2025-07-07 12:57:11
Hey y'all,
I hope your week was a good one, and you had a somewhat light work week with the U.S. holiday. Let's learn!
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The Backrooms: CSS Edition
Writing Code Was Never The Bottleneck
An unnecessary but satisfying optimization
glass3d generator
Personally speaking, this was a hard week, my friends. I don't want to get into it so I will leave it at: hug your loved ones. If you care about someone, call them and tell them!
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Last week, I had you find the last non-repeating character in a string. Awesomeeee work Usman, Aren, Winnie, Ten, Muhammad, Neefertiti, Paul, David, Amine, Tarang, Sameer, Ross, Ender, Kriszti, Andrew, SidGod, Ollie, Jake, Kwlio, Neha, Elke, and Austin!
This week's question:
Given an array of fireworks representing a series going off, write a function to find the "grand finale" of the show! A grand finale is defined as the longest subarray where the average size is at least 5, the minimum velocity is 3, and the difference between the min and max height is no more than 10. Return the starting index of the grand finale.
Example:
const fireworks = [
{height: 10, size: 6, velocity: 4},
{height: 13, size: 3, velocity: 2},
{height: 17, size: 6, velocity: 3},
{height: 21, size: 8, velocity: 4},
{height: 19, size: 5, velocity: 3},
{height: 18, size: 4, velocity: 4}
];
> grandFinaleStart(fireworks)
> 2
(you can submit your answers by replying to this email with a link to your solution, or share on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Mastodon)
Pockets are a Significant, Untapped Market
DNworks Noodle.zip + Alu Plate + BSUN Jade Rosales + GMK Hooty = Keyboard Typing Test (video)
Wikipedia:WikiProject AI Cleanup/AI catchphrases
How email tracking works behind the scenes
What do you call a fly without wings?
A walk!
That's all for now, folks! Have a great week. Be safe, make good choices, and donate to causes you care about!
Special thanks to Ezell, Ben, Kinetic Labs, and Marta for supporting my Patreon and this newsletter!
cassidoo
website | blog | github | bluesky | twitter | patreon | twitch | codepen | mastodon
2025-06-30 14:13:03
Hey friends!
We made it to the end of June! I hope you're staying cool in this hot hot weather (and if it's not wildly warm where you are... you are blessed). Let's boogie.
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Moar Serverless 2025 talk recordings (videos)
Git Notes: git's coolest, most unloved feature
Color Everything in CSS
Why visual website builders didn't take off (video)
Phew, this week my baby crossed the two month mark, which is mind-blowing! I feel like it's been so fast and so slow all at once. We're trying to take advantage of summer time with him and our toddler by going to parks and museums as much as we can. It's very challenging as we learn how to be a family of four, but it's been fun, too.
In side-project land, I'm currently trying to use Expo to deploy a React Native app to my phone and... it is going poorly. I think it's my fault, but it's hard to say because it's a new stack for me, but it's fun at least! I hoped to fix it before sending this issue, but alas I broke something. Hopefully I'll have something shipped before the next one? Maybe?
Developers & leaders: here’s how you can give your fintech frontend teams a boost
The best fintechs aren’t just moving fast now – they’re moving smart.
This guide breaks down what’s changing and what CTOs should do about it:
🔹 Full-stack is the new default (hello, dev ownership).
🔹 Accessibility isn’t optional (thanks, EU regs).
🔹 AI is quietly reshaping frontend workflows.
Co-authored by The Software House CTO, Adam Polak, with insights from 689 devs in 83 countries.
Last week, I had you deal with overlapping sirens. Wee woo wee woo James, Will, Burton, Winnie, David, Ten, Elke, Patrycja, Varenya, Neha, Michel, and Ender!
This week's question:
Find the last non-repeating character in a given string. If all characters repeat, return an empty string.
Example:
> nonRepeat('candy canes do taste yummy')
> 'u'
(you can submit your answers by replying to this email with a link to your solution, or share on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Mastodon)
A New Pyramid-Like Shape Always Lands the Same Side Up
The High Cost of Being Low Maintenance
Custom (open source) acrylic macropad
Architect Dad Transforms Son’s Small Sydney Apartment (video)
I accidentally drank a bottle of invisible ink. Now I'm in hospital, waiting to be seen!
That's all for now, folks! Have a great week. Be safe, make good choices, and be grateful!
Special thanks to Ezell, Ben, Kinetic Labs, and Marta for supporting my Patreon and this newsletter!
cassidoo
website | blog | github | bluesky | twitter | patreon | twitch | codepen | mastodon
2025-06-23 12:16:21
Hey friends!
It's a new week! I hope yours was a good one and you got enough sleep. And if you didn't... welcome to sleepytown, the water's fine! Anyway, let's boogie.
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Simplifying auth flows in Expo Router with protected routes
Grainy Gradients
Coding a 3D Audio Visualizer with Three.js, GSAP & Web Audio API
Animating zooming using CSS: transform order is important… sometimes
This week I finished reading Babel by R.F. Kuang! I enjoyed it, though it was pretty intense. I had started it a while back and just haven't had time to finish it (...because I had a baby), and it was fun to finally get some time to go through it.
I'm trying to encourage reading for my toddler, too. My current experiment with that is I have books scattered throughout our home, so I can be reading something on my own if I'm not reading one of her books to her. As a result, I'm just in the middle of a bunch of stories. I'm now reading Project Hail Mary, Truly Madly Guilty, and The Way of Kings!
Also, I did some maintenance on PocketCal this week! If you would like to support the project now, there's a "pay what you want" (lifetime!) Pro license that you can get to make up to 10 event groups. Woo hoo!
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Last week, I had you put monarchs in order. It was a funky one! A royally good job to Elke, Chris, David, Muhammad, Ten, Pedro, Tarang, Raymond, Winnie, Colin, Patrycja, and Neha!
This week's question:
You’re given an array of siren objects, each with a start and end time in seconds, representing when the siren is active. Write a function to return the minimum number of sirens you need to remove so that no two sirens overlap.
Example:
removeSirens([
{ start: 1, end: 5 },
{ start: 3, end: 7 },
{ start: 6, end: 8 },
{ start: 8, end: 10 }
]);
> 1
removeSirens([
{ start: 0, end: 3 },
{ start: 2, end: 4 },
{ start: 5, end: 7 },
{ start: 6, end: 8 },
{ start: 8, end: 10 }
])
> 2
(you can submit your answers by replying to this email with a link to your solution, or share on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Mastodon)
Cozy Comfort
Blue Ridge EC with 45g DynaCap Domes Typing Sounds (video)
Making a Kazoo from a Highlighter Marker (video)
ChatGPT May Be Eroding Critical Thinking Skills, According to a New MIT Study
Yeah, Geology rocks, but Geography is where it's at!
That's all for now, folks! Have a great week. Be safe, make good choices, and stretch your legs on a nice walk!
Special thanks to IceSloth, Ezell, Sebastián, Ben, Kinetic Labs, and Marta for supporting my Patreon and this newsletter!
cassidoo
website | blog | github | bluesky | twitter | patreon | twitch | codepen | mastodon
2025-06-16 13:20:32
Hey friends!
I hope your week was a good one. I felt like it went very slowly, but I got to see some friends and family, which was nice. And Happy Father's Day to all of the dads and dad-figures out there! Let's go!
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Melanie Sumner: Why Continuous Accessibility Is a Strategic Advantage
Scroll-Driven Letter Grid
8 CSS & JavaScript Snippets for Creating Sticky Elements
A new way to style gaps in CSS
The project that took up most of my week was building a way to generate custom open graph images for my blog! I wrote about how I did it in case you want to try it out, or at least see how I fumbled through an Astro + Puppeteer solution.
During that process I ran into a small build bug and also wrote about how I fixed Puppeteer on Netlify.
And to top off my very blog-heavy week, I wrote about a scavenger hunt project I worked on for Alinea, the three Michelin star restaurant! It's a random one, but it was fun!
Gen AI: Boost resilience and security
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Last week, I had you make a state machine for a street light! Ready, set, go Winnie, Chris, Elke, Ten, David, Raymond, Miguel, Kriszti, Pedro, Muhammad, Renato, Austin, Tim, Neha, and Patrycja!
This week's question:
Given an array of strings representing the names of monarchs and their ordinal numbers, write a function that returns the list of names sorted first by name and then by their ordinal value (in Roman numerals), in ascending order.
Example:
> sortMonarchs(["Louis IX", "Louis VIII", "Philip II", "Philip I"])
> ["Louis VIII", "Louis IX", "Philip I", "Philip II"]
> sortMonarchs(["George VI", "George V", "Elizabeth II", "Edward VIII"])
> ["Edward VIII", "Elizabeth II", "George V", "George VI"]
(you can submit your answers by replying to this email with a link to your solution, or share on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Mastodon)
On How Long it Takes to Know if a Job is Right for You or Not
Classical Guitar vs Flamenco Guitar: What's the REAL Difference?
The Punctuation Guide
Cycle7 Green keyboard with JTK Emerald keycaps
This morning I was wondering where the sun was, but then it dawned on me.
That's all for now, folks! Have a great week. Be safe, make good choices, and be open to change!
Special thanks to IceSloth, Ezell, Sebastián, Ben, Kinetic Labs, and Marta for supporting my Patreon and this newsletter!
cassidoo
website | blog | github | bluesky | twitter | patreon | twitch | codepen | mastodon
2025-06-09 15:58:53
Hey friends!
I hope you're safe, happy, and healthy. I feel like the news has been bogging me down a bit too much lately, so I hope this can be a nice reprieve for us both!
Was this forwarded to you? You can subscribe here!
Duplication Is Not the Enemy
CSS Grid for Multi-Sized Avatars
Write more reliable JavaScript with optional chaining document.currentScript is more useful than I thought.
TC39 Advances Several Proposals
Last week I mentioned that I shipped a side project called PocketCal! It's a simple way to find and share dates, and it's been fun to see folks checking out the repo and reading how I built it.
I have some other projects that I want to work on (...so many unused domain names, gosh), but have been so busy with my baby and toddler that I just sleep (or dissociate lol) if I get a moment to breathe in a day. Our youngest crossed the 6-week mark this week, which means more sleep is on the horizon, right? Right??
Unlock Your Career Potential with Keenesse
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Ready? Schedule your free, no-obligation consultation today at keenesse.com.
Last week, I had you nest an array! Why? Because I'm a rascal. Great job, fellow rascals Muhammad, Winnie, Miguel, David, Saravana, Elke, Tim, Ten, Austin, ashuzon, Tom, Brian, Neha, Kriszti, Patrycja, Max, and Tarang!
This week's question:
Given an array of strings representing a sequence of traffic light states ("red" for stop, "green" for go, "yellow" for slow), write a function that returns true if the sequence could represent a valid state machine for a standard traffic light. The only valid transitions are: red to green, green to yellow, and yellow to red.
Example:
> isValidTrafficSequence(["red", "green", "yellow", "red", "green"])
> true
> isValidTrafficSequence(["red", "yellow", "green"]);
> false
> isValidTrafficSequence([])
> true
(you can submit your answers by replying to this email with a link to your solution, or share on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Mastodon)
AJAZZ AKS068 w/ Gateron Milky Yellow V2 (video)
Ethnologue: Languages of the World
Date Night Questions
Scientists create "world's smallest violin"
Just read a few facts about frogs.
They were ribbiting.
That's all for now, folks! Have a great week. Be safe, make good choices, and hug your loved ones!
Special thanks to IceSloth, Ezell, Sebastián, Ben, Kinetic Labs, and Marta for supporting my Patreon and this newsletter!
cassidoo
website | blog | github | bluesky | twitter | patreon | twitch | codepen | mastodon
2025-06-02 14:59:46
Helllllooo!
Happy Pride Month, and happy June! I hope the end of your May was a good one, and that your June has started strong. Let's boogie.
Was this forwarded to you? You can subscribe here!
CSS Minecraft
My website is ugly because I made it
Exploring the OKLCH ecosystem and its tools
Announcing Rolldown-Vite
I shipped a side project this week! It's called PocketCal and it's a simple way to find and share dates.
When you open the app (it works better on desktop, but works on mobile, too), you can click dates on the calendar to add them to a group. You can name groups of dates, add more groups, and there's some other small customizations. Then, once you're happy with it, you can share the URL to share your entire set of dates with anyone you'd like!
Here's an example of it in action!
I'm going to do a write-up about PocketCal to talk about how and why I built it in a bit more detail, but until then, I'm just happy I was able to use one of my domain names, ha!
Unlock Your Career Potential with Keenesse
Feeling stuck, or ready for your next big move?
Keenesse offers personalized career coaching to help you gain crystal-clear career goals, pinpoint exciting advancement opportunities, and master crucial skills like resume optimization, interview mastery, and confident negotiation – all to land your dream role in a competitive market.
Our expert team of seasoned tech industry coaches provides tailored support at every career stage, from ambitious students to accomplished executives.
Ready? Schedule your free, no-obligation consultation today at keenesse.com.
Last week, I had you return pairs of odd numbers. Y'all did great Andy, Martin, Lars, David, Winnie, Miguel, Ten, Yacine, Neha, Muhammad, Elke, Tarang, Jeremias, Kracekumar, and Will!
This week's question:
Turn an array of integers into a nested array. You can think of this as the opposite of flattening an array!
Examples:
nestArray([1, 2, 3, 4])
> [1, [2, [3, [4]]]]
nestArray([1])
> [1]
(you can submit your answers by replying to this email with a link to your solution, or share on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Mastodon)
Architecture in Musical Instruments
The Who Cares Era
An Introduction to Un Kyu Lee, creator and designer of the Micro Journal
Repairable flatpack toaster
Am I supposed to meet no one?
Why do bears have hairy coats?
Fur protection!
That's all for now, folks! Have a great week. Be safe, make good choices, and get some time in the sun!
Special thanks to IceSloth, Ezell, Sebastián, Ben, Kinetic Labs, and Marta for supporting my Patreon and this newsletter!
cassidoo
website | blog | github | bluesky | twitter | patreon | twitch | codepen | mastodon
