anildash

anildash , 20 days ago to random

Forty years ago today, Prince & the Revolution released "Purple Rain", his most popular work, and one of the artistic and commercial peaks of the 1980s. The title ballad was an unusual and unlikely track to have become Prince's signature song, and this is the story of how it came to be. https://www.anildash.com/2014/07/25/i_know_times_are_changing/

anildash , 25 days ago to random

Here it is: An inside look at what it’s like to serve on a board of directors, in organizations ranging from tiny non-profits all the way up to multi-billion-dollar companies. This covers a lot of the biggest topics and questions people have asked me over the years about how this stuff actually works. https://www.anildash.com/2024/06/20/dash-board/

anildash , 1 month ago to random

This is the most exciting news I’ve heard from Mozilla in ages. Excited for what it portends for a new era and for Mozilla to regain its fight and fire in the vital work behind its mission. https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/mozilla-foundation-welcomes-nabiha-syed-as-executive-director/

anildash , 2 months ago to random

Today is the anniversary of the MOVE bombing. The only thing that’s changed is police are far more militarized, far more funded, and far less accountable, while their supporters fly a desecrated flag to explicitly endorse their violent attacks.

anildash , 2 months ago to random

Loved what @cassidoo says here about human curation — it’s a vital part of discovery and inspiration on the web. As she mentions, we’ve been doing it on @glitchdotcom from the start (including experiments with things like print zines) but it’s a big part of what we’re focusing on in the new version of Glitch that we’re previewing now. Read Cassidy’s piece here, and then ponder a bit… how should human curation online work? https://cassidoo.co/post/human-curation/

anildash , 2 months ago to random

Just trying to imagine if people a few hundred years ago had been here to witness, in the span of a few weeks, an eclipse, an earthquake, a supernova as bright as the North Star, and an unexpected appearance of the northern lights.

anildash , 2 months ago to random

One of the most consistently wonderful and inspiring parts of @glitchdotcom after all these years is seeing brilliant young creators coming of age in the community and making the internet their generation deserves. Here's an interview telling one of those stories: https://blog.glitch.com/post/pranking-and-pixel-perfecting-with-khaleel-gibran/

anildash , 3 months ago to random

This is a milestone for the open web. https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24119353/joe-biden-threads-mastodon-activitypub-fediverse

anildash , 3 months ago to random

When your Nani tries to warn you about Mastodon

anildash , 4 months ago to random

I regularly see very smart people making totally avoidable mistakes in the documents they make for their jobs, whether it’s resumes or reports or whatever. I’ve gathered some of the most common kinds of feedback that can help into one simple guide: Make Better Documents. https://anildash.com/2024/03/10/make-better-documents/

anildash , 4 months ago to random

A challenge to tech media: do a day of stories once a week where none of them originated from an announcement by one of the same 5 companies you cover every other day of the week.

anildash , 5 months ago to random

Really, really bad decision from Google in an era of increasingly sophisticated disinformation, AI-generated substitutions for legit content, and attacks on the Internet Archive. Another choice that destabilizes the information ecosystem. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/google-search-kills-off-cached-webpages/

anildash , 5 months ago to random

Two key questions I always advise people to reflect on when they’re making new tech tools or platforms:

1. What happens if this succeeds? Does it make the internet better? The world better?
2. Who is harmed by the changes this causes? What would you choose to do if you loved them?

Every single choice gets easier if you know those answers.

anildash , 1 year ago to random

This is a great overview by @davidpierce about the fatally flawed AMP effort from Google. As @zachleat notes, a number of prominent web developers did (quite bravely) speak up against it, even as Google treated it as an inevitability for the internet. https://www.theverge.com/23711172/google-amp-accelerated-mobile-pages-search-publishers-lawsuit