Posts
2023
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Some notes on moving from Jekyll to either Kirby or WordPress -
Webmentions can help create small networks around websites rather than social media -
50 days of Krautrock -
Reading your social media stream in an RSS reader -
When humans write for machines -
Choosing a headless CMS for my simple static blog -
Make 2023 the year you help destroy Twitter
2022
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The Arc browser sounds interesting, but I can’t tell how it’ll make its money -
Webmentions and privacy -
Mastodon should remove follower and following counts to stop it becoming like Twitter -
Some thoughts on the fediverse and Mastodon -
Implementing comments without javascript on a static, Jekyll-powered site using Welcomments -
TIL: Netlify stops processing redirect rules as soon as one is applied -
Minimalism as narcissism -
What is website minimalism? -
Two things I learned by validating my HTML again -
Don’t make your body text font-weight light -
Mourning through boredom -
Creating three international Skinny Guardian editions -
(Re)introducing Skinny Guardian, a fast, minimal version of The Guardian -
Making RSS readable in a browser -
My text editors -
Six social media commenting principles, how they don’t work and an alternative broadcast system -
Bunny Fonts: an apparently GDPR-compliant, privacy-respecting alternative to Google Fonts -
Time to move on from Jekyll -
Some notes on using clamp and vw to set font size -
9 April is CSS Naked Day -
Make your website quicker and improve UX by not placing an image at the top of the home page -
Logic on static sites (and the advantages of failing catastrophically but knowably) -
A barebones Underscores WordPress child theme -
TweetDelete deletes all your old tweets -
A book on the web: Sherlock Holmes and the never completed text -
The shareable, indie charm of Wordle -
50 -
The only thing stopping me from using WordPress is the lack of a truly barebones, unopinionated parent theme -
Imagining WordPress without themes
2021
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Four things I learned by validating my HTML -
Experimenting with short lines of text: the ideal width for whom? -
Notes on line length revisited: Does recent research debunk the idea of an ideal line length? -
Julian Cope on Faust and Jim Kerr, and the term “Krautrock” -
Notes on marking up two navigation lists on the same HTML page -
You are your phone’s AdID -
Notes on files and folders, and how platforms killed them -
Automating webp production in Jekyll -
Should I use… webp? -
Intention not tech -
Indieweb as state of mind -
How to write old-fashioned CSS -
Applying the principle of proximity to improve your web article typography -
Some notes on leading (or line height) on websites -
Setting responsive font sizes in CSS -
Notes on the design of Nabokov’s Butterflies and blogs -
Integrating the Nord colour scheme into a Jekyll site using custom properties -
Some notes on measure (or line width) on websites -
The phantom life of the section element and the mess of headings -
The perfect blogging platform: crossposting, conversing on social media and monetisation(!) -
The perfect blogging platform: customising typography rather than theming -
The perfect blogging platform – some principles -
Why doesn’t Labour like people who live in cities? -
The state of the Labour Party in 2021 -
Notes on the “indieweb” #4: four months in – community, difficult discussions and the end of the web -
Edit your RSS feed to control your site’s output to micro.blog -
Four reasons to delete at least 95% of your website -
Navigation submenus – what’s the best approach? Dropdown, hovers, clicks or keeping it flat? -
Notes on the “indieweb” #3: Who’s it for? -
Adding webmentions to Jekyll (an overview) -
Four reasons it’s worth paying $5 a month for Feedbin, an RSS reader -
Notes on the “indieweb” #2: Where do I find things to read? -
world@hey.com launches and it can edit posts, which sounds clunky -
A reminder: Publishing to a website is easy -
Email churns out bad HTML -
A note/post on notes and posts -
Why brand web pages? -
Stormborn and the tyranny of choosing a Netflix series -
Labour Needs A Big Idea -
The Investigation – the best Scandinoir drama for ages -
Ronnnie and Maggie, Ted and Bet -
You should try the blogging platform called WordPress -
k-punk and Peep Show -
English Scheme: Annotated Fall analysis -
Notes on the “indieweb” #1: Where do I publish and discuss?
2020
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Moon in a Dead Eye by Pascal Garnier -
Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany -
Endless Utopia -
Static works -
The Yale School of Art School website
2019
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Building a web that lasts -
Losing the election, strategy and hope -
NetNewsWire: Free, open source (and very good) RSS reader for Mac -
Styling Twitter, and HTML with soul
2018
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Taking a break from blogging as I know it -
In defence of view page source -
Hiding accessibility on web pages -
Using Staticman for comments on a Jekyll site -
If users aren’t bothered about griddy layouts, why are we? -
For RP: Ditch your accent and your regional pride -
Inclusive web design is web design for everyone, including you
2017
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Basic income, realism and wasteful pessimism -
Why modular CSS is better than using ‘semantic’ class names: An example -
The end of The Deck -
Improving where filters in Jekyll -
General Election! 2017! -
The Uniqlo website’s fixed header makes it unusable
2016
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Getting to grips with Contentful and Jekyll -
Your most comfortable reading colours depend on who you are (or: how accessibility is a tricky business) -
Design habits: Being a CSS API user rather than an API author -
How to display a blog listing page -
Work if you want to -
It's easy to make fast static pages without Google AMP -
Using presentational classes makes web design easier -
Meaning, separation and using lots of classes freely -
Why we'll be using a CSS framework like Tachyons to rebuild our website -
Using Tachyons and keeping your markup dry -
Running a library website on Jekyll (maybe) -
Living in Nigel Farage's dream -
Fight and Challenge Everything (yourselves) -
Notes on (hyper)local journalism -
Belief and apostasy -
Delicious and how every excellent web service ends up eating itself -
WordPress, me and Oxmetifan 20 -
Creating WordPress sub navigation menus that only appear where you need them
2015
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The dangers of automation (or making a visit to the library worth it) -
The vacant centre (part III) -
Container housing – Right solution, wrong problem -
Unstyle and looking at naked HTML -
Why my website looks so plain -
How the Observer used dubious research and shoddy reporting to promote a Blairite Labour leader -
The last liberal and how the centre broke -
Generating page specific classes in WordPress templates to keep code DRY and extensible -
Labour -
In defence of blogging -
The Swedish universal versus austerity -
They went and broke citizens income, so what's next?
2014
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Cast the 2015 election runes -
Newcastle, Sports Direct and Wonga – a working class club -
30 days a blogger -
In praise of Georgia (again) -
Friday reading – Google, Stanford, DC, liberals and gentrification -
The minimum wage legalises low pay -
The art of linking -
Scotland -
Why restaurants publish images of their menus online (and why they shouldn't) -
Lowestoft -
In praise of universality -
Write edit build publish edit build republish -
Matthew Parris only said what most British people think about places like Clacton -
Households, deficits and belief -
The morality of work -
Mozilla, money, adverts and corporate speak
2013
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3 right wing reasons for a Basic Citizens' Income -
Basic citizen income—two examples of how it would work -
Basic citizen income—genius idea the UK will never adopt -
Evening Edition looks good but has an audience problem -
A few notes on moving from WordPress to Jekyll -
Tschichold, democratic design and the politics of typefaces -
Google’s infantile big brain -
A world without work
2012
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The rhetoric of hard work -
Debt -
The great Readability conundrum (Or – If you provide a service, charge for it) -
Evening Edition and making readable news -
How the iPad makes coffee table books -
ITV News website redesign
2011
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Hard working -
Obama shows Ed Miliband how to do blogging -
16 pixels -
Reading newspaper articles involves looking at words -
Why justify? -
Adding em or en dashes to Google docs -
Scherzo, mobile first (and what that means for you) -
An HTML5 challenge (which lead me to think – Why bother with HTML5 sectioning elements?) -
Why business writing is rubbish -
Putting content and meaning first -
Lord Ashcroft, floating voters and 2015 -
Nabokov on other writers -
An ode to Firefox -
Short attention spans, mobile phones and the future of reading
2010
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How to write a blog post -
Good web copy is boring -
Why I don't like Tumblr and Posterous -
An aside really isn’t a sidebar -
Vertical navigation and not making users think
2009
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Good copy redeems bad layout and typography -
Introducing the Scherzo theme for WordPress -
Two blog formats – magazines and journals -
How print and web are different -
Simple, complex, ordered, butchered