Wednesday session in Amsterdam
Wednesday session in Amsterdam
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IndieWeb
Going to Amsterdam. brb
Going to Amsterdam. brb
It feels awfully retrograde to me that the season finalés of both Andor and Dr. Who depict women staying at home to mind the kids while the dudes go off to work.
It feels awfully retrograde to me that the season finalés of both Andor and Dr. Who depict women staying at home to mind the kids while the dudes go off to work.
Tuesday session
Tuesday session
No build frontend is so much more fun
The joy came flooding back to me! It turns out browser APIs are really good now.
Going to Cork, like. brb
Going to Cork, like. brb
Stronger Design Principles Start with One Question: ‘Versus What?’
In order for principles to truly drive the work and serve as a good framework for the outcomes, they have to be debated, opinionated, and painful.
Yes! Design principles aren’t there to make you feel good; they should provoke arguments.
One of the tests that I’ve developed in thinking through writing down principles, design or otherwise, is to ask the question: “versus what?”.
Toolmen | A Working Library
Engaging with AI as a technology is to play the fool—it’s to observe the reflective surface of the thing without taking note of the way it sends roots deep down into the ground, breaking up bedrock, poisoning the soil, reaching far and wide to capture, uproot, strangle, and steal everything within its reach. It’s to stand aboveground and pontificate about the marvels of this bright new magic, to be dazzled by all its flickering, glittering glory, its smooth mirages and six-fingered messiahs, its apparent obsequiousness in response to all your commands, right up until the point when a sinkhole opens up and swallows you whole.
👏👏👏
Ensloppification – David Bushell – Web Dev (UK)
Frankly, I’d rather quit my career than live in the future they’re selling. It’s the sheer dystopian drabness of it. Mediocrity as a service.
I tried the tab-completion slot machines; not my cup of tea. I tried image generation and was overcome with literal depression. I don’t want a future as a “prompt artist”.
I’m mostly linking this for what it says, but oh boy, do I love the way it says it with this wonderful HTML web compenent.
Thursday session
Thursday session
Close to the metal: web design and the browser
goodinternetmagazine.com/close-to-the-metal-web-design-and-the-browser/
It seems like the misguided perception of needing to use complex tools and frameworks to build a website comes from a thinking that web browsers are inherently limited. When, in fact, browsers have evolved to a tremendous degree
Introducing: Webbed Sites (Webbed Briefs)
I heard you like divs…
The Who Cares Era | dansinker.com
AI is, of course, at the center of this moment. It’s a mediocrity machine by default, attempting to bend everything it touches toward a mathematical average. Using extraordinary amounts of resources, it has the ability to create something good enough, a squint-and-it-looks-right simulacrum of normality. If you don’t care, it’s miraculous.
In the Who Cares Era, the most radical thing you can do is care.
In a moment where machines churn out mediocrity, make something yourself. Make it imperfect. Make it rough. Just make it.
When evaluating any technology I understand why it’s important to ask “how might this benefit me” but it’s more important to first ask “how might this harm others”.
When evaluating any technology I understand why it’s important to ask “how might this benefit me” but it’s more important to first ask “how might this harm others”.
Uses
I don’t use large language models. My objection is to using them is ethical. I know how the sausage is made.
I wanted to clarify that. I’m not rejecting large language models because they’re useless. They can absolutely be useful. I just don’t think the usefulness outweighs...
What’s new in web - YouTube
Nice to see Clearleft’s browser support policy get a shoutout from Rachel during her Google IO talk.
Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used | Frank Elavsky
Keeping up appearances | deadSimpleTech
Looking at LLM usage and promotion as a cultural phenomenon, it has all of the markings of a status game. The material gains from the LLM (which are usually quite marginal) really aren’t why people are doing it: they’re doing it because in many spaces, using ChatGPT and being very optimistic about AI being the “future” raises their social status. It’s important not only to be using it, but to be seen using it and be seen supporting it and telling people who don’t use it that they’re stupid luddites who’ll inevitably be left behind by technology.
Monday session
Monday session
The luxury of saying no.
If I’m understanding Greg correctly here, he’s saying it’s okay for people to use large language models …because they’re being forced to?
Reading Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor.
Reading Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor.
Tools
One persistent piece of slopaganda you’ll here is this:
“It’s just a tool. What matters is how you use it.”
This isn’t a new tack. The same justification has been applied to many technologies.
Leaving aside Kranzberg’s first law, large language models are the very antithe...
When someone breezily tells me how they’re using a large language model, I can feel myself channeling Luthen Rael. “How nice for you” I say, the words seething with contempt.
When someone breezily tells me how they’re using a large language model, I can feel myself channeling Luthen Rael.
“How nice for you” I say, the words seething with contempt.
Reminder: standard ticket pricing for UX London ends at midnight tomorrow (Friday), so if you haven’t got your ticket yet, get in there now! https://ti.to/clearleft/ux-london-2025
Reminder: standard ticket pricing for UX London ends at midnight tomorrow (Friday), so if you haven’t got your ticket yet, get in there now!
The landing zone
Also sprach Wittgenstein:
Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt.
Or in English, thus spoke Wittgenstein:
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
Language and thinking are intertwined. I’m not saying there’s anything to the strong ...
Who’s Afraid of a Hard Page Load?
Why single-page apps are just not worth it:
Here’s the problem: your team almost certainly doesn’t have what it takes to out-engineer the browser. The browser will continuously improve the experience of plain HTML, at no cost to you, using a rendering engine that is orders of magnitude more efficient than JavaScript.
Meanwhile, the browser marches on, improving the UX of every website that uses basic HTML semantics. For instance: browsers often don’t repaint full pages anymore.
Can Directories Rise Again? - The History of the Web
Search has bent in quality towards its earliest days, difficult to navigate and often unhelpful. And the remedy may be the same as it was a quarter century ago.
Wednesday session
Wednesday session
Remember intranets? Pepperidge Farm remembers
Remember intranets?
Pepperidge Farm remembers
