Blog
Jens Oliver Meiert on philosophy and web development (and art and adventure and humanity). Beware of generalization and exaggeration.
Highlights from Dewey’s How We Think
“The very importance of thought for life makes necessary its control by education because of its natural tendency to go astray, and because social influences exist that tend to form habits of thought leading to inadequate and erroneous beliefs.”
Two Paradigms of Web Development
On a sunny Tuesday in Düsseldorf a few weeks back, at Beyond Tellerrand, I had a pleasant recorded conversation with the team of Working Draft. In our discussion we briefly touched on the idea of web development paradigms…
The Great Web Maintainability Survey Results
Four weeks ago I started a survey about good and bad practices when it comes to the maintenance and maintainability of websites. Participation was amazing, and here are the first results.
Why I’m Suspending Interviews with U.S. Companies
Over the last few quarters I was in conversations to move back to the United States. Over the last few weeks I noticed that that would feel like endorsing U.S. policy, and contradict my principles and values.
The Simple Answer to All Our Terrorism Problems
How about we stop invading countries and murdering people. How about we allow those who are too afraid to live in freedom to live in supermax prisons (for free). And how about we finally remove from office who ever propose to violate a human right.
Regarding the Fermi Paradox
When not finding signs of extraterrestrial intelligence says more about us than them.
70% Repetition in Style Sheets: Data on How We Fail at CSS Optimization
Looking at data for some of the most popular websites, we repeat ourselves too much in CSS; using declarations just once is often one solid avenue to avoid repetition; together, we need to put more focus on style sheet optimization.
The Great Web Maintainability Survey
The maintenance and economics of websites is a much-neglected topic in the web development community. Here are three questions for developers, to gather practices as well as resources.
Web Development and Philosophy
When “eh?” is just a natural reaction.
On Work
On work, retirement, definitions, and mixing things up.
Highlights from Lippmann’s Public Opinion
“Who actually saw, heard, felt, counted, named the thing, about which you have an opinion? Was it the man who told you, or the man who told him, or someone still further removed? And how much was he permitted to see?”
Highlights from Wattles’s The Science of Getting Rich
“Man is a thinking center, and can originate thought. All the forms that man fashions with his hands must first exist in his thought; he cannot shape a thing until he has thought that thing.”
My Top 10 Android Apps
Years ago, in 2009, I wrote an enthusiastic post about my then-favorite apps for Android. More for fun than anything I decided to write a follow-up.
Foreigners Are Heroes
Foreigners—expats, migrants, refugees—are heroes. Foreigners, people like you and I, add to our lives and our cultures. Foreigners deserve our respect and our support.
On Socialization
Several months back, to myself, I noted how we may have all already been what we’ve later wished to be: for example, authentically curious, interested, open, unbiased, worry-free, joyful, happy, confident, loving. Then, I thought, came socialization.
On the Creation and Toleration of Human Gods
How do you call someone who can do whatever they want, when they want, and must not fear any consequences? How do you call who own half of the world, or more? How do you call people who are effectively immune to prosecution…
Principles of Web Development
Web development, at more than 20 years of age, is becoming an increasingly mature profession. Web development is also subject to constant change, and the field produces more of that change, out of itself. More technological standards…
HTML Statistics: 5 Take-Aways
A few quick comments on Catalin Rosu’s interesting follow-up analysis of his sampling of eight million websites. Some practices are wonderful to note, others have been commented on, yet one or the other point drowned.
10 Photos IV
Continuing the x-monthly series, here are yet again ten of my photographic favorites.
A Digital Charta
When we think about it, although we live in a time of massive rights violations we don’t lack good intent, nor good law. That leads us to a particular initiative, the Digital Charta.
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Biography
Jens Oliver Meiert is a philosopher and developer (Google, W3C, O’Reilly). He experiments with art and adventure.
As a philosopher, Jens studies academically and non-academically; besides his focus on metaphysics he’s also interested in subjects like psychology, sociology, and politics. He believes in self-responsibility (How to Work on Oneself).
As a developer Jens is specialized in high quality code for complex international websites (Google), works on standards (W3C), and writes for technical publishers (O’Reilly: Webdesign mit CSS, The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks, Coding Guidelines, and Website Quality Control; cf. On Web Development).
As an artist Jens plays with moving photography, performance art, sensationalism, and charity; as an adventurer Jens explores activities (100 Things I Learned as an Everyday Adventurer) and localities (Journey of J.).
