We talk a lot about needing to improve the ethics of our supply chains when it comes to mineral extraction and factory conditions, but we need protections for knowledge workers too!
The Best Of The Internets
OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers on Less Than $2 Per Hour
Inclusive Tech Lab at Microsoft: Minding the Gap Between People with Disabilities and Those Without
Given the pandemic, I have not had a chance to visit the Inclusive Tech Lab at Microsoft yet, but I love that it exists and how it is shaping the future of technology.
Científicos del CSIC desarrollan un perro robótico capaz de
I have mixed emotions about this move to repurpose the utterly terrifying Boston Dynamics robots as service robots, but there are some upsides too.
- Pro: No waste to clean up & dispose of
- Pro: Can be used by people with allergies
- Pro: Has no mouth, will never bite
- Pro: People are less likely to try to pet/distract your service robot
- Pro: Can likely be trained (or sensor-enabled) to recognize more objects and scenarios than a dog can (or at least the specific breeds we employ as service animals)
- Pro: Would be of service for someone’s lifetime (and beyond) if maintained properly
- Pro: Knowledge & personality (if there is one) can be migrated to a new robot if the current one breaks
- Questionable: Potentially less costly to own, assuming power & maintenance is less than the US$1000-2000/yr it costs to own the average dog
- Con: Far more expensive upfront
- Con: Unlikely to be a companion in nearly the same way (though robots with personality is something folks are working on)
- Con: Not warm or furry
There can be only one: Options for building “choose one” fields
My latest article is a part of the HTMHell Advent Calendar and takes you through all the ins and outs of form controls used to enable people to choose one option from many: select, input[type=radio], and input[list].
Taming Blend Modes: difference and exclusion
Amazingly deep article on CSS blend modes. Incredible work from Ana Tudor.
Style a parent element based on its number of children using CSS :has()
If you were a fan of quantity queries, you’re going to love being able to style a parent element based on how many children it has. Awesome post from Bramus!
Do you really understand CSS radial-gradients?
This is an amazingly deep dive into the world of radial gradients in CSS. It includes a ton of practical examples and a thorough dissection of the syntax and what you can do with them.
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A National Day of Mourning
If you live in the U.S., please take the time to learn the real history of Thanksgiving, rather than clinging to the B.S. we were taught in school. This week’s episode of Native Opinion is a good place to begin that journey.
GOV.UK to examine Google and Microsoft tools in bid to ‘significantly improve’ search
This is awesome to see. GOV.UK is going to be replacing their search functionality. The contract is estimated to be worth £900,000. The kicker’s below:
Work to replace GOV.UK’s search infrastructure is due to begin in early next year, with the initial phase of the project dedicated to identifying and evaluating products. Such assessments will be focus on “functional and non-functional requirements, based around user needs [and] include accessibility requirements… and progressive enhancement”.
JavaScript
When we old timers bemoan developers’ overreliance on JavaScript, we are coming at it from the perspective of folks who were building for the web before JavaScript was a server-side thing.
Some of us remember the early attempts at bringing JS to the server too. Remember Jaxer? JsExt? Rhino? Fun times.