You know that feeling when your brain is a browser with 47 tabs open? I wrote a book about it (Stuff and Things), trying to capture the haphazard collection of professional musings and life in advertising.
But a book is static. Once it’s printed, the ink is dry. My brain, however, keeps making noise.
I wanted a digital extension of the “Stuff and Things” brand. A place for the ephemeral. A digital junk drawer. The problem? I don’t know how to code. I barely know my HTML from a BLT.
In the spirit of “doing stuff” rather than just having meetings about doing stuff, I decided to run an experiment. But 12 months ago this just wasn’t possible. At least not for me. Thwarted at every AI turn by needing a little bit of code here, a node connection there. I parked it. 12 months or so later and Gemini 3 Pro released, I gave it another whirl.
I sat down with Gemini (Google’s AI) and we started “Vibe Coding.”
The Experiment: From Blank Page to Web App in 24 Hours
This wasn’t about hiring a dev team or writing a scope of work. It was about conversation. I told the AI what I wanted: the feeling of a messy desk, coffee stains, torn paper notes, and “organized chaos.” It wrote the code.
It wasn’t magic. It was messy.
We fought with “Smart Quotes” on my Mac (apparently TextEdit hates code). We crashed the browser a few times trying to get the memory logic right. I asked for “funky,” and it gave me something that looked like a 1990s rave flyer, so we had to dial it back to “digital brutalism.”
But we built it. No dev environment, just a text file and some persistence.
Introducing: The Stuff & Things App (v1.0)
It’s a simple, web-based prototype. It lives on the internet, but it thinks like a notebook.
What’s inside?
* The Junk Drawer: A random wisdom generator populated with quotes from the book. Shake it (or click it) when you need a spark.
* The Brain Dump: A “torn paper” stack for your own 3 AM thoughts. Note: This uses local storage. It saves to your device, not a cloud server. It’s private. If you clear your cache, it’s gone. Just like real memory.
* The Connect: Direct lines to the book, the blog, and the podcast.
How to use it properly (The “App” Hack)
Since this is a web app, it works best when you treat it like a real app.
* Open the link on your phone.
* Tap the Share button (iOS) or the Menu dots (Android).
* Select “Add to Home Screen.”
* Boom. It sits next to Instagram and LinkedIn, but with 100% less doom-scrolling.
What’s Next? (The Lab Continues)
This is just the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). We are already vibe-coding v2.0.
I’m looking into building a “Professional Musing Collector.” The goal? An AI voice recorder that captures your rambling “sudden insights,” transcribes them, and uses an AI persona to challenge your thinking or summarize the gist.
For now, enjoy the prototype. Rummage through the drawer. Toss a thought into the pile. Embrace the chaos.
It’s rough. It’s ready. It’s stuff. And things.
➡️ Try the prototype here
Let me know what you think…
