Is it actually better to make it yourself, or is the convenience of buying worth the cost? 🛠️📦

I'm excited to start Series 2 of my Substack, Make vs Buy. This time, I'm moving beyond websites to look at the pillars of domestic life: meals, clothing, and furniture. I'll also be looking at how emerging tech like 3D printing is reshaping the calculus for modern makers.

Read more here: https://makevbuy.substack.com/p/the-make-vs-buy-dilemma

#MakeVsBuy #Makers #Substack #DIY #3DPrinting #SelfSufficiency

Somehow there are still websites that don’t work well on mobile devices, or on larger-than-average desktop monitors, or on anything that isn’t “whatever screen size the developer happened to use.”

Responsive design, which is the ability for a web page to resize and reshape gracefully across devices, should be standard. Given how common that requirement is, you’d think AI would handle it automatically.

You’d be wrong.

Read all about it here:

https://makevbuy.substack.com/p/mobile-first-or-mobile-last

#makevsbuy

I gave eight AIs the same web development task of creating a simple one-page website, using only HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Each of them received the same prompt, stipulating they had to meet certain constraints, including: dynamic screen size adaption, international accessibility standards, and human-readable code. They also had to have certain content included: photos, testimonials, date and time details of an event, and a registration form. The scenario was fictional but based on real projects I’ve done.

But several of the AIs I tested didn’t understand that. They produced solutions that assumed the human user had unlimited time and expertise.

https://makevbuy.substack.com/p/the-fatal-flaw

#makevsbuy