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Alex Rainert

Alex Rainert

Product & design person, introvert, Liverpool fan, easy laugh. Recent: Head of Audio product @ NYTimes Past: foursquare google itp@nyu. This is my home on online and a place to capture my thoughts.

The Wild Robot is a wonderful movie

The Wild Robot is a wonderful movie

Earlier this week, I took my mom to see The Wild Robot and I loved it. It explores aspiration, acceptance, and resilience in a funny and moving way, and the visual storytelling is beautiful. I'm a sucker for both animal and robot-with-feelings stories, so this film is right in my wheelhouse. This movie hit hard as a parent who regularly thinks about our kids (now 14 and 11) growing up and heading out on their own. I hadn't read the book it's based on, but I'm happy to learn there are two

If only there was a newsletter hell to banish these dark pattern users like CVS to

If only there was a newsletter hell to banish these dark pattern users like CVS to

CVS certainly isn’t alone in this but my experience attempting to unsubscribe from one of their emails over the weekend made me frustrated enough to want to vent here. This “Oh no! Our unsubscribe button must be broken” is so transparently shady to me. I love that I’m welcome to call Customer Care. Call someone?! To unsubscribe from an email?! No thanks! I’m left with no recourse other than smashing that Gmail Spam button and just wait for the next newsletter that I can’t unsubscribe from to sho

Transformers One is a fun trip down nostalgia lane

Transformers One is a fun trip down nostalgia lane

Last week my son and I saw Transformers One and both really enjoyed it - and not just because I went in with pretty low expectations based on the live action Transformers movies I’ve seen. It legitimately does a great job telling the origin stories of Optimus Prime and Megatron and as someone who grew up in the 80s during the Transformers action figure heyday, it felt new while also staying true to that original IP. Watching it also reminded me of the original Megatron action figure that transf

The best $150 you can spend as a product person looking to grow: Lenny’s Newsletter (and the extended Lennyverse)

The best $150 you can spend as a product person looking to grow: Lenny’s Newsletter (and the extended Lennyverse)

Lenny Rachitsky has, over the past 5+ years built what I consider to be the best community and content around "Product" writ large - covering various aspects of the craft of product management, strategies for product growth and finally, and often most interesting to me, valuable perspectives on the psychology of being a product manager/product leader. It all started with a great subscription newsletter and a subscriber-only Slack community. The subscription only costs $150 per year and if being

Leaning into Design as an education superpower

Leaning into Design as an education superpower

Last week Jason Kottke shared this awesome <10 minute video on how tattoos work (hint: it’s all thanks to your immune system 🫡 ) While I do have a passing interest in tattoo art (here's a fun piece from The Atlantic that explores The Words People Write on their Skin), the reason this video made such an impression on me is the stunning animation and storytelling in service of learning. I did a little digging and the creator, Kurzsgasadt, has other great looking videos covering Why We Need to R

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Recommendations

Readwise Reader: The read-it-later app built for power readers.

Readwise Reader: The read-it-later app built for power readers.

I've used a variety of read-it-later products (Instapaper, Pocket, etc.) and what I love about Reader is that I can pull all my reading in one place - later reads, RSS feeds and Kindle highlights.

Things - To-Do List for Mac & iOS

Things - To-Do List for Mac & iOS

I was a longtime user of Omnifocus and the Getting Things done framework. Eventually I was drawn to Things' incredibly simple and polished approach to tracking Todos, both work and personal.

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