Link tags: fear

A Book Apart, Get to Know Jeremy Keith

My publishers asked me some questions. My answers turned out to be more revealing of my inner demons than I was expecting. I hope this isn’t too much oversharing, but I found it quite cathartic.

My greatest fear for the web is that it becomes the domain of an elite priesthood of developers. I firmly believe that, as Tim Berners-Lee put it, “this is for everyone.” And I don’t just mean it’s for everyone to use—I believe it’s for everyone to make as well. That’s why I get very worried by anything that raises the barrier to entry to web design and web development.

It’s ironic that, at the same time as we can do so much more with less when it comes to the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in browsers, many developers are choosing to make things more complicated by introducing complex tool chains, frameworks and processes.

Elephant - WordRidden

We went on a safari after the Pixel Up conference in South Africa. It was an amazing experience …but there was also The Elephant Incident.

And now I don’t need to write about it because I could never come close to recounting it as brilliantly as Jessica has done here.

The darkness closed in quickly as we rattled along the trail, the flashbulb lightning not doing much to supplement the juddering glow of the headlights. We were, by all appearances, a happy and relaxed little group, pleased with the day’s sightings, mellowed out by the evening’s drinks, looking forward to a nice dinner with wine and then a good night’s sleep. But I kept thinking about the elephant encounter from the night before—and so, apparently, did young Tas, who was bundled up next to his dad and eventually said quietly: “I don’t want to see another elephant.” We all comforted him with false bravado: no, don’t worry, there won’t be any elephants, we’re fine, it’s all fine, everything is totally fine. And all the while I was peering into the trees, and attempting to gauge the relative freshness of the huge piles of elephant dung on the road, and really, really not wanting to see an elephant either.

Oh No! Our Stylesheet Only Grows and Grows and Grows! (The Append-Only Stylesheet Problem) | CSS-Tricks

I think Chris is on to something here when he identifies one of the biggest issues with CSS growing out of control:

The developers are afraid of the CSS.

An Event’s Lifecycle: The Highs, The Lows, The Silence // beyond tellerrand

I can certainly relate to everything Marc describes here. You spend all your time devoted to putting on an event; it’s in the future, coming towards you; you’re excited and nervous …and then the event happens, it’s over before you know it, and the next day there’s nothing—this thing that was dominating your horizon is now behind you. Now what?

I think if you’ve ever put something out there into the world, this is going to resonate with you.

More for the skill

Be willing to look like a dork:

Embarrassment about what others think has to be the biggest block to any learning. Embarrassment of looking silly. Embarrassment of looking stupid for asking the question everyone else is wondering about but no one is willing to make.

Chimes nicely with Charlotte’s recent piece, Be comfortable looking like an idiot.

Be comfortable looking like an idiot by Charlotte Jackson

I was talking to Charlotte recently about public speaking, confidence, and overcoming fear. She really hit the nail on the head when she said “I need to get comfortable with feeling like an idiot.”

Words to live by—especially if you’re working on the web.

No one will ever read this but

There’s something so beautifully, beautifully webbish about this: readings of blog posts found through a search for “no one will ever read this.”

Listen to all of them.

Flickr: Nightmares Fear Factory’s Photostream

The Flickr stream for this Niagara Falls haunted house attraction is like some kind of user-generated art piece on the universality of human nature. It’s also very funny in its aggregate view.

Facebook will destroy your children’s brains | by Martin Robbins @mjrobbins | Science | guardian.co.uk

A pitch-perfect parody of people that peeve.

::HorsePigCow:: marketing uncommon » The insidious danger of danger

Tara talks about the damaging effect on women who believe that to protect themselves, they cannot be truly open online.