Make Something Wonderful | Steve Jobs
This anthology of Steve Jobs interviews, announcements and emails is available to read for free as a nicely typeset web book.
Link tags: free
72
WriteFreely
I hadn’t come across this before: a barebones blogging tool with built-in fediverse support—neat!
Indiepeople
I believe strongly in the indieweb principles of distributed ownership, control, and independence. For me, the important thing is that this is how we get to a diverse web. A web where everyone can define not just what they write but how they present is by definition far more expressive, diverse, and interesting than one where most online content and identities must be squished into templates created by a handful of companies based on their financial needs. In other words, the open web is far superior to a medium controlled by corporations in order to sell ads. The former encourages expression; the latter encourages consumerist conformity.
W3C TAG Ethical Web Principles (slides)
The slides from Tess’s presentation on the W3C’s ethical web principles—there’s a transcript too.
“Writing an app is like coding for LaserDisc” – Terence Eden’s Blog
I love this: Terence takes eleven years to reflect on a comment I made on stage at an event here in Brighton. It’s all about the longevity of the web compared to native apps:
If you wrote an app for an early version of iOS or Android, it simply won’t run on modern hardware or software. APIs have changed, SDKs weren’t designed with forward compatibility, and app store requirements have evolved.
The web has none of that. The earliest websites are viewable on modern browsers.
As wrote at the time, I may have been juicing things up for entertainment:
Now here’s the thing when it comes to any discussion about mobile or the web or anything else of any complexity: an honest discussion would result in every single question being answered with “it depends”. A more entertaining discussion, on the other hand, would consist of deliberately polarised opinions. We went for the more entertaining discussion.
But I think this still holds true for me today:
The truth is that the whole “web vs. native” thing doesn’t interest me that much. I’m as interested in native iOS development as I am in native Windows development or native CD-ROM development. On a timescale measured in years, they are all fleeting, transient things. The web abides.
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.
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.
Manrope – free sans-serif variable font
This font is a crossover of different font types: it is semi-condensed, semi-rounded, semi-geometric, semi-din, semi-grotesque. It employs minimal stoke thickness variations and a semi-closed aperture.
Schedule / Inclusive Design 24 (#id24) 23 September 2021
The annual day-long online accessibility event is back on September 23rd.
No sign-up. No registration. All sessions are streamed live and publicly on the Inclusive Design 24 YouTube channel.
Why I Still Use RSS | atthislink
Having only the content I want to see only be shown when I want to see it with the freedom to jump between readers as I please, all with no ads? For me, no other service comes close to the flexibility, robustness, and overall ease-of-use that RSS offers.
axe-con Digital Accessibility Conference | Deque
This looks like it’ll be a good event: a keynote from Vint Cerf and talks from Val Head, Rachel Andrew, Sara Soueidan, and others.
Best of all, it’s free!
Copying is the way design works || Matthew Ström: designer & developer
A people’s history of copying, from art to software.
Designers copy. We steal like great artists. But when we see a copy of our work, we’re livid.
Free Download of Africanfuturism: An Anthology | Stories by Nnedi Okorafor, TL Huchu, Dilman Dila, Rafeeat Aliyu, Tlotlo Tsamaase, Mame Bougouma Diene, Mazi Nwonwu, and Derek Lubangakene
Here are 8 original visions of Africanfuturism: science fiction stories by both emerging and seasoned African writers staking a claim to Africa’s place in the future. These are powerful visions focused on the African experience and hopes and fears, exploring African sciences, philosophies, adaptations to technology and visions of the future both centred on and spiralling out of Africa. You will find stories of the near and almost-present future, tales set on strange and wonderful new planets, stories of a changed Earth, stories that dazzle the imagination and stimulate the mind. Stories that capture the essence of what we talk about when we talk about Africanfuturism.
Strangest of All: Anthology of Astrobiological Science Fiction [PDF]
Eight sci-fi stories gathered together by the European Astrobiology Institute. This free book is also available as .mobi and .epub.
Et In Silicon Valley Ego – Dr Beth Singler
The parallels between Alex Garland’s Devs and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia.
Dams Public Website
I had the great pleasure of visiting the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp last October. Their vast collection of woodblocks are available to dowload in high resolution (and they’re in the public domain).
14,000 examples of true craftmanship, drawings masterly cut in wood. We are supplying this impressive collection of woodcuts in high resolution. Feel free to browse as long as you like, get inspired and use your creativity.
Free Movie of the Week
While we’re all confined to quarters during The Situation, Gary Hustwit is offering one of his films for free every week. The fantastic Helvetica is just about to finish its run, but every one of Gary’s films is worth watching (and rewatching): Helvetica, Objectified, Urbanized, and Rams.
Filmmaker Gary Hustwit is streaming his documentaries free worldwide during the global COVID crisis. Each week we’ll be posting another film here. We hope you enjoy them, and please stay strong.
It’s Time to Get Personal ◆ 24 ways
When people ask where to find you on the web, what do you tell them? Your personal website can be your home on the web. Or, if you don’t like to share your personal life in public, it can be more like your office. As with your home or your office, you can make it work for your own needs. Do you need a place that’s great for socialising, or somewhere to present your work? Without the constraints of somebody else’s platform, you get to choose what works for you.
A terrific piece from Laura enumerating the many ways that having your own website can empower you.
Have you already got your own website already? Fabulous! Is there anything you can do to make it easier for those who don’t have their own sites yet? Could you help a person move their site away from a big platform? Could you write a tutorial or script that provides guidance and reassurance?
Tune Out USUCK FM and Free Yourself to Write – Chip on Your Shoulder
Freewriting—beating your inner critic by lowering your standards:
The trick is to type so fast that the clacking of the keys drowns out that voice.
Standard Ebooks: Free and liberated ebooks, carefully produced for the true book lover.
Books in the public domain, lovingly designed and typeset, available in multiple formats for free. Great works of fiction from Austen, Conrad, Stevenson, Wells, Hardy, Doyle, and Dickens, along with classics of non-fiction like Darwin’s The Origin of Species and Shackleton’s South!