Payment Request API (Draft) “describes a web API to allow merchants (i.e. web sites selling physical or digital goods) to easily accept payments from different payment methods with minimal integration. User agents (e.g. browsers) will facilitate the payment flow between merchant and user.”
A faster FT.com “How slow websites damage publishers revenue”. Given FT site is ad-supported, I wonder how much ad revenue is lost by the ads themselves slowing down the site?
Job spec: Opera Mini Product Director – reckon you can direct a product used by a quarter of a billion people? Then apply here, and tell them I sent you (so I get some Brownie points).
After my Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis in 1999 ate my fingers, I couldn’t play guitar any more, which pissed me off more than anything else about MS. But the songs kept coming to me, so about 4 years ago I taught myself to play (badly) again so I could write. Encouraged by a friend (thanks, Clara) and my daughter, I decided to do a gig, and last night was the night.
My old bassist from my punk band was meant to play second guitar, but he decided to break his arm and legs in a motorbike accident, so La Daughter taught herself to play guitar and learned my songs for her first ever gig, which makes me enormously proud. About five minutes after coming off stage, she was talking about out next gig, so Folk Off! are available for weddings and bamitzvahs.
Here are some abruptly-edited videos of the four original songs, written across 25 years and never gigged before. Trigger Warning: some guitar mistakes, from both of the players. (More tracks)
Gentle My Love
Gentle my love, gentle my love;
tonight we’ll admit no tomorrow.
Gentle my love, gentle my love;
predict or recall no more sorrow.
Gentle my love, gentle my love;
like the sound of the rain as it washes and cleans.
Gentle my love, gentle my love;
like the murmur of sea that claims everything;
But if we were to ride on the surge of a wave
We would never sink or drown.
Gentle my love, gentle my love;
Don’t hope for, or fear, all that follows.
Gentle my love, gentle my love;
tonight there will be no tomorrow.
If Kitty Fisher gives you pictures Make sure that you frame them.
“Here’s one I drew, that man’s you; It’s of heaven when it’s raining.
There’s saint Peter in a mac, he’s got two wings on his back. Do you like it?”
If Kitty Fisher, seeking pleasure talks of making love with you.
Softly kiss her, speak in whispers, watch how she moves under you.
Hold her while she weeps when you both come.
Let the silence in to soothe her.
If Kitty Fisher gives you treasure keep it in your pocket.
Memories in filigree That’s Kitty Fisher’s locket.
“That’s me and my mother when I was a little girl.
Do you think I was pretty?
That’s me in a forest, another time, a different place.
Do you like me?”
When I told you I love you;
we were under the crescent moon.
You smiled; she was smiling above you,
I was scared to be ridiculous or tell you too soon.
Now I have to go; so do you –
It ’s still hard, though we both knew this would be so.
I ache for you; I know you’ll be fine
if I call the moon to watch on you & shine
I’m calling the moon;
I’m calling for the moon to come.
to lighten your load,
and brighten the road for you.
I’m calling the moon;
I’m calling for the moon to come;
where are you going?
where did you come to me from?
I’m calling the moon
I’m calling for the moon to come;
now I leave you here in the sun,
I’m calling the moon
I hope that she’ll guide you
You say that you must walk this path alone.
One day I hope I’ll walk beside you
but there are things that I must do now, and I have to be gone.
I’m calling the moon;
I’m calling for the moon to come.
to lighten your load,
and brighten the road in front of you
I’m calling the moon
I’m calling for the moon to come
at the end of your day,
to comfort you; illuminate your way.
I’m calling the moon
I’m calling for the moon to come
where are you going
where will you come to me from?
HTTPS is Hard – Steve Workman of Yell on how they got yell.com onto HTTPS, with its 20 years of code, tech stack and adtech. Over 7 months.
How we built Facebook Lite for every Android phone and network – “Downloading a typical app with 20 MB APK can take more than 30 minutes on a 2G network, and the download is likely to fail before completion, due to the flaky nature of the network.”
Opera beta update with new video pop out – detatch a video from a page so it’s always on top while browsing elsewhere. If it doesn’t work on your megafave site, please leave a comment. xxx
Scroll Anchoring a Chromium experiment that “keeps track of where you are on the page and prevents anything that causes a reflow from disrupting your position on the page”. Jolly good stuff.
Canonical content and AMP Andrew Betts of FT and W3C TAG asks “we’ve spent the last few years gradually moving away from m., and we’re now heading back towards that territory. Is this a conscious recognition that One-Responsive-To-Rule-Them-All was a bad idea?”
Interview with Håkon Wium Lie – “If we hadn’t developed CSS, we could have ended up with the web being a giant fax machine”
State of the Mobile Web report for Bangladesh – 53% of Opera Mini users are on Android; 45% on featurephones. 65% of all traffic is to Facebook. 42% of top 50 sites are news. BDT 3.3B Billion in data costs was saved.
TokenLists: Missing Web DNA by Brian “Extensible” Kardell. “In Extensible Web terms, this isn’t asking for new additive functionality at all – it is explaining existing magic that already exists, but lies mostly dormant and unexposed in the bowels of the platform.”
On ads and ad blocking – another Publisher’s perspective, by Andrew Betts (who rightly calls me “one of the world’s top sevem most glamorous people”) of Financial Times “which makes part of its money from advertising”
Why say no to the madness of content migration -Paul Boag describes a process very similar to what my colleagues and I did in 2006 when we split The Law Society websites (a government requirement) and made new Solicitors Regulation Authority site. (Our first step to designing nav & what content we needed was this “Constitution” we wrote & got signed off by CEO)