Alan Crissey

Y’all are going to run dithering into the ground aren’t you.

Yes. I’ll burn my eyes out.

I wish I could get back the hours of my life I’ve spent going in circles with Copilot (and using Claude Sonnet 4) on a Jekyll project I’m adding features to. It’s been worse than useless.

Well maybe he had to have a party to eat all those chips you gave him.

I’m currently building an app using Payload CMS plus Supabase plus Netlify and I really hope the Figma acquisition of Payload doesn’t mess up this stack. Coming from decades of building sites and apps with various stacks and languages, it’s nuts how good this is to work with.

There are so many Evil Forests. Which one?

What they really mean is “Buy our product or else!”

Mustang bass vintagification mostly complete.

Pickups are soldered and everything but the new capacitor is in. Looks pretty good. Honestly surprised it doesn’t hum, my soldering skills aren’t great.

The new pickups installed in the new scratch plate, showing how low they extend.

The pickup cavity as it originally was.

Using the scratch plate template images off of WD Music, I made a printout of where the two pickup layouts overlapped and drew a rough line where the cavity needed to be deepened.

The extended pickup cavity, after my chiseling.

I knew there was a chance the new pickups would be too tall to fit in the existing cavity for the pickups. And that turned out to be the case. I wasn’t equipped to properly use a router to expand it, so I used my long dormant woodworking skills to chisel it.

Black pickup covers from Curtis Novak.

Since the pickups didn’t come with covers and I don’t already have the vintage style pickups in my bass, I had to order some. I got these from Curtis Novak.

Lollar Mustang Bass pickups.

For the pickups, I went with Lollar’s Mustang Bass Version A. My understanding is these go for the vintage sound of the older Mustangs but with higher output.

Custom bass pick guard in parchment.

For drastic modifications, like changing the type of pickups, the pick guard / scratch plate will usually need to be changed, and in a case like this, a custom one is needed. This took a lot of research to make sure everything would fit. I ordered this one from WD Music.

First a little history. These basses have been around since the 60s and they’re short scale. And there are a LOT of variations. Mine is a more modern version with P and J pickups. I can’t take it all the way to vintage so it’ll be a mix. Feel free to read more. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_...

My blue Fender Mustang PJ bass.

I’m about to start on a new project, which is a modification to my Fender Mustang PJ bass where I’ll swap out the P pickups for the vintage style split single coil pickups. It’s not very straightforward. I’ll document it along the way because you deserve a variety of content on your timeline.

A Mailchimp coin with the words ‘creativity, humility, independence’.

There’s a lot to think about here.

Well now I can say I know what it feels like to have a splinter in my eye. It’s not fun. Thanks to @melaniecrissey.com the worst of that experience is over.

It’s a sin.

Who is technology for? Reflecting on time in Atlanta for RenderATL

This was supposed to be a conference recap post but it’s really about the impact of our work.

melaniecrissey.com/blog/who-is-...

I’ll be taking a break from sabbaticaling to attend RenderATL. If you’ll be there and would like to meet up, let me know.

Thank you for sharing this. I’ve gone through something very similar recently and this makes me feel a little better about my choices. At the moment I have less of a plan but maybe that’s ok. It’s going to take me a while.

The BIOS setup screen of an old sad 486 computer somewhere.

My new website is gonna be WEIRD yall.

AI in daily life A snapshot

I wrote a blog post about AI, art, slop, ChatGPT, the Dead Internet, and what this all might mean for us mere mortals:

www.melaniecrissey.com/blog/ai/

I would say tech is up for debate and reconfiguration.

Technically, Marketing Go-to-market tools and advice for technical founders

Work life update! Today I'm publicly rebooting my independent marketing practice @technicallymarket.ing

You can hire me immediately to help with go-to-market plans, product launches, website copy, or thinking through how to build out your growth team.

www.melaniecrissey.com/blog/introdu...

Exploring Iceland: Reykjavík and the South Coast A thorough recap with travel photos

Not really a Travel Blogger but I just got back from my first international trip in over a decade and I wanted to write about it!

Here's everything we did, saw, and ate in #Iceland, along with some learnings for people planning a similar trip:

www.melaniecrissey.com/blog/explori...

I mean, why did we even build the internet?

ChatGPT generated image of its interpretation of my life.

Strange things going on with some wall and musical instrument arrangements, but generally not inaccurate? Piper (my dog) would not be happy with her representation.

👋 I followed you over there, can’t remember if you followed me but, hi!

Yep!

Believe it or not he used to be even harder before a patch a few months ago.