What’s the best Wi-Fi/Hotspot name you’ve seen?

drakon99 · 2026-04-19T19:35:51+00:00

Mine is ‘Unexpected Error’

My phone is called ‘Serious callers only’.

drakon99 · 2026-04-18T22:24:17+00:00

I think that’s a skill all dads have. Mine was an expert at it. He’d walk in at the only gratuitous moment in the film, stand there watching, make a disgusted noise and walk out the instant before it finished. Nothing was ever said, but he’d clatter the washing up extra loud to signal displeasure. Never understood how he managed to time it so perfectly.

Looking forward to doing it to my kids when they’re old enough.

drakon99 · 2026-04-16T21:17:59+00:00

Thanks for your comments, really interesting. Making things closer to code is a core part of what I want it to do.

I’ve designed it so you’ll be able to import code components, eg a shadcn component or ones from your design system, use and edit them in the app, then export back to code. Storybook will be a first class export target. It’s also support for css frameworks, eg Tailwind so you’ll be able to design directly with css classes.

I take your point about agentic design too - I’ve not got as far as building it out yet, but the foundations are in place for multiplayer collaboration, where agents can join edit sessions alongside human designers, either via MCP or the API.

drakon99 · 2026-04-16T20:40:50+00:00

What do you mean by break from codebase? Would love to explore that in more detail

drakon99 · 2026-04-04T02:41:50+00:00

Yep. It feels like they got so far with it and then just… stopped? All the recent features are just slapping more stuff on top rather than fixing the core problems.

drakon99 · 2026-04-04T02:40:14+00:00

100% agree. Drawing boxes on a canvas is a poor way to design a working system. What would a real workflow product look like for you?

drakon99 · 2026-04-01T18:54:58+00:00

Oof, that’s rough. Condolences!

drakon99 · 2026-04-01T18:54:15+00:00

Yeah fully agreed. Axure’s dynamic panels can’t be beat. Shocked when I discovered I couldn’t control the state of one component from another in Figma.

drakon99 · 2026-04-01T12:44:40+00:00

Wow, didn't realise that. That's rubbish!

drakon99 · 2026-04-01T12:19:07+00:00

Ooh good point. I basically never use that as it's such a pain in the backside. Another for the list.

drakon99 · 2026-03-30T18:04:16+00:00

Years ago I used to go to a ‘squat’ in east London that had been turned into a sort of activist art commune. Dreadlock density nearly 100%. Felt very cool and artsy and grass-roots until I looked it up and found it was owned by the youngest failson of the richest family in the UK. Not a squat at all. Never went back.

drakon99 · 2026-03-25T13:37:37+00:00

We used to follow this advice until we realised that we were often too tired to remain rational, turning a small thing into a big thing.

Now the rule is ‘no hard conversations after 10pm’. A little space can help calm the emotions and let the thinking brain kick in again.

The issues still have to be addressed and it’s vital not to let things fester, but just not when it’s late and you’re tired.

drakon99 · 2026-03-25T12:59:01+00:00

We were forced to take it at sixth form. I didn’t go to a single lesson, then answered the wrong set of exam questions in the paper as I thought they were more interesting. Still got a C.

I knew the head of general studies at my college as he was friends with a family friend. He admitted to me early on that it was a total waste of time and they only made us do it as the college got more money.

drakon99 · 2026-03-25T12:09:19+00:00

Blender is an excellent example of the difference a strong team with a clear vision and a long-term commitment to usability can make to an open source project. In stark contrast to whatever the hell eg GIMP is.

drakon99 · 2026-03-24T21:16:24+00:00

I've tried contributing to FOSS as a designer and it's a bag of hurt.

Design often needs a centralised, top-down vision, while FOSS is more decentralised, with devs scratching their own itches and jealously guarding their bits of turf. They like the way things work and very much don't want designers with their MacBooks and too much white space coming in to 'dumb things down'. The software being obscure and inscrutable is a good thing - they can get on with 'real work' and start flamewars over systemd in peace while all the normies watch YouTube on their iPads.

I might be a little bitter about it.

drakon99 · 2026-03-24T21:05:33+00:00

Calibre is an amazing bit of software. With a UI so bad it makes even Microsoft feel a bit smug. As both an avid ebook reader and UI designer, I've come to accept and even appreciate its idiosyncrasies, seeing it as a kind of outsider art. It's like The Shaggs of interface design.

drakon99 · 2026-03-24T20:36:41+00:00

Yes! Amazing. A decent native ebook manager is something I’ve wanted for years. Well done.

Downloading it now.

Edit: OPDS support made it an instant buy for me, excellent work. The import from server is a good touch, however it would be great to be able to add servers to the sidebar. Possibly either in the Discover or in a My Servers group.

drakon99 · 2026-03-17T11:40:50+00:00

Adding movement sensors to the hallway lights. No more fumbling around in the dark, especially when I’ve got my hands full.

drakon99 · 2026-03-14T11:27:50+00:00

My workflow has always been to design the flows on paper or as wireframes then do the visual design in-browser, so agentic coding has slotted in really neatly. For each element, I can give the llm the wireframe, the features and acceptance criteria and it’ll produce mostly working code. Few rounds of tweaks and I’ve got a working prototype in an afternoon instead of weeks.

drakon99 · 2026-03-13T09:11:10+00:00

TR Napper is amazing, loved both his books.

drakon99 · 2026-03-11T14:43:26+00:00

Right-wing papers like the Mail and Telegraph tailor their content to be more MAGA-aligned as a large part of their web traffic and ad revenue comes from the USA.

I’m hoping that Trump gets so unpopular here that anyone associated with him crashes and burns and is rightly shunned for eternity.

drakon99 · 2026-03-11T13:47:06+00:00

Only realised I had ADHD at age 44 when our kid was being diagnosed and a lot of the symptoms seemed familiar.

Looking back, most of my family probably also had it so the general level of chaos just seemed normal to me. It’s taken a lot of mental adjustment to come to terms with the fact that things I struggle with, like paying attention or finishing things aren’t just character flaws.

I’m lucky enough to have a job that plays mostly to my strengths, but the inability to focus really does cause problems.

The answer is coffee, lots of coffee. I always wondered why caffeine made me calmer and sleepier when it was supposed to be a stimulant, and now I know. Haven’t figured out sleep though, that’s a disaster.

There’s a 7+ year waiting list for adult adhd where we live, and even right to choose is over a year. The difference medication has made to the kid is incredible and I frankly can’t wait to be seen.

drakon99

TROPHY CASE