“Contempt Culture”

“It’s awkward, after all, to be an open-source non-profit software company whose product is “best viewed in” Chrome”

‘Awkward’ is one way to describe it.

“The Ad Contrarian: Agencies Profiting From Online Ad Fraud”

People constantly forget (or are too young to know) that IE6 was loved by developers because developing for Netscape Navigator 4 was such a pain. The ‘Chromium monoculture will be great for us’ opinion won’t age well.

How much of the ‘Electron sucks’ sentiment comes from Electron apps in general being shit and how much of it comes from Slack being shit?

Slack is probably the worst app most people are using on a daily basis and it has a shit-flinging halo effect on everything it touches.

“Consistency in Design is the Wrong Approach”

I love posts like this: it is helpful, short, and explains why.

I have a feeling I’ll be referring to this post quite often.

2018 Accomplishments

The biggest thing I’ve accomplished in 2018 actually makes me a tad nervous.

Just before the holidays we put together the first (very simple) prototype for a web-based, structurally-oriented reading system geared towards low-performance environments.

As a result of our goals (inclusivity, accessibility, structured reading, etc.) it’s turning out very different from most of the things that are out there and that’s actually quite stressful.

The other main thing I accomplished in 2018 was to take my photography a bit more seriously again. Which has been fun. Although, doing it properly is a bit expensive, which in turn is a bit stressful again 😝

I guess the lesson here is that I get stressed very easily. (Helloooo anxiety.)

“YouTube let a contentID scammer steal a popular video”

Just another case were the law is replaced by a tech co’s internal processes and code

“What We Wished For — Smashing Magazine”

“The Earth is in a death spiral. It will take radical action to save us - George Monbiot - Opinion - The Guardian”

“YouTube’s search results for “abortion” show exactly what anti-abortion activists want women to see.”

“Unions Did Great Things for the Working Class”

“Michael Tsai - Blog - Apple Says Bent iPad Pros Are Not Defective”

“A premium product that is bent right out of the box?”

“Michael Tsai - Blog - The Case Against Marzipan”

Discussion. I don’t know yet what I think about iOS apps coming to macOS

“Accessible HTML Content Patterns”

For future reference.

Most of the debate surrounding Wordpress’s Gutenberg was centred on the idea that most users would love it, which made it essential for competing with other systems, but that its accessibility was a mess

But every online response I’ve seen post-5.0 is from users who hate it.

Where to buy fountain pens

Since I mentioned earlier that I don’t buy fountain pens from Amazon anymore, I figured I would mention where I buy them instead.

So, if you’re interested in alternative venues for buying fountain pens, I personally bought from and can recommend:

“Amazon’s judgments are so severe that its own rules have become the ultimate weapon in the constant warfare of Marketplace”

“Once were gardeners, lovers, poets… and warriors”

“Ambient Cruelty — Real Life”

“Why Gutenberg Was The Last Straw - Paul Craig”

“Der Spiegel journalist messed with the wrong small town”

“They’re the Huffington Post of 2008 with a paywall.”

“Medium has developed a “voice” — it’s fluffy, shiny, high-concept, but low depth.”

“Recalibrating Our Approach to Misinformation - EdSurge News”

“as days pass by — Why isn’t it their job”

“The secret is: if you use semantic HTML, then they do the work, not you. Their browser does the work, not you.”