November 1, 2024
Links You’ll Love
Issue #6
Quit being so shortsighted. Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize you have myopia.
Why short-sightedness is on the rise and what can be done
When I was a kid, we were warned that sitting too close to the TV would ruin our vision. More kids than ever now need to wear glasses, and you might think it's because of all the screen time. However, it turns out that the reason for the growing vision issues in this generation is a bit more pernicious than that, it has to do with time spent outdoors.
Myopia – the medical term for short-sightedness or near-sightedness – is on the rise. And perhaps most worryingly, this trend also affects children.
Around 2.6 billion people were short-sighted in 2020, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which anticipates that this figure will rise to 3.4 billion by 2030.
Meanwhile, a third of children and adolescents globally are affected by myopia, according to a recent study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.
P.S. Did you know your Apple Watch can now track your time spent in daylight? Spending time in the sun has been shown to have a significantly positive effects on your mental and physical health.
Coffee: Never Surprise your Customers
There’s a valuable business lesson about consistency in this short story, and it also underscores the importance of managing expectations in all aspects of life.
There’s a local gas station that had a simple deal: Coffee refills for $1.
It didn’t matter the size of the cup or the blend you got, it was $1. Based on the cost of coffee, it was easily 90%+ margin. And since it was a pretty good cup of coffee, if I had an extra five minutes, I’d stop for a cup and often buy other things. When it was busy, I’d get my coffee, set my dollar on the counter, and walk out. Over time, I started to recognize other faces and give a nod or good morning.
After Thanksgiving, I stopped for a cup and set my dollar on the counter and went to walk away. The manager stopped me and said the coffee was now $2. I asked her why and she blamed corporate.
Fast forward a couple of months…
The best $4 ever spent
A charming story that serves as a valuable parable, and I bet you won't be able to guess what the $4 was spent on.
You probably remember your kid's first birthday. The members of the extended family all wanted to spoil her. They brought fun gifts. Useful and useless ones. They brought toys recommended by the best parent influencers.
They looked at your child with excitement, as she was unwrapping the gifts with you. But she didn't seem to... care?
"No, no don't play with the wrapping paper! Look at the truck vroom vroom!"_ to no avail.
She preferred the wrapping paper.
Help make Plinky better
Before I dive into what I’ve been working on recently, I’d love to get your thoughts on where to take Plinky next! I’m planning to run 10 user research sessions to gather feedback about potential new features like a Mac app, Offline Reading, Shared Folders, Full Text Search, and more.
If you’d like to tell me what I can do to make Plinky your favorite app for saving links, sign up here or reply to this email to set up a call. 🙂
Open Source October
I spent much of October doing something meaningful to me: giving back to a community that’s supported me over the years. For those who aren’t software developers, we have a concept called open source, which means sharing code publicly so others can use and build on it.
Why do people do open source?
Some developers are lucky enough to build open-source software as a career.
Others do it to foster collaboration and create communities around shared projects.
Personally, I’m motivated by solving a hard problem and knowing that by sharing my work, I’m sparing others from the same challenge. When I open-source something I’ve built I know I’m helping someone, so they can focus on their ideas and what matters to them.
This month, I open-sourced four projects that are essential parts of Plinky, and I hope they help other developers build better apps. After spending over two years developing Plinky, I know how valuable tools like these can be to speed up the process of building an app.
You might wonder, isn’t this a distraction from building Plinky? Will doing this help me grow my business? In the short term, maybe not. But sometimes, doing a good thing pays off down the line.
Recap helps developers build a beautiful and customizable “What's New” Screen, in only two lines of code. (Announcement blog post)
I created what has become the official Buttondown Framer component, for creating an email signup form in Framer, no code required. (Announcement blog post)
I open sourced Monarch, a tool to help developers to fix their mistakes by making simple and easy to run migrations. (Announcement blog post)
I shipped a huge 3.0 update to Boutique, the biggest update in two years to my most popular open source library. Boutique helps make their apps work fully offline, in just three lines of code. (Discussion on Github)
If you liked this post, reach out and let me know! If you have any suggestions, reach out and let me know! If you read something wonderful you think I should know about, you know the drill, reach out and let me know!
