Notices by Anil Dash (anildash@me.dm)

@xlrobot @kottke oh absolutely

@mbaudis @kottke I link to a project called TinyTouch, which inspired this one. Ifs creator is selling enclosures that he’s designed just for this.

@laggedHero oh! I know what I did there, will fix in a bit, thanks!

@beep imagine a post-it note with your password on it, but… ✨ blinking lights ✨ 🤣

In my project page here, you can sort of get a feel for the web UI; the circular “sensor” at the top emulates what happens when your fingerprint swipes the hardware sensor device. You can also see the wiring diagram you’ll need to follow if you want to solder the thing together yourself. (It’s not too bad.) https://anildash.com/projects/dashboard-touch/

The project is a refactor of tinyTouch from Zimeng Xiong, which you should also definitely check out. He came up with the broad approach: https://tinytouch.dev/ I wanted to add a friendly web interface for configuring things, as well as a more opinionated approach to authentication, so that it’s more straightforward for less expert users. But both approaches work with commodity hardware that you can buy online for $30-40.

A new little project from me: Dashboard Touch, which lets you make a Touch ID-style sensor for your Mac using off-the-shelf parts, so you don’t need an Apple Keyboard. By emulating keyboarding typing in your password, it works anywhere that macOS asks for authentication. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zXN-JzjkgY

RE: https://cyberpunk.lol/@mxchara/117092734696654321

What do you even do when some stranger just writes batshit fanfic about you all the time? In this imagination, *Cory Doctorow* of all people doesn’t want folks to have agency over their tech?

People really will just say any old goddamn thing on the Internet and expect not to be called out on it.

@migratory I don't think there's any particular gender that's limited when it comes to "whimsical" naming of companies, but I understand your point.

So, I am writing a post about "why Bending Spoons picking up Airtable is everything bad in tech right now" — which questions do you want to make sure I answer in the piece?

@Luke yeah I’d just watched this, too. Gonna try it out.

@kevinbhayes @tastapod yes!

@Eggfreckles with an entire A18 in them!

@BenCotterill yeah I did too. Okay, gonna make one.

@njpozner @jsnell I currently have custom wooden brackets that a built which suspend a keyboard beneath my desk

I really wish Apple sold a standalone TouchID button. I know there's that crazy hack where you can rip apart a keyboard and just use the TouchID button, but that's nuts. Just give us the button so we can use TouchID with our own mechanical keyboards!

@jonobie oh sweet! Would love to hear more about how it works for you over time

@sayrer i actually don’t get that much into grammar, but I guess I should

My original post describing how to make better documents from a few years ago: https://anildash.com/2024/03/10/make-better-documents/ I see this new tool as being like a more high-level version of a spell checker tool, aimed at improving how teams communicate.

Most documents we encounter in the course of doing our work are somewhere between middling to terrible. A few years ago, I wrote "Make Better Documents", a simple set of guidelines for making presentations, reports, etc.

Now, I've turned that set of suggestions into a Better Documents skills.md file, an agent skill for those who use LLMs to help review documents. Naturally, it’s 100% free & open source, so I'd love for you to give it a try & let me know what you think.

https://anildash.com/2026/07/24/make-better-documents-skill/