Back Alley Coder

In the race to advance AI systems, measuring their ability is critical, and the future is how we will grade them.

An exploration in using Passkeys as generalized cryptographic seed material to address new use cases, while inheriting the benefits of cross-device synced keys with native biomentric UX.

Exploring identity as a cosmological analog - proposing that like dark matter and energy in the universe, identity forms the vast unseen infrastructure that powers all our daily interactions.

Dispelling common myths and FUD about Web Components by clarifying what they actually are - encapsulated, declarative, custom elements that enable reusable, interoperable functionality.

Exploring how blockchain-based identity indirection can address the scalability challenges of decentralized applications and services while maintaining consensus guarantees.

A recap of the W3C blockchain workshop at MIT discussing potential Web standards for blockchain technology, particularly focusing on blockchain-based identity authentication.

Debunking the fallacious arguments about data persistence in decentralized systems and why economic incentives in distributed networks are more robust than critics claim.

A clever hack to enable single-page app routing on GitHub Pages by leveraging the 404.html file and preserving SEO-friendly status codes for crawlers.

A vision of how blockchain-based identity systems could revolutionize daily life through seamless, secure, and interoperable digital interactions across all devices and services.

Renewing the discussion around app-to-app interaction APIs for the web, examining past attempts like Web Activities and Web Intents and proposing better solutions.

Exploring Element Queries as a solution for truly responsive components - Media Queries scoped to individual elements rather than viewport dimensions.

A cross-browser solution for detecting element resize events using hidden object elements, enabling responsive behavior beyond window resize events.

Exploring the lesser-known overflow and underflow events in Firefox and WebKit browsers that detect changes in element scroll states.

A retrospective on the challenging FlightDeck project at Mozilla, exploring how miscommunication and bad messaging can derail even well-intentioned collaborations.

A minimal CSS snippet using pseudo-elements to create UI ribbons that work in IE8+ and support dynamic content modification via JavaScript.

Exploring a new event mechanism called CSS Selector Listeners - a powerful way to listen for when elements match specific CSS selectors in the DOM.

A simple pure CSS modal solution that requires no wrapper elements, no JavaScript, and no complex implementations - just clean, elegant CSS.

Exploring the frustrations with DOM Level 3 Mutation Events and the need for better node insertion detection in JavaScript.

A comprehensive approach to performing deep, strict equality comparison of JavaScript native types, handling edge cases beyond basic type checking.

A comprehensive cross-browser modal implementation method that handles all the edge cases and browser quirks for creating robust modal dialogs.

A MooTools Element extension for creating vertical text using CSS and DOM manipulation when browser-native solutions aren't sufficient.

A solution for detecting when CSS stylesheets loaded via LINK tags have finished loading, addressing the long-standing lack of reliable load event support across browsers.

Announcement of adding Opera extension APIs to the browser add-on API coverage table, expanding cross-browser extension development documentation.

A comprehensive comparison table of browser add-on APIs across major browsers, analyzing the current state of cross-platform extension development capabilities.

A debugging library for Mozilla Add-on SDK that enables Firebug-based debugging of add-on code with support for chrome-level objects and SDK API introspection.

A JavaScript solution for converting CSS named colors to RGB and HEX formats, essential for color manipulation in front-end development.