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Ben Schwarz

@benschwarz.bsky.social

3.2K followers 170 following 690 posts

Founder & Product developer @ calibreapp.com. Into sustainability, online privacy, cycling, photography, music, hiking, native country and creative pursuits 🌞

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Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · Apr 29

🆕 Core Web Vitals test tool update:

Now you can view up to 40 weeks (~9 months) of metrics for your sites.

Data fetched **fresh daily** from Google directly.

Enter URL, get a free #webperf dashboard 👇
calibreapp.com/tools/core-web-vitals-test

Screenshot of Calibre's free Core web vitals test tool. Largest Contentful Paint metric is displayed for calibreapp.com, observed at 2.13 seconds.

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 16h

Honestly I don’t care about this algorithm or other algorithms, they’re good and they’re getting better, cool.

I don’t want to EVER handle these formats manually, because there’s too many options and support is so fragmented.

IMO they should be output from a CDN in best available format.

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 5d

I have, and want to go back. Was too busy this year.

Reposted by Ben Schwarz

Robin Berjon @robin.berjon.com · 7d

If you think this is US-only, it's not.

If you think the GDPR protects you, it's doesn't.

If you hadn't realised privacy is a national security and corporate espionage issue, it is.

If you think politicians can't tackle this, they can.

If you believe that tech or business need this, they don't.

michael veale @michae.lv · 7d

Either real-time bidding data or app SDK data is being bought and used by ICE to seize people from the streets. If you didn’t believe that the adtech stack is a human rights concern, I’m not sure what more evidence you need. www.404media.co/ice-to-buy-t...

ICE to Buy Tool that Tracks Locations of Hundreds of Millions of Phones Every Day

Documents show that ICE has gone back on its decision to not use location data remotely harvested from peoples' phones. The database is updated every day with billions of pieces of location data.

www.404media.co

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 7d

Prior to making a major DNS change you can lower the TTL to a really frequent time window, e.g five minutes. When you make a change, you can see it confirmed within 5 mins, rather than potentially HOURS.

Also helpful if you make a mistake and want to undo and rethink :)

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 7d

Need a hand?

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 7d

Hits like crack

Screenshot of Vercel cancellation screen with feedback mentioning Guillermo's support of a genocidal war criminal

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 7d

Today Vercel (derogatory) announced their series F funding, with a valuation of 9.3 Billion. It’s another $300m investment round.

Cancel your account today, let’s see how quickly that valuation can drop.

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 8d

Cool, we know exactly who Guillermo is now.

Guillermo from Vercel pictured with war criminal Netanyahu

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 8d

If you work in tech and your response to governments forcing age verification is "Itz FiNe I‘ll jUst usE a VpN", then you missed the whole fucking point.

This is when you use your knowledge, care, and moral backbone to protect the people you claim to build for.

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 8d

tbh I intentionally try not to keep up with the exploits of tech people I don’t want anything to do with

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 8d

Me: I wonder why I receive job applicants for jobs that don't exist?

Also me: Oh. I think I know why.

Screenshot of LoopCV website with "using AI" highlighted

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 8d

My mouth actually dropped when I saw this. I can’t believe he met, posed, had the photo taken, and posted it. Truly aghast. Abhorrent.

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 8d

Cool, we know exactly who Guillermo is now.

Guillermo from Vercel pictured with war criminal Netanyahu

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 11d

Skully, mulder and skinner, calling each other from the bath

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 12d

for me I think trusting your first instinct is probably "enough" — when something seems off, it probably is.

or put another way

when someone shows you who they are, believe them.

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 12d

Oh it’s basically a full time job to keep up with tech companies or people and their exploits.

IMO some signals worth observing:
- anti employee / mistreatment of employees
- being on X in 2025
- evidence of punching down
- where and how and what they invest in
- what voices they amplify

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 12d

There’s definitely an undercurrent of rich sociopaths with a fash streak in tech.

There’s a long list of projects, authors and companies who produce tech stuff that I will not use/not support, divest etc. unfortunately the list is getting longer

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 12d

Surprising no one, Mr Tailwind shits his pants, licks boots, and has happy bedfellows with fascists.

Jared White (ResistanceNet ✊) @jaredwhite.indieweb.social.ap.brid.gy · 12d

Just in case you were wondering, Mr. Tailwind CSS himself is all cool with the fashy vibe. (This comes as no surprise to anyone paying any attention for the last several years…he's always palling around with best buddy DHH.)

Adam Wathan @adamwathan
Replying to @dhh
Fifty people feels like a lot when they are tweeting about how awful someone is but when
you actually see them in a list and realize "oh this is all of them, this is everyone who gives
a shit about this", all the power disappears. Huge self-own.

Adam Wathan retweeted:
tobi lutke
@tobi

It's such a terrible mental tax on builders that divisive clowns just ride in and spew these bullshit terms that they clearly don't understand themselves in bad faith.

Ignore & keep building

Reposted by Ben Schwarz

stringy @stringyland.bsky.social · 13d

Next month in Melbourne, Russ Weakley and I are running a workshop on mobile accessibility testing at A11y Camp. We'd love to have you to join us. Workshop details: a11ycamp.com.au/workshops/ and tickets at events.humanitix.com/a11y-camp-au... #a11y

Workshops – A11y Camp

a11ycamp.com.au

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 14d

Molly Baz got weirdly AI cloned by Shopify

Classy company, hey?

www.threads.com/@danwhateley...

Dan Whateley (@danwhateley) on Threads

Shopify took down this image (on left) from their website after food creator Molly Baz called it "a sicko AI version of me." Baz's original photo is on the right and features on her cookbook cover

www.threads.com

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 15d

100 days to go in 2025 🥴

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 16d

Under 16s social media ban is going to:

- Push kids into worse, more dangerous content
- Risk the privacy of every adult Australian via botched age verification
- Limit Australian technology sector development

Why are we doing this again?

Josh Taylor @joshtaylor.bsky.social · 16d

I conducted an experiment on what Tiktok and YouTube recommends when not logged in on the app.

Given the social media ban only covers accounts, hard not to see this could be the experience for teens in Australia come December. www.theguardian.com/media/2025/s...

From zero to neo-Nazis: what under-16s may see under Australia’s social media ban, simply by not logging in

Guardian Australia test finds scrolling shortform videos while logged out of YouTube and TikTok quickly leads to gambling, violent and far-right content

www.theguardian.com

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 16d

This is a really good point Josh. I use Youtube signed in with a premium account, I see things about football, gardening, music, stuff I'm interested in.

When I'm accidentally logged out, the content vibe shifts dramatically towards manosphere and reactionary content — real cooker shit.

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 16d

someone get this guy an emergency pizza slice!

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 16d

iOS 26 seems to have issues with dark mode where some elements (buttons, search inputs, etc) switch to LIGHT MODE regularly. It's quite distracting and not great in low light.

"Liquid glass" is fine, as long as you turn transparency off in accessibility settings 😅

Ben Schwarz @benschwarz.bsky.social · 16d

Ethan are you online while hangry again?