Testing time with Tim.
Long story short, the NOSCRIPT intervention looks like a really great feature for users. More often than not it provides significant reduction in data usage, not to mention the reduction in CPU time—no small thing for the many, many people running affordable, low-powered devices.
Take a perfectly useful standardised measurement of length, weight, speed or time, and convert to something far less useful (but much more fun).
My reaction to that somewhat sensentionalist Wired article was much the same as Charlie’s—seeing it on the same day at the latest AMP sneakiness has me worried.
The hiding of URLs fits perfectly with AMPs preferred method of making sites fast, which is to host them directly on Google’s servers, and to serve them from a Google domain. Hiding the URL from the user then makes a Google AMP site indistinguishable from an ordinary site.
As well as sharing Charlie’s concern, I also share her hope:
I really hope that the people who are part of Google can stop something awful like this from happening.
I really like Alice’s updates.
I think I’ll do weaknotes. Some collections of notes. Sometimes. Not very well written probably. Generally written with the urgency of someone who is waiting for a baby wake up.
Chris is putting his examination of interfaces in science fiction on pause while he examines a more pressing matter for today’s political climate—an examination of depictions of fascism in science fiction: