Jim Nielsen

  1. Transforming HTML With Netlify Edge Functions

    I’ve long wanted the ability to create custom collections of icons from my icon gallery. Today I can browse collections of icons that share pre-defined metadata (e.g. “Show me all icons tagged as blue”) but I can’t create your own arbitrary collections of icons. That is, until now! I created a page at…

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  2. Little Swarming Gnats of Data

    Here’s a screenshot of my inbox from when I was on the last leg of my flight home from family summer vacation: That’s pretty representative of the flurry of emails I get when I fly, e.g.: Check in now Track your bags Your flight will soon depart Your flight will soon board Your flight is boarding Information…

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  3. My Copy of The Internet Phone Book

    I recently got my copy of the Internet Phone Book. Look who’s hiding on the bottom inside spread of page 32: The book is divided into a number of categories — such as “Small”, “Text”, and “Ecology” — and I am beyond flattered to be listed under the category “HTML”! You can dial my site at number 223…

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  4. Becoming an Asshole

    This post is a secret to everyone! Read more about RSS Club. I’ve been reading Apple in China by Patrick McGee. There’s this part in there where he’s talking about a guy who worked for Apple and was known for being ruthless, stopping at nothing to negotiate the best deal for Apple. He was so aggressive…

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  5. The Continuum From Static to Dynamic

    Dan Abramov in “Static as a Server”: Static is a server that runs ahead of time. “Static” and “dynamic” don’t have to be binaries that describe an entire application architecture. As Dan describes in his post, “static” or “dynamic” it’s all just computers doing stuff. Computer A requests something (an…

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  6. The Web as URLs, Not Documents

    Dan Abramov on his blog (emphasis mine): The division between the frontend and the backend is physical. We can’t escape from the fact that we’re writing client/server applications. Some logic is naturally more suited to either side. But one side should not dominate the other. And we shouldn’t have to…

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  7. Some Miscellaneous Thoughts on Visual Design Prodded By The Sameness of AI Company Logos

    Radek Sienkiewicz in a funny-because-its-true piece titled “Why do AI company logos look like buttholes?“: We made a circular shape [logo] with some angles because it looked nice, then wrote flowery language to justify why our…design is actually profound. As someone who has grown up through the tumult…

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  8. Notes from Andreas Fredriksson’s “Context is Everything”

    I quite enjoyed this talk. Some of the technical details went over my head (I don’t know what “split 16-bit mask into two 8-bit LTUs” means) but I could still follow the underlying point. First off, Andreas has a great story at the beginning about how he has a friend with a browser bookmarklet that replaces…

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  9. Is It JavaScript?

    OH: It’s just JavaScript, right? I know JavaScript. My coworker who will inevitably spend the rest of the day debugging an electron issue — @jonkuperman.com on BlueSky “It’s Just JavaScript!” is probably a phrase you’ve heard before. I’ve used it myself a number of times. It gets thrown around a lot…

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  10. Tradeoffs to Continuous Software?

    I came across this post from the tech collective crftd. about how software is in a process of “continuous disintegration”: One of the uncomfortable truths we sometimes have to break to people is that software isn't just never “done”. Worse even, it rots… The practices of continuous integration act as…

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