Issue 94
Bizarro Devs collects the best tools, articles, and resources from around the web to help and entertain you.
🧱 HOW TO STRUCTURE BETTER DAYS. AND, TAKE 20 YEARS OFF YOUR LIFE FOR $1 MILLION.
Heya,
The widespread premonition that the world is changing got another confirmation this week; a new age guru made an app version of himself to dispense tips, guidance, and help improve his books. Lil' Deepak is free to use while he's in training which could also mean his advice will be...a little off.
I also found more great tips for increased productivity (ignore the red icon), an easier way to make box shadows, and how to take 20 years off your life for a cool million.
Enjoy,
Chris.
🕸️ The Cool Side of the Web
Flow is a visualization made with JS that feels like a "test" from Watchmen.
I lack the sophistication and knowledge to explain it, so over to Peter Liepa, the developer:
The gradient being used is the gradient of a certain angle, but the flow lines themselves form coaxial circles. Dragging with the mouse will seed new particles.
I threw it up full screen to hide my Slack notifications. The movement is slow and delicate enough to avoid distraction while keeping me away from distraction.
codepen.io
The formatting of Quartz's Daily Obsession is incredible. Somehow they pack history, statistics, GIFs, pop-quizzes, and a sprinkle of long-from all onto the page. 🔮
This one is all about prediction; the good, the bad, and the folly. It's a good way to appear smarter at parties with a rundown of how prediction has been viewed, applied, and tested over the years. With some insight into how we do it, and what the next steps are, this is a good quick read.
qz.com
🤖 Robots et. al.
That's so meta (humanoid): Deepak Chopra made a digital clone of himself.
It looks like he de-aged himself a little bit in the rendering, which seems fair. The article has a trailer for the app which either sounds creepy or like a cry for help "go everywhere you go. I'll be inside your phone". Someone help that kid.
The popularization of deep fakes, Jimmy Kimmel uses them a lot, has broken through another barrier with Facebook's R&D department, Snapchat, testing their Cameos feature in selected markets. It edits some preselected videos and slides your noggin in there to add a personal touch to your GIF reactions.
While fakes continue to improve, there is a reasonable question about their productivity. It has been suggested that robots will do better if they have a fear of death. Of course, a short lifespan is exactly why Roy Batty started a minor rebellion.
cnet.com
⚒️ Tools and Resources
Box shadows made easy. 👥
So, it's probably not robots who are the threat to our jobs but our ingrained laziness. That being said, this is a very cool tool for creating quick shadows. It has sliders to control layers, blur strength, transparency, and spread with easy to copy code produced on the fly.
brumm.af
Mass delete your Tweets in bulk.
tweetdelete.net
How to perform a competitor site analysis and bury your rivals. ⚔️
This is a good resource, particularly if you're running your own site, for developing new traffic streams. All of the suggested tools are free and the step-by-step instructions are easy to follow.
themeisle.com
An all-in-one guide to speeding up WordPress. ⏩
Trying to mate successfully with Google is quite difficult. All the dancing, prancing, and singing in the world won't help you. There's only one way to win Google's heart: speed. This guide goes through everything you need to give your site the speed boost that will make Google yours.
optimole.com
🥇 World of WordPress
Expanding the Gutenberg galaxy with WordPress and the new block editor. 🚧
It doesn't matter how committed you are to hating Gutenberg, its movement is unstoppable at this point. I'm not going to get bogged down in statistics, active installs, or 'client who' arguments. Instead, I'll share this handy guide to adapting existing WordPress sites to the block editor.
hubspot.com
It's the Pepsi or Coke debate for web development: GTmetrix vs PageSpeed Insights vs Pingdom Tools vs WebPageTest.
The test of each is thorough and provides a handy breakdown of which is best for particular types of testing.
codeinwp.com
🤔 Articles of interest
Hi, Dr. Nick! Scientists avoid the FDA and offer an anti-aging treatment in Colombia. 👶
Libella Gene Therapeutics says it is developing a gene therapy that can reverse aging by up to 20 years,. The company says it is ready to give an experimental anti-aging therapy to older people at a clinic north of Bogota, Colombia. Scientists and ethicists say the company’s experiment is not only dubious but it also raises concerns about how anti-aging treatments should be tested in people.
medium.com
🌩️ Eat lightning - Productivity
Asynchronous communication: What it is & why you should care about it.
This is of personal interest to me because I hate working from home but it is regularly claimed to be "amazing". This article looks at asynchronous communication and how it can be deployed effectively to increase productivity.
For keeping your communications asynched but timely, check out Later which delivers your messages at the best time for your remote colleagues. It's a little pricey for an app that also appends a signature to every message, but still worth a look.
doist.com
Structure your work day like a football coach to get more out of it (without the concusions). 🏈
I prefer the baseball manager approach. I used a lot of signals, I chew gum, I kick dust on the umpire's shoes but this is still a good article.
It's an unusual angle to take, but the application of the methods to office work is quite strong. In particular, the idea of building a game plan & playbook, and performance reviews stick out.
Side note: this article will run you through the process for creating a self-directed year-end review.
medium.com
🎮 Fun & Games
A quick history of Airmash and how it survived against the odds.
If you're not interested in history, then you can just play the game here. I can recommend it for a quick diversion. It is fun, simple, and non-taxing. Just jump in your plane start chasing other players around the map.
janwillemboer.nl
Outro
That's the week in a nutshell.
As usual, you can send me links via a reply or you can tweet on the Twitter.
Forwarding, sharing, and outshouting are appreciated.
For newcomers, we handle all the signups here 24/7.
Have a great week,
Chris.
