ā2015ā
New Book: āThe Little Book of HTML/CSS Coding Guidelinesā
Out of the blue! My latest book, The Little Book of HTML/CSS Coding Guidelines, is now available. Itās a brief introduction into the theory and practice of coding standards. Emphasis, as the title suggests, is on HTML and CSS, and furthermore on Googleās guidelinesā¦
#48 Ā· Ā· books, development, html, css
Philosophy Factoids
Meanwhile.
#47 Ā· philosophy
On Mistakes
What is a mistake, really?
#46 Ā· philosophy
On the Anatomy of Beliefs
From a philosophical viewpoint, here a strictly solipsistic one, any statement is a belief. Beliefs are important because they determine how we interpret, and per some schools of thought, make our realitiesā¦
#45 Ā· philosophy
Crowdfunding, 5 Years and 81 Projects Later
Iām a Kickstarter and Indiegogo backer. Iāve backed my first campaign in February 2011, and the so far last one in May. In the five years on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, Iāve bid on 81 projects of which 73 funded successfullyā¦
#44 Ā· misc
Personally Speaking
After my eternal travels Iāve had entered a new stage of my life. Now that I and the dust have settled a little, the position that I assume in the world is a bit more clear, at least for the next couple of years. A few notesā¦
#43 Ā· misc
The 1,000 Lives Thought Experiment
Open up a text editor or grab a piece of paper, and write down what youād do if you had another life. Or what youād wish for in another life. Assume that anything goesā¦
#42 Ā· philosophy
Rules for the Media: Independence, Transparency, Accountability, Comparative Reporting
Iāve suggested to opt out of following news for the simple reason that news rarely constitute reliable and actionable information, and in the spirit that even ignorance may be preferable so to at least keep an open mind. Now, what would make me change this view?
Media: The Choice Between Misinformation and Uninformation
āThe man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.āāOur media, generally speaking, are not trustworthy. They are not trustworthy because of conflicts of interestā¦
What Iāve Hated and What Iāve Loved About Web Development
In On Web Development and in other contexts Iāve alluded to wrapping up, ending my old career. Thatās only correct to an extent. (In keeping with the intelligence community, always put everyone at risk by adding backdoors.)
#39 Ā· development
The Problem of āFire and Forgetā in Web Design
If I were to pick the main issue in web designā¦ I couldnāt answer immediately. I donāt think there are so many, but there are a few, they are very different, they operate on different scales, and so theyāre hard to compare. One, however, is āfire and forget.ā
#38 Ā· Ā· design, development, quality
On Science Experimenting on Life
There are boundaries, and some boundaries must be non-negotiable.
#37 Ā· Ā· philosophy, advocacy
The Teaching Dilemma
Maybe weāre here to learn, but is it at all said that we can be taught?
#36 Ā· philosophy
Fear and the Creative Dilemma
In the Seth school of thought thereās an interesting issue, the creative dilemma. In short, thereās identity which constantly attempts to maintain stability, thereās action which inherently drives towards change, and that combination results in a particular imbalanceā
#35 Ā· philosophy
Love Reciprocity
Love! What a wonderful topic. My mind would instantly turn into a good number of directions, from love in our personal lives to different forms of love, to the powers of love, to the possibly universal character of love. Letās be more specific.
#34 Ā· misc
Several Lives
I have no doubt that we live several lives. I have no doubt for thereās an entirely different belief system, an entirely different thought framework, that supports this model. Here, though, I want to isolate a single idea, the one of multiple lives, as opposed to one life.
#33 Ā· philosophy
Two Realities
Wundt wrote in 1911 how āa human being is a psycho-physical and not only a physical unity,ā and here weāre thinking about that a little, aloud.
#32 Ā· philosophy
The One Belief to Cultivate
Thereās a particularly important belief, habit, or trait for us to cultivate: that whatever it is we want to be or master, we can learn how to be or master whatever it is we want.
#31 Ā· misc
New Book: āJourney of J.ā
Mostly for planned closure, somewhat for playful curiosity, I wrote another book. Journey of J.āAround the World in 557 Days, 1,017 Photos, and 291 Personal Notes is about the long and eventful tripā¦
The Law of User-Generated Code
Whenever you allow users to edit code of your website, youāre doomed. Itās only a matter of time until you need to give up and redo the entire websiteāand, adding insult to injury, alienate your users.
#29 Ā· Ā· development, css, maintainability
Analytics: Only When We Actually Use It
Hereās something so obvious, it isnāt anymore. Which is: We should only use analytics software when we actually use it. Not when we think we could might want to need it. And not when we only glance at it, every now and then.
#28 Ā· development
New Book: āOn Web Developmentā
I wrote another book. On Web Development. On Web Development is an ebook that collects most of the articles about web development (and web design) that I wrote between 2005 and 2015. Most articles as in most useful, most important, and also most controversial.
#27 Ā· Ā· books, development, maintainability, html, css, design
Travel Intelligence: Global Country Information for German Travelers
Traveling the world one inevitably runs into places one cannot simply enter. Other places one doesnāt want to simply enter. For purposes of tracking both I had, during my 18-month world trip, set up a special country intel sheetā¦
#26 Ā· adventure
On Conspiracy Theories
These days, many a serious inquiry into significant events leads to something marked a āconspiracy theory.ā Use of the expression āconspiracy theoryā has gone as far as to be used as a blanket dismissalā¦
Web Standards: Weāre Fāing It Up
Itās a problem to just change specs. But itās an increasingly bigger problem not to clean and prune them. The intimidating complexity of web standard specs should precisely be a motivation, not a threat, to come up with a plan. It follows the populist version.
#24 Ā· Ā· development, html, css
A Vision of Web Development
There is one thing every web developer should aspire to: writing the most minimal, semantically appropriate, valid HTML, and then never changing it. āNeverā not in a sense of denial and refusal, but in the sense of a guiding lightā¦
#23 Ā· Ā· development, html, minimalism, semantics, conformance, maintainability, quality
Loving Technology
I love the idea of caring, of loving technology. I believe we need technology that is loving. I think we have ample opportunities to envision and build technology that is loving. Here Iāll be brief and merely bring up the concept.
#22 Ā· Ā· philosophy, advocacy
Business Practices, Reframed
Ideas for the next performance review.
Museums Should Always Allow Photography
The observation that there seem to be good reasons to allow most photographyāto charge extra for it if necessaryā, but none to offend visitors by banning it.
#20 Ā· Ā· design, art, photography
10 Photos
Some of my favorite and most popular photos lately.
#19 Ā· Ā· design, photography
The 1% Hypothesis of Mass Surveillance
A few weeks back I read this security article about how itās odd that no one has ever suspected and detected anything related to all that mass surveillance we learned about through Edward Snowden. In particular, physical manipulation of devicesā¦
No
Have we stopped killing yet?
On the Problems and Limits of Science
Science canāt explain everything. It never could. It never will. Yet science is run as if it could explain everything. It is run completely unchecked. And this unchecked pretense of omniscience and omnipotence is a problem for us for a number of reasons.
#16 Ā· philosophy
The Two Ground Rules for Using a Framework
Follow the documentation, donāt overwrite framework code. These two rules are golden.
#15 Ā· Ā· development, frameworks
Remember: April 9 Is CSS Naked Day
CSS Naked Day is coming up! Why the excitement? Because CSS Naked Day is a magnificent custom; the magnificent custom to, on one day of the year, strip websites of all styling. Itās awesome becauseā
#14 Ā· Ā· development, css, maintainability
What to Carry When Traveling the World
For my 557-day journey around the world I had prepared thoroughly. Emphasis had been on light luggage, and so I had focused on necessities and gear that didnāt weigh much and, for clothes, could dry quickly. Here Iāll share some parts of my inventoryā¦
#13 Ā· adventure
180 Little Stories After Traveling the World for 18 Months
Itās over. A couple of weeks ago I came to a halt, after traveling the world for what now feels like a lifetime. Hereās one way to tell the story.
#12 Ā· adventure
The Truth About ā!importantā
Sometimes I wake up at night, full of agony, tears in my eyes. The Holiest Alliance Against !important is haunting me. I see their countless crusaders gallop at innocent web developers with merciless force, incessantly blowing their deafening hornsā¦
#11 Ā· Ā· development, css
New Book: āThe Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworksā
Itās out! My new book, The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks, is now available. I myself have been surprised by the sudden release, and while Iām still unsure about how print copies can be obtained, the book can now be downloaded for free at OāReilly.
#10 Ā· Ā· books, development, html, css, frameworks
News Headlines I Want to Read
A brainstorming with assumptions and implications. We shouldnāt use our creativity to come up with ever horrid scenarios; we could use it to envision awesomeness.
A Population Control Primer
An incomplete, roughly sorted sketch of actions, methods, and developments that donāt serve us, that instead divide, distract, confuse, manipulate, exploit, demotivate, control, and dominate us. We have a lot of work to do.
#8 Ā· misc
On Taking Life
We cannot accept killing. The default must be to respect, to cherish life. We should get help to those who suggest to take lives. Eight theses on a most critical matter.
#7 Ā· Ā· philosophy, advocacy
On Age
Age is wonderful. Aging is wonderful. Age is wonderful for in a life reasonably lived, in a life not exclusively spent idly or hedonistically, age signifies the accumulation of experience and knowledge, and perhaps even wisdom.
Web Design and Principles
Web design has become complex. More people, more ideas, more use cases, more technical innovations, more design variations, &c. pp. More makes for more complex. However, thereās a life line helping us with this complexity, as well as trends.
#5 Ā· Ā· design, development
Web Frameworks in a Nutshell
My next book is coming! āThe Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks.ā Iām wrapping it up with the team of OāReilly as we speak. In the book, I share much of my experience architecting, developing, and maintaining web frameworks, as Iāve done for Google, Aperto, and GMXā¦
#4 Ā· Ā· development, frameworks, quality
On the Deterioration of HTML/CSS Practices
Presentational markup for everyone.
#3 Ā· Ā· development, html, css, maintainability
Love
Love is vulnerability. First and foremost, love is vulnerability. It took me many years to recognize this. Many years in which there wasnāt much love in my life, even permitted in my life. I had locked it all out, out of fear to beā¦ vulnerable.
#2 Ā· misc
Character
A couple of weeks ago I read Samuel Smilesā Character, a book extraordinarily useful and important. I think youād like it. āCharacter is one of the greatest motive powers in the world. In its noblest embodiments, it exemplifies human nature in its highest formsā¦ā
#1 Ā· misc