Adactio

A great little collection of accessible interactive components: dialogs, tabs, accordions, stuff like that. Best of all, the components come with documentation: what problem is solves; when to use it; when not to use it; where to use it, and more. adactio.com/links/22803

My computed probability of the risk that Chomp will eat me, or in statistical terms, P(CHOMP), is approximately 95%. This has been a tough realization for me, because I consider Chomp a close friend, and I insist that no harm or regulation should come to him. However, if he should succeed in making me his first human sacrifice, it gives me no joy to inform you that there is nothing to stop him from eating us all. I know what you’re thinking, because I’ve heard it all before: Aren’t you just…

A message to Apple from the W3C Technical Architecture Group: We expect user agents to make installation an obvious affordance to users. Specifically, we expect the install option to clearly name the action, and to be easily reachable from the browser’s UI. An entry inside a menu with an unrelated label (such as Share), or several menu layers deep, does not meet this expectation. adactio.com/links/22799

Bringing receipts for xkcd.com/2347. adactio.com/links/22794

An in-depth report from Galax, the Old Time equivalent of the fleadh. adactio.com/links/22793

My Clearleft colleagues have made this tool to check if your colour palette has enough contrast to be accessible. But let’s face it, the best part is the name—chef’s kiss! This hue shall pass is an accessibility tool that helps you review and refine your brand’s digital colour palette. It shows you a matrix of all possible colour combinations and which ones pass or fail your accessibility criteria. It then helps you make adjustments to unlock more usable combinations. adactio.com/links/22788

We may end up with a full “hidden economy”: People working on their own passion projects, building things for their own sake, and for recognition from their peers. Work done without real compensation, to express personal ideas, moods, and visions, with personal lines drawn on when AI usage is acceptable, and when it isn’t. This bifurcation would affect everyone. For every single hobby activity in your life you’ll have to make a decision: Do you care about the “outcome”, or do you care about…

In defense of the girliest programming language. I was pleasantly surprised to find a blog post of mine quoted in this article. adactio.com/links/22780

I am an AI skeptic/hater/slow adopter, due to a combination of concerns about the ethics and environmental impact of AI and the fact that I like doing things myself. I knit my own socks, I built a swing for my porch this summer, and every Thanksgiving I make pies from scratch — even the crust (do you like my handmade em dash?). adactio.com/links/22777

Some good ideas on how browsers could offer the ability to install the current site. Frankly, anything would be better than the current woeful situation! adactio.com/links/22760

Modern HTML and CSS have gained a surprising number of features that cover interactions and layout problems we used to solve with custom scripts or libraries. JavaScript obviously isn’t going anywhere, and there are plenty of things that still require it, but in 2026 I find myself needing it less often for ordinary website interfaces. adactio.com/links/22754

I hope you’ll read and understand that for many of us, this isn’t a knee-jerk reaction or a culty, cosmic doomer rant. It’s about money, power, and quality of life for me and the people I share a planet with. Matt’s position very much mirrors my own. As long as I have a choice, and the economic means to keep a roof over my head and a set of reasonably firm values, I am opting out of first-person interaction with AI. And if any of my situation changes for the worse, before I accept AI as my lord…

The question of when humans invented art leads us to imagine early humans much like ourselves, deciding one day to express themselves through symbols and figures. The assumption hidden in the question is that they already had minds like ours and simply chose, out of all the things they might have done on a frigid day in the Ice Age, to pick up ochre and make animal pictures. But the evidence, it seems to me, points the other way: it was the practice of making images, repeated over hundreds of…

A fascinating essay by Celine Nguyen on the history of taste; not changing tastes but the very concept of taste throughout history. adactio.com/links/22748

Seams! Mark Weiser, the person who framed ubiquitous computing, never said the goal was seamless. He warned that making everything seamless is the same as making everything uniform, and he argued for seamful systems, ones that let each part remain itself. Chalmers and MacColl turned this into a full design position: questioning the assumption that seamlessness is a requirement, and arguing that visible seams can be useful, even appropriated by people for their own ends. adactio.com/links/22746

Amid the dying embers, a resilient cohort of indie web bloggers, artists and creators will keep going, keep on talking to each other through their blogs, without tracking, pop-ups or invasive ads. Making fun websites, helpful websites, pointless websites (the best kind) that serve no purpose other than to manifest someone’s spark of creativity. Ignored by the lumbering giants that have gorged themselves into a stupor, keeping low under the radar of the hungry LLM crawlers eager to voraciously…

CSS finally gave the web its own grain. And the real crazy part is that my bad decades-old code still renders fine in today’s latest web browsers! I would be sad if it didn’t, but I also wouldn’t be surprised. How is this stuff still backwards compatible!? How much of your software from 20 years ago runs on your devices today adactio.com/links/22742

I try to keep on doing what I do in order to stay sane. I keep on teaching about the wonderful web to my students, even if nobody will ever hire a talented, creative, junior developer again. I keep on teaching about the consequences of the open web, even if it’s harder and harder to find anything open in this monopolised web anymore. And I do that because I still care. adactio.com/links/22737

Ag fanacht… adactio.com/links/22735

For me, libraries are about books. Worlds undiscovered, ideas to devour. But they are so much more. For others they offer a lifeline. A place to learn, to connect with the community, to access vital resources. They have meant all these things to me over the years. adactio.com/links/22733

HTML has been gobbling up swathes of what used to be JavaScript’s remit. This page lists a bunch of dynamic functionality that we can now achieve with just HTML. adactio.com/links/22726

The story of Fray: In the earliest days of the web, Derek Powazek set out to create a website meant for sharing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; this was the website that made me want to make websites. adactio.com/links/22723

The unveiling ceremony is scheduled for September 29th: The Milestone plaque recognizing Colossus is to be displayed outside Block H at Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes, England. The plaque is to read: Six Colossus codebreaking computers operated in this building in 1944–1945. Designed by Thomas H. Flowers of the British Post Office, they enabled deciphering of encrypted radio messages transmitted between German commands across occupied Europe, North Africa, and the Soviet Union. The…

Exactly one of these ridiculously deep holes in the Earth is dug by hand. It’s about 2 miles from my house. adactio.com/links/22710

An excellent interview! From deleted government records to disappearing music, our digital culture can be erased overnight. The Internet Archive’s Mark Graham and Chris Freeland explain what it will take to save it. adactio.com/links/22660

This is beautifully written. adactio.com/links/22659

So instead of asking “why not React?” we asked: Which of our actual problems would React solve? We went through the list. There were none. Also, this is good advice when you’re about to make a web component: Every component starts with the question “does a semantic element already exist for this?”, and remarkably often the answer is yes. adactio.com/links/22652

A history of front-end development that culminates here: The frontier of 2026, the stuff the sharpest people are most excited about, is render the HTML on the server, ship almost no JavaScript, and use the web platform instead of fighting it. adactio.com/links/22650

I saw Josh give this talk at CSS Day. It’s a very useful explanation of the forthcoming text-scale addition to the meta element, and what you can do to prepare your site now. adactio.com/links/22644

Nothing about the current trajectory of AI development is inevitable. It was shaped by the thousands of subjective decisions of a tiny elite, and continues its march based on the active participation and tacit consent of people globally. adactio.com/links/22635