Jeremy Keith

“Dune,” “Foundation,” and the Allure of Science Fiction that Thinks Long-Term — Blog of the Long Now

Comparing and contrasting two different takes on long-term thinking in sci-fi: Dune and Foundation.

In a moment of broader cultural gloominess, Dune’s perspective may resonate more with the current movie-going public. Its themes of long-term ecological destruction, terraforming, and the specter of religious extremism seem in many ways ripped out of the headlines, while Asimov’s technocratic belief in scholarly wisdom as a shining light may be less in vogue. Ultimately, though, the core appeal of these works is not in how each matches with the fashion of today, but in how they look forward through thousands of years of human futures, keeping our imagination of long-term thinking alive.

Can I include a tag to a tag? Based on HTML Spec WHATWG

A neat little tool when you need a reminder about what elements can go in other elements.

What do I need to read to be a great at CSS? – Baldur Bjarnason

I like this approach to reading widely and staying up to date enough.

“The internet wasn’t designed to breach national boundaries” - Rest of World

Say you’re into the indie web without saying you’re into the indie web…

The internet wasn’t really convenient in 1994 or 1995, but it was a very collaborative space.

There was a moment where we replaced this idea of the internet being a medium that we can all write to and participate in to one that is mediated. That happened at some point after social networks started to arrive and when the smartphone started to arrive. It’s a combination of the nature of those platforms and the prevalence of the technologies, which meant the economic rewards of getting this right rose significantly.

And so there’s a really distinctly different feel in the 2013, or 2014, internet to the one that you might have had in 1997, or 1998. It’s not just that it’s easier and I’m yearning for a world of cars with manual choke and manual transmission and crank-up starter handles, but it’s that the programmability of the internet and its endpoints has turned into something that is increasingly permissioned by major platforms.

The Design System Priority of Constituencies - Cloud Four

Jason applies my favourite design principle to design systems.

User needs come before the needs of component consumers, which come before the needs of component developers, which come before the needs of the design system team, which come before theoretical purity.

Also: how frickin’ cool is it that the Cloud Four office has the priority of constituencies emblazoned on the wall!

the Intersection (2021) - YouTube

A great little sci-fi short film from Superflux—a mockumentary from the near future. It starts dystopian but then gets more solarpunk.

The Button Cheat Sheet

Do you need a button for your next project but you’re not sure about the right markup? Don’t worry, The Button Cheat Sheet™️ has got you covered.

Spoiler alert: it’s the button element.

HTML with Superpowers - daverupert.com

A great talk from Dave on web components:

I think if you were using Web Components before 2020 you were an early adopter and you probably have some scars to show for it. But in 2021, now that all modern browsers support Web Components, I think they’re worth investigating. They have one superpower that no other JavaScript framework offers called the Shadow DOM which is both powerful but frustrating. But another superpower — the power I’m most excited about — is that you can use them standalone without any frameworks, build tools, or package managers.

The talk makes a callback to my talk Building from a few years back. I like that. It feels like a long thoughtful converstation.

Seb Lester’s Favorite Fonts

Seb picks his top ten typefaces inspired by calligraphy.

Software developers have stopped caring about reliability

My web browser has been perfectly competent at submitting HTML forms for the past 28 years, but for some stupid reason some asshole developer decided to reimplement all of the form semantics in JavaScript, and now I can’t pay my electricity bill without opening up the dev tools. Imagine what it’s like to not know how to do that. Imagine if you were blind.

Folks, this is not okay. Our industry is characterized by institutional recklessness and a callous lack of empathy for our users.