Matthew P Munger: Welcome to restock podcast by no code supply Co where we highlight people and the things they build. I'm Matthew P monger.

Corey Moen: And I'm Cory Moen. What's up y'all?

Matthew P Munger: Hey everybody, welcome. dive right in. So today, we kind want to kick off with a topic ⁓ that I'd across recently and really kind of rung true and resonated with me. And that's the topic of friction. And you probably well, let's talk about how to remove friction. Let's talk about hyper productivity and just squeezing every out of the lemon. and just smoothing every part of the process because efficiency is the ultimate goal, right? Speed and efficiency, that's what it's all about, right? more output, more output, more output. But I actually think we to be ⁓ more about where we either leave friction or sometimes even add friction to our processes ⁓ because doing so, ⁓ we're creating opportunities for creativity. creating intention, intentionality in the process and what we're doing to actually slow down and think about what is happening, what we're doing and make sure we're actually putting kind of critical thinking skills ⁓ practice and not just like ⁓ the thinking and the entire process. So yeah, curious kind of initial thoughts. What do think about when we talk about friction and what is good friction?

Corey Moen: So good. I think this is just like, was excited that this was our first topic in the way it naturally came about, mostly just because it is so relevant right now and exactly what you said, right? Like it is all the talk of removing friction and look, I can just like send a message and go ⁓ or whatever. And something builds my app. But it's like, I couldn't agree more that friction. ⁓

Matthew P Munger: Yeah. Yeah.

Corey Moen: is necessary and especially like one of the things you just said I think for me is one of the tops around like it actually in a lot of ways allows us to be creative, right? It's the classic thing of like I personally experience where I feel like I can be most creative when I have constraints. It's not just open-ended. It's like the classic like blank sheet intimidation factor. Like no, you actually need some like boundaries to, you know, focus your brain and attention. And then the other side of it, think is, ⁓ 100%.

Matthew P Munger: Like an artist with a canvas, right? You need like, like this is the area that I'm going to paint within, right?

Corey Moen: Yes, yes, the area or even just like they, an artist probably, you know, I don't paint, I'm not, I wouldn't consider myself artist, but they, yes, they show up with an idea, right? Like think about like Bob Ross and all that, like he's showing up with a, you know, a reference image or even something in his brain of the mountainscape or whatever like, then I think in the other side of it is like, this is such a silly innuendo with my kids, but.

Matthew P Munger: We can imagine that we are. Mm-hmm.

Corey Moen: ⁓ There is a movie called Wild Robot, an animated movie that is just like so well done, so well done, incredible story. And there's this beaver that is kind of laughing stock of the island that is chewing out the bottom of the biggest tree on this island and just like nibble at a time. And the first scene they show him, he says, it's the process that's the art. ⁓ like, ⁓ my gosh, that is...

Matthew P Munger: Yeah.

Corey Moen: That is the vibe, right? Like it's actually that process and that friction and the emotion and the creation of things along the way that I think give us purpose and meaning in what we make. And if it is too highly automated, then it's just like, how do you actually feel ownership in that? You know what I mean? Like, how do you feel like you did something? I don't know. Yeah.

Matthew P Munger: Yeah, it's more like you asked something to be done and it happened. like ordering something online. ⁓ like you click and then it arrives. There's real ⁓ reward that. There's no accomplishment when it happens you of happening ⁓ with you ⁓ part of process. ⁓ So yeah, ⁓ I think.

Corey Moen: Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matthew P Munger: there are still good places to remove friction, right? We're not saying like you should just like, I'm gonna hard labor, do everything by hand. I'm gonna type every piece of this code, you know, I'm gonna drag every pixel myself. Because we, ⁓ still places like where things are monotonous, where things are like a time sync, like repetitive or, or maybe it's just like mechanical ⁓ kind of action. ⁓ that actually is not like bringing those beneficial things that we've talked about.

Corey Moen: 100%.

Matthew P Munger: that actually build ⁓ up or build the process up to create a better output at the end, right?

Corey Moen: Totally. think it's, it also makes me think of back to like, especially I know a lot of our community or just the broader like designer, dev, et cetera, community is all intertwined in this way of like, we're either working on teams to create something, you know, serve a better good, or we're working with clients, you know, directly. And in either case, you are creating things for the world or for something. And then there is a value exchange there and like, to your point of even like you order something online, it's like, in the same way, if I just like do a couple prompts and then instantly the thing is done, it's like, I've had this literal experience of like, then somebody's like, wow, this is so amazing, awesome work. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I don't think I can take at it for it, you know? Like, and I think there is a balance, like even just my own experience too of I,

Matthew P Munger: You're like, can I take credit for it?

Corey Moen: Finally, I'm trying to get over the perfectionist hump of doing a little bit of my own little blog on my site. And candidly, I'm using Claude to help me write it, but it's just the execution layer to the point of the tedious. I am doing a lot of upfront, here's my idea, here's my notes, here's why I'm saying this, here's the context. So I'm probably writing more words than the actual end article initially, just to give the context. I just struggle to put them together a way that feels cohesive and easy to read. ⁓ And that is the part I'm using it for. And so like, think there's, there's always that overlap and the hardest part ⁓ especially like, you know, I feel like you and I both play with a lot of different products out there, ⁓ in design, dev notes, ⁓ all that. And like, it is actually really hard to strike that balance in in product, right? Like it's. you need some of that friction where some of them over-abstracted away, some of them, you know, everything is so tedious still. And like finding that middle line is the, is I feel like the magic that keeps me coming back to tools in a lot of ways, you know?

Matthew P Munger: because it, if you find that balance, it sparks the creativity and kind of your emotions and your passion and kind of gives you that drive to keep ⁓ push through that friction, right? That's the funny thing about good friction is it actually propels you forward because it gives you that sense of accomplishment ⁓ meaning like as you're doing the work. ⁓ you talk about like how you're

Corey Moen: For sure, for sure. Yes. Mm-hmm. Totally.

Matthew P Munger: you know, using Claude to help, you know, in your writing process, you know, what I think is important that where we deploy good friction ⁓ and you're doing it there is for critical thinking, right? You are still doing upfront the hard work of thinking about. ⁓ What is it I want to say? What is it that I'm trying to communicate? And it's just you're finding like, ⁓ that last part of I want to make sure that I don't sound like a fool in my writing. I want to make sure that it's polished to a certain extent. But it's still me. It's still my voice. It's still my thoughts ⁓ that are coming through. And couple other ways that I've thought about, like, how do you actually deploy good sticky friction?

Corey Moen: Yeah. Totally.

Matthew P Munger: are things like, first of all, critical thinking, ⁓ this could be for yourself or clients for coworkers. Like we need to stay within these lines. So you want to have friction that tells you like, we're actually getting off track here, right? We need to actually ⁓ of pull things back in and focus a little bit. Or maybe it's checkpoints, you know.

Corey Moen: Hmm. Hmm.

Matthew P Munger: and functions, things that actually say like, OK, we need to stop here. We need ⁓ review whatever of output it is, whether it's words or visuals or code, whatever. We actually need to stop, ⁓ look this, review it, evaluate it, take that time, intentionally take that time to evaluate here. Anything else come mind for

Corey Moen: Yeah. Hmm. I mean, that one's so good and then spurs my brain on especially like the point of checkpoints and or maybe think of like, think about like clients or teams you work on and you have those like big, sometimes urgent projects or tight timelines or whatever. And often what ⁓ comes about there is like, hey, let's do a like daily standup ⁓ like, and sometimes you come and like, you know, same update as yesterday, but I think that is a great example of

Matthew P Munger: Crick and stand up, yeah. Right.

Corey Moen: the friction is good because it's also building trust. then what's ironic about that is I think I have same experience with software in that like if there isn't enough friction, it just does it. And then it's like done. like, wait, is it correct though? and ⁓ yo, yeah, with AI, am not there to be honest. Like I am still,

Matthew P Munger: Alright. Yeah, trust,

Corey Moen: in the same realm of just like, don't know, man, this looks like it was too good to be true. Like I need to see some friction. And so like even will intentionally put those steps in there, you know, or building a site anyway, like even in web flow and stuff, it's like same thing. Like I can do pages and some of that, but there's like honestly times where I'm like, I think I'd rather just like go through and build this section manually quick. just so that I know that it is this one little detail that I want slightly different here, that it's just easier for me to do it from scratch than like replicate or whatever. And again, because then there's that factor of trust, right? Like that I know this happened. I saw it with my own eyes and like, you know, why that is so important for us as humans to trust each other, but also just the things we're doing and be confident in the things we're doing. And then again, getting value or selling them or whatever that is.

Matthew P Munger: And having your hand in specific places, it allows you to have understanding of what has happened, what has been built, so that you can actually explain it. Nothing feels worse than it's like, mean, one, you said earlier that taking credit for something you felt like was too easy and you didn't really put that much effort into. And the other is.

Corey Moen: Mm. Totally. Yeah.

Matthew P Munger: I where I put that. But I was going to say with the stand ups, it doesn't feel good when ⁓ have to say, same thing as yesterday. Nothing's changed. But I think it does two things. For one, it ⁓ to team ⁓ that you're Maybe you do need help. it actually, once you do cross that barrier and get that breakthrough, like,

Corey Moen: No, I mean that's Yeah ⁓ okay.

Matthew P Munger: people are gonna be more excited for you. They're gonna be able to celebrate with you, because they've seen the struggle, they've seen you overcome that friction. ⁓ And it also drives you every day, like, I don't want to have to give the same report tomorrow, right? So it gives you, it kind of gives you that positive motivation to keep pushing.

Corey Moen: Mm-hmm. this. Yes, I mean, nugget in there too is that friction is also necessary to catch things along the way, catch issues, catch inefficiencies, ironically. ⁓ isn't just that duality funny and that like, ⁓ maybe if you introduce a little bit of checkpoints, friction, whatever, it might make the whole thing more efficient in the long run, because like, I don't know about you, but I just, I to this day with

Matthew P Munger: Yeah

Corey Moen: with building and investing an immense amount of time in something to get all the way to the end and then realize, oh no, I should have done this one specific thing so different or we didn't anticipate this one requirement or whatever, versus if I had those checkpoints along the way. know what I mean? Even a contrast that makes me think of is I've been getting more more into understanding and... doing more traditional dev workflows, Git and what have you. And I'm not gonna lie, it feels like, it still feels like an annoying friction. Like, it still feels like this is why for, ⁓ my gosh, it feels like it's just like, this is why I've always been drawn to tools like Webflow or even Airtable and stuff. Like don't, I'm just gonna go do it and know that I'll do it enough and trust myself and the people I'm working with to just publish, like whatever.

Matthew P Munger: Thank Yeah, it feels like a system relic of

Corey Moen: But then I do recognize that there are reasons. People didn't just invent this for the sake of it. They invented it for this purpose of like, no, let's throw in these multiple checkpoints. Don't commit tens of thousands of lines of code all at once. Maybe do it like 1,000 at a time or whatever fits each individual feature so that we can very granually see that friction and then articulate it later and all of that. And so I don't know, I'm slowly growing that appreciation. ⁓ still think like there's a world where to the point, friction good and bad. And I think it's ⁓ an feat to find that middle ground, right? ⁓ And I, I don't know. It'll be interesting to see if that evolves and changes at all, ⁓ specifically with code, it's, ⁓ I don't know, yeah.

Matthew P Munger: Yeah. Well, I think this brings up the point that friction could be good for a time or even for a person. Right. So for you, you're having frustration with that, you know, friction with, you know, the get process, right. But, you know, for a developer, that's like a safety net, right. That's it's something comforting to them. Right. but just because friction is good at a certain.

Corey Moen: Mmm. ⁓ Yes. Oh, 100%. Yes, yes.

Matthew P Munger: time or maybe it was good for one project doesn't necessarily mean it's good for the next or that you should on that that checkpoint or that guardrail forever, right? You always need to evaluate like, okay, have we kind of ⁓ the value out of this this piece of friction? ⁓ now we've kind of learned our lesson we've grown and now like, we that knowledge inside of us and kind of ingrained and we don't actually need to kind of keep repeating that lesson that the friction is teaching us. ⁓

Corey Moen: Totally. Totally.

Matthew P Munger: Yeah.

Corey Moen: It makes me, mean, way to express that is like conditional friction. You know what mean? Like it also, makes me think of, you know, how many, especially like creative tools, again, Figma, Webflow, what have you, longer back, you know, have, I feel like ⁓ one topic around friction always comes up, which is like conditional UI. Like if I select a thing, don't show me every option possible. Just show me only the things that. are related or I might want to do on this one thing that I'm selecting based on its conditions. You know what I mean? And like, it's one of those that like, I feel like there's really bold opinions, especially like product design about whether this is good or bad. I have always been on the camp more of like, I'd rather just see the whole kitchen sink. the way I find efficiency in that has always been time. Just like the more I use it,

Matthew P Munger: Textual, yeah. Yeah.

Corey Moen: the more I know right where something is. It's like second nature, you know what mean? Like even back to like Photoshop. ⁓ yes, ⁓ totally.

Matthew P Munger: shifting UI. Yeah. OK. So like taking me back, you take me back to like Photoshop, you know, and Illustrated and like really when I mean, even before Adobe bought the software and and you know, you have in Mac, you have the file menus up at the top, right? And it's like every action or capability that an app had was up there.

Corey Moen: Yes, yes. ⁓ huh. Mm-hmm.

Matthew P Munger: you know, in those menus, you're just based on whatever your selection or your context was things in that menu would be enabled or disabled. Right. And that was, that was so you always had that context of here's like the full palette of what is possible with this piece of software. But in my circumstance that I'm in now, you know, with the tool I have selected, these are the more limited set of options, but things weren't moving around or hiding and showing, you know, constantly. and I,

Corey Moen: Yes, yes, yes. Yep. Totally.

Matthew P Munger: I don't know. Sometimes I kind of wonder like, what if we didn't go down that, path with our UI? don't know. Is it just because our just has so many hundreds and thousands of, you know, kind of capabilities and features in now that it would just be impossible to have a full menu of everything? Well, sometimes I feel about this with developer docs, right? ⁓ It's you go and it's just like so overwhelming because it's just like, you're seeing everything at once. And then, you know, trying to read and

Corey Moen: ⁓ my god, yes.

Matthew P Munger: and grasp and process them all.

Corey Moen: Yes, yes, or even like, this topic always makes me think of Cinema 40. I've opened it a handful of times in the past. Oh, I don't think I did. Dude, okay, so how long did it take you then to get past the intimidation of like, my experience of it, maybe it is an unfair take, was like, anytime I tried to do something in it, which again, under 10 times probably.

Matthew P Munger: I do you know that I use cinema 4D and I did animation and modeling? Yeah.

Corey Moen: I was like, this is like Photoshop, but like literally 10X the amount of options. And it felt like a never ending hole of like, as soon as I click something and go into some settings, now there's another 10X options and then another 10X options. like, how does anybody make sense of this?

Matthew P Munger: ⁓ yeah, just even the setting panel for cinema 4D, it's like you go into one panel after another and it's hundreds of options. Yeah.

Corey Moen: Oh, this, exactly this. And I'm like, I think the impression that left on me was it's incredibly powerful and I have immense respect for those like yourself that have figured it out. But I mean, but at the same time, I'm like, there has to be an on-ramp. It's like, again, maybe a good example of that spectrum of friction. Because on the other end, I remember when Figma was coming out.

Matthew P Munger: It's been a few years, let's be clear.

Corey Moen: even though, ⁓ be real, Figma has a lot of similarities to Sketch in terms of UI and then it evolved and all that. But I think the main thing they were going after is simplicity, right? Like, ⁓ look at how clean and limited the ⁓ panel is on the right and all that. And then ⁓ this same point, ironically, like, I feel like then all these tools, you know, another good example, I think is Notion, right? Like where everything is like stripped away, but there's still a lot of power. You just got to like...

Matthew P Munger: inspired.

Corey Moen: know how to access it, like slash commands or right clicks or whatever. And I do, I'm drawn more to that, but I do think there, it ⁓ to you. Totally, totally, totally. And you see, even know what's possible ⁓ lot of times in contrast to your point of like the school, like disabling things, which like quickly also reminds me of like in high school. So like, I don't know, literally 20 years ago when I was first learning Photoshop Illustrator in design.

Matthew P Munger: But it also hides a lot of the value, right?

Corey Moen: We were doing like the books, know, the tutorial books. And I like, and still close my eyes and viscerally remember raising my hand and being very frustrated and asking the teacher like repeatedly, like, it says I need to click on this thing, but I'm trying to click on it and it's disabled. he would, the classic response is always like, that's cause you're not selected on the right layer every time, like specifically in Photoshop. And was always like, wow, this is so frustrating. Like I have to know the right layers and sequence of things to click.

Matthew P Munger: ⁓ yeah.

Corey Moen: And again, was just one more semblance of friction. But the thing that that eventually became, and maybe is a reflection on, I think, humans in general, is with repetition, something that feels like a lot of friction at first actually can become almost subliminal. You just don't even think about it. Whether that's driving a car or making food or using software, I feel like, oh, totally.

Matthew P Munger: That's how we learn, right? And I mean, that's how you develop pathways in your brain is that repetition, right? I mean, we call it brain, like pathways in the brain for a reason, because like those, like the way that it electrically fires, like it actually is ingraining and kind of creating roads within your, within the networks inside your mind. So that is caused by, by that friction.

Corey Moen: Right, right. Totally. Yes. And there's, and there's, there is something, don't know, eerie or very unique about humans. Like a quick aside that makes me think of, have you heard ⁓ I in the last few months, ⁓ they were able, they scientists, I don't know, were successfully able to ⁓ basically computer chips that use human cells, human brain cells.

Matthew P Munger: you

Corey Moen: Have you heard of this? And yes. And so then the example I saw was whatever they made, it was able to then play Doom, the video game. the point was it started from just figuring out how to move. It could just go back and forth and then eventually layered and layered and layered on to like, it learns so much quicker and ⁓ a way that we still can't fully explain ⁓ ⁓ how our own brain works. And just...

Matthew P Munger: organic computer chip.

Corey Moen: both incredibly creepy, but also just like, again, are the things that make me think of like, again, why even things like friction seem on the surface like, no, no, get rid of it, no, like everything should just be a button click and life happens. But no, if we actually get to the core of what ⁓ us ⁓ fulfilled and what we get excited about and and why we make things, like friction is really essential part of probably to your point. actually what makes us intelligent and learn and grow and evolve as a society and humanity. so meta, deep, but relevant, you know?

Matthew P Munger: A fun faux fact, because I can't remember the exact fact. But with our DNA, ⁓ something like you can fit like four terabytes of information encoded into a strand of DNA ⁓ corrupting our actual DNA. So it's like in the future, we could actually have data storage inside our own bodies. ⁓

Corey Moen: A single strand. Yes. Yeah, I mean, that like on my temporal lobe or like it's I mean, that's wild. I believe it. And ⁓ even like, it also funny how memory works too in the same way that certain ⁓ friction we in daily life is actually what can sometimes like

Matthew P Munger: It's weird. Like you're just going to go and stick your finger and connect an interface with computers or something.

Corey Moen: ⁓ my gosh, I just remembered this random thing I haven't remembered in a long time, you know, a lived experience.

Matthew P Munger: Well, your brain rewrites itself every night while you're sleeping, right? And so it's making that decision, like, is this valuable information or memories to actually save? Am I going to actually need this tomorrow or next week or 10 years from now? And then, yeah. And it stores it somewhere in there. And then you experience it again. You're like, ⁓ I totally forgot about that. ⁓ Yeah.

Corey Moen: Right, right. Dude. Yes, yeah, yeah. Somewhere in there, the cloud, I don't know.

Matthew P Munger: Backing up a little bit, one thought was when you're talking about going from Sketch to Figma, ⁓ ⁓ that case, ⁓ did Figma kind of take off? ⁓ Sketch is still around, but it's not like what it was. It because they actually found the right friction to remove. And it was two things. ⁓ One ⁓ moving application layer to be online so it was easily accessible anywhere you were. ⁓

Corey Moen: Mmm, mmm. Yes.

Matthew P Munger: And the files, there was no transferring files between people or between computers. And then the second friction they removed was around collaboration and actually bringing people into that same software space. So that's a case where they kept the friction of the actual design tooling. Like you said, the interface and what you're actually doing in the application pretty much the same. So they kept the good friction, which was what actually created

Corey Moen: Thanks. Right.

Matthew P Munger: the creative output, you and then they removed the friction that was actually slowing down kind of the creative process within.

Corey Moen: Mm-hmm. Totally, And so many ways ⁓ this day, I mean, ⁓ trying to think how old Figma is now. Maybe 2015-ish? I don't Yeah. ⁓ Even ⁓ these later, ⁓ it's funny I think this is still one of the things that even with the AI hype and all that, I've had this thought and talked to people like, why ⁓ are we still drawn back to Figma?

Matthew P Munger: you 2012.

Corey Moen: And it's often like the ease of sharing and collaborating and iterating and that's it. know, like the other features and all that are great and fine, but like that's why we come back. Yeah. And like, isn't it fascinating too, that like sometimes something when you it that way, I'm like, man, that seems so obvious and simple. Like we've had ⁓ cloud or, know, storage that is accessible via the internet.

Matthew P Munger: the core parameters are still there.

Corey Moen: instead of using local files for long before Figma was doing it. But it was just them putting those pieces together. Maybe that is what was all of a sudden like, oh my gosh, why has others not done this? And then now fast forward to today, I don't know about you, don't, for at least the last maybe three or four years, don't, there's very little things that I save locally anymore. At least for work, yeah.

Matthew P Munger: Mm-hmm. Screenshots. Every screenshot like goes to a folder in my hard drive. That's probably 60 % of my hard drive. It's just screenshots that I probably don't even remember what they're from.

Corey Moen: For sure, for sure. Yes, and even then I like, yes, even then I like ditch half of them, you know, and like, but like any of my core tools I'm using to do development stuff, Figma, Webflow, whatever, ⁓ I'm just, everything's stored in an account ⁓ you know, online. And so it's just, it's weird how that is the norm now. And that was a friction that once seemed obvious and necessary and is now not, you know? And so like, I don't, yeah. Fascinated to observe.

Matthew P Munger: Yeah. All right. So part of what brought up this conversation was I was listening to some podcast or something and someone said something about friction and it resonated with me and they mentioned this article, which I hadn't heard of. Share my screen now. We can just take a quick look at this. So this is the article in praise of sticky friction. So I had always been referring to as good friction. This person says sticky friction. This article is from

Corey Moen: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Matthew P Munger: 2010 so it's been around a while. Context here is in game development and this person is like ⁓ a director, a game designer and so there are a lot of antidotes about the game gaming industry ⁓ and stories and stuff there. So we'll share this so if anybody wants to read it they can. ⁓ It's a pretty it's it's almost like a mini book and so long. This is back when like long form writing was really still thing. ⁓ So you gotta really focus if you want to read the whole thing, but a couple of highlights here.

Corey Moen: Let's go.

Matthew P Munger: I want to read these. the point of sticky friction is that it lets the player savor the maybe massive weight of what he just did. So this goes back to what we're talking about. Like friction actually gives you that sense of accomplishment and meaning for your work, right?

Corey Moen: Yes, yes. And I love the word savor being used there too. That it's like even more than meaning, it's enjoyment. It is fulfillment, right? Like, yeah, so good.

Matthew P Munger: Uh, second quote I want to pull out here is the reason sticky friction is the most important friction is because it lets the player really sponge up the in game reality of the awesome thing you just did. Right. Okay. It's about that accomplishment. Um, last night. So I have this, this tool I use called sublime and it allows you to find similar things on the internet. Um, so to kind of build up your knowledge base. Um, and so I kind of.

Corey Moen: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hmm.

Matthew P Munger: fed it, you know, good friction kind of as a topic and started going down the rabbit trail. And so there are a few things I want to highlight here. This was one of the ones I really liked. the role of friction. Human thought has always relied on the rub, a form of cognitive resistance. We refine ideas across points of resistance and the rough edges where understanding starts to form. Friction is not a nuisance. It's the resistance that holds cognition in place and similar to our physical grip or the firm steps that we walk. It's kind of deep, a little philosophical, but it's like really resonates and talking and comparing it with physical grip. You know, I'm not a big fan or anything, but F1 is in season now, right? You're becoming one. what do we call, what do you call F1 fans?

Corey Moen: ⁓ good. You! I'm becoming a big fan. This is a great question. don't ⁓ I don't know.

Matthew P Munger: I don't know. Somebody let us know in comments. That's what YouTubers say. But anyway, it makes me think of that. It's like the friction of the rubber meeting the road, that's what actually provides the speed. And that's one of the fastest things other than like going in jets.

Corey Moen: Mm-hmm. Yeah, totally. Right, right.

Matthew P Munger: that people can do on the planet while actually still being connected to the earth, guess. So anyway, so yeah, interesting kind of correlation. It's just I think it's, I don't know, maybe that the 2010s through 2020s, it's all been about that hyper focus and where can we remove friction and just increase productivity? Like we're walking widgets around the world and optimizing ourselves for efficiency. And it's like, that's not what

Corey Moen: Yeah. Yes, yes. Yeah.

Matthew P Munger: provides the most meaningful kind of existence. Yeah.

Corey Moen: Right, right. Quickly to the F1 thing that gets me going is like, and has been most impressive or wild to observe as I've been watching it more is like, the also the friction, the friction is not always big. The difference between, you know, success or learning and growing or succeeding over somebody else is oftentimes in the most minute, smallest ways that you happen to cross. And like that is in so many ways

Matthew P Munger: Mm-hmm.

Corey Moen: like F1 is like the epitome of that because they're all very similar cars but their setups are just slightly different and slightly built different and have slightly different tooling and slightly different technology to the point that like not all of a sudden you have teams that dominate seemingly over others and it's like but that difference is so small and they just happen to find the right friction or whatever anyways very meta but like yeah super fascinating

Matthew P Munger: you Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think I can actually share this. So I might share this link if anybody wants to kind of go down this rabbit hole of these things I've highlighted here. But it's a really interesting topic. Maybe someday I'll form some more thoughts around it and actually maybe write about it. think that'd be

Corey Moen: Yeah, love.

Matthew P Munger: ⁓ yeah, look at this. Friction is the teacher, right? Love that.

Corey Moen: Yeah.

Matthew P Munger: OK, let's how about we share some stuff here. I got some links pulled up. ⁓ I don't even think, have you seen this? Walkman.land.

Corey Moen: No, I saw it through our notes and I think the link was Robert's. I trying to open it, but this looks rad.

Matthew P Munger: Yeah. I forget. I don't know. find stuff. I say that don't know where it came from. I think it came from some somewhere in blue sky. So I actually haven't explored this site on desktop. I've only seen on my phone. I was like, ⁓ this is really interesting. Just I love like tech and catalogs. And this just also has a really interesting kind of layout and vibe right to this. So just kind of take a second and just like explore this with you and like what jumps out at you. What do you like? What do you like?

Corey Moen: Yeah, yeah. Man, I mean, even on the topic of friction, what's interesting is like, ⁓ whoa.

Matthew P Munger: that you see here on this page. at first I thought it was like a cursor trailing effect, but it's just like all these tags and the hover effect with the delay.

Corey Moen: Let's go. What's funny is like, this is a good example of layout friction is like, it's actually, you know, there's a few different places your eye can go. You know?

Matthew P Munger: ⁓ I have a good article about Japanese design and how they actually use information overload to actually stop and make you think. And it's actually like desirable in Japanese culture. Like it's an interesting.

Corey Moen: Yes. Mmm. Interesting, right? No, I mean, think this feels like it has that intention, right? Like it's not, you're gonna stop and read more likely maybe just because it's not clear and it's not one word floating in a white space, you know? ⁓ Yeah, super interesting.

Matthew P Munger: It's asking you to engage, right? Like to actually think about what they're presenting to you because it's not in this like default brainless template layout, right?

Corey Moen: Right, right, right. Yeah, I think also sites like this or this one specifically what stands out is also like the all the little details, especially like the homepage or that page you were just on, where it's just like there is ⁓ little lines like patterning on lines on text wrapping. like I always draw back to like, ⁓ my gosh, the person that designed this, you know, and maybe built it, I don't know. It's like... I have to imagine they didn't just, all these details didn't just come up immediately. know, like the magic is that they do a thing, do a part, do the homepage, do another section, and then think of these details along the way and then scale it and think about how does that then apply over here and over there. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. So nice.

Matthew P Munger: Yeah, look at this pattern on hover. It's atypical and that is intriguing. It draws your interest.

Corey Moen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think maybe I was overselling it, especially in my past when I did freelance more with clients and all that, I drew some details like this, or I would try to rationalize, especially with clients that didn't, they were questionable on the doubt, or they would doubt the time and purpose of paying extra to have those levels of polish in the details. And I always rationalize it as like, those are the moments you have an opportunity to make something memorable, right? Like even just us going through it and finding a couple of these things, like now is much more likely in my opinion that I will remember this site. And in the context of this site, maybe that doesn't matter because it's more like a historical thing, but in the context of a real product and brand, that is everything. Like that is the existence of...

Matthew P Munger: Yeah, there's inspiration you can draw from if you're building an e-commerce site, right? Yeah.

Corey Moen: Totally, totally, yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, this is mind-bending that I didn't realize there were so many variants of Walkmans. Like, are these all real? Like, they look real. Dude.

Matthew P Munger: There's a whole land full of Walkmans out there. This is what I remember. ⁓ my gosh. I think I had this exact one.

Corey Moen: ⁓ yeah. ⁓ yeah. I was like right on the tail end of, I'm pretty sure I did have one cassette. ⁓ Walkman, the...

Matthew P Munger: Oh yeah. I remember being at Walmart and picking this out. Oh my gosh. It's a very vivid memory now. It's Speaking like, like we're talking about with memories coming out of nowhere. Yeah.

Corey Moen: ⁓ man. Look at, yeah, yeah, yeah. They jump back in, right? Also look at that accessibility on that red text and the blue line. Like, come on y'all.

Matthew P Munger: It was the 90s. was all primary full saturation color.

Corey Moen: Yes, this. It's so funny too, because there is details of the site and even that design of that Walkman that I'm like, it's funny how design and aesthetic is cyclical, right? Like there are modern products and brands that have a lot of these vibes right now that have just come out in the last year or so. Or think about teenage engineering, right?

Matthew P Munger: I knew you were going say that.

Corey Moen: They went I don't even have numbers to support this maybe it's maybe it's an echo chamber of the design community but like Everybody knows at least the name now like they in some ways went viral just because of their aesthetic and it has so many retro vibes to it ⁓ That are very aligned with the site so good

Matthew P Munger: Yeah. All right. ⁓ you'd mentioned something about text a minute ago. Do you know about text box trim? Have you used it?

Corey Moen: Hmm I do is this ⁓ No, because of the top bar that I am I am a ⁓ What's the word grimmudgeon or whatever about browser support? I am very anti using things that don't have at least

Matthew P Munger: So yeah, limited availability. Yeah. Yeah. What is your threshold for acceptable browser?

Corey Moen: The typically it's the, you know, the, can I use.com or whatever. That's what I, that's my usual source of reference. And it's, it's like, I want to be, see around 90 % support or on, um, MDN, I want to see that top banner where it usually says like fully supported or whatever. Um, yeah, this one's 81. So like it, or, or another way I always think about it is like the first, whatever it is, uh, five there Chrome edge, uh, Safari, Firefox opera.

Matthew P Munger: Now that's.

Corey Moen: Look, Firefox is out. I'm out. I'm not, I'm not even going do it. And then like, at the same time, now you're going to get me ranty on this topic is I know there are ways like, you know, quick web flow reference, Lumos, incredible framework. Shout out Timothy Ricks. Tim has the work around basically the like CSS hack to do this with browser support. Yeah. I think it's like, I forget now it was like negative bottom margin and then, and then offset or something like that.

Matthew P Munger: Yeah. Hmm, using negative margins.

Corey Moen: and I, the visual difference to me is small enough that it is not worth all of that work and the pain it can create when you're trying to solve it with an edge case. Like the thing I ran into with this was localization is like then when you, had to like basically disable it when I was starting to use it with other character types like Japanese. ⁓ cause it was just having

Matthew P Munger: Dude, we totally didn't explain what this does. We just jumped right in.

Corey Moen: ⁓ yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry, should've explained. Go for it.

Matthew P Munger: Okay, so with Textbox Trim, like built into the font, like you get this white space above and.

Corey Moen: Mm-hmm.

Matthew P Munger: caps, right? This is kind of what you get out of the box, right? Without having text trim, right? This is what we have today. And so if you're trying to actually create vertical rhythm with texts of different sizes and stuff, it becomes super difficult and complex. So this aims to actually solve that because you can actually, ⁓ I need to.

Corey Moen: Today,

Matthew P Munger: But this let's do trim both. So that's top and bottom. And we're doing it at the cap height, right? So you got the ascenders and descenders will actually go above and below those trim lines.

Corey Moen: Yeah, which again, I think I get why people are excited about it. And when this is full browser support with a single CSS prop, I'm game. I will use it. But until then.

Matthew P Munger: I mean, if it actually this one, mean. fallback for this is going to be that you just don't get the trim. Is that not acceptable to you?

Corey Moen: Right, which like, in some cases, I think it's totally fine. Like maybe like long form rich text type of stuff. But where I think it can be quite visually different is if you have like large headlines that have somewhat tight line height, right? Like where that space between each line is very intentionally designed when you're styling. So. That's where I'm like, nah, like, cause then if it falls back and doesn't have it, the space is going to be so big. That's not what I want. Like the goal is always like, it should look identical in every browser or whatever. yeah.

Matthew P Munger: Yeah, as much as we can. mean, that's sometimes feels like an impossible task, but yeah.

Corey Moen: Oh, 100%, but we've both done this a long time. Would you agree that that task has gotten vastly easier than it was 10, 12 years ago? oh.

Matthew P Munger: Yeah, because 80 % of browsers are chromium under the hood. So that helps. OK, well, speaking of Safari, guess what just dropped in Safari, if anybody wants to play with it. I just saw this last night. So was like, CSS grid lanes, we have masonry layouts coming. So have you read up about grid lanes?

Corey Moen: In fair, yeah. And now Safari is the bane of our existence, right? Like, I mean... Yeah. Whoa. I have not. I have not.

Matthew P Munger: So they toyed around with like, should this be a separate display property? ⁓ And so they kind of ended up on grid lane. So it's like a hybrid. But basically, yeah, you've got full control now of a masonry grid, no hacks. And it leans into things that we know, like template columns from grid and gap, all that kind of stuff.

Corey Moen: Right. Right. Mm. Yes. Interesting.

Matthew P Munger: And I actually forget, I think this may actually be, actually let's do, go back to can I use and go. Let's see where this is out. So yeah, Safari technical preview. That's what I just mentioned. ⁓ Yep. So it's still not, I thought Chrome was, that's behind a flag. Yeah. Okay. So if people want to start getting comfortable and familiar with it, like now's a fun time to kind of start playing with it. Cause we have it deployed in Safari and you can use the tools. So.

Corey Moen: Mm-hmm. So good. oh my gosh.

Matthew P Munger: So yeah, I'm looking forward to this one. Again, when can we use it? And I forget I'd have to read back up on what the fallback is if it falls back to just a grid layout. So you just have a bunch of white space introduced under the items. But yeah, maybe in a couple of years, we'll be able to actually use this on sites for real. exciting that, mean, this has been in the works, I feel like, for like 10 years or something.

Corey Moen: this. Oh man, isn't there just like so many little areas of CSS like that? I, some of the, think the one bit of CSS that I've seen coming mostly just from what is, I always say J-hey, but it's not, it's J something. You know what I'm talking about? Like engineer, CSS aficionado, especially like on, used to be on X a lot. I don't know if you post on there as much anymore, but there is like different CSS animation props coming and like trigger things. like, For example, the classic, like, when a section scrolls in a view, animate the heading and a couple of things, like, it is quickly coming that we won't need JavaScript anymore to do that. And I am so stoked. Not that I candidly use those things that often, I just find it very annoying that something that seems so simple needs JavaScript, you know? And yeah, so anyways, CSS, love it.

Matthew P Munger: you Yep, CSS. It's growing into quite the mature language. ⁓ Cool. We got time to look at a couple more things maybe? All right. This is a pretty quick one. Have you heard of Easing Wizard?

Corey Moen: It is. I have not heard of this one, but I definitely feel like I've seen a few of...

Matthew P Munger: Yeah, I've seen tools like this before, but this one is actually, I really like just the way it's laid out and how you can use it. And then you can easily just copy ⁓ the CSS or if you're using Tailwinds, you can just easily copy that. ⁓ So yeah, and then you can, got the live preview, you can control like, know, direction, how, what, what's actually being animated so you can get a better sense of what's going on. So yeah, just another nice little tool to add.

Corey Moen: Yeah. Nice. Love it. ⁓ I would definitely plus that I all again, I don't have a one I go to all the time. I feel like I usually Google it and then whatever is the near top result. just, the point being, I think.

Matthew P Munger: This one isn't covered in like you go to those some of these free sites and it's covered in ads and like.

Corey Moen: ⁓ yeah. ⁓ for sure. For sure. I just, the, the visual reference of what it actually, what the ease actually looks like is so valuable. Whereas like it's quite tedious and annoying to try to like manually do it in development and you know, yeah, so nice.

Matthew P Munger: Yeah, so this is going to actually help get you to a really nice starting point.

Corey Moen: Mm-hmm.

Matthew P Munger: So easingwizard.com on that one. And then this one was a recent find for me. So this is just another one of those kind of inventory sites of everything SVG. So could help you find that next collection that you use on a client site. And one more. This is taste makers. So first things.

Corey Moen: So fun.

Matthew P Munger: so this is a community of people who you can actually hire to do like evaluation on AI outputs, which is interesting, right? Idea. ⁓ But I also just ⁓ the site. ⁓ I think. ⁓

Corey Moen: Interesting. Yeah. For sure. And it's very of the times. Taste has become a ⁓ tasting craft are the best words of the time.

Matthew P Munger: I know I used to taste and craft the words I used to use and now it's like now I'm like I need to find new words because people have taken the words that used to have meaning and they've

Corey Moen: You Yeah, yeah, Hey, I mean, there is a ladder back to our point though of friction and all that because I think the meaning behind the Tasting Craft mantras anymore is just having that eye for the detail. You know, like being able to see beyond the obvious and know what makes something feel truly special and refined and, I mean, let's be real, expensive or high quality. ⁓ It takes time and friction to get that eye. I'm still always fascinated by it. Even just some of the people I look up to in the design and dev community that do work that I'm just like, don't have that extra edge, that extra little bit of like, and again, it's not animation usually, it's just composition and layout and detail that really I think makes that difference. I know. So it's interesting to see there's like, I didn't know there's like communities centering around this, but it makes sense.

Matthew P Munger: Yeah, you have to apply and show your work to get in. So anybody interested and think they got what it takes, Give it a shot. All right. Well, what do you think? Should we wrap this up? We did it. First episode in the can. Exciting. So all right. Well, thank you everyone for joining us.

Corey Moen: Interesting. Yeah, yeah, So cool. think we did it. This has been so fun. So fun. Yeah.

Matthew P Munger: this episode of restock.

Corey Moen: We'll see you in the next one.

Matthew P Munger: See y'all, ciao.