John Mann · Personal workshop

Building in public, including the messy parts.

Experiments in software, media, leadership, and the web by John Mann. Some are useful. Some are unfinished. All of them taught me something.

Selected work

Experiments on the bench

Working software, prototypes, media, and useful leftovers.

Camera + interview overlay

Browser mediaActive

Featured experiment

Browser Overlays

Lightweight layouts for interviews, live video, and screen recordings—built to explore how far the browser can go without a production suite.

  • Next.js
  • Browser media
Open experiment
FitnessActive

PTTrak

Fitness tracking for personal trainers and clients, with workout assignment, progress tracking, and Supabase-backed dashboards.

  • React
  • TypeScript
Visit project
EducationActive

Cash Critters

A financial-literacy app where kids learn through interactive lessons, games, and savings goals.

  • Next.js
  • Prisma
Visit project
Developer toolsActive

StatusSage

Open-source uptime and response-time monitoring with incidents, alerts, scheduled checks, and billing workflows.

  • Next.js
  • PostgreSQL
Visit project
UtilityPrototype

Lap Timer

A deliberately small browser utility for capturing repeated time intervals without setup, accounts, or extra ceremony.

  • React
  • Time
Open experiment
VisualIn progress

Background Lab

A visual scratchpad for testing motion, generated backgrounds, and atmosphere before every experiment has a practical purpose.

  • CSS
  • Motion
Open experiment
MediaPublished

Barn Sessions

Recorded conversations about the people, decisions, and lived experience behind technical and creative work.

  • Podcast
  • Conversations
Visit project
WritingActive

Startups & Code

Practical writing and resources about engineering leadership, artificial intelligence, startups, and product execution.

  • Leadership
  • AI
Visit project
ArtifactArchived

Email Signatures

Small archived experiments in resilient HTML, constrained layouts, and the unusually limited web platform inside email clients.

  • HTML
  • Email
View archive

From the notebook

Field notes

Browse all notes
  1. 1,200 AI Employees Just Asked the Government to Make Them Stop

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  2. AI Just Escaped the Engineering Org

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  3. Nobody Owns the Agent

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