I spent an absurd amount of time tweaking my blog this weekend.

But I’m happy with the result. Mostly.

I care very much about the experience of my readers on my blog. I use system fonts, prefer a minimalist layout, and keep everything light in size. When I tweaked my site, I wanted to keep it that way—until I got stuck trying to make a neat SVG logo.

I added a new logo to the blog and it looked good. Tried it on different screen sizes and different browsers. Still good. However, my sheer unluckiness made the SVG render poorly when using Safari on my external monitor.

The logo looks crisp on all browsers, including Safari, which is why I used an SVG instead of a PNG or JPEG. But, it is pixelated and blurry when I use Safari on my external monitor. How would I fix that? And what exactly am I supposed to fix?

After contemplating removing the SVG logo, I decided it might be best to keep it and forget about this issue, as it seems pretty random.

Then, I realized that 25% of my readers used Safari and wanted to remove it again. But the logo looks fine on Safari on my MacBook screen, and it should also be acceptable for my readers, so I decided to keep it.

I went on like this for the whole day on Sunday.

As I write this, the site still has the logo. If you can, please let me know if you are seeing any issues with the logo or the website, as it will help me debug and fix the issue.

Disregarding my OCD, I think the site looks a lot cooler now. It reflects a lot more of my personality (one-dimensional minimalist), and it’s neat.

I have to control my OCD until I know this isn’t a problem or it’s fixed.

Speaking of psychological distress, my blog has a new name now: “The Open Source Absolutist.”

It perfectly consolidates what I talk about in the blog and who I am as a person.

Everything I have ever built is free and open source. It should be the same going forward.

I’m an open source absolutist. I believe that open source has the innate ability to help us build better. Open source is the past, present, and the future.

What’s Happening?

Everyone was watching Shogun, the new Netflix miniseries, last week. I did, too, and it is excellent.

Set in medieval Japan, the show focuses on a British trader caught in the middle of a war for the throne of Japan. Each shot in the series is beautiful, and the storytelling is on point. This would be a good pick if you are in for a quick treat.

If you have watched the show already, there is a new meme format that has created one of the best memes ever.

Meanwhile, on the take-our-jobs-away sphere, GitHub launched Copilot Workspace, which seems like a better version of Devin built into GitHub. I haven’t tried it yet, but Austin Z. Henley has shared a comprehensive review of the tool.

To sum up his views, it’s great in concept but bad in implementation.

Adding to the panic, AI can now conduct job interviews. I thought the whole point of a job interview was to connect with prospective coworkers personally. What kind of Orwellian dystopia are we heading into? Or are we already there?

The most interesting story of this week comes from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow. Iceland.

Apparently, a bad design for a web page to collect endorsements for the 2024 Presidential candidates accidentally caused at least 11 people to sign up to run for President.

This goes to show how bad design can lead to unintended consequences.

While most of us aren’t building apps that can influence elections, we still have to be wary of every design choice we make. All those old government websites make a lot of sense now, don’t they?

Here’s what I have collected for you this week:

  • Let’s talk about Software Patents: Rahul Poruri discusses the problems with software patents and how they can curb innovation. This is in light of the Indian government’s decision to consider a new policy for granting software patents.
  • It’s time to retire the term “user”: Does the term “user” accurately capture our interactions with technology? Is there a better, more suitable term to describe ourselves?
  • We can have a different web: As Tom Eastman once put it, the web has rotted into “five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four.” But it doesn’t have to be this way.
  • Save the Web by Being Nice: If you read the previous article and wondered how you can help, this is the article for you. Supporting little corners on the internet like this one can go a long way.
  • AI is not like you and me: This is an excellent article by Zach Seward on our tendency to anthropomorphize AI. Instead, he argues that AI should be viewed as a tool rather than trying to dress it into something with human characteristics.
  • Crazy Charlie’s Window: Almost every job can be done exceptionally well. And almost all exceptional workers get better opportunities because of their exceptional work.
  • The Design of Everyday APIs: This excellent talk by Lynn Root highlights the importance of designing intuitive and usable APIs. Applying evergreen design principles in designing APIs creates delightful API interactions.
  • Building Bluesky: a Distributed Social Network: The latest article in the “Real-world engineering challenges” series deep-dives into the nuts and bolts of Bluesky. How do 10 engineers build a social media platform that hosts five million users?

Hot off the Press

I published an interactive article last week.

The article focuses on migrating from Nginx to Apache APISIX. The neat part is that the article lets you configure and run APISIX in the browser while reading the article.

Read here: “F5 Nginx to Apache APISIX”

I plan to write about how I set up a sandboxed instance of APISIX for this interactive article and the playgrounds later this week.