markjgsmith

2023/09/16

• 12:45:00 +07:00 🚀 Latest Newsletter: Wonderfull and Strange Nerdy Discussions (Issue #132) # markjgsmith.com

2023/09/15

• 10:54:00 +07:00 Arm climbs 25% in Nasdaq debut after pricing IPO at $51 a share - "About half the company's royalty revenue, which totaled $1.68 billion in 2022, comes from products released between 1990 and 2012". Arm is valued at around the same price-to-earnings ratio as Nvidia, but without the 170% growth forcast. # www.cnbc.com

2023/09/14

• 17:51:00 +07:00 Some notes on Local-First Development - Interesting article discussing the local first movement where web applications are designed to run locally. They tend to use technologies like CRDT-based sync engines, to replicate data structures or database tables between client abd server, but could also use replication protocols. The focus is on realtime, multiplayer and offline. The movement aims to have a positive impact on privacy, decentralization, data control. I like the general idea though I can't help but think we are trying to run before we can walk. These fancy technologies are great, but what I want, what I think we need first, are regular content based websites that by default can be viewed offline. I want to be able to browse the web, find a bunch of sites to read, then be able to seemlessly read them later offline, including all the links in the content. It needs to work with images, and code snippets. Currently even that experience is very poor, forget about complicated javascript apps. # bricolage.io

• 11:39:00 +07:00 Arm prices IPO at high end of range, raising $4.87 billion - That's pretty incredible when you consider that they don't actually make anything physical. They are entirely a knowledge product. It's the biggest US IPOs this year. # www.marketwatch.com

• 11:22:00 +07:00 Amazon debuts generative AI tools that helps sellers write product descriptions - At some point isn't it just going to be AIs selling to AIs? # techcrunch.com

2023/09/13

• 17:16:00 +07:00 🚀 New Post: Where might the Vision Pro make a big impact? - I make the case for why the really exciting opportunities for the Vision Pro might not be as a consumer media watching device but as an information welding mask for those working in science and engineering. # markjgsmith.com

• 14:41:00 +07:00 Physicists Observe ‘Unobservable’ Quantum Phase Transition - Scientists have been able to not only entangle constellations of many particles simultaneously, but by measuring their state in a clever way, stochastically, use the measuring as a way to have some control over the entanglement, since measurement causes entanglement collapse. And by doing that they were able to explore the entire entanglement space. Similar to how many materials go through phase transitions, say from liquid water to solid ice, there appears to be phase transitions in the quantum world. The weird thing is that it's not a material per se it's literally a phase transition in information, where the information shared between two things undergoes an abrupt change. As well as cool science, it's a tale of multiple reasearch groups discovering each other and combining forces. The story mixes in quantum computers, entanglement entropy and even time crystals in what is defo one of the best science writeups I've read this year. # www.quantamagazine.org

• 11:36:00 +07:00 🚀 New Post: The Mental Health Deception - How we view mental health issues has changed a lot in my lifetime. We didn't really even have non-derogatory ways of talking about it. It's a lot better these days but I think we still need to evolve our understanding of the topic. # markjgsmith.com

• 11:20:00 +07:00 🚀 New Post: Last Man Standing Tech - It seems like powerful AI could become a bigger part in mediating how we interact with each other. What might this look like? # markjgsmith.com

• 09:39:00 +07:00 From zero to one hundred in 0.956 seconds - This caught my eye because I had the opportunity many years ago to be driven on the back of a very fast motorbike. I think it was 0-100 in around 3 seconds and it totally freaked me out. I just can't imagine there could be anything 3 times faster than that. Anyhow interesting story, the cigar shaped car was built by students and has a vacuum suction device to keep it on the ground before it's aerodynamics kick in. # ethz.ch

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Nasa says distant exoplanet could have rare water ocean and possible hint of life - The planet is 9 times the size of earth, might have oceans, and they have detected some hints of molecules that on Earth are emmitted by phytoplankton. The discovery was made by the James Webb telescope, which was able to capture light from the planet's star that had passed through it's atmosphere. And that all happened 120 light years away. Mindblowing. Some other cool examples of JWT detections listed at the end of the article. # www.theguardian.com

2023/09/10

• 16:47:00 +07:00 ffmpegwasm/ffmpeg.wasm - "ffmpeg.wasm is a pure Webassembly / Javascript port of FFmpeg. It enables video & audio record, convert and stream right inside browsers." - That could come in handy. Would be awesome if somebody created a frontend in the form of a PWA. It's not clear to me how a user would start using some of these wasm based tools in their workflow. # github.com

• 16:34:00 +07:00 Dear Duolingo: Are any words the same in all languages? - Absolutely fascinating post about culture and history and language and travel. I've never used Duolingo myself but I've heard lots of good things about their app. You know a company is really into their core mission when they write a blog post like this. Just brilliant. I wonder if they have a podcast? # blog.duolingo.com

2023/09/09

• 12:45:00 +07:00 🚀 Latest Newsletter: Circles or Squiggles? (Issue #131) # markjgsmith.com

2023/09/08

• 11:40:00 +07:00 If You’ve Got a New Car, It’s a Data Privacy Nightmare - Honestly this is quite shocking. Cars used to be the last space people felt they had privacy, often used as a place to call your doctor or just a temporary shelter from a crazy world. Turns out car manufacturers are now harvesting a plethora of user information, everything from driving habbits to sexual activity and health info to genetic data. They use a variety of sensors and recording devices built right into the cars. # gizmodo.com

• 11:19:00 +07:00 The End of Airbnb in New York - NYC officials brought into effect Local Law 18 which aims to put in place limits on short term rentals which some believe are having a variety of adverse effects on local residents. It's not just NYC, many other large cities are passing similar regulations. Some in NYC are calling it a defacto ban on airbnbs. # www.wired.com

• 10:48:00 +07:00 How Apple inspired creators to take a risk on its $3,500 Vision Pro - I'm still very intrigued by the Vision Pro, but I think people might be missing the real opportunity. In any case it's a good idea to keep the Vision Pro on your radar. There's going to be a lot of nuances to deal with and it could dramatically change the landscape for developers. I keep asking myself how best to position myself for the new paradigm. # www.digitaltrends.com

• 09:46:00 +07:00 What OpenAI Really Wants - Stephen Levy profile piece about Sam Altman and OpenAI. Starts out comparing the attention he's getting to the Beattles when they first got popular. Seems a bit of a stretch, but in the piece he follows Altman and his small PR team around London as they hop between presidents, prime ministers, university lecture theatres, and more, and you do get a sense that something quite unusual is unfolding. Some interesting insight into the nascent AI / LLM scene. # www.wired.com

2023/09/07

• 15:46:00 +07:00 Wikimedia DNS - Wikimedia have launched a public DNS service, currently a small-scale beta project. Supports both DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) and DNS-over-TLS (DoT). It's not served on the wikipedia.org domain. # meta.wikimedia.org

• 14:21:00 +07:00 Human Embryo Models Grown from Stem Cells - Scientists have created what amounts to a fake 14 day old human embryo. No fertilized eggs or a womb required. Just lab cultured and human skin stemcells - "When the scientists applied secretions from these cells to a commercial pregnancy test, it came out positive." - Synthetic intelligences and biologies on the horizon. Mindblowing. Also where is the .il domain based out of? (Update: Answer - Isreal) # wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il

2023/09/05

• 11:29:00 +07:00 CSS Grid Systems with CSS Grid - Why aren't there more frameworks that make good use of CSS Grid? Andrew Walpole believes the answer is quite simple and might suprise you. # andrewwalpole.com

• 11:11:00 +07:00 From browser brat to backend boss: Will WASM win the web wars? - I'm struck by how WASM seems to be following javascript's path. Get it working clientside, then move it to the server and start adding APIs for available hardware interfaces. Personally though I'm more interested in the possibilities for running developer tools in the browser, be able to build for the browser entirely from the browser. I want to be able to build my static website locally from a browser. # www.theregister.com

• 10:51:00 +07:00 The Fed, The Treasury, The White House…Who's Really in Charge of the Economy? - James Lavish takes a look at each of these entities in turn, asking what makes them tick, in order to attempt to figure out who's in charge. It's an unbelievably enlightening piece, which will leave you with your mouth wide open in astonishment at the insanity of it all. # substack.com

• 09:46:00 +07:00 Building a wide news commons - Ben Werdmuller writes a piece about local news. How things were, how they have changed with social media, and how he hopes it plays out. Lots of interesting ideas and cool examples. Caffs not Cafes sounds cool, covering London caffs. I'll have to check it out later when I'm online again. Glad to come across this article via my RSS reader. It had been a while since I openned it. I think Ben is part of the HN bloggers feeds collection. # werd.io

2023/09/04

• 12:50:00 +07:00 Why I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency - Nela Dunato describes her reasons for prefering to remain working solo as a design freelancer. She's pretty candid about her reasons, clearly she's had some bad experiences in agencies, and of course she has adapted accordingly. Each person's situation and trajectory is different, no doubt there will be folks that have very valid reasons for doing the exact opposite. I think we can have a world where both models can work side by side, you never know when your life circumstances might change and having the optionality to switch models is a net win for everyone. I wish more people felt as confident to share their reasoning without fearing repurcussions. It's really helpful reading articles like this. I'd love to read something similar from the pro-agency perspective. # neladunato.com

• 11:45:00 +07:00 🚀 New Post: I’ve setup a nip5 on my Nostr account - Writeup of my experience configuring a nip5 on my Nostr account. Kind of complicated, and I’m still not sure it’s correctly setup. # markjgsmith.com

2023/09/02

• 20:40:00 +07:00 A lot of stuff is just fine - Chris Coyier, commenting on a Robin Rendle post, points out that as web developers we should be pretty embarrassed that most websites aren't 'just fine'. In contrast to most things in the real world which might not be amazing but are at least mostly alright, websites are full of popups and ads and tracking and too much javascript. It's a very good observation. It should be easier to get the basics right. All websites should render offline, be accessible, and be progressively enhanced with fancier stuff.# chriscoyier.net

• 19:45:00 +07:00 USENET, the OG social network, rises again like a text-only phoenix - The central governing authority was reconvened in 2020 after 10 years of dormancy. There has been a bit of a resurgence of late. Turns out many of the usenet servers have been quietly ticking along all these years and much of the network is still functional. Might be an idea to have usenet access setup as a sort of backup plan in case modern social media further implodes. The article lists some interesting looking groups active for science fiction and computer history. # www.theregister.com

• 12:45:00 +07:00 🚀 Latest Newsletter: A Bit of a Trip (Issue #130) - We are entering into an era of very long timescales. This week we go on a bit of a journey in space and time to try and get handle on what this might mean exactly. # markjgsmith.com

2023/08/31

• 16:28:00 +07:00 Should you use AsyncLocalStorage? - I've read through this a couple of times now and though I do understand most of the code, I feel like I'm missing something crucial. It looks like it might be a very useful nodejs API but I'm not seeing yet exactly what type of use cases it could br relevant. Hopefully I'll get some more time later to find more examples. # eytanmanor.medium.com

• 12:43:00 +07:00 The new economics of Twitter outrage - The twisted economics that are playing out on Twitter with Elon Musk's new rules. It has changed the "main character" dynamic from something that could benefit people that fitted into existing structured of business, politics and media to one where "you’re just paid directly by a billionaire -- though only if you can afford to pay him first". I'm not sure what it is exactly but some things in this article ring true to real life for me. # www.garbageday.email

• 12:30:00 +07:00 Bézier curves - Richard Ekwonye did a deep dive on this topic and created this article which containts some excellent interactive examples illustrating how Bézier curves are used in animation easing, but also in adding curves to simple and complex shapes found in fonts, icons, illustrations, data visualization charts, 3d objects and other visual elements. # blog.richardekwonye.com

• 11:29:00 +07:00 CSS Nesting just landed in Firefox 117 - Wes Bos Twitter thread where he gives 11 examples of the new CSS nesting feature which is now implemented in all browsers. This is awesome. Having a nesting feature in native CSS will make things so much easier to organize. # twitter.com

2023/08/30

• 17:09:00 +07:00 Applying SRE Principles to CI/CD - An interesting metrics based methodology to ensure an acceptable service level for your CI/CD system. It's the sort of approach that many of the larger engineering teams use with Service Level Objectives (SLOs), Service Level Indicators (SLIs), and Error budgets. I like the sound of this approach, as long as it doesn't drain the life out of the team, you have to leave room to enjoy yourselves a bit. # buildkite.com

• 06:12:00 +07:00 Netlify style message queue - My feature request for a netlify style message queue # answers.netlify.com

2023/08/29

• 06:05:00 +07:00 🚀 New Post: Very long timescales - A new era is begining where we need to consider very long timescales when building software. Lots of strange things to consider, especially in free and open source software. # markjgsmith.com

2023/08/28

• 15:42:00 +07:00 Patterns for Reactivity with Modern Vanilla JavaScript - I haven't done a huge amount of frontend javascript recently, so this was a very refreshing and enlightening piece. It collects together the main patterns used to implement reactivity in the browser using plain old vanilla javascript. Patterns like PubSub, Observer, Proxies, Signals and Observables as well as using Object.defineProperty. Also covers using classes, async and native browser APIs such as MutationObserver, Web Components, IntersectionObserver, requestAnimationFrame and the Web Animations API. Some great examples such as reactively rendering a simple HTML UI listing pizzas, interactive scrolling, animation and game loops, reactive animations, and reactive CSS. Monster article packed with awesome stuff. # frontendmasters.com

• 12:54:00 +07:00 Giving up the iPad-only travel dream - Long term Apple user Jason Snell goes into some detail as to why, at least for now, he has given up trying to use his iPad as his main device. The critical thing for him is the terrible experience recording podcasts, but he also goes into more broader problems some face. People that need to be able to adapt their workflows in dynamic environments run into issues, because the iPad's top down committee based development approach is just not flexible enough in an acceptable timeframe. # sixcolors.com

• 09:14:00 +07:00 Ex-Meta Researchers Have Raised $40 Million From Lux Capital For An AI Biotech Startup - Much of the hype in the recent LLM boom has centered around generation and processing of various digital media, whether that's text, audio, video, image etc. It seems like the next wave is going to be a big level up as the technologies are deployed into the science industries that seek to make very futuristic discoveries in areas like biology and material science. There is a lot more money in these areas an the scope of is enormous because the possibilities space is so mind bogglingly large and relatively untouched by current methods. Lots of interesting detail in this article including companies that are having an impact. # www.forbes.com

• 08:39:00 +07:00 🚀 New Post: Double meanings across cultures and languages - Some notes, thoughts and observations, based on personal experience, about languages and cultures. # markjgsmith.com

2023/08/27

• 10:16:00 +07:00 Wordpress: The 100-Year Plan - "The 100-Year Plan ensures that your stories, achievements, and memories are preserved for generations to come. One payment. One hundred years of legacy. US$38,000." - It just so happens to be $1 per day, which means even if you only had 1 customer you might just be able to pull it off. What a curious price, don't you think? # wordpress.com

• 07:43:00 +07:00 Get NIP-05 verified - For Nostr verification badically you have to add a json file on your website located at /.well-known/nostr.json. What you put in this file is a bit condusing imo. # nostr.how

• 07:21:00 +07:00 Add a verified website to your Mastodon account using link tag - Basically add a special <link> tag to your site's web page head section that links back to your Mastondon account. You can also use an <a> tag. # barrd.dev

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Notes from a Mastodon migration - This is a must read if you are trying out Mastodon, especially if, like me, the main draw was that it's an open system and you can move server at anytime. I thought it was as easy as packing your virtual bag and venturing over to your new online home. In reality you will lose several things. Replies to your old threads won't reach you, your old posts remain in the old location, DMs received from people can't be exported, and lists you got added to won't point to your new username. That's quite a lot of important stuff! Definitely worth testing the process before you get too comfortable. # erinkissane.com

2023/08/26

• 18:50:00 +07:00 🚀 New Post: UK politics cognitive disonance - Some observations about UK politics. We have such a rich history, but is that causing our politicians to be out of touch with the current reality of the people? # markjgsmith.com

• 16:42:00 +07:00 The EU's war on behavioral advertising - Lots more detail about the new regulations in this article. Maybe they just averted a future apocalypse. The at infiniti situation with all this behavioural advertising is pretty scary in my opinion. At some point it ceses to be advertising. What does it become? Probably unpleasant and very confusing causality bugs in spacetime. I'm only half joking. I'm not sure it's a good idea to find out. # thisisunpacked.substack.com

• 16:18:00 +07:00 All hail the new EU law that lets social media users quiet quit the algorithm - It's interesting to see these new regulations have already caused Meta to add a chronological feed back. I like the idea of being able to compare the algorythmic feed against chronological, also the AI off switch seems like it might be a good idea. One day surely we'll be able to BYOA? # techcrunch.com

• 16:01:00 +07:00 New York Times, CNN and ABC block OpenAI’s GPTBot web crawler from accessing content - They have all been updating their robots.txt recently. Me too! I added a sitemap to the website a few weeks ago. What a coincidence. I wonder what the general sentiment is amoung bloggers about GPTBot. # www.theguardian.com

• 13:05:00 +07:00 Web Scraping for Me, But Not for Thee - There have been a lot of web scraping court cases over the years, and the courts don't seem to have a firm handle on the situation. Add to that the recent surge in companies looking for data to train their AI models. It's a hot topic that looks likely to see some controversy as companies take contradictory and hypocritical stances when it comes to web scraping. # blog.ericgoldman.org

• 12:45:00 +07:00 🚀 Latest Newsletter: Bingeing the Past and Building the Future (Issue #129) # markjgsmith.com

• 12:44:00 +07:00 France to spend €200m destroying wine as demand falls - Interesting data point. The wine industry appears to have been particularly badly wrong footed by the COVID supply shock. Consumption has fallen in double digit % while production rose by 4%. The emergency measures are to ensure there isn't a collapse in prices. # www.bbc.com

• 11:29:00 +07:00 Create A CI/CD Pipeline For Front End Projects - Good article to read if you are looking to get a high level overview of continuous integration / continuous delivery (CI/CD). Lists the major tools used and some example configuration files cli commands and scripts to get a sense how all the pieces fit together. Falls short of presenting a fully working repo though, you'll need to do that yourself, but it's a good article to get situated. # blog.openreplay.com

2023/08/25

• 10:49:00 +07:00 Use web components for what they’re good at - Nolan Lawson continues the discussion started by Dave Rupert a few days ago. A lot of his points make sense. For me though the big downside of web components is the fact that serverside rendering doesn't really work. That means web component based websites are poor at working offline. I think websites, especially content focussed ones, should be able to work offline by default, fancy javascript stuff should be a progressive enhancement. IMO many folks are too quick to build fancy stuff that falls over on the basics. # nolanlawson.com

2023/08/24

• 16:18:00 +07:00 Pretextbook - Write Once, Read Anywhere - Looks like a useful tool if you are self publishing papers of books, especially scientific, engineering, STEM. # pretextbook.org

• 11:35:00 +07:00 An Excruciatingly Detailed Guide To SSH (But Only The Things I Actually Find Useful) - Definitely one of the better ssh cheatsheets that I've read. Heck of a lot of useful commands well explained with useful and clear examples. # grahamhelton.com

2023/08/23

• 14:01:00 +07:00 Elon Musk plans to remove headlines from news articles shared on X - Looks like I'm not the only person considering post titles this week. What are the chances? I quite like the idea that it will encourage people to write something instead of mindlessly re-posting. Personally when I share links I like to have both the original author title as well as personal comment. # fortune.com

• 13:51:00 +07:00 The Broad Set of Computer Science Problems Faced at Cloud Database Companies - Cloud infrastructure companies power much of the modern internet and web. Their unprecedented scale mean they face very unique and interesting challenges. I still find it incredible how much S3 changed the landscape. # davidgomes.com

• 13:41:00 +07:00 Unix: technology and idea - Makes the case that when we say something is Unixy we mean two distinct things, namely that it conforms to certain technology choices but also a more broad philosophical idea, and this can cause people to disagree on unixness, since they are talking past each other. # utcc.utoronto.ca

2023/08/22

• 11:25:00 +07:00 Enshitternet: The old, good internet deserves a new, good internet - "The disenshittification of the internet isn’t a nostalgic bid to restore the old, good internet. It’s a plan to build a new, good internet, and to make the enshitternet a bad memory, a mere transitional stage between the old, good internet we had and the new, good internet we deserve." # doctorow.medium.com

• 10:43:00 +07:00 🚀 New Post: The real Vision Pro opportunity - What if the Vision Pro isn't destined for mainstream user adoption? Would that be so bad? Could there be even cooler use cases? # markjgsmith.com

• 10:07:00 +07:00 If I’m already using React, why should I rewrite my app with Web Components? - Dave Rupert piece about when you should use web components and when you probably shouldn't. # daverupert.com

• 08:55:00 +07:00 🚀 New Post: I ran out of build minutes - Writeup of the latest github build minutes situation, and some thoughts and observations about static sites being reliant on build systems being operational # markjgsmith.com

• 06:02:00 +07:00 Bringing Sharp to WebAssembly and WebContainers - Honestly I didn't understand much of this, my knowkedge of C / C++ isn't sufficient. However the notion that you can run Nodejs in the browser using WASM is very cool. I'd like to learn more about web containers, but I think I need to read something written for a Nodejs dev. Would I for instance be able to run my static site generator in the browser using web containers? # blog.stackblitz.com

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Meta may launch a Threads web version early this week - Much needed though I wonder if the ActivityPub features would be more of a draw. My threads usage is way down. I'm mostly posting on Twitter but just because I have more reach there. I find that I quite like posting to Mastodon even though I don't have many followers there yet. It feels safer to invest time in open platforms. # www.theverge.com

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Tailwind, and the death of web craftsmanship - Tailwind is the strangest thing, I keep reading articles saying how bad it is, yet it just seems to be getting more popular. What does that say about CSS? # pdx.su

2023/08/21

• 10:59:00 +07:00 We Need Deep News - Doc Searls known for his involvement in reporting on the early open source movement, has been covering the changing landscape of the news and radio sector. He's got a longer view perspective which is a good thing because we technologists have a tendency to build things that don't solve the fundamental problems. # doc.searls.com

• 10:44:00 +07:00 Don’t Build A General Purpose API To Power Your Own Front End - Quite opinionated piece that proposes a different way to build smaller scale website + API deployments. It's a way to side step a lot of complexity. As with most things, it's a trade off, but I think the author makes some good points which are at least worth considering. # max.engineer

• 10:35:00 +07:00 Nix - Reproducible builds and deployments - I've been noticing folks mention nix more and more. The example videos are pretty interesting. Seems like it could be a useful tool fir setting up dev environments, especially if you have to run many of these in parallel. # nixos.org

• 10:27:00 +07:00 Run a macOS VM on Apple silicon from a double-click with Vimy - Seems like quite a classic mac style app, minimal functionality but lots of deceloper usefulness. Also some interesting discussion about developer environment setup on this hacker news thread. There doesn't appear to be a standard way of doing things and with so many bits and pieces these says, it's getting ever more complicated to do safely. # eclecticlight.co

• 08:11:00 +07:00 🚀 New Post: Text template rendering should be standard in all operating systems - Thinking about how one would implement a system wide template rendering for text feature. # markjgsmith.com

2023/08/20

• 19:31:00 +07:00 Bricolage Grotesque - "A free and open source variable font with French attitude and British mannerisms across 3 axis: weight, width & optical size" - I love how this font somehow embodies a french ambience. Also: 1) lovely website, (2) variable fonts are cool (3) great name for a font. # ateliertriay.github.io

• 19:25:00 +07:00 Will Browsers Be Required By Law To Stop You From Visiting Infringing Sites? - The french government is close to passing a law that would force browser manufacturers to block site that appear on a government block list. # www.techdirt.com

• 15:37:00 +07:00 Twitter, now X, to remove blocking feature - I don't personally use the feature at all, but I know it's very popular, so I can see why some folks are annoyed. # www.bbc.com

• 15:27:00 +07:00 The Looming Demise of the 10x Developer - An interesting and thought provoking piece that explores the thesus that there is unavoidable inter-generational conflict in the software industry, brought about by how the industry grew in the early days. # blog.testdouble.com

2023/08/19

• 17:14:00 +07:00 Prepare your Firefox desktop extension for the upcoming Android release - Potentially quite a big change to the mobile web, this will be the first mobile browser to offer extensions. It will be really cool to have developer tools on mobile, so much do that I'd consider moving from iOS. # blog.mozilla.org

• 16:58:00 +07:00 JSX without React - Chris Coyier comments on the nice fit and possible usefulness of NakedJSX as a templating library. Basically enables you to write your templates in JSX, but doesn't require React. I thought pretty much the same thing when I saw this a few weeks ago. Being able to build your static pages using components is a big draw. When I have some time I might very well try integrating this library into my static site generator.# chriscoyier.net

• 12:45:00 +07:00 🚀 Latest Newsletter: Make Things, Take Notes, Profit (Issue #128) # markjgsmith.com

2023/08/18

• 12:49:00 +07:00 Open Circuits - Cory Doctorow writes about his recent trip to Defcon, the famous hacker conference in Las Vegas. Sounds like a cool conference, though personally I think I'd be too worried about getting hacked to enjoy myself. He mentions a cool new book about the tiny electronics that power the computers of the modern world. What's cool is that the book, which is educational, reframes these marvelous tiny inventions, highlighting them as beautiful art. I love this. Take something that seems boring and show why it's actually amazing. It's maker culture at it's best. # pluralistic.net

• 17:36:00 +07:00 🚀 New Post: Testing auto posts to social media - Short test post to make sure that I’ve setup auto posts to social media correctly. # markjgsmith.com

2023/08/17

• 06:02:00 +07:00 ModelFusion - ModelFusion is a library for building AI apps, chatbots, and agents. It provides abstractions for AI models, vector indices, and tools. # modelfusion.dev

• 06:01:00 +07:00 Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to websites he dislikes - Not particularly good behaviour, though I wonder if there isn't more to the story. I've been using Twitter more recently. I hardly have much time to read a lot of posts though. # www.washingtonpost.com

• 06:01:00 +07:00 A.I. Can’t Build a High-Rise, but It Can Speed Up the Job - Gets into how AI is impacting construction sites, which historically have been quite slow on the uptake when it comes to software and tech. It's about changing the fundamentals, "getting data you need and then using it better" and ultimately do a better job of "coordinating the complex ballet of supplies, labor and timetables". # www.nytimes.com

2023/08/16

• 06:02:00 +07:00 microsoft/azurechatgpt - Microsoft's private ChatGPT enteprise option, enables you to safely use your own data sources, guarantied privacy with isolation from OpenAI operated ChatGPTs. Runs on several interesting technologies and libraries including Nodejs, Nextjs, Tailwinds CSS, and LangChain to name a few. # github.com

• 06:01:00 +07:00 Peter Shor's MIT Quantum Computing Course Notes - This passed through the past few days, quite synchronous considering my latest static site generator feature. Looks like it could be quite comprehensive. Even though it's very early days when it comes to quantum, MIT will likely have some of the best learning material available. # math.mit.edu

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Caching dependencies to speed up workflows - I was already using setup-node module but didn't realise it's possible to cache various build artifacts between builds which can lead to much faster build times. # docs.github.com

2023/08/15

• 06:02:00 +07:00 The Exploding World of ETFs - I was mildly interested in the this just because it's become the hot topic in bitcoin circles. About 1/2 way through the article though, where he paints the picture of how broad ETFs can get, the thing that sparked my attention was the similarity with content curration. They are like currated content feeds but for stocks. It got me wondering about communities. If you and your friends wanted to invest in the communities that surrounded you, how could you do that? Wouldn't an ETF type model be worth considering? You wouldn't necesarily make money, though you might, maybe the value you got back would be in a more vibrant community that had currents of activity that alligned with your interests. The currator in me thinks hyperlocal ETFs might be interesting as a vehicle for improving the places we live in. Of course there could be downsides too, getting the balance between mainstream and fringe might be a challenge. # jameslavish.substack.com

• 06:01:00 +07:00 Running a Mainstream Linux Distro Natively on Apple Silicon: Fedora Asahi Remix First Impressions - I've been following at a distance the progress being made by the Asahi team. It's super cool that there's a Linux distro that runs on Apple Silicon. I wish Apple would make it easier though. It's strange to me that they are so scared of Linux. I mean they don't seriously think that regular users are going to switch do they? As far as I can tell this would only ever be used by power users and developers. OSX is a tremendous OS for most users, they should be more confident in their creation imho. I also wonder what the Asahi team think of the recent controversy with Red Hat becoming hostile to Fedora. I'd feel better if Ubuntu ran on Apple Silicon. # jasoneckert.github.io

• 06:00:00 +07:00 A blog post with every HTML element - One for all the web development nerds out there. A few weeks ago I updated all the HTML tags on the website so I found this post mostly fascinating. However I'm reading offline on iOS, so no way to open up devtools to have a look at the page HTML, which made the post a bit tedious. Great reference article, there are so many details to consider. It's amazing how much thought has gone into even just HTML, nevermind CSS and Javascript. # www.patrickweaver.net

2023/08/13

• 06:02:00 +07:00 You can now verify your Threads profile on Mastodon - Hey maybe Meta will start to add ActivityPub features after all. Sure would be cool. # www.theverge.com

• 06:01:00 +07:00 The advantages of an email-driven git workflow - I heard a while back that the entire development of the Linux kernel is done via patches over email. Since then I've wondered how that works. Surely if Linux, one of the biggest and most distributed open source projects, uses it then there must be something to it. This post gives a bit of an idea. I'd like to try it out. It would be cool to have a git hosting service that allowed you to use both email and web interface at the same time. # drewdevault.com

• 06:00:00 +07:00 google/git-appraise – Distributed Code Review for Git - The cool thing about this is that all the data is stored in the repo itself. That means it's totally portable between git hosting providers. # github.com

2023/08/12

• 12:45:00 +07:00 🚀 Latest Newsletter: Browser Runs All the Things (Issue #127) # markjgsmith.com

2023/08/11

• 06:02:00 +07:00 Jamstack is dead, long live Jamstack! - This week's Bytes newsletter was all about the recent announcement of the demise of the popular webdev architecture / abstract feeling / lifestyle choice. There's something very interesting going on here. It's dead, but it's also quite not dead. In fact it seems to be somewhat benefitting from the recent turmoil's Streisand effect, and I'm ok with that. It feels like something cool might emerge from all this carfuffle. More jamstack stuff here here and here. And also this very pro dynamic database websites piece, which I mostly agree with too, authoring experience is currently very bad for Jamstack sites. # bytes.dev

• 06:00:00 +07:00 sahat/hackathon-starter - A boilerplate for Node.js web applications - I find it useful to checkout some of these boilerplate style repos occasionally to see the latest trendy services and techniques. I wouldn't necessarily use these outside of a hackathon context because you'll end up with a lot of unnecessary code for your use case. Still this looks on the surface to contain a lot of interesting node / javascript / css / 3rd party stuff. # github.com

• 06:00:00 +07:00 @markjgsmith: "It’s one of the strangest things about writing software is that when you are creating something for the first time, it’s totally not obvious how it needs to be.

  Then when you finally get it working the way it should be, you just can’t even remember how it wasn’t totally obvious." #

2023/08/09

• 06:01:00 +07:00 Binance Secures Crypto Exchange License in El Salvador - A somewhat interesting data point. El Salvador was the first country to recognise Bitcoin as legal tender. Binance has been facing regulatory scrutiny in many countries around the world recently, though it remains one of the big crypto exchanges. El Salvador recently made a huge crack down on gang related violence and activity. I wonder how both these items will combine to increase bitcoin adoption. # decrypt.co

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Nvidia debuts upgraded GH200 Grace Hopper chip with high-speed memory - These new chips have memory that is directly integrated and accessible by the CPU. They are particularly good for AI workloads because the memory can be used to store intermediate values calculated by each layer of a neural network. That makes them much faster since large language models spend significant amounts of time moving this type of data from memory to the CPU. # siliconangle.com

2023/08/06

• 06:01:00 +07:00 Boomers stole our generation and gave it to the GenZs. The data is clear on this now. I bet you everything will still be all our fault. # twitter.com

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Bram Moolenaar has died - Bram created the vim text editor. It was one of the reasons I decided to get more into programing 20 years ago. As a young sysadmin in a VFX shop, I would watch the tools guys effortlessly do things with vim that were pure magic, and at some point I just thought, "that's what I want to be able to do". I got pretty good at vim over the years but never reached vim wizard status. Maybe that will happen some day if the world ever decides to allow me to have another laptop. Strange timing given the latest newsletter, kind of adds to the far out notion that the entire tech industry is fake imo. I mean seriously, what are the chances? Anyway RIP Bram, thanks for vim, Mark. # news.ycombinator.com

2023/08/05

• 12:45:00 +07:00 🚀 Latest Newsletter: Our Fake Everything Future: Economies, Internets and Families (Issue #126) # markjgsmith.com

• 06:01:00 +07:00 Writing CSS In 2023: Is It Any Different Than A Few Years Ago? - Author Geoff Graham looks at how new CSS features have changed the way he approaches things. Lots covered including container queries, cascade layers, :is() and :where(), color functions, color palettes. # www.smashingmagazine.com

• 06:00:00 +07:00 If Web Components are so great, why am I not using them? - Last time I looked at Web Components I couldn't figure out if there was a way to render them serverside. Since most of everything I do at the minute is statically built on the server, they just don't look that interesting. I like Dave's idea to start over and build "Web Components for Wordpress Users". # daverupert.com

2023/08/04

• 06:02:00 +07:00 Apple have released a Vision OS developer kit. Looks like you can apply and if they like your project they'll send you a free Vision Pro headset. Kind of cool. # developer.apple.com

• 06:01:00 +07:00 Pixar, Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and NVIDIA form Alliance for OpenUSD to drive open standards for 3D content - I took a look at some examples that I found in an HN thread discussing OpenUSD and I have to admit it doesn't make much sense to me. It just looks like Python subroutines. Still it's good to see that open standards in this space are being developped, because it appears as though 3D content is going to start appearing in many more places in the next few years, especially with the introduction of the Vision Pro from Apple next year. And Pixar have the most experience working with 3D assets at scale. It will be interesting to see if the 3D workflows they have built translate well to other types of content creators.# www.apple.com

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Next generation tools and workflows for the creator economy (2022) - "Markdown unlocked a whole ecosystem of workflows, that have been generally centered around git version control platforms such as Github" - I wrote this blog post a little while ago all about markdown, jamstack websites, automation and a possible cross over with block editors. # markjgsmith.com

2023/08/03

• 06:49:00 +07:00 Yesterday's posts were created by an automated process. I had been building this the week running up to running out of build minutes.

  It's the first time it fully worked. I post the links to a feature branch with a special prefix during the day, and push the branch to the remote. At midnight a Github action runs, creating a PR with the latest links, then auto-merges them into main. That merge triggers a rebuild of the site. When I wake up all the links from the previous day have been published to the website. They have also been automatically posted to Twitter.

  That for me is why Jamstack sites are awesome, it opens up a entire world of workflow possibilities. I know the Jamstack term is going out of favour, but I'm going to keep using it for now. #

• 06:00:00 +07:00 The Reluctant Sysadmin's Guide to Securing a Linux Server - This covers the basic setup you need to do on a new linux server. Useful to keep a copy. I would be neat to turn this into a bash script that you could pass to new instances on startup. # pboyd.io

2023/08/02

• 06:02:00 +07:00 Repying to the latest Changelog homelab episode on Mastodon: "What I want in order to be more mobile is a device about the size of a portable battery that can host a Github actions equivalent and some cloud provider api fake endpoints so I can do cloud dev even without an internet connection. Then quickly sync when I am back online." # mastodon.social

• 06:01:00 +07:00 WordPress Playground lets you run WordPress entirely in your browser - I guess this is cool. I mean the fact that you can run a serverside program entirely on the client, suggests clientside tech has made some serious progress. I'm having a little trouble conceptualising what it actually means though. It's a little confusing. Having said that, one of the long term goals of my static site generator, which I haven't made much progress on so far, was to be able to run it entirely in the browser. To me THAT makes a lot of sense. And I suppose that if that ever does happen, having Wordpress also be runnable in that environment might be useful, because you could theoretically integrate it into the build process. How about some other serverside programs, like a queue, scheduler, s3 storage, and to go full on kitchen sink, how about a github actions ci/cd in the browser? Why not have an entire cloud dev stack running in the browser? # techcrunch.com

• 06:00:00 +07:00 What are "Rollups" in crypto? - I've been hearing the term mentioned a lot recently, so I wanted to know how they differ from side chains, and layer2's. I'm still slightly unclear, but it appears layer2's are parallel blockchains to main chains like Bitcoin and Etherium. They take some transaction load off of the main chain, process them, then eventually record them back to the main chain. Rollups are a popular type of Etherium layer2 that aim to help scale the overall network. Arbitrum and Optimism are popular optimistic rollups, whereas Starknet and Loopring are popular ZK rollups. In Bitcoin instead of rollups, the layer2 is Lightning. I've heard some people make the analogy that Lightning is to Bitcoin as the IP protocol is to the internet. # www.coinbase.com

2023/08/01

• 18:03:00 +07:00 My Journey Away from the JAMstack - Jared White replies to Brian's piece. He goes into a lot of detail, highlighting that the term Jamstack became so broad as to not mean anything. It just got way too confusing. This part rings true to me - "What Netlify gave us originally was a vision of how to deploy HTML-first websites easily via git commits and pushes". It's about git, files and repos everything else flows from that. The database is an enhancenent. # www.spicyweb.dev

• 18:02:00 +07:00 Is Jamstack Officially Finished? - Brian Rinaldi looks at the current state of the Jamstack movement. The thing I liked about the Jamstack movement was that it gave a name to static file websites, but made it a bit grander, so you could imagine a whole ecosystem of futuristic technologies. The important thing was no longer the database it was the code repository. It seems to me that repos are a more stable building block, because ultimately it's just files. That doesn't mean databases are bad, and actually it's a great idea to use databases in your setup, but the focus is on the repo. Around the repo you can build a whole lot more than just the website. It would be great if there was a term that communicated this idea, because 'static sites' doesn't really do that, whereas 'Jamstack', even though it's imperfect, sort of kind of vaguely does. # remotesynthesis.com

• 18:01:00 +07:00 The U.K. Government Is Very Close To Eroding Encryption Worldwide - There is a related argument in bitcoin that the base layer should be completely open so that you can see inflation bugs being exploited. With full privacy, the argument goes, you would never be able to discover the bad stuff going on. I'm undecided on this topic, I can see reasons for both. I'd like to know which would be better in a scenario where people needed to escape enslavement? If you were enslaved by people who were using encryption, would you want backdoors? Also isn't it a moot point if it's possible to enslave people in the open? Isn't the at infiniti scenerio for allowing encryption backdoors something like that bizare film where people are secretly inhabiting John Malcovich's consciousness? Except with AI it would happen to everyone all at once, and then who knows, like a massive consciousness traffic jam apocalypse of race conditions. What is the one thing that absolutely has to be solved by this technological decision? I would have thought averting enslavement, but are there even worse scenarios? It's such a difficult problem.# www.eff.org

• 18:00:00 +07:00 The World’s Last Internet Cafes - I featured this article in last week's newsletter issue #125. In some ways it's strange that the internet cafe era is coming to an end because it feels like only yesterday to me that the trend had started. In reality though it's been a while since mobile phones have become pervasive. I hope we find a way to carry on the community aspect of these spaces. I know there are co-working spaces, but we also need spaces that aren't specifically for work, where the vibe is more casual. # restofworld.org

2023/07/29

• 12:45:00 +0700 🚀 Latest Newsletter: Alternative Dev Culture (Issue #125) # markjgsmith.com

2023/07/23

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Toast UI - Grid - The Grid is a powerful library with features like data editing, filtering, sorting, and more, and can be used to customize the editor or the renderer to your desired format. # ui.toast.com

2023/07/22

• 12:45:00 +07:00 🚀 Latest Newsletter: The Crypto, AI & Synthetic Biology Trinity (Issue #124) # markjgsmith.com

• 06:01:00 +07:00 Wix’s new tool can create entire websites from prompts - It's important to keep aware of what the big players in personal websites development are doing, and according to Wix, the place we are heading is quite clearly AI powered tools. From tools that generate entire sites from chat prompts, with components for e-commerce, scheduling, food ordering and event ticketing, to text and content generation tools, through to image manipulation, site builder assistance and even domain name selection. It's all AI, all the time, for basically everything. # techcrunch.com

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Apple slams UK surveillance-bill proposals - I feel like there is pretty much always a snooper's charter about to be unleashed on everyone. Do they keep getting struck down or is it literally just the same bit of legislation? Probably affects all social media apps, like for example Twitter DMs, but I guess maybe those aren't encrypted. How will brits communicate if all the app makers leave? # www.bbc.com

2023/07/21

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Daily Overview: Wimbledon - I didn't get to watch any of Wimbledon this year, but I heard the tournament was on a few days ago. Got this daily overview in my inbox this morning, which publishes aerial photography of places from around the world. Made me smile a bit, remember that I'm british, and remember the time I went to Wimbledon, watched a match with a youngish Venus Williams. It was a really fun day out, even had some Pim's and of course strawberries and cream. I don't use this word very often, but it really was quite delightfull. Glad to see it's all still there, so many hours watching the coverage on the tele over the years. I used to be pretty good at tennis, long long time ago now. # dailyoverview.substack.com

2023/07/20

• 08:31:00 +07:00 I expect this will be rather controversial, but what the hell. Think of it as a small, slightly bizare, thought experiment.

  Asians + Jews VS Blacks + Whites

  What happens next? #

• 08:30:00 +07:00 How to Use AI to Do Stuff: An Opinionated Guide - Quite a good high level summary of which AI to use for which task to get best results. Has both free and paid for options in each category. After reading this I feel like I should try out Bing and Midjourney. # www.oneusefulthing.org

2023/07/19

• 06:31:00 +07:00 🎙Capital in the 21st Century with Allen Farrington Ep#434 (TFTC Podcast) - Listenned to this last night, and it's as interesting as the title suggests, though I will say that in places I felt the discussion was a little bit convoluted. I'm not sure what it was exactly, it's like there were way too many words being said as compared to the number of nuggets of knowledge being delivered or something. I find that happens a lot in finance. Maybe they need better metaphores. Maybe they just need to more fully understand the landscape. But that's ok, we are all learning, and they for sure know much more about it than me, and a lot of this stuff is new unchartered territory, so it's understandable. Having said that, I really liked the general approach, structure and I think this topic needs more exploration. I want to learn more about it. I want a better intuitive understanding of what capital-as-a-tool actually means. # tftc.io

• 06:30:00 +07:00 85% of AI Startups Will Be Out of Business in 3 Years, Major Investor Says - "I would say a lot of the startups today, 85% of them, will be out of business in three years. They will run out of funding. The big incumbents are going to outspend them." - IMO the way we have things setup does not appear to be fundamentally structurally sound and/or sustainable. The difficulty is we don't yet know what structurally sound and sustainable actually looks like, it's broad and complicated and looks different in different situations, yet we are trying to optimise everything into oblivion. Maybe this is where institutions need to step up their game and create a better environment for innovation. # www.thestreet.com

2023/07/18

• 17:36:00 +0700 🚀 New Post: Testing auto posts to social media # markjgsmith.com

• 17:03:00 +07:00 They're really not into RFK Jr over at the BBC are they? I've listenned to him on several long form podcast interviews and I thought he sounded pretty smart. A few anti-establishment views, and that might even be a good thing, but on the whole he didn't come across at all like this article describes him. I wonder why there is such an enormous disparity. It's so extreme it's almost like they know something that they can't or won't say. I guess that's how politics goes, there will likely be some scandals revealed in due course. # www.bbc.com

• 17:02:00 +07:00 A Bleak VC Outlook - There's an AI boom happening, but only a very small number of companies are benefitting. The startup ecosystem is getting decimated. I fear that this could spread to other non-tech sectors as established players essentially garner tools that make themselves invinsible, while still keeping a cut throat culture. There are many similar unsustainable large scale dynamics currently occuring, like AI eating the old websites internet, like actors being replaced by AIs etc, that could result in very broad dystopian futures. How do we avoid large scale collapse of culture? # www.newcomer.co

• 17:01:00 +07:00 Incumbents vs. Startups in the AI Race - The speed at which the large established companies have deployed AI products has been unnexpected. Historically startups have been able to out maneuver larger organisations, at least initially, because they are less encumberred by beaurocracy. That's led to a healthy diversity in the ecosystem, but the AI era appears to be unfolding somewhat differently. The startups aren't getting the chance to get a foothold. Interesting observation, it had occurred to me too. It's beyond totally crazy that 6 or 7 companies basically run most of tech. How is that sustainable on a planet with 8 billion people? # blog.autopilot.fund

• 17:00:00 +07:00 SEC Accepts Blackrock's ETF Application, signaling regulatory review - Several countries outside the US have been officially allowing ETFs, which make it easier to invest in a basket of crypto assets. So far the US has been blocking the creation of these financial instruments, so this is quite big news. Especially because Blackrock is such a large organisation. Also this week, the U.S. courts have pushed back on regulators for being overly zealous going after crypto companies. They officially ruled that Ripple's token XRP is not security. Securities typically have to follow much more stringent rules, and regulators have been attempting to apply these rules to many other cryptos, effectively putting them out of business. There appears to be a break in the clouds for the crypto industry. # cointelegraph.com

2023/07/17

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Ever notice that NATO.replace('O', 'ZI') === NATZI? Probably just a dumb coincidence. Everything boils down to debt, even the darn coincidences. #

2023/07/16

• 17:01:00 +07:00 🎙All-in Podcast Ep#137: Inflation cools, market rips, ripple/msft beat regulators, NATO summit, cocktails of youth - Another great episode, interesting macro analysis, especially as it contrasts significantly with Jeff Snider's, some crypto talk and I also found the Ukraine war coverage great, especially the wider discussion about NATO, since I want to get a better handle on what type of things these large institutions actually do. Mindboggling that they operate in some ways like a giant SaaS platform, e.g. NATO requires military "interop" with members, also that more members means more defense contracts for US military contractors. Anyway, happy Jason is back though I thought the gang held it together pretty well last week too. # podcasts.google.com

• 17:00:00 +07:00 Lessons From a ’90s CD Collection - I have fond memories of some of the periods the author describes, mix tapes, then CDs, but I also went through a mini-disk phase as my music tastes broadenned from alt rock into electronic. When I spend a few minutes thinking about it, I'm astonished at how different everything was back then. There was no interactive world wide web, there was albums. In fact when you think about the bigger picture, bands and albums and independent record stores, and going to bars and gigs, and talking to other music lovers, quite literally music was the internet. # www.insidehook.com

2023/07/15

• 12:45:00 +0700 🚀 Latest Newsletter: Synthetic Biology Inside (Issue #123) # markjgsmith.com

• 06:02:00 +07:00 MediumEditor - clone of medium.com inline editor toolbar - Open source markdown editor, very customisable, vanilla javascript, no frameworks required # github.com

• 06:01:00 +07:00 Elon Musk’s new xAI company launches to ‘understand the true nature of the universe’ - I think this announcement strengthens my wild prediction that Elon is moving to the UK. What better place to figure out the universe than the birthplace of science, while also expanding his ventures across mainland Europe?# www.theverge.com

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Stars leave Oppenheimer premiere as Hollywood actors' strike called - Hollywood actors join the already striking screenwriters. Interestingly, directors aren't on strike as their association reached an agreement recently. Maybe they should make a massive crazy movie with everyone protesting and picketing, with all movie universes colliding in the biggest blockbuster extravaganza movie of all time. It could be part improv, part AI generated, part papier maché collage. Get all their custumes made in France using the new clothes repair government subsidies program. # www.bbc.com

2023/07/14

• 06:03:00 +07:00 Elon Musk's Tesla poised to launch British household electricty suppplier - Interesting time to enter the UK energy market after a couple of years of turmoil and high prices. Could be a good base to roll out services into the EU. It’s likely part of a bigger strategy because I would have thought that the UK energy market would be a bit too small to get Musk interested. Start in a place where you know the language, then expand? Wouldn't it be cool if Musk announced he was moving to the UK? Maybe he's going to buy a 3rd division football team. # www.telegraph.co.uk

• 06:02:00 +07:00 French to get bonus to make do and mend clothes - Of course many of the big fashion brands aren't too happy and especially fast fashion companies, but it will be interesting to see if a burst in creativity occurs as customisation and DIY become more popular in the general population. Here in asia there are way more clothes repair shops, and they're great, you can go in and give them a sketch of what you want, then a few days later you pick up your amazing creation. The numbers they mention are kind of mindboggling, with 700000 tonnes of clothes ending up in landfills every year. # www.bbc.com

• 06:01:00 +07:00 Guide to Responsive-Friendly CSS Columns - I'm conscious that latest page has been mostly styled to look good on mobile. The links in particular look quite good on mobile because the text that goes with a link tends to fill the screen, but on desktop the screen is much wider and links look kind of thin. I'm thinking to try displaying the links section in 2 or 3 columns. That way desktop users will get a similar vibe to mobile users, with content fitting snuggly without the links looking desperarely thin and wimpy. Anyway this article does a great job of describing how to accomplish that. # css-tricks.com

• 06:00:00 +07:00 AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born - There's a lot of worry in this article but I think it's for good reason. It highlights a lot of the potential pitfalls of the AI powered future we are moving towards. I like that the author makes the observation that the web has already gone through several oh-everything-is-ruined situations, but also points out why this time the downsides might actually outway the bennefits. Incidentally I'm consistently amazed at both the high quality and high quantity of the Verge's output. How do they do it? Where are the other media orgs writting on similar topics at the same level? # www.theverge.com

2023/07/12

• 23:31:00 +07:00 Europe’s agenda for… not ‘the metaverse’ - This is the Politico piece that I got the previous EU commission document link from. It makes a lot more sense to me than the official document does, because the news format is well understood, we know what to expect from a media organisation. They produce a story that describes a situation. I guess I don't really understand what these government institutions produce - Also pretty sure I walked past Napoleon Bonaparte earlier, see the tweet of the day section, didn't expect to be writting that when I woke up this morning. # www.politico.com

• 23:30:00 +07:00 EU Strategy to lead on Web4.0 and virtual worlds - I want government institutions to be genuinely interested in our technological future, but when I read these types of documents I just start loosing interest after 3 or 4 paragraphs. I don't know exactly what it is with them. Maybe they are too full of ridiculously abstract ideas. Maybe it's because they seem to aim to rule the entire universe. Maybe it's something else. I find it difficult to be in the same frame of mind as the authors. I'm thinking in terms of APIs, tech specs, http requests, web services and what not. They are thinking in abstract soup-ese. I don't see how these views intersect in a meaningful way. How should I be evaluating them? They aren't a service provider company, or a media company, but they also aren't a religion. They are somewhere in between. I find them confusing. # ec.europa.eu

• 06:00:00 +07:00 Podcasts could unleash a new age of enlightenment - Really interesting piece that makes the observations that podcasts are changing how people interact, then draws some very compelling parallels with the enlightenment, which it turns out was the period where parasocial relationships emerged. It's a nice painting, I just wish I had more personal experience of the changes he speaks of, sadly though I listen to a ton of podcasts, I don't interact socially with many podcast listeners, though it's nice to hear that it's thing. # www.wired.com