January Roundup
Coding, Fonts, and Design
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I had to set up a cookie consent management platform this month and it was a big “Google really is getting worse” moment for me. Maybe I’m romanticizing the results of a few years ago, but I swear the first two pages of a search like this used to be full of articles comparing the costs and features of major providers. Today, I found one neutral source (Top 12 Consent Management Platforms (CMP)) but it’s mostly ads and fake posts by the companies surprisingly ranking themselves number one.
The information shortage probably isn’t helped by the fact that a lot of platforms are tightlipped about pricing and really want you to do sales call. I eventually went with CookieYes because I appreciated their transparency and so far so good. It was easy to set up with Google Tag Manager. Integrating with Segment required a little more work but this repo saved me.
My sister asked me to help her find a font she saw in an Instagram ad that could best be described as thick or blobby cursive. Although I couldn't find an exact match, I recommended a few from the search: Klangfarbe by Mysterylab Designs, Blank’s Script by Billy Argel (also available free for personal use), and Guava by Meg Burk.
Tried a couple new tools that I’m pretty happy with:
- After using Material UI for years at work, I decided to give Mantine a try on a personal project and my only real complaint was their color generator. Luckily, Shadowlord exists for generating different tints and shades.
- I don’t know how it took me so long to find an extension to take full page screenshots instead of doing it manually. Now I’m using the Chrome extension GoFullPage and it’s made my life so much easier.
Looking forward to these free online events in February:
- Letterform Archive is hosting a Zoom lecture called Design Pioneers: African American Graphic Designers You Should Know on February 11th.
- From February 25th to 27th, Deque’s axe-con 2025 will be online covering topics around digital accessibility in development and design.
Books
Finished Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech by Sara Wachter-Boettcher at the end of December. It’s a little jarring to run across the line “I don’t know what the United States will look like by the time you read this book, and in fact I’m anxious it will look even bleaker than I can yet imagine” in a book about inequity and homogeneity in tech published in 2017. Things definitely are bleaker today, with companies like Facebook taking a vocal stand against diversity, but I think that makes this book a more interesting what could have been. Also the chapter on the illusion of the meritocracy hits really hard.
Reading Technically Wrong, I was reminded of a book I’d previously read, Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil, so it wasn’t surprising to see it referenced midway through. Weapons of Math Destruction examines how algorithms can exacerbate inequality by reinforcing the biases of their creators. With AI (or what we call AI right now), the risks of delegating decisions around school, work, health insurance, etc. to unaccountable black boxes seem even more obvious.
Podcasts
Speaking of tech’s rightward lurch, as a big fan of Ed Zitron’s Where’s Your Ed At newsletter, I started listening to Better Offline when it premiered last year but, it feels appropriate that I’m posting about it at a time when the industry deserves even more anger. At this moment, it’s especially cathartic to hear that you’re not imagining what he calls the “rot economy”, products getting worse (thanks Prabhakar Raghavan), bubbles preparing to pop (thanks OpenAI), and a general malaise engulfing the industry.
System Crash is a new podcast by Paris Marx from Tech Won’t Save Us and Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine (which I just got from the library). The format may evolve over time, but for now it’s a good weekly wrap-up discussing events in tech from a skeptical perspective.
And for something completely different, 99% Invisible’s episode on the history of the typeface Fraktur is an interesting listen. I usually post positive font content so this is a bit of a departure.
Videos
He deserves worse as an out and proud fascist trying to destroy America but I still enjoy YouTubers realizing that Elon Musk is a fraud and a poser who lies about everything including his video game prowess. A lot of good content out there but my entry point was Elon Musk Fraud Gamer Situation is Pathetic by penguinz0.
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