Some Personal News

TLDR: I have joined David Smith’s company and will be working with him on his portfolio of apps, including Widgetsmith, Pedometer++, Sleep++ and more.1

This isn’t changing anything I do at Relay or here on 512 Pixels, but it is important to me to disclose this change in my working life.

Year of the Long Now

Later this year, Relay will turn 10 years old and this blog will turn 16. In July, it will be 9 years since I left my job to go indie.

(Wow, that is a lot of big numbers.)

As part of my yearly theme โ€” the Year of the Long Now2 โ€” I have been thinking what I want out of the next decade.

Obviously, planning for the far future can be a bit of a fool’s errand, but Year of the Long Now is about making decisions with both the present and the future in mind. Too often on the Internet, it’s easy to think about the here-and-now of it all and not consider the future all that often.

On the professional front, longevity is a core pillar to my theme.3 I’ve been doing my thing on the Internet for a long time, and I want to keep doing it as long as possible.

There are all sorts of things that can end the career of a professional creator, including burnout, financial pressures, losing relevance and more. These are things I would like to avoid so I can keep writing and podcasting about the topics I care deeply about, with people I care deeply about.

As my theme was taking shape at the end of the year, I got a call from David. He was looking to bring someone on to focus on customer communication, marketing and internal processes. He’s an incredible developer, and as his apps have reached new heights of success, he knew there were roles in his company that he couldn’t fill anymore on his own.

After our initial conversation, I spoke to both Myke4 and my wife Merri about the possibility of joining David’s company, and both were incredibly supportive of the move. At the end of the year, we made it official.

Looking Forward

My new role should not have any impact on the amount of content I produce here and on Relay.

(I have made changes in my behind-the-scenes work at Relay to accommodate this change, but delegating those things has been a long time coming.)

One obvious factor at play is that I cover Apple and its ecosystem, including the work of third-party developers. For complete transparency, if David or one of his apps comes up in the course of my commentary, I will disclose my involvement with his work.

On the other side of the coin, my employment with David will not limit my writing or podcasting. I have been extremely fortunate to work with incredible people over the years, and David is no different. He has made it clear from the start that he doesn’t want this new position to create friction in my commentary. We’re all professionals here, and I trust that readers and listeners will understand that.

With that journalistic handwringing wrapped up, I want to say how excited I am to be taking on a new set of challenges. David’s apps are world-class, and it’s a real honor to be trusted to help shape them. This new role gives me an outlet for skills that I don’t get to use very often at Relay, and I truly believe both companies will be better for me getting to use them in this new way.


  1. Don’t miss David’s blog post here
  2. I had been thinking about this as a theme for a months and when we did this episode of Ungeniused, I knew I had the perfect name. 
  3. Year of the Long Now has lots of personal ramifications as well, but those are beyond the scope of this particular blog post. 
  4. I’ve seen how good Cortex Brand has been for Myke, both professionally and personally, and I think this change will be just as beneficial to me. 

$775,375.54

We just closed down Relay’s annual St. Jude campaign, at an all-time high of $775,375.54. That puts our total over the lifetime of the campaign at $2.98 million.

I’ve said for a long time that Relay has the best community on the Internet, and each September, y’all prove it.

Thank you.

Don’t Suck

Tomorrow, this very website turns 15 years old.

Old-school readers will remember 512 Pixels’ original name, ForkBombr. I bought the domain from my friend Kevin for a couple of slices of pizza, as I thought the programming joke was pretty clever.

I don’t have many screenshots from those early days, but I managed to find this one in my archives. It’s from the development phase of the first version of the blog, so don’t worry, the logo ended up a good bit smaller by the time the site went live.

Forkbombr

(2008 was a very different time.)

In the past 15 years, I’ve published nearly 11,000 articles, had three children, changed jobs twice, started a podcast network and have helped raise $2.5 million for St. Jude. I’ve forged lifelong friendships and have been lucky enough to build things that people truly care about.

Through it all, I try to live up to what I wrote in my very first entry:

Don’t suck.

With that phrase, one of my mentors has repeatedly set me straight. And with that phrase, I’m launching ForkBombr.

In hindsight, that wasn’t the most helpful advice I’ve ever received, but it was simple enough that it still bounces around in my head. Not sucking means caring about the details no one will ever see. It means being thoughtful about the work and humble when it isn’t good enough. Sometimes, it requires turning down sponsors who aren’t a good fit or knowing when a project isn’t working out.

In that original post, I linked to a post from Merlin Mann, and now I get to call him a colleague and a friend. In fact, I get to work with a bunch of my Internet heroes thanks to Relay. Getting to do this full-time for eight years and running is a true honor.

My podcasting partner Myke Hurley has not only helped me improve my craft, but has made me a better person. My wife Merri has been nothing but patient and supportive as I’ve worked to take my hobby and turn it into a sustainable business.

The success of this blog, my podcasts and Relay FM itself all astound me. Yes, I work hard, and sometimes I care way too much, but it’s all of you who have made this possible.

So thank you. Thank you for letting my support my family by talking about computers on the Internet. Thank you for the fantastic ride that has landed me (quite literally) in Cupertino this week. My career has ended up in a place far more wonderful than I ever would have guessed back when I installed my first copy of WordPress at 22 years old.

St. Jude Livestream: Building LEGO’s NASA Mars Rover Perseverance โ†’

As part of Relay’s on-going fundraiser for St. Jude, I’ll be streaming again this weekend. This time, I’ll be building LEGO’s new Mars Rover (Model 42158). I am very pumped about it.

Join me on Saturday, September 9:

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ – 10:00 AM Pacific
  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ – 12:00 PM Central
  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ – 1:00 PM Eastern
  • ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง – 6:00 PM BST
  • ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ – 7:00 PM CET
  • ๐Ÿ“Œ – Wherever You Live

St. Jude Livestream: Taking Apart a MacBook From Memory โ†’

As the Relay FM community is blasting through our milestones, I will be streaming this weekend, taking apart a white MacBook. I opened about 753,289 of these notebooks back in the day, so we’ll see if I can still do it by memory!

Join me on Saturday, September 2:

  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ 10:00 AM Pacific
  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ 12:00 PM Central
  • ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ 1:00 PM Eastern
  • ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง 6:00 PM BST
  • ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ 7:00 PM CET

Relay FM for St. Jude โ†’

Today, we are announcing Relay FM’s 5th annual fundraiser for St. Jude. Over the last four years, the Relay community has raised $2.2 million for this mission. St. Jude wonโ€™t stop their lifesaving work until no child dies from cancer. With your support, weโ€™ll be one step closer to that day. One cure closer. One child closer.

Relay FM for St. Jude campaign artwork

St. Jude is an amazing institution, and one that does incredible work in an incredible way:

The mission of St. Jude Childrenโ€™s Research Hospital is to advance cures, and means of prevention, for pediatric catastrophic diseases through research and treatment. Consistent with the vision of our founder Danny Thomas, no child is denied treatment based on race, religion or a family’s ability to pay.

I know just how incredible firsthand, as in May 2009, my wife and I’s oldest son was diagnosed with brain cancer at just six months of age. He underwent almost two years of treatment at St. Jude, and that treatment saved his life. He’ll be 15 in a couple of months, and while his life is still impacted by his diagnosis, he would not be here without St. Jude. He loves music and computers, and like his old man, is working on the student newspaper at his school.

This is why we do what we do each September, but over the years, my understanding and appreciation of what St. Jude does has grown to be much larger than our story.

Thousands of kids have been treated at St. Jude, and their parents have never been given a bill for that treatment.

St. Jude’s work is shared around the world. Around the world an estimated 400,000 children are diagnosed with cancer each year. And even more tragically, in many low and middle-income countries, 4 out of 5 will not survive, largely due to the lack of access to quality care. That is unacceptable, and St. Jude’s global work is slowly changing things for kids who never step foot on the hospital’s campus here in Memphis, TN.

As always, we invite you to make a donation! Donors who make an individual gift of $60 or more will receive a digital bundle including a wallpaper and macOS screensaver pack and those who make an individual gift of $100 or more will receive a set of stickers in addition to the digital bundle.

You can also start your own fundraising campaign and earn some really awesome exclusive merch, and even set up a matching donation fund to get your friends involved! All of the details are over on the campaign website. Go check it out!

Lastly, thank you. We are on the verge of raising $2.5 million in five years, and that fact takes my breath away. Relay FM has the best community on the Internet, and that is proven each and every September.

Relay FM Turns 9

I honestly cannot believe that our weird little side project is now nine years old, and that I’ve been doing it full-time for eight. Over the last near-decade, I’ve gotten to work โ€” and become friends โ€”ย with so many amazing people.

Relay FM @ 9

To celebrate, we’ve got some very exciting news out to our members, via our Discord and the newsletter!

A Kickstarter Progress Report

I just wanted to provide a quick update on how things are progressing:

  • Stickers have been ordered and should be here in the next week or so to start packing.
  • The photography and layout for the calendar are both complete, and I am currently working on another round of fact-checking. I hope to have a draft to the printer by Friday!
  • I have all the plumbing set up for surveys to go out via BackerKit. As in previous years, you’ll get an email from BackerKit once I start collecting addresses in about a month. If you use “Sign in with Apple” or Apple’s “Hide my Email” feature, you will probably never see that email. If you can send me a private message on Kickstarter with an actual email address, that would be swell. If not, I’ll be chasing you down via Kickstarter PM with your survey link.
  • If you wish to add items to your order, the time to do that will be when you get your BackerKit survey. Add-ons will include past wallpapers and .ics files, as well as a one-time-only pack of all 12 stickers that have been created or this campaign over the last three years. ๐Ÿ‘€