remy sharp's b:logTop Front-end Bloggers1 min read
The Memory Police [book]
A weird story. Not quite sure what to make of it! Definitely surreal, and unlike any story I’ve read before. I did find I was trying to make sense of it, wondering if the protagonist was stuck in purgatory, but as the book finished, I don't think that was that was the point. It’s a good story, and engagingly written, but hard to apply to the real world. Although the questions that are repeatedly raised about the idea of memory and how these have different meaning to different people was definitely food for thought. Also worth adding, as surreal as it was, it managed to be equally bleak! A good read, though not quite suited to the poolside holiday I read it from!
remy sharp's b:logTop Front-end Bloggers2 min read
My 2027 Web Platform Feature Ranking [blog]
Like my peers, I've decided to publish my personal ranking preference for the 2027 interop project. I'm doing this from a phone, so I can't link to the others that have published theirs, but I think it's interesting to see and compare what we feel is important.
remy sharp's b:logTop Front-end Bloggers1 min read
As You Wake, Break the Shell [book]
Love, grief, connection and plants. This was a really endearing story of love unfolding. Sure, it's a bit twee, but it's a nice change from doom. Solarpunk I think. It makes me smile when I read the touching moments between Cora and Signey. There's a nice technical feature of this book that I've not encountered before. The early chapters are in the 50s, I can't remember exactly, but it might been chapter 52, then the following chapter would be 741, then we might go back to the 50s or continue in the 700s. I've read books that jump back and forth in time, but I find it really hard to keep track, because dates have meaning - whereas the jump in chapters simply indicated we've moved in a significant amount through time. I thought this was a brilliant method. My review is bouncing around quite a bit, but this really lived up to my expectations of a Becky Chambers book (I loved The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet). There were so many moments I found myself smiling in a way that you might observing a tiny loving moment between two people. There's some interesting ideas brought up, specifically around what life and love is, but also in the context of plants, which did make me think a little (though I don't think that was particularly the purpose). Some of these ideas are similar to the idea that we might kill and eat a cow, but not kill and eat a cat, and the book doesn't try to explain it, but rather points to these contradictions. Also, the way it ends definitely lends itself to a further chapter in the story. I do hope we can follow these characters more (unlike the Wayfarers series which abandoned the characters of each previous book). I loved the story. This was a book that filled my cup.
remy sharp's b:logTop Front-end Bloggers1 min read
AI can operate a screen reader. What does that actually test? [link]
Really like the framing of this article. It uses some very visceral (or easy to understand) examples of how people vs. AI would approach the problem space, and my feeling is that this kind of thinking works well when expanding well beyond the scope of accessibility (though this is an excellent place to start). The floor plan example is good, but it was this that particularly won me over: An AI agent starts with advantages a person doesn’t have. […] The agent knows the goal before it begins. […] A pass tells us the agent found a route, not what finding it was like. AI performs; people experience. Original link: nicolas-steenhout.com/ai-screen-reader-testing