Author: JBN
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Drawing (on) a Blank
I made a blank page, using my awesome computer super powers. It’s not as straightforward as you might think to just get an expanse of white screen to scribble on or whatever, so I made a page that I can go to whenever I need it. It goes hand-in-hand with Li’l Scribbler.
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The Home Tab
I made a Chrome extension that takes you to a browser tab that you designate. I typically have a lot of browser tabs open, and if I’m on a call with someone I invariably wind up needing to go back to the same tab over and over again. With a lot of tabs open they…
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Bellochet
Bellochet is a musical… toy, I guess, that lets you manipulate parameters to change the behavior of balls bouncing around a screen sounding tones when they hit something. There’s a lot of stuff to mess with. Go ahead, tweak stuff. Zone out. Create evolving chord progressions, experiment with sound and visuals, and yank the dials…
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Li’l Scribbler
I made Li’l Scribbler, a Chrome extension that lets you draw on pages and it mostly keyboard-focused so you can get really good and fast at it. Product Managers do a lot of screensharing and discussing of features and whatnot with developers and designers. At least I do. And none of the tools I could…
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Test Image Maker
I made a chrome extension to make generating test images super easy, barely an inconvenience. At my day job I found myself needing test images of a specific size and type. So I’d find something on google, and put it into an image editor and resize it or crop it or whatever. Then I’d save…
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15th Anniversary Gyruss Ripoff
It’s kind of fun. You can try it. When my wife and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary, of course I made her a video game. Sort of. It’s like gyrus except you never reach the center and you never die, and a song plays the whole time, and there’s a cherub and unicorns and…
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Wave Maker
I made this tool that generates a video containing a waveform of the audio you’ve uploaded. It can be annoying to generate a waveform for a music video. If all you want to do is create a simple video that has a waveform in it, the internet will tell you to contort yourself in various…
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Mother’s Day 2025
I made my wife a digital card for Mother’s Day. You water the flowers, the flowers bloom, you keep watering them, pictures of my son appear.
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QR Code Generator
I built a QR Generating tool. At my day job we use QR codes a lot. They let people access events, connect with each other, capture leads, complete challenges, etc etc. My little gizmo lets you generate a QR code, a batch of QR codes, or a batch that contains numbers in serial.
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The Sore Spot
On a fog-laden night, a neon glow from a digital billboard flickers outside the large glass panes of the office. The city’s hum is barely audible over the synchronized dance of raindrops and the whirring thoughts of a weary Product Manager trying to get to the end of another late day. His bloodshot eyes stare…
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Capability, Usability, Beauty
The Product Manager sighs and ignores the elements as he leans against his wooden desk, hands pressed flat against the surface. Outside, the rain runs in rivulets down the glass, each drop a reminder of the relentless push and pull of his job. Shadows oozing around the office are broken by the occasional flash of…
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Tools
It was one of those nights, the kind that makes you question every choice you ever made. The neon glow from the sign outside casts a sickly light over the Product Manager’s cluttered desk. He’s staring down an empty bottle of bourbon and a computer screen filled with the hopes of an entire company. His…
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Stay In Your Lane
The glow of computer screens flickers like the distant fires of a city under siege as a Product Manager watches rain carve a path down the window of a filthy conference room on the 31st floor. The team calls it the war room, and they’ve all been here long past when the H-VAC automatically shuts…
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Sir Hugo and the Fart Machine
In the far-off Kingdom of Gigglesnort, where the rivers gurgled with laughter and the trees swayed with the rhythm of a chuckle, lived King Guffaw. The kingdom wasn’t just a place; it was a personality – lively, playful, and ever-ready with a wink and a grin. Gigglesnort was like a jovial old friend who welcomed…
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The New Roof
Alright, pal, come on in and have a seat. Don’t mind the springs in that chair, they probably won’t give you tetanus. This is it, livin’ the dream. Take a big whiff. Smell the must, old paper, and that half-forgotten coffee cup over there with its own ecosystem growing in it. And if you see…
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The i
Who can resist the enchanting pull of the ‘i’? We are but pawns in a game of celestial scale, our doom silently echoed in every innocent ringtone, every blithe text message, and every picture captured in digital perfection.
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The 3 Legged Stool
In the high stakes poker game of product management, the house always deals the same cards: Quick, Good, or Cheap. Pick any two, but don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re holding a royal flush. Welcome to the three-legged stool of product management, where each leg bears the weight of a project’s success. Got software you…
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Testing
The patter of rain against the office window sets the rhythm of the product manager’s thoughts. He leans back in his worn leather chair, running his fingers along the brim of his hat while he stares out at the neon haze of the city. His mind chews on a topic that’s done a lot for…
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Different != Better
In the labyrinth of SaaS, the pulse of product management beats a steady rhythm. I’ve been at it for two decades, caught in the crosshairs of armchair critics and would-be virtuosos. U X Designers, Tech Writers, and we product managers are the usual suspects on their list. If you’ve been on the receiving end, you…
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On Perfection
They whisper in hushed tones in the grungy back alleys of software product management. They spread tales about the mythical beast – the quantifiably perfect product manager. The one who’s got all the pieces lined up well before the game starts, the smooth talker with the slick slide decks, the sharpshooter hitting the KPIs, the…
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Wisdom vs. Intelligence
Doodleberry’s dawn is awash in an aquarium glow; the sun not so much rising as burping itself into being over the rustling cornfields. Head Nurse Bertha, twenty tattooed parrots adorning her forearms, swaggers into the room, juggling coffee cups like a circus veteran. “Morning, tribe!” she calls out, her gaze sweeping the familiar faces at…
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If We Could Turn Back Time
In the morning gleam of Doodleberry’s Home for Old Biddies and Coots, the air thrums with anticipation of the day’s breakfast, a carnival of culinary craziness cooked up by Head Nurse Bertha. Fresh from discussing the day’s weather with the paperboy (prediction: freak hail in the afternoon), Bertha galumphs into the dining room, her eclectic…
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Stupid Questions
In this concrete jungle of sharp minds and fiery conversations, fear lurks in the shadowy corners. It’s not the fear of failure, but something more insidious – the terror of looking like a halfwit. Picture this. You’re surrounded by nodding heads, an idea just bounced off your skull, and you’re thinking, “Am I the only…
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The Perfect Parkour Performance
Once upon a time in the colorful kingdom of Jumpitopia, there lived a young boy knight named Sir Hugo, his best friend, a girl named Sir Zora, and a very brave Chihuahua named Sir Emmett. The trio were inseparable, and together they went on countless adventures, spreading kindness, joy, and friendship wherever they went. One…
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Stay the F* Home
A relic of the pandemic, I wrote and recorded this song and my friend Jenny and I created a video with submissions from a bunch of people all sending the same message for everyone during lockdown.
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The Ultimate Flingo
Ah, the flingo! A wondrous flying disc that never ceases to amaze those who have the privilege of experiencing it. It is a joyous amalgamation of shape and color, designed for the sole purpose of flying through the air with reckless abandon. The flingo is a true marvel of engineering, possessing an aerodynamic form that…
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The Bedrock Ender Dragon Battle
Hugo loves Minecraft, and dictated the plot of this Sir Hugo story to me one evening by recording plot details into my phone. I transcribed them and worked with ChatGPT to convert them into this story. Once upon a time, in a land filled with wonder and adventure, there was a family who loved to…
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The Great Slinky
Once upon a time, in a land filled with magical toys, there was a legendary toy called the Great Slinky. The Great Slinky could stretch infinitely and reach unimaginable heights. It was an amazing example of its type, surely one of a kind—it could circle the world 10,000 times! Many adventurers sought to find this…
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The Magic Bubble Machine
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there lived two young knights named Sir Hugo and Sir Zora. They loved to run and jump and play, but they were also brave and always ready to help someone in need. One sunny day, while they were enjoying their day off, they received a…
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The Goblin Party
Sir Hugo and Sir Zora received an invitation to the goblin party in the most unexpected way. As they were playing in the forest, a tiny creature suddenly appeared in front of them. It was a goblin! But not just any goblin – this one was wearing a top hat and a bowtie and holding…
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The Great Pizza Heist
Sir Hugo, a young but mighty knight, was spending the day with his friend Sir Zora. They had planned to play with their toy swords and build a fort in Sir Hugo’s backyard, but their plans changed when they discovered that their beloved pizza had been stolen! The pizza had been ordered by Sir Hugo’s…
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The Gigantic Monster in the Humongous Cave
This is, sometimes, what you get when your 6-year-old dictates the plot of a story. Once upon a time, there were three brave knights named Sir Hugo, Sir Zora, and Sir Emmett. Sir Emmett was a chihuahua, but he was still a knight like the other two. What made him special was that he could…
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Software Test Drive: Runway Gen2
Runway gives you a few credits to try out their services, and I blow them all on a bunch of prompts to see if I can get something useful out of it. It doesn’t go very well, but YMMV.
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Can’t Stop Won’t Stop
TL;DR the chatbot can’t help itself, it has to respond, even when the input is something a human would take as ending the conversation.
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Software Test Drive: Boomy
I give “AI” music generation app Boomy a try.
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What We Need More Of, Is Science
I made this song in 2003, creating the instrumental tracks in a program called Fruity Loops, which is now FL Studio and the vocals and mixing were done in Cool Edit Pro. Cut to 2023 and there’s a service called Kaiber that will make never-ending zoom-in videos using AI. So this is a Kaiber-generated video…
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Chief Expectation Officer
Welcome to the dark, twisted carnival of product management, where the regular rules don’t apply. Here, we dance a drunken waltz with science and art, wrapped up in the grimy trench coat of expectation management. Strap in, folks. It’s gonna be one hell of a ride. Take customers for instance. We gotta keep them as…
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Surprises Suck
No Surprises.
