iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Allen @ussher.ca · 29/09/2026

I asked a tiny LLM what 2 + 2 is and it told me "2 + 2 is 2 + 2". Brilliant.

Allen @ussher.ca · 25/09/2026

My notes app for the Mac is now available for download! Understory is a notes app that helps you connect ideas and give them shape over time using outlines and hyperlinks. apps.apple.com/us/app/under... #zettelkasten #mac #macos

Screenshot of a Mac app window with three panels, the left showing a tree outline of notes, the middle showing a note with an image of printing press blocks, and the right showing an outline of the note itself. Heading "The notes app that gets richer with every note. Discover connections, link ideas, and shape them into outlines"

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Allen @ussher.ca · 23/09/2026

It bugs me that "Roger Ebert" is a brand now. Not RogerEbert.com, but "Roger Ebert" the name. In the trailer for You Can See Everything is a pull quote attributed to Roger Ebert and I immediately thought, "isn't he dead"?

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Allen @ussher.ca · 23/09/2026

I just finished a long book and am now trying to get through some v. short ones as a break, but I also want to start on this thick bio of Sylvia Plath I found at a thrift shop the other day. Supposed to be very good. #books

Photo of book: Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark

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Allen @ussher.ca · 22/09/2026

I finished reading Team of Rivals today and oh boy did the tears flow when I got to Lincoln's last day. #books

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Allen @ussher.ca · 20/09/2026

I really dislike how the Bluesky search page adjusts when the search box gets focus: 1. it immediately hides your old results (and shows Recent searches) and pops up a panel showing suggestions 2. the search field also shifts over to reveal a back button It's so distracting!

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Allen @ussher.ca · 19/09/2026

Three-quarters of the way through Team of Rivals and thoroughly enjoying it. I have to admit the first 200+ pages took a while to get through as there are so many people to introduce and events to cover... #books

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Allen @ussher.ca · 18/09/2026

Don’t Make Me Think (About a Note’s Title Before I Start Writing) blog.ussherpress.com/2026/09/18/d... #ux #design #notes

blog.ussherpress.com

Don’t Make Me Think (About a Note’s Title Before I Start Writing) - Ussher Press

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Allen @ussher.ca · 18/09/2026

There are only NaN hard things in computer science

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Allen @ussher.ca · 18/09/2026

This subliminal tape set cover art absolutely rules. via www. ebay.com/itm/158205402092

Cover for a cassette case with the name "The Subliminal Winner" showing a pixelated businessman in a suit winking and a star gleaming from one eye

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Allen @ussher.ca · 17/09/2026

I forgot that using TestFlight is confusing to people. I have some people who followed the link to my app beta and signed up and are stuck in the "Accepted" phase of TestFlight. They haven't actually gone and installed the app yet!

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Allen @ussher.ca · 16/09/2026

Want to try out a cool new Zettelkasten-like notes app I've been building for the Mac? Here's a link to the beta: testflight.apple.com/join/Zy6P486K #mac #productivity #zettelkasten #pkm

Screenshot of a Mac notes app with three panels. The left panel shows an outline with one note selected, the middle shows the selected note's contents including a picture of printing press blocks, and the right panel shows links and backlinks.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 15/09/2026

Claude is still so bad at writing or marketing. I guess that's comforting to know if you do either of those things.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 14/09/2026

Is the toolbar even more Liquid Glass-y in macOS 27? Is there a way to remove the shininess of the toolbar buttons? #macos

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Allen @ussher.ca · 14/09/2026

It's simulacrums all the way down

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Allen @ussher.ca · 14/09/2026

We’re in an interesting era where we’ve had so much quality content that has followed certain “forms” causing us to trust that a form tells us something has inherent quality, but now those forms are so easy to recreate that they are used to wrap low quality content.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 13/09/2026

Been working on my Zettelkasten Mac app... After some user feedback, I decided to go with a more traditional tree outline for displaying the note hierarchy and it works so much better than what I had before. It combines elements of an outliner with networked notes apps like Obsidian and other PKMs.

Mac app window showing a Zettelkasten app with a tree outline of notes on the left, a note viewer in the middle, and an inspector side panel on the right showing a table of contents and forward links.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 09/09/2026

Very cool: Dirtywave M8 tracker is in the iOS App Store apps.apple.com/us/app/m8-mu... I doubt the touch screen would be anywhere as good as using key input for navigating, but this probably would be good from a marketing angle for the physical device.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 09/09/2026

Also smart to announce the iPhone Duo when the new CEO guy takes over

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Allen @ussher.ca · 09/09/2026

Speculating: It looks like there's room in the hinge area for the iPhone Duo screen to remain a nice curve so it doesn't crease when folded.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 09/09/2026

It's interesting that Apple decided that iPhone Duo is a great opportunity to redesign parts of iOS UI. I doubt the unique UI changes they've made make it to the iPad, at least not right away. Need to make the iPhone Duo feel unique. Smart move.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 09/09/2026

iPhone Duo would be great for a Nintendo DS emulator

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Allen @ussher.ca · 09/09/2026

I like the iPhone DS mode

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Allen @ussher.ca · 09/09/2026

"Writing an email and working with my calendar is sooo hard! I wish somebody made an AI to make it easier."

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Allen @ussher.ca · 09/09/2026

It's crazy how in 2026, calendar and email improvements are still being pushed in demos like it's some exciting thing

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Allen @ussher.ca · 05/09/2026

If you just listen to a YouTube video essay (don't watch the video itself), you really notice how truly awful a lot of them are at making a coherent argument. Video clips go a long way to distract you and make you miss out on the fact that there isn't a lot going on with the words themselves.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 01/09/2026

Claude Code's value for design review and brainstorming is only as good as its opinions and I've found that as it adds more rules to code or its own documentation, its judgment just goes to shit. I've found that on one project I'm constantly disagreeing with it because it's built a castle of rules.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 01/09/2026

I'm convinced that some people have this mindset that if some thing X is Good, then a lot of X is Very Good. In reality, lots of things in small doses are very good but go beyond that and it's actually Very Bad.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 21/08/2026

You're right to push back. That point is load-bearing, and is exactly the kind of thing we were trying to avoid. That's the honest truth and it's worth talking about.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 19/08/2026

Went to practice riding my 36" unicycle in area with a lot of foot and bike traffic and next thing you know several people are stopping me and want to know more about it.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 15/08/2026

Interested in beta-testing a new Zettelkasten-style notes app for the Mac? Check out the link for more info: zettelkasten.ussherpress.com #macapps

zettelkasten.ussherpress.com

Waypoint

Waypoint is a Zettelkasten app for the Mac — a personal knowledge base of short, linked notes that gets more useful as it grows.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 09/08/2026

I think once you get better at designing UX, you can fall into the trap of being a bit too clever.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 08/08/2026

The 1-star reviewer from yesterday gave another review of the same app but on the iOS platform and this time he gave it 5 stars and gave praise to the responsive dev. So confused.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 07/08/2026

What if "This too shall pass" really just means "this thing you don't like will become completely normalized and you'll get so used to it that eventually you won't even notice the old ways are gone"

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Allen @ussher.ca · 06/08/2026

Nothing like waking up to a 1-star review

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Allen @ussher.ca · 06/08/2026

Working on my Zettelkasten app for Mac again. I think I've really built something special here. Organizing notes structurally is super easy and uses a tree-like navigation system but it's not an outline! You can create text links as well. Supports an asset library. iCloud and local notebooks.

Screenshot of a notes Mac app window with three panels: left panel shows a list of note rows with one selected, middle panel shows the selected note with a cityscape image and text of the note below it, and right panel shows a side panel with some more notes in a smaller font.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 22/07/2026

Hate seeing successive emails like - Welcome to the foofoo community! - You've earned 539 foofoo bucks! after I've purchased something from an online retailer

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Allen @ussher.ca · 18/07/2026

I've read 25 books this year already. As someone who typically reads like 3 books a year, that's crazy. I don't have a goal with this or anything, but it would be cool to reach 50 by year's end. #books

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Allen @ussher.ca · 17/07/2026

Everyone's trying to sell you something nowadays. Every bit of communication must be crafted into a marketing slogan, a narrative. Short and snappy. Every trend must be jumped on to "ride the signal" and to appear relevant. All truths must be bent in the name of engagement.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 11/07/2026

I fixed a bug that even Claude wasn't able to figure out. 😎 It required asking "What if the official documentation is wrong?" and going from there.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 05/07/2026

Found a Japanese youtube channel where it's 2 guys doing essentially the same bit again and again in dozens of videos: they're standing near a canal and one guy is explaining some physical challenge to the other guy (this differs), they try the challenge together, then one guy ends up in the water

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Allen @ussher.ca · 24/05/2026

Randomly found A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess a few weeks ago at a thrift shop and thought it would be an interesting read. Never saw the film but knew about it & now having finished reading the book, I don't think I want to watch it. #books

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Reposted by Allen

Haru 🍰 9/22 @cosmicharu.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

How it feels to change my confirm button to ○ and cancel button to X.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 12/05/2026

I got a Dirtywave M8 device. 😎 Been playing for a bit with the "headless" version you can run on a Teensy 4.1 and liked it enough to pull the plug on the actual device when stock was available.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 28/04/2026

I'm working on a Zettelkasten notes app! I tried to keep the app minimalist and frictionless. For instance, notes don't need to be labeled or placed in folders or in a tree, but it's graph-based and searchable. More info here: understory.ussherpress.com #mac #zettelkasten

Screenshot of a Mac app with a side panel listing note cards with summaries in each one and a main panel showing the text of a selected note.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 27/04/2026

Just saw a Cracker Barrel commercial and all the people look like AI. Could've been filmed with real people and they applied an AI filter, maybe to change the faces and fill in details?

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Allen @ussher.ca · 22/04/2026

One thing I love about designing things is getting to a place where you have a very simple mental model of the whole thing.

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Allen @ussher.ca · 20/04/2026

Spotted a bald eagle this evening !

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Allen @ussher.ca · 19/04/2026

Aw man you have to sign in to IMDB now to read user reviews

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Allen @ussher.ca · 17/04/2026

Wow, they're re-releasing the Neo Geo AES and it will not be emulated or FPGA

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