â2017â Archive
On Meeting and Leaving People
Humans are social. Cooperation got us where we are. There are several ways to get to know new people, and, in relationships, to leave them. A few thoughts.
#61 ¡ misc
What We Know
On some days, if you asked me about what we know, with absolute certainty, Iâd respond with âonly that something exists.â And if you asked me what that meant, then Iâd add âto appreciate and work with what exists.â
#60 ¡ philosophy
On Writing 1,000 Poems
A story of venturing into an entirely different genre.
Privacy Experiments: How to Auto-Generate Random Web Traffic
I believe that privacy, which has never been about âhiding something,â is a fundamental civil right, one that is but must not be infringed on; so I once more played with randomizing personal web traffic.
#58 ¡ misc
Expert Web Development: A 3rd Key Differentiator
As web developers we have decisions to make and our decisions depend on a few variables. Two that have become much more important over the years are the one of code for research or production, and the one of web site or appâŚ
#57 ¡ development
An Ode to Smashing Magazine
Excitement about a success story.
#56 ¡ development
Performance of CSS Selectors Is Still Irrelevant
From my upcoming book on CSS optimization: Selector performance is not something to optimize for as the price we pay for it is terrible: We micro-manage our work for gains that arenât noticeable.
#55 ¡ development
On Big Picture Thinking in Web Development
Thoughts on thinking outside the box, in tech, with examples ranging from selector performance to a general development vision, to illustrate how very different issues can all reach beyond their perimeter.
#54 ¡ development
CSS: The Reason Why Selectors Should Be Ordered, Too
Weâve talked a lot about declarations as declarations are at the heart of our work with direct consequences for the quality of our style sheets. Weâve not talked much about selectors, though, and that may be a mistake.
#53 ¡ development
Static Site Generation With Grow: How to Set Up Syndication Feeds
Grow is a static site generator that Iâve slowly been switching to on my own projects. Here I wish to lay out how to do something with Grow thatâs not overly difficult, but also not well-documentedâto set up syndication feeds.
#52 ¡ development
The Scientific Irony
Thereâs no proof that life has meaning; therefore, life is meaningless. Wait, what?
#51 ¡ philosophy
DRY CSS: How to Use Declarations Just Once, Effectively
Using declarations just once is one way to control repetition in style sheets. Itâs not a silver bullet, as weâve seen with recent data, but itâs so powerful as to make for a key style sheet optimization method.
#50 ¡ development
5 Reasons Against Resets, Normalizers, Reboots
A word about one of CSSâs horsemen of the apocalypse.
#49 ¡ development
The 3 Levels of Code Consistency
Consistency is a factor for code quality and one of the key reasons why we need coding guidelines. Interestingly enough there are three levels of consistency: individual, collective, and institutional.
#48 ¡ development
Understandable-Simple vs. Minimal-Simple Code
Code simplicity seems to be a goal quite worthwhile, contributing to better understanding, greater robustness, and higher quality. Thatâs at least what comes to my mind when looking at the matterâŚ
#47 ¡ development
On Enforcing Coding Guidelines
Surprisingly a snippet from The Little Book of Website Quality Control, not the one of HTML/CSS coding guidelines, a few thoughts on enforcing coding standards.
#46 ¡ ¡ development, management
What Happens When You Email the Companies That Are Responsible for 71% of All Greenhouse Gas Emissions
A few months ago I ran into an article referring to data from the Carbon Disclosure Project. I realized that the data may have been inaccurate and incomplete but also that it presented an avenue for us to actually do, a little.
#45 ¡ misc
What Happens When You Email Each of the 1,380 Members of the German and European Parliaments
Over the last couple of months I have emailed, each individually, all the 631 members of the (departing) German Bundestag as well as 749 members of the European Parliament (I was short two MEPs).
#44 ¡ misc
Freedom = Ć(Money)?
No, this question is not new. However itâs one I want to ponder with you because it much seems like something truly terrible has happened over the centuries.
#43 ¡ philosophy
Why It Would Be Bad if Jesus Was Here
Arguing is something we have to learn. I observed this particularly in recent years when I started studying philosophy and went through courses for logic and argumentation theory. These coursesâŚ
#42 ¡ ¡ philosophy, misc
The Cost of Frameworks, Illustrated
A visual attempt to show how for everything built for the long run, external frameworks are a pricey crutch that has to be avoided or be thrown away at the earliest time. The reasons: qualityâand cost.
#41 ¡ development
CSS @-Rules, an Overview
From @charset to @viewport. Or from @bottom-center to @top-right-corner.
#40 ¡ development
In Defense of Bad Luck
There seems to be something to luck, and bad luck.
#39 ¡ philosophy
What We Should Teach Up-and-Coming Developers
Evidently, learning is important, and learning strategies are, too, and how to generally work on ourselves, absolutely, but what else to aim for apart from understanding computer science fundamentals, reading the specs, andâcoding?
#38 ¡ ¡ development, management
What Kills and What Saves Content Management Systems
Imagine you just moved into a new place, and realize that you lack a screwdriver to put up some of your furniture (itâs not from IKEA). You ring at your neighborsâ, find one whoâs home, and sheâŚ
#37 ¡ development
10 Photos V
The next part of the x-monthly series.
#36 ¡ design
On Being a Philosopher
I call myself a philosopher even though some people would disagree with me being one. Why would I be a philosopher? What makes a philosopher?
#35 ¡ philosophy
Living Websites, Living Books
To me, websites are living objects. They require regular care and maintenance. Such care starts with monitoring, from uptime control to visual site tests, demands technical quality control, and ends with content checksâŚ
#34 ¡ ¡ development, misc
Website Optimization Measures, Part VIII
Eight years. Eight years has it been since the last episode of this series, âWebsite Optimization Measures.â In October of 2009, I last talked about more or less random things I did on my own websitesâŚ
#33 ¡ development
On Adventure
While Iâm not nearly as adventurous these days as in past years, the idea that adventure is about being open and curious and easily ready to try activities and localities seems sound to me. On what adventure can mean to us.
#32 ¡ adventure
Web Development: How Making Our Own Lives Difficult Is More Important Than We Think
Many moons ago I wrote that web developers wouldnât need debugging tools. I was half joking and half serious. We were just coming out of the dark ages of web development, so to speak, undernourished of useful tools, frameworks, librariesâŚ
#31 ¡ development
Frameworks, Libraries, and the Modern Web Developer: Web Development, Overdone
We are raising tool-dependent rather than self-reliant developers. Arenât we.
#30 ¡ development
What I Learned Building Googleâs Web Frameworks
On building Googleâs Go and Maia HTML/CSS frameworks, and succeeding and failing as a tech lead.
#29 ¡ development
Boyscout Code
Of course, always leave code better than you found it.
#28 ¡ development
Stop Using Resets: Visual Examples of the Practical Nonsense of Resets and Normalizers
Or, when Jens found out that he could just collect websites that use reset style sheets and the like, disable those style sheets, document the results and write a post with the diffs for visual evidence. All because âwe ran after this mirage for more than a decade.â
#27 ¡ development
Highlights From Martinâs âThe Behavior of Crowdsâ
âWhen most of our neighbors are motivated by certain ideas, those ideas become part of the social environment to which we must adjust ourselves. In this sense they are âreal,â however âcrazy.ââ
#26 ¡ misc
Highlights From Deweyâs âHow We Thinkâ
âThe 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.â
#25 ¡ philosophy
Two Paradigms of Web Development
On a sunny Tuesday in DĂźsseldorf 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 paradigmsâŚ
#24 ¡ development
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.
#23 ¡ development
Why Iâm 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.
#22 ¡ misc
The Simple Answer to 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 proposes to violate a human right.
#21 ¡ misc
Regarding the Fermi Paradox
When not finding signs of extraterrestrial intelligence says more about us than them.
#20 ¡ philosophy
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.
#19 ¡ development
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.
#18 ¡ development
On Work
On work, retirement, definitions, and mixing things up.
#17 ¡ misc
Highlights From Lippmannâs âPublic Opinionâ
âWho 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?â
#16 ¡ misc
Highlights From Wattlesâs âThe Science of Getting Richâ
âMan 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.â
#15 ¡ ¡ philosophy, misc
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.
#14 ¡ misc
Foreigners Are Heroes
Foreigners to our countriesâexpats, immigrants, refugeesâare heroes. Foreigners, people like you and I, add to our lives and our cultures. Foreigners deserve our respect and our support.
#13 ¡ misc
On Socialization
Several months back, to myself, I noted how we may have all already been what weâve later wished to be: for example, authentically curious, open, unbiased, worry-free, joyful, happy, confident, loving. Then, I thought, came socialization.
#12 ¡ philosophy