— Educational Sensational Inspirational Foundational is a “historical record of foundational web development blog posts.” It’s wild how influential A List Apart was in those early days, it was the go-to source for me when I learned how to make decent web sites.
Posts from August 2023
Thursday, 31 August 2023
Wednesday, 30 August 2023
— Why are today’s websites so bad?
But really the baseline of web design is so low because there’s a lack of tenderness, care, and empathy. It’s because we don’t see the making of a website as a worthy profession. It’s because we hope to squeeze the last bit of juice from the orange by mulching people in between modals and pop ups and cookie banners.
Yeah, it is embarrassing.
Tuesday, 29 August 2023
— The End of the Googleverse traces the decline in search-result quality we’re feeling today back to 2003 when AdSense was introduced: “Google’s advertising tools gave links a monetary value, killing anything organic on the platform. From that moment forward, Google cared more about the health of its own network than the health of the wider internet.”
Monday, 28 August 2023
— Wordpress.com introduces the 100-year plan, including domain registration and hosting of your Wordpress site for 100 years. Generally a great idea to ensure our content survives us, but what happens if Automattic, the company behind Wordpress.com, does not survive for 100 years? Matt Mullenweg won’t be alive that long to safeguard his company. What if Automattic is sold by his successor and the new owners decide to shut it down?
Classic German paperbags advertising stationary items, such as pen refills.
Autonomous Cars Causing Chaos in Our Cities
— Linda Poon:
Just a day after Waymo and Cruise won approval to expand paid driverless taxi services in San Francisco, a fleet of robotaxis froze and snarled traffic in a busy neighborhood. Days later, another autonomous vehicle got stuck in wet cement on a construction site, and yet another crashed into a fire truck.
The digital services we rely on daily are mostly held together by spit and duct tape. You that if you make software for a living. Consequently, autonomous vehicles will cause disruptions and accidents that will in turn lead to casualties. We can’t let self-serving cars on our streets unless they are regulated like banks and air travel to minimise the risk.
On a related note: What we need is fewer cars in our cities, not more. Specifically, we don’t need are cars that are driving around without passengers because robotaxi companies don’t want to pay for parking.
Thursday, 24 August 2023
— How Hip Hop Conquered the World “Wesley Morris traces the art form from its South Bronx origins to all-encompassing triumph.”
(I swear this is the last post about Hip Hop’s 50th)
Try the food, then buy the book. A London book store specialising on cook books prepares a recipe from a cook book everyday for its customers. (via)
Friday, 18 August 2023
— People and Blogs is an upcoming series by Manual Moreale, about blogs and their authors:
I’m starting a new weekly series called “People and Blogs” where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. You can subscribe to the newsletter or follow it here on the blog and via RSS. The first interview will go up on September 1st and I’ll post a new one each Friday.
What a great idea, I’m hoping to discover some new sites.
Thursday, 17 August 2023
— For its 25th anniversary, a visual history of the iMac. “Let’s take a trip down memory lane and appreciate the beauty and evolution of each iMac design.”
— The 150 greatest Hip Hop music videos according to the Rolling Stone. So many brilliant hip hop videos have been produced over the years: The Pharcyde’s Drop, Beastie Boys’ Sabotage or Tyler, the Creator’s Yonkers. And you end up with Missy Elliot on number 1? The artist dancing in front of a fish-eye lens, big cars, half-naked women dancing in the rain, didn’t every music video look like that at the time?
— The greatest Hip Hop movies, according to The Guardian’s Radheyan Simonpillai. Beat Street is clearly missing from this list. And if you include The Forty-Year-Old Version, you might as well include other movies that explore the social environments from which rap music originates, such as Menace II Society or Boyz n the Hood.
Tuesday, 15 August 2023
Watch Jonwayne make a new beat from next to nothing. Gosh, I hope he’s got a new album coming out soon.
Samples of 50 Years of Hip Hop Music
Tracklib breaks down iconic samples of 50 years of hip hop music. It makes for a good game you can play with over-40-year-old dad friends: Guess the song from the sample. I’d win the 90s era but I suck at everything before and after.
The sample technique that stands out in terms of complexity and intricacy is J Dilla’s Don’t Cry who took 23 samples from just one song and created something entirely new. That’s why there are books about his life and music.
Cairns (CNS)
Melbourne (MEL)
Thursday, 10 August 2023
2001: A Space Odyssey
— It’s easy to see why 2001: A Space Odyssey didn’t do well at the box office when it was initially released. Most people don’t want to sit through its lengthy artistic sequences, the lack of dialogue and the slow moving plot. Space Odyssey isn’t a movie a piece of art.
(1968) Director: Stanley Kubrick. Screenplay: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke. Cast: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood.
Melbourne (MEL)
Cairns (CNS)
— Singer Sixto Rodriguez has died aged 81. Now is a good time to rewatch Searching for Sugarman, a documentary about Rodriguez that revived his musical career.
Wednesday, 09 August 2023
— A blog post with every possible HTML element. It even includes a fake marquee element.
Clear History
— Films written by Larry David are sadly just long Curb-Your-Enthusiasm episodes: In one scene his character is brutally honest, other people can’t take it and it backfires. Larry tries to rectify the situation and it only gets him deeper into trouble. It’s funny for a while but after eleven seasons of Curb we’ve seen enough. I still think the world would be a better place if we were all more like Larry David’s characters.
(2013) Screenplay: Larry David, Alec Berg, David Mandel, Jeff Schaffer. Director: Greg Mottola. Cast: Larry David, Bill Hader, Jon Hamm, Kate Hudson, Michael Keaton.
Tuesday, 01 August 2023
— Reasons why you should write a blog, even when no-one else cares:
You can say whatever the fuck you want. It’s your blog, you don’t need to follow any rules. I just cursed and you can’t do nothing about it, because this is my blog and I do what I want.
You control this website and nobody can take it away from you or limit what you write. That’s one of the best reasons to write a blog.