Here’s a filtered selection of my personal bookmarks. Using a shell script, I regularly export specially-tagged entries from my buku database to a JSON file. During site rebuilds, Hugo automatically pulls content from that file to build this page. This approach allows me to use an interactive interface to build my bookmarks database without needing a dynamic site.
Timestamp format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM, as per RFC 3339
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Tags: accessibility, tutorial, utilities
A FLOSS app for iOS and Android that teaches you how to use VoiceOver and TalkBack, respectively. Screen reader tutorials are woefully inadequate nowadays, so this is a sight for sore eyes.
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Tags: fun
The Memetic Ant now inhabits my mind, and it shall inhabit yours too if you navigate to this bookmarked page. Minds it inhabits must link the page.
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Tags: microdata, rdfa, semantics, web
This is one reason why my site uses microdata instead of RDFa Lite: it conflicts with standard use of plain-old, semantic HTML (POSH). Good POSH can silently upgrade RDFa Lite to full-fledged RDFa Core, which will cause compliant parsers to interpret the property attribute differently. RDFa Lite is therefore not an option for me. I’d love to use full-fledged RDFa, but parsers don’t always “upgrade” from RDFa Lite to RDFa Core correctly. That leaves me with microdata. Sigh.
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Tags: culture, fun, reference, spec
The intent of Decimal Internet Time (DIT)–the standard usage reference document. Has some inspiration from Swatch Internet Time, but less biased. Seems fun to try out.
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Tags: accessibility, linux, utilities
Odilil will be a new Linux screen reader, competing with Orca. It’ll have addon support, OCR, and other much-needed features. Hopefully it eventually gives NVDA a run for its money.
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Tags: capitalism, favorite, hardware, opinion
An anti-consumerism guide to building long-lasting devices that respect the limitations of the environment, our wallets, and our attention. Instead of disposable ultraportable always-online devices, we should have study machines to help us work. Some of this resonated with my store-and-forward workflows for working with email, the Fediverse, and the IndieWeb.
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Tags: accessibility, favorite, frontend, reference, web
A coprehensive resource for front-end performance on the Web. Full of useful links to other articles. Very long read, unless you skip all the JavaScript-related optimizaiton.
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Tags: accessibility, web
One of the best blogs on a11y; does an excellent job showcasing why the WCAG are necessary but insufficient.
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Tags: favorite, science
The idea of tuning optimization algorithms in the opposite direction to create deliberately harmful results, with the prime example being using medical tools to create bioweapons. Scary yet thought-provoking.
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Tags: accessibility, rant, web
An interesting take on the problems with HTML 5. I disagree with some of these criticism, but agree with others. Much of these issues are solved by ensuring compatibility with the Weblite specifications and by following some of my website best practices article.
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Tags: list, reference, writing
This defines many abbreviations: e.g., et al, c.f., etc. Great reference.
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Tags: security, user interfaces
A generalization of the concept of “interfaces” anad applying it to secure development practices.
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Tags: dev, math
I grew interested in Busy Beaver programs when studying Googology; this is a response to the Spaghetti Code Conjecture of Busy Beaver programs.
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Tags: accessibility, dev, documentation, reference, semantics, web, writing
A useful style guide for writing docs on the Web. Covers writing style, accessibility needs, and other information.
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Tags: web
A reminder of what can go wrong in an existing syndication feed during website overhauls. I hope I don’t make the same mistake.
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Tags: accessibility, semantics, web
Text-level semantic HTML can improve machine-translation of texts containing program names, programming instructions, file paths, URIs, etc.
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Tags: utilities, w3c, web
A bit better and more general than the schema.org-centric ones by Google, Bing, and Yandex. Supports a range of vocabularies.
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Tags: favorite, fun
Inspired by StumbleUpon. This presents you with a button that could lead to any submitted website. A source of serendipity in an increasingly predictably-curated web.
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Tags: futurology, user interfaces
Echoes the notion that automation works best as a “bicycle for the mind”.
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Tags: capitalism, economics
An response to the Friedman doctrine, showing that United States law and corporate structure doesn’t require strict adherence to the “maximize shareholder value” directive.
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Tags: documentation, reference, writing
An overview to the four quadrants of documentation: tutorials, how-to guides, explanation, and reference. It introduces each section with a cooking analogy. I’d add “user interface” as a fifth, when applicable. Features like tooltips can serve as a form of “lite” documentation on their own.
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Tags: accessibility, capitalism, rant, web
An angry but hilarious rant in response to a rather thoughtless dismissal of progressive enhancement. A must-read for anyone who does front-end or accessibility work.
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Tags: accessibility, reference, tutorial, w3c, web
The WAI’s accessibility tutorials give web-specific instructions to meet the WCAG. This is necessary because the WCAG are written to be abstract and platform-neutral.
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Tags: linux, reversing, security, utilities
I should include this in my “FLOSS doesn’t imply security” article.
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Tags: accessibility, w3c, web
A detailed criticism of the WCAG 2.0. Some of these points have been addressed by the revisions and companion documents that followed, especially the Web-specific tutorials. Other criticisms still stand. The WCAG 3.0 fixes a few issues with the WCAG 2.X, but it exacerbates some of Joe’s other criticisms. I think the best solution would be a companion document that “translates” the WCAG into something Web-specific, requirement-by-requirement. Currently, advice is split across many pages detailing “how to meet requirement X”.
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Tags: environment, favorite
One of my favorite websites. It presents an alternative to “scaling”: reduction and finding low-tech solutions to our problems. Renewables are good, but they’re not enough to solve our environmental impact. We need to reduce reliance on industrial resource consumption. I’m no anarcho-primitivist, but I like the idea of being able to do the “same thing with less”.
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Tags: favorite, indieweb, microformats, web
Getting familiar with IndieWeb is a daunting process; this page distills it down to a process that’s easy to follow. These bookmarks are part of my plan to IndieWebify seirdy.one as per this guide. I don’t like the order too much; IMO, webmentions should come much earlier than some other steps, as they’re quite simple to set up and the basis for the entire social element of the IndieWeb. I should bring that up later.
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Tags: dev, search engines, web
An intro to how Cliqz (now Brave Search) built its search engine. The entire Cliqz blog is a great read.
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Tags: futurology, science
A reality check for transhumanism that doesn’t denigrate the idea. Instead, it shows how unrealistic it is for us to achieve the transhumanist ideal of implants, augmentation, and eventually “transcendance” in a reasonable timeframe even if the process has already started.
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Tags: environment, science
I think the optimism in this article is a little misplaced, but it’s still a fascinating look at Direct Air Capture (DAC) that I wasn’t exposed to before.
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Tags: dev
Applies the technique of defunctionalization to writing software of any kind (primarily data pipelines), rather than its current niche in compilers.
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Tags: environment
A quantative analysis of computers’ and cloud’s carbon footprint.
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Tags: accessibility, w3c, web
WCAG 3.0 is coming, and makes many changes to its priorities and methodology. This details what to expect. I’m ambivalent, but time will tell how things work out.
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Tags: frontend, rant
A generally cynical look at design trends. Commercial apps are increasingly made in ways that ignore the desktop paradigms that users expect in favor of paradigms that are both bespoke and mobile-friendly. I’d imagine that there are some parallels to accessibility. The “Content Usable” WCAG guidance seems quite relevant.
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Tags: list, reference, semantics
Excellent and comprehensive list of controlled vocabularies, typically used used in ontological frameworks like RDF.
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Tags: reference, security, sysadmin
A useful reference to check my server configs against, to complement tools like Lynis and official docs.
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Tags: microformats, reference, semantics, web
An incredibly useful reference for making content compatible with various reading modes. I’m not a fan of complying with proprietary, non-standard quirks; however, it looks like most reading mode implementations are aware of open standards such as microformats1, microformats2, microdata, and POSH. Supporting these standards should help improve compatibility.
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Tags: favorite, opinion, web
I hate most forms of advertising, so this post spoke to me. Unfortunately, traditional adblocking mechanisms (browser adblockers, yt-dlp’s Sponsorblock integration or mpv’s sponsorblock script, etc) are limited to digital content. This post challenges us to take adblocking to the next level by blocking ads in real life, the only ways we can.