# Not So Common Thoughts

> Not So Common Thoughts is a personal blog exploring the intersection of design, technology, and human creativity. Through thoughtful analysis and personal experiences, it examines how modern tools and AI are reshaping our approach to design, coding, and creative work, while maintaining a focus on the human elements of judgment, intuition, and meaningful decision-making. The blog combines design insights with reflections on work, creativity, and the evolving relationship between humans and technology.

## Blog Posts

- [Chaos Studies: Where Math Meets Music Meets Touch](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/2026-02-04-chaos-studies/): Turning a fascination with strange attractors into an immersive audiovisual experience, from Playdate to iOS and macOS.
- [Converging on Reality](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/2025-12-30-converging-on-reality/): Machine learning models across languages, molecules, and proteins are converging toward similar representations—a hint at underlying structure.
- [A Map of Gaps](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/2025-12-27-the-map-of-gaps/): Why knowing what you're bad at matters more than knowing what you're good at—for learning, for work, and for building teams that actually complement each other.
- [The One Thing Constraint](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/2025-11-11-the-one-thing-constraint/): Good science fiction changes one thing and builds a world around it. Can the same work in product design?
- [From Sketch to Site in Hours](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/2025-11-10-fieldbw-sketch-to-site/): Building Field Bureau + Werkstatt, a minimal site born from a journal sketch and iterated into existence.
- [In Appearance Only](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/2025-11-05-in-appearance-only/): Unintentional imposters optimizing for output over outcome. AI just does it even better.
- [Embracing Interface Asymmetry](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/2025-11-04-the-ui-inversion/): Visual UIs and chat interfaces have opposite strengths. The asymmetry isn't a problem to fix; it's a pattern to embrace.
- [Turning the Ship](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/turning-the-ship/): Why organizational change takes time, why resistance is normal, and why momentum eventually works in your favor.
- [Direction Before Speed](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/direction-before-speed/): Why organizational momentum is a vector, and why moving fast in the wrong direction is worse than moving slowly in the right one.
- [Praise Effort, Not Talent](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/praise-effort-not-talent/): How cultural differences in praising children shape mindset and what it means for how we raise our own kids.
- [Apple's Quiet AI Advantage](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/apple-on-device-ai-advantage/): Why the M-series neural engine may prove that Apple's so-called lag in AI is actually a head start in on-device intelligence.
- [Let's Talk About Your Next Role](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/write-the-next-job/): Why I ask teammates to think about their CV and what they want it to look like five years from now.
- [Ephemeral Software](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/2025-10-15-ephemeral-software/): In the age of AI, it's not the UI that becomes ephemeral—it's the software itself. Code manifests when needed and dissolves when purpose is served.
- [Hiring Designers Who Know Which Lever to Pull](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/hiring-designers-judgment/): The three non-negotiables I expect from senior designers: relentless feedback, selling the work, and knowing when each skill should lead.
- [Menu Volume – Feedback First, Features Second](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/volbar-user-feedback/): How shipping MIDI Volume Control proved that no project is too small to pivot when immediate user feedback points to the real product.
- [MIDI Volume Control: When the Solution Doesn't Exist, Build It](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/midivol-app-store/): How a simple need—controlling my Mac's volume with a MIDI controller—led to building my first desktop app, now available on the App Store.
- [How I Built a Serverless Chess Analytics Platform with Game Data in the URL](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/chess-analytics-in-the-url/): Building a free chess game analysis tool that stores everything in the URL—no servers, no databases, just instant analytics you can share with a link.
- [AI Unblocked My Learning](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/ai-unblocked-learning/): How AI has restored my ability to learn by doing, bringing back the joy of experimentation that growing responsibilities had made increasingly rare.
- [Meet my books](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/solving-the-book-memory-problem/): How I built a personal book collection website to solve the frustrating problem of tracking what I've already read.
- [Your AI slop is served](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/ai-content-curation-and-the-value-of-long-form-thinking/): A reflection on the 'AI slop' debate, content overload, and why engaging with long-form writing matters more than ever.
- [Fundamental Chess Strategy & Evaluation](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/chess-fundamentals/): A compact cheat sheet for intermediate players (1200+), especially after a break from play.
- [Art, Design, and the Question of Purpose](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/art-design-purpose/): On the fundamental difference between art and design: one serves itself, the other must serve others.
- [RockOrPop.com: Turn Any YouTube Playlist into a Virtual Cassette](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/rock-or-pop/): Turn any playlist into a customizable mixtape—no log-ins, no algorithms, just intentional listening.
- [Are We Intelligent?](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/are-we-intelligent/): While others were affirming that AIs could not truly think or even understand, I found myself wondering if I was any different.
- [Revisiting the world of Weewar](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/revisiting-the-world-of-weewar/): How building a hex map generator brought back memories of creating one of the web's first strategy games.
- [Finding Balance in Leadership](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/finding-balance-in-leadership/): The art of setting guardrails that empower rather than constrain.
- [The Unreality of Work](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/the-unreality-of-work/): On the growing disconnect between our daily routines and a world in crisis.
- [AI Expectations and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/ai-expectations-and-self-fulfilling-prophecies/): How our cultural narratives about AI might be shaping its development more than we realize
- [MapsAll.com: Mindmapping with AI](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/mapsall-project/): The journey of creating a mind mapping tool that evolved from experimental prototypes to a full-featured product.
- [About this Site](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/about-this-site/): I asked AI to tell me what Not So Common Thoughts is all about.
- [Implementing LLMs.txt: Making Your Blog AI-Friendly](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/implementing-llms-txt/): How and why I implemented the LLMs.txt standard to make this blog more accessible to AI tools.
- [Don't just do more, think more](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/think-more-not-just-more/): A personal reflection on how AI-driven productivity gains should be reinvested in thinking, not just doing.
- [AI and the Rise of Judgement Over Technical Skill](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/ai-and-judgement/): As AI removes technical barriers, judgement becomes the key differentiator.
- [Interior Design Fundamentals](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/interior-design-fundamentals/): Exploring the core principles of interior design through Noah Daniel's insightful video series, covering ground rules, material palettes, and lighting.
- [Permission to Enjoy](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/permission-to-enjoy/): A reflection on seniority, freedom, responsibility, and the power of a mentor's simple advice.
- [Building a Music Player: YouTube as a Backend](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/music-page-youtube/): How I built a music player for kohlhofer.com that pulls from a YouTube playlist, fetches video backgrounds, and focuses on an integrated audio/visual listening experience.
- [Let Go and Trust](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/let-go-and-trust/): A reminder that excellence comes from trust, not control.
- [Visualizing Chaos: The Lorenz Attractor](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/lorenz-attractor/): A fun exploration of chaos theory through code, creating an aesthetic visualization of the Lorenz attractor using P5.js.
- [Vibe Coding kohlhofer.com: Creation at the Speed of Thought](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/vibe-coding-kohlhofer/): How I built kohlhofer.com trying out a new approach to design and software development.
- [Coding as a Tool: Generating Patterns for the Siding of a new House](https://notsocommonthoughts.com/blog/siding-pattern/): How I used code to create a natural-looking random pattern for board and batten siding, ensuring both aesthetic appeal and structural requirements.