Firehose

The users. They yearn for toxicity. They will drag it with them and sew its seeds. Toxicity feeds drama, and drama feeds engagement.

The scripture tells us it’s true.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1320040111

I left my flexbox out in the sun for too long, which caused it to dry up. Now it won’t wrap anymore.

Do I need to get a new one, or can I rehydrate it somehow?

My website is too energetic. Does anyone know how to calm down hypertext?

How does one stop LinkedIn from serving them two-week-old reheated AI slop? Is there a button for that or..?

Sometimes I read something I’ve written and think, ‘Who the hell writes like that?’

Then I have the horrifying revelation that it is me. I write like that. Oh dear.

‘Did you, or did you not, kill this man?’

‘Your honour, he recommended I rewrite my static site with React because, quote, “It’s better.”’

‘The killing was justified. Court dismissed.’

Run this simple Vim substitute command to instantly improve your website’s codebase:

:%s/button/div/g

This just in:
People shocked as venture capital backed company with good product/service that was operated unsustainably and at a loss to draw in users enshittifies as backers scramble for return on investment.

‘I’m shocked’, says one user of the product/service. ‘I know this exact thing has happened every other time without fail, but I thought this time would be different.’

Sending love to all the poor folks named Albert who go by Al.

None of us saw this coming, and I’m sorry most fonts don’t differentiate between ‘l’ and ‘I’.

A fantastic post from David Bushell regarding AI slop and its ever-continuing dribble into everything at the cost of better, more well-formed, and intentioned alternatives.

https://dbushell.com/2025/05/30/ensloppification/

The natural beauty of watching a database migrating south for the update.

Last night I crept into your house under the cover of darkness and made almost imperceivable modifications to your browser’s user-agent stylesheet.

Changes just impactful enough that you will be mildly inconvenienced. I chucked a few !importants in there as well.

My evil knows no bounds.

‘Your website should be a home/garden/portfolio/blog/etc.’

No. It should be a grimoire, dammit.

You use * + * because it is a useful CSS snippet. I use * + * because I think it looks funny, and I like saying ‘lobotomised owl’.

We are not the same.

A word of advice: don’t have a default username system if you’re running an online service which you’ll need to moderate.

Automated accounts will use these default names, which allows them to blend in with genuine users using default names and makes it harder to spot patterns.

Sometimes I push to prod simply because I’ve grown to hate my creation and wish to watch it suffer and toil in this cruel world at the twisted hands of deranged users.

Other times I feel sorry and have sympathy, so my pushes to prod are because I can’t bear to watch my own creation flounder alone within the confines of my machine with me as its sole tormentor any longer.

Part of becoming better at a craft is to reflect on shortcomings and to see what can be improved and iterated upon. I feel like a lot of people forget to do that bit when ‘moving fast and breaking things’.

Words, laid bare. Branded with the mark of shame: ‘[sic]’. The textual equivalent of a public flogging. Execution in bracketed form.

Carousels are a web staple. Websites use them, and thus people do in turn. They’ve garnered a lot of hate over the years, primarily due to being largely inaccessible and poor ways of presenting information, yet still they persist. So, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

The Chrome team put together Carousels with CSS which Sara Soueidan has examined in extreme depth. My main takeaway from the main article and Sara’s analysis is that while this is a vague step in the correct direction, it doesn’t address any of the core issues like accessibility and introduces new ones. I was disappointed to see the approach taken in regard to addressing those issues and think Eric Eggert hit the nail on the head.

It completely fails with regard to separation of concerns by using CSS for structure, rather than HTML. I don’t know how to address that other than asking why? I’ve noticed a lot of new CSS features, especially ones with the Chrome team’s influence, are getting a little too markup-y for my liking. David Bushell has covered this and the overreliance of pseudo-elements with touchings on the carousel kerfuffle.

HTML is for structure, CSS is for styling, JS is for anything that can’t be achieved with HTML/CSS, and accessibility isn’t omittable. We should be striving to build a web that is both functional and inclusive. Respect the web; respect users.

I wanted to see how the times Bluesky posts are published affect the popularity of those posts, so I put together a super quick and dirty little tool to do that.

https://tools.vale.rocks/bluesky-posting-analyser

My findings lined up with my hypothesis that posts around American mornings and evenings merit the most activity.

I was surprised to see that weekends are popular within technical communities, as I expected engagement to drop off when people aren’t ‘working’.

HTML. CSS. JavaScript.

Long ago, the three nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when The Frameworks attacked.

If you’re on Twitter/X, I think less of you.
If you’re on Substack, I think less of you.
If you’re on Facebook/Instagram, I think less of you.

To remain on them knowing the damage they are doing and facilitating is to comply with and endorse their actions. There isn’t an excuse for staying.

A local developer has been found dead. Upon interviewing their family, we discovered they’ve repeatedly been found typing alone in an empty IRC chat at odd hours of the morning regarding creating a ‘revolutionary new technology’. Police believe they were attempting to reinvent the literal wheel.

I always feel dirty talking about type. Serifs with lovely ball terminals. Soft shoulders. Attractive curves. Deep inktrap crotches. Beautiful eyes. Broad arms. Long, slender legs. Tittles.

(I mean, good typography is sexy – even ignoring the trade diction.)

If you ask for help, and someone decides to help you, and they ask you clarifying questions so they can provide that help, don’t fight them!

Don’t question their questions and push back; they’re asking for a reason.

As developers, our goal is to build something to be used. Part of this is ensuring it can be used by anyone and caters to everyone.

Accessibility isn’t a separate concept or goal. Making something more accessible for some people makes it better for all people, and that is our greater intent.

Remember when we used to talk about new technologies and say, ‘This is the worst it’ll ever be’?

I miss those days.