Welcome to Kurzschnitte II, a collection of links I came across in recent weeks. These links were noteworthy to me, but I don’t want to write a full blog post about them. Instead, I’ve gathered them here for you to enjoy.

• The English language (at least according to dictionary.com) now too has an entry for “verschlimmbessern” (I explained that nice German word in my July notes). It’s to pessimize — and I fully agree. This word comes as antonym of to optimize and can be used to describe the act of making something worse while trying to improve it. I’m not sure if I like the (new English) word, but I like the idea behind it, it’s needed.

• Classnames is a guide to the naming of HTML classes, CSS properties, or JavaScript functions in our daily developer lifes. It offers curated word lists, categorized thematically, combining creativity with usefulness. Or as the tagline says: “Naming things needn’t be hard.”

• Brandfetch is a platform for accessing and managing brand assets like logos, colors, and fonts. It’s ideal for creatives and brand managers, offering a way to ensure brand consistency by centralizing creative assets. The platform also features an API to create “branded experiences”. I always stop by this site before trying to search the brands website for brand kits, design guides, etc. It’s a great resource for designers and developers.

• Free-for.dev is a resource for developers and open source authors, offering a list of services that offer free tiers, providing a wide range of software and services in categories like cloud management, APIs, data and machine learning, and more. The list is extensive and up-to-date via Github repository.

• Monaspace: This is a monospace font, wait, five monospace font for developers. It’s a monospaced font with some weird features like “Texture Healing”, that works by intelligently swapping adjacent characters, balancing narrow and wide characters to create a more uniform and visually appealing text density. This approach, leveraging OpenType’s “contextual alternates,” transforms the display of code, making Monaspace not just a better tool to enhance code readability and aesthetics.

• FFFuel’s CSS Selectors is a visual and comprehensive guide into the world of CSS selectors. This resource covers selectors, including pseudo-classes like :nth-child and :hover, functional pseudo-classes such as :not and :is, and pseudo-elements. It’s providing clear examples and explanations that make understanding, remembering, and applying CSS selectors much simpler.

• Asep Bagja’s blog post on “Making Music with Google Sheets and Web MIDI API” is a fascinating exploration of how modern web browsers can interact with real musical instruments. Using the Web MIDI API, the author demonstrates how Google Sheets can be transformed into a grid-based music sequencer, akin to those used in the 80s and 90s. This creative approach not only showcases the potential of combining technology and art but also offers a unique perspective on using everyday tools like Google Sheets in unexpected and imaginative ways. I am definitely revisiting this post as soon as my synthesizer collection arrives ;]

That’s all for today’s list of orphaned links of interest.