Tech, life and everything else
This is a collection of links I stumbled across and found worth sharing. Also see the blogroll for links to blogs I regularly read.
Today Telegram published a blog article regarding Coronavirus news. In it they also mentioned a channel where they announce official and verified channels with information on COVID-19. I just visited that channel out of curiosity and saw there’s a sticker pack with virus stickers. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about it. :thinking_face:
Annoying Technology is a site by Manuel Grabowski and Philipp Defner, where they share typical annoyances with technology. Situations that probably everyone knows: annoying software download pages, dark UI patterns while shopping at Amazon or design flaws.
The New York Times published a photo story (open the link in a private tab to avoid the login-wall) with photos of public places around the world in times of COVID-19. The emptiness in these pictures is on the one hand magical, but also somehow frightening. A virus has actually managed to stop the world.
I often talk about “RSS feeds” and that it’s my favorite way to follow content sources (news, blogs, YouTube channels) on the internet. Laura Kalbag wrote about how to read RSS in 2020 in which she explains the basics and benefits about RSS.
“Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell” is a YouTube channel that explains different topics in short videos in a clear and easy to understand way. The videos are also visually works of art:
Ben Evans created amazing pieces of art. He “draw” a sunset, a still life and a portrait. But instead of images, he created CSS style sheets. All those images are made with just CSS. It is very impressive!
Phil Eaton wrote a really cool article. He documented how he used Go to write a rudimentary SQL database including a CLI. It is very interesting to read how commands are parsed and analyzed. The whole thing probably has no practical use (there are already countless mature database systems), but it’s still exciting. I remembered some of the math lectures in the first semester about formal languages.
This semester, as already mentioned, I take a Spanish course. Of course, learning languages also includes learning vocabulary. I looked for suitable apps and found Quizlet. I like the app even more than I thought. For example, I can create “learning sets” on the computer and learn from anywhere on my mobile phone. And various learning functions also ensure that I not only create virtual flashcards, but also learn the vocabulary.
The problem is not this specific website or how fast it loads, but that shipping seems to be so much more important than performance, usability, accessibility, or user experience.
Mattias Geniar found a way to not have to display a cookie warning on his website and it’s surprisingly simple: