- AndrewBlum.net: Local Cities, Global Problems: Jane Jacobs in an Age of Global Change
Interesting piece about the mapping of digital community to real-world local-level community.
Tag: culture
Bookmarks for May 10, 2010
- The Non Autumn/Winter 2010 ‘The Golden Dawn’
Some of the most interesting bits of clothing design I've seen in ages. Absolutely brilliant costume inspiration. (I'd like to link the the label's own website, but it's the most user-unfriendly bit of flash crap I've seen in ages, so look at this article instead.)
- National Journal Magazine – Do 'Family Values' Weaken Families?
I want to come back to this one, because it's germane to something I've been thinking a lot about recently.
- BBC iPlayer – The Genius of Design: Ghosts in the Machine
Mostly just bookmarking this as one to watch at some point this week, but I imagine there are a few other people reading this who might enjoy it.
Bookmarks for April 6, 2010
- A real person, a lot like you | Derek Sivers
This should be stuck to the monitor of every internet connected computer in the world.
Bookmarks for January 20, 2010
- Auto-appendectomy in the Antarctic: case report — Rogozov and Bermel 339: b4965 — BMJ
Ever wondered what it would be like to perform surgery on yourself? No? Why not? Well, anyway: here's a description of what it's like to have to give yourself an appendectomy. In the Antarctic. With next to no help.
- A Rant About Women « Clay Shirky
Clay Shirky opens up a serious can of worms, noting that women do not push themselves forward in the way men do. Part of me wants to say "well, *duh*". Shirky suggests that if women behaved in a more self-aggrandising manner, they'd get more equal treatment. I'm just not sure that I want to encourage any more people to behave like some of the self-promoting male pricks I've met.
- plasticbag.org: Should we encourage self-promotion and lies?
Tom Coates identifies some of the problems with what Shirky is suggesting – the problem isn't just that women don't push themselves forward, but often that the wrong people do, and what we should be focusing on is ensuring that everyone correctly advertises their own level of experience and ability – that those that *do* self-promote heavily while they can be useful, can just as often be a total pain.
- apophenia: whose voice do you hear? gender issues and success
Danah Boyd's repose to Shirky and Coates is excellent reading.
- Mass Photo Gathering – I'm a Photographer, not a Terrorist
Trafalgar Square at noon on Saturday. Anyone interested?
Bookmarks for January 4, 2010
- A Form of Madness – Dive Into HTML5
HTML 5 forms. Oh, this is going to make interface design much nicer. In about four of five years, anyway.
- What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2010?
Thought it was worth pointing this one out, as there's bound to be another round of copyright extension lobbying fairly soon – when isn't there? Here's a list of what could have been public domain today, were it not for the 1976 extension. Can you find an argument for any of these works not being in the public domain now?
- Atheist Ireland Publishes 25 Blasphemous Quotes | blasphemy.ie
For all I make jokes about being a "good protestant boy", in the years since the Good Friday Agreement, I had more or less come to believe that a united Ireland was a good and desirable thing – the British have unquestionably fucked the place for centuries, and eventually the majority opinion in the North is going to be in favour of a united Ireland. That was until today, when I discovered that Ireland have enacted a law forbidding blasphemy. That's so fucking retrograde it's unreal, and genuinely makes me concerned about a united Ireland again. And if you need a demonstration of why it's stupid, well, take a look here.
Bookmarks for October 26, 2009
- “All the time in the world” talk at Design By Fire 2009, Utrecht – Blog – BERG
General purpose clever bastard Jones is at it again. Chronos and Kairos, and the idea of time as a medium that we can learn to manipulate, play with and build new things from.
Bookmarks for August 27, 2009
- Five Geek Social Fallacies
Let us play a fun game, in the name of encouraging clear thinking, and making us all better and more functional human beings. The above website is a list of five basic errors of thinking that geeks often make in regard of social situations. So: go, read, then cam back and tell me: which of these do *you* suffer from, and what can you do about it? I for example, suffer from a bit of #2, which tends to manifest itself as a bloody minded tendency to be a bit "this is who I am, and if you don't like me then kindly fuck off". And what I do about it is to periodically remind myself that I am not actually perfect, whatever I might think, and that it is possible to like flawed people.
- The secret names of London
Or something like that, anyway. I've probably linked this before, but I don't care, it's worth linking again, if only for the Lovecraftian horror of "Aleph and Tentacles".
- Why corporate IT should unchain our office computers.
I know I get more done if I am permitted to multi-task. Not all those tasks are work, but I do a lot of my best thinking as a background process. Plus it should be screamingly obvious that happier, more relaxed and most o fall better informed people are just plain more useful in a wider variety of contexts.
Bookmarks for August 24, 2009
- A Short Manifesto on the Future of Attention: Observatory: Design Observer
Absolutely fascinating thinking. Cognitively speaking, there are only two scarce resources – bandwidth and attention and the economies of a post-scarcity future (if we can get there without blowing ourselves up of fucking the environment beyond recovery) are going to have to be mediated by those factors, rather than traditional supply-and-demand, so I love to read thinking that brings them into play.
Bookmarks for July 30, 2009
- Bishopsgate – FICTIONAL LONDON: Gothic London: City of the Deranged and Disorderly Dead
A talk in December. Anyone interested? Speak up sharpish, because every time I see one of these things, it sells out before I get round to buying tickets, and that's not happening this fucking time, so if you want me to grab you a ticket, speak up bloody quickly.
- Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule
Superb encapsulation of the impact of meetings on two differently scheduled kinds of staff. Should be required reading for all managers, as it will help them understand why the makers they need to meet with are often resistant to the idea of another meeting.
Bookmarks for June 30, 2009
- potlatch: what's going on with the music formerly known as 'indie'?
"I can tell you which Suede record accompanied my GCSEs and A-Levels; today's teenagers would tell you which band."
- Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore, Iain Sinclair
Never mind kicking myself – I am scourging myself with rusty barbed wire, and rubbing salt in the wounds for missing this. Couple of key quotes from this write up: "Is the current be-scaffolded state of London perpetual remythologising?" Iain Sinclair says “Before we can move forward, we have to absorb everything that has come before, and rip it off.”
- SoFoBoMo – The Solo Photo Book Month
Dammit, why was I not told about this? Next year, gadget, next year!
- Glastonbury 2009 – The Big Picture
It *almost* makes me want to got there next year, and take a camera. Obviously, I'm not mad, and won't be going, but there are some absolutely gorgeous shots in here.