The Toolbox
How everything here actually gets made.
New piece each time something ships · back it below
No. 5 · 2026-06-25
Make a web app feel like a native app
Toolbox No. 5. The small browser tells that scream "website" — the keyboard that hides the input, the gray tap flash, the wrong keyboard for a code — and how to kill them so a web app feels native.
No. 4 · 2026-06-20
A handwriting font, made from a marker and ImageMagick
Toolbox No. 4. The Economy of Words wall is set in Jack Butcher's actual handwriting, with no font software. Here is how a photo of an alphabet becomes a typeface you can set, recolor, and animate anywhere.
No. 3 · 2026-06-17
Two games hidden in an ad wall
Toolbox No. 3. The Economy of Words wall hides two games. A pac-man that eats the live words and a crosshair that shoots them, both scored on a board nobody can fake. Here is how they were built, and the cheat that got caught.
No. 2 · 2026-06-17
Economy of Words
The idea behind Economy of Words. A public wall where you buy words by the letter, a dollar each, and the cheapest way to be heard is to be brief. Part art, part advertising.
No. 1 · 2026-06-16
A promo video, made without a video editor
Toolbox No. 1. The Economy of Words promo is generated frame by frame by a script, not edited by hand. Here is the exact stack of free command-line tools, and why it beats opening a video editor.
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