Tags: analysis

Balisage: Metaphors We Code By

My talk, Building, was about the metaphors we use to talk about the work we do on the web. So I’m interested in this analysis of the metaphors used to talk about markup:

• Data is documents, processing data is clerking
• Data is trees, processing data is forestry
• Data is buildings, processing data is construction
• Data is a place, processing data is a journey
• Data is a fluid, processing data is plumbing
• Data is a textile, processing data is weaving
• Data is music, processing data is performing

(optional.is) Link Rot

Following on from my recently-lost long bet, this is a timely bit of data spelunking from Brian analysing the linkrot of 1400 links over 18 years of time.

Cloudflare’s privacy-first Web Analytics is now available for everyone

Cloudfare’s alternative to Google Analytics is now available—for free—regardless of whether your a Cloudflare customer or not:

Being privacy-first means we don’t track individual users for the purposes of serving analytics. We don’t use any client-side state (like cookies or localStorage) for analytics purposes. Cloudflare also doesn’t track users over time via their IP address, User Agent string, or any other immutable attributes for the purposes of displaying analytics — we consider “fingerprinting” even more intrusive than cookies, because users have no way to opt out.

Web Almanac 2020

I spent most of the weekend reading through this and I’ve still barely scratched the surface—a lot of work has gone to the analyses and write-ups!

The sections on accessibility and performance get grimmer each year but the raw numbers on framework adaption are refreshingly perspective-setting.

CSS Stats

A handy tool for getting an overview of your site’s CSS:

CSS Stats provides analytics and visualizations for your stylesheets. This information can be used to improve consistency in your design, track performance of your app, and diagnose complex areas before it snowballs out of control.

The Flawed Reasoning Behind the Replication Crisis — Nautilus

Bayesian analysis vs. statistical significance, clearly explained.

Why Data Is Never Raw - The New Atlantis

Raw data is both an oxymoron and a bad idea; to the contrary, data should be cooked with care.

Untold AI: The Untold | Sci-fi interfaces

Prompted by his time at Clearleft’s AI gathering in Juvet, Chris has been delving deep into the stories we tell about artificial intelligence …and what stories are missing.

And here we are at the eponymous answer to the question that I first asked at Juvet around 7 months ago: What stories aren’t we telling ourselves about AI?

How Fast Is Amp Really? - TimKadlec.com

An excellent, thorough, even-handed analysis of AMP’s performance from Tim. The AMP format doesn’t make that much of a difference, the AMP cache does speed things up (as would any CDN), but it’s the pre-rendering that really delivers the performance boost …as long as you give up your URLs.

But right now, the incentives being placed on AMP content seem to be accomplishing exactly what you would think: they’re incentivizing AMP, not performance.

Winning on Mobile

This looks like a handy tool for doing some quick’n’dirty competitor analysis when it comes to performance: create a scoreboard of sites to rank by speed (and calculate the potential revenue impact).

Many factors contribute to an engaging mobile experience. And speed is chief among them. Most people will abandon a mobile site visit if the page takes more than a few seconds to load. Use our Speed Scorecard to see how your site stacks up to the competition.

What’s wrong with big data? | New Humanist

The view that more information uncritically produces better decisions is visibly at odds with our contemporary situation.

A superb piece of research and writing by James, skewering the technological determinism that underlies the current faith in “big data.” At best, this misplaced trust is inaccurate; at worst, it is deadly.

To the algorithmic imagination, the practice of journalism and the practice of terrorism appear to be functionally identical.

Battery Status readout as a privacy risk

The security research that went into improving the spec for the Battery Status API. This is why it’s so important that the web holds itself to high standard.

Even most unlikely mechanisms bring unexpected consequences from privacy point of views. That’s why it is necessary to analyze new features, standards, designs, architectures - and products with a privacy angle. This careful process will yield results, decrease the number of issues, abuses and unwelcome surprizes.

The problem with our data-driven world by Alexis C. Madrigal

I really like this comparison between Waldsterben and the current situation with the web after years of pervasive tracking.

Abstractivate: Systems Thinking about WIT

As always, systems thinking makes a lot of sense for analysing problems, even if—or, especially if—it’s a social issue.

Laser Age / The Dissolve

A great series of articles on the sci-fi films of the ’60s and ’70s:

The Laser Age examines a rich period in the history of science-fiction filmmaking that began in the late 1960s and faded away by the mid 1980s.

…all wrapped up in a nice responsive design too.

Galaxy Zoo Quench

This is quite remarkable. Now that the Galaxy Zoo project from Zooniverse has successfully classified all its data (already a remarkable achievement), its volunteers are now collaborating on writing a scientific paper.

There’s something going on here. This isn’t just a “cool” or “cute” link—this is the first stirring of something entirely new that is made possible by network technology.

Inside the Battle of Hoth: The Empire Strikes Out

A damning analysis of the Empire’s military strategy at the battle of Hoth, complete with illustrations. The comments are good too:

Guys, cut Palpatine some slack. He’s still in his first term as Emperor…

When the Nerds Go Marching In - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic

The fascinating story of how a dream team of geeks helped Obama to victory. Personally, I think it’s all about the facial hair. I mean, how could they lose with Trammell’s beard to guide them?

Mobile first: the revolution is well under way - Generated Content by David Storey

David takes a look at worldwide trends in web browsing, pointing out where mobile traffic exceeds desktop …and we’re not necessarily talking about smartphones here either.

It would be possible to travel from the Niger Delta on the west coast of Africa, to the horn of Africa on the east coast, without passing through a country where people surf more on desktop than a mobile phone.

» Explaining the iOS and Android mobile browser usage disparity Cloud Four Blog

A really fascinating analysis by Jason into the apparent disparity in web browsing between Android and iOS devices: it turns out that the kind of network connection could be a big factor.