Craft
9notes
Unforgetful: Never lose a task
Another great app from Marco Arment. The introduction post tells the story behind it so well. I’ve been a fan of Overcast for well over a decade. When a developer cares about the problem they’re trying to solve and puts in the effort to solve it well, you can feel it in the finished product.
Unforgetful
A fast, friendly reminders app for iPhone and Mac.
July 2026
Why do I write?
Why do I write? I deeply believe it is important for humans to build stuff. I think this is a primary reason we are on the planet, and I think that the ways a human can build are as varied as the humans who do the building.
Failure to build is abhorrent to me. Much of the anger on the planet right now is from humans who aren’t building, believing they are owed a free lunch because they showed up, or they know better, or some other poorly informed worldview they acquired without effort, without curiosity… just because they exist in their particular circumstances.
Writing is how I build. That’s why I write.
You will never do 150% of a thing if you do not have a version of these motivations. 15% effort means you have not found your reasons yet.
The Motivation
Why write? Not for the calm of it, or to help people, but because building is the point and writing is one way to build.
The second 90 percent
The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.
— Tom Cargill, Bell Labs, via the Ninety-ninety rule
This rule is so true it barely reads like a joke. Anyone who has shipped software has watched a project reach “almost done” and then stay there while the real work finally shows itself.
Not even AI can break it. It changes how quickly we can get through the first 90 percent: scaffolding, boilerplate, tests, happy paths, and enough of the shape of the thing that it feels almost done.
But the second 90 percent still requires human judgment. Someone has to know which rough edges matter, which tradeoffs are acceptable, and when the product is actually right.
June 2026
If you’re going to get into something, you ought to pursue it to its full extent. If you’re not interested enough to do that, don’t bother getting into it. Find the few things you love; don’t waste your time on the many things you merely like.
Matt Mullenweg: ‘All Roads Lead to Om’
Link to: https://ma.tt/2026/06/om-forever/
May 2013
The only path to amazing runs directly through not-yet-amazing. But not-yet-amazing is a great place to start, because that’s where you are. For now.
Overcoming the impossibility of amazing
April 2011
A biz monkey is a replaceable, Powerpoint toting, suit wearing, acronym-spewing middle manager business dude drone. They are quick to comment and sneer, slow to actually ship.
People who understand technology and are willing to bend it to their will, on the other hand, are scarce. They can’t be found with a classified ad on Craigslist or in a blind project ad on eLance.
Biz monkey
At 37signals, however, we have a different position on ambition. We’re not big fans of what I consider “vertical” ambition—that is, the usual career-path trajectory, in which a newbie moves up the ladder from associate to manager to vice president over a number of years of service. On the other hand, we revere “horizontal” ambition—in which employees who love what they do are encouraged to dig deeper, expand their knowledge, and become better at it. We always try to hire people who yearn to be master craftspeople, that is, designers who want to be great designers, not managers of designers; developers who want to master the art of programming, not management.
Master craftspeople