Thomas

The Agentic Browser Wars Have Begun Three companies have declared war on how you use the internet. Perplexity AI launched Comet, its AI-powered browser, in July 2025. OpenAI released Atlas on October 21, promising a future where AI hand...

Perplexity’s Comet, OpenAI’s Atlas, and Google’s AI Mode are all fighting to own the moment when your browser stops waiting for clicks and starts acting on your behalf.

Control is the issue. Whoever manages the agent that completes your purchase controls the data, the relationship, and the revenue.

The New Yorker Radio Hour: Episodes | WNYC Studios | Podcasts Profiles, storytelling and insightful conversations, hosted by David Remnick.

Jeff Tweedy on His New Triple Album, “Twilight Override”.

The best teams know when not to build something.
The backlog isn’t a to-do list—it’s a set of hypotheses to test.

#KnowTheProblemYouAreSolving #SoftwareDevelopment

Not into the skeuomorphic tiles. Starting to think removing the tiles altogether would be an improvement - using just icons without a background may look cleaner and more scannable.

My team visited our partners at Deloitte Digital in NYC today and the sun came out on cue. Good times!

I never, ever want to hear again that women are too emotional to be leaders.

Play The Mini Crossword All the fun of the larger New York Times Crossword, but you can solve it in seconds.

www.nytimes.com/badges/games...

New tools, new friends, great to be back in SF! #config2025

Looking forward to the keynote.

It’s weird how you can accomplish things by simply trying to do them

Figma unveils new features for streamlined design systems Figma has released updates to enhance the management and efficiency of design systems.

A few new enhancements for Figma. ux-news.com/figma-unveil...

#NationalLibraryWeek
#LiteracyMatters

I don't know who needs to hear this, but start living. The days are flying by, and all you do is work, pay bills, and stress. Enjoy what you can-walks, sunsets, music, laughter. Joy doesn't have to be expensive. You deserve it.

“The earth laughs in flowers."

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

An dusty, industrial looking control panel in a wall. There are two big white square buttons on it. The one on the left has a red border and the letter 'i' touching the bottom, representing a person stuck to the ground (the dot of the i being their head). The 2nd button also has a red border, but inside the button is an upside down stickman figure, arms and legs spread out. To indicate this person is floating around helplessly in zero-gravity.

You know who should've won an Oscar last night? The person who designed the little 'Gravity on / off' buttons in Alien Romulus.

RIP, Skype. End of an era. But I'm actually surprised it lasted this long after the MS purchase.

I'm using using Dropbox to upload some large files after a long time not using Dropbox and the experience is reminding me why I haven't used Dropbox in a real long time

Seriously, creative folks: Don't be afraid to let people know your stuff is out there for them, or worry that "now is not the time for that." People are stressed and freaked out and looking for the things that will give them a moment of rest and joy. It is EXACTLY the time for what we do. Tell them.

LinkedIn is quickly becoming the new Twitter/X. 🫣

Design.Systems Resources for the design systems community.

If there's any #DesignSystems folks here looking for work, you should sign up to the Slack community from @jina.social and friends. There's been quite a few job postings in there:

Awhile back, someone asserted that UX is in the business of quality. I’d say that UX should be in the business of creating trust, as in, “I trust that I’m not being scammed. I trust that this works the way I expected. I trust in the service provided, etc.”

You can be an effective leader by mastering 4x areas:

1. 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 - are you clear where to focus?

2. 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹 - can you drive progress every day?

3. 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 - have you got the right people in your org?

4. 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 - does everyone know what to do?

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A comparison of black text and white text on various background colours, using the WCAG 2 testing method. The contrast ratios do not match what you’d expect. For example, white text on an ornage background looks very high contrast, but black text on orange has a higher value.

2025 should be the year you stop using WCAG 2 colour contrast testing, and switch to APCA. This article is a few years old, and covers everything well. blog.datawrapper.de/color-contra...

If you played an instrument back in high school and stopped: we are in a golden age of decent cheap instruments.

The guitars are better, the amps are better. The pedals are cheaper, the wind instruments are actually instruments and not just shaped like them, etc.

Jump back into it.

Answering your questions about AI, smart glasses, TikTok, and more Opening up the reader mailbag to kick off the new year.

Answering your questions about AI, smart glasses, TikTok, and more

Not that Google was ever good, but this cartoon is a good summary of now.

Do you hate linkedin? #linkedin #funny #sketch #aus #Melbourne #perth TikTok video by Kick it Forward

The inevitable response:

98-Year-Old Dick Van Dyke Stars in Lovely New Coldplay Video Coldplay tapped Spike Jonze & Mary Wigmore to direct the music video for a song called All My Love from their latest album and the pair decided to turn it into an early 99th birthday celebration of Dick Van Dyke. Van D

Coldplay, Spike Jonze, and Mary Wigmore turned the band’s latest music video into a lovely & poignant tribute to Dick Van Dyke on the eve of his 99th birthday. So many great little moments in this. [kottke.org]

The Most Iconic Electronic Music Sample of Every Year (1990-2023) Oh man this is so great: electronic music sample breakdowns from 1990 until the present day. The visualizations on these are fan

This is a very well done visual walkthrough of song building via sampling from the last 30+ years.

kottke.org/24/11/the-mo...