Business


I used AI to generate products & write copy for my store

Quick Summary

I used Midjourney to generate art that I threw on t-shirts, coasters, and almost everything else RedBubble offers. Then I used OpenAI to generate copy for it, and combined that with a handful of custom scripts to generate a product site called Bed Bath & The Beyond.


Keeping a great Changelog

Changelogs are an invaluable, and often neglected part of any software project. So, how do you do that?

A good changelog helps you users to understand:

  • Why they should care about your latest version
  • If any of your changes affect the problems or frustrations they’ve been having.
  • If there are any changes that might affect how they use your app / library.
  • Why your efforts are worth their continued support.

A great changelog does all that, and shows the personality of your team.


Why you can't auto-generate your Changelog

Let’s start by taking it as a given that a Changelog file is something very valuable that every product should come with. Even if your “product” is a library for other developers.

With that in mind, the question rises of “How can I make it really easy to generate one”. Many developers have had exactly that thought. There are many free and some paid solutions that will “Autogenerate your changelog from your git commits/tickets”. The simple fact is, that no matter how well they’re written, you shouldn’t use any of them.


Creating an Interview Worksheet

Once again, I’d like to pick your brain.

I’m working on an “Interview Worksheet”. It’s a simple form that you’ll fill out while interviewing someone, and prepping for an interview with them. There is, of course, a section for questions you want to ask them, one for taking notes during your discussion, and one for the common “How would you rate yourself on skill X” questions. But, I’ve also got a section where you can quickly rate the person on various attributes that you tend to look for.



Appcelerator: extortion is just part of the job...

Appcelerator was recently caught extorting one of its free users, and then that users client for £5000, and then others spoke up to say it’d happened to them too.

Initially it looked like it could have either been a bullshit company policy, or just a salesperson lacking in morals. In the end, it turns out to be both, but the response by the CEO is why I would strongly encourage you to never use an Appcelerator product (free or otherwise) for your project.



Financial Entropy of a Webapp Subscriber

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I was consumed with dreams about Stephen Hawking’s black hole entropy formula last night, which is frustrating because the math is, sadly, beyond me. But, I mention it to you today because, knowing so little about black holes my mind instead kept trying to change it into an formula to calculate the Financial Entropy of a webapp subscriber.

So, I put it to you, dear reader, have you, or any of your math enabled friends, come up with a formula for calculating the finincial entropy of a webapp subscriber? If you haven’t, but you could, there are many many entrepreneurs who would sing your praises and happily buy you a drink.