Putting Civilization in a Box Means Choosing Our Legacy
A run-down of digital preservation technologies for very, very long-term storage …in space.
Tags: formats
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Compressive Images Revisited - TimKadlec.com
Tim explains why that neat trick of making a really big JPEG with quality set to 0% is no longer necessary, and how the savings you make in bandwidth with that technique are nullified by the expense of the memory footprint needed.
Transparency and the AMP Project · Issue #13597 · ampproject/amphtml
Luke Stevens is trying to get untangle the very mixed signals being sent from different parts of Google around AMP’s goals. The response he got—before getting shut down—is very telling in its hubris and arrogance.
I believe the people working on the AMP format are well-intentioned, but I also believe they have conflated the best interests of Google with the best interests of the web.
AMP: the missing controversy – Ferdy Christant
AMP pages aren’t fast because of the AMP format. AMP pages are fast when you visit one via Google search …because of Google’s monopoly on preloading:
Technically, a clever trick. It’s hard to argue with that. Yet I consider it cheating and anti competitive behavior.
Preloading is exclusive to AMP. Google does not preload non-AMP pages. If Google would have a genuine interest in speeding up the whole web on mobile, it could simply preload resources of non-AMP pages as well. Not doing this is a strong hint that another agenda is at work, to say the least.
AMPlified. — Ethan Marcotte
As of this moment, the power dynamics are skewed pretty severely in favor of Google’s proprietary AMP standard, and against those of us who’d ask this question:
What can I do about AMP?
The Two Faces of AMP - TimKadlec.com
So, to recap, the web community has stated over and over again that we’re not comfortable with Google incentivizing the use of AMP with search engine carrots. In response, Google has provided yet another search engine carrot for AMP.
This wouldn’t bother me if AMP was open about what it is: a tool for folks to optimize their search engine placement. But of course, that’s not the claim. The claim is that AMP is “for the open web.”
Spot on, Tim. Spot on.
If AMP is truly for the open web, de-couple it from Google search entirely. It has no business there.
Look, AMP, you’re either a tool for the open web, or you’re a tool for Google search. I don’t mind if you’re the latter, but please stop pretending you’re something else.
Href Tools - Free online web tools
Handy web-based tools—compress HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and convert files from one format to another.
AMP letter
I signed this open letter.
We are a community of individuals who have a significant interest in the development and health of the World Wide Web (“the Web”), and we are deeply concerned about Accelerated Mobile Pages (“AMP”), a Google project that purportedly seeks to improve the user experience of the Web.
Using SVG as placeholders — More Image Loading Techniques - JMPerez Blog
Here’s a clever to technique to improve the perceived performance of image loading with a polygonal SVG placeholder.
Essential Image Optimization
Following on from Amber’s introduction, here’s a really in-depth look at image formats, compression and optimisation techniques from Addy.
This is a really nicely put together little web book released under a Creative Commons licence.
When Should You Use Which Image Format? JPG? PNG? SVG?
Amber has been investigating which image formats make sense for which situations.
Choosing image format is only one step towards optimising images on the web. There are many, many other steps to consider, and so, so much to learn!
Occasionally, people e-mail me to say something along the lines of “I’ve come up with something to replace HTML!”.
Five years ago, Hixie outlined the five metrics that a competitor to the web would have to score well in:
- Be completely devoid of any licensing requirements.
- Be vendor-neutral.
- Be device-neutral and media-neutral.
- Be content-neutral.
- Be radically better than the existing Web.
You come at the king, you best not miss.
The Decentralized Social Web
Excellent presentation slides on all things Indie Web.
Web Publications for the Open Web Platform: Vision And Technical Challenges
Given my experience publishing Resilient Web Design as a web book, I think I should take a good look at this nascent spec.
What we envision for Packaged Web Publications is similar to the goals and techniques of Progressive Web Apps: breaking the boundaries between web sites and mobile apps, an emphasis on “offline” paradigms, and so on. The time is right to broaden the scope and power of the web to include publications.
Bruce Lawson’s personal site : Eulogy for Flash
Web developers aren’t going to shed many tears for Flash, but as Bruce rightly points out, it led the way for many standards that followed. Flash was the kick up the arse that the web needed.
He also brings up this very important question:
I’m also nervous; one of the central tenets of HTML is to be backwards-compatible and not to break the web. It would be a huge loss if millions of Flash movies become unplayable. How can we preserve this part of our digital heritage?
This is true of the extinction of any format. Perhaps this is an opportunity for us to tackle this problem head on.
Reflections on Two Years of Indieweb
Alex Kearney looks back on two years of owning her own data.
With a fully functional site up and running, I focused on my own needs and developed features to support how I wanted to use my site. In hind-sight, that’s probably the most indie thing I could’ve done, and how I should’ve started my indieweb adventure.
This really resonates with me.
One of the motivating features for joining the indieweb was the ability to keep and curate the content I create over time.
Terrific post!
Here’s to two more years.
Microformats : Meaningful HTML
A great one-page intro to microformats (h-card in particular), complete with a parser that exports JSON. Bookmark this for future reference.
The Analog Web | Jim Nielsen’s Blog
This is wonderful meditation on the history of older technologies that degrade in varied conditions versus newer formats that fall of a “digital cliff”, all tied in to working on the web.
When digital TV fails, it fails completely. Analog TV, to use parlance of the web, degrades gracefully. The web could be similar, if we choose to make it so. It could be “the analog” web in contrast to “the digital” platforms. Perhaps in our hurry to replicate and mirror native platforms, we’re forgetting the killer strength of the web: universal accessibility.
Amber Wilson: Markup-Masterclass
Yesterday was a good day with Amber. She’s been marking up her CV and it was the perfect opportunity to take a deep dive into HTML.
WebPonize - webponize.github.io
A Mac app for converting PNGs and JPEGs to WebP.