Image to text [link] 🔗
Really appreciate Jeremy's post on the way he used generative AI to solve a problem. Specifically he considers the options carefully and was able to m [...]
remy sharp's b:log
Posts
The infinite scroll may become endangered if controversial Calif. law passes [link] 🔗
I've been banging on about this for a while now and I absolutely welcome the prospect of this being a reality, and hopefully not just for children. Ad [...]
In defense of polyfills • Lea Verou [link] 🔗
An excellent post on polyfills, talking through their impact, what issues people (mostly in the standards world) face. Chock full of quotable lines, w [...]
This was the first commit via an LLM to git [link] 🔗
TIL: git (the command line tool) now contains LLM generated code (I'm still unsure, we're calling this generative AI, right?). Landed in Jan 2026. I a [...]
Wildcards In CSS [blog] 🔗
Just a brainfart here, but it's odd that even though we have wildcard selectors throughout CSS, and even partial selectors (I'll explain in a bit) we [...]
AI Content Is Everywhere on Social Media, Especially LinkedIn [link] 🔗
When I think of AI slop, as a developer working on or around the web, I tend to think of dev-centric content, such as blog posts or even software (a l [...]
Web Platform Wishlist on Vale.Rocks [link] 🔗
I remember the days I was hungry for features on the web…it was…a long time ago! So it's refreshing to read that others still have ideas and want more [...]
querySelector immediate children with :scope [link] 🔗
Came across this nice little TIL in the qSA API: parentNode.querySelectorAll('> *') you get an error: '> *' is not a valid selector.. That doesn't wo [...]
Fundamentally [book] 🔗
Loved it. Intelligent and genuinely made me laugh. This book was recommended in our work Slack, and just pull quote for the book description, I found [...]
Why we moved our Bluesky data to Eurosky [link] 🔗
As I've been seeing more and more posts about PDS and things like "lexicons" such as standard.site, I've been thinking more about how Bluesky is the m [...]
Under the hood of MDN's new frontend [link] 🔗
A long article (23 min read!) on the rebuild of MDN away from React and into Web Components. There's lots in there, but I particularly like the sectio [...]
Decompressing 33 signal bytes [blog] 🔗
In my RSS reader, I stumbled upon this code-golfed (i.e. minimised to death) snippet that's fairly clever, but from the code, utterly opaque. I couldn [...]
Platform Decay (The Murderbot Diaries, #8) [book] 🔗
Solid entry into the series. I've read all the previous Murderbot books, but since the last, I also watched the TV series - which I equally enjoyed, b [...]
Accessible (I Think) Split-Cell Table Headers by Eric Archived Thoughts [link] 🔗
This really isn't the intended take away from Eric's post (which is worth reading), but I needed a CSS rule that targetting Safari (because their supp [...]
FFConf 2026 is live: Things I Learnt [blog] 🔗
As with each year for the FFConf web site, I have a distinct idea of the visual style I want. It has zero to do with the content we're presenting each [...]
prop-for-that: CSS reacts, JS just listens [link] 🔗
This is neat. Effectively injecting a tonne of JavaScript based sensors into the elements that ask for the particular category via data-props-for, suc [...]
A bouncer in your pocket by Sacha Judd [link] 🔗
Sacha has an in depth analysis of the UK's recent announcements around social media websites and children's access to them. I wanted to pull a few quo [...]
20 Years of Blogging [blog] 🔗
Today is the anniversary of the first blog post on this website from two decades ago. It was about client side JavaScript to automatically (albeit bli [...]
Enhancing with CSS Grid Lanes [link] 🔗
I've been catching CSS Grid Lanes in the socials this week, but somehow had it in my head that it was to do with the gaps (the lanes) between the grid [...]
Social media to be banned for under-16s in landmark government move to give kids their childhood back - GOV.UK [link] 🔗
The UK government has announced they're going ahead with a social media ban for 16 year old and under. In our household we've already had this restric [...]
AI designed pages and prompts [link] 🔗
Based on the output of this article the author has styled their project with different AI prompts. I think what I find interesting here is after the j [...]
The “Nude” Ultimatum: Privacy Is Dead - The Unknown Universe [link] 🔗
The UK government's ultimatum to Apple and Google is a blueprint for mass surveillance. A warning on why "nothing to hide" won't protect your digital [...]
More molly guards [link] 🔗
I love these little deep dives into bits of UX that we take for granted. Admittedly I think extending the idea of a Molly Guard to a "Are you sure" pr [...]
Landmark German ruling declares Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words and makes it liable for false answers [link] 🔗
The "AI overview" is its own content, not just a list of search results. This is really interesting and I would love to see this set the tone for oth [...]
No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious - Ted Chiang [link] 🔗
I didn't really need to read much past the title or subtitle, but it's still an excellent essay that does a good job of drawing comparisons to concept [...]
Are you standard.site? [link] 🔗
Another (shorter) entry in how how devs are adding Standard.site to their web sites to enrich the social cards.I suspect we'll start to gravitat towar [...]
How I foot-gunned our newsletter this week [blog] 🔗
For the second year running, as part of our "stay sane" strategy for FFConf, Julie and I write and send a weekly newsletter. It's structured the same [...]
The 30 year game [blog] 🔗
Today I'm releasing my Game Boy game called Marbles² (or Marbles Squared). It's a port of a game that I originally wrote back in 2002, but is a game t [...]
When the Cranes Fly South [book] 🔗
Took me a minute to get into, but then…I cried. The good kind. It took me until around 20% of the book to get on with it properly. I was struggling to [...]
NES Programming in 6502 Assembly [link] 🔗
Source: pikuma.com [...]
A popover backdrop anti-pattern [blog] 🔗
After attending recent conferences and learning that I can swap out buckets of JavaScript for the HTML native popover property, I've been using it lib [...]
devtools: how to query through the shadow DOM [blog] 🔗
This is a literal TIL but was so handy I had to put it my blog so that I wouldn't forget it later. Thanks to Big Brain Keith Cirkel for sharing this. [...]
Apps I use, that you might not know [blog] 🔗
This is a cheap post to share some of the apps (macos, sorry Windows users) that I use on a fairly regular basis and think some of you might not have [...]
Lost Lambs [book] 🔗
Enjoyable, well drawn characters, a pleasure to read. I really enjoyed reading this book. The story floats like a butterfly from one character to the [...]
Another England: How to Reclaim Our National Story [book] 🔗
"Our diverse literary heritage reveals that we do not need a single national story" I bought and read this book after seeing Caroline Lucas speaking w [...]
Fixing my slow Mac network speeds [blog] 🔗
For a while now both my desktop Mac (running Sonoma) and my laptop (running Tahoe - do not recommend) have had sub-optimal network speeds. My Android [...]
Web of State of the Browser Day Out [blog] 🔗
Okay, that's a stupidly obscure title. It's meant to represent the combined events: State of the Browser and Web Day Out - two events I attended in th [...]
Rivers of London (Rivers of London, #1) [book] 🔗
Vivid voice, fun and dark and original. I wasn't sure what I was getting in to reading Rivers of London (recommended multiple times on socials), espec [...]
git recent: what branch did I work on? [blog] 🔗
Mega short blog post, mostly for me to remember, but also might be useful to you. In a project I'll often work on and move around different branches t [...]
Try text scaling support [link] 🔗
I've had a larger phone because I got fed up with squinting at my screen, but because of that I also have the OS level font bumped to 115% (and I know [...]
Bear Head (Dogs of War, #2) [book] 🔗
Really enjoyed this follow up to Dogs of War. I accidentally read Dogs of War in 2018 - I never went looking for it and loved it. Equally, I can't rem [...]
JS Bin down in 2026 [blog] 🔗
January 27th I got an email notification saying that JS Bin had become unavailable. Then next day real life human beings were asking what's going on. [...]
Bytes I can delete after all this time [blog] 🔗
For the last few years my work-work has mostly focused on back end software (particularly around APIs). This meant that any front end work I was doing [...]
A Very Merry Murder (Malvern Farm Mystery, #6) [book] 🔗
Fine. Easy read. Guessed the murdered though 🤷 Grabbed it for the Christmas period (slightly annoyed I finished it on Jan 2nd). It's decently written [...]
Books I read in 2025 [blog] 🔗
This post is mostly data driven (from my own web site's data) to give me a sense of the quality of the books I've read, otherwise individual reviews a [...]
My 2025 [blog] 🔗
I've been doing these posts ending my years, aiming to publish on the 31st, so I'm pleased that I've managed to get this post out the door. Mostly for [...]
The Satsuma Complex (Gary Thorn, #1) [book] 🔗
Light on the brain. Just the kind of read I wanted after a few longer books. Not 100% even throughout the book - but I'll come to that. The squirrel f [...]
Butter [book] 🔗
Made me hungry and could even smell the foods, but took me a long time to read which made it feel extremely stretched and disconnected. I really don't [...]
An opportunity to learn: Advent of Code [blog] 🔗
I've written about Advent of Code in the past, but that was 5 years ago, so this warrants a new post, and there's an extra opportunity, I think. [...]
Handing over to the AI for a day [blog] 🔗
Context: back in March 2025 I decided to put aside my scepticism and try AI driven development for the day. I appreciate that in 8 months, the AI land [...]