Month: January 2020

DIVERSITY FROTTAGE IN OSCAR NOMINATIONS FOR 2020

Nominations for the 2020 Oscars have been published to a chorus of criticism about lack of diversity. It’s a neat illustration of equality of outcome, equality of opportunity and the cultural degradation caused by the continued breakdown of communication and truth.Read More

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WATCH: “Brace for Impact”

10 May 2021

We are staring down the barrel of a confluence of several scenarios–each of which individually is a significant, life-changing event–but which are together conspiring is a dangerous and incendiary situation: food shortages, inflation, and a breakdown of the supply chain. A new media narrative today acknowledges food shortages, and blames animal agriculture, indicating we are …

The American Cyber Stasi Will Suppress All Digital Dissent In Biden’s Dystopia

10 May 2021

CNN's recent report that the US' security services are considering contracting the services of so-called “researchers” as a legal workaround for spying on average Americans confirms that Biden's dystopian hellhole is rapidly moving in the direction of establishing a “Cyber Stasi” for suppressing all digital dissent against the Democrats as they continuing consolidating their de facto one-party rule of the country.

Walking with Father Daniel

9 May 2021

Today is a day to celebrate the prophetic voice and witness of Fr. Daniel Berrigan, the non-violent anti-war activist and poet, whose life and witness has touched so many lives. He was born on May 9, 1921 and would have been 100 years old today. He died five years ago, but his spirit continues to animate and inspire so many others.

Culture, Self and Law

9 May 2021

Darren Allen This is an extract from Self and Unself, Darren Allen’s new ‘philosophy of all and everything’. Some of the terms herein — consciousness, self, ego, etc — may appear somewhat mysterious or abstract as they are explained in earlier sections of the book. Self produces manifest culture, and then that culture shapes self. …

WATCH: How to de-Google

8 May 2021

Remember when Google was just a search engine? In the age of Gmail and Google Drive and Google Maps and GooTube and Google phones, it’s truly unsettling to think how much of the average person’s online activity is now directly feeding the Google data behemoth. Today on #SolutionsWatch, James talks to Rob Braxman (The Internet …

We are de-Googling

8 May 2021

OffG is quitting Gmail completely! Our site info pages, submissions guidelines etc. are all now updated with our NEW contact information. Make a note – submissions should be sent to submissions@off-guardian.org general enquiries sent to contact@off-guardian.org We’d also like to give a huge recommendation to EuroVPS, who are by far the best hosting company we’ve …

Halt Vaccine Passports!

7 May 2021

Dr Mike Yeadon It is very important that people understand what is happening here. The intention is to introduce vaccine passports everywhere. But this is a disguise. It’s a world’s first digital common-format, globally-interoperable ID system with an editable health flag (vaccinated Y or N). It makes no one safer. If you’re vaccinated, you’re protected …

Current Members of the U.S. House of Representatives

9 February 2021

This is a list of individuals currently serving in the United States House of Representatives as of the 117th Congress

QAnon vs. Hitler's Brownshirts

28 January 2021

The world has seen QAnon before. It was called Nazism.

World Headlines: Capitol Siege by MAGA Mob

10 January 2021

On January 6, 2021, white insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol, proudly displayed the confederate flag, and set up gallows on the Capitol grounds.

U.S. Senate Seats up for Reelection in 2022

8 January 2021

It's 2022 vision time. The U.S. Senate elections will be held on Tuesday, November 8, 2020. Thirty-four of the 100 Senators are up for reelection and will serve a six-year term from January 3, 2023, until January 3, 2029. The time to start organizing is now.

The Marijuana Industry's Dirty Little Secret

14 May 2019

The runaway-growth in the cannabis industry, fueled by rolling de-regulation and a high demand forecast, is bringing with it a growing carbon footprint.

A Personal Account of Hawaii's False Missile Alert

20 February 2018

Countries North Korea Can Currently Hit With Their Missiles

29 May 2017

Should North Korea ever have the capacity to launch a nuclear missile that could reach the U.S. mainland, Trump would have approximately ten minutes to react and make a decision to counterattack.

Factbox: Bitcoin’s march towards the mainstream

11 May 2021

The post Factbox: Bitcoin’s march towards the mainstream appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

ICYMI – Metro car mayhem in Mexico and jet suit flying Marines in the UK

10 May 2021

The post ICYMI – Metro car mayhem in Mexico and jet suit flying Marines in the UK appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

South Africa warns of ‘vaccine apartheid’ if rich countries hog shots

10 May 2021

The post South Africa warns of ‘vaccine apartheid’ if rich countries hog shots appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

Labour’s Sadiq Khan re-elected London mayor

8 May 2021

The post Labour’s Sadiq Khan re-elected London mayor appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

Mexico promises justice after metro train line collapse kills 24

6 May 2021

The post Mexico promises justice after metro train line collapse kills 24 appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

Chelsea outclass Real Madrid to reach Champions League final

6 May 2021

The post Chelsea outclass Real Madrid to reach Champions League final appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

Reuters Highlights: Early-May 2021

6 May 2021

The post Reuters Highlights: Early-May 2021 appeared first on Reuters News Agency.

With a Crowded Progressive Field, Wall Street’s Candidate Gains Steam in Manhattan DA Race

11 May 2021

Progressives focus on background as a Wall Street-backed candidate raises millions.

The post With a Crowded Progressive Field, Wall Street’s Candidate Gains Steam in Manhattan DA Race appeared first on The Intercept.

This Is Not Fine: Why Video of an Ultranationalist Frenzy in Jerusalem Is So Unsettling

11 May 2021

Israel's defenders tried to contain the damage from video of religious Zionists celebrating the conquest of Jerusalem as flames leapt above the Aqsa mosque compound.

The post This Is Not Fine: Why Video of an Ultranationalist Frenzy in Jerusalem Is So Unsettling appeared first on The Intercept.

Fate Winslow, Freed in December From a One-Time Life Sentence for Pot, Has Been Murdered

10 May 2021

Winslow was released after 12 years in prison following a change in Louisiana law.

The post Fate Winslow, Freed in December From a One-Time Life Sentence for Pot, Has Been Murdered appeared first on The Intercept.

Weeks Without a Shower: Neglect Defines Covid-19 Containment in California Jails

9 May 2021

Incarcerated people have been denied basic services in the name of fighting the virus, exacting a heavy psychological toll.

The post Weeks Without a Shower: Neglect Defines Covid-19 Containment in California Jails appeared first on The Intercept.

Law Enforcement Groups Drive Anti-Protest Laws, New Analysis Shows

9 May 2021

A separate Greenpeace report looked at corporate support for politicians who pushed anti-protest and voter suppression laws.

The post Law Enforcement Groups Drive Anti-Protest Laws, New Analysis Shows appeared first on The Intercept.

Nina Turner Opponent Shontel Brown Is Low-Key Pleading for Super PAC Support

8 May 2021

Turner’s opponent in the Ohio House primary appears to be messaging straight to pro-Israel super PACs.

The post Nina Turner Opponent Shontel Brown Is Low-Key Pleading for Super PAC Support appeared first on The Intercept.

Video: Deadliest Police Raid in Rio de Janeiro History Kills at Least 28

8 May 2021

Witnesses say that multiple unarmed victims were executed by the police in a raid on the Jacarezinho favela.

The post Video: Deadliest Police Raid in Rio de Janeiro History Kills at Least 28 appeared first on The Intercept.

Falling in love

11 May 2021

submitted by /u/Brixtonbarnyard to r/funny [link] [comments]

Each section contains 10% of the world's population

11 May 2021

submitted by /u/MistaProcrastinator to r/MapPorn [link] [comments]

[OC] English alphabet organised by each letter's note in ABC song

11 May 2021

submitted by /u/william_5 to r/dataisbeautiful [link] [comments]

Safest vaccine in history.

11 May 2021

submitted by /u/gallemore to r/conspiracy [link] [comments]

Which allied nation do you think contributed the most in WW2

11 May 2021

View Poll

submitted by /u/Smart_Cycle588 to r/polls [link] [comments]

Walkie Talkie : 9 years ago today

11 May 2021

submitted by /u/julesdg6 to r/london [link] [comments]

Walmart is the Galactic Empire?

11 May 2021

submitted by /u/kyle_h2486 to r/conspiracytheories [link] [comments]

Work at Clearleft

11 May 2021

A little while back, I wrote about how much I like the job description of a design engineer. I still have issues with the “engineer” part, but overall it’s a great way to describe a front-end developer who works on the front of the front end: the outputs that end users interact with: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. If it’s delivered in a web browser, then it’s design engineering.

Perhaps you also prefer the front of the front end to the back of the front end. Perhaps you also like to spend your time thinking about resilience, performance, and accessibility rather than build pipelines and frameworks. Perhaps you’d like to work with like-minded people.

Clearleft is hiring a midweight design engineer. Perhaps it’s you.

If you’d like to use your development talents in the service of good design, you should apply. And remember, you’d be working for yourself: Clearleft is an employee-owned agency.

You don’t have to be based in Brighton. You can work remotely, although we’re expecting that a monthly face-to-face gathering will become the norm after The Situation ends. So if you’re based somewhere like London, that would work out nicely. That said, if you’re based somewhere like London, this might also be the ideal opportunity to make a move to the seaside.

You do have to be eligible to work in the UK. Alas, that pool has shrunk somewhat. Thanks, Brexit.

Perhaps you think you’re not qualified. Apply anyway. You’ve got nothing to lose.

Perhaps this role isn’t for you, but you know someone who might fit the bill. Please tell them. Spread the word.

We’d especially love to hear from people under-represented in design and technology.

Come and work with us.

More talk

10 May 2021

The Clearleft podcast is currently between seasons, but that’s not going to stop me from yapping on in audio files at any opportunity.

By the way, if you missed any of season two of the Clearleft podcast, be sure to check it out—there’s some good stuff in there.

I’ve been continuing my audio narration of Jay Hoffman’s excellent Web History series over on CSS tricks. We’re eight chapters in already! That’s a good few hours of audio—each chapter is over half an hour long.

The latest chapter was a joy to narrate. It’s all about the history of CSS so I remember many of the events that are mentioned, like when Tantek saved the web by implenting doctype switching (seriously, I honestly believe that if that hadn’t happened, CSS wouldn’t have “won”). Eric is in there. And Molly. And Elika. And Chris. And Dave.

Here’s the audio file if you want to have a listen. Or you can subscribe to the RSS feed in your podcast-playing app of choice.

If you’re not completely sick of hearing my voice, you can also listen to the latest episode of the Object Oriented UX podcast with Sophia V. Prater. Our chat starts about eleven minutes into the episode and goes on for a good hour.

It was nice to be on the other side of the microphone, so to speak. The topic was Resilient Web Design but the conversation went in all sorts of directions.

I do enjoy a good natter. If you’ve got a podcast and you fancy having a chat, let me know.

Get the FLoC out

21 April 2021

I’ve always liked the way that web browsers are called “user agents” in the world of web standards. It’s such a succinct summation of what browsers are for, or more accurately who browsers are for. Users.

The term makes sense when you consider that the internet is for end users. That’s not to be taken for granted. This assertion is now enshrined in the Internet Engineering Task Force’s RFC 8890—like Magna Carta for the network age. It’s also a great example of prioritisation in a design principle:

When there is a conflict between the interests of end users of the Internet and other parties, IETF decisions should favor end users.

So when a web browser—ostensibly an agent for the user—prioritises user-hostile third parties, we get upset.

Google Chrome—ostensibly an agent for the user—is running an origin trial for Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC). This is not a technology that serves the end user. It is a technology that serves third parties who want to target end users. The most common use case is behavioural advertising, but targetting could be applied for more nefarious purposes.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote an explainer last month: Google Is Testing Its Controversial New Ad Targeting Tech in Millions of Browsers. Here’s What We Know.

Let’s back up a minute and look at why this is happening. End users are routinely targeted today (for behavioural advertising and other use cases) through third-party cookies. Some user agents like Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox are stamping down on this, disabling third party cookies by default.

Seeing which way the wind is blowing, Google’s Chrome browser will also disable third-party cookies at some time in the future (they’re waiting to shut that barn door until the fire is good’n’raging). But Google isn’t just in the browser business. Google is also in the ad tech business. So they still want to advertisers to be able to target end users.

Yes, this is quite the cognitive dissonance: one part of the business is building a user agent while a different part of the company is working on ways of tracking end users. It’s almost as if one company shouldn’t simultaneously be the market leader in three separate industries: search, advertising, and web browsing. (Seriously though, I honestly think Google’s search engine would get better if it were split off from the parent company, and I think that Google’s web browser would also get better if it were a separate enterprise.)

Anyway, one possible way of tracking users without technically tracking individual users is to assign them to buckets, or cohorts of interest based on their browsing habits. Does that make you feel safer? Me neither.

That’s what Google is testing with the origin trial of FLoC.

If you, as an end user, don’t wish to be experimented on like this, there are a few things you can do:

Don’t use Chrome. No other web browser is participating in this experiment. I recommend Firefox. If you want to continue to use Chrome, install the Duck Duck Go Chrome extension. Alternatively, if you manually disable third-party cookies, your Chrome browser won’t be included in the experiment. Or you could move to Europe. The origin trial won’t be enabled for users in the European Union, which is coincidentally where GDPR applies.

That last decision is interesting. On the one hand, the origin trial is supposed to be on a small scale, hence the lack of European countries. On the other hand, the origin trial is “opt out” instead of “opt in” so that they can gather a big enough data set. Weird.

The plan is that if and when FLoC launches, websites would have to opt in to it. And when I say “plan”, I mean “best guess.”

I, for one, am filled with confidence that Google would never pull a bait-and-switch with their technologies.

In the meantime, if you’re a website owner, you have to opt your website out of the origin trial. You can do this by sending a server header. A meta element won’t do the trick, I’m afraid.

I’ve done it for my sites, which are served using Apache. I’ve got this in my .conf file:

<IfModule mod_headers.c> Header always set Permissions-Policy "interest-cohort=()" </IfModule>

If you don’t have access to your server, tough luck. But if your site runs on Wordpress, there’s a proposal to opt out of FLoC by default.

Interestingly, none of the Chrome devs that I follow are saying anything about FLoC. They’re usually quite chatty about proposals for potential standards, but I suspect that this one might be embarrassing for them. It was a similar situation with AMP. In that case, Google abused its monopoly position in search to blackmail publishers into using Google’s format. Now Google’s monopoly in advertising is compromising the integrity of its browser. In both cases, it makes it hard for Chrome devs claiming to have the web’s best interests at heart.

But one of the advantages of having a huge share of the browser market is that Chrome can just plough ahead and unilaterily implement whatever it wants even if there’s no consensus from other browser makers. So that’s what Google is doing with FLoC. But their justification for doing this doesn’t really work unless other browsers play along.

Here’s Google’s logic:

Third-party cookies are on their way out so advertisers will no longer be able to use that technology to target users. If we don’t provide an alternative, advertisers and other third parties will use fingerprinting, which we all agree is very bad. So let’s implement Federated Learning of Cohorts so that advertisers won’t use fingerprinting.

The problem is with step three. The theory is that if FLoC gives third parties what they need, then they won’t reach for fingerprinting. Even if there were any validity to that hypothesis, the only chance it has of working is if every browser joins in with FLoC. Otherwise ad tech companies are leaving money on the table. Can you seriously imagine third parties deciding that they just won’t target iPhone or iPad users any more? Remember that Safari is the only real browser on iOS so unless FLoC is implemented by Apple, third parties can’t reach those people …unless those third parties use fingerprinting instead.

Google have set up a situation where it looks like FLoC is going head-to-head with fingerprinting. But if FLoC becomes a reality, it won’t be instead of fingerprinting, it will be in addition to fingerprinting.

Google is quite right to point out that fingerprinting is A Very Bad Thing. But their concerns about fingerprinting sound very hollow when you see that Chrome is pushing ahead and implementing a raft of browser APIs that other browser makers quite rightly point out enable more fingerprinting: Battery Status, Proximity Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor and so on.

When it comes to those APIs, the message from Google is that fingerprinting is a solveable problem.

But when it comes to third party tracking, the message from Google is that fingerprinting is inevitable and so we must provide an alternative.

Which one is it?

Google’s flimsy logic for why FLoC is supposedly good for end users just doesn’t hold up. If they were honest and said that it’s to maintain the status quo of the ad tech industry, it would make much more sense.

The flaw in Google’s reasoning is the fundamental idea that tracking is necessary for advertising. That’s simply not true. Sacrificing user privacy is fundamental to behavioural advertising …but behavioural advertising is not the only kind of advertising. It isn’t even a very good kind of advertising.

Marko Saric sums it up:

FLoC seems to be Google’s way of saving a dying business. They are trying to keep targeted ads going by making them more “privacy-friendly” and “anonymous”. But behavioral profiling and targeted advertisement is not compatible with a privacy-respecting web.

What’s striking is that the very monopolies that make Google and Facebook the leaders in behavioural advertising would also make them the leaders in contextual advertising. Almost everyone uses Google’s search engine. Almost everyone uses Facebook’s social network. An advertising model based on what you’re currently looking at would keep Google and Facebook in their dominant positions.

Google made their first many billions exclusively on contextual advertising. Google now prefers to push the message that behavioral advertising based on personal data collection is superior but there is simply no trustworthy evidence to that.

I sincerely hope that Chrome will align with Safari, Firefox, Vivaldi, Brave, Edge and every other web browser. Everyone already agrees that fingerprinting is the real enemy. Imagine the combined brainpower that could be brought to bear on that problem if all browsers made user privacy a priority.

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

Numbers

20 April 2021

Core web vitals from Google are the ingredients for an alphabet soup of exlusionary intialisms. But once you get past the unnecessary jargon, there’s a sensible approach underpinning the measurements.

From May—no, June—these measurements will be a ranking signal for Google search so performance will become more of an SEO issue. This is good news. This is what Google should’ve done years ago instead of pissing up the wall with their dreadful and damaging AMP project that blackmailed publishers into using a proprietary format in exchange for preferential search treatment. It was all done supposedly in the name of performance, but in reality all it did was antagonise users and publishers alike.

Core web vitals are an attempt to put numbers on user experience. This is always a tricky balancing act. You’ve got to watch out for the McNamara fallacy. Harry has already started noticing this:

A new and unusual phenomenon: clients reluctant (even refusing) to fix performance issues unless they directly improve Vitals.

Once you put a measurement on something, there’s a danger of focusing too much on the measurement. Chris is worried that we’re going to see tips’n’tricks for gaming core web vitals:

This feels like the start of a weird new era of web performance where the metrics of web performance have shifted to user-centric measurements, but people are implementing tricky strategies to game those numbers with methods that, if anything, slightly harm user experience.

The map is not the territory. The numbers are a proxy for user experience, but it’s notoriously difficult to measure intangible ideas like pain and frustration. As Laurie says:

This is 100% the downside of automatic tools that give you a “score”. It’s like gameification. It’s about hitting that perfect score instead of the holistic experience.

And Ethan has written about the power imbalance that exists when Google holds all the cards, whether it’s AMP or core web vitals:

Google used its dominant position in the marketplace to force widespread adoption of a largely proprietary technology for creating websites. By switching to Core Web Vitals, those power dynamics haven’t materially changed.

We would do well to remember:

When you measure, include the measurer.

But if we’re going to put numbers to user experience, the core web vitals are a pretty good spread of measurements: largest contentful paint, cumulative layout shift, and first input delay.

(If you prefer using initialisms, remember that CFP is Certified Financial Planner, CLS is Community Legal Services, and FID is Flame Ionization Detector. Together they form CWV, Catholic War Veterans.)

The State of the Web — the links

20 April 2021

An Event Apart Spring Summit is happening right now. I opened the show yesterday with a talk called The State Of The Web:

The World Wide Web has come a long way in its three decades of existence. There’s so much we can do now with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript: animation, layout, powerful APIs… we can even make websites that work offline! And yet the web isn’t exactly looking rosy right now. The problems we face aren’t technical in nature. We’re facing a crisis of expectations: we’ve convinced people that the web is slow, buggy, and inaccessible. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is no fate but what we make. In this perspective-setting talk, we’ll go on a journey to the past, present, and future of web design and development. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and by the end, you’ll be ready to make the web better.

I wrote about preparing this talk and you can see the outline on Kinopio. I thought it turned out well, but I never actually know until people see it. So I’m very gratified and relieved that it went down very well indeed. Phew!

Eric and the gang at An Event Apart asked for a round-up of links related to this talk and I was more than happy to oblige. I’ve separated them into some of the same categories that the talk covers.

I know that these look like a completely disconnected grab-bag of concepts—you’d have to see the talk to get the connections. But even without context, these are some rabbit holes you can dive down…

Apollo 8 Earthrise by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee on Vimeo, 2018. Earthrise by Amanda Gorman on YouTube, 2018. They Saw Earth From Space. Here’s How It Changed Them by Nadia Drake in National Geographic, 2018. Seeing the Whole Earth from Space Changed Everything by Ahmed Kabil for The Long Now Foundation, 2018. Hypertext As We May Think by Vannevar Bush in The Atlantic Monthly, 1945. The Demo by Douglas Engelbart, 1968. Information Management: A Proposal by Tim Berners-Lee, 1989. The World Wide Web proposed new tag: IMG by Marc Andreessen to www-talk, 1993. What is a Polyfill? by Remy Sharp, 2010. Stop solving problems you don’t yet have by Rachel Andrew, 2012. Re: More granularity for font-weight? by Håkon Wium Lie to www-style, 2015. Clean advertising on adactio.com, 2020. 2021 Predictions for UX and Front-End Experts (PDF) by Ire Aderinokun et al. for An Event Apart, 2021. NASA Poppy Northcutt: The Woman Who Took Us to the Stars by Apriya Rai, 2020. Katherine Johnson Biography by Margot Lee Shetterly, 2020. Margaret Hamilton interview by Zoë Corbyn in The Guardian, 2019.

The state of UX

8 April 2021

There is much introspection and navel-gazing in the world of user experience design. More than usual, I mean.

Jesse James Garrett recently said:

I don’t think I know anyone that’s been in UX more than a decade who’s happy with how it’s going.

In a recent issue of the dConstruct newsletter—which you really should subscribe to—I pointed to three bowls of porridge left out by three different ursine experience designers.

Mark Hurst wrote Why I’m losing faith in UX. Too hot!

Scott Berkun wrote How To Put Faith in Design. Too cold!

Peter Merholz wrote Waking up from the dream of UX. Just right!

As an aside, does it bother anyone else that the Goldilocks story violates the laws of thermodynamics?

Anyway, this hand-wringing around the role of UX today seemed like a suitably hot topic for one of our regular roundtable chats at Clearleft. We invited Peter along too and he was kind enough to give us his time.

It was a fun discussion. Peter pointed out that whenever he hears an older designer bemoaning the current state of design, he has to wonder what’s happened in their lives to make them feel that way (it’s like when people complain about the music of today and how it’s not as good as the music of whatever time period I was a teenager). And let’s face it, the good ol’ days weren’t so good for everyone. It was overwhelmingly dominated by privileged white dudes. The more that changes, the better …and it needs to change far, far more.

There was a general agreement that the current gnashing of teeth isn’t unique to UX. It’s something that just about any discipline will inevitably go through. Peter’s epiphany was to compare it with the hand-wringing around Agile:

The frustration exhibited with the “dream of UX” is (I think) identical to the frustration the original Agile community sees with how it has been industrialized (koff-SAFe-koff).

Perhaps the industrialisation of what once a cottage industry is the price of success. But that’s not necessarily bad, as long as you industrialise the right things. If UX has become the churning out of wireframes at scale, then something has gone very wrong. If UX has become the implementation of dark patterns at scale, then something has gone very wrong.

In some organisations, perhaps that’s exactly what’s happened. In which case, I can totally understand the disillusionment. But in other places, I see the opposite happening. I see UX designers bringing questions of ethics to the forefront. I see UX designers—dare I say it?—having their proverbial seat at the table.

Chris went so far as to claim that we are in fact in a golden age of user experience design. Controversial! But think about it, he said. Over the next few days, pay attention to interactions you have with technology, and consider the thought and skill that has gone into them.

I had Chris’s provocation in mind when I wrote about booking my vaccination appointment:

I just need to get in, accomplish my task, and get out again. This is where the World Wide Web shines.

Maybe Chris is right. Maybe the golden age of UX is here. It’s just not evenly distributed. Yet.

It’s an interesting time for the discipline of user experience design. I’ve always maintained that the best way to get a temperature check for your chosen field is to go to a really good conference. If you’re a UX designer and you want to understand the state of the UX nation, you should get a ticket for the online UX Fest in June. See you there!

Of the web

6 April 2021

I’m subscribed to a lot of blogs in my RSS reader. I follow some people because what they write about is very different to what I know about. But I also follow lots of people who have similar interests and ideas to me. So I’m not exactly in an echo chamber, but I do have the reverb turned up pretty high.

Sometimes these people post thoughts that are eerily similar to what I’ve been thinking about. Ethan has been known to do this. Get out of my head, Marcotte!

But even if Ethan wasn’t some sort of telepath, he’d still be in my RSS reader. We’re friends. Lots of the people in my RSS reader are my friends. When I read their words, I can hear their voices.

Then there are the people I’ve never met. Like Desirée García, Piper Haywood, or Jim Nielsen. Never met them, don’t know them, but damn, do I enjoy reading their blogs. Last year alone, I ended up linking to Jim’s posts ten different times.

Or Baldur Bjarnason. I can’t remember when I first came across his writing, but it really, really resonates with me. I probably owe him royalties for the amount of times I’ve cited his post Over-engineering is under-engineering.

His latest post is postively Marcottian in how it exposes what’s been fermenting in my own mind. But because he writes clearly, it really helps clarify my own thinking. It’s often been said that you should write to figure out what you think, and I can absolutely relate to that. But here’s a case where somebody else’s writing really helps to solidify my own thoughts.

Which type of novelty-seeking web developer are you?

It starts with some existentialist stock-taking. I can relate, what with the whole five decades thing. But then it turns the existential questioning to the World Wide Web itself, or rather, the people building the web.

In a way, it’s like taking the question of the great divide (front of the front end and back of the front end), and then turning it 45 degrees to reveal an entirely hidden dimension.

In examining the nature of the web, he hits on the litmus of how you view encapsulation:

I mention this first as it’s the aspect of the web that modern web developers hate the most without even giving it a label. Single-Page-Apps and GraphQL are both efforts to eradicate the encapsulation that’s baked into the foundation of every layer of the web.

Most modern devs are trying to get rid of it but it’s one of the web’s most strategic advantages.

I hadn’t thought of this before.

By default, if you don’t go against the grain of the web, each HTTP endpoint is encapsulated from each other.

Moreover, all of this can happen really fast if you aren’t going overboard with your CSS and JS.

He finishes with a look at another of the web’s most powerful features: distribution. In between are the things that make the web webby: hypertext and flexibility (The Dao of the Web).

It’s the idea that the web isn’t a single fixed thing but a fluid multitude whose shape is dictated by its surroundings.

This resonates with me because it highlights two different ways of viewing the web.

On the one hand, you can see the web purely as a distribution channel. In the past you might have been distributing a Flash movie. These days you might be distributing a single page app. Either way, the web is there as a low-friction way of getting your creation in front of other people.

The other way of building for the web is to go with the web’s grain, embracing flexibility and playing to the strengths of the medium through progressive enhancement. This is the distinction I was getting at when I talked about something being not just on the web, but of the web.

With that mindset, Baldur then takes us through some of the technologies that he’s excited about, like SvelteKit and Hotwire. I think it’s the same mindset that got me excited about service workers. As Baldur says:

They are helping the web become better at being its own thing.

That’s my tagline right there.

Could AI help recover energy and fresh water from municipal wastewater?

11 May 2021

As city populations boom and the need grows for sustainable energy and water, scientists and engineers with the University of Chicago and partners are looking towards artificial intelligence to build new systems to deal with wastewater. Two new projects will test out ways to make "intelligent" water systems to recover nutrients and clean water.

Discovery of new geologic process calls for changes to plate tectonic cycle

11 May 2021

Geoscientists at the University of Toronto (U of T) and Istanbul Technical University have discovered a new process in plate tectonics which shows that tremendous damage occurs to areas of Earth's crust long before it should be geologically altered by known plate-boundary processes, highlighting the need to amend current understandings of the planet's tectonic cycle.

Understanding SARS-COV-2 proteins is key to improve therapeutic options for COVID-19

11 May 2021

COVID-19 has had a significant impact since the pandemic was declared by WHO in 2020, with over 3 million deaths and counting, Researchers and medical teams have been hard at work at developing strategies to control the spread of the infection, caused by SARS-COV-2 virus and treat affected patients. Of special interest to the global population is the developments of vaccines to boost human immunity against SARS-COV-2, which are based on our understanding of how the viral proteins work during the infection in host cells. Two vaccines, namely the Pfizer/BioINtech and Oxford/AZ vaccine rely on the use of delivering the gene that encodes the viral spike protein either as an mRNA or through an adenovirus vector to promote the production of relevant antibodies. The use of monoclonal antibodies has also been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Low-temperature crystallization of phase-pure α-formamidinium lead iodide enabled by study

11 May 2021

Though different fabrication approaches exist, two-step deposition is one of the main experimental techniques now used to make efficient, stable PSCs, especially on the industrial scale. The process involves first depositing lead iodide (PbI2) and then adding halide salts of monovalent cations such as methylammonium iodide (MAI) and formamidinium iodide (FAI) to convert it to perovskite.

World's fastest information-fueled engine designed by university researchers

11 May 2021

Simon Fraser University researchers have designed a remarkably fast engine that taps into a new kind of fuel—information.

Best practices to prevent the federal government from blowing its technology budget

11 May 2021

With the U.S. federal government investing billions of taxpayer dollars in executing technology programs, wouldn't you like to know where this money is going? A new study has identified ways to reduce federal spending in the execution of these taxpayer-funded technology programs.

Rules of the road: The navigational 'strategies' of bacteria in motion

11 May 2021

Bacteria that move around live on the edge. All the time. Their success, be it in finding nutrients, fending off predators or multiplying, depends on how efficiently they navigate through their confining microscopic habitats. Whether these habitats are in animal or plant tissues, in waste, or in other materials. In a recent paper published in PNAS, a team of researchers led by McGill University has described a number of factors affecting how five very different species of bacteria search and navigate through varied microfluidic environments which pose various decisional challenges. This increased understanding of the bacterial space searching and navigational "strategies" has implications for everything from diagnosing infectious diseases and maintaining human health, to the development of devices for everything from genomics to bio computation, as well as for a wide range of agricultural, industrial, and environmental activities.