Mike Babb @mikebabb@mastodon.technology
Front end web developer. Open Web advocate and supporter of FOSS projects. Currently working with React and Redux 👨💻
The simple fact that I need Reader Mode to read practically every single commercial web page tells you everything you need to know about the state of the web. #accessability
I saw a toot earlier about not flooding the introductions hashtag if you're an old user, so that new users don't get lost in the noise.
Suggestion: leave the #introductions hashtag for new users, and use #reintroductions for us long-term users making posts for newbies deciding who to follow.
A couple of people from various instances have mentioned that #Mastodon is confusing at first. So I decided to write a comprehensive guide on how to get started with Mastodon.
Hopefully this helps new users to Mastodon. Please do Boost if you feel it could be useful to others.
An insightful look at how colourblind people experience the web in "Going Colorblind: An Experiment in Empathy and Accessibility", by Sara Novak:
https://blog.prototypr.io/going-colorblind-an-experiment-in-empathy-and-accessibility-98b7003737ca
TIL `git commit --amend` is good for more than just fixing typos in commit messages - if you `git add` a file and then run `git commit --amend`, you'll add that file to the previous commit instead of a new one. Avoids additional commits for little things you forgot to undo!
Current mood
"There’s an obvious connection between a decentralized internet, in which individuals create and oversee their own digital identities, and a functioning democracy, in which we make informed choices about who rules us and how we are ruled. Yet too few people make that link."
According to security researcher Kevin Beaumont, the recent breach of Ticketmaster and possible leak of thousands of credit card details was caused by the careless use of a single line of third party code: https://www.itwire.com/security/83416-uk-researcher-says-one-line-of-code-caused-ticketmaster-breach.html
How can Front End Developers apply ethics to their work? Hidde de Vries has posted a few good thoughts at https://hiddedevries.nl/en/blog/2018-07-05-what-kind-of-ethics-do-front-end-developers-need
I was testing the default theme of my blog engine on mobile and realized how much I missed regular pagination links instead of infinite scrolling
Bedsides needing JavaScript to be on (which I’d rather not do on mobile), I like to remember where I was. A concrete link and a page number somehow still feels the most grounded and familiar. If the web replaced books for certain things, it’s nice if some of the same familiar features remained
Pretty cool new feature on #mastodon. You can filter out toots based on keywords. Get rid of, say uspol, nazi or whatever. You can even put them in as time based to remove spoilers until you get caught up on your favorite show. :D
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-china-censorship-bug-iphone-crash-emoji/
"Basically, Apple added some code to iOS with the goal that phones in China wouldn't display a Taiwanese flag," Wardle says, "and there was a bug in that code."
BREAKING: In a huge victory, the European Parliament has voted 318-278 against #Article13 and #Article11—the disastrous #CensorshipMachine and #LinkTax copyright proposals.
That means we’re close to stopping these terrible proposals—and we’re gaining momentum.
I'm pleased to announce that this week I've joined the dev team at Immersive Labs! 🎉 I'm working on a cybersecurity learning platform with some very talented people, and I'm excited to start contributing to a great product.
I wrote to a few MEPs about #Article13 and sadly a number of them have sent canned responses along the lines of:
* I've spoken to industry lobbyists who say something must be done to enforce copyright
* Article 13 is something
* Therefore Article 13 must pass
It's disappointing. We're not saying nothing needs to be done - the issue is that Article 13 is wildly unfit for purpose, and potentially hugely damaging to the internet as a side effect.
"It’s actually a big myth that search engines need to track your personal search history to make money or deliver quality search results" - DuckDuckGo's CEO explains how it’s become profitable without gathering user data
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-revenue-generation-model-for-DuckDuckGo/answer/Gabriel-Weinberg
