Link archive: January, 2022

Science Fiction-Media in Transition

Chip Delaney and Octavia Butler on a panel together in 1998 when hypertext and “cyberspace” are in the air. Here’s Octavia Butler on her process (which reminds me of when I’m preparing a conference talk):

I generally have four or five books open around the house—I live alone; I can do this—and they are not books on the same subject. They don’t relate to each other in any particular way, and the ideas they present bounce off one another. And I like this effect. I also listen to audio-books, and I’ll go out for my morning walk with tapes from two very different audio-books, and let those ideas bounce off each other, simmer, reproduce in some odd way, so that I come up with ideas that I might not have come up with if I had simply stuck to one book until I was done with it and then gone and picked up another.

So, I guess, in that way, I’m using a kind of primitive hypertext.

The baseline for web development in 2022

A thoroughly researched look at what our baseline criteria should be for making websites today:

The baseline for web development in 2022 is:

• low-spec Android devices in terms of performance,
• Safari from two years before in terms of Web Standards,
• and 4G in terms of networks.

The web in general is not answering those needs properly, especially in terms of performance where factors such as an over-dependence on JavaScript are hindering our sites’ performance.

It’s somewhat damning to Safari to see it as a baseline browser, but with Internet Explorer out of the picture, something has to be the lowest common denominator. In this case, Safari is quite literally the new IE.

The Web in 2036: Predictions on a Whim - Jim Nielsen’s Blog

Prompted by the rhetorical question at the end of my post Today, the distant future, Jim casts his gaze into a crystal ball. I like what he sees.

It’s possible the behemoth that is JavaScript in 2022 continues to metastasize as we move towards 2036, especially with technologies like WASM. I wouldn’t rule out the lordship of JavaScript as a possibility of the future.

However, I also think it’s possible—and dare I predict—to say we are peaking in our divergence and are now facing a convergence back towards building with the grain of the web and its native primitives.

Why do I say that? In our quest for progress, we explored so far beyond the standards-based platform that we came to appreciate the modesty of the approach “use the platform”.

He also makes one prediction that lies within his control:

This blog post will still be accessible via its originally published URL in 2036.

Fluid type sizes and spacing — Piper Haywood

Prompted by Utopia, Piper shares her methodology for fluid type in Sass.

Science Fiction and Philosophy - Five Books Expert Recommendations

I’ve only read three of these five books, but after reading this rollicking interview with Eric Schwitzgebel, I’ve added the other two recommendations to my wishlist.

Unveiling the new WebPageTest UI - WebPageTest Blog

If you haven’t seen it yet, the new redesign of WebPageTest is lovely!

Little Big Updates: dispatches from Quality Week

This is a wonderful piece of writing by Marcin, ostensibly about bug-fixing but really an almost existential examination of the nature of coding.

Bugs are, by definition, a look backward—at past behavior, at code that already exists, at the old work of engineers whom you’ve never met. It can feel more fun to write new code, chart new territories, add new functionality.

But the past can be fun, too. A good bug is a puzzle. A mystery. A whodunit. To solve a bug, sometimes you have to be a scientist: observe and measure, chart out the logic, follow the math. But then, two minutes later, you need to wear a hat of a very particular detective—take your flip notepad and interview different pieces of code to understand not what they claim they do, but what they actually do.

Here’s what I didn’t know about :where() - Manuel Matuzović

I feel like I’m starting to understand how the CSS :where pseudo-class works and why it’s useful. The cogs are slowly turning in my brain.

Make Free Stuff | Max Böck

At its very core, the rules of the web are different than those of “real” markets. The idea that ownership fundamentally means that nobody else can have the same thing you have just doesn’t apply here. This is a world where anything can easily be copied a million times and distributed around the globe in a second. If that were possible in the real world, we’d call it Utopia.

No, Apple Did Not Crowdfund :focus-visible in Safari – Eric’s Archived Thoughts

Eric has a written a clear and measured explanation that I hope Alex and Jake will read, given their petty snarky reactions to Webkit shipping a feature (reactions that do more harm than good to their cause—refuting their bullshit has taken time and energy away from the legitimate criticisms of Apple’s rendering engine monopoly on iOS; this whole debacle has been one big distraction from far more important browser bugs).

Many of us are mad at Apple for a lot of good reasons, but please don’t let the process of venting that anger tar the goals and achievements of Open Prioritization.

Interfacecritique — Olia Lialina: From My To Me

Don’t see making your own web page as a nostalgia, don’t participate in creating the netstalgia trend. What you make is a statement, an act of emancipation. You make it to continue a 25-year-old tradition of liberation.

Wiki History Game

This is fun (and addictive)! With every new entry pulled from Wikipedia, you’ve got to arrange it onto a timeline correctly.

How to Increase Reach Into Your Total Addressable Market With Zero Marketing - Jim Nielsen’s Blog

This checks out.

A Quick History of Digital Communication Before the Internet - Eager Blog

A potted history of communication networks from the pony express and the telegraph to ethernet and wi-fi.

The computer built to last 50 years | ploum.net

A fascinating look at what it might take to create a truly sunstainable long-term computer.

It’s not still the early days

If you’re interested in so-called web3, you should definitely follow Molly White.

How long can it possibly be “early days”? How long do we need to wait before someone comes up with an actual application of blockchain technologies that isn’t a transparent attempt to retroactively justify a technology that is inefficient in every sense of the word? How much pollution must we justify pumping into our atmosphere while we wait to get out of the “early days” of proof-of-work blockchains? How many people must be scammed for all they’re worth while technologists talk about just beginning to think about building safeguards into their platforms? How long must the laymen, who are so eagerly hustled into blockchain-based projects that promise to make them millionaires, be scolded as though it is their fault when they are scammed as if they should be capable of auditing smart contracts themselves?

The more you think about it, the more “it’s early days!” begins to sound like the desperate protestations of people with too much money sunk into a pyramid scheme, hoping they can bag a few more suckers and get out with their cash before the whole thing comes crashing down.

The monoculture web

Firefox as the asphyxiating canary in the coalmine of the web.

Chesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Second Order Thinking - Farnam Street

Unless we know why someone made a decision, we can’t safely change it or conclude that they were wrong.

Norton

It me.

Occasionally, I wonder whether I’ve got it all wrong. Is my age, my technical unsophistication, or my fond remembrance of an internet unencumbered by commerce blinding me to the opportunities that crypto offers me? But then I read something terrible and I recant my doubts, meditate for a while and get on with my life.

Blockchain-based systems are not what they say they are

Blockchain technologies have somehow managed to land in the worst of both worlds—decentralized but not really, immutable but not really.

A great analysis of the system of smoke and mirrors that constitutes so-called web3:

Instead of being at the mercy of the “big tech” companies like Amazon and Google that monopolize the traditional way of doing things on the web, you are now at the mercy of a few other tech companies that are rapidly monopolizing the blockchain way of doing things.

Friendly Indie micro-publishers

From Patrick Tanguay:

A list of small micro-publishers — most of them run by one person — putting out great content through their websites, newsletters, and podcasts.

Are apps even that relevant anymore? | Tiny Projects

In most cases, a great mobile website does the trick. You don’t need an app, or the app store. We already have a pretty great app store and you’re browsing it right now.

Ban embed codes

Prompted by my article on third-party code, here’s a recommendation to ditch any embeds on your website.

How Flexbox Works

A really deep dive into flexbox. This is a great example of what I categorise as “thinking like a browser” (a skill I recommend for any front-end developer).

The Optional Chaining Operator, “Modern” Browsers, and My Mom - Jim Nielsen’s Blog

This is something I bump against over and over again: so-called evergreen browsers that can’t actually be updated because of operating system limits.

From what I could gather, the version of Chrome was tied to ChromeOS which couldn’t be updated because of the hardware. No new ChromeOS meant no new Chrome which meant stuck at version 76.

But what about the iPad? I discovered that my Mom’s iPad was a 1st generation iPad Air. Apple stopped supporting that device in iOS 12, which means it was stuck with whatever version of Safari last shipped with iOS 12.

So I had two older browsers that couldn’t be updated. It was device obsolescence because you couldn’t install the latest browser.

Websites stop working and the only solution is to buy a whole new device.

The Technium: Ideas Want to be Shared

The books I have written are created from words invented by others, filled with ideas created by others. Even the few new ideas that are new depend on older ideas to work. What I had to say would probably be said by someone else not long after me. (More probably there have already been said by someone I was not aware of.) I may be the lucky person to claim those rare new ideas, but the worth of my art primarily resides in the great accumulation of the ideas and works of thousands of writers and thinkers before me — what I call the commons. My work was born in the commons, it gets its value by being deeply connected to the commons, and after my brief stewardship of those tiny new bits, it should return to the commons as fast as possible, in as many ways as possible.

Moxie Marlinspike >> Blog >> My first impressions of web3

A balanced, even-handed look at actually using so-called web3 technology. It turns out that even if you leave the ethical and environmental concerns aside, the technological underpinning are, um, troublesome to say the least.

On a long bet – A Whole Lotta Nothing

Matt’s thoughts on that bet. Not long now…

Crypto: the good, the bad and the ugly | Seldo.com

A very even-handed and level-headed assessment by Laurie, who has far more patience than me when it comes to this shit.

Washed Up - Infrequently Noted

The term “web3” is a transparent attempt to associate technologies diametrically opposed to the web with its success; an effort to launder the reputation of systems that have most effectively served as vehicles for money laundering, fraud, and the acceleration of ransomware using the good name of a system that I help maintain.

Perhaps this play to appropriate the value of the web is what it smells like: a desperate move by bag-holders to lure in a new tranche of suckers, allowing them to clear speculative positions. Or perhaps it’s honest confusion. Technically speaking, whatever it is, it isn’t the web or any iteration of it.

A not so gentle intro to web3 | Koos Looijesteijn

Web3 is like a combination of pyramid schemes, scientology and Tamagotchi. There’s the fact that ultimately anything you do on blockchains costs you real money and that once you’ve paid that, you’re one of the people who need to get the next cohort of buyers onboard or lose your money. There’s believing that you’re joining a movement that’s in the know, with all kinds of interesting words and sci-fi stuff that normies just don’t understand. And there’s your portfolio, your pretty JPGs, wallets, apps and everything you spent so much time on understanding and maintaining. Good luck avoiding sunk cost fallacy there.

The UI fund

This is an excellent initiate spearheaded by Nicole and Sarah at Google! They want to fund research into important web UI work: accessibility, form controls, layout, and so on. If that sounds like something you’ve always wanted to do, but lacked the means, fill in the form.

Plus Equals #4, December 2021

In which Rob takes a deep dive into isometric projection and then gets generative with it.

The Year in Cheer

192 more stories of progress from 2021.

Wesley Aptekar-Cassels | web3 is Centralized

Ethereum is only decentralized in the way that doesn’t matter — you’re free to join the decentralized system, under the condition that you act in the exact same way as every other actor in that system.

Superheroes create cultural acceptance for popular oligarchy (Interconnected)

I sometimes imagine a chair made by someone who sits all twisted. Sitting in that chair yourself, you couldn’t help but to sit in the same way.

When a designer designs an object, their stance will be encoded and transmitted to the user. Imposed.

Is culture really passed on like this, not just with chairs or superheroes, but in a general sense?

Everyone should blog

A blog is just a journal: a web log of what you’re thinking and doing. You can keep a log about anything you like; it doesn’t have to be professional or money-making. In fact, in my opinion, the best blogs are personal. There’s no such thing as writing too much: your voice is important, your perspective is different, and you should put it out there.

99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn’t Hear About in 2021

Some welcome perspective on healthcare, conservation, human rights, and energy.

Kagi Search

A new search engine (and browser!) that will have a paid business model.

Between this and Duck Duck Go, there’s evidence of an increasing appetite for alternatives to Google’s increasingly-more-rubbish search engine.

Start at the beginning: the importance of learning the basics - localghost

I’d recommend going in the order HTML, CSS, JS. That way, you can build something in HTML, add CSS to it as you learn it, and finally soup it up with your new-found JS knowledge.

Excellent advice for anyone new to web develoment.

Once you start getting into interactive website territory, with API calls and fancy stuff, that’s where you need JavaScript (JS) knowledge. More specifically, vanilla JS: plain JS with no additional frameworks or plugins. The JS that your browser understands without having to do any pre-processing. It makes working with frameworks a whole lot easier, and it’ll help you to know when not to use a framework (and avoid making users download massive JS bundles when all you need is a tiny bit of code).

Metaphors We Web By: Paper and Place

Out of all of these metaphors, the two most enduring are paper and physical space.