Bookmarks for March 4, 2011
- The Case Against Drop-down Identities | Smarterware
"None of the above: let me explain" is a simple, clear idea, that deserves to be a standard component of registration forms.
Tag: design
Bookmarks for February 15, 2011
- Ben Bashford – Notebook of Things
Shotnote – notepaper design to be photographed with an iphone camera using a special app, for organisation/archive purposes. If my beloved Fieldnotes were to do this, I would be fucking ecstatic.
Bookmarks for January 31, 2011
- V&A Victoria Albert Museum > 'Pause and Wonder' by Aardvark (Print)
Not by my employers, but by a Hastings-based operation, selling this particular object through the V&A shop. I like their work (you may recall that I linked/purchased their 2010 manifesto last year), and think this is particularly lovely. I'm bookmarking it as a memo to self, so that I remember to try and pick this up next time I'm in the V&A.
Bookmarks for January 24, 2011
- Lost Bomber – Techbelly
Mentally link this with the story of the woman the other week who was looking to put her disabled daughter into care, because she couldn't cope with the cuts. Futher thoughts: anecdote != data, but anecdote is useful to understand and connect with data.
- Ben Bashford – Notebook of Things – Emoticomp
Interesting idea to bear in mind when designing apps/systems – how to give it an emotional face, that it is consistent, and ideally, compelling.
Bookmarks for January 13, 2011
- A List Apart: Articles: A Simpler Page
Discussion of laying out text for ipads (or similar) on the web, and a library to to the rendering. Particularly like the three modes – bed, knee and breakfast pretty neatly describe all the ways I use my device.
- Come out of your comfort zone, disability living allowance cuts are relevant to all | Society | guardian.co.uk
An excellent article on the cuts to DLA. Cannot quite believe that even this government of utter shits would essentially say "one in five people who have previously been assessed as needing help now won't get it". And yet they are. There's no suggestion that the previous tests were flawed. There's no (credible) suggestion that fully one in five of disabled people are OK, really, and just scrounging. They're hiding behind "we can't afford it". Which makes my blood boil. Surely, even in a time of national austerity, the one thing we should bend over backwards to afford, the one thing we should scrap all manner of other things to pay for, is caring for the most vulnerable members of our society.
Bookmarks for December 20, 2010
- A Holiday Message from Ricky Gervais: Why I'm An Atheist – Speakeasy – WSJ
Yes, it's a rehash of the same old pro-atheism arguments we've all heard time and time again. But it's eloquent, witty, and surprisingly warm and kind, and I liked it.
- notes on "how to clone delicious in 48 hours"
This made me laugh with recognition. After all, delicious doesn't go anything complex, does it? It's got all of three different blobs of data – users, who have links, which have tags. (And some optional text, but that's trivial). How had can that be to throw together? And one one level, that's true. I could roll my own personal delicious in a weekend. But I couldn't make it available to anyone else without months of work.
Bookmarks for December 17, 2010
- Insipid
Self hosted delicious clone. Might move to this if I get time to play with it a bit.
- 2010 in photos
The Big Picture's pictures of the year are out – this is a link to part 1 – you'll find links to parts two and three below the picks. Beautiful, alarming, saddening, touching, all the usual. Well worth a squint.
- Giving better deign feedback
Bookmarks for November 9, 2010
- Kicker Studio: Everything I’ve Ever Learned About Giving Design Critiques I Learned from Tim Gunn
You could apply these set of rules to any form of critique/review not just design, and you'd probably come out doing pretty well.
- The Times’ Paywall and Newsletter Economics « Clay Shirky
Lots in here, but here's the key thing: "This re-engineering suggests that paywalls don’t and can’t rescue current organizational forms. They offer instead yet another transformed alternative to it."
- danah boyd | apophenia » Risk Reduction Strategies on Facebook
Not blogging this as an anti-Facebook thing, just as some interesting information about non-standard ways people use social networking software in a privacy intensive manner.
- EaaS (ECONOMY as a SERVICE) – Global Guerrillas
It's one way of looking at MMOs (and related industries), I guess. I'm aware that Warcrack has a GPD higher than some countries, and that there was a point (I haven't checked, it may still be true) where the virtual currency in Eve online was worth more that the currency of Iceland, where the game is based, but they're both entirely virtual, and I'm not 100% convinced that we're going to get the ability to rapid deploy and re-use these things in a full physical-world context (that a full EaaS would need) any time in the next five years.
Bookmarks for October 25, 2010
- The Most Popular Phone in the World
This is the sort of thing that it's useful to keep in mind as perspective, when considering technology. "90% of the phone for 20% of the price" is something that could be applied to all sorts of different sorts of development work. (Especially since is it my experience that the first 90% of any project, the rough functionality type work is indeed, less that half the work/cost.)
Bookmarks for October 20, 2010
- First they came for the quangos…
I imagine this one will be doing the rounds today.
- Kupenga Kwa Hamlet at Oval House Theatre 16th November to 4th December
I am told that this is "An exhilarating re-telling of the classic story of betrayal and vengeance, told by two outstanding, award-winning Zimbabwean performers using music, dance and a fusion of traditional African storytelling with contemporary Township Theatre practice. Fast, powerful, moving and unlike any other Shakespeare you have ever seen." I'm planning on going. Anyone else?
- Osborne will escape public wrath if Labour lets him win the blame game | Jonathan Freedland | Comment is free | The Guardian
Good piece on the importance of the blame game in today's cuts. Remember: it is not Labour who is responsible for these cuts. If you are disposed to blame someone other than the current government, I suggest you blame the bankers. And if you are disposed to suggest that they should have been more heavily regulated, then, well, I agree with you. And I suggest you ask yourself how the Conservative party of the time argued they should have been regulated. (Hint: it was not more heavily.)
- london futures | images that bring ideas to life and frame the climate change debate in a way that everyone can understand
Will have to try and get to the Museum of London to see this.