04 / NOTES TO KEEP. IDEAS TO TRY.
Tech Journal
Clear notes on emerging tools, creative workflows, and ideas worth revisiting.
AI IMAGE MAKING
Image generation, editing, and visual workflows.
Pair a photograph with its abstract illustration
A reusable 3:4 poster prompt that keeps each source photo above a restrained geometric interpretation.
A neon fashion portrait built around one eye
A close-up image prompt with an off-center crop, electric-cyan bob, red collar, oversized glasses, and prismatic eye detail.
Turn an AI interface image into transparent UI assets
Use image editing to isolate visual elements, then rebuild the interface as editable layers and code.
Five prompt adjustments for more natural AI photos
Make the scene feel observed, check hands and lighting, and compose for the audience instead of relying on one magic phrase.
A 64-icon sheet for AI video production
An 8×8 grid can turn one image request into a reusable set of transparent visual cues—if every cell and the alpha channel are checked.
Seven practical ways to prompt ChatGPT Images 2.5
A useful checklist for character sheets, multilingual designs, text, references, and final quality checks—without treating viral claims as guarantees.
AI VIDEO MAKING
Animation, narration, and video production workflows.
Use a scale sketch to keep character sizes consistent
Pair character sheets with a shared-ground-line sketch so an AI video model can read both appearance and relative height.
One performance, thirteen camera angles
A Seedance 2.5 reference-video prompt tries to re-photograph the same 19.53-second performance while locking the actor, audio, timing, and set.
From a prompt to an animated geography lesson
A practical outline for using Claude, a TTS service, and code to make a short lesson video—with a closer look at the limits of one viral security tip.
CREATIVE CODING
Visual design and interactive experiences made with code.
Explore Cue’s page transition series
A focused collection of page-change patterns to study before adding motion to a real site.
Give AI builders a design system with Refero Styles
Use a real site’s DESIGN.md as a starting brief for consistent typography, color, spacing, and components.
Cue turns interface references into AI prompts
A curated library gives AI builders more specific visual and motion references for heroes, components, and interactions.
Taste Skill gives AI-built interfaces a design brief
A portable set of frontend instructions asks coding agents to define visual direction, audit existing screens, and check the result.
A pixel runner built entirely in one HTML file
A detailed Canvas 2D brief for a looping 160×90 action scene, with crisp pixels, scripted dodges, and a deterministic particle system.
BROWSER AUTOMATION
Testing, agents, and data extraction on the web.
Agent Reach connects research across platforms
One open-source capability layer helps agents choose and check tools for web, social, video, GitHub, and RSS research.
Playwright or Stagehand v4? Choose by the job
Playwright remains the stronger default for repeatable product tests; Stagehand v4 is useful when an agent must navigate changing third-party pages.
OPEN SOURCE TOOLS
Self-hosted software and practical AI agent building blocks.
Buzz puts people, agents, and code in one workspace
Block’s open-source Buzz brings chat, search, Git events, and agent workflows onto a relay you can run yourself.
Seven open-source AI tools worth testing
A grounded reading list for agent routing, coding, video creation, trading research, unified chat, and computer-using agents.
VIDEO EDITING
Practical post-production techniques for moving images.
Make labels follow a character in After Effects
Track a visible feature, apply its motion to a null object, and parent text or icons to the null for gameplay edits.
AUDIO RESOURCES
Sound libraries and production audio worth keeping handy.
Adobe’s royalty-free sound effects are available by category
Adobe lists 26 downloadable sound-effect ZIPs totaling roughly 11 GB, with license limits worth reading.
DATA VISUALIZATION
Chart systems, data stories, and visual reports.
Lieflat Charts gives agents a visual language for data
An agent skill for polished HTML charts and reports, with several chart families, color presets, and a noncommercial license.
DEVELOPER TOOLS
Editors, cloud runtimes, and practical development setups.
Use a Colab runtime from a local VS Code notebook
Google’s VS Code extension connects local notebooks to hosted compute, with GPU availability and file-transfer limits.
WRITING WORKFLOWS
Editing prompts and methods for clearer prose.
Edit an AI draft until it sounds like a person
A three-pass editing prompt removes inflated claims and stock phrasing while keeping the author’s meaning and voice.
AI AGENT WORKFLOWS
Practical ways to guide and evaluate coding agents.
Use Antigravity’s browser subagent to check real pages
The /browser command can inspect live sites and local frontends; logged-in access and automation limits still need explicit checks.
Reduce Astra token use by auditing the workflow
Keep the model and reasoning setting you value, then measure where instructions, context, and repeated work consume tokens.