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The online home of Jeremy Keith, an author and web developer living and working in Brighton, England.
IndieWeb
So the human web, the people net, the your-net. Whatever it is called, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that it is yours, if you want it. If you’re tired of the conglomerate-net, disgusted by the commercialised web, sick of being the product, allergic to The Algorithm, then you can have something else. Something of your own.
You want to upload your artwork? Write fanfic? World build? Document your developing Sistrum-playing skills? Discuss your experiences slice-of-life style? Experiment with poetry?
Do it.
Use wordpress if you want. Use Blogger. Hell, use Frontpage 98 if you want. Or learn some HTML And CSS and type it all up in notepad.exe. Or just HTML, don’t even bother with the CSS. Just make it yours.
Here’s a picture from Belfast Trad Fest of me in my happy place (playing in a fantastic session led by piper Mick O’Brien and fiddler Sean Smyth).
newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/why-ai-isnt-going-to-make-art
If you have a pet parrot, it’s fun to get it to say “Help, I’m trapped in the body of a parrot!”
If you have a photocopier, it’s fun to copy a piece of paper that says “I am a sentient photocopier!”
#LargeLanguageModels
In our current digital landscape, where a corporate algorithm tells us what to read, watch, drink, eat, wear, smell like, and sound like, human curation of the web is an act of revolution. A simple list of hyperlinks published under a personal domain name is subversive.
newsletter.danhon.com/archive/s19e01-do-reply-use-plain-language-and-tell-the/
Very good writing advice from Dan:
Use plain language. Tell the truth.
Related:
The reason why LLM text for me is bad is that it’s insipid, which is not a plain language word to use, but the secret is to use words like that tactically and sparingly to great effect.
They don’t write plainly because most of the text they’ve been trained on isn’t plain and clear. I’d argue that most of the text that’s ever existed isn’t plain and clear anyway.
Thursday session
So my observation is that 80% of the subject of accessibility consists of fairly simple basics that can probably be learnt in 20% of the time available. The remaining 20% are the difficult situations, edge cases, assistive technology support gaps and corners of specialised knowledge, but these are extrapolated to 100% of the subject, giving it a bad, anxiety-inducing and difficult reputation overall.
I love my feed reader:
Feed readers are an example of user agents: they act on behalf of you when they interact with publishers, representing your interests and preserving your privacy and security. The most well-known user agents these days are Web browsers, but in many ways feed readers do it better – they don’t give nearly as much control to sites about presentation and they don’t allow privacy-invasive technologies like cookies or JavaScript.
Also:
Feed support should be built into browsers, and the user experience should be excellent.
Agreed!
However, convincing the browser vendors that this is in their interest is going to be challenging – especially when some of them have vested interests in keeping users on the non-feed Web.
thenewstack.io/developers-rail-against-javascript-merchants-of-complexity/
Perhaps the tide is finally turning against complex web frameworks.
Wednesday session
Saying bye bye to the beach house to head back to Brighton.
Sitting out on the porch playing my mandolin on a sultry and steamy Saint Augustine night.
Reading The Shadow Of Perseus by Claire Heywood.
Feasting on fresh Florida shrimp, corn, and tomatoes. 🦐 🌽 🍅
Formation
Beach day
For many archivists, alarm bells are ringing. Across the world, they are scraping up defunct websites or at-risk data collections to save as much of our digital lives as possible. Others are working on ways to store that data in formats that will last hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years.
The show itself was an unbelievable outpouring of energy and love. I couldn’t help but imagine if anyone in the audience had decided to go on a lark, not knowing anything about it. I would think they would have been pretty damn impressed. This wasn’t just a couple of nerds poking around at instruments (except me), these were some serious musicians giving it their all.
chriscoyier.net/2024/08/14/there-are-two-kinds-of-advertising/
Contextual advertising works. Targeted advertising? Who knows!
Let’s see all that proof that 400+ requests for thirsty ass always-running JavaScript is just what we have to do to make advertising good.
These are great!!!
A library of CC-licensed photos.
Next time you’re tempted to use a generative “AI” tool to make an image for a slide deck, use this instead.
I’m sure my on-stage behaviour at Frostapalooza was total cringe, but I don’t care because I was having a great time!
Aw, man, this gets me in the feels!
Just over here sobbing while reading Jeremy’s recount of Frostapalooza.
Jessica on the beach.
I bet some of the Florida locals are going to be very upset by this blatant propaganda appearing in their sky.
