FRESA
dusk by the river
Anna Pickard on how Slack uses Twitter. It's also a blueprint for thoughtful online communication.
Recent Web
Time for Friday links.
Developing Things
Developing Things
- The Mercury Web Parser (scraping for content)
- Configuring DNS Tips (your TTL is too low)
- Parsing JSON is a Minefield (everything is vague to a degree you do not realize...)
- The NYT buying Wirecutter and Sweethome (mathowie on what the media missed)
- A State That Takes Voting Seriously (Oregon voting is the best)
- GifCities
- Wikipedia and Internet Archive fixing one million broken links (cool URIs do change)
c2bk Infrastructure Report: Hearts
If you're like me, this site has become your primary social network. Whether it's the hours you've spent arguing in the comments section, the days poring through the archives looking for hidden gems, or even those few minutes on the about page trying to answer the question, "Why is this here?" you've come to expect the best and are often delighted beyond expectation. Yes, all of these things are true, and more.
So I was perplexed the other day by an exchange I had with a friend. My online buddy casually messaged, "What do you use for your blog?" I typed back, "Why, PHP and MySQL, my good friend!" He responded, "You wrote your own thing?" I said, "Indeed! Would you like the code?" His final reply was like a punch in the gut: "No one has time for that. I'll use Medium."
No one has time for that. I'll use Medium.
Let that sink in. I knew in my heart that couldn't be true. What does Medium have that onfocus hasn't? And then it hit me like a second, more forceful punch in the gut: hearts. Medium has hearts.
I didn't get mad. I started building. And as of today, onfocus has hearts. At the bottom of every post is the option to click a heart symbol. What does clicking the heart symbol do? It fills in the heart so that it goes from being the outline of a heart to a solid heart. What does clicking the heart symbol mean? That's a question that each onfocus reader must answer for themselves.
I expect this feature to become the very pulse of this site, driving the blood (data) filled with rich oxygen to the vital organs (server) and then carrying it (clicks) away to the liver (apache logs) for detoxification (pageviews).
Who has time for what now?
So I was perplexed the other day by an exchange I had with a friend. My online buddy casually messaged, "What do you use for your blog?" I typed back, "Why, PHP and MySQL, my good friend!" He responded, "You wrote your own thing?" I said, "Indeed! Would you like the code?" His final reply was like a punch in the gut: "No one has time for that. I'll use Medium."
No one has time for that. I'll use Medium.
Let that sink in. I knew in my heart that couldn't be true. What does Medium have that onfocus hasn't? And then it hit me like a second, more forceful punch in the gut: hearts. Medium has hearts.
I didn't get mad. I started building. And as of today, onfocus has hearts. At the bottom of every post is the option to click a heart symbol. What does clicking the heart symbol do? It fills in the heart so that it goes from being the outline of a heart to a solid heart. What does clicking the heart symbol mean? That's a question that each onfocus reader must answer for themselves.
I expect this feature to become the very pulse of this site, driving the blood (data) filled with rich oxygen to the vital organs (server) and then carrying it (clicks) away to the liver (apache logs) for detoxification (pageviews).
Who has time for what now?
Esc Key Emergency
Apple is removing the Escape key from their new MacBook Pro. This is worse than removing floppy drives, CD drives, and headphone jacks combined. If you're like me you still use vi every day. Having to toggle virtual buttons constantly would force me to move to some sort of (gasp!) GUI editor.
I guess there's no stopping progress. I'd probably attach an external mechanical keyboard to one of those laptops anyway. (If they still have USB ports.) Don't get me started on laptop keyboard key switches.
Backyard Mushrooms
web
DDoS of Things
I'm not saying the DDoS attack that took out much of the US internet today was caused by our insecure connected things. I'm merely implying it through ominous links. Recent Web
Time for a good old-fashioned context-free link dump.
Developing Things
Developing Things
- How the Web Became Unreadable
- A critical analysis of the iOS 10 lockscreen experience
- The Open Guide to Amazon Web Services and Easy Amazon EC2 Instance Comparison
- favicon-cheat-sheet
- Make the iPhone Volume Buttons Great Again (sorry)
- Deep work in practice (aspirational)
- The Most Patient Man on Television
- Guardians 2 Trailer
- Hand of the King Card Game
- Stutterer (fantastic short film)
Masterpiece
I just found out this devastating song by Big Thief exists and I can't go through it alone. So I'm sharing it here. You can switch to the full version for a bit of distance.
deck debris