Mandaris

41. What is your relationship with your phone? Does it make you happy or sad? Do you get a new one frequently or infrequently?

When the iPhone first came out, it was the only material possession that I wanted. It had the promise of being everything that I could technically want in one device in my pocket. I wasn’t able to afford it at the time, most people weren’t as it was $600 dollars and I was expecting my first child.

I later got one, but it has never really made me happy.

I’ve been content to be able to while away hours playing games and surfing the internet.

I’m grateful when it give me correct information about traffic and weather.

I do get enjoyment from taking and looking at pictures and I think that is the closest that I come from being happy about the phone.

Because it has come with costs that I didn’t expect.

Interruptions from telemarketers.

Things claiming to be news but advertisements about things that I have no interest in.

Time that I should have been paying attention to other things but was concentrated on my screen.

It’s a complicated feeling and is part of why I don’t get a new one frequently.

I'm actually very happy to have this question.

40. What is the most scared you have ever been? Can you write about it? (Don’t dig up trauma for a blog post)

One event that comes to mind that isn’t very traumatic is a moment when I was first dating my girlfriend (now wife). We were celebrating our one year anniversary of dating and had gone to the Santa Cruz boardwalk. I thought it was going to be a nice trip with us relaxing by the beach and playing the midway games.

I hadn’t thought about rides that are offered on the boardwalk. In fact, we had arrived early and none of the rides were operating at that time and all you could hear was the calming waves of the ocean.

That’s when it happened.

My wife suggested a rollercoaster.

I hadn’t told my wife that I actually was afraid of rides. Maybe some part of me thought that it would never come up or that everyone feels the same way.

I though the best way to get out of this was to go on another ride. A ride that had a shorter line and was right next to the rollercoaster.

How bad can it be?

The ride was called The Fireball.

I thought it just rocked back and forth and did a little spin here and there.

I was wrong.

I flipped 180 degrees. I was upside down and I hated it.

I screamed quite a bit and it became one of the key moments of our relationship as I was VERY honest with her about things that made me uncomfortable. I would try them and keep and open mind.

But man!

I still hate rollercoasters.

45. What do you remember being a big deal to adults during your childhood or teenaged years?

The first thing that comes to mind is the OJ Simpson trail. I didn’t know who he was at the time. All I knew was that he was driving on a white truck down the freeway with the police following him.

I feel that it’s partially because of the verdict that came after the Rodney King beating that some people feel that this was win for us.

But I don’t know who us was in this discussion.

I feel that the discussions about the case have made me a better person as I was learned about different topics related to it. For example, marriage equality and what things do we bring and take away from a relationship; how someone can be found guilty or innocent and continue to have legal issues related to the matter; what is legal and what is justice.

There have been many jokes related to this trial and I’m sure that there are a lot of different takes on it and sadly many similar cases that don’t have the same media coverage.

So, it’s still a big deal to this day.

39. What do you like to read? Books, newsletters, doomscrolling, blogs, paper magazines?

My favorite thing to read are comics. I’ve enjoyed comics since I was a kid and would read the funny pages in the newspaper. When I was younger, my favorites were Calvin and Hobbs, Bloom County and The Far Side. I didn’t quite get all the jokes in Bloom County at the time, but it was so different from things like Garfield and Peanuts that it really stood out for me. It was also easier to grasp the satire for me than Doonesbury. I feel that The Far Side had the most impact on me because of its single panel nature. I had a collection of books, mugs, and shirts with different comics.

Near the end of the year, I look forward to two sites that release some amazing articles about web development.

HTMHell Advent Calendar 2024

In 2022, I launched the HTMHell Advent Calendar, which was a great success. Since then, dozens of authors worldwide have contributed fantastic articles on security, accessibility, UX, and performance every year. This year, we’re back again with twenty-four more posts.

When I was in college, I had a web development class where the teacher would start off every session with websites that had questionable decisions about the design. This site seems to be a continuation of that but shows you how to correct it.

12 Days of Web

A year-end celebration of fundamental web technologies: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

In addition to the articles, the authors post links to charities that they are raising money and awareness for.

This was a pretty nice article about things getting focus and how that plays with accessibility.

In accessibility, “focusable” UI elements are represented by two separate yet equally important concepts: the elements who can be focused sequentially and those who can only receive focus programmatically. These are their stories. Dun-Dun