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  • Friday update: 212 paying customers, $4.1k MRR. Biggest lesson this month: the pricing page is a product. Rewrote it three times.

  • Hot take: most "we need a NoSQL database" conversations end with a well-indexed Postgres table and an apology.

  • Rented a 34' sloop for the weekend. Two reefs in by noon, champagne sailing by three. Best $549 I've spent this year.

  • Pizza oven hit 850°F today. Margherita in 70 seconds. The leopard spots on that crust 😮‍💨

  • Design review checklist I keep taped to my monitor: 1. Can a new user tell what this page is for in 5 seconds? 2. Is the primary action obvious? 3. Would it survive a slow phone?

  • PSA: if your chart's y-axis doesn't start at zero, say so in the caption. Your readers deserve honest charts.

  • New this week: Cliffside Oolong is back in small batches. Orchid, cream and stone fruit; good for six steeps. Only a few tins left 🍵

  • Confession: rented an e-mountain bike to "just try it" and climbed 3,000 ft before lunch. I see the appeal now.

  • Reading about the 1918 newspaper wars. Every "the internet ruined discourse" take has a 100-year-old ancestor.

  • A house is mostly a machine for moving light around. Everything else is furniture.

  • Using an AI coding assistant well is mostly about writing a good spec and keeping changes small enough to actually review. The model isn't the bottleneck.

  • Small craft advisory in Chicago tomorrow. Everyone booked can reschedule free or take a full refund, no forms needed. Safety first ⛵

  • Things that grew my SaaS more than any feature: • answering every support email within an hour • a changelog people actually read • killing the free tier

  • Kitchen display screens changed our Friday nights. No more lost tickets, no more yelling. Just the queue.

  • Reminder that "Are you sure?" dialogs are a design failure most of the time. Make actions undoable instead.

  • Bouldering problem I've failed 14 times finally went today. The secret was resting. It's always resting.

  • Weekend plan: lake day with the kids. Paddleboards, sandwiches, absolutely no Slack.

  • Trail etiquette thread: uphill runners have right of way, say hi, and pack out what you pack in. That's it. That's the thread.

  • Jazz record for your Sunday: something with a long, unhurried piano intro. Put the kettle on and let it play.

  • Brewing tip: green tea at boiling water tastes bitter. 175°F, two minutes, and it's a completely different drink.

  • Visited a hotel built around a courtyard pool. Every room looks at water. Simple idea, perfectly done.

  • Wrote characterization tests for a 15-year-old billing module before touching it. Found three bugs that had become "features". Fixed none of them. Yet.

  • Safety update: new accounts can't include links in their first posts, and contact details in replies to people you don't follow are held for review. Fewer scams, same conversation.

  • Welcome to Tidepool 🌊 Short posts, a chronological Following feed, and safety tools that actually work. Say hi and tag it