Grrr… it turns out that browsers exhibit some very frustrating behaviour when it comes to the video element. Rob has the details…

adactio.com/links/22194

Wednesday session

Framework monoculture is a psychology problem as much as a tech problem. When one approach becomes “how things are done,” we unconsciously defend it even when standards would give us a healthier, more interoperable ecosystem. Psychologists call this reflex System Justification.

The explains a lot about React-driven front-end development!

When a single toolset becomes the default, we don’t just prefer it, we build narratives that justify it. And that’s when a tool quietly becomes a gate or even a destructive force.

adactio.com/links/22189

If you need to convince someone – your boss, your team, your family, or also yourself – then explain that going to a conference isn’t just another trip away from “real work.” No, this is the real work: investing in your craft, your connections, your growth.

Matthias nails why should go to events …like, say, Web Day Out.

There’s something magical about walking into a conference venue in the morning. The hum of first conversations, the smell of coffee, the anticipation, and the smiling faces. And the unspoken feeling that we all belong here, that we are here for the same reason: because we care about the same things and we all have, in some way or another, built our lives around the Web.

adactio.com/links/22190

Tim recently gave a talk at Smashing Conference in New York called One Step Ahead. Based on the slides, it looks like it was an excellent talk. Towards the end, there’s a slide that could be the tagline for Web Day Out: Betting on the browser is our best chance at long-...

Monday session

I don’t get out to gigs as much as I’d like. But for some reason, the past week has been packed with live music. On Tuesday I saw Ye Vagabonds. I’m particularly partial to their nice mandolin playing. It was a nice concert that felt like being in a Greenwich Village folk cl...

I’ve had some incredibly productive moments with AI design tools. But I’ve had at least as many slogs, where I can’t get it to do some basic thing I should’ve done myself 45 minutes ago.

My hunch: vibe coding is a lot like stock-picking – everyone’s always blabbing about their big wins. Ask what their annual rate of return is above the S&P, and it’s a quieter conversation 🤫

This, in my opinion, is how we end up with a firehose of AI hype, and yet zero signs of a software renaissance. As Mike Judge points out, the following graphs are flat: (a) new app store releases, (b) new domain names registered, (c) new Github repositories.

adactio.com/links/22185

Suppose somebody is using a blade. Perhaps they’re in the bathroom, shaving. Or maybe they’re in the kitchen, preparing food.

Suppose they cut themselves with that blade. This might have happened because the blade was too sharp. Or perhaps the blade was too dull.

Either way, it’s going to be tricky to figure out the reason just by looking at the wound.

But if you talk to the person, not only will you find out the reason, you’ll also understand their pain.

A URL shortener that’s dodgy by design.

adactio.com/links/22184

I’m not the only one who’s amazed by how much you can do with just a little CSS these days.

adactio.com/links/22182

This is a nifty initiative:

This site lets you rank the proposals you care about, giving us data we can use when reviewing which proposals should be taken on for 2026.

For the record, here’s my top ten:

1. Cross-document view transitions
2. Speculation Rules API
3. img sizes="auto" loading="lazy"
4. Customizable/stylable select
5. Invoker commands
6. Interoperable rendering of HTML fieldset/legend
7. Web Share API
8. CSS scroll-driven animations
9. CSS accent-color property
10. CSS hanging-punctuation property

adactio.com/links/22181

I prefer my tools to help me with repetitive tasks (and there are many of those in programming), understanding codebases, and authoring correct programs. I take offense at products that are designed to think for me. To remove the agency of my own understanding of the software I produce, and to cut connections with my coworkers. Even if LLMs lived up to the hype, we would still stand to lose all of that and our craft.

adactio.com/links/22180

I’ve worked in the tech industry for close to two decades at this point. I’ve seen how difficult it is to build quality products, but I’ve also seen that it can be done. It just feels like no one gives a shit anymore, beyond a handful of independent devs and small shops. It’s wild.

adactio.com/links/22179

I was messing about with some images on a website recently and while I was happy enough with the arrangement on large screens, I thought it would be better to have the images in a kind of carousel on smaller screens—a swipable gallery. My old brain immediately thought this ...

When I talk about large language models, I make sure to call them large language models, not “AI”. I know it’s a lost battle, but the terminology matters to me. The term “AI” can encompass everything from a series of if/else statements right up to Skynet and HAL 9000. I’ve ...

Stick with this. It’s worth it.

adactio.com/links/22176

A great interview with Ted Chiang: Predicting the most likely next word is different from having correct information about the world, which is why LLMs are not a reliable way to get the answers to questions, and I don’t think there is good evidence to suggest that they w...

I was supposed to be in Cork over the weekend. Not only was it high time I paid my mother a visit, but the Cork Folk Festival was happening too. So I booked some relatively cheap plane tickets for myself and Jessica back in August and noted down the days in my calendar. We...

Reading The End of the World is a Cul de Sac by Louise Kennedy.

Not going to Cork after all, thanks to Storm Amy.

Thanks, Amy.

Thamy.

Going to Cork. brb

I’ve personally struggled to implement a decentralized approach to quality in many of my teams. I believe in it from an academic standpoint, but in practice it works against the grain of every traditional management structure. Managers want ‘one neck to wring’ when things go wrong. Decentralized quality makes that impossible. So I’ve compromised, centralized, become the bottleneck I know slows things down. It’s easier to defend in meetings. But when I’ve managed to decentralize quality — most memorably when I was running a small agency and could write the org chart myself — I’ve been able to do some of the best work of my career.

adactio.com/links/22169

I’m fascinated by eponymous laws, and here’s a whole bunch of them gathered together, including a few I hadn’t heard of (mostly from the world of software).

adactio.com/links/22170

Wednesday session

It’s October. Autumn is wrapping itself around us, squeezing the leaves from the trees. Summer has slipped away, though it gave us a parting gift of a few pleasant days this week to sit outside at lunchtime. I’ve got a bit of a ritual now for the end of September. I go to S...

1. Start with the text
2. Use size intentionally
3. Contrast weights and styles
4. Play with spacing
5. Use colour, but don’t rely on it
6. Limit your font choices (but choose well and wisely)
7. Repeat, repeat, repeat
8. Test your system

adactio.com/links/22167

A profile of Tim and the World World Web.

adactio.com/links/22165

A fascinating look at the importance of undersea cables, taken from a new book called The Web Beneath the Waves.

adactio.com/links/22164

Netflix’s House Of Guinness is schlocky trash but it’s schlocky trash with Irish subtitles available, so I’m thoroughly enjoying watching/reading it.