Note archive: November, 2021

I’m really, really enjoying @RicMac’s ongoing series on Web Development History—it’s right up my nerdy alley!

https://webdevelopmenthistory.com/

Like, The Beatles are simultaneously actually great, while also feeling like you’re LARPing a specific time period.

Other musical artists give you one or the other, but rarely both.

Dylan feels similar.

I don’t have an answer, but I have a hunch that the appeal of The Beatles is less like other musical artists, and more like the appeal of books like The Great Gatsby or Sherlock Holmes—something evocative of its time and yet timeless.

Here’s what I’ve been reading:

https://adactio.com/notes/reading

American friends, if you plan on shopping today, make it a truly Black Friday:

https://www.rebuildblackbusiness.com/

When JavaScript is the first tool we reach for to solve every problem, we risk restricting access rather than expanding it.

— Jeremy Wagner, Responsible JavaScript

Reading Responsible JavaScript by Jeremy Wagner.

Some more details here: https://adactio.com/journal/7698

And here: https://adactio.com/journal/12606

My flow:

I type into a textarea and then submit the form.

My tool stack:

The backend is my own cobbled together pile of old PHP and MySQL.

I cross post to Medium and Twitter using their APIs.

Put into strict UX terms, some things cannot be designed in a human-centric and empathetic way. And those things should not be built.

— Eva PenzeyMoog, Design For Safety

This NFT-crypto-web3 shite really is the QAnon of the tech world—“Trust in the plan!”, “Wake up, sheeple—the mainstream media is lying to you”, “Do the research!” (except they hate it if you actually do the research).

Not very cunning, but I think you can do that DOM traversal in one go:

input.closest(‘fieldset’).querySelector(‘legend’)

The idea that it’s alright to do whatever unethical thing is currently the industry norm is widespread in tech, and dangerous.

— Eva PenzeyMoog, Design For Safety

Fun times!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/albums/72157594382982224

I wrote these words on this day in 2013, but they feel very 2021 to me:

https://adactio.com/journal/6564

Reading Parable Of The Sower by Octavia Butler.

Get off my lawn, you pesky kids!

(I am flattered by the reference—thank you)

Remember when chatbots were definitely the future and that’s how we’d be interacting with everything?

So wrong! The future is certificates of ownership for JPGs generated by planet-killing magic beans, verifiable with a shared spreadsheet.

Medium is a roach motel. Your words deserve a better home.

https://twitter.com/matlock/status/1458402577603776512

I like it!

Reading Design For Safety by Eva PenzeyMoog.

Douglas Engelbart beat you to it:

https://dougengelbart.org/content/view/273/

The Imperial Radch series by @Ann_Leckie and the Teixcalaan series by @ArkadyMartine have something of the Hainish about them.

And there’s @Nnedi’s thoroughly enjoyable Binti series too.

Bollocks.

Therein lies the problem. The “web folks”, the “search folks”, and the “advertising folks” are all working for the same company. If that company were broken up it would be better for all three products.

I got a response. I wouldn’t say I got an answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNecNY6vDek&t=4261s

Today is World Digital Preservation Day.

https://adactio.com/tags/digital,preservation

On a related note…

Here’s where you can donate to the Internet Archive:

http://archive.org/donate

#WDPD21

Thank you so much!

I published the transcript of my talk, The State Of The Web:

https://adactio.com/articles/18580

Here’s the video:

https://vimeo.com/641568337

And here are the slides:

https://speaking.adactio.com/nKuSkE/the-state-of-the-web

As an Irish type nerd, I’m offended on two levels.

The best movie that’s a cautionary tale about founding a startup with a friend is Primer.

Thanks!

I’ve blogged some stuff over the years: https://adactio.com/journal/tags/huffduffer

I concur.

https://adactio.com/journal/18046

I’m not sure that Google Chrome can be considered a user agent.

Chrome Dev Summit starts soon and I posed a question:

https://app.sli.do/event/9e3j6xhe/live/questions

Given the court proceedings against AMP, why should anyone trust FLOC or any other Google initiatives ostensibly focused on privacy?

Someone I know is going to work at Facebook.

Someone else I know wrote an uncritical blog post about “Web3” without once mentioning the environmental impact.

Both make me sad and disappointed.

I sent my first tweet fifteen years ago.

https://twitter.com/adactio/status/53859

It’s been downhill ever since.

The best piece of Halloween broadcasting last night was the weather forecast on the Irish language station, @TG4TV

https://twitter.com/CaitlinNicAoidh/status/1454908285560233988