You can automate the work. You can't automate the responsibility for the work. Someone still has to put their name on it.

Joining the atmosphere I don't post to or visit the social network formerly known as Twitter, but as a very early Twitter user, I can't quite bring myself to delete all my old... https://rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2026/05/31/joining-the-atmosphere/

The weather is on the turn, but it was beautiful for my run this morning. Getting some planting done now before the rain comes.

I'm new to the AT Protocol ecosystem (intending to get my blog using standard.site this weekend) but there's an incredible momentum around it. It feels like a much-needed optimistic corner of the tech world.

Watched an episode of a gardening show last night. The entire premise seemed to be beginners having a go at sorting their garden while awaiting a visit from Monty Don. He then arrived to tell them they were doing it all wrong. Like social media in real life.

I took today off work so I have a four day weekend. I'm using it to dig up this layer of nasty gravel, weeds, and clay, and replace it with new weed membrane and nicer gravel.

The 2026 State of CSS survey is now live 🎉 Take it here: survey.devographics.com/en-US/survey...

Gap decorations are now in Chromium 149 (stable rollout in 5 days)! Shoutout to the folks at Microsoft Edge for the implementation, post, and demos: developer.chrome.com/blog/gap-dec...

What if Truman was a technical writer?

So, every organization that makes software or manages technology has a backlog of bugs they want to fix, or features that they (or their customers) wish they could implement. It’s often super frustrating to have to deprioritize things you _want_ over things you are _obligated_ to do…

I miss doing fun things on my computer and then writing about it. What fun things are you all doing on your computers during these trying times?

Fancy attending @pixelpioneers.co (Bristol, 19 June) for free? 😀 The deadline to apply for a diversity scholarship is next Tuesday! Anyone in an underrepresented or marginalised group in tech is eligible. Check out the full details at: pixelpioneers.co/events/brist... Please share! 🫶

The weekend is short and the list of house and garden jobs is long. Did however find time to go see an epic bluebell wood.

I try and get out for a lunchtime walk round town, and often return with something interesting from one of the independent shops. Today, the perfect feature plant for a bowl I'm planting.

Trail run at RAF Spadeadam today. I'm kind of broken so was a bit of a run/hike but that gave me chance to take photos of interesting stuff.

I've done something to myself and have to take a few days off running. The upside of hiking instead is I can take a proper camera with me.

I was looking through my copy of the CSS Anthology 1st edition and wondering what a 2026 edition of that book would look like. rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/202...

Issue 18 of #OwnYourWeb is out. ✨ Curators. ✷ Personal site of the (more or less every other) week by @strange.website ✷ newsletter.ownyourweb.site/archive/own-...

This seems like the perfect sports nutrition[1], though not sure it would be easy to attach to a road bike. 1. Do not take my advice on sports nutrition. I once ran a marathon fueled by two gluten-free stroopwafels.

Gordon Ramsey, technical writing, and the importance of people who care rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/202...

Gordon Ramsey, technical writing, and the importance of people who care rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/202...

🚨 delete your bsky app passwords NOW you can always generate new ones settings ➡️ privacy & security also turn on 2FA high suspicion for leaked app passwords driving the mahm*** spam network acquiring larger existing accounts, and deleting all their posts

NAMING HELP NEEDED: Looking for single words, to be used in CSS property names, that distinguish between gap decoration ends that form intersections vs. those that don't. Best idea I've come across so far is "intersecting" and "dangling". Do you have other suggestions?

A couple new column-wrapping features shipped in Chrome 145, like `column-wrap` and `column-height`. Truly big upgrades for multi-column layouts — here's how you *might* use them... as well as when you might *not* use them. css-tricks.com/css-multi-co...

"The real threat is a slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing. Not a dramatic collapse. Not Skynet. Just a generation of researchers who can produce results but can't produce understanding." ergosphere.blog/posts/the-ma...

This long weekend I'm moving my office into the new shed. Today is all about cables and WiFi.

There are now 10 toilets in Space International Space Station: 4 Crew Dragon Docked at ISS: 1 Soyuz Docked at ISS: 1 Tiangong Space Station: 2 Shenzhou Docked at TSS: 1 Artemis II on way around Moon: 1 This will be the first time a toilet has left low earth orbit!

I've been a member of various running groups. Every single group has had a vast collection of local landmarks named after something (usually suboptimal) that happened to one of the members at that location. "We'll meet at Kevin's style." You just need to ask about the story.

This afternoon is me versus a very complicated shelf. This is just the frame, I've got 25 individual boxes and an instruction book that's like a computer manual.

A blustery but beautiful run this morning. Rain held off until I was driving home.

I see LLMs as a useful tool, in the way that I see spreadsheets as a useful tool. I also think that the people who are advocating the use of AI for everything are wrong in the same way they would be if they told me I should use a spreadsheet for everything... rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/202...

Last week I spoke at the very lovely Web Day Out about browser support. One of the things I mentioned was how the data behind Baseline gives you a way to look into the future of the web platform. I've written some more about that on my blog rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/202...

POLLS: The CSS Working Group is looking for author feedback on two topics related to CSS Gap Decorations. Questions below. For background information on Gap Decorations, see the explainer: github.com/w3c/csswg-dr...

There's so many problems in modern tech stacks that wouldn't exist if people weren't weirdly allergic to using a DBMS. Up to and including "I'm going to use an expensive LLM to wade around in all this content I own to give me an approximation of an answer."

I know how to make a good impression with my skip-level manager. For example, having an enormous orange cat throw a 3d-printed trash fire off the shelf directly behind my head during our 1:1. Follow me for more good tips on acting like a normal person in corporate life.

Up the hill.

Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work. "Who is the audience for this? No, it's not 'everyone'."

I have paid the YouTube subscription so Max doesn't get annoyed by ads.

Happy to be back up North, where the sun is shining.

I just spoke at #WebDayOut with my pragmatic guide to browser support. You can check out my slides at noti.st/rachelandrew...

The next @pixelpioneers.co speaker spotlight is live! In this Q&A, @rachelandrew.bsky.social tells us about the key CSS features the web platform has gained lately, the role Baseline plays for interoperability, and managing a publishing pipeline in a world of genAI: pixelpioneers.co/blog/speaker...

A bit of a different view for my run today.

Sigh. Skills are docs. They literally are docs. If you let them AI produce them, you're essentially letting entropy in by giving up on high-signal content made by humans who *know* what the things are about.

It was -3C when I left the house. Our feet were breaking through ice into freezing water on the waterlogged hilltop. But those views!

Last week I ended up in ankle deep stinky mud so I left my trail shoes outside. Wore my road shoes the last two days so forgot about them. They have frozen. Hoping I can defrost them before going out today!

British weather on fine form this week. Yesterday it got to 14C, I had the window open, birds were singing, I was thinking how nice it was that spring was here... This morning I got snowed on while running.

A blustery walk to Lambley Viaduct.

'The people who will thrive aren't "agent managers." They're people who can say what they want and evaluate whether they got it - and whether what they got was either good or shit.'

Remember the days of web design when you could tell users what size of monitor to get for your website

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the world who actually reads the docs, or the thing I'm signing up to. This has only ever caused me trouble, like the time I accidentally became known as a European VAT expert. Took me years to stop getting VAT questions in my email.