Learning Log, September 2026

Life~Work

Life: I’ve been enjoying my free time after last month’s layoffs at Etsy. I spent it on side projects, catching up with friends, and mental health days. And the summer heatwave finally broke, which made my afternoon runs more fun.

Work: I made time for freelance projects, but my focus was finding my next full-time role. Between Etsy’s alumni network, recruiters, and friends, I’ve landed 9 interviews so far. I’m taking my time to find a team I’d enjoy working with at a company whose mission I believe in.

Projects

• My portfolio – relaunched last month. This month I refined the design, added motion, and rebuilt key case studies as web-based presentations, so I can demo prototypes and other interactive elements during interviews.
• notebin – continued adding features to the iOS version of my minimal note-capture app. Now it supports iOS 27, Siri, widgets, and lock screen controls. Reach out if you want to try it via TestFlight!
• Antigrav – an Obsidian plugin to support append-and-review-style note taking. It lets you set a command to instantly move a text selection to the top of a note. My next step is to release it as an official community plugin.
• mage – a CLI wizard that resizes images and converts them to WebP. OptImage had been my go-to tool for this, but it stopped working in macOS 27, so I made mage as a replacement.

Digital gardening

Bookshelf

• It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken – a zombie’s-eye view of a post-apocalyptic world. Strange premise, but the perspective made a zombie feel relatable.
• The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes – an in-depth history of the splitting of the atom and its consequences. I think there’s a parallel to AI: once scientists grasped the power of the atom, they warned government officials. Officials ignored them at first (where AI is now).

Links

• The Lightbulb Computer – a conceptual project around spatial and ambient computing. I liked the kitchen use case: talking and pointing to place timers and recipes on different surfaces looks handy.
• Glance Chrome extension – a Figma-style design inspector for any webpage. It’s a local Chrome extension, so proceed with caution. I’ve used it daily with no issues.

MEMEX

A few favorite visuals I’ve added to MEMEX, my swipe file.