Lou Katz @lou@entropyservice.com

Samuel Alito and German rightwing aristocrat linked to US anti-abortion activist https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/17/samuel-alito-leonard-leo-gloria-von-thurn-und-taxis-napa-institute?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

No one should ever draw a weapon over fare evasion.

Small crimes never deserve a death sentence, even if the person is trying to get away. Killing someone over such a petty matter is a much greater crime. Killing someone over $2.90 is always wrong.

The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-simple-html/

I've told this story at conferences - but due to the general situation I thought I'd retell it here.

A few years ago I was doing policy research in a housing benefits office in London. They are singularly unlovely places. The walls are brightened up with posters offering helpful services for people fleeing domestic violence. The security guards on the door are cautiously indifferent to anyone walking in. The air is filled with tense conversations between partners - drowned out by the noise of screaming kids.

In the middle, a young woman sits on a hard plastic chair. She is surrounded by canvas-bags containing her worldly possessions. She doesn't look like she is in a great emotional place right now. Clutched in her hands is a games console - a PlayStation Portable. She stares at it intensely; blocking out the world with Candy Crush.

Or, at least, that's what I thought.

Walking behind her, I glance at her console and recognise the screen she's on. She's connected to the complementary WiFi and is browsing the GOV.UK pages on Housing Benefit. She's not slicing fruit; she's arming herself with knowledge.

The PSP's web browser is - charitably - pathetic. It is slow, frequently runs out of memory, and can only open 3 tabs at a time.

But the GOV.UK pages are written in simple HTML. They are designed to be lightweight and will work even on rubbish browsers. They have to. This is for everyone.

Not everyone has a big monitor, or a multi-core CPU burning through the teraflops, or a broadband connection.

The photographer Chase Jarvis coined the phrase "the best camera is the one that’s with you". He meant that having a crappy instamatic with you at an important moment is better than having the best camera in the world locked up in your car.

The same is true of web browsers. If you have a smart TV, it probably has a crappy browser.

My old car had a built-in crappy web browser.

Both are painful to use - but they work!

If your laptop and phone both got stolen - how easily could you conduct online life through the worst browser you have? If you have to file an insurance claim online - will you get sent a simple HTML form to fill in, or a DOCX which won't render?

What vital information or services are forbidden to you due to being trapped in PDFs or horrendously complicated web sites?

Are you developing public services? Or a system that people might access when they're in desperate need of help? Plain HTML works. A small bit of simple CSS will make look decent. JavaScript is probably unnecessary - but can be used to progressively enhance stuff. Add alt text to images so people paying per MB can understand what the images are for (and, you know, accessibility).

Go sit in an uncomfortable chair, in an uncomfortable location, and stare at an uncomfortably small screen with an uncomfortably outdated web browser. How easy is it to use the websites you've created?

I chatted briefly to the young woman afterwards. She'd been kicked out by her parents and her friends had given her the bus fare to the housing benefits office. She had nothing but praise for how helpful the staff had been. I asked about the PSP - a hand-me-down from an older brother - and the web browser. Her reply was "It's shit. But it worked."

I think that's all we can strive for.

Here are some stats on games consoles visiting GOV.UK

Matt Hobbs (@TheRealNooshu@hachyderm.io)

@TheRealNooshu

Replying to @TheRealNooshuInterestingly we have 3,574 users visiting GOV.UK on games consoles:
• Xbox - 2,062
• Playstation 4 - 1,457
• Playstation Vita - 25
• Nintendo WiiU - 14
• Nintendo 3DS - 16

20/22

❤️ 29💬 1♻️ 010:45 - Mon 01 February 2021

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2021/01/the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-simple-html/

#HTML5 #web #WeekNotes #work

BREAKING: Kamala Harris announces the her plan to eliminate medical debt as a consideration in credit scores. This is a huge help for working Americans to obtain better credit scores.

From the bad place.

People leave Donald Trump’s rally early as he lifelessly drones on about nothing https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/people-leave-donald-trumps-rally-early-as-he-lifelessly-drones-on-about-nothing/58200/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

@dangillmor Plus we went from depending on Russia for crewed space flight to depending on Elon Musk for crewed space flight.

I worked in the aerospace industry as a NASA contractor employee for six years. The rules for contractors are complex and are supposed to insure competition, but in reality there is often only one bidder who can actually do the job. Reagan and his cronies made it worse, and I don't think we've ever recovered.

Copying 54,184 volumes of Sanskrit books (~20 TB total, includes the raw scan files) from a zfs pool on an ubuntu server onto a solid state disk pack ("SSP", a disk enclosure which has 8x16tb SSDs that fits in the palm of your hand). I'm getting 159.25 MBs throughput on this copy. Takes about 40 hours to finish. When full (100TB), I can get about 250,000 books on this SSP, which I can throw into my carryon luggage.

I mean I don’t know why NYPD felt it necessary to open fire on the suspected farebeater when they could have just waited for a white New Yorker to strangle him to death

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:bflruvhylepwmviyycohrptf/post/3l4cqyuvuq22g

The federal government has completely abrogated its duty to regulate the "constellations" of satellites being hurled into orbit at increasing rates and densities.

This is like refusing to do anything serious to save the planet from catastrophic climate change until it's too late.

Oh wait...

Republican logic: When Harris tells people what Trump wants to do, they get angry. Therefore, Harris must stop talking about what he vows to do.

Proper response: GMAFB.

City of Berkeley goes aggressive on sweeping #homeless encampments after the Supreme Court decimates Martin v Boise. https://www.sfchronicle.com/eastbay/article/berkeley-homeless-encampment-sweeps-19753297.php?

I’ll explain why some other time but my most important travel tip is “figure out if the balcony doors will lock behind you before you go out there.”

@gleick ❝Maggie Jordan: How can you be biased towards fairness?
❝MacKenzie McHale: There aren't two sides to every story. Some stories have five sides, some only have one.
❝Tess Westin: I still don't underst…
❝Will McAvoy: Bias towards fairness means that if the entire congressional Republican caucus were to walk in to the House and propose a resolution stating that the Earth was flat, the Times would lead with “Democrats and Republicans Can't Agree on Shape of Earth”.❞
— “The Newsroom,” S1Ep02

In all the major presidential power and immunity cases, Roberts made sure he himself wrote for the majority and every time he expanded the power of the President and shielded even ex-Presidents from the reach of the law. 4/