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Thingy, the Workshop Builder, holding up a hammer

Artifacts

155 pieces kept from the building: first sketches, icon studies, screenshots from the first day, a poster, a sign. They belong to the projects, and every one of them stays on its project’s page too.

I absolutely adore that Things I’ve built has a place to capture artifacts of the building process Jamie, question 34

Thingy Model

35, in 11 bundles

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The original illustration — The original illustrationThe cream shell, dark screen, navy coat, orange bow tie, and short mechanical legs that the model follows. The back and concealed construction have to be inferred from this one view.

Isolating the jacket lighting · v0.5 — Isolating the jacket lighting · v0.5The baseline, added jacket lights with the same material, and those lights with finer fabric relief. The study separates what the lighting changes from what the material changes.

The first four outfits · v0.7 — The first four outfits · v0.7Librarian, trail companion, workshop builder, and concert companion in the same pose and camera. This sheet predates the smooth ear housings and concert headphones.

From stacked rings to a continuous housing · v0.8 — From stacked rings to a continuous housing · v0.8The original illustration, the previous ear, and its replacement under matching model lighting. One tapered shell replaces the stepped construction.

Every face on the screen · v0.11 — Every face on the screen · v0.11The original expression, the four Ask Thingy moods (idle, thinking, found it, oops), two blinks, and the screen switched off. The original is traced from the modeled strokes of v0.10.

The tool switch · v0.12 — The tool switch · v0.12Beside the original illustration, the five settings of one control, none, screwdriver, hammer, drill, and laptop. The tools follow the right hand in any outfit; the laptop keeps its left-hand pose.

Why the jacket read flat · v0.12 — Why the jacket read flat · v0.12More samples changed nothing. Removing three fill lights that lit only the jacket brought back the deep navy; what remained was modeling, with no folds, seams, stitching, or rolled edges.

The four Scenes · v0.15 — The four Scenes · v0.15Library, Outdoors, Workshop, and Concert, in the web model on the page’s lighting. The Library is unchanged from v0.14.

Road Sign Math

30, in three bundles

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The first app iconThe math from the Twin Lakes sign, √(5 − 1) = 2, on a green guide sign.

Home — Home“Find a sign. Make the math true.” The map of every sign on the US, with a card for Minnesota’s two signs, and who’s playing: Jamie, Tyler and Tammy.

The first three directionsRadical Route combines a square-root symbol with an exit arrow. Genesis Sign uses 3 × 33 = 99 from the first road sign. Math Crossing puts crossing roads inside a yellow diamond.

The sign-in email — The sign-in emailUnder a “Driving + Math = Fun” sign, a button that signs in on the iPhone and a six-digit code to type instead. The code and link here are examples.

A sign — A signTyler’s I-35W at 82nd Street sign on the website: the photo, the math, the ways found so far, the numbers, a map pinned on the town, and nearby signs.

Green and yellowRadical Route in highway green and sign yellow, alongside an upright crossing symbol. Jamie chose green for the default icon and kept yellow as an alternative.

Home — HomeThe Latest feed, newest first: Tyler’s I-35W at 82nd Street sign from September 2025, its math, (90 − 82) ÷ 8 × 1 × 2 = 6 ÷ (10 − 7), and a button to find another way.

A player’s page — A player’s pageJamie’s page on the website, with his badges and his signs on the map.

Changelog

27, in seven bundles

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The iconThe shared V and dot over two lines of notes, from the first scaffold, before the separate icon studies below.

The first screen — The first screenThe first scaffold’s sign-in, that morning, which took a token pasted from Release Notes’ Settings. Signing in with Release Notes itself came that evening.

Signing in — Signing inBy now Changelog signs in with Release Notes itself, which asks the person signing in to name the token it keeps and choose what it may do. A pasted token still works.

Entries, set asideThree curled paper slips on tangerine, each with a cobalt dot. This was the list-based alternative to repeating the version mark.

PaperCobalt, tangerine and ink navy paper on cream.

The icon design filesFull-size PNG studies, small-size previews, the design record and generation prompts.

Log, in iOS’s own look — Log, in iOS’s own lookToday’s version, a box for what changed, one-tap tags, buttons for a photo, the camera, a voice memo and the place, and Commit, with today’s activity underneath.

Log on the paper — Log on the paperThe day in mono capitals, today’s version large and tomorrow’s under it, and below, a note filed and read back with its words.

Road Sign Math (2005)

9, in three bundles

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Every sign, 2005 to 2014 — Every sign, 2005 to 2014All 251 signs, Jamie’s in yellow and other players’ in blue. 240 are in 44 states and Washington, D.C., none from Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Nevada, Oklahoma or Tennessee, and 11 are in eight other countries, one of them in the Serengeti.

Genesis — GenesisThe sign that started it, on I-94 near Melrose, Minnesota, heading east toward the Twin Cities. Melrose 3, St Cloud 33, Minneapolis 99, and 3 × 33 = 99. The full-size frame from Jamie’s Canon PowerShot G3, found on an old backup drive in 2026; the site only ever showed a small copy.

The rules, 3rd edition — The rules, 3rd editionRevision B, from November 2006, with an example sign for every kind of sign. Typeset in October 2026 from the wiki’s copy, with six plus signs the wiki had lost put back. Two small pictures, a gold star and a pie, are lost.

Every photo, 2005 to 2014 — Every photo, 2005 to 2014All 164 surviving photos of 157 signs, most of them sent in by the players who found the signs, named like the rows of the CSV, by the day the sign was posted and its name. Most are cut from the one-year anniversary poster; the rest come from the Internet Archive, an old backup drive and copies Jamie had kept. Camera details are taken out.

Jamie’s signs, 2005 to 2012 — Jamie’s signs, 2005 to 2012The 24 signs Jamie found for the first site whose photos survive, with the day he posted each one. Most are cut from the one-year anniversary poster and are as sharp as the site showed them.

The original logoThe first site’s logo, which Jamie made: a guide sign that does its own math, 4 × 25 = 100.

The shield logoThe wiki’s logo, which Jamie made: an interstate shield in front of the Genesis sign. The vector original, saved as a PDF on February 21, 2011.

The one-year poster — The one-year posterJim Bernard and Suzie Meredith made Jamie this 16 × 20 poster of the first year’s signs as a gift. Most of the photos in this archive were cut from its print file; this copy is half its size.

Smaller sets

The parts on the table — The parts on the tableThe 3ware Escalade card in its box, six drives and the cables, before any of it met a case.

Terabyte Server, 8

Before and during — Before and duringTwo pictures side by side from the project page. On the left the tree as it stood, on the right the same trunk partly carved and painted, with scaffolding around it and the red doghouse already on top.

Charlie Brown Tree, 6

The mastheadThe logo and its tagline, “Pulse of the Peloton,” from the top of every page.

The single folded vIvory paper and a tangerine period on cobalt. The first concept was proposed for Changelog before Jamie assigned it to Release Notes.

Release Notes, 5

The whole room — The whole roomThe shower from the doorway, with the yellow walls and the rubber ducks.

Tetris Shower, 5

A blog post over its photo — A blog post over its photoA short post with a wide photo sets its words in white over the photo, the way an issue sits on its cover.

Cards, 4

The boxes — The boxesCelebration City in its custom box, Jiggy Thing Puzzles, 500 pieces, the day the order arrived.

Jiggy Thing Puzzles, 4

The show’s art — The show’s artThe microphone on a Kubb pitch, with the names of Jamie and Garrick van Buren and the years of the show. It is the art of the republished podcast feed.

Open Loop, 4

The cover — The coverWind turbines against a cloudy sky, under the title and the subtitle Agents, Attention, Artifacts. Jamie posted it the day before the book came out.

Yearly Thing 2025, 4

The list of templates — The list of templatesThe home page, with the templates whose time of year is near under Coming up, and the day each was last made. The templates shown are made up for this picture.

Project Templates, 3

The front page — The front pageThe blog’s front page on October 20, 2026, ten days before it was replaced, with its newest sign, the one Tyler found driving up I-35W, its math typeset under the post.

Road Sign Math (2021), 2

The map, the first evening — The map, the first eveningEvery hop between Jamie’s systems on October 26, 2026, colored by its state. Weekly Thing 354 had reached the Librarian and Thingy and had not reached Linking Things, the gap the page was built to show.

Sync, 2

The teapot — The teapotWhat a scanner gets for asking thingelstad.com for wp-login.php, answered with HTTP 418.

Redirector, 1