Joe Innes | Blog

Gleam

Gleam is an AI-enabled mindfulness app which helps users to log things that have made them happy throughout the day, so that they can review and potentially find insights, recommendations or reassurance when things are overwhelming.

Quire

My second app launch of 2025: Quire, a Goodreads alternative with 100% local-first functionality.

Neil Dring

I woke up this morning with a heavy heart, knowing the world today is a worse place than it was yesterday because Neil Dring is no longer in it.

NotesVac

Soft launch of my first 2025 project launch: NotesVac, an AI-enhanced companion for your handwritten notes.

Sourdough—Updated!

This sourdough bread recipe is based on Brian Lagerstrom's 'Easiest Actually Good Sourdough' video, and yields a nice loaf of bread with minimal manual input and plenty of oven spring. Works in cold(er) kitchens too!

Lemon Shortbread

I had a few lemons handing around so I made these delicious lemon shortbread slices. Fantastic with a coffee or as a dessert.

Voter Power Calculator (2024 UK General Election)

As has become my habit, posting my voter power calculator for the 2024 elections to highlight the unfairness of the First Past The Post system. While part of me is celebrating that Reform got so few seats, it's worth checking out how under-represented they are in parliament compared to the number of folks who voted for them.

I'm Impressed By Ryanair

A pleasant surprise from what is widely considered to be one of the worst airlines going.

BADBADNOTGOOD

BADBADNOTGOOD have released a new EP which sounds super jazzy and cool.

Planes ✈️

I wrote yet another web app which is a semi-augmented reality type app for identifying planes which fly across in front of my balcony.

Journalling Habit

I have taken up journalling, and decided to make a few notes about why and how I started this, and how it's been going over the past couple of months. In summary though, it seems to be going pretty well, and I'm finding it a useful habit.

Thing Doer 💥

Keeping up with recurring tasks can be a challenge, but it doesn't have to be. Enter Thing Doer, a new mini-app designed to streamline the management of your everyday routines. Developed with simplicity in mind and powered by SvelteKit, Pocketbase, and Pico CSS, Thing Doer offers a straightforward solution without unnecessary bells and whistles.

It's Nothing or It's Awful

Jean-Louis Gassée speaks on a recurrent customer service decision that resonates very strongly with my own personal mindset.

Fun-Free February

Every February, I challenge myself to give up a bunch of different things, and 2024 is no exception. Will this be the hardest year yet? Probably not, but it certainly won't be easiest either.

Mount Everest

Turns out, unfathomable tragic loss isn't very hard. It's easy, in fact. Easy in the same way that falling off a cliff is "easy"–gravity does all the work for you. It's not like climbing mount Everest, desperately putting one foot in front of the other. It's not like struggling to answer questions in a final exam. Tragic loss is just something that happens to you.

CORS: Access-Control-Allow-Origin whut?!

CORS can seem like a super tricky and complex topic to wrap your head around, but in reality, it's not as hard as it appears.

Stoic Quotes

Stoicism is a way of life, a philosophy that advocates living a life well aligned with nature and reality. Often, stoicism is associated with not allowing negative events to affect you.

Drinks App

I launched a little web app today to help track alcohol consumption. I'm calling it 'Drinks' which is a dreadful name for it.

Social Media vs Mental Health

How does social media impact mental health? Well, since Instagram became a big thing, it seems pretty bad, especially for girls.

Social Life Stagnating?

I came across an interesting article on 'Art of Manliness', which talks a bit about social anxiety and what we believe to be true about our social interactions which is actually not (and vice versa).

Focus is, of course, itself just another computation

I read something interesting about light field cameras recently which completely changed my perception of how light, physics, and cameras work.

First Full Year

In which I become a dad, an uncle, a brother-in-law, and miss my sister.

The Yard-Sale Model

The 'trickle down' model doesn't work, and never has. All things being equal, the emergence of the 'super-rich' is inevitable.

Plague House

After two years of ducking and diving, finally COVID-19 catches up with me.

A Curious Loophole

An exploration of optimising car rentals to travel as cheaply as possible.

Signing Out of Twitter

Elon Musk is ruining Twitter, and potentially the world.

Zug.

A small town with charm, mountain and lake views, and 30% rich expats. What's not to like.

Going To Switzerland

I'm going to Switzerland next week, and I'm super excited.

Just Call Someone In

Next time, instead of watching a YouTube video and telling yourself 'that looks easy', call someone out.

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How to fix this annoying Wordpress error which stops you from updating posts on your site.

Sourdough

The best sourdough loaf I've made so far showed me the importance of choosing the right flour, a long cold proof, and a shallow cut.

What Does An Early Pregnancy ACTUALLY Look Like?

The Guardian have published a set of images that show what the early stages of pregnancy actually look like, and it's quite surprising.

How Much Time Do We Have?

An exploration of how much time we might have left with those we love.

Japanese Grand Prix 2022

After a wet and eventful Sunday morning, one thing that stands out clearly is that F1 is in trouble.

Falsehoods This Guy Believed About Names

A peculiar feature of Hungarian birth certificates I discovered when I married my wife.

Every Key Is A String

As it turns out, there are quite a few tricks that JavaScript plays on us all. One of those is pretending things are something they are not.

Better Colours Easily

Using RGB values to define colours is difficult to wrap your head around, and requires a lot of mental effort to know how to develop a colour palette that will make your site look good. There's a better way.

Lapsang Souchong

An homage to a delicious, robust, smoked tea with a taste that tells tales of autumn evenings.

MusicKit

A short post about where Apple goes wrong in encouraging hobbyists to build for their ecosystem. Or maybe that's what they want?

Avenir

A comparison of beautiful geometric sans fonts, starting with the satisfyingly proportioned Avenir.

Singapore Grand Prix 2022 Predictions

Could this be the weekend that Verstappen clinches the 2022 championship (a few days before we learn whether he gets to keep the 2021 championship)?

Taking Care of My Blog

For about the millionth time, my interest in blogging has been renewed, and I'm planning to start blogging again.

The Queen Died Today

Queen Elizabeth II died on 8th September 2022, and it hit me, an anti-royalist, harder than I expected.

Loved You A Little

Charlotte Sands, The Maine, and Taking Back Sunday collaborated and produced my favourite song of 2022 so far.

Christmas 2021

For someone who's lived abroad most of his adult life, Christmases have always been a time for going home and seeing family. I skipped 2020 because of COVID and will forever wish I hadn't.