# Danny Smith

> Danny Smith is a remote work consultant based in London. This is his personal website where he shares articles and notes on remote work, leadership, and technology.

Danny helps companies build healthy remote teams and optimize operations. He writes about remote work practices, organizational health, leadership, and occasionally technology and design.

This site serves as Danny's corner of the web - a place to share thoughts, experiences, and work, as well as a creative playground for experimenting with CSS, HTML, and AI-assisted development.

## Links

- [Website](https://danny.is)
- [Avatar](https://danny.is/avatar.jpg)
- [Email](mailto:hi@danny.is)
- [BlueSky](https://bsky.app/profile/danny.is)
- [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/in/dannyasmith)
- [GitHub](https://github.com/dannysmith)
- [YouTube](https://youtube.com/channel/UCp0vO-4tetByUhsVijyt2jA)
- [Instagram](https://instagram.com/dannysmith)
- [Mastodon](https://indieweb.social/@dannysmith)
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/dannysmith)

## Now

This is a [Now Page](https://nownownow.com/about). Thanks to Derek Sivers for the [idea](https://sive.rs/nowff).


- [Consulting](https://betterat.work) on leadership, remote working and operations with a few companies.
- Working on [Taskdn](https://tdn.danny.is), a system for managing tasks and projects as plain markdown files. Includes a desktop app, a CLI, Claude plugin and Obsidian plugin, among other things.
- Working on [Astro Editor](https://astroeditor.danny.is), a markdown editor for Astro content collections.
- Learning a shit ton about how to work with AI to build stuff fast **and well**.
- Occasionally adding to my [collection of tools and frameworks](https://betterat.work/toolbox).
- Playing at Open Mic nights in my local pub.
- Living in a lovely little mews in Islington, North London.

Updated: 2025-10-04

## Articles

Long-form articles by Danny.

- [Speeding up Astro builds and improving deployment](https://danny.is/writing/speeding-up-astro-builds.md)
- [Some Work on this Site](https://danny.is/writing/2026-05-28-work-on-this-site.md): A tour of the small, fiddly things I've added to this site since moving to Astro — a homemade video player, nicer tables, markdown previews, file trees, a fourth typeface and a CSS rewrite underneath it all.
- [Introducing Astro Editor](https://danny.is/writing/introducing-astro-editor.md)
- [Moving this site to Astro](https://danny.is/writing/moving-to-astro.md)
- [AI and ADHD](https://danny.is/writing/ai-and-adhd.md): Thoughts on ADHD and Artificial Intelligence
- [Personal CRMs Aren't What I Need](https://danny.is/writing/personal-crms-clay-earth-is-not-what-i-need.md): My honest take on why personal CRMs fail for relationship-building. Alternative approaches to managing professional networks by remote work expert Danny Smith.
- [Building Healthy Remote Organizations - The Silent Enabler of Success](https://danny.is/writing/organisational-health.md): How to build resilient, calm organizations that scale successfully. Proven strategies for organizational health and team effectiveness.
- [Website Redesign Part XVI - A Header and Footer for Articles](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-xvi.md)
- [Auto Generating Jekyll Posts that Redirect to Medium](https://danny.is/writing/auto-generating-jekyll-posts-from-medium.md)
- [Website Redesign Part XV - A typographic system for the rest of this site](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-xv.md)
- [Website Redesign Part XIII - Taking Stock of Content](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-xiii.md)
- [Website Redesign Part XIV - Stepping Into Figma](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-xiv.md)
- [Website Redesign Part XII - Responsive Images](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-xii.md)
- [Website Redesign Part XI - Code Blocks and Section Rules](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-xi.md)
- [Website Redesign Part IX - Lists](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-ix.md)
- [Website Redesign Part X - Links](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-x.md)
- [Website Redesign Part VII - Responsive Typography](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-vii.md)
- [Website Redesign Part VIII - Adding some style](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-viii.md)
- [Website Redesign Part VI - Adding a Typeface for Essays](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-vi.md)
- [Website Redesign Part V - Choosing a Typeface for Essays](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-v.md)
- [Website Redesign Part III - A Base to Start From](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-iii.md): Building a solid foundation for a personal website redesign. Technical setup, tooling choices, and development workflow for modern web projects.
- [Website Redesign Part IV - Pages and URLs](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-iv.md)
- [Website Redesign Part II - Principles, Goals and Stuff to Keep](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-ii.md): Design principles and goals for a modern personal website. Balancing simplicity, performance, and content-first architecture in web design.
- [Website Redesign Part I - The Tech](https://danny.is/writing/website-redesign-i.md): Technical decisions and architecture choices for rebuilding danny.is. Learn about static site generators, JAMstack, and modern web development approaches.
- [Business Process & Tooling](https://danny.is/writing/2020-03-05-business-process-tooling.md)
- [Little Thing — Mocking External Services on Ruby](https://danny.is/writing/2020-03-04-little-thing-mocking-external-services-on-ruby.md)
- [Breaking Down Problems: It’s hard when you’re learning to code](https://danny.is/writing/2018-11-14-breaking-down-problems-its-hard-when-you-re-learning-to-code.md)
- [Little Thing — Value Objects in Ruby](https://danny.is/writing/2018-11-05-little-thing-value-objects-in-ruby.md)
- [Little Thing #2 — Speeding up ZSH](https://danny.is/writing/2018-08-09-little-thing-2-speeding-up-zsh.md)
- [Little Thing #1 — How do RSpec Matchers Work?](https://danny.is/writing/2018-04-12-little-thing-1-how-do-rspec-matchers-work.md)
- [Little Things](https://danny.is/writing/2018-04-02-little-things.md)
- [Synchronising Git Merges with Slack](https://danny.is/writing/2017-12-19-synchronising-git-merges-with-slack.md)
- [The Definition of Done: What does “done” actually mean?](https://danny.is/writing/2017-12-19-the-definition-of-done-what-does-done-actually-mean.md)
- [Add Starred Slack Messages to Things 3](https://danny.is/writing/2017-11-26-add-starred-slack-messages-to-things-3.md)
- [Where are the good Mobile Networks?](https://danny.is/writing/2017-06-19-where-are-the-good-mobile-networks.md)
- [The Definition of Done: What does "done" actually mean?](https://danny.is/writing/definition-of-done.md)
- [Six awesome services I discovered last year](https://danny.is/writing/2017-05-18-six-awesome-services-i-discovered-last-year.md)
- [DigitalOcean, DNSimple and Terraform: A very short introduction.](https://danny.is/writing/2016-10-24-digitalocean-dnsimple-and-terraform-a-very-short-introduction.md)
- [Agile Adoption Patterns](https://danny.is/writing/2016-06-30-agile-adoption-patterns.md)
- [Good Slide Design](https://danny.is/writing/2016-04-23-good-slide-design.md)
- [Slack for Enterprise](https://danny.is/writing/2016-03-10-slack-for-enterprise.md)
- [A Standard Software Toolset for Business?](https://danny.is/writing/2016-03-06-a-standard-software-toolset-for-business.md)
- [Finding a Good Colour Palette through Exploration](https://danny.is/writing/2016-03-02-finding-a-good-colour-palette-through-exploration.md)
- [Why do I teach?](https://danny.is/writing/2016-02-25-why-do-i-teach.md)
- [Automating and Outsourcing](https://danny.is/writing/2016-02-20-automating-and-outsourcing.md)
- [Collaborating on a Project](https://danny.is/writing/2016-01-04-collaborating-on-a-project.md)
- [Effective Meetings](https://danny.is/writing/2015-12-18-effective-meetings.md)
- [My Students have Forgotten How to be Curious](https://danny.is/writing/2015-11-03-my-students-have-forgotten-how-to-be-curious.md)
- [Evaluating Training and Learning](https://danny.is/writing/2015-10-26-evaluating-training-and-learning.md)
- [Getting Things Done](https://danny.is/writing/2015-08-29-getting-things-done.md)
- [The Psychoactive Substances Bill 2015](https://danny.is/writing/2015-07-25-the-psychoactive-substances-bill-2015.md)
- [The Changing Face of Software Testing](https://danny.is/writing/2015-07-22-the-changing-face-of-software-testing.md)
- [Delivering Business Value with Kanban and Validated Learning](https://danny.is/writing/2015-03-17-delivering-business-value-with-kanban-and-validated-learning.md)
- [Blogging with Evernote and Ruby](https://danny.is/writing/2015-02-26-blogging-with-evernote-and-ruby.md)
- [Replacing Bash with ZSH on OSX](https://danny.is/writing/2015-02-26-replacing-bash-with-zsh-on-osx.md)
- [Agile Feedback Loops](https://danny.is/writing/2015-02-24-agile-feedback-loops-by-danny-smith.md)
- [Writing Testable Code](https://danny.is/writing/2015-02-24-writing-testable-code.md)
- [On Sass and Other CSS Preprocessors](https://danny.is/writing/2014-05-04-on-sass-and-other-css-preprocessors.md)
- [Controlling the Rag with Redcarpet](https://danny.is/writing/controlling-the-rag-with-redcarpet.md): Improving web typography by preventing orphans and controlling line breaks with custom Redcarpet renderer
- [A Pretty Readability Archive with Ruby and CSS](https://danny.is/writing/a-pretty-readability-archive-with-ruby-and-css.md): Building a visual bookmarks display using the Readability API, Ruby, and CSS 3D transforms
- [From RVM to rbenv](https://danny.is/writing/rvm-to-rbenv.md): Switching from RVM to rbenv for simpler Ruby version and gem management
- [New Job, New Website](https://danny.is/writing/new-job-new-website.md): Transitioning from designer to Ruby developer and building a custom Sinatra-based website
- [MoD Email Subjects with AppleScript](https://danny.is/writing/mod-email-subject-lines-with-applescript-osx.md): Automating military email subject line formatting with AppleScript for Mac Mail
- [What is Good Design?](https://danny.is/writing/what-is-good-design.md): Exploring good design principles through the lens of the UK Government Digital Service website
- [A Simpler Responsive Grid](https://danny.is/writing/a-simpler-responsive-grid.md): A simple percentage-based CSS grid system that makes responsive design math easy

## Notes

Short-form thoughts and observations.

- [New AI Statement, Privacy Policy and Colophon Pages](https://danny.is/notes/new-meta-pages.md)
- [The end of responsive images - Piccalilli](https://danny.is/notes/2026-06-06-the-end-of-responsive-images.md)
- [Just Testing](https://danny.is/notes/2026-06-05-just-testing.md)
- [This site now has Atproto Records](https://danny.is/notes/2026-06-04-this-site-on-atproto.md)
- [DHH’s new way of writing code](https://danny.is/notes/2026-04-28-dhhs-new-way-of-writing.md)
- [Theo: Open source is dead now?](https://danny.is/notes/2026-04-22-theo-open-source-is-dead.md)
- [Gas Town’s Agent Patterns, Design Bottlenecks, and Vibecoding at Scale](https://danny.is/notes/2026-04-09-gas-towns-agent-patterns-design.md)
- [Cobalt Next for Zed](https://danny.is/notes/cobalt-next-for-zed.md)
- [Switching back to VSCode](https://danny.is/notes/switching-back-to-vscode.md)
- [Quoting: An appreciation for (technical) architecture (Interconnected)](https://danny.is/notes/2026-04-02-an-appreciation-for-technical-architecture.md)
- [Slop Is Not Necessarily The Future](https://danny.is/notes/2026-04-02-slop-is-not-necessarily-the.md)
- [Roberts Radios](https://danny.is/notes/roberts-radios.md)
- [Alex Piechowski: How I Audit a Legacy Rails Codebase in the First Week](https://danny.is/notes/2026-04-01-alex-piechowski-how-i-audit.md)
- [Minecraft Bluemap Plugins & Managing a Minecraft Server](https://danny.is/notes/minecraft-bluemap-plugins.md)
- [Tracking Biggles Books](https://danny.is/notes/tracking-biggles-books.md)
- [Code has always been the easy part | Quoting Kellan Elliott-McCrea](https://danny.is/notes/2026-03-25-code-has-always-been-the.md)
- [Stop Calling LLMs "Junior Developers." They're Monkey Paws. | Pere Villega](https://danny.is/notes/2026-03-12-stop-calling-llms-junior-developers.md)
- [Quoting Jasmine Sun on My Claude Code Psychosis](https://danny.is/notes/2026-01-26-my-claude-code-psychosis.md)
- [Claude Code hallucinating like it's 2024](https://danny.is/notes/2026-01-22-claude-code-hallucinating-like-2024.md)
- [A Social Filesystem by Dan Abramov](https://danny.is/notes/2026-01-21-a-social-filesystem-by-dan.md)
- [I made a datepicker](https://danny.is/notes/dannysmith-datepicker.md)
- [Quoting Jim Nielsen: To Make Software Is To Translate Human Intent Into Computational Precision](https://danny.is/notes/2026-01-09-quoting-jim-nielsen-to-make.md)
- [Quoting Tomasz Tunguz - The Text Box Isn't Enough](https://danny.is/notes/2026-01-09-the-text-box-isnt-enough.md)
- [The Future of Software Development is Software Developers](https://danny.is/notes/2026-01-07-the-future-of-software-development.md)
- [Consolidating Claude](https://danny.is/notes/consolidating-claude.md)
- [Avoid Mini-frameworks - laike9m's blog](https://danny.is/notes/avoid-mini-frameworks-laike9m.md)
- [My Global Raycast Snippets](https://danny.is/notes/my-global-snippets-dec-25.md)
- [Quoting Sean Goedecke on Becoming Unblockable](https://danny.is/notes/sean-on-becoming-unblockable.md)
- [Using Claude Code to pull old articles into this Astro site](https://danny.is/notes/claude-code-to-pull-old-articles-into-astro.md)
- [Major Update to Tauri Template](https://danny.is/notes/tauri-template-update-dec-25.md)
- [How AI Is Transforming Work at Anthropic \ Anthropic](https://danny.is/notes/2025-12-12-how-ai-is-transforming-work.md)
- [The Great Software Quality Collapse: How We Normalized Catastrophe](https://danny.is/notes/2025-12-12-the-great-software-quality-collapse.md)
- [I'm glad people still make things like this](https://danny.is/notes/2025-12-08-funny-sites-dec-25.md)
- ["Helpful rather than hurtful to the interests of mankind" – Richard Rutter](https://danny.is/notes/2025-12-08-helpful-rather-than-hurtful.md)
- [Jim Nielsen: Grow, Like a Tree Not a Cancer](https://danny.is/notes/2025-12-08-jim-nielsen-grow.md)
- [The only winning move is not to play](https://danny.is/notes/2025-12-08-the-only-winning-move.md)
- [A Good Read: Using LLMs at Oxide](https://danny.is/notes/using-llms-at-oxide.md)
- [Build Your Own Database](https://danny.is/notes/2025-11-21-build-your-own-database.md)
- [Josh Farrant's Weblog](https://danny.is/notes/2025-11-21-josh-farrants-weblog.md)
- [Quoting Simon quoting Steve Krouse](https://danny.is/notes/2025-11-13-quoting-simon-quoting-steve-krouse.md)
- [How Did I Get Here?](https://danny.is/notes/2025-11-11-how-did-i-get-here.md)
- [Quoting Cubic: The real problem with AI coding](https://danny.is/notes/cubic-the-real-problem-with-ai-coding.md)
- [Frank Chimero · Selling Lemons](https://danny.is/notes/2025-11-03-frank-chimero-selling-lemons.md)
- [Adding share features to this site](https://danny.is/notes/adding-share-features.md)
- [Vibing a Non-Trivial Ghostty Feature](https://danny.is/notes/2025-10-20-vibing-a-non-trivial-ghostty-feature.md)
- [The Oatmeal on AI Art](https://danny.is/notes/oatmeal-on-ai-art.md)
- [Armin Ronacher on Progress](https://danny.is/notes/2025-10-04-armin-ronacher-on-progress.md)
- [A Youth Paralysed By Perfectionism - The Akin](https://danny.is/notes/2025-09-17-today-me.md)
- [15 rules for blogging](https://danny.is/notes/2025-09-16-15-rules-for-blogging.md)
- [On Working with Wizards - by Ethan Mollick](https://danny.is/notes/2025-09-14-on-working-with-wizards-by-ethan-mollick.md)
- [The Rise and Fall of Vibe Coding | Tomasz Tunguz](https://danny.is/notes/2025-09-08-the-rise-and-fall-of-vibe-coding-tomasz-tunguz.md)
- [Reflections on an old article I wrote](https://danny.is/notes/2025-08-31-reflections-on-old-article.md)
- [Mass Intelligence?](https://danny.is/notes/2025-09-01-mass-intelligence-by-ethan-mollick-one-useful-thing.md)
- [That boolean should probably be something else - Nicole](https://danny.is/notes/2025-09-01-that-boolean-should-probably-be-something-else-nicoleweb.md)
- [Learning is the product of the activity of learners](https://danny.is/notes/learning-is-the-product-of-activity.md)
- [Are people’s bosses really making them use AI tools? - Piccalilli](https://danny.is/notes/2025-08-28-are-peoples-bosses-really-making-them-use-ai-tools-piccalilli.md)
- [I Am An AI Hater](https://danny.is/notes/ai-hater.md)
- [On Teaching](https://danny.is/notes/2025-08-24-aha-seths-blog.md)
- [Building Castles in the Air, but With Surprise Physics](https://danny.is/notes/castles-in-the-air.md)
- [Tauri Template](https://danny.is/notes/announcing-tauri-template.md)
- [The GitHub Profile README That Shouldn't Exist](https://danny.is/notes/2025-08-19-how-i-built-a-github-profile-readme-that-shouldnt-exist-but-it-does-deep-thoughts.md)
- [From Loom to Cap](https://danny.is/notes/loom-to-cap.md)
- [It's rude to show AI output to people](https://danny.is/notes/a-mini-rant-on-slop.md)
- [Switching to Ghostty Terminal (OMG)](https://danny.is/notes/ghostty-terminal.md)
- [VoiceInk vs Wispr](https://danny.is/notes/voiceink.md)
- [Just Banning Minors From Social Media Is Not Protecting Them](https://danny.is/notes/2025-08-07-just-banning-minors-from-social-media-is-not-protecting-them-electronic-frontier-foundation.md)
- [No, AI is not Making Engineers 10x as Productive](https://danny.is/notes/2025-08-07-no-ai-is-not-making-engineers-10x-as-productive.md)
- [Contra Ptacek's Terrible Article On AI](https://danny.is/notes/terrible-ai.md)
- [Building a Daily Brief for AI with GitHub Actions](https://danny.is/notes/daily-brief-for-ai.md)
- [Vibe coding in prod](https://danny.is/notes/2025-08-02-vibe-coding-in-prod-youtube.md)
- [Codewashing](https://danny.is/notes/2025-07-21-adactio-journalcodewashing.md)
- [Posting Notes from My Phone](https://danny.is/notes/posting-notes-from-my-phone.md)
- [Johnny.Decimal](https://danny.is/notes/2025-07-16-a-system-to-organise-your-life-johnnydecimal.md)
- [The Rise of the AI-Native Employee](https://danny.is/notes/the-rise-of-the-ai-native-employee.md)
- [When Figma Starts Designing Us](https://danny.is/notes/when-figma-starts-designing-us.md)
- [Charles Babbage on AI](https://danny.is/notes/charles-babbage-on-ai.md)
- [Why Remote Companies Must Be Calm Companies](https://danny.is/notes/we-need-more-calm-companies.md)
- [On Minimalist Packing](https://danny.is/notes/on-minimalist-packing.md)
- [Apple's Thunderbolt 3 Cables](https://danny.is/notes/apples-thunderbolt-3-cables.md)
- [Twitter Bootstrap-style syntax highlighting in a Tumblr theme](https://danny.is/notes/2012-05-17-twitter-bootstrap-syntax-highlighting-tumblr.md)
- [HTTP oddity - This makes no Sense](https://danny.is/notes/2011-01-27-http-oddity-this-makes-no-sense.md)
- [Divert O2 & iPhone calls or change your voicemail time](https://danny.is/notes/2010-07-02-divert-o2-iphone-calls.md)
- [Getting Sorted 3: Air Cadets Office](https://danny.is/notes/2009-08-12-getting-sorted-3-air-cadets-office.md)
- [Getting sorted 2: Reference System & Projects](https://danny.is/notes/2009-08-07-getting-sorted-2-reference-system-projects.md)
- [Getting Sorted 1: New stuff with me](https://danny.is/notes/2009-08-06-getting-sorted-1-new-stuff-with-me.md)
- [From K810i to iPhone](https://danny.is/notes/2009-03-02-from-k810i-to-iphone.md)
- [Back from the dead - at least for today](https://danny.is/notes/2009-02-11-back-from-the-dead.md)
- [One site to rule them all?](https://danny.is/notes/2008-01-25-one-site-to-rule-them-all.md)
- [Loose Change: Unstructured Habit Change for Lazy People](https://danny.is/notes/2008-01-21-loose-change-unstructured-habit-change.md)
- [The Hipster PDA](https://danny.is/notes/2007-05-09-the-hipster-pda.md)
- [Does information overload kill holistic learning?](https://danny.is/notes/2007-05-08-does-information-overload-kill-holistic-learning.md)
- [Print kGTD to 3x5 Index Cards](https://danny.is/notes/2007-05-08-print-kgtd-to-index-cards.md)
- [Zen To Done](https://danny.is/notes/2007-04-17-zen-to-done.md)
- [Self Help: Addict or Recreational User?](https://danny.is/notes/2007-04-16-self-help-addict-or-recreational-user.md)
- [Problems, Solutions & Worrying](https://danny.is/notes/2007-04-07-problems-solutions-worrying.md)
- [Why Five?](https://danny.is/notes/2007-04-07-why-five.md)
- [New Business Cards](https://danny.is/notes/2007-03-28-new-business-cards.md)
- [A bit of Self Reflection](https://danny.is/notes/2006-09-29-a-bit-of-self-reflection.md)
- [How I focus](https://danny.is/notes/2006-09-28-how-i-focus.md)
- [Self Confidence](https://danny.is/notes/2006-09-10-self-confidence.md)
- [And this too Shall Pass](https://danny.is/notes/2006-09-09-and-this-too-shall-pass.md)
- [Balance](https://danny.is/notes/2006-02-28-balance.md)
- [Smoking Ban](https://danny.is/notes/2006-02-15-smoking-ban.md)
- [SuprGlue](https://danny.is/notes/2006-02-05-suprglue.md)
- [Konfabulator Widget: YubNub i (1.0)](https://danny.is/notes/2006-01-10-konfabulator-widget-yubnub.md)
- [Brain Upgrade](https://danny.is/notes/2005-12-16-brain-upgrade.md)
- [Backing up your Firefox extensions (on windows)](https://danny.is/notes/2005-12-14-backing-up-firefox-extensions.md)

## Other Pages

- [Ai](https://danny.is/ai/)
- [Colophon](https://danny.is/colophon/)
- [Notes](https://danny.is/notes/)
- [Now](https://danny.is/now/)
- [Privacy](https://danny.is/privacy/)
- [Writing](https://danny.is/writing/)

## Styleguide

Reference pages documenting the site's design system and components.

- [Overview](https://danny.is/styleguide/)
- [Foundations](https://danny.is/styleguide/foundations/)
- [Typography](https://danny.is/styleguide/typography/)
- [Content](https://danny.is/styleguide/components/)
- [UI](https://danny.is/styleguide/ui/)
- [HTML](https://danny.is/styleguide/html/)

## External

- [Better at Work](https://betterat.work): Consulting practice
- [Toolbox](https://betterat.work/toolbox): Collection of tools and frameworks