Roel.io

Op een touch screen is het nooit heel makkelijk om tekst te selecteren en de cursor te verplaatsen. Maar sinds de upgrade naar iOS 13 ben ik er nog slechter in. Hacker News-gebruiker andrewla legde uit hoe je dit tegenwoordig kunt doen:

Three ways to move the cursor, from most reliable to least:

1. Hold down space bar and you'll enter a mode where moving your finger moves the cursor.
2. Drag it from its current location to a new location. This gets finicky, especially if you move your finger out of the text area; the cursor will move to the end of the text, but the highlighted bar that represents where you want to place the cursor will move around on the last line of the text. If there are non-text elements (images, etc.) in the block, then this will be unpredictable in where the cursor ends up. Also your finger blocks the text and there's no more magnifying glass.
3. Single tap in the text to place the cursor -- but if you tap on a misspelled word, it will go into "suggest replacements" mode. Double tap selects a word, and triple tap selects a paragraph. To select all, you have to have a free cursor (nothing selected) and tap on the cursor itself. To avoid accidentally double-tapping (and thus selecting a word instead of bringing up the context menu) you have to make sure that you wait a beat before tapping again.

To paste (most to least reliable):

1. Do a three finger unpinch gesture, and it will paste at the cursor.
2. Enter the select all menu above and tap on the cursor (same caveats) and one of the options will be paste. But very often the second tap will either activate a double-tap (and thus select a word) or move the cursor a little bit, making a precise paste difficult.

‘Gelukkig’ zijn iPhone-schermen tegenwoordig zo groot dat je met drie vingers een ‘unpinch’ kunt doen.

App iconen verplaatsen

Na meer dan 10 jaar smartphones gebruikt te hebben ontdekte Stan Schroeder hoe je het snelst app iconen verplaatst naar een ander scherm:

You hold the icon with one finger and swipe through screens with another.

Dat had ik ook nog niet door, en heb het niet eerder iemand zo zien doen:

Like so:

Btw, it works on iOS and some Android phones, not sure if it works on every Android. pic.twitter.com/yrWGhZbv1m

— Stan Schroeder (@franticnews) October 31, 2019

(via @bramkoster)

Ons internet bestaat vandaag 50 jaar. Frank beschrijft hoe het begon:

Vandaag is het 50 jaar geleden dat het eerste bericht tussen twee computers werd verstuurd, over een afstand van zo’n 500 kilometer. Dit zou het begin zijn van het internet. Het verstuurde bericht was eerlijk gezegd weinig verheffend. Na de eerste twee letter L-O liep het systeem vast. Waarmee direct de eerste internet crash een feit was. Maar vanaf dat moment ging het alleen maar voorwaarts en is het internet ontstaan zoals we het nu kennen.

Ton heeft zelfs een foto van het logboek waarin de eerste online communicatie werd beschreven.

Nu weten we wat het uiteindelijk teweeg heeft gebracht. Maar de mensen achter ARPANET (de voorloper van het internet) hadden al best een idee van de potentie:

Back in 1969, a UCLA press release touted the new ARPANET. “As of now, computer networks are still in their infancy,” it quoted Kleinrock as saying. “But as they grow up and become more sophisticated, we will probably see the spread of ‘computer utilities,’ which, like present electric and telephone utilities, will service individual homes and offices across the country.”

Tim Harford:

Some meetings are to transfer information, some to allow discussion and some to reach a decision or resolve a problem. There are committee meetings that exist to satisfy some rule or regulation. I am on such a committee, and find it useful as a reminder not to sign up for any other committees. Then there are the meetings that exist purely for the sake of meeting. Don’t dismiss them; there’s nothing wrong with consenting adults enjoying a coffee break together. There doesn’t always need to be a reason.

Chris Shiflett:

The best time to make a personal website is 20 years ago. The second best time to make a personal website is now.

Why We All Need a Personal Website – Plus Practical Tips for How to Build One.

This article almost got lost among all of the 144 (!) browser tabs on my phone. In it, Benedict Evans highlights how a few different technical developments are coming together allowing computers to see

The combination of a flood of cheap image sensors coming out of the smartphone supply chain with computer vision based on machine learning means that all sorts of specialized inputs are being replaced by imaging plus Machine Learning.

It will take some years, but computers will learn to understand and act upon visual inputs, instead of just capturing them. And that will change computing again.

In Put down the self-help books. Resilience is not a DIY endeavour, Michael Ungar explains which factors are important for personal resilience:

Striving for personal transformation will not make us better when our families, workplaces, communities, health-care providers and governments fail to provide us with sufficient care and support. The science shows that all the internal resources we can muster are seldom of much use without a nurturing environment. Furthermore, if those resources are not immediately at hand, we are better off trying to change our world to gain those resources than we are trying to change ourselves.

Do read the entire article.

Just read the W3C Ethical Web Principles:

The web should be a platform that helps people and provides a net positive social benefit. As we continue to evolve the web platform, we must therefore consider the ethical implications of our work. The web must be for good.

👆

Alex Russell (@slightlylate) merkte op dat mensen regelmatig tegen hem zeggen dat hij niet zo bezeten hoeft te doen over web performance, want ‘op hun telefoon werkt het prima’. Maar niet iedere telefoon is hetzelfde, laat hij zien: