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Links — Prints 2.5

Baldur Bjarnason on better web apps. Agreed.

Anton Howes on why Dungeons & Dragons wasn’t invented until the 1970s. A fun question.

Bun, a new JavaScript runtime. Such speed! The built-in TypeScript and npm compatibility is nice, too. Planning on trying this out for some upcoming projects.

Rasmus Andersson on making fonts in Figma. Had no idea this kind of thing is possible in Figma.

Garrett Scott on Pipedream, a hyperlogistics startup. Kind of mind-blowing. I don’t know how I feel about the security aspects of having a chute into my house that other companies can access, though.

Laundry Jet, another interesting startup. Also something I probably wouldn’t want to use, this one because a) my house isn’t that big and b) if stuff gets stuck in there…

Matt Webb on tubes. The source of the above links.

Tree & Leaf, a lovely online genealogy site. I’m now itching to do something similar. (It’ll probably wait until after I’ve gotten this printed genealogy chart itch out of my system, though.)

ArchieML, the NYT’s markup language. A potential alternative to YAML that I’m looking at for some of my genealogy projects.

Darshana Narayanan on the dangerous populist science of Yuval Noah Harari. I haven’t read Harari yet and now will go in with more skepticism than I would have otherwise.

Tess Joosse on recent research showing that quiet background noise can numb pain. Intriguing.

Matt Levine on Elon and Twitter. An entertaining read.

Gwendal Uguen and Luc Guillemot’s visual guide to the Aztec pantheon. A cool bit of educational material.

Yi Fuxian on China’s population peaking earlier than anticipated. I’m not actually tracking this closely or anything, but it did seem interesting.

The content-aware typography Tumblr. Ha.

Steven Johnson on not looking back while drafting. I tend to do this, though maybe with a little bit more rereading than he recommends (just the last page or so of what I’ve written).

Nolan Lawson on memory leaks on the web. Something I need to do better at checking for.

Matthias Ott on just putting stuff out there on the web. This makes me want to write more often. Still trying to decide if this two-week cadence is right for me or not.

Google Docs URL shortcuts for creating new documents. Had no idea these existed. Wow.

John Christensen’s Webb vs. Hubble comparison site. Double wow.

Ahmad Shadeed deep diving into some Figma CSS.

Nolan Lawson on style scoping vs. the shadow DOM.

C. J. Chilvers’ personal publishing principles. An interesting idea for a page. I like it.

Frontend Mastery on the new wave of React state management libraries.

Klim Type Foundry on The Future, a new Futura typeface. Mmm, I love type design writeups like this.

Robin Shreeves on scruffy hospitality. I.e., not worrying so much about cleaning your house before guests come over. We haven’t had guests since Covid began, but when we start up again (which will be soon, now that our youngest are almost fully vaccinated), this is good to keep in mind.

Kurt Schlosser on “parallel reality”. It’s a new type of screen with multidirectional pixels that can supposedly privately show up to 100 customers their flight information, all at the same time from the same screen.

Matt Webb on carbon dioxide detection. Makes me wonder if I should get a monitor for this.

Miriam Suzanne on why browser stylesheets have a default margin of 8px. CSS history!

Keith Peters on randomness in generative art. Cool.

Matthew Guay on documenting first before building (software). Love this. Every time I’ve done this, I’ve been glad that I did — implementation goes so much more smoothly.

Sheon Han on the hidden history of screen readers (JAWS and NVDA, mainly).


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Reading — Prints 2.5

Recent nonfiction reads

  • Disability Visibility, edited by Alice Wong. A variety of essays, with varying levels of interest. Overall, it was a quick read that I learned a lot from. The idea of disability being time travel (making your body act much older or much younger) resonated with me; I’ve certainly felt like my spondylolisthesis has aged me thirty years. While it’s invisible to anyone looking at me, it affects my life every day, all day long. (It’s very rare for an hour to go by without the pain drawing my attention.) Anyway, this was the first book I’ve read about disability since my injury, and some of the essays definitely felt like they were speaking to me.

Recent fiction reads

  • The Sudden Appearance of Hope, by Claire North. I think this was maybe my second favorite of hers so far, after Harry August. An interesting science fiction idea (a girl who everyone forgets) with intriguing exploration of the potential ramifications, which is what I like out of science fiction. (Or at least one thing I like out of science fiction.)
  • Devolution, by Max Brooks. Sasquatch horror. Quite violent in some respects, but overall a captivating story. I liked it more than World War Z, which felt more exhausting to me. Even so, I’m very, very glad this book was fictional.
  • Upgrade, by Blake Crouch. Another interesting science fiction idea (which comes enough into the book that I won’t spoil it, even though it’s somewhat self-evident and probably all over the back cover copy). During the middle I wasn’t sure how I felt about the book, but the ending turned it around for me in a good way. Also one that I’m glad was fictional.

Books purchased since last post

  • Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World — Adam Tooze
  • Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All: A New Zealand Story — Christina Thompson
  • The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth’s Ultimate Trophy — Paige Williams
  • The Last Lie Told — Debra Webb
  • Churchill & Son — Josh Ireland
  • Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body — Neil Shubin
  • Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory — Ben Macintyre
  • The Law — Jim Butcher
  • Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence — Joseph J. Ellis
  • The Immortal King Rao — Vauhini Vara
  • The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday — Saad Z. Hossain
  • Knives at Dawn: America’s Quest for Culinary Glory at the Legendary Bocuse d’Or Competition — Andrew Friedman
  • Stet: An Editor’s Life — Diana Athill
  • The Story of Greece and Rome — Tony Spawforth
  • Trust: America’s Best Chance — Pete Buttigieg
  • Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer — Steven Johnson
  • The Hand of the Sun King — J. T. Greathouse
  • Upgrade — Blake Crouch
  • Drunk on All Your Strange New Words — Eddie Robson
  • Inda — Sherwood Smith
  • The Immortal Game: A History of Chess — David Shenk
  • Stray Souls — Kate Griffin
  • The Glass God — Kate Griffin
  • Lessons from the Edge: A Memoir — Marie Yovanovitch
  • Rez Life: An Indian’s Journey Through Reservation Life — David Treuer
  • Harbinger of the Storm — Aliette de Bodard
  • Master of the House of Darts — Aliette de Bodard

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