611 lines
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Plaintext
611 lines
31 KiB
Plaintext
• Essays
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• Newsletter
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• Ebook
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• Contact
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Baldur Bjarnason
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Web dev at the end of the world, from Hveragerði, Iceland
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I’m available as a consultant. I also have a book out.
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21 November 2022
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Programming is a Pop Culture
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(What follows is an extract from Out of the Software Crisis, lightly edited to
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work as a blog post.)
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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So I think what happened is computing has turned into pop culture and the
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universities are not helping in general, at least not in the US.
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So, Cicero---anybody know a good Cicero quote having to do with the present
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and past? Let's check your classical education here. So, you know who
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Cicero was. He was one of those old Roman guys.
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So, Cicero once wrote: 'He who knows only his own generation remains
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forever a child.'
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Programming and Scaling (Alan Kay, 2011)
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The programming pop culture defines change—any change—as progress. Most
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developers, myself included, have a fascination with novelty. If it’s new, then
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it must be an improvement. You even hear this stated outright as an argument by
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developers: it’s newer and therefore better. Trends in software development are
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rarely based on objective observation or sensible practice. This endless
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chasing of trends leads to projects being needlessly rewritten, code being
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abandoned, and new projects being started when fixing the bugs in an old
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project would have done the same. The stocks of the software development system
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are flushed out at a moment’s notice simply because the developers found
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something shinier.
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Experienced developers are aware of this tendency in themselves and work to
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mitigate it, but younger developers are often under the mistaken impression
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that this is how software development works. Unless they can pare back this
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tendency or are matched with teammates who hold them back, this tendency can
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lead to immense destruction of value for an organisation.
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Pop cultures favour the visual aesthetic of the day. We all know what sort of
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aesthetic designers commonly favour. Small, low-contrast text, lots of
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whitespace, no pure whites or pure blacks (just greys). The details vary with
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fashion, but each generation of designers has a preferred visual aesthetic.
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That aesthetic tests poorly; the text is illegible; the layout doesn’t have
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enough contrast. The information density is so sparse it’s effectively
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non-existent.
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Looks pretty, though.
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Coders have a similar tendency, their preferred aesthetic is just a bit
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different, but as with designers, it tests horribly when put in front of
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genuine users. The exact details of the preferred aesthetic tend to vary from
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generation to generation. One group prefers light-on-dark text (despite not
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suffering from conditions that benefit from dark mode) and unusable
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hyper-complex layouts where everything is configurable. Another group goes for
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ultra-minimalism where nothing is shown by default. You constantly scrub around
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and hunt for a button, a widget—anything that even vaguely resembles an
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affordance. This is usually not an issue if you have designers on the team. If
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you’re letting the programmers design the user interface or are a programmer
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designing a user interface, you need to be aware of it.
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But this adherence to a specific aesthetic isn’t limited to designs. It’s also
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an issue when it comes to the code itself.
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The programming pop culture favours specific code aesthetics based on the
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trends of the day. I’m not talking about code style or formatting. The code in
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a project should adhere to a single style, simple as that. The issue is that
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the programming pop culture demands that code exhibit the latest popular
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aesthetics of rigour, formality, and cleverness. Whether the code actually is
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rigorous, formal, or clever matters less. A few years ago, as the popularity of
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the Ruby programming language peaked, a certain dynamism and trickery were en
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vogue. It didn’t matter if you were writing in Ruby, JavaScript, or
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Objective-C. Your code had to have a level of “magic” to it. Metaprogramming,
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syntax-hacking languages to create ad hoc Domain-Specific Languages, tricks
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with extreme late binding, and more were frequent topics on developer weblogs
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and forums. Even a phrase like “objective-c runtime metaprogramming” will date
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you to a specific generation of native app developers almost down to a single
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year.
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As with all of these pop culture trends in programming, this led to unreadable
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code that was impossible to work with or fix as soon as it faded from popular
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consciousness.
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The current trend is towards the aesthetics of correctness. Everything has to
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look like it has strong or static typing. It doesn’t have to really have static
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typing. That can all be made up after the fact in a declaration file. It merely
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needs to have the aesthetics of types. Type annotations everywhere,
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implementing logic through type system trickery, and forcing any and all
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dynamism out of the system in the name of correctness is the name of the game.
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A part of this trend is the unpopularity of the approaches and languages that
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are seen as less rigorous. CSS is dropped in favour of statically typed
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CSS-in-JS approaches. HTML is dropped in favour of a strict inline XML-like
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markup format called JSX. Just a few years ago, everybody in web development
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hated and dropped XML and XHTML specifically because it was too strict and felt
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less dynamic and flexible than HTML. At some point, pop culture will bore of
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this and swing its attention back the other way.
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It’s a fashion industry. Trends come; trends go. The lack of historical
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awareness is considered by most to be a feature.
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This rigour is useful in moderation. Static typing does prevent bugs. Usually,
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they are the same sort of bugs unit testing prevents. Both have immense value
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as tools to manage your software development. Currently, the fashion is to
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favour static typing over unit testing for establishing a certain base level of
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correctness in your code. At some point, they are likely to switch again. They
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have a couple of times in the past. That you could use both at the same time
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and get the benefits of both doesn’t enter the discourse. Static typing with
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compile-time correctness checks has its uses. So do dynamism, extreme late
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binding, and metaprogramming. Most of these approaches can be used together,
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but that isn’t how pop culture works. Pop culture demands there be only one
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winner at a time. Choose one, not whichever works the best at each time.
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Product development can’t indulge in being pop culture. Be wary of these
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popularity contests.
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These issues with programming culture aren’t new.
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Jamie Zawinski calls it the “Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers” model. We
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can’t do much to change the nature of the field by now—Alan Kay has certainly
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tried—but we can mitigate the harm done by the trend-seeking. We can work to
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ensure that everybody on the team, programmers and designers, is aligned, and
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have the same understanding of what matters and how to accomplish it.
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For that, you need everybody to understand the context they are working in—the
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works of their field and how they are received. You need to develop taste and
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understanding.
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You need research.
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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Bonus Alan Kay quote on programming as a pop culture that I didn’t include in
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the book:
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But pop culture holds a disdain for history. Pop culture is all about
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identity and feeling like you’re participating. It has nothing to do with
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cooperation, the past or the future—it’s living in the present. I think the
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same is true of most people who write code for money. They have no idea
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where [their culture came from]—and the Internet was done so well that most
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people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather
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than something that was man-made.
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Alan Kay, Dr. Dobb’s Interview with Alan Kay
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━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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Out of the Software Crisis
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Out of the Software Crisis by Baldur Bjarnason
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Software projects keep failing, not because we don’t have the right team or
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tools but because our software development system is broken. Out of the
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Software Crisis is a guide to fixing your software projects with
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systems-thinking making them more resilient to change and less likely to fail.
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Systems-Thinking For Software Projects
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WTF is a Framework?
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The response to Out of the Software Crisis has been amazing
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Join the Newsletter
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Subscribe to the Out of the Software Crisis newsletter to get my weekly (at
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least) essays on how to avoid or get out of software development crises.
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Join now and get a free PDF of three bonus essays from Out of the Software
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Crisis.
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[ ]
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Archive
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Writing
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||
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||
• GDPR and American AIs 3 April 2023
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||
• Regulating AI (plus links & notes) 27 March 2023
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||
• AI summaries and AI healthcare (links & notes) 20 March 2023
|
||
• Keeping up with and assessing AI research (links & notes) 13 March 2023
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||
• Waiting for the AI Godot (Links & Notes) 6 March 2023
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||
• Copyright, Situating Search, and other links & notes 27 February 2023
|
||
• Deno, Shakespeare's Emoticon, Return to Office, and other links and notes
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||
20 February 2023
|
||
• Book production, AI, Single-Page-Apps, and other links and notes 13
|
||
February 2023
|
||
• Some thoughts on how to make a book, three months after I made one 10
|
||
February 2023
|
||
• AI is a Hail Mary pass and other links & notes 6 February 2023
|
||
• EU and copyright protections for AI-generated works and other notes 30
|
||
January 2023
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||
• On the Layoffs, Narcissists, and Other Links & Notes 23 January 2023
|
||
• Madeline, Existential Terror and other links & notes 16 January 2023
|
||
• Out of the Software Crisis Available on Kindle 28 December 2022
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||
• A lot can happen in a month: on AI art and the fediverse 16 December 2022
|
||
• The response to Out of the Software Crisis has been amazing 5 December 2022
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||
• Programming is a Pop Culture 21 November 2022
|
||
• WTF is a Framework? 18 November 2022
|
||
• Theory-building and why employee churn is lethal to software companies 16
|
||
November 2022
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||
• Great apps are rare 15 November 2022
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||
• (Released!) Out of the Software Crisis: Systems-Thinking for Software
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Projects 14 November 2022
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• Out of the Software Crisis: the ebook is imminent! 11 November 2022
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||
• I wrote a book – now you must suffer with me 26 October 2022
|
||
• I’m offering research, writing, and notetaking coaching for techies and
|
||
programmers 17 October 2022
|
||
• Playacting genius: the performative logic of reasoning from first
|
||
principles 18 September 2022
|
||
• I don't care how you web dev; I just need more better web apps 4 July 2022
|
||
• Essay Archive 2 June 2022
|
||
• On online collaboration and our obligations as makers of software 2 June
|
||
2022
|
||
• The different kinds of notes 6 May 2022
|
||
• What I learned about markdown from interviewing a bunch of people 6 May
|
||
2022
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||
• The Colophon Cards User Survey 2 February 2022
|
||
• How to keep up with web development without falling into despair 31 January
|
||
2022
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||
• Let's just not talk about 2021 and look forward instead 5 January 2022
|
||
• Making Colophon Cards 29 November 2021
|
||
• What do I need to read to be a great at CSS? 19 October 2021
|
||
• The event listening toolkit: five ways to get out of an event handling mess
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||
11 October 2021
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||
• FormData and fetch, why is serialising a form such a pain? 29 September
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||
2021
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• The Single-Page-App Morality Play 6 September 2021
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• Software Crisis 2.0 25 August 2021
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• Lessons in Interactivity, 2021 redux 13 August 2021
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• Nobody gives a hoot about groupthink 29 July 2021
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||
• Spontant: in praise of grey 26 July 2021
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||
• Ways of reading without the influence of community 6 July 2021
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||
• The Open-Source Software bubble that is and the blogging bubble that was 11
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May 2021
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||
• You are what you do, not what you say or write 4 May 2021
|
||
• The Curious Case Of The Crashing Conic Gradient And How I Used A Technique
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||
I Learned In The 90s To Fix It 28 April 2021
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||
• 136 facts every web dev should know before they burn out and turn to
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landscape painting or nude modelling 21 April 2021
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||
• I’m available for projects and other work 20 April 2021
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||
• Which type of novelty-seeking web developer are you? 31 March 2021
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• Every Day; a Fair Warning (You Should Read These Articles) 3 March 2020
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||
• Weeknote 3 - Resistance and the dull blade 10 February 2020
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• Weeknote 2 (2020) - News, Bad News, and Star Wars 2 February 2020
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• Weeknote 1 (2020) - Ending the hiatus 26 January 2020
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• The Ed Tech Conundrum 2 January 2020
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• Thinking about the past, present, and future of web development 1 January
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2020
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• The Web Falls Apart 3 November 2019
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• Weeknote 19 ─ blog redesign and changes at work 27 October 2019
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• When life hands you lemonades, sit down and contemplate the meaning of life
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10 September 2019
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• Weeknote 18 - Uncertainty and Discomfort 11 August 2019
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• Web Dev: The Red Queen Wire Mommy of Modern Tech 6 August 2019
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• Weeknote 16 – Vacation 29 July 2019
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• Weeknote 15 - Counting Down the Days 1 July 2019
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• Weeknote 14 - Shadows and DOMs 25 June 2019
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• Weeknote 13 - The weight of deadlines 16 June 2019
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• That Web Dev Thing Where Everybody Says Something Clever Involving Toast 15
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June 2019
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• SwiftUI, Privacy, macOS, and the Web 9 June 2019
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• Weeknote 12 - The genres of web media 5 June 2019
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• The Aesthetics of Concentration 3 June 2019
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• Weeknote 11 - do I have focus? 29 May 2019
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• Weeknote 10 - A clear view and more reading 20 May 2019
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• Weeknote 9 - Being contemplative, finishing a photo project 12 May 2019
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• Weeknote 8 – Moving, Endgame, and more musings on colour 5 May 2019
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• Weeknote 7 - Story length and that thing about colour 29 April 2019
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• Weeknote 6 – Star Trek, rest and spring finally arrives 22 April 2019
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• Weeknote 5 – Stuff, comics, superheroes, and other nonsense 14 April 2019
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• Weeknote 4 – TV week with The Expanse 7 April 2019
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• Weeknote 3 — MVPs, fatigue, and emotional crutches 31 March 2019
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• Web Development: with great power comes the ability to make great mistakes
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24 March 2019
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• Weeknote 2 - Web Development Mistakes, Mary Sues, and Icy Spring 24 March
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2019
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• Weeknote 1 18 March 2019
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• Hitchcock and the author construct 12 February 2019
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• Seams, Stitches, And The Decline Of The Mac 3 November 2018
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• Neither Paper Nor Digital Does Active Reading Well 3 September 2018
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• Focusing on market share blinds you to growth 7 January 2018
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• The future of Software Development: Just Business Logic 7 January 2018
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• Remote work is a completely different beast 7 January 2018
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• Hypertext is still the fundamental model of the web 7 January 2018
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• Leftover Thoughts From 2017 7 January 2018
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• Over-engineering is under-engineering 25 November 2017
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• The process is the thing 23 March 2017
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||
• Von Be Don: A few notes on a recent digital publishing project in Iceland
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19 February 2017
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||
• W3C and EME: it isn't about preventing DRM but saving the W3C 14 February
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||
2017
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||
• Unpopular opinion: dismissing indirect pointers is a mistake 4 February
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||
2017
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||
• Anger feels like poison 24 January 2017
|
||
• Is JavaScript more fragile? 7 December 2016
|
||
• Debating Progressive Enhancement 5 December 2016
|
||
• The downside of believing in Apple 1 November 2016
|
||
• A short primer on Icelandic politics on the day of the 2016 election 29
|
||
October 2016
|
||
• The Tragedy/Farce of the Open Web according to journalists 18 October 2016
|
||
• Notes on debating for the web development community 17 October 2016
|
||
• Addendum on loose coupling and the iOS App Store 11 October 2016
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• Idle thoughts on modularity and loose coupling in digital media 9 October
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||
2016
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• When fear is rational 24 June 2016
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||
• Once upon a time, I couldn't imagine a better word processor than Word 7
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June 2016
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• A thought to consider 24 May 2016
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||
• A few thoughts on standardisation, W3C, and the IDPF 16 May 2016
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||
• Filling in the gaps – the dynamics of zero marginal cost 21 April 2016
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||
• Which CMS/blog system would you choose? 12 April 2016
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||
• A few simplified points on web and document security 30 March 2016
|
||
• Judge the work 21 January 2016
|
||
• Why did Paul Graham argue against equality? 13 January 2016
|
||
• Purpose, Joy, Capability 4 January 2016
|
||
• You can't fix the App Store, so here's how you fix it 20 November 2015
|
||
• Why I am worried about Twitter and why you should be too 4 November 2015
|
||
• The crossroads or the wilderness 23 October 2015
|
||
• You can't solve people problems with software 28 September 2015
|
||
• The discussion about ad blocking is very dumb (but not in the way you
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||
think) 18 September 2015
|
||
• This is not a book, but it is a podcast 10 September 2015
|
||
• A week of 'This is not a book' 7 September 2015
|
||
• Launching "This is not a book" – what it is and why you should be
|
||
interested 1 September 2015
|
||
• My kingdom for a new bookstore 28 August 2015
|
||
• Modern software sucks 26 August 2015
|
||
• The cost versus benefits of disorganised programming power 25 August 2015
|
||
• Who benefits the most from Open Source Software? 25 August 2015
|
||
• Sex Apocalypse Later 24 August 2015
|
||
• Random thoughts on work and that Amazon thing 23 August 2015
|
||
• Bookmarks – UI flaws and other great capers 14 August 2015
|
||
• Bookmarks – learnable programming 13 August 2015
|
||
• Bookmarks – More money for open-source 12 August 2015
|
||
• Bookmarks – Leaving bosses 11 August 2015
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||
• Bookmarks – Promoting other people's work 10 August 2015
|
||
• Bookmarks – What Would Kamala Khan Do? 7 August 2015
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||
• Bookmarks – Trickle down golden geese 6 August 2015
|
||
• Bookmarks – Hateviews are us 5 August 2015
|
||
• Bookmarks – Milk it 4 August 2015
|
||
• Iterating the web away:
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losing the next generation 4 August 2015
|
||
• Bookmarks – You haven't been paying attention 3 August 2015
|
||
• Bookmarks – It's a note card world, we just live in it 31 July 2015
|
||
• Bookmarks – Just call it Smylfeste 30 July 2015
|
||
• Bookmarks – That one is shaped like an idiot 29 July 2015
|
||
• Blogger nostalgia 28 July 2015
|
||
• Bookmarks – Make it simpler 28 July 2015
|
||
• Wet streets cause rain and criminal responsibility 27 July 2015
|
||
• Tweet bookmarks galore 26 July 2015
|
||
• Random links that catch my fancy, part four of ∞ 23 July 2015
|
||
• Random links that catch my fancy, part three of ∞ 22 July 2015
|
||
• Mythic visions of sexuality 21 July 2015
|
||
• Random links that catch my fancy, part two of ∞ 21 July 2015
|
||
• Random links that catch my fancy, part one of ∞ 20 July 2015
|
||
• An exercise for the reader in integration and modularity 17 July 2015
|
||
• How to read my nonsense 17 July 2015
|
||
• Is it distributed or just a disorganised hierarchy? 10 July 2015
|
||
• On the vaunted robustness of the web 10 July 2015
|
||
• The rules of the game have changed for RSS 10 July 2015
|
||
• The web app developer's lament 6 July 2015
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||
• Other people write about digital media 25 June 2015
|
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• The plural of 'Medium' is clearly 'clusterfuck' 25 June 2015
|
||
• Burnout 24 June 2015
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• The files Steven Pressfield works with 24 June 2015
|
||
• iOS 9 content blocking extensions are not a mobile advertising armageddon
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14 June 2015
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||
• Writing the Other:
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a book that's useful to all writers 3 June 2015
|
||
• Should I make a WWDC prediction?
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Yes, let's 3 June 2015
|
||
• Grim Meathook Present #2 2 June 2015
|
||
• Other people discuss software quality (spoiler: it sucks) 2 June 2015
|
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• Other people talk about startups and entrepreneurship 2 June 2015
|
||
• A few quick links and thoughts on big web problems 29 May 2015
|
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• I really want the Supergirl TV show to be fun 25 May 2015
|
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• Our Grim Meathook Present 25 May 2015
|
||
• The new age of HTML:
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the web is being torn apart 20 May 2015
|
||
• Her movie, his name;
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Mad Max: Fury Road 19 May 2015
|
||
• We are a violent species 19 May 2015
|
||
• Toxic environments:
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inequality in tech is a symptom of something worse 18 May 2015
|
||
• Where I write about Facebook's Instant Articles 16 May 2015
|
||
• Facebook and the media:
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united, they attack the web 15 May 2015
|
||
• Speeding up decision cycles with rules and heuristics 14 May 2015
|
||
• You are here #5:
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||
UX, design, and CSS as a parasite 14 May 2015
|
||
• You are here #4:
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||
an epic journey through app dev and male bodies 13 May 2015
|
||
• You are here #3:
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||
the glorious wonders of online reading await you 12 May 2015
|
||
• 2015-05-11-18-39-16 11 May 2015
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||
• You are here #2:
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||
an artisanal curation of reading material 11 May 2015
|
||
• You are here #1:
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||
a selection of fine links and tweets for your pleasure 10 May 2015
|
||
• 2015-05-07-00-59-18 7 May 2015
|
||
• Five publishing-related thoughts on a Friday afternoon 4 May 2015
|
||
• Why should people read more books? 4 May 2015
|
||
• How is taxing ebooks as print books supposed to work? 4 May 2015
|
||
• Kathy Sierra's Badass: Making Users Awesome – the book you all should read
|
||
4 March 2015
|
||
• Idle Sunday thoughts about web trends 1 March 2015
|
||
• Repetition only works in fiction 1 March 2015
|
||
• The web has covered the basics — that’s why it’ll get harder from now 1
|
||
March 2015
|
||
• A draft of a chapter of some thoughts on things. 9 January 2015
|
||
• Taking stock of 2013 and 2014 31 December 2014
|
||
• The weather, of course 17 December 2014
|
||
• Publishing business ideas are a dime a dozen 3 December 2014
|
||
• EU VAT changes shift the digital landscape 25 November 2014
|
||
• Money is a poor measure of value 25 November 2014
|
||
• On conferences 13 November 2014
|
||
• Crushed by multinationals 12 November 2014
|
||
• Software as a strategy: prefabricated publishers 7 November 2014
|
||
• Software as strategy in the ebook world 6 November 2014
|
||
• The five types of unpublished books 5 November 2014
|
||
• Four hundred words from Anita Elberse's book "Blockbusters" 4 November 2014
|
||
• The splintered author 4 November 2014
|
||
• There is no war between Amazon and Traditional Publishing 3 November 2014
|
||
• Ebooks suck for learning 10 October 2014
|
||
• The Poisoning of Social Media: A Reading List 9 September 2014
|
||
• Wobbly Amazon 10 August 2014
|
||
• This week's must-read post 24 July 2014
|
||
• Friends don’t let their friends become authors 10 July 2014
|
||
• Both at the same time 4 July 2014
|
||
• So I had to make an ebook cover... 15 April 2014
|
||
• So long, Readmill, and thanks for all the fish 31 March 2014
|
||
• What ebook production problems are self-publishers facing? 24 March 2014
|
||
• Many stories, many truths 13 March 2014
|
||
• Problem statements for digital publishing research 28 February 2014
|
||
• To do, to do 21 February 2014
|
||
• iBooks Author tempts you with bling 20 February 2014
|
||
• Microsoft Word is a liability 19 February 2014
|
||
• The print design mentality 18 February 2014
|
||
• Book contracts 12 February 2014
|
||
• Intermission: sorting through the banal 5 February 2014
|
||
• How to create value with a new thing 30 January 2014
|
||
• HTML is too complex 29 January 2014
|
||
• The ebook as an API 28 January 2014
|
||
• My last word on DRM 27 January 2014
|
||
• Except, except, except 23 January 2014
|
||
• A thought exercise 22 January 2014
|
||
• Losing faith in yourself 21 January 2014
|
||
• Changing your readership mix 20 January 2014
|
||
• Sex, education, readers, and futures: what works, what doesn't 18 January
|
||
2014
|
||
• The various types of readers 17 January 2014
|
||
• The unevenly distributed ebook future 16 January 2014
|
||
• Sex, violence, and stílbrot 15 January 2014
|
||
• Recipe for pundit response to Hugh Howey’s suggestions 14 January 2014
|
||
• Bling it up for education 13 January 2014
|
||
• Blogging has trained me to assume you’re stupid 9 January 2014
|
||
• Ergodic literature 8 January 2014
|
||
• What I thought I wanted versus what I really wanted 7 January 2014
|
||
• The mistake of 'enhancing' novels 6 January 2014
|
||
• Pessimistic ramblings and other fun links (week overview + further reading)
|
||
4 January 2014
|
||
• Stumbling into publishing 3 January 2014
|
||
• The publishing industry's new product categories 2 January 2014
|
||
• The last two Knights and Necromancers stories 1 January 2014
|
||
• Random, loosely connected, thoughts on the future 31 December 2013
|
||
• Old photos posted without context: Reykjavík Cats 29 December 2013
|
||
• Old photos posted without context: Sweep After Use 22 December 2013
|
||
• The Checklist: fix iBooks image handling 20 December 2013
|
||
• Great text transcends nothing 17 December 2013
|
||
• Quarantine all ebooks 17 October 2013
|
||
• The self-publisher's perspective of the ebook market 17 October 2013
|
||
• Light evening trauma 10 October 2013
|
||
• Just say no to ebook CSS and JS 2 October 2013
|
||
• The Google Wave Heuristic 17 September 2013
|
||
• Amazon's biggest ally is Apple 12 September 2013
|
||
• Readmill versus Kindle – Readmill is worth the hassle 26 August 2013
|
||
• Proprietary ebook formats versus DRM 19 August 2013
|
||
• Publishing has catered to dumb for a long while 16 August 2013
|
||
• Computers are too difficult and people are computer illiterate 14 August
|
||
2013
|
||
• Why disruption goes unchecked 12 August 2013
|
||
• Make ebooks worth it 9 August 2013
|
||
• Ebooks and cognitive mapping 8 August 2013
|
||
• Ebook silos, update 7 August 2013
|
||
• Ebook silos and missed opportunities 6 August 2013
|
||
• Technology is not inherently good 5 August 2013
|
||
• Administrative note on baldurbjarnason.com and feeds 29 July 2013
|
||
• Posted without comment 29 July 2013
|
||
• The inefficiencies of joy 24 July 2013
|
||
• Winner takes all versus the Matthew effect 23 July 2013
|
||
• What you people read (on my websites) 22 July 2013
|
||
• Tolerating the heat, noticing the water 19 July 2013
|
||
• If the Kindle fails so will ebooks 18 July 2013
|
||
• Followup to 'this ebook is a lemon' 16 July 2013
|
||
• This ebook is a lemon 12 July 2013
|
||
• Caught between madmen and mercenaries 10 July 2013
|
||
• Major update to Studio Tendra's Oz project 3 July 2013
|
||
• What are self-publishing's biggest pain points? 1 July 2013
|
||
• Intellectual terrain 1 July 2013
|
||
• Good books don't win 26 June 2013
|
||
• Why does it matter? 10 May 2013
|
||
• The OZ Reading Club: Books three and four 7 May 2013
|
||
• Which kind of innovation? 3 May 2013
|
||
• Books and Print Showcase 2 May 2013
|
||
• Peasants 30 April 2013
|
||
• For the love 14 April 2013
|
||
• The idiocies of young men 5 April 2013
|
||
• Studio Tendra's grand and marvellous Oz Reading Club 2 April 2013
|
||
• Iceland’s ‘crowd-sourced’ constitution is dead 29 March 2013
|
||
• The B&N fallacy 27 February 2013
|
||
• Hire me! 19 February 2013
|
||
• A question only you can answer 15 February 2013
|
||
• Respect the reader 6 February 2013
|
||
• 33 observations on the year 2012 5 February 2013
|
||
• Knights and Necromancers: new books and megapacks! 4 February 2013
|
||
• The falcon's shriek 2 January 2013
|
||
• What is actually going on in Iceland 29 December 2012
|
||
• Merry Christmas! 25 December 2012
|
||
• Tag soup is history 21 December 2012
|
||
• Schlock 15 December 2012
|
||
• Strange definitions of 'nice' 5 December 2012
|
||
• Books of Christmas Past 4 December 2012
|
||
• Using IDs in CSS 26 November 2012
|
||
• Design highlights from the Icelandic book season 22 November 2012
|
||
• News, updates, and the Icelandic book market 19 November 2012
|
||
• A response, of sorts 15 November 2012
|
||
• High tide and a room of your own 8 November 2012
|
||
• Knights and Necromancers 2 has been released 6 November 2012
|
||
• The comment-fiction challenge post-mortem 30 October 2012
|
||
• Fantasy, Collapse, and a sense of history 29 October 2012
|
||
• Two questions on putting books on the web 26 October 2012
|
||
• iBooks 3.0 25 October 2012
|
||
• Perceptions of society 22 October 2012
|
||
• What I've been up to 19 October 2012
|
||
• The Readmill comment fiction challenge 1 October 2012
|
||
• Is it safe? 27 September 2012
|
||
• The time work takes 24 September 2012
|
||
• I need your help 21 September 2012
|
||
• Designing the covers 19 September 2012
|
||
• Free Kindle version 19 September 2012
|
||
• What is this? 17 September 2012
|
||
• The stillborn creature 1 August 2012
|
||
• EPUB javascript security 27 July 2012
|
||
• I be writing 21 July 2012
|
||
• Farce 16 July 2012
|
||
• Bad writing 19 June 2012
|
||
• A few random points on DRM 7 June 2012
|
||
• The web and ebooks have little in common 7 May 2012
|
||
• The end of ebook development 26 April 2012
|
||
• Aftermath – notes on the Amazon post 20 April 2012
|
||
• Today is not tomorrow (or, how to beat Amazon) 15 April 2012
|
||
• Bits, bobs, and anecdata 3 April 2012
|
||
• Lessons in interactivity 29 March 2012
|
||
• Hierarchies of ebook design 20 March 2012
|
||
• It's time to treat ebook developers as developers 12 March 2012
|
||
• Code doesn't change minds 7 March 2012
|
||
• Game over, Amazon wins 3 March 2012
|
||
• On CSS Page Templates 2 March 2012
|
||
• Javascript in ebooks 29 February 2012
|
||
• Explanatory windows 20 February 2012
|
||
• Readium and other good intentions 13 February 2012
|
||
• ePub windows and widgets – a proposal 10 February 2012
|
||
• The semantics of ebook widgets 4 February 2012
|
||
• iBooks widgets – to javascript or not to javascript 1 February 2012
|
||
• What do we want from the Kindle platform? 1 February 2012
|
||
• Disruptive crap 27 January 2012
|
||
• Me, elsewhere 26 January 2012
|
||
• The pros and cons of the iBooks 2.0 textbook format 21 January 2012
|
||
• The iBooks 2.0 built-in widgets 20 January 2012
|
||
• The iBooks 2.0 textbook format 19 January 2012
|
||
• The publishing animal 17 January 2012
|
||
• A day of innovation on the future of the book 8 December 2011
|
||
• What a publisher does 30 November 2011
|
||
• Design pseudoscience 8 November 2011
|
||
• A tale of three blog posts 28 October 2011
|
||
• CSS and ebook design 24 October 2011
|
||
• The loss of ambient intimacy 15 September 2011
|
||
• Friday links and reading 26 August 2011
|
||
• Convert or engage 4 August 2011
|
||
• CSS3 Hyphens 30 July 2011
|
||
• Just you & Google 29 July 2011
|
||
• Knowledge is not adoption 24 July 2011
|
||
• HTML5 history API 23 July 2011
|
||
• Your friends, in boxes 17 July 2011
|
||
• Localstorage & messaging in ePub 27 January 2011
|
||
• Javascript in epub 26 January 2011
|
||
• An epub experiment 25 January 2011
|
||
• What is an ebook? 21 December 2010
|
||
• Hypotheses and testing 25 October 2010
|
||
• Identifying publishing innovators 7 October 2010
|
||
• On quality in publishing 7 October 2010
|
||
• An interesting discussion 28 June 2010
|
||
|
||
You can also find me on Mastodon and Twitter
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