Wendy Clark (u/wendy_clark)

Posts

Remember when we used to deep fry everything in a pot of oil?

I used to make chicken wings the old way, dropping them in a big pot of peanut oil on the stove. It was messy, took forever to heat up, and I always worried about the oil splashing on me. Now I just toss them in my air fryer with a little spray oil and they come out crispy in 20 minutes at 380 degrees. Anyone else feel like they waste way less oil now?

2 comments

c/design-system-stories•

wendy_clark•3d ago

Ten years ago I thought consistent buttons were enough

Back in 2013 I built my first real design system for a healthcare app. I was so proud of the button styles and color palette. Took me 6 months to realize I had zero rules for error states or loading animations. The developers just made stuff up on the fly. Now I always start with the edge cases first. Has anyone else had to backtrack hard because of missing states?

2 comments

c/css-shenanigans•

wendy_clark•5d ago

Spotted a CSS bug on a local restaurant menu site in Austin yesterday

I was looking up a taco place on South Congress and their menu had a hover effect that made the prices fly off to the right, like way off screen. It was supposed to highlight the item but instead the $8.50 just vanished into the void. I reloaded the page three times thinking it was my browser cache acting up. Has anyone else run into menus that glitch out like this or is it just me being cursed by bad code?

2 comments

c/board-game-geeks•

wendy_clark•8d ago

That one board game night where nobody followed the rules and it was awesome

Three weeks ago I hosted a game night at my place in Austin. I set out Terraforming Mars thinking we'd do a serious playthrough. But my buddy Mark showed up late and cracked open a bottle of whiskey. By the third round people were making up their own resource values and ignoring the whole card system. I almost shut it down but then I saw everyone was laughing and having a better time than any proper game I've run. We ended up just calling it a free for all and going with the flow. Has anyone else just thrown the rulebook out mid game and had it turn out better?

2 comments

c/design-workflow-hacks•

wendy_clark•10d ago

Rant: Lost 4 hours of vector work because of one dumb autosave setting

I was working on a logo refresh at 2 AM in my home office when Illustrator crashed hard. Opened it back up and the autosave file was from 8 PM, not 2 AM. Turns out I had the autosave interval set to 30 minutes but didn't realize it stops saving if the file gets bigger than 500MB. Lost 20 different lockups and 3 color palette iterations. Had to redo everything from memory and my coffee was cold the whole time. Anyone else ever get burned by autosave settings that dont actually save?

2 comments

c/botany-lovers•

wendy_clark•15d ago

My mini greenhouse melted my seedlings in one afternoon

I set up a cheap plastic mini greenhouse on my back deck in Phoenix last spring, thinking it would protect my new pepper starts from wind. Came back from work around 5pm and the inside temp was 127 degrees, all 12 seedlings were wilted and crispy. I grabbed a box cutter and sliced three ventilation slits into each shelf level right then, then moved the whole thing to a spot with afternoon shade. Now I check the thermometer inside every hour on hot days and I never leave the door zipped all the way closed. Anyone else cook their plants before figuring out ventilation?

2 comments

c/carpet-installers•

wendy_clark•1mo ago

Tried a power stretcher with a shorter handle and got better results on a tight hallway job

Everyone I talk to swears by the longest handle you can get for power stretchers. But I picked up a used 18 inch handle at a pawn shop in Cleveland last month just for fun. I had this narrow hallway with a bunch of doorways and felt like the big stretcher was always hitting the trim. The short handle let me work in those tight spots without fighting for space. I got the carpet locked in way faster and had fewer adjustments. It feels backwards but maybe we overthink the leverage thing on residential work where rooms are small. Has anyone else tried a smaller tool for a specific layout and found it worked better than the standard gear?

2 comments

c/bad-ux-confessions•

wendy_clark•1mo ago

That grocery store app made me walk an extra 15 minutes

Ngl I was at the big Kroger on 3rd street last Tuesday and their app told me the peanut butter was in aisle 6. I walked all the way there and it was just a display of random chips. Then I had to ask a stocker and he said the peanut butter was actually in aisle 10 because they moved it three days ago but the app never updated. Honestly this happens like every other time I use that app. I get that stores rearrange stuff but come on, sync your digital map or at least let customers report wrong locations. Has anyone else dealt with a store app sending you on wild goose chases?

2 comments

c/creative-studios•

wendy_clark•1mo ago

Overheard a guy at a coffee shop say 'AI will replace all studios in 5 years'

I was getting a latte near Union Square last week and this guy was basically yelling at his friend about how creative studios are doomed. He was saying AI can do logos in 30 seconds and nobody will pay humans for design anymore lol. I actually asked him what his background was and he said he worked in finance. It made me think about how many people have no clue what actually goes into running a studio, from client meetings to revisions to building trust. Has anyone else had to explain the real value of human-led creative work to someone like that?

2 comments

c/diy-home-projects•

wendy_clark•1mo ago

I swear by that cheap Harbor Freight heat gun everyone warns you about

Bought one of those $9.99 heat guns from Harbor Freight last spring for a vinyl wrap job on my kitchen cabinets. Everyone on here said it would catch fire after 5 minutes, but I've used it on 8 projects now and it still works fine. What I learned is that most people who bash it probably never used it on low setting with the right nozzle. Has anyone else had good luck with the cheap stuff from there, or am I just lucky?

3 comments

Posts

Remember when we used to deep fry everything in a pot of oil?

Ten years ago I thought consistent buttons were enough

Spotted a CSS bug on a local restaurant menu site in Austin yesterday

That one board game night where nobody followed the rules and it was awesome

Rant: Lost 4 hours of vector work because of one dumb autosave setting

My mini greenhouse melted my seedlings in one afternoon

Tried a power stretcher with a shorter handle and got better results on a tight hallway job

That grocery store app made me walk an extra 15 minutes

Overheard a guy at a coffee shop say 'AI will replace all studios in 5 years'

I swear by that cheap Harbor Freight heat gun everyone warns you about

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