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My book­marks

Here’s a filtered selection of my personal bookmarks.

A shell script exports buku entries to a JSON file that populates this page. This approach lets me use an interactive interface to build my bookmarks database without needing a dynamic site.

Timestamp format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM, as per RFC 3339

  1. Bookmarked

    Tags: culture, rdf, reference, w3c, web

    A historical style guide for people who make things for the Web, straight from Tim Berners-Lee. Much of it is growing obsolete, but some pages remain applicable. “Cool URIs don’t change (1998)” is 100% relevant today.

  2. Bookmarked

    Tags: culture, neurodiversity, philosophy, satire

    A parody of many neurotypically-biased initiatives feigning concern for autism, but treating it as a problem in need of a solution. This is an archive of a webpage first uploaded decades ago.

  4. Bookmarked

    Tags: indieweb, tutorial, web

    There have been other attempts to document the process of bringing ActivityPub to a (mostly) static site, but this is my favorite so far. I wonder if I should give it a go, if POSSE ever stops serving my needs.

  5. Bookmarked

    Tags: browsers, firefox, security

    This could be the biggest leap forward in years when it comes to SpiderMonkey catching up to V8 and JSC’s JIT hardening. So far, I’ve been telling security-conscious Firefox users to disable the JIT compiler, and to use Chromium when JIT is necessary; maybe I won’t have to in a few years’ time.

  8. Bookmarked

    Tags: favorite, web

    A short manifesto about keeping web pages and their build processes simple, to ensure they can be found and re-built decades in the future. Personally, my “build process” only requires a Hugo binary; everything else (efficient-compression-tool, brotli, xmllint, sd) is strictly optional. I build all these programs as statically-linked binaries and wrap them in a tarball, and fetch that tarball whenever building in CI. I might incorporate some of this into my web best practices article.

  9. Bookmarked

    Tags: privacy, security

    This paper describes an approach to fingerprinting traffic (especially for Tor hidden services) using traffic analysis. It outlines a potential mitigation called “ALPaCA”, in which servers pad responses to be less fingerprintable. I’d be interested in knowing how it compares with random record padding in TLS 1.3, especially since TLS certificates for .onion domains are expensive. ngx_http_alpaca_module seems like an interesting WIP implementation.

  10. Bookmarked

    Tags: favorite, networking, privacy, security, spec

    “This document describes a system for the forwarding of encrypted HTTP messages. This allows a client to make multiple requests of a server without the server being able to link those requests to the client or to identify the requests as having come from the same client.”

  11. Bookmarked

    Tags: engines, opinion, search, web

    As the maintainer of a long list of crawling search engines, this seems like a really important issue to me. Perhaps I should add info about crawlers and user-agent strings to that list. “The web is hostile to upstart search engine crawlers, and most websites only allow Google’s crawler.”

  12. Bookmarked

    Tags: utilities

    Ghostarchive is another web archiving service, like the Wayback Machine or archive.today. It seems like a good alternative to the now-defunct WebCite.

  13. Bookmarked

    Tags: favorite, reference, semantics, web

    A long, comprehensive document by Sarven Capadisli. It studies a linked-data approach to decentralized information-sharing and communication on the Web. Right where my interests lie.

  14. Bookmarked

    Tags: culture, favorite, fun, list, reference

    I helped Sadness put together this webring directory, and I’m really happy it exists. 50+ entries together show that webrings are not a relic of the past, but are very much alive.

  15. Bookmarked

    Tags: favorite, networking, reference

    A comprehensive guide to networking and network-oriented performance tuning in the context of browsers and servers. Amazing resource.

  16. Bookmarked

    Tags: accessibility, tutorial, utilities

    A FLOSS app for iOS and Android that teaches you how to use VoiceOver and TalkBack, respectively. Screen reader tutorials are woefully inadequate nowadays, so this is a sight for sore eyes.

  17. Bookmarked

    Tags: fun

    The Memetic Leptaniform now inhabits my mind, and it shall inhabit yours too if you navigate to this bookmarked page. Minds it inhabits must link the page.

  18. Bookmarked

    Tags: microdata, rdfa, semantics, web

    This is one reason why my site uses microdata instead of RDFa Lite: it conflicts with standard use of plain-old, semantic HTML (POSH). Good POSH can silently upgrade RDFa Lite to full-fledged RDFa Core, which will cause compliant parsers to interpret the property attribute differently. RDFa Lite is therefore not an option for me. I’d love to use full-fledged RDFa, but parsers don’t always “upgrade” from RDFa Lite to RDFa Core correctly. That leaves me with microdata. Sigh.

  19. Bookmarked

    Tags: culture, fun, reference, spec

    The intent of Decimal Internet Time (DIT)–the standard usage reference document. Has some inspiration from Swatch Internet Time, but less biased. Seems fun to try out.

  20. Bookmarked

    Tags: accessibility, linux, utilities

    Odilil will be a new Linux screen reader, competing with Orca. It’ll have addon support, OCR, and other much-needed features. Hopefully it eventually gives NVDA a run for its money.

  21. Bookmarked

    Tags: capitalism, favorite, hardware, opinion

    An anti-consumerism guide to building long-lasting devices that respect the limitations of the environment, our wallets, and our attention. Instead of disposable ultraportable always-online devices, we should have study machines to help us work. Some of this resonated with my store-and-forward workflows for working with email, the Fediverse, and the IndieWeb.

  22. Bookmarked

    Tags: accessibility, favorite, frontend, reference, web

    A coprehensive resource for front-end performance on the Web. Full of useful links to other articles. Very long read, unless you skip all the JavaScript-related optimizaiton.

  23. Bookmarked

    Tags: accessibility, web

    One of the best blogs on a11y; does an excellent job showcasing why the WCAG are necessary but insufficient.

  24. Bookmarked

    Tags: favorite, science

    The idea of tuning optimization algorithms in the opposite direction to create deliberately harmful results, with the prime example being using medical tools to create bioweapons. Scary yet thought-provoking.

  25. Bookmarked

    Tags: accessibility, rant, web

    An interesting take on the problems with HTML 5. I disagree with some of these criticism, but agree with others. Much of these issues are solved by ensuring compatibility with the Weblite specifications and by following some of my website best practices article.

  29. Bookmarked

    Tags: accessibility, dev, documentation, reference, semantics, web, writing

    A useful style guide for writing docs on the Web. Covers writing style, accessibility needs, and other information.

  30. Bookmarked

    Tags: web

    A reminder of what can go wrong in an existing syndication feed during website overhauls. I hope I don’t make the same mistake.

  33. Bookmarked

    Tags: favorite, fun

    Inspired by StumbleUpon. This presents you with a button that could lead to any submitted website. A source of serendipity in an increasingly predictably-curated web.

  35. Bookmarked

    Tags: capitalism, economics

    An response to the Friedman doctrine, showing that United States law and corporate structure doesn’t require strict adherence to the “maximize shareholder value” directive.

  36. Bookmarked

    Tags: documentation, reference, writing

    An overview to the four quadrants of documentation: tutorials, how-to guides, explanation, and reference. It introduces each section with a cooking analogy. I’d add “user interface” as a fifth, when applicable. Features like tooltips can serve as a form of “lite” documentation on their own.

  37. Bookmarked

    Tags: accessibility, capitalism, rant, web

    An angry but hilarious rant in response to a rather thoughtless dismissal of progressive enhancement. A must-read for anyone who does front-end or accessibility work.

  38. Bookmarked

    Tags: accessibility, reference, tutorial, w3c, web

    The WAI’s accessibility tutorials give web-specific instructions to meet the WCAG. This is necessary because the WCAG are written to be abstract and platform-neutral.

  39. Bookmarked

    Tags: linux, reversing, security, utilities

    I should include this in my “FLOSS doesn’t imply security” article.

  40. Bookmarked

    Tags: accessibility, w3c, web

    A detailed criticism of the WCAG 2.0. Some of these points have been addressed by the revisions and companion documents that followed, especially the Web-specific tutorials. Other criticisms still stand. The WCAG 3.0 fixes a few issues with the WCAG 2.X, but it exacerbates some of Joe’s other criticisms. I think the best solution would be a companion document that “translates” the WCAG into something Web-specific, requirement-by-requirement. Currently, advice is split across many pages detailing “how to meet requirement X”.

  41. Bookmarked

    Tags: environment, favorite

    One of my favorite websites. It presents an alternative to “scaling”: reduction and finding low-tech solutions to our problems. Renewables are good, but they’re not enough to solve our environmental impact. We need to reduce reliance on industrial resource consumption. I’m no anarcho-primitivist, but I like the idea of being able to do the “same thing with less”.

  42. Bookmarked

    Tags: favorite, indieweb, microformats, web

    Getting familiar with IndieWeb is a daunting process; this page distills it down to a process that’s easy to follow. These bookmarks are part of my plan to IndieWebify seirdy.one as per this guide. I don’t like the order too much; IMO, webmentions should come much earlier than some other steps, as they’re quite simple to set up and the basis for the entire social element of the IndieWeb. I should bring that up later.

  43. Bookmarked

    Tags: dev, search engines, web

    An intro to how Cliqz (now Brave Search) built its search engine. The entire Cliqz blog is a great read.

  44. Bookmarked

    Tags: futurology, science

    A reality check for transhumanism that doesn’t denigrate the idea. Instead, it shows how unrealistic it is for us to achieve the transhumanist ideal of implants, augmentation, and eventually “transcendance” in a reasonable timeframe even if the process has already started.

  48. Bookmarked

    Tags: accessibility, w3c, web

    WCAG 3.0 is coming, and makes many changes to its priorities and methodology. This details what to expect. I’m ambivalent, but time will tell how things work out.

  49. Bookmarked

    Tags: frontend, rant

    A generally cynical look at design trends. Commercial apps are increasingly made in ways that ignore the desktop paradigms that users expect in favor of paradigms that are both bespoke and mobile-friendly. I’d imagine that there are some parallels to accessibility. The “Content Usable” WCAG guidance seems quite relevant.

  50. Bookmarked

    Tags: list, reference, semantics

    Excellent and comprehensive list of controlled vocabularies, typically used used in ontological frameworks like RDF.

  52. Bookmarked

    Tags: microformats, reference, semantics, web

    An incredibly useful reference for making content compatible with various reading modes. I’m not a fan of complying with proprietary, non-standard quirks; however, it looks like most reading mode implementations are aware of open standards such as microformats1, microformats2, microdata, and POSH. Supporting these standards should help improve compatibility.

  53. Bookmarked

    Tags: favorite, opinion, web

    I hate most forms of advertising, so this post spoke to me. Unfortunately, traditional adblocking mechanisms (browser adblockers, yt-dlp’s Sponsorblock integration or mpv’s sponsorblock script, etc) are limited to digital content. This post challenges us to take adblocking to the next level by blocking ads in real life, the only ways we can.