then I (Shawn) was down for a day, and now James has a bad cold. Be careful, Barry & Patrick!

(Matthew was out, too, but for a happier reason: he’s getting married! Congratulations! 🎉)

Our focus this week was to wrap up yay.boo (or is it YAY.BOO?). We’re done with almost all of the technical things, but the website still needs a few more finishing touches and we should be ready to official launch it next week. 👻

And we continue to publish High Quality Content over at the ol’ blog:

• Patrick wants you to consider pairing up if you’re stuck

• James pontificates on the identity anchor for us remote workers

––SL

3. Barry Shares Our Internet Finds

There is this site that comes online for about five weeks each year. It’s called The Life and Death of an Internet Onion. I haven’t actually read it, but sometimes you just enjoy that something exists? Yes. This breaks many rules of the Internet, including our own. No permanence, no deep links, varying design. Sometimes bad ideas are good ideas!

Iceberger is one type of page that we would love to see land on Yay.Boo. (Seriously, what’s the best way to type Yay.boo?) It’s a game inspired by a tweet, and it’s educational!

At first The Uncolouring Book entices you to outline the shapes you see in the clouds. Then it starts to get funny and weird and hilarious and weird. I’m sure it’s even better when people begin adding meaning to the colors/colours.

If you have any links that you think we’d dig, capitalizations that you’d like to propose for yAY.bOO, or shapes you’d like to draw for us, please fax (I mean print) them to us. —BH

4. Over at the Whale

Would you like some upbeat music? Humdrum got just the list for you on Album Whale. Or how about this list of chill grooves by Rute Correia?

Do you like music and food? Rachel Cabitt of The Art of Cover Art compiled this extraordinary list of albums with appetizing covers. 

5. In conclusion: get some sleep, will ya?

I’m supposed to be using my space today to recommend something and the only thing that comes to mind is “sleep”. Have you experienced it recently? It’s shockingly elusive for far too many of us!

My wife and I have a 7 month old at home and, although he’s been a pretty good sleeper in general, the last few weeks have been decidedly not so good. I’m sure you’re not interested in hearing yet another parent complain about how tired they are all the freaking time, so I’ll just tell you to stop fighting and close your eyes. Stop watching The Bear, skip that last game of Rocket League, and put the book down. It could literally add years to your life. —PF

1. Checking in on Chicken

Last week on the blog I wrote about The Space Between Us, and there I talked about my interest in exploring ways we can make groups and teams feel more “solid”. I think this is important for all teams, but particularly for ones where the majority of time is spent remote from each other.

For the past few months, we’ve been exploring this via an application called Chicken, which is a playful anagram of “Check-in”. It’s not for managing projects or coordinating work; it’s for creating the kind of environment that exists in a real shared space, where you can see who is around and approximately what they’re occupying themselves with just by glancing up from your screen.

Right now we use it to communicate things like “I’m here” or “I’m out”, and beyond that, some of what we happen to be working on at the moment. 

It’s our playground for exploring new ways to interact and share as a team. We’re exploring how this sits beside and interacts with software where teams already live. I’m also exploring new interactions and more glanceable ways to be together while we’re all spread across the world.

If you think this might be interesting for your team, or if you have any other thoughts about this––or anything!––please get in touch. —JA

2. The Week That Was

This week James was updating the printer software and this happened:

Apart from our printers malfunctioning, it was a quiet and calm week. Nothing major to report. Ah, for those of you who requested the zine––just this morning I affixed the required three First-Class stamps on each envelope, and my wife just dropped them off at the mailbox, so you should receive your copy next week! —SL

3. That Feeling When You Keep Trying and Failing

You ever have that thing you’re trying to solve and it seems like it should be so easy and you keep trying this/that/the other and it keeps not working and you kind of feel like you’re going mad? That thing was happening to me on Wednesday. After doing the hard thing (with the help of James) to build a little montage image of the covers for an Album Whale album list, figuring out how to get that image to appear on the fancy card Twitter offers for shared links was seemingly impossible. I tried everything (I thought), eventually heading to Yay.Boo so I could more rapidly get public links with different options to test.

Often finding the solution to these problems is a let down. It can be a typo or, as in this case, not reading the documentation. Anyway, after a night of sleep I figured out my problem on Thursday morning, changed it up, and suddenly things worked. Yay! 

The Boo of the matter is, while I had 20 tabs open and felt that, boy, I should have learned something, the main positive to take away was simply that the thing I wanted to do was finally working. The problems I had overlooked were all written about on the Internet already. While there’s one library documentation update I can offer, mostly it’s a reminder that not all days in software land feel super successful or creative. And that’s okay! —BH

4. In Conclusion

Maybe you can clone the Mona Lisa better than I did? (We love how VOLE.wtf is keeping the internet weird.) Hope you have a calm, quiet, yet dazzling weekend!

1. Sometimes we watch videos on the internet

You may remember a while back that we put up a little project on our homepage called Good Enough TV. It’s still going strong, with a number of new videos in August. We keep adding to it, hoping some folks out there find it to be a useful filter on the world wide internet. We are also curious if it will become a remototem for our team.

Recently we discovered two new trailers: The Killer from David Fincher and FERRARI from Michael Mann (!). There are also new movies coming soon from Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott. Combined with a summer of Greta Gerwig, Christopher Nolan, etc, it seems we’ve run into a very good year for movies. Hooray for us! —BH

2. The Week That Was

A reader sent us this wonderful chicken drawing! Would you like to draw something for our little printer?

This week James helped Lettini with his printer (yes, each of us have a little thermal printer set up so we can send each other secret messages). And they improved the drawing interface, which made me very happy. We have some more fun ideas for the printer, but it’ll have to wait as everyone but Barry & I are taking next week off.

We’re also turning our attention back to LogLogLog, a small little web-app we made back in May. We’d like to improve it a bit and share it with the world, and you’ll hear more about it in the coming weeks.

Last but not least: tomorrow is Barry’s birthday! Write him a joke or a poem? —SL

4. Sharing is Caring

Here are some recent discoveries that are too good to keep to ourselves. ––SL

• Barry shared this interview with designer Matt Stevens, creator of the Good Movies as Old Books series, for which he reimagined films as vintage books. My favorite book covers: Fargo, Get Out, Alien, and Fight Club. If you like those covers, consider supporting his Kickstarter project!

• The folks at Panic are publishing another beautiful game: Despelote. I love how it looks (also love how the website cuts up that background image on top so that when you scroll the page there’s a surprising layered effect).

• This Buttondown’s breakdown of all the software it uses to run itself is very useful. We’ll remember to share our stack when we start making some money.

• Lettini shared this CSS meetup that he plans to attend in September. I love the design of that website: nice font, pretty color combination, and fun logo sketches!

• Lettini, a CleanShot X fan fanatic, shared this little demo video of some impressive new features. 

• Barry shared this a while ago, but it’s worth sharing again: The Judd Library website, designed by Chips. The site navigation design is so well done, and the breadth of data is mind-boggling. There’s no way that Judd read all them books, right?

• My younger son shared this ridiculous and hilarious site with me: Find the Invisible Cow (from 2013, but I’ve never seen it till now).

• And if you’re looking for something to read this weekend, may I suggest this fascinating investigation about a foot bridge in Minneapolis? Both James and I came across the article and shared it with Barry twice. Happy birthday, Barry!

3. Lettini Screeni

Would you believe that a straight-to-streaming movie would be a Lettini Screeni? Because that’s what we got this week with Prey.

Prey is built off of one of the best movie ideas I’ve heard in years: Take a monster movie and set it 300 years in the past for no good reason. It’s the fifth installment in the Predator franchise, and like many monster movie franchises, those have gone consistently downhill after the second one. So to revitalize it, rather than make yet another sequel, this one is a prequel, though not in the traditional sense: it doesn’t go into any lore or origins. It’s just a really cool fight between a young Native American warrior girl and a predator, harkening back to what made the first movie so potent.

But it’s good! I think that’s due to having a solid director in Dan Trachtenberg, who also did 10 Cloverfield Lane, another fantastic evolution within a monster movie franchise (which you should also watch, it could be its own Lettini Screeni). Anyway, this is a Hulu Original movie, so you’ll annoyingly need Hulu to watch it, but I promise it’s worth that. —ML

4. In Conclusion

The US Open is my favorite sporting event in New York City (I love basketball but Steph Curry only comes into town a few times a year), and I’d like to remind you of this delicious moment from four years ago when a young brash player named Medvedev embraced the booing crowds (two years after that he won the US Open).

We hope you have a tasty and breezy weekend. ––SL

1. Hooray for Yay.Boo

A few months back, I was tickled when Shawn asked me to dedicate some time to a very important project about one of life’s great questions. Building a silly website with no real purpose other than to make ourselves laugh took me back to the earliest days of my time building websites – when I would make something just to see if I could.

That kind of energy is what inspired us to build Yay.Boo. We wanted to make a place where there was very little friction between building something and seeing it alive on the interwebs. I’m really happy with how well we delivered on that mission. Watch how fast I published a very important website yesterday:

Our hope is that Yay.Boo might inspire you to build something weird and share it with us. It’s so easy! It’s so fun! There’s no pressure to be perfect or to build something that can make you millions — it’s hopefully a little like the weird web of the old days.

See you there? —PF

2. The Week That Was

Hi there, folks. Sorry that we didn’t send out a newsletter last week. Did you miss us? Some of our crew were out, and most of last week, it was just Barry and I:

(That’s a screenshot of Chicken, an experimental app built by James to address the problem of team presence. If you’re curious, let us know!)

What we’ve been doing lately:

• Barry worked on a photo montage for Album Whale. Now, when you share a list on Twitter or Mastodon, there will be a pretty preview image made up of the four latest album art on the list. This turned out to be a much trickier problem than we expected!

• Barry also brought a few refinements to Ponder, our little forum software.

• Patrick continued on Yay.Boo which you just read about. Try it!

• James bought a webcam to film the Good Enough printer. What for? You’ll find out soon!

• Arun returned to the land of native app development this week, and I’m excited!

• Shawn (that’s me!) labored over the next issue of A Good Enough Zine and is hoping to send it to the printer next week.

Take a look at these fun doodles we received on our printer! Thank you! Keep those drawings coming and tell your friends about it! ––SL

3. Side Effects May Be Vomit 🤮

Our youngest has decided to run cross country this fall. It’s kind of unfathomable to me as neither my wife nor I had any interest in running during our younger years. The first thirty-five years of our lives would find someone talking about running and us responding with “that sounds terrible.” (Still does to me.) From those genetics comes a girl who says one day “I like running.” Now that she’s into it I don’t know if she or we are sure if she actually likes running, though she is enjoying it as the team dynamic seems to be very good! (We’ve asked around. Apparently this is a consistent theme in many communities: “The cross country team is so nice!”)

Our daughter’s participation means we’ve attended a few cross country meets now. Not infrequently people will cross the finish line and rather immediately spew forth the contents of their lunch and other various bus snacks. This finds me further struggling to understand the sport. Perhaps this would be a good Yay.Boo site: A list of the contexts where vomiting is considered somehow good or positive. Certainly at times a good chunk-blow can be relieving, though I connect that feeling to illness or inebriation. Perhaps it’s good for your body to be pushed physically and mentally to the point that you have a physical release of your stomach’s contents? Or the upsides outpace the downsides? Convince me! —BH

4. Sharing is Caring

• A clock where time is mentioned on YouTube, created by Russell Samora for The Pudding –SL

• I don’t need another browser but Horse (a web browser) has the most excellent site. –SL

• I ran into Gossip’s Web when reading People & Blog’s interview with Rachel J. Kwon. There is so much good stuff on the Internet! –BH

• Don’t Go JSON Waterfalls (from Gossip’s Web, which is a dangerous website if you want to be productive!) –SL

• Yesterday morning we were all looking at this live stream of a waterhole in Namibia, hoping to spot a giraffe (no luck, but there were plenty of Gemsboks). The site is an experiment using PartyKit, made by Matt Web, and the live stream is provided by Gondwana. –SL

• EmojiGen is the ideal app to finally get that :capybara: emoji for your team’s Slack –BH

5. In Conclusion

So we have arrived at the end of our time together this week. I say our time, because this is no one-sided exchange. We have an assignment for you! If you have any love for the weird web, we’d greatly appreciate it if you put up a goofy site at Yay.Boo. We also need you to make us a drawing. Get creative and it’ll give us a smile. You’ll probably smile as you do it. Smiling is contagious! Yay! ––BH

1. Printer Gallery

Thank you all for the special drawings you’ve sent to our little printer. We’ve created a gallery for all the magnificent art. Keep them coming and please tell your friends!

This thermal printer project has been a lot of fun, and we’re not done. Look what James has been building:

2. The Week That Was

Half of the team has been feeling under the weather this week, but we managed to get a few things done:

• James worked on a surprise for the printer project that we hope to share next week!

• Patrick created a little site on Yay.Boo and we think it might be is his best work at Good Enough.

• Arun continues to hack on the mobile app for BumbleLog (it has a name now!).

• Barry built the admin section for the printer gallery and he made improvements to Ponder.

• Matthew experimented with a new color scheme for BumbleLog and helped build the printer gallery.

• And little ol’ me submitted the next zine to the printer and drew a little printer:

  

 —SL

3. Pumpkin Spice

Moving to the suburbs has been full of adjustments for me, but one of the things that has surprised me most is how much I’ve come to enjoy fall. I am no fan of pumpkin spice, but I am absolutely all about that leaf peeping!

I grew up in midwestern corn country and the changing of seasons from summer to autumn means empty, flat, brown fields as farmers harvest their crops. The changes in the Northeast come with rolling hills full of explosive reds, yellows, and oranges. My normal morning drive goes from ho-hum to holy shit! lol, yes I just wrote that.

The big show appears headed my way starting next week and I am ready to move my desk outside. See you out there? —PF

4. In Conclusion

From Barry’s better half:

I’m taking my younger son to Superiority Burger tonight and I intend to have a fantastic weekend. We sincerely hope your weekend will be full of spice and zest. See you next week. 💜

1. Welcome, Patrick 🎉

Our lone part-timer, Patrick Filler, decided to join us full-time this week. He shared his intention with Barry and me on Tuesday, while I was busy scanning in prints (for our beautiful Guestbook), and I wrote him a quick response:

good morning and thanks for the note.

He didn’t like that. So let’s try again:

Patrick, thank you for your interest in joining Good Enough full time. We are pleased to welcome you to the [Company Name] family and are confident that you will be a valuable asset to our team. ❤️ —SL

2. Live from London: the Good Enough Guestbook

Y’all—we got a live feed on our little printer. Which means that after you draw us a beautiful doodle, you can now see your masterpiece come out of the printer. HOW COOL IS THAT!? SO COOL. SO, SO, SO COOL.

Take a look at this beautiful setup James got going at his co-working office in London:

I work with some smart motor flockers and I have no idea how any of this works (even after James’s eloquent explanation). But I did draw this capybara.

What are you waiting for? Get scribblin’!! 😘—SL

2. The Week That Was

This week was all Yay.Boo and Guestbook, both of which are starting to see some action from people none of us know in real life. Seriously, look at those bountiful guestbook drawings!

There’s a sort of validation that comes from seeing strangers use the things we’ve built that makes us feel like we’re on to something over here. Our goal isn’t just to make silly projects, but rather to remind as many people as possible that the web can be weird and interesting and fun and isn’t just a machine for turning human eyeballs into dollars. Maybe it’s workhhhhhing a little bit.

To those of you reading who don’t know us IRL, welcome. We truly appreciate your time and attention… and we genuinely want to know what the hell we did to deserve it. Reach out and say hi or to tell us we’re terrible or whatever!

Other goings on:

• Matthew learned about touch-action in CSS to prevent double-tap-to-zoom on phones.

• James discovered Tapback keyboard shortcuts in Mac’s Messages.

• Arun got back to his art marking ways and built a revolutionary text editor.

• Barry will pick a crayon for you (and tell you the date & time).

• Shawn set up an Instagram account for Good Enough.

3. Distant Friends

My mornings are usually pretty quiet. I’m in London, and until lunch my colleagues are all still blissfully unconscious in the United States of Snooze. This offset works well in some respects; it gives me some time to focus, some time to reflect. And as my colleagues slumber, far, far away, I’ve—somewhat appropriately—been thinking a lot about distant friends.

One of the great curses of modern life is that our closest friends are often far away. A hundred years ago, the only people you knew lived in your town, or your street, and you’d see them all the time, your lives woven together into a community of daily familiarity and support. 

Today, we travel so much more, and so much further, and we meet people from all over the world. And sometimes those people end up being your people, just because that’s how the stars were shining that fateful night you met. We’re lucky to meet these friends—people we might never have otherwise known—but sometimes it can be years between actually seeing them.

Life pulls us geographically apart, and though the internet lets us stay connected, there’s no substitute for actually being there. For being able to help haul an armchair to their mother-in-law’s house, or to sit quietly beside them while they are in pain. For having an unplanned drink on their stoop on a warm night, or being able to talk without screens, without purpose and without the pull of getting back to “real life”. For our kids to play and grow up together while we sit, watch, and smile.

Until we finally get Star-Trek-style transporter technology, that’s just how it’s going to be, and let me tell you: it breaks my heart. So, to my distant friends: I love you so, so much, and I wish I could be there with you, all the time. 

No, I’m not crying, you’re crying. —JA

4. Sharing is caring

• Have some self-respect and smarten up your quotes, people. —ML

• Sites like Cordog.io and Corgi Orgy are big inspirations for Yay.Boo. —BH

• I used Pirate Ship for the first time this week and was really impressed with how easy and smooth their software was (and the shipping rates were incredibly low). —SL

• Is the art, the art, or does it go beyond that? What is an art? Am I an art? —JA

• In our team meeting this morning I mentioned Obvious Plant, and James told us about Leg Boot and their Bugkiss toy. (If you know anything about toy-making, please let us know!) —SL

• No idea what Special Fish is but we dig it! —SL

• Do you feel that you talk too much (or too little) on video calls? Check out Unblah. (Via Rafał) —SL

5. In Conclusion

Here’s a prize for getting this far: we’ve just received the latest issue of A Good Enough Zine, and you’re the first to know. If you want a copy, email us your mailing address.

It’s decorative gourd seasons, motherfuckers. We’ll see you again in October.

1. Two Comes After One

The second issue of A Good Enough Zine is here. It’s much better than the first one—I’d even go so far as saying that it truly is good enough. If you’d like a copy, email us with your address.

For the curious, here’s a blog post about the why and how of making the zine. —SL

2. The Week That Was

This week was Yay.Boo all the way:

• chalk-swirl.yay.boo

• coalesce.yay.boo

• wikitrails.yay.boo

• pi.yay.boo

• achoo.yay.boo

• nothingtoseehere.yay.boo

• intentionallyblank.yay.boo

3. Halloweeni Screeni

Long-time followers of my Screeni columns have probably noticed they were almost all horror/suspense/thriller-genre movies. What can I say, I love them. And it’s Halloween month! And there’s a Friday the 13th next week! It’s a great month for great movies. Hot tip: all of the Scream’s are on Paramount Plus, except 4 which is on Starz or Peacock or something, for some reason.

For the last few Halloweens, my wife and I have picked a “theme” and tried to stick to that for the month. One of the more enjoyable ones was “werewolves” and my unexpected favorite movie that year is this week’s Screeni: Ginger Snaps.

Ginger Snaps is a B-level movie with an A-level theme. It’s a werewolf movie, so you know the plot: two main characters, one is bitten by a werewolf, and she needs to be stopped. But it’s the only werewolf movie I’ve seen that relates transforming into a werewolf with women going through puberty and menstruation. It makes a lot of sense: they’re both based on moon cycles, they both have an overarching theme of body transformation, and it’s personal perception whether that turns you into a god or a monster. My wife and I really enjoyed this spin.

Brimming with early 2000s vibes and containing no real actors of note, Ginger Snaps is heavily under-rated and still holds up today. If you didn’t have Halloween plans yet this year, now you do! —ML

4. Sharing is Caring

• We’re inspired by Steve Ruiz’s tldraw, an incredible web-based drawing / whiteboarding tool.

• Barry shared an article about scrobbling CDs. I didn’t realize people still cared about CDs (or Last.fm!?).

• Patrick shared the trailer for Dream Scenario (it’s a good one). He should maybe put that on tv.goodenough.us?

• Barry shared this very disturbing thread about what people put on the cistern of their toilets.

• This morning I was reading Rafał’s latest and most excellent blog post which led me to Dither it!, an awesome web app for dithering images (by Alex Harris), and that took me to the solar-powered website of Low-tech Magazine where I’ve lost an hour of my time and nearly forgotten about this newsletter. I ❤️ the internet. —SL

5. In Conclusion

We hope you have a glorious weekend. Perhaps you’ll take Lettini’s suggestion and watch a B-movie, or you might look for a live broadcast of Coco vs Swiatek at the China Open (isn’t it incredible how hard it is to watch professional tennis?). Or maybe try this chili recipe, send our printer a Halloween-inspired drawing, take a walk, ride a bike, eat an apple, read a manga, pet a cat. I don’t know, guys, I’ve got food coma and I want to take a nap. —SL

1. The Week That Was

Let’s start with a correction of a bone-headed mistake I made last week: here’s the blog post about how I made A Good Enough Zine. And a reminder: if you want a copy of our new and improved issue 2, email us your address.

This week was all Yay.Boo (and next week or two will be the same). We love this project and want to add a payment plan to it, so that people can upgrade for a few extra features—and we can have a sustainable revenue stream to keep Yay.Boo going forever.

And in case you missed it, take a look at this mesmerizing art by Arun.

2. Introducing Dusted: A Shop for Better Popcorn

My wife Rianna loves home-made popcorn and experimenting with big, bold, unique flavors. I’m partial to white cheddar myself, but that’s too run-of-the-mill for her. After years of flavor hunting and finding some amazing products (like seasonings that actually stick to the popcorn), she is now creating a space to share those products with other people who also love making popcorn at home. If you’re reading this newsletter and are a fan of Good Enough, you might just be one of those people! So check out her new shop Dusted which launches today.

Dusted is a store for everything you need for making popcorn at home: a curated selection of kernels, popping oils, finishing oils, unique dusts and seasonings, and of course, gear to make and serve popcorn. But its flagship product is its Popcorn Packs, Rianna’s hand-picked bundles that give you everything all at once. Have you ever had popcorn that tastes like ramen? I hadn’t either! It’s delicious. Ramen is the first pack she’s launching with, in two flavors (spicy and umami), just in time for the cooler weather.

Dusted is based out of Brooklyn & ships nation-wide in the US. In her words:

Dusted exists as this celebration of exciting flavors, and as a place for popcorn nerds to find everything they need to truly nerd out about their home popcorn. No other popcorn lover should have to waste time scouring the internet for delicious, quality ingredients. Dusted is more than just a shop; it's a popcorn bazaar that celebrates the simple joy of one of life's best snacks.

Happy snacking! —Matthew

4. Sharing is Caring

• Our friend Dan Marino launched an EP last week. He’s charging $3 on Bandcamp but I paid $5 because I’m nice.

• Barry shared this cool JS library that lets you make games that look like retro 80s computer interface.

• This 2001 Nintendo website is perfection.

• Tim Holman (of a useless web) made another useless website: The Long Doge Challenge. It’s like the endless horse but a dog(e) and lots of wows.

• Barry found the Magic Bullet and it’s advertised to help me unlock my brain’s potential so I can finally achieve my goals!

—Shawn

5. In Conclusion

Our printer received more great drawings this week! It’s incredible to see how the gallery has grown, with so many beautiful drawings now on the website. Thank you.

Wishing you a fabulous and safe weekend. Remember to floss and hydrate. Watch out for dog poop and bird droppings, and when in doubt: turn right. We’ll see you next week.

1. The Week That Was

Yesterday our Guestbook project was momentarily the top story on Hacker News, and that brought us a sudden and enormous wave of traffic that we did not expect. The site was brought to its knees and our little printer was overwhelmed—and poor James was just watching all of this happen at his co-working space in London.

We’re grateful for the attention. But our little art project is a labor of love, and we never expect 800 prints in one day. (Before yesterday, we were receiving about a handful of drawings every day, and I would re-print each drawing and scan it.)

To all the people who sent us drawings: THANK YOU (well, actually, most of them are probably not reading this newsletter, but still). Unfortunately about 50 drawings didn’t come through, and we won’t be able to scan most of the prints.

The funny thing is that I just wrote a blog post about marketing & preparing for when people show up—and we were clearly not prepared! But we’ve learned from the experience and there will be a follow-up about the event. 

Aside from the Guestbook excitement, this week was all Yay.Boo: billing, custom domains, and a few fun goodies. The goal is to finish it next week and turn our attention to Letterbird (it’s not ready, so please proceed with caution if you want to try it). —Shawn

2. What Do You Notice?

You’re having some kind of experience right now, presumably. At the very least, I know that I am. Something seems to be happening.

It's easy to forget this! It's so easy to get mesmerized by the goings-on of the world, of our day, of our duties, obligations, projects, goals, and struggles. And on and on – you know this game.

But underneath all of that is the raw, unadulterated fact of experience. Something is happening. How do I know? I don’t know, but there’s always a surprising amount of things to notice, just by noticing what I'm noticing. 

Right now, I notice:

a mild ringing in my ear

a thought about the form of this piece of writing

the taste of a burp (tastes like coffee)

a bit of pressure at the top of my head

a sharp, almost stinging sensation in my throat

a sense of movement from there up into my head

more pressure

the wavy nature of that pressure

the sight of my hands typing at the bottom of my visual field

the smooth moistness of my eyes blinking

a thought about whether this is interesting or not

a thought about trying to land some narrative-poetic art

a hint of an emotion flowing up my torso (a hint of a taste of sadness)

a thought about making sure to assure you that I'm ok

wondering if that even matters – why would you care?

little micro-movements of my neck and head

the aliveness of sensation in my legs

the ringing again – mostly in the right ear

still the ringing

how the ringing kind of waves up and down with my breath

a little bit of pain in my ribcage

remembering that I'm looking at a screen

a thought about how to wrap this up

There's so much more I could say about this – the nuances of it and the benefits that can accrue from doing something like this regularly. But I'm much less interested in that more in: when you look, what do you notice? —Arun

3. Sharing is Caring

• Patrick shared a website that bills itself as a “generator of random awesomeness” and it really is. (Be careful—you might want to sit down and give yourself an hour or two.)

• Arun loves this artist’s animations.

• Chocolate + 3D printing anyone? (via Web Curious)

• Matthew was impressed by how the team behind Orion was able to launch their latest app in 45 days.

• Matthew also informed us of a Good Enough x K-pop opportunity.

4. In Conclusion

I’ve been slowly going through the 800 or so drawings we received yesterday. We expected the occasional 🍆 but I did not expect so many ❤️s. Shaded hearts, hearts within a heart, heart balloon, hearts with nice messages: hello from Croatia, have a beautiful day, and have a nice weekend. And there was this message from Jojo:

You’re welcome, Jojo, and I hope you’re feeling better. ❤️

Wishing you all a beautiful weekend.

1. The Week That Was

Yay.Boo continued to have our heart, but not as many of our hours this week. There have been some lovely tweaks and touches as it continues rolling toward a lovely settling place – a very nice first version that we can share more widely in order to see how the Internet world reacts.

A larger chunk of our time went toward Letterbird, which is getting excitingly close to launching as a good and proper product! The team has learned a lot about the modern state of subscription billing, and we have some PRO features to go along with that soon-to-be-unleashed, credit-card-accepting payment form.

The Guestbook printer keeps on printing! (Thankfully at a more reasonable rate this week.) With printing comes scanning and posting and you should just bathe in the gloriousness of the guestbook gallery on a Friday. Thank you for your drawings!

2. Do You Blog?

As Good Enough properly got real this year, we’ve all had to learn or relearn how to write publicly on a blog (and newsletter!). It feels like a thing that was so common (online) twenty years ago, and is so uncommon now. Yes, I know it wasn’t actually common (everywhere) twenty years ago, and it’s actually more common now. Yet these days blogs are not as common of places to visit (in relation to the whole of Internet traffic). These relative terms are probably even more painful to read than they were to write.

Do you blog? Would you blog privately amongst a group of friends? Do you ever find yourself crafting an x-tweet and get frustrated trying to chop it down to the right number of characters? Or do you just journal quietly to yourself? Do you do it all? Do you not do it for a very specific reason?

The messages I receive from Micro.blog and Mastodon and my RSS feeds are that everyone is retreating back to their own sites and/or their own domains. Everyone is remembering fondly that twenty-years-ago life. Everyone wants to get away from the algorithm and read the weekly musings of the everyday people. Everyone wants to recapture that feeling of discovery when they find some blogger who just gets them. Everyone wants to write some missives to the world, fishing for kindred spirits.

I believe that I’m in an echo chamber. I wonder if that chamber extends to readers of this newsletter? I wonder if that chamber is small or maybe rather big? I wonder.

If you have any thoughts, please reply to this newsletter and share ‘em! —Barry

3. I’m feeling crabby.

Suburban America goes absolutely crazy for Halloween these days. Every yard in our neighborhood is full of giant, inflatable pumpkins, spiders, and Tim Burton monsters. And oh, the skeletons! If you had told me 10 years ago that I could have made a killing selling 12 ft tall light-up lawn skeletons, I would have laughed in your face. Where do people store these things!?

Our yard isn’t adding much to the ambiance around here, but we are planning to do it up with a group costume. It’s the first Halloween where my daughter has a solid understanding of the concept and I am here for it. At her insistence, the Filler family will be dressing up as characters from Moana: “I am Moana. Mommy is Maui. Vinny is Hei Hei. Daddy is Tamatoa.”

Tamatoa is a giant crab with an eye for the finer things, so we decided it justified something of a splurge on the actual costume. I gotta say: this purchase appears to have been 100% worth it. It’s super fun, good quality, a nice likeness, and she absolutely, completely believes I am going to scoop her up and dangle her over my mouth for a midday snack.

It does make typing hard, though. —Patrick

4. In Conclusion

We are quite excited by what’s to come in November. We will be refreshing our knowledge on accepting payments and (hopefully) talking with customers. We will be learning more about getting the word out there for these products. And we have some more ideas and experiments that we’ll start working on to keep this year Cosmic until the end.

Stay human, friends.

1. Give Them Your Letterbird

We’re launching another product! Try out Letterbird here →

A few months back, Shawn asked how he can let strangers contact him without giving them his personal email address. He wanted a humble contact form, one he could personalize with his own style. It turns out acquiring one of those is more difficult than you’d expect if you don’t already have a website hosted on Squarespace or another expensive and complex website builder.

Letterbird is our attempt to bridge that gap—it’s a free contact form on the web. It’s well-designed out-of-the-box, and you can personalize it to your style. It’s simple by design, not trying to do more than you expect or need. You give us your name and email, we give you a good ol’ fashioned form, strangers get a nice experience getting in touch with you.

Here’s Shawn’s Letterbird:

And here’s friend-of-Good-Enough Jorge’s more colorful Letterbird:

We’re also using Letterbird for Good Enough, and our product support forms like Album Whale, Yay.Boo, Ponder, and Letterbird itself. It’s quite handy!

Letterbird is free for everyone, but it also has a paid Pro version for those who need it to do more. Right now the paid version will allow you to customize your form’s CSS to better fine-tune your style, accept file attachments, and hide our branding, but we envision a lot more useful (and fun) Pro capabilities over time.

Create your Letterbird, and let us know what you’d like it to do in the future! —Lettini

2. The Week That Was

As you can tell from above, the big focus this week has been on shipping Letterbird, but we’ve also been working hard on polishing Yay.Boo, and as we near the end of the Cosmic Maelstrom, Barry has taken the opportunity to scratch a long-time itch and build his perfect blogging software (codename: NOT BLOOGER). And globetrotters rejoice: we’ve added per-log timezone support to the not-yet-released Bumblelog, so loggers can now see exactly when and where each log was, erm, logged…

3. Lettini is Good Enough

It’s been an exciting year watching our subscriber numbers slowly grow as we build things, put them out into the world, and new people discover and start following Good Enough. Maybe that was your journey? If so, hello! Welcome! Nice to meet you. Thanks for being here. Keep your arms inside the ride at all times.

We put a lot of our small team into our products, and it occurs to us that you, dear reader, might not know much about us. So we’re starting a new Q&A column to introduce ourselves! Read the first one over on our blog about our resident designer, the man behind the Screenis and pixels and Letterbirds.

4. Sharing is Caring

You said you want links? You’ve got…wait, you didn’t say you want links? Well…that seems like an oversight on your part. But we’ve got ya. Eat these links:

• This looks impressive.

• Next Halloween, why not adopt the recent Japanese tradition of “mundane costumes”, e.g. “Person who was about to be late for work, but then their train got delayed and now they are taking their time since they got a proof-of-delay ticket from the station.”

• How much longer are we going to collectively pretend that the Centennial Man Zuckerbot is human?

• Weapons research begins in the war against AI

• If you’ve ever stayed in a hotel and stared for a few minutes at the shower drain (and who hasn’t), then you will doubtless enjoy this “quiet observation of objects found in places of accommodation.”

5. In Conclusion

With all the Letterbird fervor over here the last couple of weeks, the team has been reading up on the history of mail delivery through homing pigeons, pigeoneering, and pigeon fancying. Half of the team (the ones located in or around New York) have had veritable pigeon-fever! Not the in-fection, mind you, but an a-ffection for the bird you can’t help but see all over the city streets. While the official branding for Letterbird is TBD, we plan to loosely base it on the (should be official) NYC mascot.

While street art should never be a competition, we’re curious which pigeon artist you like more: @caryncast or @c0rnqueen –

We like ‘em both!

1. Letterbird Is Flying High

It’s been wonderful to see people trying out Letterbird, our simple, well-designed, good ol’ fashioned contact form on the internet. And, it’s also great to see people linking to theirs from their own pages! We especially love all the fun colors and style personalization people are putting on their forms. 

Did you know that you can add totally custom CSS with a Pro subscription? Check out this very stylish rainbow I added to mine:

Letterbird is free for everyone, so why not give it a test flight: https://letterbird.co

2. The Week That Was

Someone calculated that, once you account for various holidays and things,  there’s only 6 or 7 “working weeks” left in 2023. How can we make them count? Especially as we near the end of the Cosmic Maelstrom? 

The answer is by Maelstrom-ing even harder. Barry is full steam ahead on his vision of The Great American Novel Blogging Tool, Patrick continues to go cray-cray on the Yay-yay, Lettini is Letterbirding and Arun is, well, everywhere, like a zen ninja. Or air. And as for me? I’m d̴̪̈̿e̷̻͑͑c̴̪͖̽ö̸͊͜n̶̘̳̐s̴̹̈̅t̷̛͙͚r̶̯̊̒u̷̢͉̕͝c̴͔͓̈̌t̵̝̪͐͠ī̸̙̕n̷͉̕ģ̷̬̉ ̷̤͊̓m̸̳͌͜ý̶͎͒ ̸̹̬͆͐m̷̥̃́ị̵̃̓n̷͜͝d̵̘̿͘. Yeah. — JA

3. What Do We Do With All of This Stuff?

At our house we’re entering the winter of figuring out what to do with all of this stuff. We have the belongings of five people, three of them being our children. Over time this can really add up!

I’m very jealous of those who have minimalism and stuff-elimination as a natural state of being. While I can work toward being more minimalist, it’s not natural for me. Firstly, I love collecting things and so I have books, movies, and music all about my home. Secondly, I can easily convince myself that someday I’ll need it. Thirdly, I have great difficulty getting rid of something in a way that doesn’t get it to someone who values that something. I have a weird, hand-assembled stereo amplifier sitting on my floor that no one at Goodwill would understand. I once kept a NeXT Computer for fifteen years before I finally took it to Best Buy for recycling.

What do you do with the stuff of your children? If your children are young, I suggest figuring this out now. If you’re planning to lean minimalistic, bring your kids into your reasoning as soon as you can because I’m sure it would feel terrible if your parents just donated half your stuff without engaging you in the process. If you’re planning to keep their belongings long term to allow adult-them to decide what to do with their things, then make sure to include a sizable line item in your annual budget. You’re going to need space in your home or a storage unit to collect all of it.

In our case, we’ll probably be mixing together all of the solutions. Minimizing where we can while also considering additional storage options. Perhaps this winter is actually turning into the winter of DIY custom shelving. 😂 — BH

4. Sharing Is Caring

AI Johnny Cash: “It’s so close to being amazing, but there’s a lack of humanity in some of the phrasing that is really uncanny valleying my brain”

Game+Logo via Aftermath: "They are right, that’s a cool twitter account.”

Two visions of the future of human-computer interaction. One concrete, and one so obtuse as to be almost meaningless! Enjoy.

The official key cap for our very own quack.page (remember that??)

Finally, a moment of zen for you, via the League of Pigs.

5. In Conclusion

Ah, so you made it this far. Do you want a cookie or something? You do? Well, go to nearly any website on the internet and I bet you can find a lot of cookies, so I think you’re good. No offense, but you have all the cookies that one person could need.

Okay, fine, last week we mentioned a blogging software could be coming, and it is coming along nicely indeed. Maybe we’ll have some early peeks to share next week? There’s also been some extreme rabbit-hole-following this past week, which we think will lead to some more C-O-S-M-I-C cosmic building in the next few weeks.

Excited? Would you be more excited if we slapped “AI” onto all of our marketing pages? We just might.

Okay, it’s time to go. Bye.