Journal

Lovely double-vinyl LP that sees three of Auld Reekie’s finest producers and labels join forces. Breezy laid-back jams with smooth keys rub up next to darker, Theo Parrish-eque moments to give it a fine balance. Favourite track: Shapes. Grab a copy on Bandcamp

I currently buy books from a mix of physical and online stores including Waterstones, Hive, Blackwells and most recently, The Outwith Agency – my new local shop.

I have a Bookshelf section of my website which lists a number of books I’ve read, including what I’m currently reading. The idea was very much inspired by Dave Rupert’s bookshelf.

On my virtual bookshelf, each book links to a product details page on a third party website so that a visitor can easily buy that book if so inclined. This is a feature which I added without too much deeper thought.

On Dave Rupert’s bookshelf, each book links to its counterpart on Amazon. This is likely for two reasons: firstly, Amazon are likely to have it because they have everything; and secondly, he is enrolled in Amazon’s affiliate scheme, so can make a small commission from each recommendation that leads to a purchase. Makes sense!

Even though I’m not an Amazon affiliate I started by linking to Amazon almost by default, until a few months ago when I began linking to Hive instead. Upon hearing that Hive give a small percentage of each sale to an independent book shop I realised I’d rather support that effort than simply boost Amazon’s profits. (Also: Amazon don’t need my money, and I’m not a big fan of their attitude toward privacy).

Earlier this month I heard about Bookshop and their MO is even more attractive than Hive’s. They provide “ready-made storefront” functionality for independent bookshops, and when a customer buys from a specific shop that shop is given the full profits of each sale. Alternately customers can buy from the generic Bookstore store too, in which case the profits are evenly distributed among a pool of independent shops.

I think when I buy books online in future, if I’m not buying direct from a shop then I’ll buy from Bookshop.

I’m also going to mention to The Outwith Agency about Bookshop. They don’t currently have an e-commerce store so this could be some low-hanging fruit.

I’ve also enrolled in Bookshop’s affiliate programme because it’s an attractive proposition:

We also support anyone who advocates for books through our affiliate programme, which pays a 10% commission on every sale, and gives a matching 10% to independent bookshops.

Can’t argue with that! It feels like a pretty win-win way to recommend books.

As for my website: I’m now going to link any books I mention to the corresponding product on Bookshelf (I’ve already started with my note on A Promised Land) and see if I can’t take advantage of that affilliate scheme. I’ll need to do a little work, however Bookshop helpfully use a consistent URL structure which includes each book’s ISBN so that should make it easier to template my links and thumbnails.

Footnote: a big thank-you to Adactio’s post Bookshop which is full of great tips and insights on setting up with Bookshop.

Was excited to hear about this collab, and it doesn’t disappoint. 7 tracks of deep, digi-dub bass, hazy textures and dancehall samples and it sounds amazing. Favourite track: Krnch. https://bit.ly/33g6xOE

We have new properties in CSS for styling underlines, as explained here by Jen Simmons.

The relevant properties are:

• text-decoration-thickness
• text-decoration-color
• text-underline-offset
• text-decoration-skip-ink

The skip-ink concept becomes more interesting (to me at least) when you're also using the other properties (especially offset) in order to start the underline higher up the word causing it to appear behind it.

Update 25th November 2022

Support for these properties looks healthy.

I’ve started reading A Promised Land by Barack Obama.

Looking forward to Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone show on 6Music tonight, talking about Plaid’s Not for Threes LP plus other experimental electronics. https://bbc.in/3nMeOS5. Headspin is still killer!

Lovely four-tracker of slow and atmospheric late-night grooves from Italy and elsewhere, as heard on Denise’s radio show. Favourite track: Lucas Croon – Japon. Grab a copy on Bandcamp

Real nice roots reggae and dub from sunny Manchester. Favourite track: African Village Dance / Village Dub. https://bit.ly/3feSzRP

A recent issue of the dConstruct newsletter about choosing more ethical online services really chimed with me at a time when I’ve been reflecting on my online habits.

Clearleft produce an excellent regular technology-based newsletter – dConstruct – to which I heartily recommend subscribing.

A recent issue compared online services in the gig economy – such as Uber, Deliveroo and AirBnB – plus music services Spotify and Bandcamp, and considered the relative ethics of each with respect to the extent they exploit the sellers in their “marketplace”. For example, which services let the seller set the price? AirBnB do, and so do Bandcamp. But not so Uber and Spotify.

The success of services like Bandcamp – which is far more profitable to lesser-known producers than the likes of Spotify – show that we don’t need to follow the crowd and can make better choices about the online services we use.

I’ve used Bandcamp more than usual in 2020 because I like the way they are actively supporting artists during a difficult period. I also like the convention that when you buy a vinyl release, the digital is also bundled free.

I’m currently typing this post in a Firefox tab and have been making an effort to switch (back) to it from Chrome, for a less invasive browsing experience.

I use DuckDuckGo rather than Google search when I remember, and have recently made it the default “address bar search” tool in Firefox which should help break old habits.

As for Facebook, Twitter and other time-draining, sometimes harmful social media platforms, well, I’m weaning myself off those and recently wrote about how I’m using Feedbin to aggregate news and updates.

I don’t know about you, but I find it helpful to do a periodic health check on how I’m using the internet, and see where I can make better choices.

While bookmarking the mastery.games article yesterday, I started getting the feeling that something was awfully familiar. It was! I’ve seen this layout before – from Tyler Sticka back in 2017 to be precise – but failed to bookmark it at the time.

Here, then, is the original and still the best CSS Grid “article with breakout images” layout!

I particularly love the way that, by naming the lines and appending -start and -end as appropriate you can then target the area between those lines using its short name.

.Prose {
  display: grid;
  grid-template-columns: 
    [full-start] minmax(1em, 1fr) 
    [main-start] minmax(0, 40em) [main-end]
    minmax(1em, 1fr) [full-end];
}

.Prose > * {
  grid-column: main;
}

.Prose-splash {
  grid-column: full;
}