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Weekly Platform News: Improving UX on Slow Connections, a Tip for Writing Alt Text and a Polyfill for the HTML loading attribute
23.8.2019
In this week's roundup, how to determine a slow connection, what we should put into alt text for images, and a new polyfill for the HTML loading attribute, plus more.
Detecting users on slow connections
Algolia is using the Network Information API (see the API’s Chrome status page) to detect users...
How to Create Non-Fungible Assets and Collectible Tokens With Bitcoin Cash
22.8.2019
On August 21, James Cramer, the developer behind the Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP), announced the launch of the Electron Cash SLP version 3.5. The latest release allows people to create a new type of SLP token called NFT1, a non-fungible token that can be grouped together by a single ID....
Advice for Technical Writing
22.8.2019
In advance of a recent podcast with the incredible technical writer and Smashing Magazine editor-in-chief Rachel Andrew, I gathered up a bunch of thoughts and references on the subject of technical writing. So many smart people have said a lot of smart things over the years that I thought I'd round...
Smokescreens and Mirrors: How Does a Country Do an ICO? They Call It QE
22.8.2019
Financial regulators all around the world have been cracking down hard on ICOs for promising more than they can deliver. At the same time governments and central banks are pulling off far worse scams, such as QE, wiping out the savings of everyone that depends on them. To hide this fact they...
Navbar Nudging on @keyframers
22.8.2019
I got to be the featured guest over on The Keyframers the other day. We looked at a Dribbble shot by Björgvin Pétur Sigurjónsson and then slowly built it, taking some purposeful detours along the way to discuss various tech.
We start by considering doing it entirely in CSS, then go for some light...
Major Swedish Bank Orders Negative Interest Rate on Euro Deposits
22.8.2019
Sub-zero interest rates have become the norm in some countries, especially in Europe. Nordic nations such as Sweden and Denmark have been in negative territory for a while and a growing number of banks in the region are now charging depositors for keeping their money. Saving in fiat right...
Bitcoin Maximalists Embrace Ethereum After Receiving an Offer They Can’t Refuse
22.8.2019
A group of hardcore bitcoin maximalists have heroically overcome their hatred for Ethereum after receiving ERC20 shares in crypto exchange INX worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The staunch BTC loyalists, led by Blockstream CTO Samson Mow, have agreed to support a project built on Ethereum...
PR: Cross Exchange Launches IEO
22.8.2019
CROSS is a project aiming to develop an exchange platform that trades various digital assets globally including CROSS exchange for the coming digital asset and digital money society.
The value of CROSS (XCR) is to “provide a platform for exchanging all kinds of digital assets.”
The post PR: Cross...
Market Update: Prices Drop as Crypto Sentiment Enters the Fear Zone
21.8.2019
Cryptocurrency markets fell hard on August 21 following the $700 price drop bitcoin core (BTC) saw during the early morning trading sessions. Most digital assets have lost 2-8% in value as the overall market valuation of all 2,000+ coins has plunged to $263 billion. Crypto price movements have been...
The World Bank’s Blockchain Bond Is Just a Fancy Way of Selling Debt
21.8.2019
Last year the World Bank and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia announced a permissioned Ethereum-based blockchain to facilitate the end-to-end issuance of bonds between financial partners. The Bretton Woods-created financial institution hopes to make debt capital markets far more efficient with...
Using requestAnimationFrame with React Hooks
21.8.2019
Animating with requestAnimationFrame should be easy, but if you haven’t read React’s documentation thoroughly then you will probably run into a few things that might cause you a headache. Here are three gotcha moments I learned the hard way.
TLDR: Pass an empty array as a second parameter...
Other Ways to SPAs
21.8.2019
That rhymed lolz.
I mentioned on a podcast the other day that I sorta think WordPress should ship with Turbolinks. It's a rather simple premise:
Build a server-rendered site.
Turbolinks intercepts clicks on same-origin links.
It uses AJAX for the HTML of the new page and replaces the current page...
Indian Supreme Court Orders RBI to Answer Crypto Exchanges, New Date Set
21.8.2019
After hearing the arguments against the banking restriction by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in detail, the Indian supreme court directed the central bank to reply to the representations filed by crypto exchanges. Since the RBI has not adequately answered them, the court set a new date to resume...
PR: Kinesis Partners With Hardware Wallet Provider CoolbitX
21.8.2019
Kinesis is proud to announce a partnership with CoolBitX Technology, the developers of the world’s first credit card-sized hardware wallet, the CoolWallet S. This partnership will enable Kinesis digital currencies, KAU (1-gram gold) and KAG (1-ounce silver), along with the Kinesis Velocity Token...
Getting Netlify Large Media Going
20.8.2019
I just did this the other day so I figured I'd blog it up. There is a thing called Git Large File Storage (Git LFS). Here's the entire point of it: it keeps large files out of your repo directly. Say you have 500MB of images on your site and they kinda need to be in the repo so you can work with...
High-Powered Mining Rigs Drive Bitcoin’s Accelerating Hashrate
20.8.2019
On August 19, the combined SHA-256 hashrate between the BCH and BTC networks touched a massive high of over 91 exahash per second (EH/s). One notable contribution to today’s network hashrates is the manufacturing of next-generation mining rigs that produce a significant number of terahash....
Let’s Build a JAMstack E-Commerce Store with Netlify Functions
20.8.2019
A lot of people are confused about what JAMstack is. The acronym stands for JavaScript, APIs, and Markup, but truly, JAMstack doesn’t have to include all three. What defines JAMstack is that it’s served without web servers. If you consider the history of computing, this type of abstraction isn’t...
Lazy load embedded YouTube videos
20.8.2019
This is a very clever idea via Arthur Corenzan. Rather than use the default YouTube embed, which adds a crapload of resources to a page whether the user plays the video or not, use the little tiny placeholder webpage that is just an image you can click that is linked to the YouTube embed.
It still...
It Took 18 Months, But This Blockchain Securities Firm Got the Nod From FINRA
20.8.2019
FINRA has approved iownit as a broker-dealer, clearing the firm to offer digital securities on a private Hyperledger blockchain
RBI Defends Its Power Over Crypto in Indian Supreme Court
20.8.2019
The Indian supreme court heard the case against the crypto banking restriction by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in detail Tuesday. After many arguments challenging the RBI’s power over crypto were presented, the counsel for the central bank began making the case against cryptocurrency. Also...