Posts on 👋 Hi!

I'm Being Evicted

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 -0600

I’ve made josephmclaughl.in my home on the internet for over ten years, hosting many iterations of my blog and personal website there.

This year, I received an email letting me know that, in order to comply with new regulations imposed by India, I’d need to provide documentation proving my (or my website’s) relationship to India if I wanted to keep the domain.

Sweating the Details

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 09:00:00 -0700

one time someone gave me a compliment that “[my iOS app’s] sheet physics were perfect” (if you know, you know)

i was flattered, but the truth was actually cooler than mimicking the physics perfectly.

My Next Chapter

Fri, 16 May 2025 09:00:00 -0700

Three years ago, I joined a scrappy Series A startup named Commonstock. The journey was full of twists and turns I never could have anticipated: we navigated the sudden run on SVB (our bank at the time), the dramatic end of the ZIRP era, and waves of tech layoffs reshaping the industry.

Despite these headwinds, we found a path forward when Yahoo Finance acquired Commonstock nearly two years ago. Transitioning overnight¹ from a tight-knit team of fewer than 20 people to becoming part of one of the internet’s oldest and most iconic companies was an experience I’ll never forget.

At Yahoo Finance, I’m incredibly proud of the work we accomplished — especially launching social features² that encourage investors of all backgrounds to connect, learn, and grow together. Seeing a vibrant community begin to flourish on such an established platform reinforced my belief in the power of community-driven products.

But startup life has been calling me back. The opportunity to build from the ground up, rapidly iterate, and directly impact users (and the business) at scale is hard to resist.

So, today was my last day at Yahoo Finance. I’ll be taking a couple weeks off to reset, and then I’m excited to be joining the team at Whatnot! 🥳🎉

Blogging From Anywhere

Wed, 15 May 2024 00:00:00 -0600

The simpler it is to write and publish content to your website, the more likely it is that you will. I don’t make the rules, that’s just human nature.

Most of the time I write on my MacBook, but there’s no technical reason preventing me from publishing from my iPad or iPhone, it just requires some setup the first time.

Today I picked up the new 13” iPad Pro and the matching Magic Keyboard, so I figured it was a great time to publish a little article from the new mobile setup with my first impressions of the new hardware and the apps I use to write on the go.

Can we talk about the App Store?

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 15:00:00 -0700

There has been a lot of press around changes to the App Store lately.

First there was a US court decision that forced Apple into allowing apps to include an “alternate payment link”, and just yesterday they announced a sweeping set of changes coming to the EU App Store due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that is scheduled to come into effect in March.

Both of these legally mandated changes are being implemented in such a way as to do the absolute bare minimum required and make everyone who decides to use the new options pay for it.

15" MacBook Air

Wed, 10 Jan 2024 00:00:00 -0700

Update: This post is out of date, as I decided to return the Air and keep my 16" M1 Pro MacBook Pro instead. When it came time to mail my trade-in, I couldn’t part with it, it’s still such an awesome machine. Maybe sometime in the future I’ll revisit the Air. I’m leaving the post up because it’s still accurate information, but I no longer have the machine.

I side-graded my 2021 16" MacBook Pro to the 15" MacBook Air. I’ve been doing a bit more travel lately, and I’m getting tired of lugging the bigger 16" beast around with me. The smaller machine is a tradeoff in a few areas compared to the Pro, but it shaves 1.4lbs (0.59kg) of weight off, is significantly thinner, and slightly smaller.

The 15" Air stacked on top of the 16" Pro to illustrate relative size.

I haven’t had the opportunity to take a trip with it yet, but in some trial runs throwing it in my backpack, the difference is already feeling nice.

My Home Office (2023)

Sat, 04 Nov 2023 00:00:00 -0600

It’s been about a year and a half since I wrote my last home office post and while much of it has stayed the same, I’ve updated and moved things around quite a bit and felt it was time to write about my current setup and share some new pictures.

A photograph of the desk and surrounding art in my home office (October 2023).

I’ve been working remotely since mid-2016 – now in my eighth year. The majority of that time I was working for Bleacher Report/Turner Sports, then remotely for Apple¹ before joining a startup named Commonstock. After a little over a year at Commonstock, we were acquired by Yahoo² where I now work as a principal software engineer on the Yahoo Finance iOS app.

Dutch (part two)

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0600

as we approach the first birthday of our dog Dutch, i wanted to look back on our time with him as a puppy with fondness and appreciation for what he’s taught us and the many fun things we’ve done with him.

A photo of Dutch and I at Del Mar dog beach in southern California.

in june of last year we decided to bring a puppy home. we had been talking about getting a dog at some point, then one day i ran into an old friend at the gym who had some puppies available from their litter of goldendoodles. we really weren’t planning on getting a puppy right then, but we saw this cute little ball of fluff with his unique silver and black coat and we fell in love. after a lot of discussion over a couple days we decided to take the plunge into puppy fueled depression and sleep deprivation.

Albums

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 00:00:00 -0600

i haven’t written about my new app Albums on this site, which is a little bit intentional and a little bit of an oversight. let me explain.

i don’t know who reads this blog. intentionally. i have no analytics, no email subscription list, nothing. if i had to guess, the number of people that read any given article is more than five and less than one hundred. i’m not sure if that’s me being dismissive of my own reach or trying to be somewhat realistic about the deluge of content we wade through every day.¹

so back to not writing about my new app here. it’s a bit of an oversight because this is my “official” website. it’s the one that bears my name and the one that has some reasonably important announcements on it. it should probably contain at least some reference to my first indie iOS app in over a decade. as for it being intentional, i don’t consider the app to be “finished” yet. it’s still missing functionality that i desperately wanted to put into the first release, but somehow convinced my perfectionistic ADHD brain to push below the line. i stubbornly didn’t want to announce the app in a long-form post until it was “ready”.

but that’s kinda silly since as we’ve established: i’m not sure if any significant number of people read this blog and even if they do, is an app ever truly finished? i may be waiting a long time.

so without further delay: i shipped version 1.0 (and 1.1) of my first indie app in over 12 years. it’s called Albums, and it’s one of the things i’m most proud of building.

Some screenshots from my new app ‘Albums’ displaying a portion of my music library.

My 2023 Theme

Mon, 02 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0700

I’ve been through this “new year” thing a few times. Not as many as some, but more than others. The last few years I’ve gravitated toward “themes” instead of listing a bunch of unrelated goals/wishes. That way when I list out any specific goals, it becomes more about listing actionable steps to support a singular goal instead of a bunch of things I need to keep in my head throughout the year.

The Pirate Life

Fri, 24 Jun 2022 00:00:00 -0600

I’ve been drawing a lot of inspiration from Steve Jobs recently. One quote that’s been bouncing around my head quite a bit is this one from 1983:

“It’s better to be a pirate than to join the navy.”

I’m sure there were many meanings tucked away inside that simple phrase, but the story I’ve seen attributed to Andy Hertzfeld (who was at Apple in 1983) centers around resisting the bureaucratic nonsense that was increasing in the Mac group at Apple as they were growing. Don’t give up your scrappy, win-at-all-costs, counter-culture identity just to conform to “the system”.

Meet Dutch

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 00:00:00 -0600

Dutch is a 9-week old Goldendoodle, a frequent member of the “good dog” club, and lover of fetch. He’s named after our favorite coffee chain, Dutch Bros. Coffee¹ and as a nod to Dutch Formula 1 driver (and defending world champion), Max Verstappen.

He’s the newest member of the family, and we love him so much!

Who’s a good boy?

Financial disclosure, I own a [small] number of shares in Dutch Bros ($BROS) ↩︎

Real Artists Ship

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 00:00:00 -0600

There’s an aphorism that’s attributed to Steve Jobs that I’ve often used to spur on my own artistic endeavors:

“Real artists ship.”

Those three simple words convey a whole host of underlying meaning, and personally I find it incredibly helpful to refocus my own efforts toward the end goal: shipping my art for the world to see.

I’ve had several pet projects I’ve been working on, in some cases for multiple years, that I keep tinkering away on with no end in sight. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that – it’s good to have side projects that sharpen your craft or serve as test beds for learning – but at least one of the projects has been eating away at me, calling out for me to ship it.

Mac Studio – Day One

Mon, 25 Apr 2022 00:00:00 -0600

The Mac Studio I ordered the day after launch finally arrived, and it’s been so worth it. It’s been an incredibly fast and responsive desktop, and I love that there’s now an Apple desktop that makes sense if the iMac doesn’t suit your needs (like if you own a Pro Display XDR). I decided to set it up from scratch as a new machine and document all of the things I did on day one to get it configured for my daily workflows, and wanted to write it all down.

The 2022 Mac Studio in all it’s glory on my desk

My Home Office

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 00:00:00 -0700

It’s been almost three years since I last wrote about my remote work setup, and a lot has changed in everyone’s lives since then. It was time for me to post some new photos of my home office, and write about some of the things that help me do my best work. But first, let’s talk a little bit about remote work almost two years into the pandemic.

Wide-angle picture of my office in February, 2022

joemc.xyz

Sun, 16 Jan 2022 00:00:00 -0700

I wanted to have fun on the internet again. Around a decade ago (wow, time flies!), I remember lots of little landing pages built just for fun. There were no monetization strategies or traffic expectations. These were websites built simply to showcase fun content, play with fun technologies, or a combination of the two.

Hammerspoon

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 00:00:00 -0700

A while ago, I got into mechanical keyboards. I was intrigued by a picture posted to Twitter by @garrettmurray. All three of the keyboards he showed were interesting, but the bottom one – the little guy – was the one that caught my eye the most. I had to have it.

Farewell and Hello

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 00:00:00 -0600

🎙️ clears throat

Is this thing on?

After over five years at Bleacher Report working on sports media technology, it’s time for another adventure. But first, please indulge me in looking back. I’ve worked with so many incredible people at B/R. They’ve helped me grow as an engineer, as a leader, and as a person.

Write Once, Run Anywhere

Mon, 26 Jul 2021 00:00:00 -0600

Recently someone asked me: “what’s a hill in software that you’re willing to die on?”

After thinking for a minute, my answer was that “write once, run anywhere” solutions are almost never worth the compromises. When I first started writing iPhone OS apps (in summer of 2008), I was working with someone who was advocating for a javascript and HTML solution to writing mobile apps, that would allow us to get “near native” appearance and performance without the overhead of learning Objective-C, and the potential payoff of deploying the app to other mobile platforms if it was desired down the line.

Let’s break that down.

M1 MacBook Air

Wed, 23 Dec 2020 09:00:00 -0700

I preordered an M1 MacBook Air as soon as they were available on Apple’s site. Those who know me weren’t surprised I bought one of the new machines – I buy most new Apple products – however, several of my friends asked me why I got the Air instead of the 13" MacBook Pro or even the Mac Mini. At the time, the main reason was to give the retina MacBook Air form factor a try. I was hopeful that the fanless performance of the M1 chip would be comparable to the other machines, but even if it wasn’t I didn’t intend to do much on it that required sustained high performance.

Wow have I been blown away.

Write

Mon, 11 May 2020 00:00:00 -0600

When I can’t sleep, I write. When I need to think, I write. When I need to cope, I write.

Writing helps me in many aspects of my life. It slows down my thoughts to allow me to process information in a coherent way instead of thinking ten steps ahead and losing sight of the present.

Twenty-twenty

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 -0700

2019 was a year of tremendous personal growth for me. As I look back on 2019 and back further over the last decade, I’m amazed by the things I have accomplished, the people I’ve had the good fortune of meeting, and the experiences I’ve had.

Perfect

Sat, 15 Jun 2019 00:00:00 -0600

“Le meglio è l’inimico del bene.”¹

– Italian proverb quoted by Voltaire

The pursuit of perfection can be crippling. I’ve been working on a post about mechanical keyboards off and on for over a year, and the other day I realized the reason I haven’t finished it is I want it to be perfect. I’ve built it up so much in my mind that anything less than my vision for it is inadequate.

Working Remotely

Wed, 22 May 2019 00:00:00 -0600

Disclaimer: This article contains my own thoughts and feelings on the topic of working remotely. Everyone’s situation varies, so please take what you feel works, and leave what you feel doesn’t. As always, the opinions expressed in this article don’t necessarily represent the opinions of my employer, and shouldn’t be construed as such.

“We like to give people the freedom to work where they want, safe in the knowledge that they have the drive and expertise to perform excellently, whether they [are] at their desk or in their kitchen. Yours truly has never worked out of an office, and never will.”

— Richard Branson, Founder and Chairman of Virgin

Remote work is a hot topic right now, with many companies looking beyond co-located teams in order to expand the available talent pool, and offering their employees a potentially better work/life balance. I’ve had the opportunity to work for Bleacher Report remotely for the last three years¹, and wanted to offer a glimpse into my experiences over that time.

Goodbye Twitter

Wed, 13 Jun 2018 00:00:00 -0600

I’m going to take a Twitter break, ~~maybe permanently~~. I would normally Irish exit, but I wanted to write down some of my thoughts since Twitter has been a large part of my life over the last ten years.

Yak Shaving

Sat, 30 Dec 2017 00:00:00 -0700

It’s only fitting that the first post on this new site should be about yak shaving.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept (as defined by Wiktionary):

Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing you to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows you to solve a larger problem.