EightMedia/hammer.js · GitHub JS library to handle multi-touch inputs on mobile devices. Oh look, you've all gone to sleep. Don't care this'll be be handy for work.
UNDO DEL IUMA « ASCII by Jason Scott The Internet Underground Music Archive is back. It's, ah, a bit trial and error, but basically, there's this absolutely vast pile of free music out there again. If you can't find something in here that you like, I'll eat my socks.
Half of Detroit’s Streetlights May Go Out as City Shrinks – Bloomberg Light as an architecture of control. Creepy as fuck – "we're just going to let poor people sit in the dark, in the hope that making their neighbourhoods less safe will make them move" is, well, not the subtext here, but the outright *text*.
Germany sets new solar power record, institute says | Reuters Just in case you can't be arsed to click though: Germany met 50% of it's national energy needs with completely clean energy at peak sunshine hours on Friday and Saturday. This doesn't mean that we're quite ready to get rid of other power sources yet, but seriously, if this is possible now, perhaps it's time for us to spend a bit more cash (read: any) developing solar power systems? Who knows how fast we might get to the point where many nations could power themselves with solar energy?
Griot The next time I meet a pagan wanging on about bards and druids and their sacred oral traditions, I'm going to slap them in their boringly white middle class face. The phenomena is far from unique, and what they're spouting about "Celtic Tradition" in Britain it's mostly made up bullshit anyway.
UI design in the Avengers Detail shots of what are clearly some very cleverly thought out bits of UI design for fictional ultra-tech. This sort of thing is fascinating, both from an ideas point of view, and as an illustration of the level of thought and attention to detail that goes into even fleeting details in the background of a movie.
London Underground Tube Diary – Going Underground’s Blog A chance to take a steam train on the tube! (OK, not actually, you know, underground, but that's OK, because it'll be pretty!) Yes, I will obviously have to go. I would also like to make it clear that I thought steam trains were cool *before* the goth scene discovered the colour brown.
Kosmograd: Olympics Brand Exclusion Zone If I know anyone who lives in these zones (and I suspect I do) I *strongly* encourage you to buy competitor products, and leave them prominently in your windows. And, indeed, to pass this idea on. It would be *lovely* if the streets in these areas were plastered with the logos of competing brands – not as paid for advertising, but just as spontaneous citizen reclamation of the space that belongs to them, not to advertisers and marketers.
Why I Write "Strong Female Characters" ALPHA, the new novel by Greg Rucka is out in the UK tomorrow. I am more excited for this that I am for Mieville's latest, out the same day. I mention this, because you ought to be buying it. I also commend this article to your attention, where Greg talks about his process – I learned a few tricks I didn't know while reading it.
electric imp Easy to install wifi for well, everything. If this takes off, things (no, literally, things, physical-object-things are going to get interesting. The only thing I object to is the same thing I do with all cloud services – that the devices talk to the company's servers, rather than a system in the home, thereby making the company a single point-of-failure for its own technology. You would not buy a wristwatch that stopped working if Casio went bust, why sould any other technology be different.
Blogging is not a thing, it’s an attitude A simple and clear insight into why "corporate blogging" is an oxymoron. In order to blog, one must be free to express one's *true* thoughts, on any subject that one is moved to. Otherwise, you're just writing on a website. Which is not a bad thing – there is not value judgement necessarily implied here, although yes, I do have a preference, and you can guess what it is – but it's not blogging.