Standards Suck » Lachlan Hunt

Tim Berners-Lee on government data

marcosc — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:46:51 +0000

During TPAC, we sat down for a chat with the Director of the W3C, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. During the interview, Tim filled us in about his goals for this year with regards to getting the world’s governments to open up the people’s data (yes “raw data now!”). We grilled him about what that means: does it really mean “raw” or is it really an RDF conspiracy? Tim has some great anecdotes about the uses of raw data and what we, as citizens, can achieve if we work together and get governments to give us raw data now! (don’t be shy! shout it out! I sure as hell did).

Tim Berners Lee on Govenment Data from Standards Suck on Vimeo.

Standards Suck at TPAC 2009

admin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:47:52 +0000

We’ve never been really fast at Standards Suck. There is no rush since the end result of most standards is already known. This time around we taped the introduction to TPAC 2009 after the event, in a somewhat tired state on the day we would leave the Bay Area. Fun fact: arriving fifty minutes before take off does not go down well with the people behind the supposedly closed down check-in counters.

TPAC Intro from Standards Suck on Vimeo.

I suppose I can also make a minor announcement here. The moment implementations of video in Web browsers are somewhat more stable we will start serving Ogg Theora instead. And with a bit of luck we’ll be able to include captions and all as well at that point.

The fascinating world of i18n

marcosc — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:00:21 +0000

During TPAC 08, Lachy got-a-chattin’ with Richard Ishida – the W3C’s Internationalization (i18n) activity lead. Richard gives an insight into all the complexities that the i18n activity is trying to deal with. Richard is a wonderful speaker with tremendously knowledgeable of all things 18n; he gives some great descriptions of i18n problems in this little interview. If you are new to i18n, I think you will find this video very insightful.

Gsnedders’ Magical Spec Generator

marcosc — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:43:51 +0000

At TPAC08, Lachlan and Geoffrey Sneddon (gsnedders) had a chat at TPAC about some interesting work Geoffrey has been doing on a spec generator that makes use of HTML5 parsing and some other interesting things. They also pay a salute to everyone’s favorite chroniqueur of the WHAT WG youth: Mr Lastweekinhtml5!

Ian Hickson on Editing HTML5

marcosc — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 00:00:07 +0000

During TPAC, Lachlan caught up with Ian Hickson (Hixie), editor of the HTML 5 specification. Hixie discusses the tools he uses to gather and respond to feedback, which is fundamental to the open development of the standard. Hixie clarifies the whole “when will HTML5 be ready?!” thing and gives us some details about what part of the spec he is working on now.

The YouTube video Ian mentions showing off HTML5 features in today’s cutting-edge browsers:

Ways you can track editorial changes to HTML5:

Twitter messages (non-editorial changes only): twitter.com/WHATWG
Commit-Watchers mailing list: lists.whatwg.org/listinfo.cgi/commit-watchers-whatwg.org
Interactive Web interface: html5.org/tools/web-apps-tracker
twitter.com/whatwg (light)
twitter.com/html5 (all editorial changes)

TPAC Wrap-up

marcosc — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 02:30:12 +0000

Whoa! Apologies for dropping off the radar! I was supposed to upload this video before Anne and I took off to Tanzania to climb Mt Kilimanjaro, but had a crazy week at work and didn’t get time. Anyway, here is the Anne’s, Lachlan’s, and Marcos’ take on TPAC. What we learned, some interesting (and hopefully still relevant) news about the W3C, and a summary of what some of the key working groups (HTML, Web Apps, CSS) reached consensus on during the week! Enjoy!

Ben Millard on contributing to the W3C HTML WG

Lachlan Hunt — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:55:15 +0000

While relaxing by the beach in Mandelieu, Ben Millard and Lachlan Hunt had a chat about contributing to HTML working group. In particular, Ben discusses how he studied data tables used on the web and how that led to creating an improved algorithm for understanding the structure of a table, helping to improve accessibility.

Chris Wilson on Internet Explorer 8 and the W3C HTML Working Group

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 01:57:33 +0000

Since we cannot get enough of the Internet Explorer Team here at Standards Suck we had Lachlan Hunt talk with Chris Wilson on his perspective of Microsoft’s new browser and his W3C HTML Working Group chairing hat. As you can see in the background France is still lovely which makes you wonder why we sit inside most of the day.

The W3C HTML Working Group is meeting Thursday and Friday this week by the way, in case you are interested in attending.

W3C Standardization Process: breaking through the FUD

marcosc — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:42:40 +0000

While at Web Directions South, Lachlan caught up with Mike(tm) Smith, co-chair of the W3C’s HTML Working Group, to talk about the process of standardization at the W3C. Mike(tm) Smith, who is also a W3C team contact, describes what is standardization and how it relates to HTML5. Mike brings some reality to how standardisation of HTML5 is happening from someone who is actually there on the ground helping it all happen.

Advanced CSS Layouts

marcosc — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:48:53 +0000

Hi Standards Suck fans! Sorry for the delay between videos, we’ve all been really busy pumping out W3C specs and working on various things. Fortunately, Lachlan was allowed to leave his cave at Opera software and return to his native Australia for the 2008 Web Directions South Conference. While there, Lachlan caught up with author and veteran web developer, Kevin Yank, to discuss what sucks about today’s CSS support in browsers. Kevin discusses what developers really want from CSS, where browsers are at today with regards to CSS support, and using CSS table layouts in IE8. Do you agree with Kevin?

On the 20-24th of October we’ll be at the W3C’s 2008 Tech Plenary, where all the W3C Working Groups meet to share ideas drink and eat too much. We will have our trusty Web cams ready to catch all the action and get some great interviews. If you want us to interview anyone in particular, leave us a comment!

We are also working on a new design for the site so it doesn’t looks so sucky. Hopefully we should have something up before TPAC.