I’ve read 16 of these and some of the others are on my to-read list. It’s a pretty good selection, although the winking inclusion of God Emperor Of Dune by the SEO guy verges on trolling.
As a self-initiated learner, being able to view source brought to mind the experience of a slow walk through someone else’s map.
This ability to “observe” software makes HTML special to work with.
You are viewing a humanly curated list of fine personal & independent email newsletters that are updated regularly. No algorithms ever!
And remember: you can subscribe to most newsletters via RSS rather than email.
Engineers who care about the open culture of the web should recognize that the threats to that culture come not only from Digital Enclosure by large, private companies of the most important pieces of the web.
They should also recognize the risks of Technical Enclosure, and the non-technical value of the #ViewSource affordance in perpetuating the open culture of web development.
This anthology of Steve Jobs interviews, announcements and emails is available to read for free as a nicely typeset web book.
A look at back at what wasn’t in the headlines this year.
When Dan wrote this a week ago, I thought it sounded very far-fetched. Now it sounds almost inevitable.
Guess which format is going to outlast all these proprietary syndication formats. I’d say RSS, which I believe to be true, but really, it’s HTML.
Adrian brings an excellent historical perspective to the horrifying behaviour of Facebook’s in-app browsers:
Somewhere along the way, despite a reasonably strong anti-framing culture, framing moved from being a huge no-no to a huge shrug. In a web context, it’s maligned; in a native app context, it’s totally ignored.
Yup, frames are back—but this time they’re in native apps—with all their shocking security implications:
The more I think about it, the more I cannot believe webviews with unfettered JavaScript access to third-party websites ever became a legitimate, accepted technology. It’s bad for users, and it’s bad for websites.
By the way, this also explains that when you try browsing the web in an actual web browser on your mobile device, every second website shoves a banner in your face saying “download our app.” Browsers offer users some protection. In-app webviews offer users nothing but exploitation.
This is a great combination of rigorous research and great data visualisation.
From Patrick Tanguay:
A list of small micro-publishers — most of them run by one person — putting out great content through their websites, newsletters, and podcasts.
192 more stories of progress from 2021.
Some welcome perspective on healthcare, conservation, human rights, and energy.
Prompted by my post on tracking, Chris does some soul searching about his own use of tracking.
I’m interested not just in the ethical concerns and my long-time complacency with industry norms, but also as someone who very literally sells advertising.
He brings up the point that advertisers expect to know how many people opened a particular email and how many people clicked on a particular link. I’m sure that’s right, but it’s also beside the point: what matters is how the receiver of the email feels about having that information tracked. If they haven’t given you permission to do it, you can’t just assume they’re okay with it.
Receive one email a day for 30 days, each featuring at least one HTML element.
Right up my alley!
A profile of Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive:
Tech’s walled gardens might make it harder to get a perfect picture, but the small team of librarians, digital archivists and software engineers at the Internet Archive plan to keep bringing the world the Wayback Machine, the Open Library, the Software Archive, etc., until the end of time. Literally.
A rant from Robin. I share his frustration and agree with his observations.
I wonder how we can get the best of both worlds here: the ease of publishing newsletters, with all the beauty and archivability of websites.
This was an absolute delight to read! Usually when you read security-related write-ups, the fun comes from the cleverness of the techniques …but this involved nothing cleverer than dev tools. In this instance, the fun is in the telling of the tale.