Mastodon Feed: Posts

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

GuillaumeRossolini@infosec.exchange ("Guillaume Rossolini") wrote:

@slightlyoff

Everyone in a site's production chain has agency to prevent disaster

The number of times I tried advocating for this at my previous job 🤷‍♀️ I didn’t always succeed but talking about it, repeatedly, is useful. “Isn’t that your job?” was always on the tip of their tongue, understandibly (to a degree).

The best argument I found was in the studies that show x% longer page load leads to y% loss of conversion (ie. direct correlation to campaign success, hence revenue).

And the best example for that was the home page, specifically the hero images in a carousel that was under the responsibility of the marketing team. They had tools to upload the images, set the links and alt text in the various languages the site was available in, set a schedule etc so there was no technical involvement at all. Sometimes there would be 6 or 7 images in that carousel, noticeably slowing down page loads on that most important page.

Reblogged by isagalaev ("Ivan Sagalaev :flag_wbw:"):

sorin@toot.cafe ("Sorin Davidoi") wrote:

When you try out a new photo gallery application and it's maxing out all the cores for hours to generate the thumbnails, at least you can put the generated heat to good use by using it to grow a #focaccia.

Attachments:

• Laptop resting on the monitor on a table, the fan pointing towards a bowl covered with plastic foil that contains a focaccia dough. (remote)

Reblogged by collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth"):

Alice@beige.party ("Alice McFlurry :bc:") wrote:

People always tell me I look like Velma from Scooby Doo so I entered a lookalike contest and I would have won if it weren't for those medaling kids.

Reblogged by collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth"):

ElleGray@mstdn.social ("elle") wrote:

not saying I'm a prophet or anything but stuff like this happens to me all the time

Attachments:

• A store with shelves labeled "water" but actually full of bottles of wine (remote)

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

carpingdiem@med-mastodon.com ("Carpingdiem") wrote:

I love this time of year--the hummingbird babies have fledged and are constantly at the feeder, drinking and fighting. #birds #birding #birdsofmastodon #birdphotography #hummingbirds #nature #HoosierMast

Attachments:

• A female or juvenile ruby throated hummingbird hovering. It has a green iridescent back, dark wings and a white throat and belly. (remote)
• A female or juvenile ruby throated hummingbird stretches out its stumpy legs in preparation for landing on a shepherd's hook. It has tiny feet. (remote)
• A female or juvenile ruby throated hummingbird hovering next to the nectar feeder. It has a green iridescent back, dark wings and a white throat and belly. (remote)
• A neon yellow and black male American goldfinch and a brown and white female or juvenile house finch have landed on opposite sides of the ant moat on top of the hummingbird feeder. I keep the ant moat filled with fresh water and many birds prefer to get their water this way. Usually 2 birds of different species do not share the ant moat, and this detente only lasted a few seconds. (remote)

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

In this sense, progressive enhancement can be understood as *"let browsers help as much as they can, and only add what they fail to provide"*

This leads to simpler, cheaper solutions to common problems. First, because many of the problems you'll end up with are about letting the browser help *more*, and if you haven't YOLO'd your site off a bridge, that's easier to do.

Second, because you've minimized the amount of JS that might be defeating browser attempts to help in the first place.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

This post includes recommendations for teams that are procuring websites, and I think they can be summed up as: *buy simpler problems*.

Every feature that gets added via JavaScript is more complex, more expensive, and harder to improve. That means that when things go wrong, they're treble costly to fix because JS is _"f-it! we'll do it live!"_ for web development. JS disables or routes around all the ways the browsers try to help.

Let browsers help!

https://infrequently.org/2024/08/the-way-out/

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

Little known fact is that song managed to tank consumer demand for blank floppy disks.

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

I'm so glad we've developed ubiquitous internet service and readily accessible video storage and streaming so that I can enjoy gems like this that I missed the first time around:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy7ZBX9BTUA

bcantrill ("Bryan Cantrill") wrote:

RFD 508: Whither CockroachDB?
https://rfd.shared.oxide.computer/rfd/0508

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

The CW is true.

Reblogged by kornel ("Kornel"):

kevinrns@mstdn.social ("Kevin Russell") wrote:

I love it so much!

Firefox has made it SO EASY to switch to Firefox from Chrome, that you dont even lose your OPEN TABS.

Have you got 34 open tabs lol? And you lost uBlock ad-blocker today? (You did, you lost your ad blocker, because Google)

You dont even lose open Tabs! (And you get to install uBlock)

Fancy that.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switching-chrome-firefox

#chrome #ublock #adblockers

Reblogged by kornel ("Kornel"):

paul@tapbots.social ("Paul Haddad :tapbots_logo:") wrote:

Got to bookmark this page and look at it every time I consider getting the 2019 Pro. Will just wait for the M4 Mini (assuming they don't hobble it) and M4 Studio Ultra.

Attachments:

• 802adbae3a9ccf67.png (remote)

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

It is *eternally* f'd up that the "DX" bait-and-switch requires both an acceptance of a heroic developer narrative as well as belief that developers are helpless to make things right when they (reliably) go sideways.

WHICH IS IT!?!

This nonsense is marketing. It's bullshit. And the opposite of bullshit is engineering.

Do engineering, or at least get caught trying.

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Reckoning, Part 4: The Way Out

This series was a risk. I don't generally like to post traces without the permission of teams, but the situation has been *so* bad for *so* long, and the marketing nonsense from the JavaScript-industrial-complex is so pervasive, that more is needed.

That starts with acknowledging that everyone making sites is an active participant with agency. We all have parts to play in making them better or worse for folks at the margin.

Choose wisely

https://infrequently.org/2024/08/the-way-out/

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Part 4: The Way Out

Unacceptable performance is the consequence of a chain of failures to put the user first. Breaking the chain usually requires just one insistent advocate. Disasters like BenefitsCal are not inevitable. Responsibility is always an option, and it's generally easier and cheaper in the medium to long run.

https://infrequently.org/2024/08/the-way-out/

collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth") wrote:

[This is not an invitation to tell me it's my fault, that I just need to curate my feed, etc.]

collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth") wrote:

Getting set up on Mastodon is kinda hard, and there's a lot you have to understand about instances and stuff like that.

But once you get past that initial hurdle, THEN you get to move on to the part where it's just constant, nonstop reminders of everything that's wrong with the world 24/7.

collinsworth@hachyderm.io ("Josh Collinsworth") wrote:

Anybody else playing Arco on Switch?

Is the performance terrible for everyone else, too? It's not just lag and framerate issues; seems like it's so bad even the music gets distorted and can't keep up. :(

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

carefully invigilating each bite taken of that cheese sandwich ;^}

Attachments:

• 743e5bc930f79924.jpeg (remote)

pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:

These kaiju are really kind of stupid.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/08/16/you-need-some-more-weird-tales-from-ruben-bolling/

Attachments:

• Comic in which giant Trump/Vance attack, and are repelled by a woman saying "they're weird." (remote)

pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:

It would be a good time for us all to mask up again.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/08/16/bring-back-the-mask/

Attachments:

• child with a mask (remote)

pzmyers@octodon.social ("pzmyers 🦑") wrote:

Don't let robots explain science to you.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/08/16/soyou-wanna-be-a-science-communicator/

Attachments:

• Ugly graphic saying "How artificial intelligence enhances personalized communication." (remote)

Reblogged by kornel ("Kornel"):

brucelawson@vivaldi.net ("Bruce Lawson") wrote:

'Apple doesn't oppose regulation; Apple loves regulation, so long as they're the ones doing the regulating. They want to be able to shape and define the digital market, backed by the power of the state, but without any input from the state. In modern corporate orthodoxy, the state is an enforcer for corporate will." https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/15/private-law/#thirty-percent-vig

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

zens@merveilles.town ("Luci for dyeing") wrote:

I made a quick little tool for figuring out how the heck flex layouts work.

https://tools.yip.pe/flex-experimenter.html

Reblogged by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen"):

wim_v12e@scholar.social ("Wim🧮") wrote:

Hi everyone, I am organising LOCO 2024, 1st International Workshop on Low Carbon Computing

It's hybrid and will be held 3 Dec 2024, in Glasgow (Scotland) and on line.

You can propose a regular talk (20 minutes) or a lightning talk (5 minutes)

Please consider submitting, whether you're academic or not, and please spread the word.

https://locos.codeberg.page/loco2024/

#FrugalComputing #LowCarbonComputing

jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

the bees seem happy with the catnip flowers this morning

cstanhope@social.coop ("Your friendly 'net denizen") wrote:

This morning I've been enjoying this new track from Andrew Huang, Tom McGovern and Gabi Rose: "Julian".

https://andrewhuang.bandcamp.com/track/julian

Reblogged by slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell"):

molly0xfff@hachyderm.io ("Molly White") wrote:

thanks, ChatGPT

Attachments:

• Assistant: Certainly! Here’s a smoother transition to tie your points together: [TODO: smooth transition] (remote)

slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:

Tomorrow's post is in the tube, ready to launch. Some folks find this series hard to engage with. If you don't want to wade through all of it, know that one, single, solitary thing that matters in software: giving a toss about users. Particularly folks at the margins.

Care about users, make their lives better, and the rest will explain itself.

Care about yourself and comforting abstractions ("DX", "frameworks", "SPAs"), and you'll only orbit minor asteroids.

https://infrequently.org/series/reckoning/