This is a great new musical project from Brad:
Brad Frost plays drums to the albums he knows intimately, but has never drummed to before. Cover to cover. No warm-up. No prep. Totally cold. What could possibly go wrong?
I really enjoyed watching all of The Crane Wife and In Rainbows.
A fun new font from Jason:
Citywide is a sans serif family inspired by mid-1900s bus and train destination roll signs.
Some good—if overlong—writing advice.
- Focus on what matters to readers
- Be welcoming to everyone
- Swap formal words for normal ones
- When we have to say sorry, say it sincerely
- Watch out for jargon
- Avoid ambiguity: write in the active voice
- Use vivid words & delightful wordplay
- Make references most people would understand
- Avoid empty adjectives & marketing cliches
- Make people feel they’re in on the joke – don’t punch down
- Add a pinch of humour, not a dollop
- Smart asides, not cheap puns and cliches
- Be self-assured, but never arrogant
The power of prototyping:
Most of my work is a set of disposables rather than deliverables, and I celebrate this.
I like the three questions that Chris asks himself:
- What’s the quickest, cheapest thing I can create to help make the next design decision?
- What can I create to best demonstrate the essence of the concept?
- How can I most effectively share the thinking behind the design with decision-makers?
Heydon’s latest video is particularly good:
All of my videos are black and white, but especially this one.
When haters deny HTML’s status as a programming language, they’re showing they don’t understand what a language really is. Language is not instructing an interlocutor what to do in a way that leaves no room for other interpretations; it is better and richer than that. Like human language, HTML is conversational. It is remarkably adept at adapting to context. It can take a different shape on any machine, from a desktop browser or an e-reader screen to a mobile app or a screen reader for the blind (so long as that device is built to present hypertext).
Hell, yeah!
Ultimately, even as HTML has become the province of professionals, it cannot be gatekept. This is what makes so many programmers so anxious about the web, and sometimes pathetically desperate to maintain the all-too-real walls they’ve erected between software engineers and web developers.
Hell, yeeeeaaaaahhh!!!
What other programmers might say dismissively is something HTML lovers embrace: Anyone can do it. Whether we’re using complex frameworks or very simple tools, HTML’s promise is that we can build, make, code, and do anything we want.
The slides from Hidde’s presentation at Beyond Tellerrand.
The slides from a lovely talk by Ana with an important message:
By having your own personal website you are as indie web as it gets. That’s right. Whether you participate in the IndieWeb community or not: by having your own personal website you are as indie web as it gets.
While I’ve grown more cynical about much of tech, movements like the Indieweb and the Fediverse remind me that the ideals I once loved, and that spirit of the early web, aren’t lost. They’re evolving, just like everything else.
Wow! Grace Hopper has always been a hero to me, but I had no idea she was such a fantastic presenter. She’s completely engaging, with the timing and deadpan delivery of a stand-up comedian at times.
This is a terrific presentation from Paul. He gives a history lesson and then focuses on what makes the indie web such a powerful idea (hint: it’s not about specific technologies).
Its proponents can be weird, it takes itself far too seriously, and its documentation is interminable. These are some ways that some people have described Christianity. This video is about React.js.
These are great!!!
I love how into it everyone is here, both on stage and in the audience—just look at Jina rocking out!
After the last decade, where platforms have emerged as a core constituent of the web on which many rely, it may feel like things cannot change. That the giants are so big that there is no other way. Yet, to give into this feeling – that things can’t change – is not necessary. It is the way it is is not true on the web. We can make change. It’s your web.
Everyone’s raving about this great talk by Marcin, and rightly so!
The fact that writing can be hard is one of the things that makes it meaningful. Removing this difficulty removes that meaning.
There is significant enthusiasm for this attitude inside the companies that produce an distribute media like books, movies, and music for obvious reasons. Removing the expense of humans making art is a real savings to the bottom line.
But the idea of this being an example of democratizing creativity is absurd. Outsourcing is not democratizing. Ideas are not the most important part of creation, execution is.
A very thought-provoking presentation from Maggie on how software development might be democratised.
Generative AI is like the ultimate idea guy’s idea! Imagine… if all they needed to create a business, software or art was their great idea, and a computer. No need to engage (or pay) any of those annoying makers who keep talking about limitations, scope, standards, artistic integrity etc. etc.
