There is certainly an uncertainty in the immediate future. Geo-political issues, AI and more have spooked companies and investors. Some have slowed down, others have pulled-up the gates. This makes freelance projects difficult.

In Q2, we're writing our own future by reaching out to a few old friends and customers and either rekindling long gone projects (some due to COVID), pushing some internal projects bigger or starting some completely new ideas. If work is hard to find, make your own.

Luckily, we also have one large project that's been brewing for almost a year now finally getting the green light.

We've rounded out our three major camera apps, with two more in testing.

DejaView: Reach back into the past to grab a collage of images.

Ornithoto: Blend multiple frames into a single image to capture motion.

Camelut: A bring-your-own filters camera.

Beta camera apps:

Filters: A shader playground to test different filters and effects.

Blocks: Create pixelated images inspired by the Game Boy camera.

📷 You can read more and download all our camera apps at: https://optional.is/apps/cameras/

In Q1, we published 7 articles, 6 weeknotes and maintained our ◍ Quarternotes newsletter schedule.


Omnibus 02025
https://optional.is/required/2026/01/01/omnibus-02025/
⸻
02025 TIL
https://optional.is/required/2026/01/14/02025-til/
⸻
02025 Annual Report
https://optional.is/required/2026/01/28/02025-annual-report/
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Wyld's Great Globe
https://optional.is/required/2026/02/12/wylds-great-vr-globe/
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Backups 3.0 Remote
https://optional.is/required/2026/02/26/backups-3-0-remote/
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SXSW06
https://optional.is/required/2026/03/12/sxsw-02006/
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Camelut
https://optional.is/required/2026/03/27/camelut/
⸻

📰 optional.is/newsletter/
🗓 optional.is/required/category/weeknotes
📡 optional.is/feeds/

The movie ratings website Rotten Tomatoes started as a passion project in 01998 to rank Jackie Chan's movies. Over the next 30 years, it grew from a niche fan site into the box-office killer it is today.

Just remember, your niche idea might change an entire industry.

A Salish Wool Dog in a 19th-century painting by Paul Kane of Coast Salish weaving.

Back in May 02024, we talked about the extinct Turnspit Dog (https://optional.is/newsletter/s03e05/).

Another extinct dog, the Salish Wool Dog, was a white, long-haired, Spitz-type dog that was developed and bred by the Coast Salish peoples of what is now Washington state and British Columbia. Its primary purpose was for textile production, the same way we use sheep today.

The Salish Wool Dog is thought to have split from other breeds over 5,000 years ago. During the 1800s, the use of dog wool declined and the breed became extinct somewhere around the late 01800s or early 01900s.

Wikipedia keeps a list of extinct Dog Breeds. Most seem to be hunting or fighting related. Their lines died out as we stopped many of these practices.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_dog_breeds

We focus on building prototypes. Teams come to us with an idea and we build the minimum viable product so they can gather feedback and secure funding.

In 02024, we worked closely with Calvis to build the web app, API and iOS app while they coördinated the business strategy and fundraising. At the start of 02025, they raised money to build out their internal team, freeing us up to move on to the next project.

Throughout 02025, we worked with two more companies to build prototypes. They're almost at the funding stage and we're winding down.

02026 has just started, but we're excited about the next round of projects that are in store. We have some VR, museum, cinema and potential retail projects in the works. It's going to be an exciting year.

In 02025, UNESCO added Italian cuisine as an Intangible Cultural Heritage, joining French (02010), Mexican (02010), Japanese (02013) and Korean (02024) cuisine.

Since Marinara sauce is inextricably connected with Italian cooking, we tend to forget that the tomato is a vegetable from the Americas and didn't appear in Italian (or European) cuisine until the late 01600s.

The first Italian cookbook to include tomato sauce, Lo Scalco alla Moderna (The Modern Steward), was published in two volumes in 01692 and 01694.

In Q4, we published 6 articles, 7 weeknotes and maintained our ◍ Quarternotes newsletter schedule.


Playfair Pies
https://optional.is/required/2025/12/18/playfair-pies/
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Black and White + 1 = Full Color
https://optional.is/required/2025/12/05/black-and-white-1-full-color/
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Willy Wonka Candy
https://optional.is/required/2025/11/21/willy-wonka-candy/
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LEGO Wreath
https://optional.is/required/2025/11/06/lego-wreath/
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Time for Timezones
https://optional.is/required/2025/10/24/time-for-timezones/
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Eh, Aye!
https://optional.is/required/2025/10/09/eh-aye/
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📰 optional.is/newsletter/
🗓 optional.is/required/category/weeknotes
📡 optional.is/feeds/

If you collect matchbox art, you're called a philuminist.

The modern-day safety match we all know was invented in Sweden. Johan Edvard and his brother Carl Frans Lundström started manufacturing safety matches in 01853 at their new factory in Jönköping.

Once they made the matches, they needed something to put them in and the modern-day matchbox with an inside box and outer sleeve was born.

40 years later, in 01892, the factory was completely automated. In 01853, 4,000 boxes of matches were produced a year. By 01896, it was more than seven million! This is why, in many languages, safety matches are called "Swedish matches".

"When an elder dies, a library burns to the ground."

Sadly, this new year we lost Goddur. He was the opinionated, giant presence in the Icelandic Art and Design community. we didn't interact with him much directly, but he was certainly in our orbit. He taught many of our colleagues and weighed in on plenty of topics in the media.

Back in 02017, he was gracious enough to present at our Material Conference. At the start, you could feel all the tech folks curdling, but by the end, they were converts.

Material Conference 2017: Fine Art Ingredients of the Web - Goddur https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f7ZuMOyJhs

Goddur was a student of Deiter Roth's. Goddur was helpful filling in some gaps about Deiter's outlandish ads.

We wrote out those in Paying for Contrast. https://optional.is/required/2020/11/02/paying-for-contrast/

Sample Image collages taken with the DejaView camera app.

We love the spark that comes from seeing something inspiring and diving in to try it ourselves.

Our most recent experiment is an iOS camera app that captures images from back in time to create a collage and animated GIF.

You can read more about the inspiration, process and technology on our website: https://optional.is/required/2025/07/31/dejaview-camera-app/

Download it on the Apple App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dejaview/id1598005975?ls=1&mt=8

"Living Fossil" - Gyotaku reproduction of Coelacanth by Dwight Hwang.

To record their catch, Japanese fishermen would clean, ink and press their fish onto washi paper. The practice dates back to the mid-01800s and continues today.

This quarter, we've been heads down on at least 6 different external projects. While they've been fun and rewarding, we can't disclose too many details. This is a big challenge: promote our work, show our expertise and set ourselves up to win the next project when the case studies are full of redactions!

Externally:
• Built a web & iOS prototype for ██████ using WebRTC.
• Responded to a ██ RFP to manage 1,000+ ███████████.
• Expanded software for █████████ in Australia to manage a new branch of their business.
• Requested to put a proposal together for pop-up events for ████.
• Pitched yet another idea for a new ██████████ game.
• Took the next step to productize PETALS.

Internally:
• Collaborated with friends on a new Calendar style app.
• Tinkered on our Time Tracking tool to connect with Icelandic invoicing software APIs.
• Strategized with some family members on a service for dog owners.

One January morning 01494, Florence, Italy awoke covered in a blanket of snow. This was such an unusual event that Piero de Medici, probably the richest and most powerful man in Florence, commissioned a young 19 year-old artist to build him a snowman.

That artist was Michelangelo. Given his track record, it was probably the most beautiful snowman ever created, but we'll never know because it melted.

In Q3, we published 7 articles, 6 weeknotes and maintained our ◍ Quarternotes newsletter schedule.


Latency and the Sea
https://optional.is/required/2025/07/03/latency-and-the-sea/
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Creative Tip Jars
https://optional.is/required/2025/07/17/creative-tip-jars/
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DejaView Camera App
https://optional.is/required/2025/07/31/dejaview-camera-app/
⸻
Wii Music Hand Holding
https://optional.is/required/2025/08/15/wii-music-hand-holding/
⸻
LUT Cubes and Shaders
https://optional.is/required/2025/08/27/lut-cubes-and-shaders/
⸻
Integrating Clusters
https://optional.is/required/2025/09/12/integrating-clusters/
⸻
Discussion Receipts
https://optional.is/required/2025/09/26/discussion-receipts/
⸻

📰 optional.is/newsletter/
🗓 optional.is/required/category/weeknotes
📡 optional.is/feeds/

As we start the final quarter of the year, we’re prepping for 02026 with our annual A0 wall calendar.

This will be our 10th year of creating large, A-series wall calendars. A PHP script generates SVG output, which we edit into a PDF for print. The calendar includes Icelandic holidays, old Icelandic months, Icelandic Yule Lads, full moons, equinoxes, solstices, a solar eclipse and more. Add your own holidays and translations!

We found a local print shop and printed these on their B&W architectural plotter on 80g paper.

Download the print-ready 02026 PDF and source code on GitHub:
https://github.com/optional-is/calendaring/blob/master/A0-Yearly/02026-Misseristal-A0.pdf

Stay 📦 organized and stay 🤪 sane.

Ornithoto taken in Borgarfjöður Eystri 02024 from the Puffin Colony.

We love the spark that comes from seeing something inspiring and diving in to try it ourselves.

Our most recent experiment is an iOS camera app that saves a time-lapse photo capturing motion and light.

We wrote about the inspiration, process and more about the technology. You can read it on our website: https://optional.is/required/2025/05/22/ornithoto-camera-app/

Download it for free (for a limited time) on the Apple App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ornithoto/id1665382610?ls=1&mt=8

When Twitter collapsed, we joined a small, local, Icelandic instance. This is exactly what Mastodon is designed for: a local feed of like-minded people. This was our way to get back into the Icelandic community.

We looked into running our own personal instance, but the maintenance, storage and bandwidth put us off. We suspect that a lot of early adopters made the jump before realizing the effort and commitment needed. Fast-forward a few years, the dust has settled and instances are closing.

We're sad to see our local community Mastodon instance close.

You can now find us over at @briansuda@mastodon.social

In Q2, we published 6 articles, 7 weeknotes and maintained our ◍Quarternotes newsletter schedule.


Cellular Automata
https://optional.is/required/2025/04/11/cellular-automata/
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Muscle flexes
https://optional.is/required/2025/04/25/muscle-flexes/
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Sawtooth and Sine Wave
https://optional.is/required/2025/05/07/sawtooth-and-sine-wave/
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Ornithoto Camera App
https://optional.is/required/2025/05/22/ornithoto-camera-app/
⸻
Disney Flowchart
https://optional.is/required/2025/06/06/disney-flowchart/
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Blind Men and the Elephant
https://optional.is/required/2025/06/20/blind-men-and-the-elephant/
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📰 optional.is/newsletter/
🗓 optional.is/required/category/weeknotes
📡 optional.is/feeds/

Chimborazo is the highest mountain in Ecuador with an elevation of 6,263m (20,548ft). If measured, not from sea level, but from the center of the Earth, Chimborazo is 2.1 km (1.3 mi) farther than the summit of Everest. This is due to Earth's equatorial bulge.

Does that make Chimborazo Earth's tallest mountain?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimborazo

In this year's proposal for Unicode Version 17.0 there is a Hairy Creature emoji.

Our favorite Hairy Creature goes by many names around the world: Almas, Bigfoot, Mapinguari, Orang Pendek, Sasquatch, Yeti and more.

We'll see in the September update if this elusive creature is finally caught.

July 17th is World Emoji Day. https://worldemojiday.com

In Q1, we wrapped up surveys and extracted ourselves from a prototype project we started last summer. They raised money, hired a team and hopefully one day we can talk about it.

Q2 has two new projects. The first is a web-based tool to track with equipment & team utilization. The other is a 3–4 month proof-of-concept web/app prototype for tester to use and give feedback. This one spans all sorts of devices, web, TV, watch, etc.

Torpenhow Hill is a made-up term based on a hill near the village of Torpenhow in Cumbria, England.

It is an example of a tautological placename. In Old Saxons torr is hill. In Welsh pen is also hill, and in Old Norse haugr, which became 'how' is also 'hill'. Therefore, the name 'Torpenhow Hill' can be translated as: hill-hill-hill Hill.

In Q1, we published six articles, six weeknotes and maintained our ◍ Quarternotes newsletter schedule.


Omnibus 02024
https://optional.is/required/2025/01/01/omnibus-02024/
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02024 TIL
https://optional.is/required/2025/01/14/02024-til/
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Optimized Charging
https://optional.is/required/2025/01/28/optimized-charging/
⸻
02024 Annual Report
https://optional.is/required/2025/02/11/02024-annual-report/
⸻
Mini-Thermal printer
https://optional.is/required/2025/02/26/mini-thermal-printer/
⸻
Eyjafajalljökull: 15th anniversary
https://optional.is/required/2025/03/20/eyjafjallajokull-15th-anniversary/
⸻

📰 optional.is/newsletter/
🗓 optional.is/required/category/weeknotes
📡 optional.is/feeds/

A newly approved tartan, designed by Clare Campbell, memorializes those persecuted under Scotland’s Witchcraft Act.

The pattern features several references to important colors and numbers.

Its black and grey tones reflect the darkness of the era and the ashes of those burned. Red signifies bloodshed, while pink represents the legal tapes binding trial documents then and now.

The thread count encodes the years 1563 and 1736 (1+5+6+3 = 15 and 1+7+3+6 = 17), with these numbers woven into black and grey bands surrounding a white check of three threads—symbolizing the campaign’s three objectives: securing a pardon, an apology, and memorials.

The 173 black threads in the tartan’s squares represent the 173 years the Witchcraft Act was in force.

Over the last year, we’ve made use of people’s gracious open office hours. We’ve booked sessions with people we admire and had some amazing and informative chats.

Our open office hours are:

⁍ Monday evenings: 21-22:00 UTC for the Americas
⁍ Friday mornings: 9-11:00 UTC for Europe

Hopefully, we’ll be able to reconnect with more old friends, meet new folks, and have more interesting and engaging conversations.

🗓 Book a time to chat: https://calendly.com/brian-suda/30min

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🔔💪🏻🏋️ Ring in the New Year

"Ring" in the New Year literally comes from ye olden days when the church bells would ring to ward off evil spirits and bring good luck.

During the Victorian era (01837-01901), bell-ringing competitions grew in popularity. Practicing ringing a multi-ton metal bell by pulling on ropes created noise and confusion. The solution was to replace the bells with logs. These stand-ins were called "dumbbells", which we still use today.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/dumb-bell

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Q4 Writing

In Q4, we published one article, two weeknotes and maintained our newsletter schedule with one ◍ Quarternotes and a ⪮ Good Morning episode each month.


On Newsletter Publishing
https://optional.is/required/2024/12/18/on-newsletter-publishing/

⪮ Good Morning Newsletter Season 3

s03e10: Mavens & the Macabre
https://optional.is/newsletter/s03e10/

s03e11: Biomonitors and Super-smellers
https://optional.is/newsletter/s03e11/

s03e12: Time Eddies
https://optional.is/newsletter/s03e12/

⸻

📰 optional.is/newsletter/
🗓 optional.is/required/category/weeknotes
📡 optional.is/feeds/

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⁉️🤔 That's Interesting!

We were listening to an interview about copywriting when they mentioned a 01971 paper by Murry S. Davis called That's Interesting!

We tracked down the PDF online. It's pretty academic, but he explains how to make your theories interesting!

We've all been taught about the inverted pyramid method of writing - going from specific to broad, but that doesn't make something "interesting".

"An interesting proposition is one which denies some aspect of the assumption-ground of its audience."

Davis argues that to be interesting, take long-held common knowledge and show how the opposite is true.

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📰✍🏻 Betteridge's law of headlines

"Clickbait" based on an Artistic representation of 'clickbait', in Bondi Junction, New South Wales, Australia by Floodstreet.

"Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

This is based on the assumption that if the publishers were confident that the answer was yes, they would have phrased the headline as a statement. By presenting it as a question, they avoid accountability for its accuracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines

See Also: Clickbait

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Merch

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👾 Newly Discovered Nazca Drawings

One of 143 newly discovered Nazca line geoglyphs, identified with the help of advanced technology. On the right, a heat map indicates where software calculated probabilities, guiding researchers to potential discovery sites.

In September, researchers published a paper titled AI-accelerated Nazca survey nearly doubles the number of known figurative geoglyphs and sheds light on their purpose (https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2407652121)

TL;DR version: Researchers used existing geoglyph images, chopping, rotating, and recoloring them to create training data. Using this as input, software analyzed a large map of the area and flagged areas that matched patterns. Researchers then investigated these “hotspots”, ultimately confirming hundreds of new geoglyphs of various shapes and sizes.

This is a great example of the "centaur concept" — the idea that a human-computer partnership is more effective than either working alone.


You can read more about the geoglyphs on the Smithsonian Magazine Website: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-newly-discovered-nazca-drawings-depict-llamas-human-sacrifices-more-180985133/

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Projects Progress

This quarter, we've focused on at least four large external projects. While these projects are fulfilling, confidentiality challenges mean we can’t share many details. This makes it difficult to promote our work, showcase our expertise, or set ourselves up for future projects when case studies are full of redactions!

Externally:
• Continued development of a web and iOS prototype for ███████████, which is close to securing funding, meaning our role is winding down.
• Our Spatial Computing prototype app for ██████████ has pivoted slightly to focus primarily on the tablet version.
• Secret NDA project for █████ had a quick turn around. Our role was to assist with ideation, planning, and ensuring the project stayed on track. Now, we wait to see if █████ will continue its development.
• Cancelled a project in Australia due to expanding scope, complexity, and cost. It was meant to connect and manage two different online software tools, but it proved too extensive for now.
• Surveys, surveys and more surveys! Fall brings a surge in surveys, followed by a quiet period, with another round in the spring.


Internally:
• Reassessing income, costs, hours, and project load. We’re analyzing our operations to get back in sync.
• Preparing our print-on-demand projects for the holiday season.

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Available for Projects

We’re actively looking to help interesting projects succeed. If you have a year-end budget or are planning for 02025, let us know!

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Q3 Writing

In Q3, we published six weeknotes and maintained our newsletter schedule with one ◍ Quarternotes and a ⪮ Good Morning episode each month.


⪮ Good Morning Newsletter Season 3

s03e07: Veterans of the Console Wars
https://optional.is/newsletter/s03e07/

s03e08: Endangered Food
https://optional.is/newsletter/s03e08/

s03e09: Bread
https://optional.is/newsletter/s03e09/

⸻

📰 optional.is/newsletter/
🗓 optional.is/required/category/weeknotes
📡 optional.is/feeds/

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Adventure Mazes

We’ve been working on our print-on-demand adventure mazes, aiming to expand our product offerings without managing inventory.

In 2023, we started with Christmas-themed maze books, ideal for Secret Santa gifts. We’ve since expanded with more mazes and a Halloween edition. Our newest project—a summer hexagon maze—is currently in development. ⬡⬡⬡

🐝 Here is a PDF to print and try it yourself.

🎄 Christmas and 🎃 Halloween books are available on Amazon US/UK and as digital versions on Gumroad.

Give it a try for free - the website has several sample PDF mazes.

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A0 Annual Calendar

As the year ends, we’re prepping for 02025 with our annual A0 wall calendar.

This will be our 9th year of creating large, A-series wall calendars. A PHP script generates SVG output, which we edit into a PDF for print. The calendar includes Icelandic holidays, old Icelandic months, Icelandic Yule Lads, full moons, equinoxes, solstices, and more. Add your own holidays and translations!

We found a local print-shop and printed these on their B&W architectural plotter on 80g paper for cheap!

Download the print-ready 02025 PDF and source code on GitHub:
https://github.com/optional-is/calendaring/blob/master/A0-Yearly/02025-Misseristal-A0.pdf

Stay 📦 organized and stay 🤪 sane.

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Merch

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Q2 Writing

In Q2, we published one article and six weeknotes. We maintained our newsletter schedule with a full ◍ Quarternotes issue per quarter and a ⪮ Good Morning episode each month.

Network Plumbing
https://optional.is/required/2024/06/25/network-plumbing/

⪮ Good Morning Newsletter Season 3

s03e04: Blue
https://optional.is/newsletter/s03e04/

s03e05: Endangered Food
https://optional.is/newsletter/s03e05/

s03e06: Bread
https://optional.is/newsletter/s03e06/

⸻

📰 optional.is/newsletter/
🗓 optional.is/required/category/weeknotes
📡 optional.is/feeds/

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Project Progress

This quarter, we've been heads down on at least 10 different external projects. While they've been fun and rewarding, we can't disclose too many details. This is a big challenge: promote our work, show our expertise and set ourselves up to win the next project when the case studies are full of redactions!

Externally:
• Built a web & iOS prototype for ███████████ in Miami.
• Researched and spec'ed out a ████████████ workout app.
• Has a UI/UX roll on a grant proposal about ████████████ podcasts for ███.
• Connected sales and inventory control systems for ██████████ in Australia to streamline their data and dashboards.
• Built a "data bridge" for ██████████ in Australia to convert their P&L from a CSV export into something Fathom could visualize.
• Explored some new Spatial Computing prototype apps for ██████████.
• Prepped data analytics for two new ██████████ games.
• Put together a mockup for a cipher word game for █████████.
• Pitched an idea for another new ██████████ game.
• Cleaned-up Trello, closed down servers and prepped a summer task list for ████████.
• Met with old coworkers and new friends for a potential █████████ reboot. It's been super fun to prototype and revisit some old ideas we know were successful.
• Worked on some better dark mode HTML emails.
• Translated a survey into Arabic and now working on updating templates for right-to-left text layouts.

Internally:
• We ran another print-on-demand test and have been shopping it around to publishers here in Iceland. Everyone we've shown loves the idea, but no one has committed any support (yet).
• Around the office, we continue to improve our networking and backup strategies.

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📅 July 17th, World Emoji Day

Two sample emojis from the 01988 set

July 17th is World Emoji Day. https://worldemojiday.com

To celebrate, some sleuths have uncovered the earliest known hardware device that could add emojis in text. It was the Sharp PA-8500-01, a Japanese PDA or 'pocket PC', from 01988.
https://blog.emojipedia.org/new-earliest-emoji-sets-from-1988-and-1990-uncovered/

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@ "at a rate of"

The Strand magazine, England, March 01909

This is a newspaper clipping of emoticons from 01909. It isn't the earliest known emoji or emoticon, but one modern-day commenter immediately asked "Did they have @ in 01909?".

Well, the earliest symbol that looks like an @ dates to 01345. The symbol has been used to represent quantities, weights, dates and more. Pre-email and social media @ was an accounting and invoice abbreviation meaning "at a rate of".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_sign

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Subscriber Badges

These emails are sent individually, by us, with no tracking, using our own template designs. This allows for each one to be unique based on your subscriber information.

You know we love projects that combine art and technology, so we've been experimenting with subscriber badges to celebrate how many years you've been with us. For some of you, that's been 14 years (since 02011)!

In this newsletter, we've added your subscriber date to the email footer. If all goes to plan, by next quarter, you'll have your very own subscriber badge to celebrate your newsletter anniversary.

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Merch