The first page of Google results are links to pages that have scraped other pages for information from other pages that have been scraped for information. All the sources seem to link back to one another. There is no origin. The photos on the page look weird. The hands are disfigured. There is no image credit.

Heat Death of the Internet

An elegy for the web for those of us mourning it.

Apparently the process was recently digitalised.

When people arrived at the page to endorse a candidate, many of them likely skipped past the initial wall of text and some of them clicked the big “Log in” button, filled out a form, and were — unbeknownst to them — added to the list of candidates.

In the comments section of various news articles, people wondered, ‘What’s wrong with these people? Can’t they read? Will they even be able to vote?’

Reminds me of the time residents of Hawaii were notified of an inbound ballistic missile and advised to take shelter via an emergency push alert.

It turned out that it was just a system test and the operator had hit the wrong button (twice).

Good UX design is so important but often the first thing a company will sacrifice when under cost pressures. That’s if they care about it to begin with.

My name is Daniel and I like computers

At the time of writing I would call myself a – sort of ¹ – web developer type, working in the transport sector. I have been fascinated by computers since childhood and, despite my best attempts, I have also been drawn to them in a professional capacity. I can expect myself to write about shiny boxes with lights, the web, user experience, design, accessibility, and adjacent topics.

I am sceptical of “technologists” or “futurists” as they’re usually selling some rotten agenda, so those are not terms I subscribe to. I am not selling anything here and have no intention to monetise my time and skills outside of my job. Technology is used by specific people to do things. We should be critical of who the technology is really for and what broader impacts it might have to people, societies, and our planet. So I hope to adopt a thoughtful post-humanist approach to technology topics, tempering the “ooh ahh” factor a little.

I will be writing about our built environment, and in particular there will be raging against “motonormativity” AKA “car brain”. I am fascinated by the diversification of first/last mile mobility options for consumers but also for transportation (see micromobility). Anglosphere cities and cultures are stupidly hostile to biological bipedals. I expect that I will chronicle urban transportation experiences and advocate for more thoughtful, less ableist, more inclusive, less wasteful, and more equitable ways of moving ourselves around.

Lastly, let me remind myself that I have collected many hobbies, which I will undoubtedly remark upon in this place. Foremost in mind is my ongoing obsession with brewing specialty coffee. I take enormous pleasure in pursuing laborious and time-consuming brewing methods that yield only marginal (if any) improvements to flavour. It’s a personal rebellion against convenience culture and an expression of mindful presence in the here and now. Also yum.

Next week on...

I plan to post a pretty detailed overview of how I built this very website. I am learning Angular so I have thoughts on that which I want to explore. I’m not going to rush it though because I’ll need to find time to read it as well, and with all the writing I’m going to be very busy…

Minimum Viable Pffft

My gosh, the site is finally up. This thing is hand-written ya' know. Chisel and marble and all that. Well, I might rest a bit before I post an introduction. Honestly, the last thing in my mind was actually writing a post.

Instead I might watch the latest James Hoffman video about instant coffee. Mmmm.