Google’s plan to bring internet connectivity to remote areas by using balloons wafting in the stratosphere.
Considering that Google seems to put as much time and effort into its April Fool’s jokes as it does into its real projects, you’d be forgiven for assuming this was a spoof.
A beautiful piece by James on the history of light as a material for communication …and its political overtones in today’s world.
What is light when it is information rather than illumination? What is it when it is not perceived by the human eye? Deep beneath the streets and oceans, what is illuminated by the machines, and how are we changed by this illumination?
A lovely description by Paul Ford of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
That simple handshake is the firmament upon which we have built trillion-dollar cathedrals and bazaars, the base upon which we construct other protocols and networks.
A good explanation of HTML5’s sectioning content and outline algorithm.
A handy step-by-step guide to scraping HTML to get data out. Useful for services (—cough—Twitter—cough—) that keep changing the rules of their API use.
Some clarifying thoughts from Mark: “content first” doesn’t have to literally mean having the final content first …but it does mean knowing the structure of the content.
A great round-up of links and posts relating to the increasingly-important role of content strategy and structured content in our multi-device, responsively-designed online world.
Jonathan has encapsulated his CSS methodology into a short online book. He isn’t presenting this as the “right” way to do things: he’s simply documenting what he does in the hope that it will help others.
A great piece by James on the architecture, aesthetics and perception of datacenters.
A brave attempt to explain the new outline algorithm in HTML (although it inaccurately states that no browsers have support for it—Firefox shipped with it a while back).
You can safely skip the comments: most of them are discouraging, ignorant, and frankly, just plain stupid.
The importance of structured content for longevity and responsiveness.
Freaky stuff. If you’ve seen Kevin Slavin or James Bridle talking about the increase in property prices on Wall Street as the buildings get closer to the network hub …that’s nothing—these are the new centres of world power; places where the speed of light interferes least with the speed of transactions.
Don Norman bemoans the seemingly-inevitable direction that the internet is taking; from an open system of exchange to a closed, controlled broadcast channel. I share his fear.
Google reaffirms its commitment to net neutrality ...except when it comes to wireless broadband, of course, because that's *totally* different, right? This disgusts me.
A thoughtful piece on the question of extensibility in HTML5.
Oli gives a nice hands-on tutorial on using the new structural elements in HTML 5.
The Grid System is a resource for all designers to learn about the benefits of using grid systems, golden ratios and baseline grids.
A collection of photographs of the otherworldly sea forts that were built in the Thames Estuary during World War Two and later used by pirate radio stations.
Infrastructure just got even cheaper. Between this and Amazon's EC2/S3, the barrier to entry to getting an app up and running is getting lower and lower.
A nice overview of avoiding clutter in web design. It's not just about whitespace; the number of edges and gradients can also add up to an undifferentiated design.
This is the plain vanilla look.
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