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🔗 PCjs Machines

Virtual machines of early PC operating systems, such as Windows and OS/2 1.0, that run in the browser. For anyone else who’s interested in a nostalgic kick. Don’t forget to check-out the list of included software installable via the virtual floppy drive.

🔗 The Monospace Web

A very nice exploration of webpage design using a monospace font. The first thought I had when I saw this was that this would work great for online man pages, which never look as good online as they do in the terminal.

Via: Robb Knight

🔗 How we built Bluey’s world: tales from original series art director, Catriona Drummond

As someone who knows absolutely nothing about animation, I found this fascinating. Some nice bits of theory in this, such as the “language” of shapes:

Circles are round, friendly and soft. No hard edges!
Triangles are sharp, aggressive and evoke pain.
Squares are sturdy, steady and firmly planted.
Then on top of that, even directional lines have implicit associations! Horizontals are calm, verticals awake and upright, and diagonals off balanced.

🔗 Daring Fireball: Microsoft Introduces ‘Copilot Mode’ in Edge

Some follow-up from my recent pondering about chatbots in browsers. From Gruber:

I think something similar is behind Microsoft trying to make Copilot front-and-center in Edge, and Google’s concurrent move to junk up Chrome with AI-generated suggestions. Their goal is to make their web browsers chatbots faster than OpenAI can make ChatGPT a web browser.

Okay, that’s plausible. If it’s just a fight for mindshare than I can understand this. Still not sure what OpenAI’s motivations are, but it does look like these other companies are just reacting here.

🔗 Daring Fireball: Google Chrome Adds AI-Generated Store Summaries

Now browsers themselves will be adding their own layers of distracting cruft atop the websites. The entire premise of Chrome — the reason for its name — is that it was originally designed to simplify the UI of the browser app itself, the “chrome”, at a time when Internet Explorer and even Firefox were increasingly cluttered and confusing.

I’m confused as to why Google and all these AI companies are so gun-ho about adding AI agents to browsers. What do they get out of this deal? Is it just a way for them to win users and get data from their browsing habits? Is it protection against Google potentially dissuading these users away from using their chat-bots? These are not problems Google has, so why are they doing this?

They seem like features designed to turn the dial up on Google’s slice of commissions from web transactions.

Maybe, but how can they collect? If they run AI over the web-pages that a user visits, when the user converts, how are they going to tell the website owner that they help “bring in the eye-balls” thanks to AI and have earned X% off the top? Maybe they’ll only run these AI agents on sites that “opt-in” in some way, either by using Google Pay or paying more for Google ads. I can see that happening.

All very strange. In either case, I’m glad I’m rocking Vivaldi these days.

🔗 Manuel Moreale: Why this matters

Manuel Moreale celebrates and reflects on reaching the 100th People and Blogs. Congratulations, Manuel! Here’s to many more.

We’re entering the 3 digits era of People and Blogs, and the next milestone is going to be the beginning of the 4 digits era, which will arrive in the year 2042. […] I’m not even sure if blogs will still be a thing by then.

Oh, I bet you they will be a thing.