Here’s a little snippet of CSS that solves a problem I’ve never considered:
The problem is that Live Text, “Select text in images to copy or take action,” is enabled by default on iOS devices (Settings → General → Language & Region), which can interfere with the contextual menu in Safari. Pressing down on the above link may select the text inside the image instead of selecting the link URL.
Most obviously, aliveness is what generally feels absent from the written and visual outputs of ChatGPT and its ilk, even when they’re otherwise of high quality. I’m not claiming I couldn’t be fooled into thinking AI writing or art was made by a human (I’m sure I already have been); but that when I realise something’s AI, either because it’s blindingly obvious or when I find out, it no longer feels so alive to me. And that this change in my feelings about it isn’t irrelevant: that it means something.
More subtly, it feels like our own aliveness is what’s at stake when we’re urged to get better at prompting LLMs to provide the most useful responses. Maybe that’s a necessary modern skill; but still, the fact is that we’re being asked to think less like ourselves and more like our tools.
- Humans can not accurately describe what they want out of a software system until it exists.
- Humans can not accurately predict how long any software effort will take beyond four weeks. And after 2 weeks it is already dicey.
This free day-long online event all about accessibility and inclusive design is happening right now. You can join live, or catch up on the talks that have already happened, like the excellent talks from Russ Weakly and Manuel Matuzović.
Well, this is timely! Cassie mentioned recently that she was reading—and enjoying—the Earthsea books, which I had never got around to reading. So I’m reading them now. Then Craig mentioned in one of his newsletters that he’s also reading them. Now there’s this article…
To white protestors and accomplices, who say that they want to listen but are fearful of giving up some power so that we can all heal, I suggest you read the Earthsea cycle. You will need to learn to step away from the center to build a new world, and the Black majority in this fantasy series offers a better model than any white history.
Fellow Brightonians, here’s a handy one-stop shop for all the places doing deliveries right now, generated from this spreadsheet by Chris Boakes.
Here’s a write-up (with great photos) from the truly excellent gig that Salter Cane headlined on Saturday night.
The high praise for all the bands is not hyperbole—I was blown away by how good they all were!
Here’s the live podcast recording I was on at the View Source conference in Amsterdam a while back, all about the history of JavaScript.
My contribution starts about ten minutes in. I really, really enjoyed our closing chat around the 25 minute mark.
It was such a pleasure and an honour to watch Saron at work—she did an amazing job!
Here’s the livestream of the talk I gave at Paris Web—Going Offline, complete with French live-captioning and simultaneous interpretation in .
Don’t miss this—a masterclass in SVG animation with Cassie (I refuse to use the W word). Mark your calendar: August 20th.
Stuart took copious notes during every single talk at Patterns Day—what a star!
I wish I were here for this (I’m going to be over in Ireland that week)—an evening with James Burke, Britain’s voice of Apollo 11.
Here is your chance to find out what went on behind the scenes as James revisits the final moments of the Apollo mission. He’ll recreate the drama, struggling to make sense of flickering images from NASA and working with the limitations of 1960s technology. We’ll hear what went wrong as well as what went right on the night! Illustrated with amazing archive material from both the BBC and NASA, this will be the story of the moon landings brought to you by the man who became a broadcasting legend.
These are good challenges to think about. Almost all of them are user-focused, and there’s a refreshing focus away from reaching for a library:
It’s tempting to read about these problems with a particular view library or a data fetching library in mind as a solution. But I encourage you to pretend that these libraries don’t exist, and read again from that perspective. How would you approach solving these issues?
A terrific explanation of the aria-live attribute from Ire. If you’re doing anything with Ajax, this is vital knowledge.
Mark your calendars, Brightonians: one week from tomorrow, on Saturdaay, April 28th, come and see my band Salter Cane playing in The Brunswick.
We will rock you …in the most miserablist way possible.
Here are Torre’s notes on my talk at An Event Apart Seattle. (She’s been liveblogging all the talks.)
Heydon keeps on delivering the goods. This time, he looks at making on-screen notification messages accessible using ARIA’s live regions.
As ever, structuring content is paramount, even where it pertains to dynamic events inside realtime web applications.
Luke is a live-blogging machine. Here’s the notes he made during my talk at An Event Apart Seattle.
If it reads like a rambling hodge-podge of unconnected thoughts, I could say that you had to be there …but it kinda was a rambling hodge-podge of unconnected thoughts.
There’s going to be an evening of astro events out at Sussex University next Wednesday, January 18th. Stargazing, an inflatable planetarium, and the Ensonglopedia of science—fun for all the family!
This is absolutely fascinating—listen live to radio stations all over the world by rotating our planet in your browser.
There’s something really addictive about eavesdropping on the world’s airwaves like this.