Murdo

Where have y’all been hiding https://xcancel.com/? Twitter / X RSS feed support? Yes, please!

They weren’t kidding.

There is a correct way to arrange Safari’s tab layout. This is it.

Claude Code rebuild of https://scoutreader.app/ already has faster gestures and is using SwiftData instead of my janky JSON dictionary.

Less than 24 hours later and the core of Scout Reader is already rebuilt.

7-day Claude Code Pro trial from @les. We're about to find out if I can rebuild https://scoutreader.app/ fully with Liquid Glass in that time.

New additions for January reads. Already a quarter into The Making of the Atomic Bomb but found it hard to grok on my kindle; called for paper in my hands.

I was gifted two hardware devices for Christmas, a Birdfy feeder and a Lumen metabolic monitor. Both failed within 24 hours and needed replaced. Hardware is hard.

There is a tension for any platform builder -- do you build features your customers need or tools that enable developers? Perhaps platforms are justified in absorbing ecosystem functionality only when doing so improves the customer experience or long-term viability, not when it merely suppresses competition. https://murdo.xyz/posts/platform-trust

Rockin’ a new Home Screen going into January. Big icons, no noise.

My TRMNL Toronto Waste schedule plugin is now refreshed for 2026. https://usetrmnl.com/recipes/102103

It seems like people picking up secondhand Vision Pros enjoy them much more than original buyers. All but confirms that pricing was the barrier. But that can be solved over time.

Update: There are now six squirrels congregating in my garden. We’re going the wrong way.

One of the simplest things you can do for any team is define a prioritization framework. Six rows and three columns, written once and reused daily. https://murdo.xyz/defining-priorities

At Shopify, we have an internal platform called Quick. You get identity and auth, database creation, LLM gateways, BigQuery access, and more all out of the box. Anyone can ship a tool in minutes. But really it’s letting everyone cosplay as a product manager and software engineer. Every single person is learning that the code is only ~10% of anything you ship.

Get a smart bird feeder for my Shopify staff Christmas gift. Expect all the birds. Get 24 hours of this chonk annihilating the fresh bird seed I put out.

Master of craft. https://youtu.be/daYgg2YSA2g?si=2xMXOZBraytSFnbf

We’re quickly finding out which roles are basically an index.html, a database, and a couple .js files if you’re feeling extra fancy.

Bevel must be a prime candidate for Apple to acquire. They’ve really nailed the iOS health experience. Their LLM insights are genuinely good too.

With BFCM ‘25 wrapped, I’ve officially hit two years at Shopify. It’s been fast, intense, and genuinely fun. Grateful for the team, proud of what we’ve shipped, and excited for what we’re gonna build next.