Archives

Everything I’ve between the longer blog posts and the shorter micro posts. Also on RSS.

31 Pages

• Colophon

  27 Apr 2024 at 11:30 +0200

• Thank You “Personal Finance Writer” For Being Hilariously Scammed. We Can Learn A Lot From You

  See How I Fell for an Amazon Scam Call and Handed Over $50,000 on www.thecut.com

  27 Apr 2024 at 05:56 +0200

• Quick Resume on the Xbox Series consoles are the best (if not only) feature next-gen gaming consoles has to offer.

  It’s amazing how you can jump back to a game exactly where you left off, which is a godsend for massive games that take forever to load up. Looking at you Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

  It’s the best argument console scrubs can use to argue against the PC Master Race since it’s something only Xbox’s can do, although they want to bring it over to PC. IT would be great if PlayStation adds it to the PS5.

• MSCHF

  See MSCHF on mschf.com

  I was looking up Juicero for another post and I stumbled across a website called DeadStartupToys.com which sold leftover inventory from failed startups like Juicero, Theranos, the $100 laptop (just buy a used one) and Jibo. The web design was…interesting to say the least and it encouraged me to see MSCHF, digital shitposters a digital art collective, which was behind it.

  It sounded familliar and it turns out they were behind an effort to pirate Bee Movie that I contributed to. They also:

  • Offered a way to use your employer’s perks to fund political candidates they oppose via The Blue Donkey Shell Restaurant,
  • Sold the Lil Nas Z shoes with blood on them,
  • A book which spots billionaire plutocrats,
  • An MMO where you try to empty out a bank account,

  and a whole lot more. It’s crazy stuff you just have to see for yourself. Did you know the creator of Wordle works there now? [SITE HAS SHIT PERFORMANCE]

• Humane Ai created a wearable pin and all the reviews are terrible. One review in particular is from MKBHD and has the title The Worst Product I’ve Ever Reviewed… For Now [VIDEO: 25:03]. Some guy on exTwitter said the review was meanspirited which stirred some controversy which could have been avoided if the Humane Ai pin was actually good.

  I don’t care much about this product or AI in general but I’m reminded of Juicero. Remember that? It was a well-made $700 $400 juice machine which squeezed DRM fruit bags that Google thought was a good bet. Just one problem…

  You could just squeeze the bags yourself—something Bloomberg took a minute to find out. No expensive juice machine needed.

• Would you look at that, my Tumblr microblog is 1 year’s old today!

  I have since moved away from it in exchange for my site’s micro section.

  

  While it’s a lot better than it let’s on, I didn’t like how long it took for Tumblr to refresh the RSS feed, defeating the purpose of something that’s supposed to be quick. I did contemplate going back but I now have to buy a domain to use custom domains now so yeah. You can read all of the old tumblr posts (which I’ll move in over time), on the from-tumblr tag.

• The other day I discovered just how big a deal musicians were in the 50’s‒70’s. One such band of musicians are the Beetles with Beetlemania. Reading the Wikipedia article, it mentioned that the phenomenon was compared to a Nazi Rally and at one point I remember the article including a picture to a Nazi rally.

  Possibly the biggest “know who else” statement I’ve ever seen.

  Such statements are called Reductio ad Hitlerum where you invalidate one’s arguments by calling them Hitler. I don’t know what the writer intended to show with that picture, but it feels very dishonest albeit funny.

  See also: Goodwin’s law.

  ---

  I bring this up because a future article I’m working on reminded me of how the other day I heard that J.K Rowling, prominent children’s author who is known for sharing her “gender critical views” to put it at that, refused to acknowledge the Nazi’s well-documented persecution of transgender people. This led to people calling it Holocause denial. While it is, I find it a bit charged since most people’s conception with the Holocaust is on it’s persecution of Jews rather than the other groups like the LGBTQ, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma and the disabled. Not that I have much love for J.K Rowling let alone Harry Potter but clearly these fights aren’t accomplishing much besides raising everyone’s cortisol levels. There are better avenues for activism and J.K. can clearly afford to to not worry herself about the opinions of online trolls.

• Thoughts on Zimbabwe’s New Money the ZiG

  13 Apr 2024 at 05:56 +0200

• 9 April is Naked CSS Day

  See 9 April is Naked CSS Day on css-naked-day.github.io

  Oops, I forgot to add sass to the build so I didn’t actually deploy the site 😜🤦🏾‍♂️, hope you can see it now.

  ---

  I nearly forgot about this today. I hope you like my sexy naked <body>.

  Looks the same as last time, but I used Firefox this time which uses a lighter blue for the links. It’s also interesting to see all the places I used an sr-only class which I had to do for links.

  
• Now

  10 Apr 2024 at 07:01 +0200

• I was scheduling a post in June and I realized that I was defending how everything is becoming a subscription without realizing it.

  I’m kind of spoiling the post but the idea is that companies have an incentive to factor in all the possible costs of a device to see if it’s profitable for them to offer it. People don’t think to do this and it results in them making terrible financial decisions that they wouldn’t have if they had to rent their software instead.

• 

  This is a nifty USB C accessory.

  My mom got this cute little fan for my sister and I love that it comes with a type-C port. It’s also a power bank and has a light.

  This is what USB C should be about.

• Thinking About The Gore reNzara For No Particular Reason

  06 Apr 2024 at 06:00 +0200

• See If You Had A Foreigner Visit Harare, What Would You Show Them? on conspycons.wordpress.com

  Hararians, please give me ideas on what You can do for tourism in Harare. Unlike other global cities, it seems like a place strictly for business.

  I got some suggestions but they aren’t exactly in Harare like the recreational areas (Cleveland Dam, Chivero, Domboshava) or Lion Park. If you have any more email me at [email protected]

  This is the first time I’ve linked to this other blog. Plz read it.

• Happy 404 Day!

  I heard about this on Hacker News.

  I didn’t know it was a thing but since it’s the 4th of April—that is 4/04 or 4/04 for Americans, I guess it’s a good time to add my 404 page which I tried to make somewhat functional. It has links to internet archives with my old posts, a search link and an email address to let me know what’s wrong.

• On disabled and aria-disabled attributes

  See On disabled and aria-disabled attributes on kittygiraudel.com

  Here Kitty illustrates the difference between disabled (which makes a form control or button unusable) and aria-disabled (which merely communicates that an element is disabled but does not actually disable it). Not that you should disable buttons since it’s quite confusing.

  I’m just thinking of this tweet I read once which was like:

  Think of WAI-ARIA like Ariana Grande. Much like how Ariana Grande tries to look Asian, Black and so on without actually being those, ARIA makes an element look like something whilst it actually isn’t.

  Evidently this was years ago as Ariana has resolved to be Italian white.

• s12y Means Web Sustainability

  Web sustainability has been on my mind recently and I randomly thought of an numeronym for it since those are common in tech.

  Much like how a11y is for web accessibility and in8l is for web internationalization, s12y (pronounced stwelvy) makes sense for web sustainability.

  Unlike a11y, I doubt I’ll get reply guys saying s12y isn’t sustainable, but I’m using it for similar reasons as to why a11y is used—it’s a convenient tag for web developers that stands out from sustainability in general.

  I plan to write a bunch of s12y content so stay tuned for that.

  As for who else does this:

  • Some minutes on forming a working group on s12y
  • The S12Y Wiki
  • Some event in Barcelona that’s coming in a week’s time

  That’s pretty much it so far. I hope this catches on.

• Apple, You Know That Tino’s…

  01 Apr 2024 at 06:00 +0200

• I’ve Finally Found A Media Query for E-Ink Devices and It Doesn’t Work

  See The Curious Case of the CSS Monochrome Media Query on blog.stephaniestimac.com

  @media(monochrome) of course!

  I was looking for this to target e-ink displays like Kindles and my Boox Poke 5, mostly to make smaller images for such devices like how Low Tech Website, a website which runs on solar power, does it.

  I tried Steph’s Monochrome Media demo on my Poke 5 and it didn’t work using NeoBrowser, a Chrome rebranding. Taking a screenshot, it was in full color though I’m not sure that means much.

  

  Actual Chrome and Firefox Mobile didn’t support this either.

• render-image Render Hook

  24 Mar 2024 at 16:57 +0200

• Even though I work in Avenues just outside the city center, I refuse to drive there. Besides the chaotic drivers, it seems as if everyone is after your money, especially the city council looking to clamp poorly parked cars. Sadly, I needed to recharge electricity and since the system is always down, I had to go to Wayne Street to recharge. There, I had a strange interaction with the parking attendent.

  ---

  *Me noticing the parking attendent and giving him $1 for parking*

  Attendent: go on ahead, I’ll put the receipt on your car.

  Me: um, ok…

  *Me goes to pay, noticing city council officials going around looking for an excuse to clamp *

  *Some time later…*

  *Me heads back to the car, noticing the receipt isn’t there as the attendent comes back.*

  Me: Oy! Where’s the receipt?

  Attendent: Are you gonna park elsewhere in the city today?

  Me: Um, no.

  Attendent: So you’re good then.

  Me: 🤨…

  Attendent: 🙃

  Well, I’m glad you got enough money to head home.

• My Biggest Conspiracy Theory is That Tech Loves Scams

  06 Feb 2024 at 21:44 +0200

• To be very clear, free speech is when you give me money—Manchild Elon Musk

  See To be very clear, free speech is when you give me money—Manchild Elon Musk on www.washingtonpost.com

  Funny how I found this link literally a year after it was published.

  ---

  Free speech is when you pay me money for goods or services. That’s free speech. When you do not give me money, that is censorship.

  Free speech not only means the right to express your views (you know the ones), everyone else must also:

  • listen,
  • agree,
  • compensate them for their views, and
  • not expect the same treatment in return.

  See also: “Loving” free markets unless they behave in ways you don’t like.

• Did You Know You Can Buy Cheap Mazoe Online With Free Shipping?

  23 Oct 2023 at 06:00 +0200

• See Harry Potter and the Forbidden Game on www.youtube.com

  I’m late to the controversy, but I knew where this was going as soon as he mentioned the new Rick and Morty game.

  I planned to write more on this but basically, it’s a lot of controversy over a game people would forget about in a few months. It’s not suprising that anything related to Harry Potter would sell well. Thing is, if you’re a trans ally, not playing a game is the least you can do. It’s not like you’re being asked to join a militia or anything.

  At the same time, if we wanted to avoid consuming things that might upset us, we wouldn’t do anything, let alone play any video game. For instance, why would boycotting Chick-fil-a make sense but boycotting other restaurants which underpay employees (Chick-Fil-A pays more even), not? Not sure where the line is, but you should listen to your conscious. Nobody can tell you what to do, but if you insist on playing the game and you understand what your trans audience is complaining about, your guilt is on you.

  As for death threats on people playing a video game, relax. It’s not like JK Rowling lacks the money to harm trans people. At the same time, the people making death threats are a minority, but that doesn’t really matter. If you’re getting roasted online, everyone roasting you eventually looks the same, so the shittiest responses jump out at you. For that reason, I guess you should be better at expressing disagreement and not join in pile-ons?

• 9 April is Naked CSS Day

  See 9 April is Naked CSS Day on css-naked-day.github.io

  Hope I’m not to late, but I hope you like my sexy naked <body>!

  .

• The Internet At Work Sucks, But The Alternatives Aren’t Any Better

  27 Mar 2023 at 21:37 +0200

• breadcrumbs.html

  03 Sep 2022 at 06:00 +0200

• I Got A Bike!

  07 Mar 2022 at 19:06 +0200

• a11y is web accessibility

  See a11y is web accessibility on ericwbailey.design

  Here Eric justifies the use of the numeronym a11y for accessibility (the 11 being the number of characters between the a and y). Numeronyms are nothing new (i18l, w3c) and it helps people find communities (#11y on Mastodon) and resources (like Eric’s A11y Project) for developers working on accessibility.

  Along with this he goes over what accessibility should be about (adressing an ablist world), and what allies should do (listnen to disabled folks and not demanding them to adress your (probably already asked) questions) and some issues with the term a11y (which either aren’t issues or are a feature rather than a bug).

  I use the tag a11y for accessibility content since it’s much easier to write.

• Goodbye fgandiya, Hello faraixyz

  28 Jan 2020 at 00:00 UTC