8️⃣ "You can have a plan, but you have to be flexible." - Jane Krakowski

Hey friends!

I'm so excited to be in your inbox today! It is this newsletter's EIGHTH year anniversary!! I'm so grateful for all of you here. Let's keep it going (also there are free things and coupons below, keep scrolling)!

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Web links of the week

The Death of the Browser - Rachel-Lee Nabors (video)
Minimal CSS-only blurry image placeholders
Exploring Art with TypeScript, Jupyter, Polars, and Observable Plot
Automatically create social card images for your Astro blog
I don't know what MCP is and at this point I'm too afraid to ask

Something that interested me this week

Gosh, it's so unfathomable to me that it's been 8 years since starting this newsletter, and I am so grateful to you for being here and reading along with me each week. It's a genuine pleasure to know that it's giving you some value in some way, even if it's just a light occasional chuckle.

For those who've been here before, you may know that I love doing raffle giveaways and coupons every year! We have some lovely folks offering free things for ya!

• FusionAuth has been securing user login, registration and management for over 8 years! To celebrate, they're giving away a "cat /etc/password" t-shirt (US/Canada only) and 3 copies of an ebook about the intricacies of OAuth!
• GitHub is giving away 3 coupons for 12 months free of GitHub Copilot Pro!
• Kedasha is offering 3 free spots in her awesome workshop Build Your Own Apps with AI!
• Autonomous, creators of innovative ergonomic office furniture, is giving away a SmartDesk 5—their latest desk designed to elevate your workspace and make work feel effortless (US only).
• Get (my favorite) coding font MonoLisa for 15% off with code freakingnerds!
• FSH Technologies, is building the Costco of software for local governments, is raffling off a fun sticker pack!
• CascadiaJS is giving away 1 ticket to their 2025 conference, which will be in Seattle, WA on Sept 18-19. Come for the talks on web and AI, stay for the karaoke!
• SmashingConf New York is offering discounted tickets to their October 6-9th event to all newsletter readers with this link!
• Complete CSS is offering 30% off to all readers who use code CASSIDOO at checkout! Take your CSS skills to the next level.
• ElevenLabs, the AI audio API for building conversational AI agents, is giving away 3 credit-and-swag packages. Each package includes over 1.1 million characters (3 months of the Pro tier) and an official ElevenLabs cap.
• Jelly, the better way to manage your team's inbox, is offering 15% off your first year with code CASSIDOO15!
• Pika is a good blogging platform that is pretty and easy and pretty easy. Use code CASSIDOO20 for 20% off your first year of blogging with Pika!
• CodeCrafters (Build your own Git, BitTorrent, SQLite etc) is giving away 3 lifetime memberships worth $1490 each. Sign up for free at this link in addition to my form for this part of the raffle. The lucky winners will be emailed by end of April!
• Drop is raffling off 3 keyboard bundles! Winner’s choice of CSTM65 (Linear or Tactile) or CSTM80 (Linear or Tactile), plus choice of Decorative Case to go along with it! Shipping US and CA only. Click here to join the Drop Community!

If you'd like to enter in the raffle for all the great prizes here (huge thanks to all the folks who are offering them!), please fill out this form by Thursday at noon, U.S. Central Time to get an entry!

And just once again: Thank you so much for being here. It makes my day to see replies and messages and posts and toots and skeets and carrier pigeons from people that enjoy reading this, and seeing you share it with others.

Also as a quick (mic drop ICYMI?) side note: I'm super pregnant, and due this month! If you see some repeated interview questions or links over the next few weeks... that's why. Woo hoo!

Sponsor

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Just hit the vote icon on their Postman API Network workspace—you can even track a live leaderboard on the API Network homepage.

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Interview question of the week

Last week, I had you find gaps in timestamps! Tick tock, you rock John, Taylor, Andy, Ben, Mike, Mazen, Nick, David, Muhammad, Roodz, Andrea, Ten, Huyixi, Elke, Austin, Miguel, Ben, Neha, Murtala, Levi, Saleh, Saravana, and Ross!

This week's question:
Write a function that returns the first n Leyland numbers in ascending order. A Leyland number is defined as x^y + y^x for integers x > 1 and y > 1.

Examples:

getLeylandNumbers(1)
[8]

getLeylandNumbers(5)
[8, 17, 32, 54, 57]

(you can submit your answers by replying to this email with a link to your solution, or share on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Mastodon)

Cool things from around the internet

What If We Made Advertising Illegal?
Stoop Coffee: How a Simple Idea Transformed My Neighborhood
Medieval Tavern in Blender - 3D Modeling Process (video)
Keykobo Soju on the Mode Encore

Joke

My laziness is like the number 8.
Once it lies down, it becomes infinite.

That's all for now, folks! Have a great week. Be safe, make good choices, and thank you for being here!

Special thanks to IceSloth, Ezell, Sebastián, Ben, Kinetic Labs, and Marta for supporting my Patreon and this newsletter!

cassidoo

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