mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06Designer of various things, sometimes developer, occasional writer. Design system nerd. User researcher.
CIS Ally. Trans rights are human rights. Black Lives Matter.
When I’m watching movies or TV shows, I often want to know where I’ve seen an actor or actress before. I used to suffer through IMDb’s ads and user hostile experience like everyone else. Then my buddy @caseyliss@mastodon.social made Callsheet, and I haven’t really been back to IMDb since.
https://stegrainer.com/journal/2026/friday-fave-callsheet
🔗 noclip.website — A digital museum of video game levels
🔗 Aphera — An indie raw photo editor built natively for Mac, with delightful keyboard support and speedy workflows
RE: @Iconfactory@iconfactory.world
I wish I had an app in need of an icon just for the chance to work with the fine folks at The Iconfactory. But maybe you do. Here’s your chance!
🔗 Time-based background colour transitions with Temporal and CSS color-mix — A super nifty deep dive into using the new JavaScript Temporal functions with CSS color-mix to create color palettes that shift through the day.
🔗 The Field Guide to Grid Lanes — Masonry layouts in pure CSS. No JavaScript. No hacks. Just four lines of code. Handy for when grid lanes become widely available.
Hadestown: The Musical by Anaïs Mitchell & Brett Sullivan: ★★★★★ — We adored seeing this live in New York last year, but this version with the original cast is pure magic.
🔗 Storied Colors — Fascinating look at the history and scientific composition of specific colors
🔗 The Great CSS Expansion — A handy intro to new CSS features available now or coming soon and the JavaScript they can replace
Plantar fasciitis is a pain in the … well, the foot. My wife got some sandals that helped with hers. So when my feet started hurting last fall, I figured I’d give the funny-named brand a try. Now I’ve got three pairs of OOFOS, and if I’m home, I’m probably wearing them.
https://stegrainer.com/journal/2026/friday-fave-oofos
In his delightful weekly newsletter today,
@simplebits@mastodon.social discussed chess and asked about board games. He specifically mentioned classic board games, but that made me wonder if Catan could be considered a classic at this point. After all, it’s now 30 years old!
https://stegrainer.com/journal/2026/friday-fave-catan
As I’ve gotten older, I find myself using keyboard shortcuts to increase font size or zoom in more and more often. Some sites are over-zealous in the use of small or low-contrast fonts. Other times, I want to see an image larger to read details within it. This handy little trick makes it easier to zoom in and back out universally without messing up page layouts.
https://stegrainer.com/journal/2026/how-to-zoom-anywhere-on-macos
Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz: ★★★★☆ — What do artificially intelligent robots do after an apocalyptic war? Start a restaurant, of course. This is a lovely story about sentience, humanity, and care.
Finch by Miguel Sapochnik: ★★★☆☆ — I went looking for a light-hearted buddy sci-fi story of a man, his dog, and his robot. I wasn’t expecting to feel feelings about this!
When work has to be measurable to be valuable, what happens to the important things that can’t be measured? What happens to trust, kindness, care, and the other things that set great work apart from slop? Can we do anything to swerve away from the race to the bottom?
https://stegrainer.com/journal/2026/the-immeasurable-value-of-the-unmeasurables
🔗 NES.css — An NES-style 8-bit CSS framework
The Gorge by Scott Derrickson: ★★★☆☆ — This wasn’t bad for a kinda weird romance, sci-fi, horror, action mix. Decent chemistry, an intriguing premise, and plenty of entertainment.
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman: ★★★☆☆ — I’ve seen this recommended by several people, and it seemed right up my alley. It started off feeling a bit like fan-fiction, but I really enjoyed it by the end.
Our family’s love for Disney parks has grown over the years since our first trip when our little one was still little. But one of our favorite reasons to visit Disney World these days is “new” to us: EPCOT festivals. Most of the festivals have been around for several decades now, but we only just discovered how much fun they can be in the last few years.
https://stegrainer.com/journal/2026/friday-fave-epcot-festivals
🏳️⚧️ Happy Trans Day of Visibility! You deserve to exist, to be seen, and to be loved. 🏳️⚧️
As more and more of my social media life moves out of public spaces, I figured I’d share a bit of my reasoning as well as a few rules I try to follow when engaging with any public social media. These are what work for me. Feel free to borrow, adapt, or ignore at your discretion.
https://stegrainer.com/journal/2026/social-media-strategy
🔗 Worse on Purpose — What brands have gotten worse, why, and what to consider instead
🔗 My default config for new Craft CMS projects — A great intro to good Craft CMS config settings and the reason behind them
🔗 The Bag of Tricks for View Transitions — Tools, tips, and tricks to enhance your dev skills with the View Transition API
Platform Decay by Martha Wells: ★★★★☆ — Not my favorite of the series, but another enjoyable escapade with my favorite media-loving rogue SecUnit.
The Mountain by Gorillaz: ★★★★★ — What an album! I haven’t listened to Gorillaz in a while, but I adore the international breadth, the collaborators, and the depth of this album immensely.
When I had the idea for Friday Faves, Lord of the Rings was one of the first things that popped into my head. I read the series once a year every year through high school and college. While I haven’t read the full series in almost a decade now, it still holds a very special place in my heart. And maybe I should pick it back up again soon …
https://stegrainer.com/journal/2026/friday-fave-lord-of-the-rings
🔗 Building Typographic Scales in CSS — A handy technique to programmatically build typographic scales in CSS with :heading(), sibling-index(), and pow()
I started a new hobby yesterday: providing free usability feedback directly to store self-checkout monitoring cameras.
I look directly at the camera and explain the problem that I have encountered. If I think there’s a simple solution, I might propose it but I mostly focus on the problem and why I’m having it.
If you’re going to surveil me, I might as well take advantage of it. I’m not sure if they have sound (probably not) so maybe I’ll use notecards to write the feedback and show it. 😉
Penric and the Shaman by Lois McMaster Bujold: ★★★★☆ — I enjoyed the combination of fantasy, spirituality, and mystery in this novella. I’m excited that I have lots more to read in this series.
Shrinking (Season 3) by Brett Goldstein, Jason Segel, & Bill Lawrence: ★★★★★ — This show gets better each season. Where most shows veer toward unearned, overwrought drama, Shrinking steers toward the small moments of heartfelt realness.
Penric’s Fox by Lois McMaster Bujold: ★★★☆☆ — Another fun entry in the Penric and Desdemona series. The ending was a bit predictable, but it was still a fun romp.
“The problem was never how many things you own. The problem is that owning means something it never used to. Everything you buy is the beginning of a relationship you'll be maintaining until one of you dies or gets discontinued.”
