- Choose Boring Technology
An excellent principle.
Tag: architecture
Bookmarks for December 9, 2015
- London Underground Station Design Idiom
One to read in depth when I have the time. Because I'm a nerd.
Bookmarks for June 18, 2012
- Sky City: Chinese company proposes world’s tallest building
A new tallest building is not that interesting. What is interesting is that they're saying that can build it in 90 days.
Bookmarks for February 15, 2012
- High Scalability – High Scalability – Tumblr Architecture – 15 Billion Page Views a Month and Harder to Scale than Twitter
One of the web developers – Tumblr's journey from their initial technologies to what they've got now, and where they're going. Fascinating reading if you understand the tech.
- Ninja Blocks | Building blocks for the Internet of Things
EEEEnteresting. I can see some flaws with it – ethernet? really? And where're the API docs? But this is all open source stuff, so an iteration or two from now, and something based on this could be a lot of fun, and very practically useful.
Bookmarks for May 4, 2011
- 25 Abandoned Yugoslavia Monuments that look like they're from the Future
Why are all of these not arranged within convenient walking distance of my house? They are utterly brilliant bits of work.
- Workers leaving the googleplex
A story about how someone got fired from Google for being curious about his fellow employees. One might almost think that Google didn't want it getting out that they appear to be making use of minimum wage labour, and treating them worse than they treat all their other employees. That might make them look like they don't care if they're evil or not.
Bookmarks for April 19, 2011
- The pernicious influence of immigrants in the UK
If, and only if, you actively hate everything on this list, may you even think about making an anti-immigrant remark. If on the other hand, you have ever thought about doing so, and like even one of these things, even a little, then you must leave the country at once.
- cityofsound: Stadsmuziek, by Akko Golenbeld
Just go and look at this. If architecture is frozen music, then this is the music being played. What a brilliant idea.
Bookmarks for March 11, 2011
- Behold: The Nicolas Cage Matrix
A guide to Nicolas Cage movies. Really must get round to watching Bad Lieutenant.
- insane asylum plans
This is what is says on the tin. Kind of fascinating.
Bookmarks for March 9, 2011
Bookmarks for July 23, 2010
- Janet Fitch's 10 rules for writers | Jacket Copy | Los Angeles Times
Actually, these aren't half bad, and if I could make more of an effort to remember them, it'd probably lift my writing quite a lot.
- Wayward Alzheimer's patients foiled by fake bus stop – Telegraph
Architectures of control, right here. Nice.
- The ever-arrogant Apple « Observatory
I admit to coming off like a bit of an Apple fanboy, but still, this piece really nailed something for me: if Apple are sometimes arrogant (and I don't think there's a dispute about whether or not they are) then it's because they've earned the right to be by leading the way in personal computing on a technology level for decades now. They may not have been the most successful financially, but they've been the game changing-innovators since before the iPod, never mind the iPhone and iPad. And if someone comes along that can humble them, then I will sincerely welcome them but it hasn't happened yet. The reason I buy Apple products is that they're the best on sale at the moment, and as soon as someone comes along that offers me a better experience, I'll switch.
- Stuart Roebuck: Mobile Proxy Cache content modification by O2
I'm a little fucked off about this, but not quite willing to throw my toys from the pram over it – not least because I can't, having just signed up for another 18 months. But it's one to keep an eye on, and one to be professionally aware of, at least, as more clients start asking up for iPhone/iPad tailored content.
Bookmarks for July 22, 2010
- Why it's never too late to be a lesbian | Life and style | The Guardian
Fascinating article on the fluidity of sexuality – the idea that people, particularly women, can, in fact, switch from hetero- to homo-sexuality in different phases of their life – that it's possible to be sincerely heterosexual, and then later, sincerely homosexual without ever being bisexual, and without devaluing one's previous sexuality.
- America's Joyous Future
I laughed like a drain.
- Bookshelf Porn
I love my iPad – I'm carrying so many books around with me these days, and it is very liberating. But I also love my bookshelves. One day, I hope to have space for my books, but I accept that this may be a fools dream, and I may have to resign myself to an iPad-based future. In the meantime, I shall stare at this with envy.
- danah boyd | apophenia » MySpace and Facebook: How Racist Language Frames Social Media (and Why You Should Care)
I've been following boyd's research for a few years now, and have been particularly interested in her data regarding class/race/gender divides in social media use, and I really hope the rallying cry that she's putting out here has some effect, because I would really like to see people stop arguing over the scope the problem, and start talking about what can be done about it. "On the internet, no-one knows you're a dog" is both a triumph *and* a tragedy, and we need to start addressing that.