- ReclaimPrivacy.org | Facebook Privacy Scanner
If you're staying on facebook, I thoroughly recommend that you use this, to be absolutely sure of what your settings are. Remember, if you don't set everything correctly, you friends can share information about you without your knowledge, so do make sure to check…
- People are walking architecture, or making NearlyNets with MujiComp – Blog – BERG
Yes, someone at BERG has done a thing, and I'm linking to it again. What this thing is is a short exploration of bottom-up ubicomp, and how it is making our cities come alive. Cleverness is basically the art of drawing useful connections that others don't, and Matt Jones is bloody good at it, skating here from Archigram to Clay Shirky via Muji and Guy DeBord, and laying out a way of bringing on the future of our public spaces. Plus, I love the idea of the porch being the point where the public and the private mesh. Much friendlier that the computer-nerd term DMZ, much more useful.
- Museum of London – Street Museum
Nifty little app for visually mining the history of London while out and about.
Tag: architecture
Bookmarks for September 22, 2009
- David Byrne’s Perfect City – WSJ.com
A quote by David Byrne from Matt's article that I thought I was worth saving in it's own right:
"A city can't be too small. Size guarantees anonymity—if you make an embarrassing mistake in a large city, and it's not on the cover of the Post, you can probably try again. The generous attitude towards failure that big cities afford is invaluable—it's how things get created. In a small town everyone knows about your failures, so you are more careful about what you might attempt." - The City Is A Battlesuit For Surviving The Future – Future metro – io9
Matt Jones on the future of cities, their place in sf, and well, a typically smart piece of joined up thinking. Just go and read it.
- YouTube – Outlaw commentary highlights
This is one of the funniest bits of DVD commentary I've heard in ages. I am genuinely unsure if this is a joke or not, but still, it's hysterical.
- The Ultimate Uncluttered Tube Map – Londonist
This is inspired. I recommend this map to all vistors to London. It really does contain 90% of everything tourists need, and for the other 10%, just ask a native. (Assuming you know any. If you don't, then how the hell are you reading this?)
Bookmarks for July 31, 2009
- Money – a Shunt event
I am unsure exactly what this is, other than "interesting". Who's in?
- Lightning – The Big Picture – Boston.com
It's another Big Picture link. You know it means there are pretty things, so why are you still here reading this text? Get on with the clicking!
- inessential.com: Anatomy of a feature
I think I may send this one to my boss, all our clients, and really, anyone who thinks that a simple feature that can be summed up in a sentence of English must therefore be easy to add to any program. "It's just a single field to do X" is almost never "just" anything.
Bookmarks for July 10, 2009
- Top 10 comic book cities | The Critics | Architects Journal
Some really interesting picks here. I think I'm going to have to make efforts to acquire a few of the works mentioned in here that I've never read.
- Metropolitan Police Service – About the Met – Photography advice
Advice about dealing with Photographers given to officers by the Met. Sensible, clear, know your rights stuff. If an officer talking to you does *not* know your rights, then you might try giving them this, because after all, it's their boss telling them what they're allowed to do.
Bookmarks for June 1, 2009
- Barbican – Helvetica + Objectified (12A*)
June 28th, Double feature of Helvetica and Objectified at the Barbican. I've seen Helvetica, and could happily watch it again, but not Objectified. Anyone fancy a double bill of design documentaries?
- Online Backup, Data Backup & Remote Backup Solutions from Mozy.com – Welcome
Has anyone used this operation? Or anything similar? While I've got time machine, I have no offsite backups, which bugs me slightly. Particularly curious about the system performance impact of their background process, and also what kind of bandwidth useage spikes I could expect to see.
- Rossignol » Thrilling Wonder Stories
A summary of the conference I spent a chunk of Friday watching over the web. Sounds like the presentation they killed the video on was completely fascinating. I'm still processing of of the ideas I came away with, and doing my best to make sure they don't leak into anything else.
- Sleevelessness: Video Mixing With Microsoft Surface
This is some seriously impressive shit.
- Siggis ZX81 web server main page
Someone has managed to get a ZX-81 on the internet as a webserver. Awesome.
Bookmarks for May 27, 2009
- Slavic mythology – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I know only a little about Slavic myth, chiefly just the bits where it brushes up against other mythologies I know better, or what I've got from various bits of fiction, and I think it may be useful to rectify that.
- BLDGBLOG: Thrilling Wonder Stories
Were I not required to be in the office on Friday, I would be here. If you are in London, and do no have anything pressing to do between 11am and 5pm on Friday, I strongly suggest you go. And take notes. Lots of notes. And then give them to me.
Bookmarks for April 20, 2009
- Webmasters: opt out of Phorm now!
If you operate a website, even just a personal blog (and I know you all do – even if it's just a blogspot.com blog, or a livejournal, or a flickr account) I strongly suggest that you read this link, and email the suggested address. Phorm is a gross invasion of our privacy, but it won't work if thousands and thousands of sites opt out if it. So opt out. All of you.
- BLDGBLOG: Sand/Stone
I say again: shut up about your jetpack and read this.
Bookmarks for April 9, 2009
- David MacKay: Sustainable Energy – without the hot air: Download
I want to sit down and read this properly when I get time – an actual accessible book on the maths of energy consumption vs. possible energy production, as opposed the usual waffle.
- Coilhouse » Blog Archive » Latex/Guns/Gnosis: The Matrix Turns 10
A short retrospective of the first Matrix film, as it turns 10. a) it is horrifying to me that that movie is ten, because it means I am very old, and b) I particularly love the title of this article. It occurs to me that I have never satisfyingly run a game with all three of those elements, and I really must get around to having a go at that.
- Cory Doctorow: Getting tough on copyright enforcers | Culture | guardian.co.uk
I think this is a fair trade. I will accept a three strikes copyright warning system only if all copyright enforcers are held to the same standard: three wrong accusations, and they're out, too. Want to bet me that they'd all be gone before the rest of us would?
- Focal point (game theory) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Must remember this on in future – the basis by which two parties that are unable to communicate will still be able to select the same focal point in a game/challenge.
- re: diverselessness (tecznotes)
A companion to the other piece on monoculturalism, this dealing with internet communities and the origins of elites, and the social effects of these technologies, and some opinions on where these phenomena are likely to lead to.
- Whimsley: Online Monoculture and the End of the Niche
Why recommendation engines are creating even more of a mononculture than we had beore, even though everyone feels like they're finding more niche stuff.
- BLDGBLOG: Postopolis!
I have significantly less than fuck all architectural training, but it hasn't escaped my notice over the last few years that many of the most interesting creative types I know do have some history with the discipline, and I've increasingly found my own interests tending that way – not literally in the designing buildings sense, but in the sense of being aware of people's relationship with the space around them, and how to optimise that space to get the best out of life.
Postopolis therefore sounds like it would have been a fascinating event to be at, even if 90% would have gone sailing over my head. Any chance of holding the next one in London? It's at least as interesting as LA… - cityofsound: Postopolis LA
Dan Hill was at Postopolis and has written an excellent series of posts on it, and on LA in general. Thoroughly recommended reading.
Bookmarks for March 18, 2009
- Kingsnorth report reveals shocking police campaign of intimidation against protesters – Britcit
This one's worth circulating far and wide – police using the various powers they've been given over the last while to suppress a peaceful protest.
- 20 Great PHP Libraries You Need to Know | KomunitasWeb
There's plenty of non-geek stuff in today's pile of links. Just skip past this one.
- Undesigning the Emergency @Etech Benjamin H. Bratton
Highlight " Because as software becomes a medium through which the city is accessed and made social, the paired need for both open software and hardware is clear. The design of the open public space is dependent on the design of the open software which is, increasingly, dependent on the design of open cities."
- Søren Vind >> pc_user
Might be handy in future projects – one of the first things I almost invariable do it set up a user class to handle logins and similar rubbish, and it'd be nice to have a handy boxed-up model to do all that with.
- iPhone 3.0: everyware-ready? « Magical Nihilism
Matt Jones identifies the really interesting thing about yesterday's Iphone 3.0 announcement, and it's not copy-and-paste.
- Espionage – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This looks like a fairly decent starting point, anyway. Of course, that's probably just what the government wants me to think.
- Intelligence cycle management – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Today is "everything you didn't need to know about intelligence, and weren't afraid to ask" day.
- Category:Secret broadcasting – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fascinating espionage-related stuff I had never heard of before now.
- Computer programmer from Finland has lost finger replaced with USB drive – Telegraph
I probably don't need the little finger on my left hand, you know…
Bookmarks for March 12, 2009
- It's not a crime to download, say musicians – News, Music – The Independent
Not driectly realted to this link, but I was chatting with a friend whose job places him firmly on the side of the PRS in the Youtube/PRS debate, and I find myself wondering: for how long will the notion of musicians getting paid for re-uses of their recordings last? I mean, the basis of my employment is that I continue to create new code and assign the copyright in a manner that allows others to use it. I am not paid based on the number of people that use my code, except in an indirect sense. But when the need for new code runs out, so does my job and the money. What's the argument for treating musicians as a special case?
- Video: Iain Sinclair – At large in a 'fictional' Hackney | Books | guardian.co.uk
Iain Sinclair talks with typical eloquence about living in Hackney over the last 40 years. It strikes me that I would be entirely happy if I were in a position to do this about Tooting.
- Kutiman, Big Media, and the Future of Creative Entrepreneurship | 43 Folders
"Unsolicited tip for media company c-levels: if your reaction to this crate of magic is 'Hm. I wonder how we’d go about suing someone who did this with our IP?' instead of, 'Holy crap, clearly, this is the freaking future of entertainment,' it’s probably time to put some ramen on your Visa and start making stuff up for your LinkedIn page."
Spot on. - THRU YOU | Kutiman mixes YouTube
Everyone's already blogged this pile of ace. I'm blogging it as context for another link. If you've been under a rock, and haven't seen it, this guy has created something truly astonishing by editing together loads of other people's youtube videos.
- The Guardian Open Platform | guardian.co.uk
Everyone and their dog is linking to this today. And do you know why? Because it's *fucking awesome*.