Accuracy in carbon footprint tools will always be a little dubious, but the Website Carbon Calculator is still a neat idea. theAdhocracy is currently sitting at 89% "cleaner" than the average website, meaning that 0.14g of CO₂ is used to load the homepage. I'm hurt a fair amount by Netlify not being a green host, too. Room to improve, but I'll take that as a solid starting point.

Looks like the new CSS @property extension has landed in Chrome. Una has put together some interesting examples and explanations on the fallback mechanism in particular. Usage appears to be the same as initially outlined.

I love seeing new engineering ideas for creating low-energy buildings and the "earth, wind, and fire" method by Dr Ben Bronsema shows promise. Basically it uses a combination of solar energy/heating, thermal air currents, and natural wind to keep buildings cool; the idea was created through studying termite mounds (which are exceptionally efficient at maintaining internal temperature). The Breeze Hotel in Amsterdam will hopefully open this year and be the first true test of the system.

Of related note, this article references similar engineering principles being used in Seattle (for quite a while now). The building there was built with lots of windows and a central, open atrium (think doughnut shape) so that air in the centre would heat up, rise, and pull cool air through the buildings as the convection current got going on warm days. Neat.

Is Prometheus a good movie or a bad movie? My answer is yes, and I feel like this deep dive into the mythology underpinning the film is part of why. There's a lot to consider here:

• Christian motifs throughout the film were obvious to me on first viewing (including the "crucifixion" scene as the pilot destroys the ship to save humanity, the washing of David's feet, and much more) but it is verifiably nuts that the original script included a heavy-handed hint that Jesus was actually an Engineer and that his crucifixion was the inciting incident in why the Engineers fell out with humanity. Which, I mean, fair enough? I thought it was just a hatred of AI but that fits somewhat better.
• I'm not sure I'd ever truly considered the fact that the "black slime" was somehow mirroring the host's intentions, so when a selfish, self-preservation-fueled human ingests it the result is an abomination that only considers itself.
• Obviously the film has a lot of references to the Prometheus myth from ancient Greece, but I wasn't aware that this is seen as a stepping stone in an incredibly common proto-mythological narrative of the "Dying God". As a storytelling construct it's clearly ancient and ties in with a lot of religious and mythological constructs: the idea of a God that sacrifices themselves in order to bring life into the world or let it achieve a true potential. Nor had I noticed the common thread of torn open abdomens (very Alien of course), with Prometheus himself having his liver removed each day and obviously you have the spear strike on Jesus, amongst others.
• I also think that mural in the first chamber of the Xenomorph fighting an Engineer (with abdomen torn open) is evocative of the yin-yang concept.
• I generally like the concept that the film is about the difference between acting to save others (self-sacrifice) versus acting to save yourself (self-preservation). Plus, framing the Engineers as a culture that values self-sacrifice above all else makes sense of the panspermia scene, the attack on David/androids (considering they are life born without suffering or sacrifice), and the killing of Weyland, a man who has spent a lifetime coming up with ways to prevent death.
  

Critique of JavaScript-heavy frontend frameworks and useful deep-dive into the issues of using client-side scripts or libraries for webmentions. Nicolas rightfully points out that this isn't just less performant for users but also increases resource usage for the webmention.io service, which is run for free.

Sometimes, using the server-side build is enough to get data from an API and serve HTML to all visitors, which is much better for performance.

Great write up on the current best practices around hiding elements keeping all users in mind:

.visually-hidden {
  clip: rect(0 0 0 0);
  clip-path: inset(50%);
  height: 1px;
  overflow: hidden;
  position: absolute;
  white-space: nowrap;
  width: 1px;
}

Or if you need to unhide when focused (better for keyboard users etc.):

.visually-hidden:not(:focus):not(:active) {
  /* ... */
}

Alternatively, need to hide an element from non-visual users (screen readers, smart speakers, reading mode), use aria-hidden: true and then if you also need to hide visually:

.my-component[aria-hidden="true"] {
  display: none;
}

Or use the HTML5 hidden attribute.

Some interesting results from the latest Software House frontend survey. Surprised to see that over a third of respondents reckoned CSS-in-JS would be a "fad" and gone in three years; personally only Redux on that list seems likely (a suspicion their results elsewhere corroborate as many people seem to be moving away from Redux to Hooks and the Context API).

Incredible to see Netlify beating out GCP and Azure for hosting usage, though given that two of the experts interviewed for the final results are from Vercel I do wonder how closely TSH are tied to the Jamstack community. Also a surprisingly large number of people using micro frontends... I should probably try to work out what they are 😂

SEO questions I think missed the mark, as these days a lot of SEO maintenance is done via SEO tools or outsourced (in my experience), and similarly, I think it's a stretch to claim that the dev/design divide is closing just because developers are likely to have used Zeplin or InVision. If anything, I feel like these tools may have widened the divide by making it easier to cut all communication lines, just email a link instead.

The most worrying element though is this:

Only just over half of respondents said they actively "take care of accessibility" within the applications they work on.

The hell are the other half doing then? It's one thing when that kind of result crops up in surveys focusing on JS or the whole tech team, but in a frontend survey!? Making the application useable is literally our job, so if you aren't responsible for accessibility what are you responsible for? Sigh... 🤦‍♂️

Our trip to the Outer Hebrides a few years ago has made us incredibly wistful to return at some point, so this list of great food spots is perfect:

• North Uist Distillery now produces Downpour gin (love the name ♥) and are working on a whisky using the oldest barley breed in the UK: bere
• Hebridean Smokehouse in Clachan for smoked scallops and pâté
• Namara Café in Grimsay for seafood (at the back of the Kallin Shellfish shop); the bacon and scallop rolls are a speciality, crab rolls are exceptional
• Uist Scandi Bakery in Lochboisdale (South Uist) has great cinnamon buns and sourdough
• Scallop Shack, Uig on Lewis for cheap local scallops (honesty box system so need cash or can be preordered via Facebook)
• Flavour chocolates include a Harris Gin variety (Harris Gin also getting a mention, obviously)
• Sam's Seafood Shack, a blue caravan near Clements Church in Rodel, has a daily menu depending on the catch

Also, Tigharry Schoolhouse sounds like a great holiday rental in the Uists. Plus, the Euston to Glasgow sleeper gets you within striking distance and Car Hire Hebrides is a useful company to remember.

I've been battling microformats a lot recently, wish I'd found this page of best practice markup examples earlier, it's a great resource.

I've somehow only just discovered JSON Feed, a take on RSS and Atom built a little more for modern needs (and using JSON instead of XML, obviously). Looks cool, might see if I can throw something together to support it here (at some point) 😊

Tracy has written a really solid article that covers a lot of what I consider the positives of the IndieWeb movement. With her mentioning of digital gardens and personal filing systems, she's clearly gone on (or going on) a similar journey to me 😉 She also touches on an element I'd never really considered:

I’ve long said the future of the web is curation — there’s so much content, much of it crap or irrelevant — and I want to hear what real people find interesting.

The idea of personal websites (and associated social feeds) as a curation tool, a kind of distributed filter network, is a neat one. So much of what I bookmark or write about here has come from Slack channels, RSS feeds, or word of mouth. It had never really occurred to me that a network of personal websites could create a more useful equivalent to an algorithmic feed, one which is still likely highly related to your own interests but also just as likely to throw a curveball that shows you something new or challenging. Neat idea.

I also really rather like this sentiment:

Recentering how I use the web based on my needs rather than the private services that are available.

What a wonderful analogy of the web in 2020. Social media, Big Tech, IndieWeb, cosy web, all bundled together with flowing prose.

Plus, good Lord, this article is eminently quotable (and beautifully written, though at time of bookmarking also not finished):

... beneath the dust of broken links, tracking scripts, and terms of use, hypertext is still magic, and every link is a wonder.

We're standing with one foot in the remnants of the old web, the other caught in the vortex of the new web, trying to find ways to adapt.

Indieweb nostalgia and cozyweb retreat are both responses to the same idea: that the web is worth saving, defending, and growing.

We don't have to scatter underground or retreat into isolated islands, we can be stewards of the web itself, the web that is.

... they're out there, building and hoping others will dismantle the city and join them on the frontier.

(that said, I think the summary of the IndieWeb is perhaps a little too generalised; there's plenty of new thought and consideration of what silos are doing well going on in that community, not just an outright rejection of the modern web as portrayed)