Awesome finds - April 2024

Some things I liked in April'24.

Culture things

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite: I didn't really like the novel per se, to be perfectly honest, but this book is a very realistic depiction of a dysfunctional family that some people stick with through thick and thin just because they feel a self-imposed moral obligation. It tells an extremely far-fetched story, sure, but it is painfully accurate in every other way.

Drive My Car: a slow, very beautiful film. Watching a theatre performance unfold within a film is great, but the idea behind it is also incredibly great: I don't want to give away any spoilers, but the troupe consists of people speaking and acting in different languages + with a mute performer who uses sign language! I. Was. Fascinated. And that is just a tiny bit of the story!

All Of Us Strangers: sad and heartbreaking, not the best drama I've ever seen, but boy, I almost had a nervous breakdown over the fact that Claire Foy, playing the mother, reminded me of my mother, and the plot of the film didn't make it easy for me. So proceed with caution...

Vancouver Canucks: I have been watching the NHL for over 12 years and have been rooting for the Canucks for 10 of those years. I'm literally over the moon with the team and our results this year, and this is probably the first time I've ever been THIS excited about the playoffs. I won't be recommending you watch hockey anytime soon, because tis lil meme is absolutely spot on:

Music

• Ohio Players by The Black Keys: I didn't expect much from The Black Keys anymore due to their general idgaf mood (I don't have any proof of this, it just feels like it, idk). But this album is so-so good, I've listened to it a lot, practically on repeat, a very modern, fresh-sounding blues-rock album, brilliantly recorded and executed.
• Radical Optimism by Dua Lipa: I don't think it's better than Future Nostalgia, but it's safe to say that I'll probably love everything Dua does, so here we go. Kevin Parker + Dua Lipa is not the duo I expected, but wow it works: every song he produces is instantly memorable.
• A LA SALA by Khruangbin: what a mood, you just want to drink wine by the sea and watch the sun set while listening to this. I have a feeling it will be the #1 soundtrack of every summer balcony evening.

🇵🇱 BEHOLD: A POLISH BONUS 🇵🇱

• Trucizna by IGNACY: a certified Polish dream pop boy turned 101% James Blake - a brand new sentence I never dreamed of writing. Weird, but cool. But weird.

Tech stuff

CSS Container Queries Interactive Guide: remember a nifty CSS :has() guide from earlier? This is a similar one, by the same author, only now for CSS Container Queries. As always, I'm almost itchy to write container queries somewhere, anywhere, everywhere (this site uses them in some places, by the way!), but I'm afraid this is such a fundamental feature that it should be implemented at a design level, and we don't always have control over that.

Dos and Don'ts on designing for accessibility: it's important to remember that accessibility is not just about alt text and aria labels and semantics and keyboard navs, but also about such obvious things as good copywriting, consistent UX, autocorrections and autosuggestions and whatnot. So my favourite source of a11y inspiration, GOV.UK, has a handful of posters with rules to remember and use for different types of disability: screen reader users, people on the autistic spectrum, dyslexics and others.

Podcasts

🖌️ Non-tech:

Short History of... Ian Fleming: I vaguely knew that Ian Fleming was a British intelligence officer before he wrote James Bond, but I never really realised that his life was so much cooler than any of the Agent 007 novels? And yes, a podcast itself is excellently written and read, a book-like experience.

In Our Time: Nefertiti: a great insight from passionate scientists on how the legendary bust of Nefertiti was found - and whether it IS her, and WHO is she, anyway? It was entertaining to learn that the bust was actually hidden from public eye for THIRTEEN years, but when it was first displayed, it obviously became a sensation. Also, what's the deal with her eye?

💻 Tech:

Syntax 731: Client side security, XSS attacks & CSP: Syntax is my favourite podcast ever, and it is amazing how any topic becomes manageable when they break it down for you. And this is a pretty cool one on the difficult and not at all glamorous topic of web security. It turns out, for example, that you can find out a lot of sensitive information about the user by using clever CSS injections, which is pretty awesome and scary at the same time. But the whole episode is full of useful stuff.

For me, it was interesting to hear about a CSP implementation approach that could be applied to any other security topic, really: start by allowing pretty much nothing, test, see what's broken, allow this and only this, test again. Sounds foolproof enough!

(RU) Web Standards 410: this is the only podcast in Russian that I listen to, which is quite a big deal! I wanted to include this particular episode because of the rather heated discussion about Apple's recent PWA ordeal in Europe, how it affects the web, and what we can expect further down the road if this is Apple's approach to European regulations.

Curiosities

Airfoil: have you ever wondered how aeroplanes fly, technically, on a physical level? Look no further - this giant blog post has everything, I repeat, everything you need to know on the subject. Incredible graphics to play around with to figure out how pressure and airflow and plane wings are formed, and awesome engineering that allows Taylor Swift to generate 1,800 times the average human's annual emissions you to head to the seaside for a well-deserved holiday 🌴. In all seriousness, this is INCREDIBLE - I read it over several evenings and I'm still not sure I understood everything, but I'll definitely go back to it.

Parallel Lives: did you know that there was once a time when Honoré de Balzac, Edgar Allan Poe, Frédéric Chopin, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were all alive somewhere? Neither did I, but now we know! Pretty useless, but pretty interesting. I love it, the internet needs more useless curiosities like this IMO.

Aaaand I love him so much 🥺:

Have a carefree May ☀️