Dug Follow
Hiya, life goes like this. Step 1: Get out of bed. Step 2: Make things better:-)
Posts by Dug
Columbia Unversity, NYC, April 1985
…In late August, the panel returned a result that confirmed the student’s position — that divestiture was not only the moral option, but an economically viable one as well…
In Things Dug Cares About,
Gaudi
Just found these pics of the inside of the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona.
In Things Dug Cares About,
The culture of the Internet?
There are times when internet culture feels a bit like a beach.
In Things Dug Cares About,
DHH says #cloudExit
So DHH has been musing on #cloudexit – the notion of abandoning expensive cloud services in favour of something a bit more bespoke and, well, cost-effective. The idea of trimming down expenses by 60%? It’s compell...
In Things Dug Cares About,
From the nation - fuck you
Cleaning my desktop came across this poem by @daisielanewrites
In Things Dug Cares About,
Push #govuk protokit to render.com
Version 13 of the kit has guidance on how to publish your prototype online - this page mentions:
In Things Dug Cares About,
Help a mum and dad...
So clearing out the hard drive and came across this jpg.
In Things Dug Cares About,
Tears for Northumberland:-(
On the morning of Wednesday, September 27th 2023 the Sycamore by the wall saw the sun come up as it had done for hundreds of years.
In Things Dug Cares About,
Looking after things we take for granted?
So have been following Dave Winer for years, but recently he’s been pushing these super important morsels. Not sure best way to link to this (especially he he gets no referral data…) but here goes with a Mastodon ...
In Things Dug Cares About,
Carney gets it right
Mark Carney was speaking at the Global Progress Action summit in Montreal last week.
In Things Dug Cares About,
La piscine a Colin et Chloé
As odd experiences go, this evening is pretty strange. I’m sitting on the roof of the pool I learned to swim in. The sun is setting on this capital city. A few streets away I can see the roof of centre court of a ...
In things Dug cares about,
Building a boat from tree felling to launch in 7 years
I started Googling resources about building wooden boats and came across the Acorn to Arabella project. I was fairly immediately hooked, and am posting here simply to say they’re amazing people and that a boat tha...
In things Dug cares about,
Kayaks and canoes
So after moving to Scotland I found myself buying a Canoe. Over time, this has led to me spending more and more time on the water and camping on beautiful Scottish islands. This was never a plan, but just an accid...
In things Dug cares about,
Have products gotten worse during the decade of the Product Designer?
So have been thinking about how design is operationalised in business and in particular what product design as a discipline has been up to these last few years.
In things Dug cares about,
Their lives are more important than ours
So Mum and I both tested positive the day after Boxing Day.
In things Dug cares about,
Personal data not so personal any more
In theory, under compliance with GDPR, companies that store your “Personal Data” (see https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/personal-data/) should handle it to a certain standard, including deleting it when it is no longer ...
In things Dug cares about,
Assumptions in product design
So I’m not saying all product designers build on assumptions, but many do.
In things Dug cares about,
A letter from Grandad Jed
As you know kids, Grandad Jed goes through life with a sketchpad shoved down the back of his trousers. Over the years his collection of “Jed’s Red Books” has grown, and occasionally, he sends a photograph of some ...
In our story,
What did I learn in 2020?
I may be experienced, but I learn something new pretty much every project I help out with:-)
In things Dug cares about,
Bringing the customer into the room
So I was recently talking to a colleague about the amount of human capital that is wasted as we fly through projects, coming up with great ideas, putting them on the board and moving on to the next challenge. I’ve...
In things Dug cares about,
Manfrotto single arm 2 section plus goPro
So I finally got the old goPro working. Turns out an SD card that fits in the slot can mess up the way the camera works. Who knew, silly me;-)
Testing a workable alternative to a dry-suit?
Special 6 Shirt A design classic developed with the Special Forces. Tested over 30 years in the most hostile conditions. Used by Military, Police, Mountain Rescue Teams.
In things Dug cares about,
Where should service designers be focusing?
It’s only when you get the whole picture, you can fully understand what’s going on.
In things Dug cares about,
Should I build a vision canvas with my stakeholders?
Recently, I’ve been hearing some variation of the following statement quite often…
In things Dug cares about,
This is Exactly How it Happens, and It’s Happening Here.
How much experience do you really have with authoritarianism? Any? If you’re a “real” American, you have precisely none.
In things Dug cares about,
Calming influences
I’d forgotten about this walk I took with Steve back when she was wee. Very calming slo-mo. Nothing happens but it’s pretty. I should set it to Ravel or something;-)
In our story,
Fishing for plastic bags in boat made of plastic bottles.
Plastic Whale is a movement of people who love doing, creating, making progress. We firmly believe taking action is a positive step forward. What happens next is not always certain, but that’s part of the fun!
In Things Dug Cares About,
The Week in Pictures
Missed the slideshow last week. The internet has been busy and some of the Trump ones are pretty good. Feel like these things had a lot more impact once upon a time…
In our story, In things Dug cares about,
Jason on why Apple's appstore deal is not a good thing anymore and why it needs to change. Now.
Good relationships tend to be between consenting adults, or at least people.
In Things Dug Cares About,
Wednesday evening on the Forth (5 miles)
Managed to finish work on time on Wednesday. Nice thing about living in Scotland is it stays light later in summer. Looking out the window as I write this at almost 9pm the sun is still in the sky.
Mr Floyd's last words
I saw this picture on Twitter and I wanted to remember, so I typed Mr Floyd’s last words.
What the Catalina boot volumes - eclecticlight.co
How did I not know about https://eclecticlight.co?
Archival? No, not really...
So way back when, I fell in love with photography (or being a photographer?) and built a darkroom and started using my dad’s SR-T303 (black body, lots of brass showing through, mystical “passed” sticker…) eventual...
In Dug's really old stuff,
The Week in Pictures
This week have been on new project at work with almost no down time, so only picked up a few pictures. One of them is a poem by Helen Woods, aged 12.
In our story,
Comment on @jukesie's Multi-hyphenates post...
@jukesie writes
In Dug's really old stuff, In how we got here,
Happy birthday Kevin Kelly
Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists. To be an optimist you don’t have to ignore all the many problems we create; you just have to imagine improving our capacity to solve problems.
The Week in Pictures
This week has me confused by the exchanges on Medium between David Spiegelhalter and Michael Levitt not least because they’re both geniuses who can’t bloody well figure out how to use the comment system on Medium ...
In our story,
Photoshoot from pre-history
With all this stay-at-home coronavirus thing going on I’ve started cleaning the loft with Nicki. Recent batch of old pics included these shots in an envelope…
In Dug's really old stuff,
Are you better off than you were four years ago?
What sucks about this is Ronnie delivered more debt and more inequality than anyone had managed before. With his invitée Margaret (Thatcher) really moved neoliberal ‘trickle-down’ thinking into the conservative ma...
When the Free™ really aren't
There will come a time when I no longer find myself getting depressed about the behaviour and beliefs of the American People every. single. day. and I can write and think about other things for a change.
Happy Birthday Brenda...
So #QueenElizabeth, my Dad was a scout at your coronation and his family has felt you close to them over the years, starting with your broadcasts during the blitz (he was in Golders Green then) and continuing over...
Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford Uni stringency index
The UK Government’s response stringency does not change during the time between under 10 to 100 cases.
Are home-sewn cloth masks becoming a thing?
The United States Center for Disease Control is publishing instructions with sewing patterns to produce homemade cloth masks
In our story,
Something soothing and pleasant for a Friday afternoon...
So I saw this on twitter and had to grab it. Nice picture:-)
Image files that start with 'M'
rediscovering an /images/ directory on a backup drive with almost 20 years of internet stuff continues to give me a bit of wonder. Continuing my random selection, here are images whose first letter is “M”…
In our story,
Pointers for the next White House presser...
Mr. President, are you saying Nancy Pelosi or indeed the Editor of the New York Times carries the primary responsibility for the safety and security of the American People?
Dear fucking lunatic
So this thing popped up on Twitter. The letter was attributed to Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee but the scan has a Craig Alan Wilkins as the author. Either way, I thought it would be better as text so crawlers could hold...
My first job in digital.
At the time, my job title was “Web Designer”. I guess things have evolved a bit since then:-)
In Dug's really old stuff,
The Week in Pictures
Another tough week. Some good news for some people but numbers of dead still climbing inexorably and the vacuum at the top still making a coordinated global response almost impossible.
In our story,
Travis Downs - Adding Staticman Comments...
Debugging Staticman using this fantastic write-up how-to
Take, don't give. A short conversation about fighting a killer virus...
This thing by Luke Andreski just popped up on Twitter. In the spirit of remembering things in a slightly longer form, I’m keeping the link here.
IFoughtTheLaw369... IS BACK!!!
Back in 2009 I linked to a fantastic cover of Police Truck by a young woman posting Youtube videos of her playing guitar with Dead Kennedys playing in the background.
Larry Brilliant 2006 TED talk on epidemics and how we stop them
The TED embed code doesn’t seem to be working for some reason so here’s the video on TED.com
Cathy O'Neil comments on COVID-19
I’ve been running numbers in my head and trying to keep up with the WHO data files on Github but everytime I start mocking-up a visualisation I stop and wonder how true all of these numbers are?
New York Times, 27 March 2020
This cover of the New York Times really jumped out at me, the bar on the right is the number of applications for unemployment.
Old pictures
Still digging through the old Donkey images folder. I’m guessing half of these ancient pics don’t have a post associated with them anymore seeing as I’ve broken the canonical URL at least twice in the Twenty years...
In our story,
Stevie the wonderpup and her friends
Having just been prompted to share pics of Stevie on Linkedin I thought I’d better pop a few on here.
In our story,
Balenciaga Fall Winter collection at Paris Fashion Week
Just wow. This show just popped up on France24. The collection was presented in a post climate disaster scene, broken stormy skies, floods in the arena and the first few rows of seats inaccessible to the usual a-l...
Mashup joy, this is NHS meets a DKs classic
Just came across this bit of amazing on Twitter. washyourlyrics.com is just such an amazing idea:-)
Generation Why
Just came across this interesting point/counterpoint post by Patrick Di Justo on the values of generation Y as applied to organisational structure
Margaret Calvert
So have just noticed Chi Onwurah’s tweet about #InternationalWomensDay2020 where she brings up the contributions of Ada Lovelace and Katherine Johnson and am struck by how empty the house is:-(
In things Dug cares about,
IR35 Part Deux, The Hunger
So have just received my first ‘mock-paye’ payslip (aka inside-IR35). My first question is down to the wording; what is an “applicable company deduction”. I ask because I thought you were saying my company wasn’t ...
In running a consulting business,
Referencing references
Just walked past an optician in Soho with a poster for Michel Henau glasses in the window. Love these mashups of 60s and 70s French celebs with Japanese names (Deneuve = Namaste? not sure how that works but I smil...
Saying "No"
I spoke on a topic that’s become very near and dear to my heart in the past few years: saying “no”. It might be saying no to a project or job, or even something that you think you can’t say no to, but finding th...
First week of riding Brakeboard - video review
So I hacked a short video review of the Brakeboard truck and wheel kit (version 3.5) together last night. Quality’s a bit rubbish but perfect being the enemy of done etc. so I’ve just uploaded it. Key product deta...
In the joy of rediscovered longboarding,
The Amen Break and happy Hogmanay
Checking your phone on Hogmanay eh? This piece from 2013 on the amen break just popped up in my twitter feed via openculture.com and got me thinking of challenges ahead (I also love the fact that the talk is a dis...
In things Dug cares about,
Alliance Francaise
Grandad Jed sent me a photocopy of an old Art Directors annual showing an award for a pro-bono TV ad Y&R did for the Alliance Francaise back in (I think) 1970.
In our story,
The general election, 8 June 2017
OK Kids, the election is this Thursday. Your dad has been discussing the issues on Twitter but he’s found that some things are hard to explain in 140 characters. So here in long-form are some things your dad belie...
In things Dug cares about,
Article 50 was triggered today
OK kids, it happened today. The PM (Theresa May at this point) triggered Article 50 by formally delivering a letter to the EU (pictures of bloke doing the delivering in all the papers). It’s a 2-year process, this...
In things Dug cares about,
Science vs bigot smackdown
Just seen this amazing post on Twitter. The 140 character limit means it’s a screengrab so I thought I’d transcribe it as this is definitely one I want the kids to read:-)
In things Dug cares about,
Today Treacle died
There is just nothing more pathetic that the little "missing" poster taped to your neighbourhood lampposts. The last time I printed up a poster like this was for Darcy, Nicki's first cat in our home...
In our story,
Glow Audio Voice One self-assembly
So I’ve lusted after a Glow setup for years. Love the Glow One amp and figured I’d need a pair of the very beautiful Voice One speakers to go with. Unfortunately, they’re a bit pricey for a whim and with shipping ...
SONOS wants my NPS rating?
SONOS keeps asking me to participate in NPS surveys. Today I thought I’d share my feedback.
Are we really going to blame all our problems on immigration?
Here we go again? I know thinking is hard, but why are we so easily tempted by lazy reasoning?
If a Daily-Mail-reading fifty-something doesn't establish a narrative quickly, Europe is going to implode:-(
So the way I’ve been writing in Jekyll means I name the post before writing. I titled this one Europe needs a new narrative before Googling around and finding this initiative. Looks like an interesting effort but ...
In things Dug cares about,
CU-1 and Stevie doing the selfie thing in the garden
Yeah it’s all getting a bit cute but thought I’d keep this selfie CU-1 did with Stevie the wonderdog. As an old curmudgeon I’m not super thrilled with the amount of make-up CU-1 is insisting on using but I have to...
Friday the 13th and nothing has gone wrong. Yet.
This series by Hoyo (Hoyo Gran Epicure) are rolled and then stored in Cuba. I think this one was rolled in 2003 and then stored for official release in 2013. Really special, a lovely long and mellow smoke.
BIMA Hot 100 2016
So sooner or later these things happen to you. On the one hand it feels really creepy. On the other sort of cool and fun (and I hear BIMA throws a really good party).
A fishy tale
So HEF caught a fish today (and yesterday) he’s really getting into the swing of this fishing thing:-) Here’s the scene in jed’s kitchen:
So this fight for digital freedom stuff actually works -- -)
Remember that petition we all signed a few weeks ago? Well, it looks like the numbers were big enough for folk with a seat to lose in the US congress to take notice:-)
So HEF is learning to skate -- -)
The little stake rats are coming along nicely. Just picked up a longer deck for HEF and he’s loving the cruising thing. Many thanks to the lovely people at Liquid Motion in Exmouth who took loads of time and even ...
BCS Talk—Empathy as the defining driver for good ux
Did a talk last night at the BCS about what makes a great user experience. High point of the evening, I showed my mental notes cards and did an experiment with the audience to illustrate anchoring & adjustment...
Barnet whiplash
What the hell is going on around here?!? First I get thwacked by a car and end up in ICU, then Nicki’s Mum has a stroke and then she’s back in an ambulance today with CU-1 giving herself whiplash on the trampoline...
Wireframes v prototypes yakety yak…
Have recently followed a couple of discussions along the lines of “wireframes are dead” touting the cure-all properties of prototyping (like this or this). I love and use both methods depending on client and produ...
Cat signal time again
President Obama and other leaders are meeting in Asia right now to finalize the Trans-Pacific Partnership - a deal that threatens to censor your use of the Internet, kill jobs, undermine environmental protections ...
The Dr Who experience
So HEF, you won’t remember this but when you were wee you were totally obsessed with Dr Who. You begged and pleaded for what must have been ages for Nicki and I to take you to the Dr Who experience in Cardiff (a t...
Hunger Games art direction
CU-1 demanded we watch “Catching Fire” just now and I was reminded of a thought I had while watching the first film in the Hunger Games series. The frame above is taken from “The Hunger Games” and happens rights a...
What does an R1200GS Adventure look like with 4 wheels?
I started riding motorcycles as a kid (Motobécane bien rouillé et la Peugeot 104… ahh mobilettes de mon enfance) but my parents wouldn’t have it.
Buddhism (Good Morning Vietnam)
Cronauer: She spills soup all over you, looks at you like, "Eh, I'm sorry. What are you gonna do about it, asshole?" What would you say to her? They spilled something on your pants. What would you do? Wilkie: I do...
11 March 1934
Well, it’s the 11th of March again, Mom’s birthday. She would have been 79 years old today.
In our story,
The things Nicki does for love
Had to post this, amazing what Nicki does for the wee-uns. Tomorrow is come as your favourite book character day (well, World Book Day) and the above is the raw materials for a Hermes costume:-)
School days
CU-1 on tender-hooks yesterday as councils were due to send out emails at 17.30 with news of secondary school places. Just noting this down here for CU-1 (which was the original point of me writing all this stuff)...
Scale comparison of common longboard decks
This is so awesome. One of the things that drives me nuts at longboard shops is how hard it is to compare relative board lengths. The comparison is made trickier as it’s not just the size of the deck it’s also the...
In the joy of rediscovered longboarding,
11 -- 11 -- 2012
So last year I was able to post Fred’s letters from the trenches. This year I thought I’d remember Aunt Polly. She had four boys: Eddie; Frederick; Richard and Artie.
Kasper the friendly GHOST
I’ve always thought it would be wonderful to do a doctorate. Spend a few years deep-diving into an intractable or obscure problem… Well this just came in the mail this morning:
It’s amazing how quickly your entire life can collapse
I’m finding it hard to raise funds for the Prince’s Trust and part of it is that Americans see the “Prince” in the title and assume the money goes to the Queen… Here’s the story of Craig, a young person whose life...
I bought your product. Now boss me around.
Having just finished a big SAP UX project, I’ve been thinking about how large software vendors typically (I should say historically as this is beginning to change) transfer risk and pain to the end user. Here’s an...
Whetstone to NC12 and on to Stevenage
27.63 mi Road Cycling in London on 15 Sep 2012 17:57 and more rides in London, United Kingdom on MapMyRIDE. Find ride
Meet "Paperplayer" a new approach to mp3 playing
Have been playing with quirky.com so here’s a concept to get us started. It’s called “Paperplayer” :-)
The future is apps you don’t open
It centers around the idea that apps shouldn't force us to add new behaviors. Instead, they should strip away needless, interruptive steps from themselves and the way we live our lives, until the solutions to our ...
Incredible things
Incredible and beautiful things created by (wrenchmonkees)[http://wrenchmonkees.com/monkees.html]
2 June 1953
On 2nd June 1953 my dad had just turned 18. He was a Queen’s Scout, and attended the coronation as part of the “Scouts on duty at Coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II” effort. I was trying to find some items that m...
European standard EN1176
“Look at me Dad, I can run up the slide”. Well done, Hal! nice moves:-) I can’t remember the last time I was in a park with the kids. Mostly it seems we’re dropping off or picking up from viola practice or Enjoyab...
In our story,
Copyright isn’t dead just because we’re not willing to let it regulate us
Love this from @doctorow in theguardian
The Doctorow Aberration
Not a Ludlum novel in my case but the remarkable effect of one retweet by mr @doctorrow. Looks like a 7-point hike in a day.
Kiva
So it’s #IWD today and I’ve just received an email from Kiva. I’ve been sending spare cash their way and investing in smallholders. The link at the bottom is designed to attract new investors. This is a process th...
Al Green on 125th Street
OK, call me a lefty ideologue who laps up whatever nonsense the Democrats put out but I’ve been watching the Romney v. Gingritch thing and I just don’t understand how these massively un-presidential types think th...
Dear Lovefilm, please fix your VOD proposition.
Dear Lovefilm, thanks for taking the time to compose such a thorough response explaining what you are doing with your customer proposition.
Are TV shows the latest social objects?
I worked on a project called “Fanbases” last year, a project to build a publishing hub that would allow brands to place themselves in the centre of relevant, fan-driven conversations.
Open-source manufacturing gets real
Invert the polarity of the neutron flow! from Morten Hjerde on Vimeo.
Mornington Crescent
CU-2 never ceases to surprise me. The other morning he corners me and demands we play his new game he’s just invented. He spends at least 15 minutes explaining what dots mean and how you rub random bits out with y...
In our story,
Filed under things I didn’t know about the Royal Mail
Wow, it’s a voyage of discovery… Turns out the post office (RMG for royal mail group) runs a ginormous logistics operation in the Netherlands (it’s called G.L.S.)
Unbelievable recruitment crazy nonsense
Recruiters continue to amaze me. This just came through on a list I follow.
What does Daddy do all day?
CU-1 and HEF are always wondering what dad does all day. Well, the lovely Ian over at Internet Retailing just sent me this pic of him asking the questions at the recent IR Etail expo at the NEC.
Group buying (redux)
I know it’s a little embarrassing, but what’s the point of having ideas if they have to stay locked up in a drawer…
Should I commission more strategy work from agencies?
Should I commission more strategy work from agencies? This item cross-posted to Goodlookslikethis Dug’s work blog
Small world (Leeds United, 28 May 1975)
So I took a cab to #GSJLeeds yesterday and the driver and I got talking.
In our story,
CU-2’s pirate ship
Once upon a time manufacturers actually manufactured stuff. This thing is amasing, it has hundreds of little parts (down to carrots and dueling pistols and a plank to walk) a crane that moves, canons and jolly rog...
Loving my new Mitas E10 tyres -- -)
Kevin at http://www.sbwmotorrad-bmw.com recently fitted some Mitas E10’s to the GSA. I think I may have been his first customer to go with these hoops so he sent me an email a couple of days ago asking how I was d...
Gen-Y goes shopping
Lovely infographic from getsat (Get Satisfaction) re Gen-Y purchasing behaviour:
Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing -- Shiny Shiny Syndrome
James has a great new post on the management of innovation in business and the obsession with the new. He calls it Shiny Shiny Syndrome
Designjam
Thinking some Hemel Visual and UX folk might enjoy designjamlondon.eventbrite.com tickets go on sale at 13:00 today (in 6 minutes)
Recommended by Which but not so Cooperative?
Our car insurance is coming up for renewal and we’ve just received a letter from the Cooperative (co-operativeinsurance.co.uk) stating they won’t consider renewing our insurance because we had a claim (wife slo-mo...
Is Google’s design process broken?
Really interesting article on the Google un-design process by the guy who writes on design for Fast Company:
Cool Workspaces
This is a blog post containing some of the author’s favourite workspaces, and there are quite a few there that look kind of awesome (using a slide to move between floors? I’m game).
A list of everything cool
A list of some of the coolest objects on the face of the planet. http://trendthing.posterous.com things from glasses to mood mugs and cars to plasters.
360 Escher
When I read Tim’s post on the Budapest panoramic I searched for the image to add a lovely png to his post. Unfortunately the image site asks you to download Silverlight and I have a personal policy on Air and Silv...
Czysz?
Love this sequence of photographs from a bunch of people doing interesting things with new technology.
DRM and Interoperability
Loved this piece on DRM and interoperability by publishers Enhanced Editions
My yearbook - not
Eh ben on a pris un pot avec Anoop et mon voisin m’a pris en photo avec son iPhone 4. Voila le résultat:
Our first foray into user testing with live participants
In the spirit of Rob’s earlier post I thought you guys might find a test report interesting reading. This morning, Debbie, Louis, Mohammed and Dug piled into Mohammed’s car and headed down to Hemel High Street. De...
Health & Safety, 1963
Wow, Dad just sent this through, that’s me and my Mom sitting in Firebucket Dad’s MG somewhere in San Francisco (I’m guessing that’s the Golgen Gate Bridge in the background).
CSS3 gradient tool
Not ready for production just yet but i thought this tool looked pretty interesting:
This message is for everyone in the customer experience team
If you’re reading this, please make sure the people sitting in front, behind and just generally all around you have also read it.
iPhone book
OK, today I finally cracked. Because I’m an idiot I can’t work out how to pull our phone numbers on the Blackberry. I can search for a person but I only get the Hemel extension number which I can’t click on to dial.
Customer dropouts in our purchase funnel
Hi All, DavidW sent a message ‘round with some thoughts on the Dixons delivery screen. Metrics are indicating this step in the purchase process triggers lots of abandoned baskets.
Dyson gets social media wrong?
This from tweetie and the brain an interesting look at how Dyson is speaking to customers with Twitter
Bad Dug
Sorry all, I was mucking around with turning on comment subscription and broke the comment template. Have mended it now.
Hockney watermarks
Love Hockney’s dances with technology and commerce… Don’t know if any of you have played with the Hockneyizer application (loads of fun) which is based on his work with the SX70 Polaroid format in the 1970’s (this...
Thought I’d try a different template…
I think the other one was prettier but this one has more stuff activated. Decisions decision;-)
GiffGaff negotiating their value propositions with customers
Have been thinking about how brands need engagement systems built on dialogue and transparency (and risk-sharing and access to commercial data) and had a bit of a smile this weekend as I’ve just activated my new G...
On the topic of emails
I use a service called campaignmonitor to send emails to clients and prospects (well, not now of course) and they do a really great job of keeping the ideas flowing. They write articles about emails that worked pa...
Women who blog
I know there are countless “blogher” spinoff sites out there but this is our scratchpad so I figured I’d add them here…
Hide your search interface
The big Visa widget at the top has the shape, drop-shadow design and position of a search input box. This one kept trying to convince the auto-pilot part of my web users brain that I should click on it.
Very search interface
I recently tried out the @verynetwork web store to get a feel for what retailers are up to these days. This store is run by the same company that redeployed Woollies as a digital pure-play but doesn’t have the bra...
Gardening beard
One of the fun side-effects of not shaving for a few weeks is that you get to give yourself a funny beard before shaving it all off:-)
Is this an April Fool’s day thing?
Talk about what makes a great customer experience… My O2 iPhone has been down for four days now and no amount of calls to the ‘support’ line and emails to the help-desk seem to make any difference. If I can find t...
Stopping the Digital Economy Bill
Or at least lets make sure the darn thing gets a proper debate in parliament. The bit that frightens me most: Big Copyright getting the right to disconnect my daughter from the internet. I wished I had been record...
Ruth’s memory tree
We buried Ruth in clearing Jobbles Wood, down in Devon near her home. In the days before the ceremony people came together to decorate the area with plants and things made from the trees. One item was an apple tre...
In our story,
Ruth’s celebration, Sunday March 7, 2010
Ruth’s celebration was held at Salem Chapel East Budleigh, Devon, on March 7th 2010.
Ruth’s photos on Flickr
Thanks to all the folk who are sending in wishes. I need to apologise for not getting back to you, I don’t get reception in Budleigh on my work mobile so communication is very patchy. We’re saying goodbye to Ruth ...
Mom’s scrapbook, Thanksgiving 1963
Actually, while this one was on Mom’s shelf, I reckon the items where mostly collected by Dad, but nonetheless, I found this page quite moving
Why would you want to work at the beeb?
Look around your office, now imagine being a part of this massive redesign
Get well soon Grandma Ruth
CU-1 has recorded a song for Ruth who is unwell and is stuck in a hospital ward in Devon.
His oover’s in the loover
Tarnations, last I heard this song, Tom barged into a Futurism seminar and played the song as his class project (more than two years ago)
Your Parents Were Awesome
Been thinking a lot about my parents this afternoon… Came across this great shot of “Mike” on http://myparentswereawesome.tumblr.com. The site says it all Before the fanny packs and Andrea Bocelli concerts, your p...
Big guys doing bad things to little guys
On the left above, some lovely work available for sale on Etsy and on the right, a tote bag for sale at Paperchase spot any similarities?
RFC822 Address (a bit of tech nonsense of a Friday eve)
Ahh looks like the old MT vs. Wordpress flame war may be heating up again. Not a fan of the bitching and defo supportive of Project Melody initiator Byrne Reese’s attitude that the Melody crew needs to keep to a p...
Can I just quote Stephen Fry on Stephen Jobs please?
Everyone is quoting the really great stuff from Stephen on the importance and likely reach of the iPad but after following Lynetter’s link I was struck by a different part of Fry’s text
The other side of a shiny new coin
The Free Software Foundation has been running the defectivebydesign.org campaign for a number of years now, so it’s no surprise they set up a protest camp outside the Yerba Buena centre yesterday.
Skimmer building some social currency for Fallon
Just installed Fallon’s Skimmer app and as much as I’m uncomfortable with the Air platform I’m really enjoying it. They set out to achieve a few simple goals and have pretty much succeeded.
Hillary Clinton on internet freedom
Love these comments from Hilary Clinton as they rekindle my belief that micro-markets, micro-credit and micro-insurance supported by converged, federated and mobile networks will have an increasingly large role to...
Software patents vs. collaborative creativity
This latest example takes the biscuit. I have read several documents produced by a number people inside and outside of the mobile industry that clearly describe the service or one just like it. Also, Nokia, Craigs...
Hey, I had a good idea on the way into work
I forget who said the that the best way to have great ideas is to have many ideas but I can tell you, I’m not particularly stupid but I can remember most of the great ideas I’ve had–they just don’t come knocking t...
John Resig says -- "Google Groups is dead"
This post isn't so much about the usefulness of mailing lists as a discussion medium, it's the complete failure of Google Groups as an adequate purveyor of public discussion software. For the jQuery project we're ...
Brainstorms and thought showers
Nicki first mentioned the “thought shower” thing to me when she was working at the BBC. At the time I thought it was both a bit amusing and a bit disapointing–another example of political correctness going crazy…
Able Planet Clear Harmony NC200 foldable headphones
So I got an email from a pr in the states before Christmas asking me if I wanted to try out a set of noise-canceling headphones and having heard a lot about active noise-canceling but never having experienced the ...
Apple’s 10 Dumbest iPhone App Rejections
Not sure I 100% agree with the attitude but yeah… 10 dumbest iphone app rejections This first one got me. Banning satire does seem like an early warning of unpleasantness to come.
2010 Vibrations -- Mary Jane's Relaxing Soda
Well it looks like Caitlin Zaino is up to more rockin publishing for 2010.
Scottish advent calendar
Nicki sent me this last week, cracked me up… I think this may have started here
LED traffic lights don’t melt snow
Franco just sent me this utterly wonderful example of what happens when design is divorced from context-of-use:
le mouton enragé is back in business
BulkRegister was the last major U.S.-based pure-play registrar in the market. Its acquisition by eNom marks the end of an era in the history of domain names and the Internet as a whole. (more info here)
An implausible use of wireless bandwidth
Love this Guardian article by Cory Doctorow. It still amazes me that mobile operators spend fortunes trying to put the customer at the heart of the business but don’t follow Cory’s simple suggestion that giving cu...
Numbers
One the things I find most wonderful about type is that the typographer invests the sum of human experience into the tiniest, most trivial form. Never mind using tools and language, what makes us special is our ab...
Good Idea! -- Man Submits Drawing Of Spider Instead Of Payment For Overdue Account
Fantastic! I reckon with seven legs that spider was easily worth 240 dollars:-)
Suprises
Just came across this tweet and it made me grin. I’ve already forgotten which particular video it was, but with HEF and CU-1 increasingly using the computer, there’s got to be some kind of lesson there. HEF is oft...
Flea Market Montgomery
Fer, our star groovy Android developer just recommended this as a key research resource for marketing our new trading platform. Mmmmm…
MAGMA La Légende du Siecle
Wow, I’m speechless, and get a load of those necklaces:-) YouTube - Magma La Légende du Siecle, French TV, February 26th 1973. Sort of reminded me of Helen Marques’ band, “GPS” which stood for “Global Pulsation Sy...
Wikipedia more beauty in nonsense…
Heather pointed us at Magma’s page on Wikipedia. I loved this disambiguation notice just as a fragment of culture in itself:
Edward Frederick Falby
Well CU-1, well H, the time has come again to think about Edward Falby. The googlemaps StreetView doesn’t go down Lewisham High Street so the above image is the closest I’ve come to his memorial in his home parish.
Typekit lives -- -)
Amazing news, well done to Mr Messina and co. Now can we please all stop trying to log in at once!
So tell me Dug, how do we sell things?
Have recently experienced some really crazy shit and got thinking that most of it was due to a lack of empathy. Retweeting Russell’s earlier vid reminded me of the little recording I did for a workshop on selling…...
Agency pitches and user experience design
A nice man called David tweeted me once with a link to a video of Russell Davies talking about interestingness, size and creativity. In the video, Russell refers to a project I did a couple of years ago for Birdse...
How to lose customers with Flash and Flex
So here’s a use case I thought had gone away years ago… Nicki is driving, Dug’s riding shotgun and the kids are in the back. We’re all trying to squeeze in a quick flooring purchase to finish CU-2’s room today bec...
One billion dollars a month
Never mind the pithy and insightful piece on yet more examples of why all bankers should be shot, this has to be the funniest comment I’ve seen in ages:
Jaimes Nel (live|work) on Service Design’s difficult coming of age
Really good stuff (thanks @malbonster)
Gmail -- What’s been keeping the Gmail team busy
Just noticed the flashing red more Labs! new new new! link at the top of Gmail. I’ve sorta stopped checking recently, bit of innovation overload… but this sucker is fantastic.
The old solutions have become the new problems
Shoshana Zuboff is an ex Harvard Business School professor with an ethical take on the need to focus on partnerships with customers. She calls this “The race to I-Space”
Slow Money -- Investment strategies appropriate to the realities of the 21st century
I just signed this: http://www.slowmoneyalliance.org
Been learning about evil things today…
For those of you not on Twitter, today has seen Alan Turing become a trending topic. This is in response to a published apology by Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister. I’ve just been sitting here dropping tears on...
AppleInsider | Bandwidth-guzzling iPhone called "Hummer of cellphones"
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/09/03/bandwidth_guzzling_iphone_called_hummer_of_cellphones.html
Telegram
Listening to my Gainsbourg playlist and was reminded of Overseas Telegram and got to wondering
Another link to the hughtrain
I frequently receive emails at work with reports that measure the value of brands (likely to involve voodoo and pixie dust, but makes a good read). Happily my employer seems to do quite well in these listings, but...
More value in the conversation than in the Powerpoint
A university professor describes the educational experience in terms of value creation. What do residential college students require to get the most value out of classes and how does the experience compare in valu...
Eames on design
David sent this through on Sunday. I didn’t manage to read it properly until this lunchtime…
IP from 2001
2001 wasn’t just an interesting year in space. I just came across some stuff from the distant past that still resides in a dark and abandoned corner of the interweb. It gave me a smile as it resonates with we’re t...
Encouraging quote of the day
Ethan Nicholas, on his iPhone game “iShoot” and why it’s a good idea to make a free version:
Vi
Just having a casual chat with one of the guys in Dusseldorf about our lab boxes and he points out:
Mobile phone evolution dolls
Wow, I can’t remember the last time I saw someone’s portfolio and had to stop to soak it all in.
Tinkering as a way in to the social marketplace
Currently working on social marketplaces (ad-hod associations) and came across this interesting piece over on experientia’s blog (actually, it links to vodafone’s receiver). Interesting stuff, we’ve been thinking ...
Paal Smith-Meyer
Just had the most amazing chat with Lego’s Paal Smith-Meyer (see wired article on Mindstorm project)
Open Innovation and Intellectual Property
John Wilbanks on yesterday’s NESTA event. Gotta say, I left I was BUZZING. John’s talk was real shot in the arm, he describes collaborative markets in biotech where heterogeneous networks are built to buy and sell...
Energy, in the right direction
These words from David Bausola really resonate as I navigate my way around Vodafone internet services…
What is co-design?
Been thinking a lot about co-design recently and came across this lovely animation by Think Public
Caterina.net -- Hunch!
I just love it that Caterina hasn’t changed her blog template since the dawn of time:-) And now the imperatrix is up to something new and of course exciting…
Shel Israel is ‘tweaching’ tomorrow at UMass Dartmouth
The unstoppable Shel Israel continues his journey of immersion and involvement through social media:
Hello Cufón goodbye sIFR
Wow, finally a sensible-looking alternative to sIFR. I mean don’t get me wrong, I’ve used sIFR all over the place and I love it’s type-handling but dang, those variables are pointless. Pretty much most of the ‘adj...
Firms Seek Profit in Twitter’s Chatter - WSJ.com
More on the imminent Twitter ‘Pro’ accounts.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123793945676332341.html
Widgets, widgets, widgets
If ever proof was needed of the impending world domination of widgetisation, here’s a beautiful pic of Yahoo’s widgets-on-your-TV platform apps
David OReilly Animation - Please say something
</embed>Please Say Something - Full Length from David OReilly on Vimeo.
Fun from the cloud?
Just came across this BBC article on OnLive sounds like the cloud is delivering…
Is London heading for a "Summer of Rage"?
Well, if we keep alienating our inalienable rights we could well be heading in that direction. This from a comment on Cory Doctorrow’s excellent Boingboing post (gosh i haven’t linkled to BB in aaaages) London imp...
Microsoft Announces SuperPreview for IE Browser Testing | Webdesigner Depot
So I maintain a pile of Windows disk images to test sites in the nastiest of environments. Ever since we switched to targeting standards, I no longer need to test in every permutation of OS and browser but I do fe...
Replying to Tim Brown. Destroying an industry is not the same as destroying the value it once enabled...
Interesting piece by Tim Brown on the migration from an economy of consumers to an economy of creators. He mentions a few of the casualties that are likely along the way, one of them being the record industry.
Jeff Jarvis on the great restructuring
Great piece on buzzmachine re the evolution required to the ways we live and do business in the face of the current mayhem:
There are days when the internet makes my heart swell
There are days when the last ten years feel like time well spent. Let’s keep the pressure on and let’s keep it beautiful
Mozilla and Skype support EFF case for iPhone jailbreaking
I know I bang on and on about this stuff (go on, you know you want to support the EFF) but the more I follow the news of the FSF and the EFF’s progress in the American courts the more I feel like a new deal on cop...
Comments on Donkey
Well, don’t want to bore you with the details, but the comments weren’t working because I had built Motion to use a particular url for the admin (I didn’t want the trailing “/mt/.cgi” in the url.
Weekend child-care
Well Nicki said “entertain the kids” so CU-1 took that to mean “let’s put paint all over Dad’s face”. Not a bad tiger. Or lion. Or…
In our story,
Life-work balance
I was just about to shutdown and head hamewards when I noticed this fab iPhone app, a game by designers for designers. Don’t know if the game is any good but I loved this comment from Craig Thomas
SKYNET RESEARCH » Mobile Aerial Ground Support (MAGS)
Kudos to Special Ops Media somewhere in the freeworld (5th avenue). They’ve just arranged for Skynet to contact me inviting me to participate in a robotic design competition. The Skynet website says it all. This i...
CSScaffold by Anthony Short
I've been working on my own type of CSS framework lately. When Shaun Inman released the update to the Server-Side CSS Processor last year, I jumped on the bandwagon and made a layout plugin for it, which then turn...
Your api. Our infrastructure.
What a beautifully succinct way of expressing quite a complex system :-)
When did 802.11x become the balkanisation protocol?
Bloody hell, never before has my trusty Powerbook spotted such a richness and diversity of wifi connections. And not one of them gives me connectivity :-(
A suggestion for President Obama’s next banking bailout
So I’d been watching money as debt trying to figure out how much of it was accurate or relevant and then the credit crunch happened.
Did you make this favicon ?
So in the recent flurry of template and CMS tests, tweaks and plays (going from MT3 stable with the kiss82 template through mayhem and currently running the unstable Motion beta of MT4.25 since you asked…) I grabb...
links for 2009-01-09
Social Entrepreneurship - Change.org the "Nine Inch Nails Theory of Entrepreneurship":
Linkage,
links for 2009-01-05
Helitech - Headset Services Limited Headsets for pilots in noisy cockpits or... annoying open plan office phone conferences (tags: hd280, hmd280, headphones)
Linkage,
links for 2008-12-19
DOPPLR: Add trips by Twitter required string to add via twitter (tags: dopplr travel)
Linkage,
links for 2008-12-12
YouTube Chromeless Player Example page fun with the developer api key :-) (tags: chrome chromeless player video youtube)
Linkage,
blackbouler -- définition, synonymes et conjugaison
Je trouve quand même étonnant que le dico internaute propose une définition du verbe “blackbouler” sans en expliquer l’étymologie anglaise.
What’s in a pot?
Darn, I’ve just this second dropped the last of my beautiful Salins-les-Bains coffee bowls:-(
Memory,
More interest in the BT forums
I seem to have inherited, largely by accident, a largeish contribution pool of disgruntled BT customers. Many of them comment with the phone strapped to their right ear, commenting on how many hours they spent on ...
Discovery is the new cocaine?
The ever-groovy Mark (@redeye) links to this funky service. I’ve just received my D from Twitter and apparently it will take ” Mr. Tweet would take roughly 4.4 days to be ready to serve you. We know this sounds lo...
Business transformation,
Countdown to Nokia
Well, this is one way of becoming an internet business ;-) So I wonder what those clever chaps at Nokia are up to?
Techno-bollocks,
links for 2008-11-27
London Videoconferencing Room: dedicated video conferencing facility for hire in central London (tags: vc) Eyenetwork : Search for a Video ...
Linkage,
links for 2008-11-21
Farmers And Farming Quotes: Famous Quotes on Farmers And Farming (tags: farmers) Sustainable agriculture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia...
Linkage,
links for 2008-11-20
The History of Architecture Gaynor Aaltonen | Architecture Books | Books Ireland | Books Online (camerafone pic of St Stephens Walbrook)
Linkage,
links for 2008-11-19
International Farmers Exchange for Mutual Learning = Privatisation of knowledge and seeds | Natural Resources | International Institute for Environment and Development ...
Linkage,
links for 2008-11-17
Bank of England|Statistics|Statistical Interactive Database|Official Bank Rate History When is a tracker not a tracker... (tags: birminghammidshires)
Linkage,
links for 2008-11-14
LinkedIn: Harald Lamberts Harald's profile LinkedIn: Willem Boijens Willem's profile
Linkage,
links for 2008-11-13
Filesystem Hierarchy Standard Handy outline of the bin sbin var etc directories (tags: unix nfs freebsd darwin)
Linkage,
links for 2008-11-11
All Resources Search Results more falbys (tags: genealogy family gendoc)
Linkage,
Say hello to the experience-value map
I recently had a QA on Linkedin with a guy who asked:
Business transformation,
links for 2008-11-07
Blue Anvil Journal » Blog Archive » Wordpress development techniques #2 - Fetching RSS feeds with wordpress Good Magpie tutorial (tags: rss wordpress magpie tutorial) ...
Linkage,
The Overdub Tampering Committee -- Please Allow Us To Introduce Ourselves
Oh thanks Mark this is just wonderful on so many levels :-)
Election 2008 | powered by Twitter
Man this is something, the twitter election feed which uses a script to update the stream (see election.twitter.com) is now scrolling almost continuously. I’ll bet that’ll hammer a browser or two…
CU-1 la creatrice de mode
CU-1 has been busy blocking out her Halloween costume. I’m a bit amazed, she drew the hat, the skirt and the cape and is now working with her nanny to make the costume. I’ve seen an early attempt and it looks just...
In our story,
This Suburban Housewife Has To Break Party Lines -- Goodbye Hatred « Jessica Gottlieb
Wow, a great voice from the republican side explains how hatred can run away from you and how Palin is fanning the Reichsparteitag flames…
links for 2008-10-13
Manhattan Shell for Sale* Vacant*Foreclosure - new york homes for sale - backpage.com (tags: new york city nyc buildings)
Linkage,
links for 2008-10-10
ElectroVirtuose - boudoirprofane's blog - A Boudoir Philosophy - Skyrock.com la vie était un festin, s'ouvraient tout les coeurs, tout les vins coulaient... ...
Linkage,
How come a jillion-million dollars doesn’t seem to be doing the trick?
The problem would appear to be the small issue of the fraction in the fractional reserve system or in other words, the difference between the amount of real money the US government has to hand and the amount of mo...
links for 2008-10-09
"That One" 08 - John McCain - Barack Obama 08 Gordon Bennet, a music video (tags: thatone) That One T-Shirts, sweatshirts, shirts, bumper st...
Linkage,
Orange RockCorps - social capital generator or surface-only branding?
Just saw Tim’s piece on the Glasshouse blog on Orange Rockcorps and understanding the value of the social capital.
links for 2008-10-07
Hack the Debate // Current this looks good :-) (tags: obama election2008)
Linkage,
BBC News egging the pudding a tad?
OK so the news late last night was pretty horrific. Yes, we’re all setting up barter economies and I’ve started planting vegetables, but the thing that really did it was the BBC art department.
Did he really say this?
Frankly, it's easy for me to go to washington and be somewhat divorced from people's day to day challenges--John McCain 9/11/08
Henry Paulson’s transparent shell game
Have been catching up on US writers recently, and having just come into the office to discover our parent company is to be nationalised, I’m hoping those sleepless senators listened to voices like Joseph Stiglitz
links for 2008-09-25
'Alan Knight on the wiki way to stakeholder assurance''Johnnie Moore on the limits of social media'
Linkage,
The Peters projection on Googlemaps
I’m repeatedly amazed at how Google maps manages to generate an accurate overlay to satellite photography. I wonder is the photography manipulated in some sort of matrix to make its xy coords mathematically predic...
Techno-bollocks,
links for 2008-09-16
Facebook | 1,000,000 Strong Against Sarah Palin Come on, you know you need to join the "say no to Palin" movement (tags: usa election palin) ...
Linkage,
links for 2008-09-11
Graphic Novel Reviews—American Widow and Alan’s War Gotta make sure jed sees this - it's La Guerre d'Alain translated into English:-) (tags: BD jed art) ...
Linkage,
Google -- bête et méchant
Have just got off the phone with Ohna and it seems that Google/Youtube’s behaviour is even more absurd than I thought…
Not Evil Google tramples my sister out of convenience
Well it used to be Big Oil or Big Business but we really are seeing the emergence of Big Copyright
Online VAT registration
So my accountant tells me I need to make sure and complete my VAT registration. Don’t worry he says, you’re an internet consultant so you’ll have no trouble…
links for 2008-08-21
Developer's Guide - Google Chart API - Google Code Gordon Bennet this is just fantastic! (tags: charts, maps, apis, graphics)
Linkage,
Movable Type 4.2 is here (and well worth the wait)
Wow, I thought I’d be playing with RC5 for a while before getting the final release but no, the real thing is here. Go grab yourself a copy
O2’s adventures in electronic customer self-care (ECSS)
OK, I think O2 wins this donkey’s current “Edge du Jour” tag.
It’s survey time again folks
Yes, the A List Apart guys are running an improved version of the survey they did in 2007. It’s good to feel one’s industry is maturing, it somehow helps when trying to make plans for the future:-)
CU-1's shiny new Lamy ABC fountain pen
CU-1 has been learning to write these past few years and I was buying stamps at a stationners in Farnham when I came across this pen. I first heard it mentioned by Richard Binder and since then have thought it wou...
In our story,
4.2rc4
Well I’ve been running the iPhone plugin for movable type for a while now but had never used it in anger.
Wordpress v. Movable Type
Disclamer: We’ve had a bit of an ongoing debate on this one with Anil fanning the flames as he tries to support the MT cause. I should disclose that I’m a member of the Six Apart Professional Network and also a 6A...
Vikings v. Aliens
So Charlotte wants me to spread the web2 love re ex-classmate Dirk Blackman’s new production Outlander and why not? (that’s our in-house Viking H on the big-boy climbing frame over there on the left for our family...
In our story,
This is the modern world
You know it doesn’t get more cutting edge than this. First, after much stress and waiting, I jailbreak my iPhone and go in search of hot software. Great, open, free liberating productivity apps here I come and lo,...
Techno-bollocks,
Glasshouse gets into personal branding
I’ve been trying to get Nick interested in personal branding after listening to @garyvee at Seed3. Gary made a bunch of interesting points and got me thinking about how Nick should develop on her work so far as a...
Family,
Eat updated
I think the nice man who went in search of my Identity theft woes last week would have liked me to update my previous post.
US Court forces Google to release your private history data
Please immediately tell this person (details updated, thank you Peter)
Jason on sick hospitals and Carlos’ comment on collage
So still no Seed3 notes eh? I’m struggling a bit because I filtered a lot out and on balance didn’t really pick up anything practical that I wasn’t doing already…
Avignon quiz
Couple of weeks ago I was on hols in Avignon with the whole extended Falby clan and we all wrote games for the evening’s entertainment. Margaret, Nicki’s mum came up with a devilishly difficult Balderdash (I knew ...
In our story,
.Net.Not.
Well, it’s taken a while but I’ve finally worked out what it’s like to work with the .NET Framework
Techno-bollocks,
More on 0870
Having just this second whinged about O2’s charge for calling 0870 numbers, a comment has just come in on an old say no to 0870 post from March 2005.
Techno-bollocks,
iPhone floppyware 2.0
OK so it’s now Stevenote - 7 and my iPhone is stuck in an imap loop and when I turn it off it reboots instantly. Of course plugging it in and clicking “restore” (which theoretically wipes your iPhone and restores ...
Unusual behaviour
Well, I’m going on hols with Nicki and the bairn-gang for a week and have decided to not bring my powerbook.
links for 2008-05-21
Movable Love - a showcase of interesting and beautiful sites powered by Movable Type handy list of mt sites (tags: mt) Cakes and Ale things to eat in Chicago (tags: chicago seed) Hôtel des Arceaux à M...
Linkage,
links for 2008-05-14
diso - Google Code like I haven't got enough to keep on top of ;-) this looks v. interesting :-) (tags: collaboration community blogging apps technology microformats identity networking plugins programming se...
Linkage,
links for 2008-05-09
RichardsPens.com • Fountain Pens by Richard Binder the May basket. mostly sold so looking out for June! (tags: fountainpens fountain.pens ink pens writing)
Linkage,
links for 2008-05-08
Swedish Stag Night Prank - Swedish Party Joke Weekend Skipper Ideas Do Pranks Sweden more intriguing nonsense from Alex... (tags: stagnight stag sweden swedish prank)
Linkage,
links for 2008-04-30
PESTLE analysis, tool, marketing, PEST analysis, SLEPT analysis, STEPE, ETPS, SWOT, pestle tool (tags: planning business) Where On Earth Is Waldo? I love the larger-than-life googlemaps pointer :-) (tags...
Linkage,
links for 2008-04-27
IBUPROFEN DOSAGE (FOR FEVER AND PAIN) - Lucile Packard Children's Hospital CU-2's cooking again and I forgot to weigh him recently... (tags: fever, nsaid, ibuprofen) IBUPROFEN (MOTRIN, ADVIL, PEDIACARE FEV...
Linkage,
links for 2008-04-24
OAuth: Getting Started - Part I Loving OpenID but wishing for something a bit more enterprisey with added security (tags: microformats mashup identity networking opensource privacy programming reference socia...
Linkage,
links for 2008-04-22
INVDR fabulous typographic experiments. Jonathon is an art student in Ontario (tags: type typography, technology illustration robots helvetica, gallery design art fun)
Linkage,
Future of Web Design, London 2008
Well, the afternoon was pretty good too, but with a dead powerbook battery and no charger I ended up sending commentary via Twitter.
links for 2008-04-13
Free UK PAYE Income Tax Calculator 2008. Updated for 2008 / 2009 budget. Useful (tags: tax taxes IR35 contracting)
Linkage,
Blast from the musical past
Have started using the old ipod again (8G on the phone just doesn’t do it) and bumped into this:
links for 2008-04-09
Quake 3 hits the iPod touch, makes for portable LAN party - EngadgetOh my yes, oh yes oh yes :-)(tags: quake gaming games ipod iphone game) Heading East: Lies I’ve told my 3 year old recentlyCU-1, y’a des trucs...
links for 2008-04-08
Your personal wiki. | StikiPad. yes, it's yet another wiki host. This one kudosed by the 6a design guy... (tags: blogging blogs blog service services social socialsoftware software mt)
Linkage,
links for 2008-04-04
Groundswell (Incorporating Charlene Li's Blog): blogger's code of ethics (tags: blog blogging blogs business code corporate ethics guidelines journalism) s5l8900:pwnage [iPhone Dev Team] I love it that th...
Linkage,
Bob Lutz is going for the brass ring
Wow, you know, I don’t normally read Bob Lutz’s stuff over at the GM FastLane Blog which is odd because I quote the blog to clients all the time. Just took a peek today and saw this:
links for 2008-04-03
THE MEDIA BUSINESS: Advertising; No Winners in Lord, Geller Split - New York Times On Thursday night, employees and alumni of Lord, Geller, Federico, Einstein will meet at Mr. O's to reminisce about the advert...
Linkage,
Boris couldn’t make it
So Billy got tickets to the Timeout mayoral hustings at the UCL union tonight.
links for 2008-04-02
The Guardian ditches Phorm | The Register (tags: evil) Seed Conference | Chicago | 6 June 2008 I'm so going to this :-) And check out that beautiful use of Times Roman (tags: times, times roman, coudal, d...
Linkage,
Charging for wi-fi?
The DVD format is a fiasco born out of a desire to control the way customers consume the products they buy.
links for 2008-03-29
mysql training course - creating tables in mysql - mysql create table command - mysql select database I so need a mysql course right now... (tags: upgrades blogging mt)
Linkage,
Thanks David -- -)
A nice man called David tweeted me yesterday with a link to a video of Russell Davies talking about interestingness, size and creativity. In the video, Russell refers to a project I did a couple of years ago for B...
links for 2008-03-22
OpenSocial - Google Code (tags: api apps collaboration community data design google mashup javascript network networking reference ria socialsoftware social software standards tech web2.0 webapps widgets xml)
Linkage,
Hello BT engineer
Hey, we’ve just had a long and very informative post from Matt, a Luton-based Openreach engineer. I hope this really is an engineer speaking and not some perverse item from a ‘guerilla marketing’ agency subverting...
links for 2008-03-18
RFC 1925 (rfc1925) - The Twelve Networking Truths ahh memories... (tags: networking network web internetCulture Internet_Culture)
Linkage,
links for 2008-03-12
Glitchee (tags: music gravatar) independence - Google Code (tags: activation apple apps code installer iPhone mac osx reference sim unlock tools)
Linkage,
links for 2008-03-07
iPhone Dev Center (Updated) (tags: technology software iPhone) Java examples (example source code) Organized by topic (tags: javascript resource code)
Linkage,
CU-1 passe son examen de ballet
OK ma p’tite puce je te souhaite bon courage pour ton examen :-)
In our story,
links for 2008-03-05
The Best People Search Tools: Find Phone Numbers, Addresses, and Social Security Numbers (tags: privacy) Granma (yacht) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (tags: fidel hastalavitoriasempre) The Saul Bas...
Linkage,
links for 2008-03-03
Peter Callesen Not sure what it is but it's sure purty (thanks Thibaut) (tags: art fun)
Linkage,
links for 2008-03-01
Presidential Hopefuls Spending Little On Web Ads. Why? Social Networking. Though the battle for the Oval Office is turning out to be the most engaging in recent history, online ad sales for the campaigns of Ba...
Linkage,
Apoa shoots CU-1
So CU-1’s cousin Apoa is learning Photoshop in art class:-) Check out this montage she asked CU-1 to sit for.
Family,
links for 2008-02-28
Dutch boffin calls RIAA expert 'borderline incompetent' - The INQUIRER Oh yes, oh yes: "With what can only be described as a good dose of Dutch courage, Delft University's Assistant Professor Johan Pouwelse, d...
Linkage,
links for 2008-02-22
Channel 13 staff absolutely no idea what this is all about but check out these fantastic employee portraits from the seventies (found on a search for persona inspiration) (tags: personas 70s)
Linkage,
iPhone syncing
Question: why does my iPhone not sync automatically (or even manually) with with my Powerbook via wifi when both are on the same network and iTunes is running (hell, why isn’t their a syncd process running in the ...
Techno-bollocks,
Dialogue, access, transparency
I’ve been following the birth of the Tesla roadster and this morning Scobble twittered his test drive in the first production car with the company CEO. Things have really been moving along and the Tesla Motors web...
links for 2008-02-14
mydeco pretty :-) (tags: online retail) Etsy :: Your place to buy and sell all things handmade bit more chick... handmade goods (tags: online retail) ITSMYFAVOURITESHOP.COM LIMITED credit report and a...
Linkage,
Nuevo spammio
Well well well, a new kind of phishing has landed in my inbox. Just when I thought the relatives and colleagues of intestate central african millionaires could show no further bounty, I am now being showered with ...
links for 2008-02-11
MySQL crib sheet with the most frequently used mysql commands (tags: programming reference mysql db)
Linkage,
links for 2008-02-10
Opinions Libres le blog du type qui à produit le super bilan sur ces 2008 Mondovino : achat de grands crus à prix ajusté et vin de Bordeaux Primeur 2006 (tags: vin)
Linkage,
Knee arthroscopy
So I’ve now had the pleasure of being slid into an MRI and in a few minutes, a man called John Hardy (my trusty orthopaedic surgeon) is going to regularise a tear in the meniscus in my right knee (thank you TMW so...
Family,
links for 2008-01-29
Logo Design Love more logo niceness, this time prompted by an email from HTF anouncing their fabulous new slab serif (tags: logos identity design)
Linkage,
A really, really interesting story about bluray v. hddvd
Woolworths stores to stop selling HD DVD | Reg Hardware
Techno-bollocks,
links for 2008-01-27
Best Brands of the World- vector logos, logotype, brand, logo Thanks to Alex Moore for pointing me at this one. Nope, Alex it wasn't the one I was thinking of but this is great nonetheless :-) (tags: colour c...
Linkage,
links for 2008-01-24
A Website about Corporate Identity Love this resource, now if I could only find the link to that Russian guy's site with vector files of all the logos (tags: corporate identity logos logo reference research t...
Linkage,
links for 2008-01-21
Watch The Streets incinerate their record label | News | NME.COM So Mike is gonna get all co-creative and online. "Record labels are dead" might be a bit of a simplification but if anyone can find a new way he...
Linkage,
links for 2008-01-14
sk8m8 : Finsbury Park Skatepark - Finsbury Park (tags: skate skateboard skatepark) sk8m8 : Lordship rec Skatepark - Haringey (tags: skate skateboard skatepark) sk8m8 : Ally Pally Skatepark - Alexandra P...
Linkage,
links for 2008-01-13
Beats by Dr. Dre great headphone with integrated iphone jack and mic - i want i need them now droool... (tags: iphone headphones)
Linkage,
links for 2008-01-12
[CES '08] Opera Browser Coming To The iPhone (video) OK interesting stuff on Opera on iPhone but check out that Movable Type template. Love the use of buttons for the individual archive previous and next links...
Linkage,
Understanding technology (small rocks float?)
Governments (well, the current UK government) don’t get it. The public doesn’t seem to get it, but large budgets and serious, long-lasting political decisions continue to be lobbied for and won on a partial unders...
links for 2008-01-10
How to travel by train from London to France | By Eurostar & TGV... personally, I like car 1 seat 76 but I think this guy likes the electricity in car 4? (tags: eurostar train france) Seed: Science is ...
Linkage,
New phone number
So hopefully by now you will have noticed the in-your-face red stripe at the top of the page and made a note of my new number (07515661655).
links for 2008-01-07
Thermo - Adobe Labs (tags: ria ide webapps apps interface programming tools) Adobe Labs - Adobe Flex (tags: adobe tools ria programming)
Linkage,
Did we land on the moon?
I love it that The Lecture List is still running (thank you thank you Chris) and that people are still posting this kind of event: Did we really land on the Moon?
links for 2008-01-06
HTML Color Code Combination Chooser (tags: colour design javascript tools code) Art Flutter Banksy Paris mods (tags: art)
Linkage,
links for 2008-01-04
TED Blog: "Paradox of Choice" author Barry Schwartz on TEDTalks CHI (tags: business design Marketing video) Maeda's SIMPLICITY and another, wonderful what you get in your mail... (tags: chi code design e...
Linkage,
links for 2008-01-03
Complainte de mandrin Paroles, mp3, tous ce qui faut y compris la version "gabelle" (pour l'histoire de la taxe sur le sel) (tags: mandrin sel song francais chanson)
Linkage,
Scoble, Facebook and scripting oh my…
Well, I’ve been following Scoble’s tweets today and it would appear his Facebook account was shut down (disabled). facereviews makes the point that this is a good thing in the sense that we do want FB to monitor i...
Subverting from within
So I used to think I was subverting from within. That’s bollocks, of course. David always reminds me of that. I’ve decided I’m not going to work in advertising again, the daily round of social network metrics and ...
The amazing shrinking javascript
OK, so I occasionally hack some bits of Javascript around to see if manipulating bits of the DOM can produce interesting, unusual or accessible interactions… These last couple of years I’ve started looking at fram...
Techno-bollocks,
links for 2007-12-29
Chronologie "La Bataille socialiste" nice chronology of the Socialist Party in the form of a Wordpress blog page (tags: ps partisocialiste parti socialiste)
Linkage,
links for 2007-12-21
Fluid - Free Site Specific Browser for Mac OS X Leopard (tags: firefox apps browser webkit safari osx webapps) QIK | Streaming video right from your phone I have wanted to do this since first buying a Symb...
Linkage,
Merry Christmas
Well, it’s not very Christmassy but Nick was transferring photos and contacts to her new handset and in the process sent me this photograph of CU-1 playing in Nicki’s wedding outfit. Shame about the item in the ba...
Family,
links for 2007-12-19
Modern Mechanix cosmic ray gun zaps atomic bomber (tags: 1950s art magazine reference science social space technology advertising photos) The Great Bridge at Poughkeepsie (tags: bridge train newyork)
Linkage,
links for 2007-12-16
.::Tempero::. I recently worked with a client who was keen to get his 20k users commenting and spreading the word but didn't think there would be a commercial impact for community management or moderation. My ...
Linkage,
links for 2007-12-14
Cognitive walkthrough - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia an alternative to trad heuristics where "expert" becomes "academic" (tags: ux ucd heuristics usability evaluation) Subscribe to Custom Search Result...
Linkage,
links for 2007-12-13
Media messaging - Messaging - Services - O2 O2 mms-to-legacy (tags: mms tools email mobile)
Linkage,
links for 2007-12-11
Neowin.net - RIAA: Those CD rips of yours are still "unauthorized" ...and there goes my EFF donation, hard at work. If you think the RIAA is stealing value from you (in my case, the value of having my CDs last...
Linkage,
links for 2007-12-09
New Reading List (Grazr) (tags: reader readinglist lists) iPhone/iPod Touch | Resources (Grazr) (tags: iphone apps) iPhone Application Repository (tags: iphone software) Installer.app Beta (tags: i...
Linkage,
links for 2007-12-07
FreeRice well, it gets a bit dull but rice is rice (tags: hunger, wfp, un, game)
Linkage,
links for 2007-12-06
Official Google Mobile Blog: Google on the iPhone: Fast and Fluid yes yes yes yes yes oooooohhhh... (tags: google iphone) Comics - Bokardo UCD humour - nice cartoons, need to send to Amy B (tags: usabili...
Linkage,
links for 2007-11-27
GDrive to Launch Soon? Working in a team that thinks backup and sync are two different things? Know someone who does? Great link for anyone interested in the backup space (even includes a tantalising grab of s...
Linkage,
links for 2007-11-23
If you are American read this (A Donkey on the Edge) Wow, I just reread this, it's a declaration by the US president (not the current one you can guess) about the cost of war and our collective responsibility ...
Linkage,
links for 2007-11-21
What If Gmail Had Been Designed by Microsoft? Oh yes oh yes oh yes... A bit like the iPod packaging exercise, and love those nail polishing tips. And this is priceless: Plus, to increase user lock-in, let’s ...
Linkage,
Paris by strike
07:30 good catch-up meeting with Agathe near République11:30 continue reviewing backup screens with Thomas P near bastill3a large chunk of the afternoon: walking from Bastille to Gare du Nord because the RATP stri...
Memory,
links for 2007-11-07
floor sanding - Google Maps J P Floor sand... N19 outside.in » The New Outside.in Very nice, a redesign... smart URI handling as well new%20york routes to New_York_NY muy bien:-) (tags: geo geolocation ma...
Linkage,
links for 2007-11-02
Nokia Music - 'not' on Flickr - Photo Sharing! Yeah Phil, big surprise there... (tags: nokia music)
Linkage,
links for 2007-11-01
Eventful - Events, Concerts, Tickets, Festivals, Kids, Singles, Sports, Music what to do with the Lecture List (tags: socialsoftware opensocial google) BBM (tags: opensocial google) bluepulse.com - the...
Linkage,
links for 2007-10-31
Deki Wiki - MindTouch OpenGarden (tags: wiki) http://www.ourowndevices.com/ Good to see Shozu are still going strong:-) (tags: blog shozu mobile middleware enterprise)
Linkage,
links for 2007-10-21
colr.org (tags: reference style tools web2.0 WebDesign colour technology)
Linkage,
links for 2007-10-20
Telstar Logistics: What Is Telstar Logistics? joyful human engeneering (tags: humanengineering) Deki Wiki - MindTouch and another nice looking wiki that isn't atlasian. It's amazing the diference a bit of...
Linkage,
Government 2.0 has a ma.gnolia group
So missrogue says, for those of you doing work on Government 2.0 (services side and politics side), she has started a ma.gnolia group: government 2.0 on ma.gnolia
links for 2007-10-17
Odd Proxy - Free Anonymous Web Proxy - For School & Work, MySpace Proxy (tags: censorship proxy)
Linkage,
links for 2007-10-16
The Sydney Morning Herald Blogs: MashUp (tags: facebook censorship) Facebook Has a Post Limit « president of facebook (tags: facebook censorship) andersk: Facebook shuts down my cow’s account (tags: fa...
Linkage,
links for 2007-10-15
Micro Persuasion: Bookmarklets for the Web 2.0 Jedi Master Must try gmail to gcal when I find a mo... nice list (tags: bookmarklets) Blyk has landed, mobile operators take heed. « .oO Tailwind mmm now all...
Linkage,
links for 2007-10-05
sorties-paris - Bonnes sorties à Paris (electro & indie pop/rock) (tags: paris)
Linkage,
links for 2007-10-01
www.asianfarmers.org | 2005| November (tags: wto) farmersforfuture.com english (tags: wto) APML - Attention Profiling Mark-up Language More on the knowledge sharing infrastructure of the 'attention eco...
Linkage,
links for 2007-09-26
Le cofondateur du Nouvel Obs André Gorz se suicide avec sa femme | International | Cyberpresse Tu viens juste d'avoir quatre-vingt-deux ans», lui disait-il. «Tu es toujours belle, gracieuse et désirable. Cela ...
Linkage,
One I would have liked to witness in person
Complete Video of the SIPA-World Leaders Forum with the President of Iran from the Columbia World Leaders Forum
links for 2007-09-24
User-generated neologism: "Indigenous content". Many-to-Many: thanks to Lynetter (again) (tags: usergenerated indigenouscontent indigenous content)
Linkage,
links for 2007-09-23
Cicely Saunders - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (tags: paliativecare hospice) How to Make Playdough (Play-doh) - Instructables Make Cool How To and DIY [category: craft] This oughta come in handy... (t...
Linkage,
links for 2007-09-20
Google Shared Stuff mmmm more niceness from the folk who are nae evil... (tags: google sharing share)
Linkage,
Re earlier post on decommodification
I wrote a little brain-dump on decommodification this morning and have just now come across tom at interesting (different tom) a video from Russell Davies Interesting 2007 conference.
You heard it here first… 2008 is the year of decommodification
What’s that Dug? A new-year’s prediction in September? Shurly shome mistake… Well, this one just popped into my brain so I thought I’d put it down on paper. I think 2008 will be the year of decommodification. The ...
How does the IA stay involved for the whole product lifecycle?
Phil asks an interesting question: open source experience design?
links for 2007-09-17
DNAStream Brings the Joost Experience to your Browser browser-based Joost via the flash plugin (I always like to add that word "plugin" as we forget it is still a plugin and suffers from all the usual pluging ...
Linkage,
links for 2007-09-14
YouTube - Compiz Fusion Development more animated interface stuff - Compiz Fusion in this case. Good track by Manau. (tags: interface music video) ManauWeb - Paroles : Manau - Mais qui est La Belette ? an...
Linkage,
Nokia v Apple
If Nokia were running the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, New Orleans would be 20 feet above sea level by now.
Techno-bollocks,
links for 2007-09-12
Airport Cars Taxi in West Finchley N12 – Reviews & Official Contact Details welovelocal.com except it looks like no one in the neighbourhoud has been to the airport yet... (tags: taxi, reviews , review)
Linkage,
links for 2007-09-10
Experimental: ARIA enabled pages: from T.V Raman on 2007-09-06 (wai-xtech@w3.org from September 2007) Interesting snippet from Google re ARIA (tags: wia ARIA accessibility)
Linkage,
More shit on my plate…
As I sit here in the middle of the night orchestrating the organised sacrifice of my current project’s design quality and integrity on the altar of technocratic mismanagement I am amazed and confused, once again, ...
Techno-bollocks,
Never mind intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe…
…I have four fivers in my wallet. When was the last time anyone actually had one–let alone four–fivers in their wallet?!
links for 2007-08-31
Visible Technologies : TruView Introduction (tags: influence monitoring social media)
Linkage,
Shut up and let the guy answer the question…
Robert, this is really interesting stuff, shut up and let the guy answer the question:-)
The BT thing is hotting up again
Wow, comments are pouring in on the old is BT still shit? post. One guy even gave an update twice today.
Skype wants to be nice to me
You know, I was gonna comment on the Skype blog Heartbeat (no, not on the bit where if they had decided to use computers equipped with a proper operating system their crash and subsequent total meltdown wouldn’t h...
links for 2007-08-15
dirtybird artists >> Claude VonStroke : DJ/Producer/Owner (tags: music downloads mp3)
Linkage,
links for 2007-08-13
Note Taking: A Beginner's Guide to Mind Mapping Meetings - Lifehacker another mind-mapping explanation
Linkage,
It’s getting crazy in France
Do you work in an office? Look around your floor, on any given day, how many of those sharp-suited and VO5-ed younger people are interns. Or roughly, what percentage of your co-workers are contractors, interns, ap...
links for 2007-08-07
Asbestos Services, Blues Consultants, Asbestos Management, Asbestos Consultancy having the garage checked for asbestos dust (tags: asbestos) Manestream Ltd - Inspection Services having the garage checked ...
Linkage,
links for 2007-08-05
jQuery Taconite Plugin multiple simultaneous responses from a single ajax call (tags: ajax data javascript jquery programming web xhtml xml)
Linkage,
CU-1 fait de la bicyclette sans roulettes!
Well, I didn’t have the camera with me but this morning we put the pedals on the bicycle and CU-1 pedaled away. She can ride a bike, yay!
Family,
links for 2007-07-30
FactoryCity » WordPressMU: Making a smart platform choice Chris Messina takes a look at reasons to ditch .Net (tags: community tools)
Linkage,
links for 2007-07-28
jquery.grid.rowSizing tr manipulation in a percentage size table (tags: jquery table javascript)
Linkage,
links for 2007-07-27
InnerFade with jquery nice fader allows for lightbox, slideshow newsticker etc (tags: web2.0 jquery interface ajax animation javascript)
Linkage,
iPhone SIM unlock
After DVD John’s first iPhone hack the elusive SIM unlock comes one step closer:-) Neowin.net - Hackers saw through iPhone AT&T shackles
links for 2007-07-19
Table inspector, Fangs and Foxy voice » xhtml | css | Design ...still searching for that elusive online Jaws emulator, could this be it? (tags: accessibility extensions firefox screenreader emulator) elect...
Linkage,
Facebook look and feel
One of the things I’m enjoying about facebook is the complete lack of rounded corners in the interface:-)
links for 2007-07-09
JS-Kit: Free comments, ratings and more... lightweight js comment system - haven't tried it but the guy from Lifehacker uses it on his blog... (tags: collaboration javascript opensource comments) » OUTRAG...
Linkage,
DVD John cracks the iPhone
Wey hey, a sim unlock for iPhone is on it’s way… DVD John has already made an activation server so network-free landscape iPods might be just around the corner…
links for 2007-07-05
So sue me » Blog Archive » iPhone Independence Day pushing for an iPhone sim unlock (tags: mobile hacks iphone software technology tools) Main Page - The iPhone Dev Wiki more iPhone unlocking including an...
Linkage,
Gettin friendly on the Eurostar
So you know how us whitey westerners travel in the tight confines of buses trains and tubes? You know how the position of a foot or a leg, the degree of but-brush and so on can really make a difference in the pers...
links for 2007-07-04
JGoodies :: Java User Interface Design sample interfaces for Backup (tags: backup oodrive) JIDE Software - Downloads - Swing Component Library more backup stuff (tags: oodrive)
Linkage,
links for 2007-07-02
do.Oh on the iPhone on Flickr - Photo Sharing! a to-do list app that not only plays nicely with facebook and twitter but runs as a safari 'app' on the iPhone:-) (tags: iPhone software)
Linkage,
links for 2007-07-01
Daring Fireball: iPhone First Impressions (tags: iphone mobile mac reviews review technology design apple)
Linkage,
links for 2007-06-28
Les bonnes tables sur la route de vos vacances could comme in handy this summer... (tags: food resto vacances holidays)
Linkage,
They are the ultimate gift of love
Last year I built a couple of sites for a guy that I frequently collaborate with. The sites talk about diamonds, the diamond industry and luxury more generally.
More nonsense from BT
More activity on the old Is BT still shit? post. A chap called Carlos has left a comment about his experience with BT and it sounds pretty spectacular…
Things Dug would like his N95 to do…
You know, I just twittered this, but I get the odd S60 developer reading my nonsense here so I thought I’d put the question on the blog.
Techno-bollocks,
Cillit Bang is my friend
Mike Butcher points out that new European legislation will make astroturfing illegal.
links for 2007-06-17
Flickr: factoryjoe's photos tagged with pagination another nice collection of Chris messina screengrabs. In this instance we're looking at the rights and wrongs of pagination interfaces... Thanks Chris:-) (ta...
Linkage,
I remember when…
Parmi les Sept Merveilles du monde figurent les jardins suspendus des Batignolles.
Family,
links for 2007-06-15
PSFK conference notes Lynetter's notes from PSFK07 (tags: psfk technology conference advertising trends)
Linkage,
links for 2007-06-07
Digital Urban: How to Stitch a Panorama with the Nokia N95 more N95 geo-magic from a guy who actually knows what he's doing (unlike me...) (tags: n95 nokia Photography tools photo flickr)
Linkage,
links for 2007-06-05
Gridskipper, the Urban Travel Guide Well, it might be steak-frite time again soon and a little variety never hurts...
Linkage,
Alex James - Bit of a Blur
Good to see Serge the Concierge doing his bit to promote the Alex James talk on Thursday.
links for 2007-06-04
86 Mac Plus Vs. 07 AMD DualCore. You Won't Believe Who Wins (tags: bloat)
Linkage,
links for 2007-06-03
Yotel Overview The man from "Yo" strikes again - love the idea, get the designer of the BA first class cabin and get him to sort your hotel :-) (tags: hotel pod japan) Padded Cell - Race Paint - Motorcycle...
Linkage,
Alex James on the Lecture List
You know, Billy and I have been really struggling to keep The Lecture List afloat for some time now, and we’re doing it because we believe in it (the problem of course is it’s impossible to get funding for a thing...
CU-1
CU-1 a 5 ans demain. So tomorrow morning little CU-1 is going to wake up and be five years old. Forgive the cliché but darn she got big quick… We’re at Rebecca and Tim’s place near Perpignan (strangely correctly i...
In our story,
links for 2007-05-23
Staircase plans online quarter landing staircases Recommended by the hardwood guys, 2nd landing plan sw39m £599 (tags: loft loftconversion) Staircases, spindles,newels from Barley Wood Ltd For when you're...
Linkage,
links for 2007-05-21
Pipes: Rewire the web (tags: programming socialsoftware mashup tools web2.0) Connecting the Dots: Qwaq Launches Virtual Workspace (tags: community socialsoftware online social) Operator11 — Become a net...
Linkage,
Tuesday is Doesday
So David has decided to get stuff done on Tuesdays. He’s christened them Doesdays and you can join his Facebook group, check out the blog or just keep an eye on him over at Twitter
links for 2007-05-18
Dashboard - Plazes - Right Plaze, Right People, Right Time (tags: visualization web2.0 socialsoftware social software plazes) YouTube - The real Computer Monster It's the MONSTER!!! haven't seen this in ye...
Linkage,
links for 2007-05-16
Script Frenzy | Your ticket to creative adventure I reckon Billy and Nicki should have a go at this one :-) (tags: cinema community film) MacFUSE Tech Demos from Amit Singh's Macworld 2007 Talk - Google Vi...
Linkage,
links for 2007-05-14
Video editing with Adobe Premiere « Scobleizer Scoble teaches editing with Premiere (tags: video adobe premiere)
Linkage,
links for 2007-05-12
Where Most Needed Charity industry observer (tags: blog blogs charity museum ngo poverty)
Linkage,
links for 2007-05-11
SERP Tracker - SEO Tools - Nashville Search Engine Optimization, Internet Strategy and Web Design (tags: tools search rank position serp)
Linkage,
A look at the Zopa logon interface
I closed my Zopa account yesterday and requested the paypal funds I had invested be returned to my Paypal account. The folk on the phone were helpful and courteous but I can’t help feeling a bit amazed by the expe...
Iain Tait on YouTube
It’s all just people lobbing rocks into a bottomless pit. Maybe that is a kind of community. But, given the lack of social interaction that’s going on I wonder how important some of this is...
links for 2007-05-10
hAtomic factoryjoe's new project (tags: hresume microformats) FactoryCity » Thoughts on Mozilla I haven't watched the video yet but the notes are spot on. In a word, Moz isn't being transparent and isn't ...
Linkage,
I go and I come etc.
OK, so could someone be real nice and do some explaining re the translation of Je t’aime, moi non plus in the Karen Elson/Cat Power version on Mr. Gainsbourg revisited
links for 2007-05-09
Jeffrey Veen JV's spent the last year working on Google Analytics. Have just signed up, looking good :-) (tags: accessibility socialsoftware tech web2.0 informationdesign design) Growth of Twitter vs. Blog...
Linkage,
Tagged.com
Well, I’m glad I’m not the only consultant out there to get into trouble with Tagged.com. The more I look, the more I find people sharing similar experiences
Drawing the lines of ownership and understanding the responsibility of the custodian (or something like that, I couldn’t think of a sensible title)
I couldn’t help noticing that James Governor picked up on my post about tagged.com he states:
jQuery
I thought I’d mention for those boring enough to be interested in such things that the comma-separated list of tags under each post no longer ends with a comma. Until last weekend, the lists looked something like ...
links for 2007-05-04
Squirl: A Site for Collectors mmmm sort of etsy meets spout (tags: blog collaboration community culture design networking music movies media socialsoftware social reviews reference web2.0) Wordie: dug's Wo...
Linkage,
links for 2007-05-03
French Internet Radio - Listen to French online radio news and information and practice your French! Nice listing of streaming urls. Includes non-French francophone channels (tags: french francais online radi...
Linkage,
Tagged.com are spamming swine
If you get an email with a subject something like “[New Challenges] Soandso has Tagged you! :)” delete it quickly. I can’t say for sure whether the company (tagged.com) is the next generation of sploggers or spamm...
Rsync’s 2007 code bounty
When it comes to open source (and, I imagine in pretty much every other issue) John Kozubik puts his money where his mouth is.
links for 2007-05-01
Personas: Why We Get them 99% Wrong - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design (tags: research ria) Roll Up Your Sleeves: Pioneering a User Experience (UX) Process - Boxes and Arrows: The design behin...
Linkage,
donkey is up?
This is great: free server monitoring - check your dedicated or virtual server uptime and get notifications for free - servermojo.com!
links for 2007-04-24
Nitram+Nunca very sexy widgets from designer Kei Sasaki and developers hmdt (tags: code design graphics widgets) jQuery datePicker home really nice date picker implementation using jquery (tags: jquery j...
Linkage,
links for 2007-04-19
{ style:phreak; } » Standard Forms - Updated nice form implementation but still uses tags. See div-less version at http://donkeyontheedge.com/standards/form1.html (tags: xhtml standards code) </li><...
Linkage,
Richard Feynman
A fan of Feynman writes an uplifting tribute: Richard Feynman: A Curious Character
Techno-bollocks,
Sean's amazing playlist
Tucking into the mega opus “Mood Aberdeen” created by Sean Wilke for Nick’s 40th birthday. It’s a huge thing, more than fifteen hours of solid jazz, expertly intertwining the classics with the obscure. Am currentl...
links for 2007-04-08
songs:illinois: "I don't wanna be Jar Jar Binks no more" - Star Wars twee from The Bobby McGee's Woo hoo great song from a compilation Billy is working on (tags: fun music)
Linkage,
links for 2007-04-05
Chalkhills: Making Plans for Nigel cutout characters Great little site with info re xtc stuff (tags: music xtc)
Linkage,
links for 2007-04-04
www.pengoworks.com - /workshop/jquery_demo/ Great collection of jQuery demos (tags: jquery web2.0 code javascript)
Linkage,
links for 2007-04-03
Social Square Beautiful site with ligatures, e-sharps and even those viking "O"s (tags: blogging socialsoftware design typography,) Web avant-garde Henriette's "Green Meme", will hopefully get to it befor...
Linkage,
F****** Chancellor
Really loving my new employer. I just had to pay for a CHAPS transfer to ensure that I get paid on my payday. On top of that I have to pay GBP100/month to get paid at all.
Have just finished rolling out Jon Aquino’s Mental Garden: Twitter: Increasing number of twitters shown in Twitter blog badge but with the loop set to 5 instead of 10. Looks like it’s all working:-)
Techno-bollocks,
links for 2007-03-30
Formulare A collection of forms (really, you know, paper ones) (tags: design typography,)
Linkage,
If something is private, I recommend not digitizing it and putting it online. Adding privacy features to a public service is dumb. 09:44 PM March 15, 2007 from web
I know it when I see it
Just re-read that last post. What a load of pants, let me try again…
flickr,
links for 2007-03-27
Negonation Blog an open source project charged with the development of internationalization software for humans. (tags: translation blog rails ruby rubyonrails)
Linkage,
links for 2007-03-26
LOGO2.0 part I on Flickr - Photo Sharing! Nice collection of two-point-oh logos (tags: web2.0 identity)
Linkage,
Yahoo Flickr exploits
You know, I wasn’t going to get all huffy about it, but I just don’t believe the explanations coming out of Yahoo.
links for 2007-03-22
Les BadTalks - Bad Bad Blog - Le blog de Publicis Net Nice work from Publicis (tags: pub, web2.0)
Linkage,
links for 2007-03-21
Web2.0Slides | Web2.0 Slideshow a slideshow of two-point-oh sites maintained by a chap called Paul Terry Walhus (tags: web2.0) A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods Really, in a grid and all... (tags...
Linkage,
Orange
Recently, I’ve been working as part of the Orange group design and usability team. It’s been quite interesting as I’m involved with teams who are busy developing the offerings well into the future.
links for 2007-03-18
3pointD.com » Blog Archive » Read the Design of the Future in Helvetica (tags: typography, helvetica, signage)
Linkage,
links for 2007-03-17
Mer et Voile : Maltese Falcon, le yacht à voile révolutionnaire - "Une nouvelle page dans l'histoire du nautisme" The most unbelievable ship (tags: fun) The Maltese Falcon and again, just an amazing ship ...
Linkage,
The challenges of daylight
So doesn’t anybody else think this daylight savings time (DST) thing is a bit odd. I mean I’m probably getting the wrong end of the stick but are people having to apply patches (to their computers)? Because of day...
Techno-bollocks,
The donkey iPod film quiz
So while I’m on the film theme, here’s a frame from a classic picture on the iPod (click on the photo to zoom in, the text reads “unica”).
Film+iPod
You know how you get those dvds with your Sunday paper and then they collect on the shelf? Well, my family got me an iPod for my birthday in January and I’ve discovered how fabulous it is to integrate films here H...
Techno-bollocks,
Shurley shom mistake?
Interesting interviews on JDN économie, a series of bosses who actually want to pay their taxes (text in French)
FOWA 2007 day two - Google docs and spreadsheets
Well, I’ve got to do some work so am listening but not taking notes:-(
Techno-bollocks,
FOWA 2007 day two - Khoi Vinh -- Managing UI
Well, had to get CU-1 to school this morning so I missed the first talk:-(
Techno-bollocks,
FOWA 2007 - day one
This 'stream-of-listening' feed was provided for folk that couldn't make the event. In the end I'm not sure it's very useful, so today I'll just take notes and publish more structured thoughts after the event.
Techno-bollocks,
More Joy of Issy
Billy claims that Issy-Les-Moulineaux is the star of a famous example in pragmatics.
The people’s princess
Her name will forever live on in the halls of justice for her victory in the landmark Supreme Court case Marshall v. Marshall, which struck a blow for the rights of millions of young widows of elderly billionaire ...
Merde
Oh bugger, the fabulous Mom and Pop southwestern restaurant (renowned for snails, duck dishes and cassoulet) which by all acounts was always bustling and well worth the détour changed hands two years ago. Serve me...
Les Gourmands - Nathalie et Philippe COSTE
OK. I for some reason that escapes me haven’t managed to eat a decent meal in Paris recently (and that must take some doing) so I’ve got a plan. I’ve asked around and apparently this place is great.
Greed, DRM and Steve's thoughts on music
I do hate agreeing with what Steve Jobs has to say but I do…
The new BLINK
The helping-corporates-move-towards-standards thing started for me when I did a longish contract at an insurance company and helped them embrace semantic markup and the separation of style and structure. Anyways, ...
Most car drivers don’t know what revs are…
Not like us cheeky biker-types who are familiar with little two-stroke Yam’s and their ilk (tho now that I’ve aged and drive a lumpen opposed twin, my serious revving days are behind me)…
Techno-bollocks,
They did the iPhone thing!
Jason D. O’Grady is blogging the conference in real time. They did it!!!! They really did the iPhone thing it wasn’t a red herring!!!
Techno-bollocks,
Monday morning
Her forearms are long and thin, and the sleeve of her floppy jumper keeps dropping as she fiddles with her empty teacup. She is reading Tolstoy.The sun is rising over Sidcup.I have padded plasters on my ankles as ...
More on Flickr
Rob Ferrara isn’t 100% in agreement re Flickr. His point is that the free account doesn’t give him enough of an incentive to upgrade.
flickr,
The MySpace murders
Welcome to a world of prurience we didn’t even know existed. No longer will the currious need to dig through the sleazier end of the tabloid press to get their thrills. We can all now view our serial killers’ MySp...
Zune (you can’t do that, no, sorry, not that either and you’ve done that once too many times in the last 12 hours so sorry, you’ll need to reset…)
Really good piece on the Zune’s user experience chez Lefsetz:
Paris
So I’ve been in Paris all week. I was here last week and will be here for three days next week. I’m so totally sad, I’ve been commuting out to the burbs on the RER, working all day and then coming back to the hote...
Family,
The Thresher thing
Jonathan and Ross over at TMW are working through the Thresher promo thing apparently organised by Mr Gapingvoid Hugh Macleod. They both make some good points and Ross points out that the promo represents a 7% inc...
Family-friendly shopping in Paris
Trying to score Nicki some perfume in the Galleries Lafayette yesterday and came across this chap. Great poster next to him with a guy reclining in a bulge-accentuating pose. I figured I should definitely get myse...
Gmail down, arse, fech:-(
Damn, Tuesday morning and Gmail is still on the fritz. Problems started around Sunday lunchtime and the service has been intermittent since then.
Clinique 3 steps and a pumpkin double latte
Gosh, the word “Starbucks” appears twenty-three times on this Lonelygirl15 comments page…
Starbucks relaxed about metrics
I'll be happy if we create a single cheer chain," said Brad Stevens, VP-marketing for Starbucks. He said he's more interested in the qualitative response, as the effort has no traditional marketing metrics tied to...
Link love
Those nice folk at TMW have started to blog. It’s a brave step for a traditional agency and one I hope that will energise their collaborative media activities. Getting into the spirit of the thing, they have start...
SAP blog relations
The company has the balls to invite bloggers into its press and analyst program, to ask tough questions of executives at a time when industry analysts and journalists increasingly ask only softball questions in pu...
James gets it right (again)
Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing: Social Value First, Brand Value Second
Ch-ch-changes
Well a bunch of stuff has happened recently and I just noticed that last entry about Universal was my 1000th post! Turns out I’ve been spewing this nonsense since 2001 so now seemed like a good time for something ...
Universal not quite getting the co-creation concept
Just saw this item on Slashdot. A classic example of a big corporation not getting the new consumer.
Experimenting
Glad to see Iain Tait is experimenting (and, in the process has found a place to buy genitals).
Innocent
I love this little story from the innocent website. In fact i love most of the copywriting on the site. I would have thought they’d passed the tipping point of evil by now but you couldn’t tell by looking at their...
Community based Content centric URL’s
Community based Content centric URL’s on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Non-cron scheduled publishing
Well well well, Movabletype now uses the arrival of spam to trigger its scheduled publishing events. It’s quite a neat idea using the inevitable flow of spam to trigger events that once required a cron-job.
Off to bed
Well I meant to say I had a bit of a medical thing happen last Sunday and I’ve been spending a lot of time in bed with my brain turned off. Normal service should resume next Monday.
Family,
www.themargateexodus.org.uk
Just got this in the mail–sounds good in a kind of burning-man kind of way…
Bonne nuit CU-1, Papa travaille encore ce soir:-(
Alors ce qui est un p’tit peu merveilleux c’est que je disais bonne nuit à CU-1 (ma petite puce) au moment exact ou j’ouvrai cette page (Merci Petite Pomme)
In our story,
Banksy Paris Hilton
I’m sure you’ve seen this but here’s a link anyway to a Flickr photoset of Banksy’s Paris Hilton CD insert
Open-source humour
ME: Thanks, this looks good. Could you please send your spreadsheet document as a delimited text file as I can’t open opendocument files…
Techno-bollocks,
Thinking about Movabletype plugins
Well, I’ve been thinking about finding a low cost CMS that has both good static page management and nice blogging tools like Movabletype and have looked at a number of options.
Small, decaf soya capucino
My Boss just came in and is legitimately today’s enraged mutton. I mean he’s standing in the queue at Café Nero on the Kings Road and
Creepy crawleys
There is currently a spider hiding in my keyboard. He’s wedged under the white panel the keys stick out of and is moving from beneath key to key. No amount of shaking or blowing seems to be able to convince him m...
Brands and blogs
I first approached a major FMCG client about helping their brands join the conversation over three years ago. That particular contact kept my original email so there was at least a degree of interest at the time.
‘not evil’ Google acts to shut down UK education charity
Billy has recently received another threat from Google re the design of the Lecture List pages.
every organization should have a Web 2.0 story
More good stuff from Dion Hinchcliffe. Does every organization need a Web 2.0 strategy?
Techno-bollocks,
Cheesy, Heirloom, Panini Batons
Doing a little research for a client and came across 101 Cookbooks and love the writing:-)
Objects of desire
So I finally finished my first Chocolate phone film. If you want to add your own, the tag is objectsofdesire
-- -- 56.987 / 0
Mathmatiks.com :: Urban Lifestyle Design & Consulting :: Collections :: High-End Focused Projects
Cunts
I haven’t got the plugin installed that lets you ping a post back to the index without disrupting the order of the posts so I can’t highlight the post, but I wanted to show you the most recent comment from an old ...
.cfm
Wow, I hadn’t noticed that MySpace runs on Cold Fusion… I find eBay occasionally searching for missing dll files, so I guess anything is possible;-)
Techno-bollocks,
Who says English is making a mess of European languages?
I love this use of as big as a house on this Italian forum iMovie ‘06: commenti e impressioni [Archivio] - Forum Macitynet
Techno-bollocks,
More about UGtv ‘06
Just got back from UGtv, crashed on the couch and have just woken up to Open University classics. How to give yourself jetlag without ever getting on a plane…
More nice people getting to know Colin
Wow, thanks to all the great folk out there commenting on the Pea harvest blog project:-)
That’s made my day that has -- -)
Russel Davies has some nice things to say about Colin Wright’s pea harvest blog russell davies: blogging for peas
Because it isn’t fun picking on KPMG anymore…
Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 1Q06
More fun with Technorati
I can’t believe I’m the only blogger who uses the category Techno-bollocks…
Techno-bollocks,
Oooooh yes -- -)
Apache on Symbian. Just imagine what you could do with that (updating walled gardens in poor connection areas for example). Now if only I was smart enough to install and try this thing myself;-)
Techno-bollocks,
A new voice
I’ve been working with a man called Colin Wright over at Birdseye. It’s been really interesting helping his team get started online. We helped the corporates look into their organisation, find a voice with a genui...
Dug and H by Jed
Jed sent me this drawing a while back. Just came across it again and thought I would post a shot. For those that haven’t met Jed, he draws. He sketches constantly.
Family,
More things I don’t understand
So OK, what’s with the Numa thing? Could someone explain why hundreds of youtubers were lipsyncing to Numa numa and what is it about this gang that the comments are particularly bitchy?
Beware of Methodologies
Just came across a fabulous post by Joel Spolsky from back in 2001.
Techno-bollocks,
Gum that lasts and lasts
Just came across a fantastic video on youtube. Matt, the guy responsible writes about the adventure on his blog: Where the Hell is Matt? New York, NY It’s Done
A constructive waste of time.
Always partial to a good shaving story me, well, here’s Alex B’s first encounter with the MP3Power shaver thingy…
PSP vs. DS
There appears to be some debate about the relative superiority of the Nintendo DS and Sony’s PSP. Unusually for this kind of online debate, the quality of the language is very high.
So exactly how useful are peer-reviews?
I was gonna get this sexy-looking piece of kit but darn, look at those reviews, one guy is saying it’s great, the next it sucks… Anyone had a go out there wants to point me in the right direction?
The language of co-creation;-)
With all those “experiences of one” going on out there it gets ever more difficult to know what people are talking about. Check out this comment on a psp-tagged page
FMCG Blogging
Good piece on FMCG blogging over at Positive Impact (one of Hill & Knowlton’s Collective Conversation channels)
Tags playing nice with taxonomy
University of Pennsylvania are introducing a tagging system to complement their library’s traditional structure:
British advertising
When Daniel and I were very young junior art directors pounding Manhattan pavement armed with our absurdly large black boxes in search of our first job in advertising, all we could talk about was British ads. It w...
Riding with Robots
Browsing the Apple website in search of support details and came across this
Picture stuff,
Doing something useful with the N70…
Just uploading the sys file to my N70…alebic.net � flash, flash lite, multimedia and all related… ;-)
Techno-bollocks,
BBC mobile news
Been playing with the Flash client for BBC News. It’s another example of a technology maturing and converging to the point where it just works. I think this longtime Flash-avoider may have found a new friend in Fl...
Techno-bollocks,
Holiday (at last)
Mucking about in the Pyrenees. On holiday and offline (largely). Back on Monday:-)
Family,
So is it still a meme the second (or third) time it comes around?
Remember the old corporate anthem, Our vision of global strategy by good old KPMG? It established the corporate anthems meme (it was Chris Raettig who started the meme proper…) which ran and ran with contributions...
KG800 chocolate phone
Hey, I finally figured out what to do with the KG800 chocolate phone the lovely people at Hill and Knowlton sent me a few weeks ago. I think I’m going to shoot some videos on the theme of objects of desire and see...
Your place to buy and sell all things handmade
Playing with etsy.com Check out the “shop by colour” interface, just lovely…
Techno-bollocks,
Traceroute + Google local -- -)
Another fine 2.0 app:http://www.codefromthe70s.org/traceroute.asp
Techno-bollocks,
The French
Bloody French street theatre… I was merrily on my way to an event at the ICA this morning when this large wooden spaceship crashed out of the sky and gouged its way deep into the tarmac of Regent Street.
Google AdSense Account Disabled (4)
Billy just sent me a link to a great piece on Google’s total unaccountability.
Cadbury creme egg cake
Mainly I'm telling you this because it permits me to use the word "viscosity" and I never get to do that.
Creationist bollocks
So somebody tell me how the creationist mafia is managing to skew Google’s video search results? It seems like whatever you search for on video.google the results are at least 60% creationist films. Weird.
Techno-bollocks,
Tuesday morning ponderings
When did IT become IS?The bad guy from Goldfinger apears as the prince of Vulgaria in Chitty-Chitty-Bang-BangI interviewed a guy who worked in a bottling plant the other day and he keeps a blog, uses a Symbian cam...
Now this is bloody fantastic! (bis)
Prolific Web2 blogger Dion Hinchcliffe comments on the Tahoe campaign fallout (The Web-Powered Control Shift: Social Computing (web2.wsj2.com)) and reading his blog–actually, I tend to spot his awesome graphics on...
Now this is bloody fantastic!
American car company Chevy decides to let folks create their own Chevy ads (very zeitgeisty dear, well done…) and then this nice man decides to use the same tool to point out how evil the SUV is.
Priceless
Been doing some research on the old co-creation thing for a presentation at work and came across Mastercard’s priceless site. The site gives you two videos to watch (they don’t work on Mac/Firefox) and then asks y...
Magistrates court
Well, am on the train back to London after an expensive and frustrating day in Wiltshire. Back when I was commuting to Salisbury I picked up a speeding ticket and looking at the evidence paperwork the rozzers sen...
Spout.com
Playing with Spout – very interesting. If you’ve ever had an opinion about a film you’ll love this…
RunDMC
Flicking through coverflow this afternoon found a copy of RunDMC’s Raising Hell which I thought I had deleted ages ago.
Now le iPod Francais doit jouer le music from anywhere
James Governor’s MonkChips: You gotta love the French: Killing the DMCA and stamping on roach motels
Things you learn in a day’s work
Turns out Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. thanks lipsum
Techno-bollocks,
KM with ambient knowledge
Great piece on ambient information at Headshift (I feel so left out not making it to ETECH seems like everybody I read online was there…).
Sleepy baby (moments I want to remember)
Hi Hal, it’s half-past twelve in the morning and you finished struggling with your insides about half an hour ago (looks v. sore, lots of grumbling and crying). You’re almost three weeks old and are sleeping in yo...
In our story,Blogger, spam, and why I wrote my first blogging app
In days of yore, before Donkey was published using movabletype, I wrote an application to publish this blog. Like most of the software I’ve created, it was pretty rubbish, but in fairness, it did support three gro...
Techno-bollocks,
Boring dad stuff
Well it’s been a week now and CU-2 is eating non-stop (even makes sucking noises in his sleep, Nick’s nipples are taking a serious battering) and developing well. Last night early this morning I had a session with...
Family,
H
OK all, no time to reply to emails, have just woken up and must rush back to hospital. The potted bits:
Family,
One little brother, coming up
So C, it was a Tuesday afternoon, the 7th of February 2006. When I got home early you didn’t seem surprised and you didn’t notice that Mom was writing times down on a piece of paper and bouncing with intent on her...
Family,
A good source of polyunsaturates?
So I’ve been doing the information architecture for a site about Flora (a margarine product from Unilever) and the thing has finally gone live. On the whole, it’s pretty usable, makes a good effort towards being a...
Movable Type 3.3
So it looks like Movable Type 3.3 is going to have some advanced entreprise goodies, like LDAP… I can’t wait :-)
Techno-bollocks,
A new way to write
Interesting read over on noodlepie it’s primarily a blog about foodie stuff, but recently, Graham Holliday has started blogging some pieces he is writing for the NMA (a UK new media rag). What’s neat is that he is...
BA and my digital lifestyle
Spotted this bus heading down Golders Green Road. The picture shows an open laptop with the caption Notebook. Photo album. Jukebox. Check-in desk.
Honda’s Inaccessible Dream
Don’t keep up with my Modern Marketing feed as frequently as I should – James has always got some interesting stuff to say…
Bad coffee and legal MP3s oh my…
So the largest distributor of crap burnt coffee is entering the the music biz…
DS hits half a million users for wifi service
Nintendo Breaches the 3-million connections and 500,000-user mark! - Gaming Blog
Techno-bollocks,
Yahoo happy tenth birthday
So nice little quilt graphic from Yahoo (Yahoo! Netrospective: 10 years, 100 moments of the Web) for their birthday.
Batgirl
I’m always on the lookout for interesting examples of bloggers making content together, so was chuffed to see Livejournal users have been creating hundreds and hundreds of Batgirls (thanks Boingboing)
I could eat a knob at night
Listening to the old Ricky Gervais podcast thing again. Apparently, after the offhand remark “you could make a dance mix from I could eat a knob at night” the guys received eighty (80!) mix tapes:-)
Symbian screengrab
Very excited, have just read a piece on pdafrance.com which claims to have found a reliable screengrab app for the Symbian OS :-)
Techno-bollocks,
More DRM bollocks
I know I have absolutely no impact whatsoever on the music publishing industry, but I just wanted to confirm that if any record companies are listening, I will never buy another CD from you guys that has copy prot...
Web2.0 goes bump (again)
Flickr is currently displaying the following header message on all pages:
Techno-bollocks,
Web2.0 goes bump
There seems to be a spate of online services going awry. Last week it was TypePad suffering a meltdown, and now it’s continued hiccups for del.icio.us
Techno-bollocks,
Problems with TypePad
<img src=”http://www.donkeyontheedge.com/images/TPBarf-thumb.gif”” alt=”TypePad is down” height=”154” width=”150” class=”left” style=”float:left” />I just tried to comment on a blog whose author is taking pa...
Techno-bollocks,
Move
Well, tomorrow we pack and on Thursday, after more than 10 years on West End Lane, we finally move house.
Family,
The sky is dark
I take 100 daft pictures a day with the N70 and ain’t it just typical I don’t have a camera on me today.
Family,
CU-1’s got a fever -- -(
Little CU-1 was playing at her friend Sophia’s house yesterday when she came down with some serious temperature. Nicki kept her medicated all afternoon and put her to bed early.
Family,
So Firewire is dead?
So apparently, FireWire is on life support–Jason O’Grady asks what our take is on the death of Firewire.
Techno-bollocks,
An alternative to SubEthaEdit?
I was doing some research on social software and have just come across Christopher Allen’s blog, Life With Alacrity, and mention of his application SynchroEdit.
Techno-bollocks,
Not quite perpetual motion?
Can one use the flow created by the cyclical capilary action generated by dipping a cloth in water and letting it evaporate? I’ve no idea, but this guy recons he’s worked out the Cyclical gravity greenhouse liquid...
Techno-bollocks,
Inaccessibility of CAPTCHA (good old w3c)
Yet another worthy initiative is under way by our friends at the w3c. This time they’re looking at the inaccessibility of captcha, those funny images of twisted letters one is often asked to enter when signing up ...
Cute
Well, today is the last day of Book Week at CU-1’s school. The kids were asked to go in fancy dress–picking the costume of their favourite character–and little CU-1 has gone as The Little Red Riding Hood:-)
Family,
Podcast-safe and DRM free releases
I can’t vouch for her music as I haven’t listened to it, but Jade Leary has just released an album over on the LetterXshop which is unusual in that it respects the rights and fair-use needs of its buyers by avoidi...
Inaugural issue of the Journal of Usability Studies is published
The Journal of Usability Studies (JUS) is a peer-reviewed, international, online publication dedicated to promoting and enhancing the practice, research, and education of usability engineering.
Orange continues to suck
Been reading about the Orange home screen on Symbian phones.
Techno-bollocks,
Things I hadn’t considered when setting my N70 to auto upload
I’ve been using ShoZu to seamlessly upload my N70 pics to Flickr which is cool up until the point you decide it’s time for a large ebay sale…
Techno-bollocks,
Albert Ayler
So I participated in a Katrina relief charity initiative a few months ago and had largely forgotten about it when what should pop through the letterbox but an enveloppe from Verve stuffed full of lovely jazz cds.
Babies
It sort of amazes me that with all the fanfare around CU-1’s birth (readers may rememember the blow-by-blow of her mother’s labour)–and the fact that this blog was initially set up to track the goings on in my hea...
Family,
PixPulse clarification
David wrote in this morning. He is concerned that the debate is missing his central premise. Here’s his note:
Techno-bollocks,
Shozu or PixPulse?
There’s an interesting conversation going on between David Xue, the founder of PixPulse and Roland Tanglao about the pros and cons of using email as a method to share mobile content.
Techno-bollocks,
Joining the EFF
OK, so I joined the EFF. Not only am I supporting the only serious lobby group for digital rights, I also got a fabulous t-shirt;-)
Tsunami + 200 days
Just moderated a talk over at the Lecture List. The event is called Tsunami +200 days and looks worth a look.
Belle and Sebastien
Sitting here on a Sunday when I should be playing with Nicki and CU-1 trying to wrangle the information architecture of a corporate brand site into some sort of sensible, digestible expression and listening to Bel...
Sony DRM bollocks
Sony has stopped production of the ‘root-kit’ protected CDs. Thanks for nothing but nice to see a company realise that things are a little more complicated than simply dropping some copy protection on a disk.
Techno-bollocks,
Angry sheep
So I’ve been sitting here getting increasingly pissed-off about the totally unregulated goings on at Google, the iTunes Music Store, CD manufacturing, spyware galore and a whole host of other nasty little profit-d...
Pakistan relief efforts
A family friend, Lauren Ingram has set up a fund to help with the relief work. She’s focusing on collecting smaller amounts of money and quickly distributing it to the right people on the ground using an extensive...
Playing with Flock and liking it…
Blog This!You can easily blog interesting web content with Flock, in just a few clicks.Example: 1. Highlight a passage on a web page that you would like to blog about. 2. Right-click that selection and choose ...
Techno-bollocks,
Die mauer ist nicht so motorradfreundlich
Which, as far as my crude appreciation of the language of Siegfried goes, translates to the wall isn’t so motorcycle-friendly (he’s commenting on an orange crash barrier he avoids at a corner’s apex).
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Just back from seeing Kiss kiss bang bang at the London Film festival (thanks Billy) and tomorrow Billy has scored some tickets to hear the director talk.
Cool JS slider
Been meaning to have a play with this javascript slider. Oh, and the individual templates are broken while I try and fix comments…
Google v. The Lecture List
The Lecture List is a non-profit site that aims to promote public speaking across the UK. The site was launched with a generous grant from NESTA but for the last two years has been entirely supported by the time a...
Toddlers at work
This piece over at Digital Dad™ made me chuckle. CU-1 isn’t a toddler anymore (she’s three) but she’s been obsessed with computers, stereo, iPods and telephones almost since day one.
Family,
Eating scorpions
So Nicki, at long last, has started to blog about her experiences with food. She’s a professional food writer so was apprehensive at first, but it looks like she’s settling in nicely:-)
Google AdSense Account Disabled (3)
> Hello,> > As you know, Google treats instances of invalid clicks very seriously. By> disabling your account, we feel that we have taken the necessary measures> to ensure that invalid clicks will n...
Copyright
Just read a post on the Google Print copyright debacle which reminded me I got a bit tipsy last night and had a vigourous and interesting converstation with a barrister who specialises in intellectual property. We...
Google AdSense Account Disabled (2)
So yup, I’ve started digging around and we may have something here (thanks wAntAn productions: Google AdSense Account Disabled)
The bigger picture
So I bought Nicki a Sony Ericsson K750i as she’s starting to write about food again and she needed a decent camera to upload to Flickr with. I just can’t get over the image quality on the thing. I pumps out 1600×1...
Techno-bollocks,
Pigs, burdock and Broadway
So exactly how often these days can you see a chap roasting an entire pig on a spit and what’s a burdock root anyway? Broadway market is looking pretty darn amazing right now. These guys come back every saturday–t...
Things I learned by watching TV
Well, until about five minutes ago, I had absolutely no idea that Levon Helm and Robbie Roberston played with Bob Dylan.
Lick my ass
It’s funny, I’ve been tidying up my iTunes library and tracking down some of the more obscure cover art. On a couple of occasions, I’ve come across reviews of Miss Kittin albums and amusingly, even the more metrop...
Whipsnade face painting
Just love this picture. Not sure why exactly, but it’s something to do with the freshness of the whole thing.
Family,
Going to the mattresses
Spent the whole day at IKEA (both Wembley and Edmonton) not buying a mattress.
Family,
Swimming
Note for Falby family: CU-1’s swimming pics are now in a flickr set so you can view them as a slideshow.
Family,
Now that’s what I call community policing
Apoa and Kiloh bond with the rozzers at this year’s Notting Hill Carnival :-)
Family,
The George W. Bush Emergency Preparedness Award
Well, I feel a whole lot better now that the White House website is covered with pictures of the sensitive couple hugging refugees…
Subject -- Vacation is Over…an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush
Jed just sent me this. As ever, MM says it best… Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Pissed-off reader
Received the following from a reader called Andrew MacLaren a few days ago. He does make some good points so I’ll see what I can do:-)
Blubbertastic
Sitting here chopping some complex css and Eminem’s Mockingbird comes on and I start blubbering like a baby. This happens every time I hear the song (i.e. it’s nothing to do with css…) I wonder what’s making me so...
Family,
Citizen’s media
I think by luck I posted some of the first pictures of Warren Street tube to Flickr. I was getting my hair cut on Googe street when I heard the news on the radio.
Covent Garden Hotel
So I was trying to score some new Birkenstocks at lunchtime today and ended up eating a small Ceasar salad at the bar of the Covent Garden Hotel which seemed like the best way to avoid eating Another Bloody Sandwich.
What did <i>you</i> find on Googlemaps?
So I’m looking for satellite imagery of the island of Marawah around 100 kilometres to the west of the city of Abu Dhabi, just to the north of the Khor al Bazm. I end up with a traditional satellite image courtesy...
Branding is dead
I realise I’ve been doing a lot of quoting these days, but I love this comment by Hugh Macleod over at gapingvoid.com
Missy Elliott
Listening to Missy’s The Cookbook and damn. I keep rewinding a track called Can’t stop
Audience-generated content
(This post isn’t written yet but in the spirit of release early-and-often…)
And more bombs?
[Friday morning] Well, the front of the house is still there, so clearly the bomb on the bus was a false alarm. Still, no harm in being jumpy. I guess we’ll be keeping an eye out for abandoned parcels in the tube ...
Software patents nein danke
I’m always amazed when the European Parliament sees sense and does the right thing :-)
All I want to do is find a frickin’ radio station!
Thank you Chris for pointing me to this piece on featuritis :-)
Design clichés
Ahhh love those logos with a swoosh. Speakup has compiled a definitive list of design clichés with a prognostic on each. I’m embarassed to admit I’m fond of bubble-head people… Still, I suppose I could always get ...
I want to say I totally agree/love it/hate it/ but can’t be fucked to post a fully formatted comment
This is an idea as beautiful as it simple…
Tardis Tennis
Winston Churchill whups Shakespeare two sets to nothing… it must be the BBC’s Tardis Tennis
Font sizes
Recently lost my rag with a very nice person on one of the HCI lists I subscribe to. My juvenile, agressive and totally uncalled-for behaviour was triggered by the fact that the person works at Verisign (regular r...
Last call for comments on CSS2
Attention all CSS boffins, you have until 15 July to post comments on the working draft of CSS 2.1
Techno-bollocks,
Live 8
Bob was livid when he found out about L8 tickets changing hands for loads of cash online. I saw him on TV a couple of days ago really laying into eBay. I’m not sure if this was Bob’s idea, but someone suggested bi...
Want want want…
Embedded in the back of the bag are three lightweight, tough, waterproof solar panels which generate up to 4 watts of power. This means quicker charge times!
Techno-bollocks,
Accessible
I’m always curious to hear any information that suppports the argument that not making your site accessible is a nonsense. The DDA Centre has nothing to do with website design, but they did have this little snippe...
Transformaçaõ de Armas em Enxadas
I’ve been spending quite a lot of time looking at the British Museum website these past couple of months. I’ve nicked this graphic from Compass, their editor-selected presentation of 5000 significant pieces from t...
Usability?
I’m on a couple of usability lists and one of them sparked a slightly strange exchange of messages a few minutes ago:
Techno-bollocks,
Tiger
Well, I’ve been on the verge of buying Tiger and going through the upgrade thing with the five-odd machines I’m responsible for. It looks like I’ll loose key functionality if I do (virtual switch networking) and I...
Techno-bollocks,
Red-eye
Sunday afternoon and my eyes are still going mental. This is beginning to worry me slightly, after all I rely quite heavily on my eyes to do my job. If things haven’t improved by tomorrow morning, I think I’ll go ...
Puffy and smelly
So I’m sitting here at my desk, it’s 5am and I’m trying to get some writing done, but my eyes are killing me.
Family,
ER -- The Video Game
Just been contacted by Francis Poku at specialopsmedia.com re featuring the new ER game on Donkey.
Tags
Sitting here in MUF where I work on personal projects thinking about the structure of a huge, museum website and have just noticed that Technorati’s tags page is almost 50% non-roman.
Memory machine
I’m not sure whether I prefer the Flickr ‘most recent’ or ‘random’ badges, but one of the nice features of the random badge (which grabs pics at ‘random’ from your photosets) is that is reminds you of days past.
Getting clients to the Land of Usability…
I forget if I’ve mentioned this before, but we’re all carrying all manner of legacy decisions about producing web pages. We’ve got the web-safe colour thing, the acessible Javascript thing, the quirks or no quirks...
Techno-bollocks,
Feeling Tufte today -- -)
Doing some background reading for a big IA project and came across this classic from Edward Tufte
Asquith Court West Hampstead
I was beginning to think the good works of the Asquith Eight were going to go unnoticed forever.
Touching screens
What is it with account execs? They can’t help themselves from poking the screen. One in particular had the endearing habit of using a biro which left little blue smudges…
Tom Coates on trackback
Tom writes Trackback is dead. Are Comments dead too? I’m not sure I agree with his findings. To be honest, I have a problem understanding exactly how trackback works, so time to delve deeper. What is undeniable is...
Techno-bollocks,
Asquith Court Parents Association
There has been a real grassroots effort by the parents of kids at Asquith Court West Hampstead. It got so bad we moved CU-1 to a new nursery (which she calls her “new nursery” which is kinda cute…).
Family,
More ‘customer support’ nonsense
I got this note at work this morning. This is crazy as it’s now the second time I’ve got the note and for some reason, this company cannot operate outside its scripted customer support parameters. This a very impo...
Techno-bollocks,
Workflow for Movable Type
If you can get past the mind-bending idea of plugins having their own plugins, it really shows how plugin developers have taken a place next to strategy consultants, content mavens, and implementation experts in b...
Techno-bollocks,
Wireless magic
Sitting in the car outside my flat typing this. Thank you open 802.11 networks :-)
Techno-bollocks,
Isobel Daisy Holmes
I know I do overdo it on the baby content, but I just this minute received this email:
Amsterdam for weejuns
So that was fun, if utterly exhausting (started my day 06:00 on Friday and got into my hotel bed at 01:30 only to be kicked awake by little girl at 06:30–and it went downhill from there on the sleep front).
Family,
Amsterdam
Wey hey! Nicki has scored our little familly an all-expenses-paid press junket to the Dutch capital. Nick and CU-1 left earlier today and are currently enjoying that particular kind of Dutch hospitality (brusque?)...
Family,
Big boys playing nice (part two)
And in the spirit of lo-fi open source advertising, check this out. Anup Kurian is the director of an independent film showing at the Waterman’s in Brentford. He wrote in asking for help. Read the post, but go see...
Wi-fi on the go
Just wanted to register my surprise at the poor quality of BTOpenzone’s wi-fi offering. Apart from the just plain cryptic interface of the wi-fi start page (the page your brower is redirected to when you attempt t...
Techno-bollocks,
Things stumbled across by accident
Just read this nice little emotional roller-coaster from Wil Wheaton’s blog.
Big boys playing nice
Well, Google is courting entertainment marketers apparently. The piece explains how new Google film listings are making studio bosses nervous. There’s some classic old-world thinking
I can feel a new banner campaign coming along
Still waiting to hear back from Fnac (a great place to buy French stuff - iTunes licensing doesn’t allow French ‘variété’ tracks on the UK store grr) re my earlier note to them.
Dispositif anticopie numérique
Cher Fnac, Je me fais un devoir de vous informer que (bien qu’ayant été sur le point de le commander) je ne vais pas acheter le cd “Le Fil” de Camille car la présence d’un “Dispositif anticopie numérique” est d...
Fascism Anyone?
From thirdworldtraveler.com but all 14 features might fit us western 1rst worlders quite nicely too…
Manchester
We did a day trip to Manchester this Saturday to pick the little girl up. CU-1 spent the week with her cousins Holly, Tom and Eve while Nicki was in Hong Kong and it looks like she barely noticed her parents were ...
Family,
Consumers less satisfied?
I just got a link to a slightly strange article over on Clickz. It’s titled Consumers Less Satisfied With eBay and Amazon and goes into some depth explaining how big e-retailers are diluting their initially focuse...
Speed
Well, I just received a link to these configuration instructions for Firefox. A minute to apply and wey hey, better performance :-)
Techno-bollocks,
CSS Negotiation
Great piece on CSS negotiation. Focus on minimal hacks with emphasis on code fragments that can ‘wilt’ away when negotiated browsers die off…
Techno-bollocks,
Nick Denton closes $25,000/month Sony deal
On the one hand, the deal is an old-fashioned sponsorship arrangement, but Sony’s marketers are testing the waters and this could be an early move towards a new kind of advertising that “does” more than “says”.
ST-TOS
<img src=”http://www.donkeyontheedge.com/images/tos.jpg”” alt=”Star Trek DVD collection” height=”150” width=”114” class=”left” style=”float:left;border:none;” />
Pictures by colour
Very cool toy by a man called Jim. Colorfields lets you view random flickr images by colour tag. Fun:-)
Techno-bollocks,
Tax
Just dropped my tax return off at Euston Tower. It closes at 20:00 and there were queues of people snaking around the building. Kind of a funny atmosphere, a bit festive, a bit like first day at school…
Jailed for using a non-standard browser
This whole anti-terrorist thing is really getting out of control
It’s amazing how not being in pain cheers one up
It’s two o’clock and I’ve been shuffling around the office in my socks. I’ve stepped into my open-back Birkies a few times and joy oh joy, my legs are not acheing :-)
Dear CU-1
I’m guessing when you read this you’ll be quite a lot older and no doubt these ramblings will be served up in some as yet unimagined way. In any case there’s been a lot going on recently that I haven’t recorded.
Family,
Ouch
So I’m contracting at a place that requires a bit more polish in the old dress code than I’m used to, so I’ve been dusting off my lovely old leather shoes. I’ve got a gorgeous pair of French ones that still look g...
Hidden usability features
Most good user experience is taken for granted, as is powerful information architecture. Recently I’ve been noticing hidden usability design features that don’t stand out until you put the objet out of its primary...
Blog calendars
You know, I put that calendar up there on the right because I could. I mean when I moved to Movabletype, the calendar seemed fun and possibly useful.
Where are all the Broadvision sites?
I used to spend a lot of time explaining to clients how powerful website personalisation was going to be for them and researching the technologies to do it. I remember one day, the people at Broadvision (a persona...
The British Museum -- current state assessment
Information architecture and current state assessment.
Flickring
Have been playing with Flickr and it’s bloody brilliant :-) Have slowly started uploading pics (several v. integrated ways provided) and came across this shot of CU-1 playing with Kihlo’s monster teeth:
Picture stuff,
Gail’s boobs
OK, I do seem to be posting a lot of links to Gail’s Openbrackets but this one cracked me up…
PR, marketing and the blog
I think by now we no longer need confirmation that the blog is an accredited part of the communications mix. I’m guessing 2005 will see more mainstream blog awareness in the UK and who knows, by the end of the yea...
Tsunami
I’ve just discovered that James (Cherkoff) is in Sri Lanka and he’s OK. He normally checks in with a nudge to get a move on the day he’s back after Christmas, but this year, silence–Turns out Liz and James arrived...
Comment spam
Jay Allen has just posted a link to the new Six Apart Guide to fighting comment spam over at Movabletype.
Jim Elve v. Skweezer
Boy I’ve just worked myself into a lather over at Barnett’s blog. Some chap in Canada has been going ballistic along the lines of his copyright is being infringed and his ad revenue swindled.
Better than gmail;-)
More bat than gmail, Dug is proud to anounce he can be reached at dug@postmanpat.com (is there a dangling modifier in there somewhere?)
View source
One reason I found the Internet so exciting when it first approached me to give a job, was its collaborative nature.
Comment spam, mtblacklist etc
Just wanted to explain what has happened to Donkey as a result of the recent spam attacks on MT installations.
MT ProNet discussion
Amen Jon Armstrong for putting into plain English the abstract pissed-off cess-pool that I’ve been brewing re MT category implementation. Thank you:-)
Donkey stuff
I was caught with my pants down by this bug in late September. After deleting both Donkey and Roblog databases I’ve finally found the time over Christmas to rebuild all the templates from scratch. So keep your MT ...
Old chestnuts roasting on the open fire
I’m just going to post this as is. I read a piece by Mark Kingdon To Flash, or Not to Flash? on ClickZ and was prompted to send a reply.
You blink and…
I was following a link from Gail’s very funny piece on the cli·ché and ended up at The Telegraph (she linked to this piece).
Diary -- a bloody brilliant day
Temperature 6° overcast + foggyIcknield Way between Britwell Salome and Aston Rowant closed to vehicular traffic until summer 2005, but the old road cuts North West from Aston Rowant and continues to Chinnor w...
Family,
James in the FT
James has a piece in this week’s creative business (sub required) and makes a few good points.
Techno-bollocks,
Send in the electoral observers
Apparently there is an acknowledged syndrome called PEAD—pre-election anxiety disorder—the fear that one’s vote will not count. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was sweeping the nation. With all the shenanigans going...
Techno-bollocks,
George W Bush hurt my baby
So CU-1 was wearing her mommy wants a new president teeshirt today at the toddler playgym and a couple of people commented negatively. One said, “what has George W Bush done to your daughter” and Nicki practically...
Techno-bollocks,
Cos Cob vandalism
You know, my dad, Jed, has for most of his long life been a master with a pair of scissors.
Techno-bollocks,
Face paint
I figured if I let CU-1 paint my face as I painted hers, I would be able to make a reasonable likeness of a ginger cat’s face on hers.
Family,
Scout
…Boy Scouts and S&M fetishists both spend an inordinate amount of time fiddling with rope…
Family,
DJ
Wow, more DJ spam. I must be the new hub of the online music scene. It’s the ususal enchanting copy, connecting their minds to their bodies I mean who writes this stuff ;-)
Family,
Caretaker
This will have no meaning to most people, but if Bill Bissell reads this, on Saturday 23 October 2004, I finally made it to Sidcup.
Family,
Javascript
Would you guys mind terribly debugging your frigging JS code before you slap it on your website? Please.
Family,
More things to do with your Placido
As the election looms, thoughts turn to another Republican congress. UK subjects act now while you still can:
Family,
More software company nonsense
A new feature has arrived on my desktop that prevents Nicki and I both using Suitcase at the same time. Until now, Suitcase ran happily in the background, managing font conflicts and opening fonts when required to...
Family,
A guy in Wales
I know I’ve been a bit of a wreck these past couple of days, but I really surprised myself this morning reading Phil Mountain’s letter to Clark County in The Guardian. By the start of the second sentence I was sob...
Family,
Fragments
“Karen Carpenter was of course famously anorexic but people forget that she was also a really good drummer” - Goldfrapp
Family,
Dull boy
I’ve just discovered that if you point the desk lamp straight into your face and stare at the bulb occasionally, you can go for days without sleep.
Family,
Topless DJ
You know, there’s nothing I hate more than spam. So I really can’t figure out why I keep noticing the stuff and posting about it…
Family,
Mommy wants a new President
Monique from Littleton in Colorado says her mommy wants a new president and your daughter should too.
Family,
Cuisson du sucre
Who would have believed that there were not one, not two or even three different nouns to describe the state of caramelization of sugar in the French vocabulary. According to marmiton.org’s cooking chart there are...
Family,
The thing that I want (a design methodology)
So yesterday morning, the thing that I wanted was a black, v-neck jumper and the chosen interface to get it was Mark & Spencer at Marble Arch.
Family,
Scrambling one’s nervous system
For a theoretically unemployed person, I seem to be very very busy right now. This is great because one of my iBook’s logic boards (I think it’s a logic board, due to the little beeps I’m pretty sure I heard yeste...
Family,
G5
Until this evening, I didn’t know that the side pannel of the G5 is a four-millimeter-thick slab of brushed aluminium. On the inside of the panel, a stainless steel guide is attached with cross-head stainless stee...
Family,
Hey Dug, what’s all this porfolio stuff… (bis)
But on a more personal, Donkey-esque note, one side-effect of trawling through your pure-play digital (actually saw this phrase today) life is coming across really old stuff that you’d forgotten ever doing.
Techno-bollocks,
Hey Dug, what’s all this porfolio stuff doing here?
Just a quick post to apologise for all the portfolio stuff going through this part of the site these past few weeks. I decided to use a part of Donkey as my online portfolio (a necessary evil in my quest for emplo...
Techno-bollocks,
Lamb’s lettuce
The corn salad (Valerianella P. Mill.) has been sitting in a seed tray for ages. I can’t seem to get the darn things to move beyond this stage so potted them up in a bigger pot this morning.
Planting from seed
Planted Greek oregano (Oreganum vulgare L.), mixed Italian lettuce leaves 1, rocket (Diplotaxis erucoides) and a lemon variety of sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum var citriodorum) in a seed tray in the kitchen two Sa...
MT311
I’ve just realised something which I had kind of been keeping my head in the sand about: Movable Type 3.11 is buggy as all hell. Once you start getting anywhere near the red-line, its behaviour silently switches f...
Techno-bollocks,
Retake
One in a series of auto-spams—a gratuitous link to The Lecture List. Fabrica just posted Representing Islam: Empires, Ideologies and Rhetorics
Techno-bollocks,
MTNextInCategory and MTNextCategory
Just so I know, exactly what hapened to make the amount of comment spam I’m getting shoot up overnight?
Techno-bollocks,
New design using float instead of position
Damn, this thing went from Mena’s intermediate template to the completely new float design in about 18 hours. I was at the perifferal templates until 2 am this morning trying to get the category-based tags to work...
Techno-bollocks,
Goatface avatar
Came across this icon I made of myself when digging around for portfolio stuff. For starters, what’s with the front pony tail;-) That said, it is kinda cute (the icon, not the goat)…
Techno-bollocks,
Mystery-meat 2004
I’m happy to say, I haven’t seen bona-fide mystery-meat navigation in years, but strangely, as I’ve been reviewing what other designers have been doing about their online portfolios, I’m finding it more and more....
Techno-bollocks,
I didn’t know that
The expression ‘hoist on his own petard’ comes from the frequent and generally grisly end of His Majesty’s Petardier—from the French, “person who has to light a very large fire-cracker at point-blank range while s...
Techno-bollocks,
Creating
Still thinking about what to put in my cv, portfolio etc. and never being able to settle on what’s really important. More precisely, why would someone want to work with me? So I’m heading towards values—I’m guessi...
Techno-bollocks,
Tarragon etc.
Given that I have no prior knowledge of gardening beyond the long list of pot plants which I have killed over the years, I thought I’d pay attention and try and observer what is happening out there…
Techno-bollocks,
Bouncing (again)
Just when you thought you were safe from bouncing CU-1s, these three little films come along:-)
Techno-bollocks,
Ben Shahn, American, 1898-1969
Nine minutes ago, I’d never heard of Ben Shahn. Now I have. Thanks Robbie.
Techno-bollocks,
DJ Sick Puppy
Having the stereo in my flat hooked up with AirTunes is beginning to change the way I think of albums. I’ve always struggled with playlists—the amount of time you need to spend on them to get something that isn’t ...
Techno-bollocks,
Alexander (bis)
Alexander, Michael, George, GoodbodyBorn on 27th July 2004Weighing at birth a mighty 6llb precisely.
Techno-bollocks,
Al Jazeera
I drop into AJ’s english-language website once or twice a week. Interesting piece on Arun Gandhi’s visit to Palestine and his take on non-violent resistance (Throwing a brick at a Merkava tank is just a waste of t...
Techno-bollocks,
Large fuzzy testicles
Could a Japanese speaker please let me know what this is all about?
Techno-bollocks,
CSS for Flash sites
You may remember, a wee while ago I did the CSS implementation of the online media shop for the twocultureclash.com website (click on “download 2cc ringtones” to see the shop). At the time, I commented on the stra...
Techno-bollocks,
Welcome Alexander
A post about Melina’s baby Alexander, except that the only visual record is the snap she took of CU-1 and me in the playground at Turnham Green. Mister clever digital camera-phone-man was too busy chasing his litt...
Techno-bollocks,
Lord of the marionette
Been listening to a lot of Tiga recently. Following a link got me to these sensational puppet shows over iChat:-)
Techno-bollocks,
The Ludlow Massacre
Well, not knowing who that bluegrassy artist was made me want to look him up. Turns out it wasn’t a ukelele, and it was none other than the great Woodie Guthrie himself in 1944:
Techno-bollocks,
Airport Express with AirTunes
So last night I was in my bath listening to a scratchy 78 of a bluegrass artist whose name I never quite managed to catch.
Techno-bollocks,
Not for CU-1
Always on the look-out for French-language resources on the net. This one is most definitely not for CU-1, at least not while she’s still living under my roof;-)
Techno-bollocks,
More CU-1 sickness
Having a 13.4 kilo little girl sound asleep on your left shoulder from 17:30 to 18:30 while trying to not wake her up and pick up her medicine from the pharmacy at the same time does wonders for your muscle tissue;-)
Family,
CU-1
CU-1 has been sick all week. This has been a little tricky to handle, as Nicki has been sick all week as well (really bad ear infection) and when sick, CU-1 definitely wants her mommy. A lot.
Family,
Stuff for Jed
Stanley Kubrik's Napoleon (pdf file)The first Creative Commons video that explains the point of a 'commons' and why protecting everything forever might not be a good ideaAn update from the Creative commons team on...
Family,
Edward Tufte on Columbia Evidence
An old chestnut found while digging around my bookmark file–Edward Tufte’s analysis of the Columbia Shuttle report. He looks in detail at the meaning conveyed (or hidden) by the Boeing engineer’s powerpoint presen...
Replicate or distribute? (part 3)
Never before in the history of trivial snapshot production has there been a more potent way of assaulting the world with your pictures. There is nothing technically amazing about the service itself–what is amazin...
Techno-bollocks,
Replicate or distribute? (part 2)
Bonusprint, the UK’s leading mail order photo processor, will be launching in November with a Cognima Snap powered service. The system I’m currently trialling will be available to members of the public–just head o...
Techno-bollocks,
Intel Centrino (part 1)
A search on Jiwire for Teatro Greco, Taormina, Italy reveals that there are five WIFI hotspots in town, and that the closest one to the amphitheatre is at the Grand Hotel Timeo & Villa Flora which is actually ...
Techno-bollocks,
Replicate or distribute?
I’m just about to join a trial with a company called Cognima. The have a technology called Cogima Replicate™ which, in essence, creates images of all your stuff on all your devices. It copies images on one phone ...
Techno-bollocks,
Bouncy girl
What does a little girl who has just had a three-and-a-half-hour antihistamine-induced nap do when she wakes up? (alt-click to download vidjo)
Family,
St John’s Ambulance
So it’s sortedLifesaver Baby and ChildrenSaturday 4 September09:00 to 13:00(in Romford)
Family,
Bee
Well, it had to happen sooner or later, little girl vs bee (or wasp, I’ll never know). Have you noticed how this August, London has been overrun by wasps? A friend of mine has an alleyway down the side of his hous...
Family,
PC
I would just like to put my 2¢ into the indeterminate gender thing. I think alternating between ‘he’ and ‘she’ more or less at random through a text (I’ve been reading about babies and this is done A LOT in these ...
Life
Can be as confusing as it can be extraordinarily painful. I am having an uncommonly shitty morning and it really hurts–arse. Arse, arse, feck.
Family,
Date formats
Sorry about the dates jumping around guys, just messin’ with the MT date formats. If you can muster any strong feelings about it, comments with prefs or recommendations on date formats for a diary-style blog (whic...
I don't have a lot of time
THE STORY – It seemed like a good time to start something new. The news from the meds is pretty crap but hey ho, movement increasingly difficult, some pains are frequent and I know that some of them will last as...
Linkage,
White-labelling with CSS
Met a nice man called Mark Panay at a company in Bristol last week and he kindly asked me to do some CSS for a white-label system he’s developed.
Horse
Just had a lovely morning in the rain with CU-1. We were gonna do the painting thing, but then I remembered the stables at the London Equestrian Center (CU-1 liked Albert best I think–lots of fuzzy mane in the fac...
Family,
Sleepy babies
As long as I’m messing about with the video capture on the ixus, one of the nicest things (well, one of many many nice things, but one that stands out in a particular way) about having a young child is the way the...
Family,
Bad Dad
I mention CU-1’s adventures on swings in an earlier post. If you read this blog on your mobile phone (or indeed just download stuff via the web and then copy it over), you’ll be able to see very bad Dad In Action ...
Family,
Ouch, ouch, ouch
First things first–If you’re one of the many people who come here from A List Apart please read this.
And another ouch
I’ve just noticed the access logs filling up with calls to “permalinker”–this is a pretty major oops as I’ve always believed URIs should be permanent.
And now we return to our scheduled broadcast…
I had so many bits, bobs and backups tied into my blogging engine that it was taking me forever to migrate safely to Movable Type. A negative side-effect of running what was a truly nasty hack in the first place w...
Having my mouth unstitched
The stuff that I think several people out there get a kick out of reading on Donkey tends to form in my brain like scum on pot of soaking chickpeas. When I first started posting, the system was so fast that it cov...
The Joy of Links (go on, click click click)
One Two (…and isn’t weird that there’s a “w” in “two”?) Three
Tough Times in Devon!
May is when all the councils reorganize. Mayors get elected, committees too, and in the reorganization of East Devon’s planning arm–The Development Control Committee–disaster struck!
More translation
Have just struggled through another hummaniteinenglish.com translation. A very interesting piece about the effect on left-wing parties of forgetting one’s left wing. I worry a bit, the French is pretty pompous and...
Photo-pedantry
So the England team’s practice sessions are being spied upon by “Zoom lenses hidden in golf carts” and celebrities sunning sans clothes are violated by zoom lenses that “literally reach in and pull the image out”.
Madge
So Billy and I went to this Alexander McQueen bash last Thursday night and drank way too much champagne and then Billy raised his paddle and bought Madonna’s tights…
More fun with advertising
So I’m still digging around the advertising industry looking to see if I have an idea or not…
What’s a ficathon?
I love these people. The following from http:// www.livejournal.com/users/charlotteu/friends
MT not free anymore
All in all, if B+M want to do the MT thing full time, they have to charge. It’s always a sting when something you’ve used for free goes paying, but in their case there really isn’t any other way.
My first foray into charity fundraising on Ebay
(See earlier post re auctioning a vanity spot on educational charity The Lecture List to raise funds for hosting) raised a whopping 6 pennies (sixpence?) from a staggering two (2) bids…
text message to bicycle to chalk on pavement -- -)
Wireless activists are using bicycles with wireless internet access to allow visitors to the Stop Bush website to post messages on the streets and pavements of New York City. The cycles have an on-board chalk-spra...
Dug is impolite but working for an underfunded educational charity
Hello List, just thought I’d spam you guys with a site I’ve just launched for an educational charity that lists lectures, get-togethers and happenings nationwide.
Joe Frank
The trucking of illegal immigrants into the U.S. leads to prison at a small, liberal arts lock-up. There, we meet Jones, the huge, black king of the penitentiary and his white slave warden, Farrington. Eventually,...
Spent the day watching two young persons
In cheap black suits and unpolished DMs sit at a reception desk.
Try searching for Gwen Thomas…
…the Association of Photographers’ rights negotiator and European Pyramide representative and end up without her email address, but with the knowledge that if I want to I can see my chakras spinning :-)
On hold…
The guy (an HP employee) replied “what’s Postscript?” this is like a baker not knowing about flour, a children’s television producer not having watched “Sesame Street” or the president not knowing the constitut...
In Dug's really old stuff,
DANA-WW
What is the Dana Centre? I wondered, speculating as to whether it might be a musical venue commemorating the life and times of Ireland’s first Eurovision winner in 1970. Or a Bulgarian cultural centre? In fact i...
Tracy Island
I make tracy Island out of yellow play-do and get as far as the nice abstract blob of the island, the runway with the fold-back trees and am just starting on the Mies VDR square buildings when CU-1 attacks and eat...
Family,
Base campers
So I’ve been using Basecamp as the project extranet for the Lecture List. It’s just fantastic to see a web-based tool so well implemented, it’s a beauty, it’s fast, it just works very very well :-)
iBook Logic Board Repair Extension Programme
As I mentioned before, a nice UPS man took my iBook away to be mended under Apple’s iBook Logic Board Repair Extension Programme
Referential integrity
Actually, not exactly–it’s just that I can’t remember the actual term that describes how the virtual representation of a “folder” behaves like a real-world folder in the way it respects Newtonian physics (i.e. it ...
Ideas
Nick and I are always being amazed that the moment we have a good idea for something, bang–someone else does it :-)
For those who still believe in the power of snail mail
Just wanted to let you know that nine (9) letters and five months later, Orange has finally come clean.
Yahoo Groups
Just tried to join the Yahoo Group of a project I’m working on.
In things Dug cares about, In Dug's really old stuff,
You just can’t beat that Dell service
It’s amazing how right Apple gets it when it gets it right :-)
I’ve been brewing vitriol about my iBook…
Like more specifically how the video card seems to have died one month out of warrantee (grrr). While it is almost amusing how entirely disabled I’ve been since loosing the little thing, I thought y’all might be a...
CU-1
And while I’m posting, I just wanted to add that after almost two years of me speaking not a word of English to her, little CU-1 has finally starting saying a few words of French…
Blason?
So I was reading this blog and the woman behind it had a coat of arms on her contact page. This coat of arms was created by some crazy enthusiast who is carrying on the lions rampant, balls bezant argent and c. He...
Re -- you did know about this, didn’t you?
The ever helpful Mr Chris Carline wrote to me yesterday to remind me of the good old fashionned way of getting one’s site listed on a search engine. When was the last time you heard the phrase “search engine regis...
What’s the deal with Google?
As I mentioned earlier, James has joined the ranks of the online ranters;-)
Copying files off your iPod
Just thought I’d mention that the music files on your iPod are not hidden or copy protected. To download them, you can use the terminal to navigate to the right folder, and then issue a “ditto -rsrc” to copy them ...
Late, as ever
Found this on Billy’s iPod (I can’t believe I hadn’t heard this before–have spent the last hour laughing out loud)
VNC on Symbian phones
Steve Allam is a maniac who has ported the VNC client to the Symbian os (P800 screenshot) which is both completely pointless and very very cool :-)
Sola, perdutta abbandonata
Other sopranos only sing ‘Vessi d’arte’ in Tosca. Only Callas talks to God.
Sex and death
Nick and I took CU-1 to see the Turner Prize show at the Tate yesterday. Much fun was had all around, in particular by winding up guards by pulling on exhibit ropes and by attempting to eat the Chapmans’ worms (wh...
Tea and shill bidding
Am sitting here of a Thursday afternoon listening to the conversation at the Scarlet tea party happening in the adjoining desk-space. I don’t know when people stopped talking about sex, real-estate or even the wea...
Invaluable
Cool, well written and very useful. If you’re as in the dark as I am with RegEx patterns, this will help:
More fun with timesaving
Don’t know if this was always the case and I just missed it, but the new version of photoshop has a nice refinement to the “Hue/Saturation” dialogue. When you click on “colorize”, the hue you start with is based o...
Orange
My struggle with France-Telecom continues apace. A couple of people expressed an interest in seeing the whole correspondence. I’ll post links to the files here once the dust has settled and we have some sort of re...
Interaction design?
A related post (poor blog form but heh…) which struck me as I have the same problem explaining what exactly I do for a living.
Photoshop
I’ve loved Photoshop since I first played with version 2.5–it did stuff you could only do at expensive post-production facilities on an old all-in-one Performa. Version three came along and wow, layers. Before you...
There is something magic
About finally finding a bug and sending it off to the place from whence non puede salir.
Can you say ‘disconnect’?
Jayne Iceton Executive Assistant Orange Communications PLC Birchwood Drive Braken Hill Business Park Peterlee Co. Durham SR8 2RS
A tiny, empty bubble
So about a month ago we had a miscarriage. We were going to have a second child and then we weren’t. Say it like that and it’s quite simple really.
64.94.110.11
Verisign, believe it or not, has actually managed to find a further way to mess up the internet. This is verging on comedy–what do these guys do all day? Anyway, here’s a petition site: http://www.petitiononline.c...
Superdad
Sitting in the Office working on a new site design and it just occurred to me that I’m doing three people’s jobs in a four day week and being an available and supportive superdad in the hours in between.
Clamping
So I have this recurring fantasy where I design a simple 12 volt grinding tool using a starter motor with a ferrous metal cutting wheel bolted to the axle. In my dream I have long, coiled, power lead from the moto...
Nude fat guy
Mark from Bristol has pointed out to me that there’s a link on the scrapbook that can be read in such a way as to give access to nudie pics of a fat hairy guy in the bath (me). I hope he hasn’t also written down m...
about the Lebowski Generator etc.
This, from Hanan Levin a week ago and not sure what to do about it…
CU-1
Funny taking her back to the hospital where she was born, kind of a return to the womb (that word should so totally have two ‘o’s)… She was there with Nick from 15:00 to 23:30 yesterday. When I got there Nick was ...
CU-1’s first X-ray
CU-1’s been running around the Royal Free’s pediatric A&E for most of the afternoon. I’m stuck at work, so Nick’s had to deal on her own. As of 20:00 CU-1 had had her first X-ray and was waiting for results.
Tim on CRM
Interesting thought by Tim over at stealthisbrand. He ponders what would happen if corporates were subject to the same restrictions as governments in dealing with their customers (CRM–discrimination by another nam...
Siena
Just had to say that I changed CU-1’s nappy this afternoon on a bleacher in the Piazza del Campo in Siena with pre-Palio mud on my shoes. The Palio is this crazy horse race they have here, and the central square w...
Dirt
Most excellent shortcut to the pool through the guarded truffle-picking field. Unexpected 4WD fun actually, a very steep hill with tight s-bends on loose shingle and clumpy (is that a word) earth. I haven’t had to...
Tuscany
Finally got here this morning. The girls fly in to Pisa tomorrow–am off to pick them up so might have a look at the tower first :-)
France Inter touche à mon pôte
So I was happily listening to a worthy program on Inter on the way through France the day before yesterday and was surprised to hear the following comment:
On Seacat
On the eight o’clock boat to Calais. Left home at quarter to five and got to Calais fourty-five minutes early grrrr (could have slept more…). Our little clan is heading to Italy for the next two weeks–Nicki is fly...
Oldies but goldies (badly translated, I forgot to mention)
Name the artist–ok, just this once as I’m gonna here all night ;-)
Ve fuck you up?
Just got an email which looks like a lot like spam asking me to publish a link to www.growabrain.net which claims to be a blog but looks a lot like like a ‘viral’ from a California estate agent? Anyway, funny link...
Is it a well known fact
The man in the off-license on Haverstock Hill has just pointed out to me that no matter which way I stand in front of the security camera, I still look fat.
Have been trying to set up a seller’s account on Ebay…
…and have discovered a few things (and no, I don’t have OCD):
V.O.
I was reading this post about the Qur’an and it got me thinking, how cool it is that Muslims get their text in version originale (or is that wrong?). I’ve never been a big Bible reader, but if I were, I probably w...
Is BT shit as well?
Just thought I’d post BT’s customer care number here for use by any and all switchboard-jamming anarchists and angered housewives whose membership of ‘Friends and family’, ‘BT Value plus’ or ‘Triple-Talk’ have dri...
Shit
OK, so everyone is going to link to this, but I liked it–so here goes: http://www.internetisshit.org (posted at Costa’s via the T68)
Fambly alert
So I’ve been feeling a bit un-blogged this past couple of weeks. I’m constantly thinking of stuff that i want to say, but when I get to the keyboard I get all blue and decide not to post–not sure what’s going on, ...
Avertising
And while I’m on the subject of ads and advertising, I’ve been soaking in the Charlie’s Angels “Full Throttle” poster campaign. The photography is fantastic–as you’d expect from a big Hollywood number–but the art ...
Optimism is alive and well in .tw
Got this piece of spam yesterday and I’ve been staring at this image ever since then. The expression on the models faces just grabs me. Not sure what’s going on–is it a dating service or a mobile ISP? I just know ...
Mail stuff
I recently lost a couple of people’s email messages–they were eaten by my spam rules. Please don’t put “dug” in your message subject (though that is my name) as messages with my name in the subject get deleted aut...
Tim is live
Tim Kitchin is now online over at Blogspot. He can be completely hermetic–obscure beyond the black-holian point of bending light–and very funny. I shall be visiting often:-)
Car advertising
I was reading about a new campaign by a small ‘hot-shop’ that claims to ‘own’ the feeling of excitement. These guys reckon that their client’s cars are just so ‘exciting’ (and conversely, our lives so dull) that t...
Écoutez et répétez (part deux)
Several of you requested a translation of Plastic Bertrand’s “Ça plane pour moi” (is that cedilla right?) after I posted the lyrics a few months back. Being a helpful sort of chap I said ‘sure’ but as is so often ...
…and you thought I was fociferous
more warm feelings about netsol at http://www.publicfiles.com/–I particulary like the sound loop;-)
Easycar is a rip-off
Just thought I’d share with the world that I am about to be fucked up the arse by Stelios Haji-Ioannou.
Noise
Have just spent the morning hanging a twenty-thousand-dollar sound meter off the edge of a top floor balcony at the Docklands Hilton. Not exactly “fun” but definitely interesting–I was helping my mate Ben who is i...
Perfect day
Moments I’ll remember forever–16:00 sitting on a bench in the courtyard of the Royal Academy having just taken CU-1 to see the Summer Show, her on my left knee seriously focusing on the bottle of milk I’m holding ...
Comment
Got this lovely note yesterday (I know, I know. I need to enable comments–I’ve just been too busy. I should have Donkey on Moveable Type soon)
D-Day
You know, I’ve been so busy today that I totally forgot that it’s the 6th of June. I spent a lot of time on the Normandy beaches as a child with my family (I grew up in France) collecting shrapnel, bits of cartrid...
Re: contact from donkey web log
Got this interesting comment in the post today re the Sony shock and awe story from outlaw.com
Office
Have just moved Pumpernickle into desk space at an architecture practice called muf. Their web site has this to say about them:
So CU-1 is a year old
On Saturday (31 May) little CU-1 was one year old. I can’t believe how quickly this year has spun by, seems just yesterday Nick and I were holed up in a room at the Royal Free, me trying to give her good news as I...
The Accident Group
The accident group went belly-up today after sacking its employees by text message(?) I mention this not because it’s good news–I feel for those thousands of unemployed–it’s just that I find it encouraging that an...
Greetings to the person from Singapore…
…who got here searching for “koran osx”. As Barry Norman claims he never said, and why not?
Conceptual ARRRRRt
If you wanted to find out what you call a naked pirate in a room with a wolf you’d have to read this page at ftrain.com
Norvege, nul points
Except this time round it was UK nul points. Has to be the first time–not a single point…
You gotta be kidding (Sony shocks and awes)
Sony withdraws “shock and awe” trade mark filing Sony has withdrawn a trade mark application for the phrase “shock and awe” which was used by US forces to describe the initial bombing campaign in Iraq. Media cri...
Apple die die die
The Apple store has just confirmed that they are not offering an upgrade path for owners of OS X Server.
African porkies
So I just this second deleted the latest edition of the Nigerian scam letter and was about to go back to work when I was struck by the depth of the narrative. This particular one goes on in depth to describe the p...
Evil
To misuse a phrase from Blue Velvet, …why are there people like Frank in the world? Read the papers this morning and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The sheer Orwelian-ness (is that a word?) of the Iraq situ...
Mail from Andy
Hiya, I’m after a quick fav. My mate has just starting up a new website that needs a bit of advertising. Could you please forward on this address to as many people as you know, and ask them to look at it and pass ...
Cyber Hemingway
Do you ever get the feeling that the bloggosphere is turning into Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast? The more I read blogs, the more I get the impression everyone is talking about the same ten people. We’ve all started...
Re -- Election
My father, Jed is living testimony that if you don’t have a go, you’ll never know how well you could do. The man is unstoppable:-) He sent me this two minutes ago. Go Jed!
And again…
I seem to remember being aware of Mena’s liking of Yéyé-girl music from reading dollarshort.org but had stored that information someplace hard to get to. So I decided to have a go at installing Moveable Type on my...
Micropayments?
There’s an interesting article over at rentzsch.com (thanks daringfireball) outlining his theory of how Apple has defeated the credit card handling charge on their music store. In essence, how can they afford to s...
Movable Type 2.63
Oh! Ma Melody Ma Melody Nelson Aimable petite conne Tu étais la condition Sine qua non De ma raison
Spamio
More fantastic spam, this time, from Italy, home of the longer-lasting Channel No5. Is it just me or are these people cheeky in the extreme
Donkey sanctuary?[links]
OK, Chris reckons a blog that passes the hat is cheap, dirty, rude and pointless, but Caroline likes the idea of helping the little guy publish against all odds.
DVD
So does anyone else find it absurd that the framers of the DVD standards decided it would be ‘versatile’ to have every crummy little post-production house design human-computer interfaces? I mean, I was amazed whe...
Jed for Budleigh
My Pa is running for office(?!) for the town council of Budleigh Salterton and the East Devon District Council (the seat of power in the region). All a bit last minute and sudden (the election is in May) but if yo...
Julia Margaret Cameron
Took CU-1 to the National Portrait Gallery yesterday to see the Julia Margaret Cameron show. She wasn’t impressed, but liked the more colourful portraits elsewhere in the museum…
Nope, I didn’t know that
I didn’t know that as well as the aliases the Prince, the Emir, Abu Abdallah and Hajj, Bin Laden sometimes goes by the alias the Director. Cute, I thought…
./configure make
Have just compiled Lynx from source on my server. Brrr, scary (but strangely satisfying as the power of the command line finally reaches me…)
Floggando un caballo muerte
While I’m at it, just noticed that Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. have changed the copyright notice on the Raging Cow blog. When they started, their identity was obscured behind a cryptic little © symbol at the bottom l...
Raging Cow
I just wish large companies spent a little less time pissing their marketing crap on the internet and a bit more time paying attention to its culture. Companies like KPMG think they can move in to our spare room a...
Under construction…
Or, This icon says more about me than it does about my web page. Quite an amusing selection of under construction signs. I particularly like the one that goes:
And so to war…
The world didn’t change on 9/11, but it sure as hell did at midnight. This is truly depressing. If the voice of millions (and 139 MPs) can go completely ignored, this means that for the first time in history, the ...
woohoo (Raging Cow)
Wey hey, Donkey is now number two in Google for a search on Raging Cow thank you semantic relevance.
The mouth of the beast
And while I’m on the subject of Raging Cow, the agency that ran the teen bloggers’ indoctrination has an application form. I was wondering if I should put the Donkey in? I could sell Reagan to black America?
Absent-mindedly throwing a spanner in the works
Raging Cow is great, and while I’m at it, here’s another link to KPMG
About to embark on a new design
and have been doing some reading on GUI usability. Came across this site about the Humane Environment Project. An interesting read from Jef Raskin, the guy who brought us the Macintosh (among many other things).
What’s the worst that could happen
Dr Pepper is good. Raging Cow is tasty stuff, my friends and I drink it all the time. We give Raging Cow Milk Drink to our babies because they like it so much too. In fact, Raging Cow is the new breast milk.
W3C remix competition
Right, all the entries are in and I have to say I am very surprised how crap most of them are. Having not entered myself, I should really keep my trap shut, but we’re talking a (admittedly hypothetical) redesign o...
Flash battering
OK, so I haven’t commented on Flash in a while. I have just had to struggle with a site that was determined to conceal the information I wanted to find, and as I struggled past the beautiful, smooth animated typog...
Off to Norfolk to look at barn
Considering a partial downshift in the property ladder game. We’ve seen this gorgeous converted barn on three acres smac on the Norfolk Broads. I can build a solar-powered studio and have a boat (nice dream, anywa...
George
Wow, George Clooney picked William Shatner’s Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds in his Desert Island Disks. George, you’re so groovy:-)
Hyde Park to Ann Arbor
Great series of pictures from the peace marches all around the world. Nick and I were standing about 1cm North East of the bright yellow truck to the left of the picture (it was impossible to get into the moshpit ...
121
It’s moments like this where my heart swells and I’m proud to live in a democracy (the feeling fades fairly quickly, but hey…)
Re -- contact from donkey web log
Got the following in the post this morning. I’m always amazed to find out that my Mom isn’t my only reader;-)
An American replies
My friend Ben has been reading my various rants on the war and has sent me a long note pointing out how I am not presenting the argument in a well balanced way. He is probably the best person I know (best, as in t...
Roman
Quick question sparked by the The Pianist winning best film—does Roman only do acceptance speeches in countries that do not have an extradition agreement with the USA?
Awards like it oughta be…
Watching the BAFTA awards in the background while catching up on some work for Monday am, it always amazes me what good A-List attendance the show gets. The Audience was packed with Hollywood’s finest and it occur...
Getting the war off my chest
I had meant to post a proper comment re the demonstration as I only had time for the flippant post below on the day. There are hundreds of reasons to worry right now, but the one thing that keeps coming back to me...
Fambly
Well, we’re still all coldy (CU-1 coughing in the middle of the night via monitor is just sooo pitiful sounding) and Nick and I are still at each other’s throats, but we had lovely day yesterday. We took a long wa...
From the first day
I was introduced to the silent operation, brilliant colours, high resolution, piezoelectric ink delivery printing system of Epson’s printers things started to go wrong. Since then things have gotten gradually wors...
It’s tough being a developer
Just got a note in the post asking me to register for the 2003 ADC in San José, California. For the first few seconds I actually considered using up some air-miles and spending two days in the sun to catch a glimp...
iBook
I forget if I mentioned this already, but those of you using an iBook by accident (as in you really need to be on a Powerbook but tricks of fate etc etc) might want to modify the Open firmware to kill mirroring. I...
Catch Me if You Can
Just got home from seeing the Leonardo vehicle (thank you Grandma Symington for looking after CU-1). It’s quite liberating having a ‘date’ with Nicki, I guess that’ll be the second film we’ve seen since the arriva...
04 -- 23 Zulu
So I guess if I’m designing a brochure at this time of night I need to take a look at my time management;-)
Snow
It snowed last week and Britain ground to a halt. The weather forecast was timely and explicit (large animated snowflakes covering the whole map of the country, what more do you want) but it seems everyone still t...
Sky
Spent Sat eve and Sunday on the Suffolk coast. Beatiful big sky on the way up. The flat landscape, half reclaimed fenland and half North Sea make for some serious oil painting vistas. Had fish and chips for breakf...
As I sit here plugged into the iBook
I am grateful for Virgin Atlantic’s in-flight entertainment, and in particular, their natty disposable headphones;-)
Kaleidoscopsky
Ok, so I guess Greg Landweber and Arlo Rose got tired of learning new tricks. To be fair, Kaleidoscope was (and is) one of coolest Mac OS hacks. It allowed people to completely change the look-and-feel of their ma...
Welcome Zora -- -)
…But enough about that. the real news is that we have a new arrival in this world. Zora Wilde Bissell was born on Saturday, 9 pounds, 1.2 oz, 20.75 inches. Caroline’s water broke at one pm, I tore home from the ...
A List Apart article
I just wanted to post a public note re the ALA article. I’ve had lots of feedback and many requests for site debugging. I just wanted to apologize to all those who wrote with CSS questions: I debugged the first fe...
Gaspards?
So are there any gaspards out there who might search for Has ultrà metas requiescunt beatam spem expectantes and find themselves here? If so, I’m trying to find the origin of the term “gaspard” as used to describe...
Dont look back
Jed, (my Pa) designed this Bob Dylan poster in 1967, which is nice;-) Billy had this to say about the missing apostrophe…
A muggle with style…
Ok, so this is a bit self-referential, it’s just that I had never heard myself described in quite these words
Tooth
We noticed a tooth today :-) CU-1’s first tooth! It’s just a little slit in her bottom gum, but this means less screaming for teething…
R1150GS
Picked up the new GS last night. It’s heartstoppingly beautiful, somewhere between Mad Max and Julianne Moore (ok, so that makes no sense, it looks great ok?). Pointless fact of the day for the bikers out there—it...
Copyright
Thank you to the ever in-touch Zeldman for pointing to the Creative Commons project. This is a great idea which hopes to build the public domain while making as many patent and copyright lawyers unemployed. In a n...
From mail servers to civil liberties
From a list I’m on—the post started with commentary on scripting the EIMS mail server and finished with this. Quite encouraging I thought…
More joy of internet
I’m curious at what point exactly when reading an otherwise perfectly sensible text (brief Tesla biog) one notices something a little unusual…
A bot or not
Just ordered a gorgeous specimen book from Fountain and got a lovely message back in the post, whereupon I replied for no reason convinced that a truly great e commerce brain was at work whereupon I realised it wa...
US hegemony?
Logged on to amazon.fr to buy CU-1 some French DVDs. Go to “children’s DVDs” and review listing: 95% of the items on offer are American. What ever happened to the French protecting their language?
Tired;-)
Mmmmm… alarm set for 05:00—at desk 05:31 after pouring cold water into coffee instead of kettle grrrr…
Reflexology
Oh, and last week I stepped on a plug which was laying prongs-up. For you Americans out there, a British plug has a brass slab about the girth of a pencil as an earth lead. So as I say, I stepped on one of these t...
Copyright vs community
Went to see Richard Stallman do his talk “Copyright vs community” at the LSE last night. Andrew’s co-worker Anthony spotted the gig and sorted tickets (thank you Anthony).
Re the Gulf Porsche 917 and shooting at Le Mans in 1969
This from Jed, my Dad, who directed television commercials all his life, and who had the opportunity of being part of American advertising’s class of 1959, the folk who brought you Avis trying harder and Volkswage...
Halelujah!
Chris’ iBook has arrived:-) I now look forward to lengthy exposés about a Unix hacker’s life on a Macintosh. Oh, and for those that know Chris, don’t y’all think we should put him forward for a “switch” advert. I ...
Jeep saga
So last night, two guys show up with our new Jeep. All a bit unceremonious. I was particularly unimpressed with the fire extinguisher dumped in the boot—a token gesture that doesn’t quite match up with the “fire e...
Feedback
Well, to paraphrase the old Honda ad, you meet the nicest people at Zeldman—ever since J published my article on CSS grid layouts my mailbox has been full of friendly notes congratulating or even thanking me:-) It...
Chrimble’s iBook
Is due to arrive today. Which is good, always nice to have high-tech Unix geeks enjoying the benefits of superior hardware;-)
Blue and orange Gulf-strip 917
Yes, I was a teenager in the 70s, and yes, I was a motor racing fan growing up in France, so the Le Mans 24H race was a fairly big deal. Anyway, this might explain my feeling of joy as I came across this fan site ...
ambient sound branding
Ok, you know that sound that goes with the pentium 4 or intel or whatever, you know the one. Well, I thought aural branding was supposed to work by creating a familiar feeling, a bit like smell (ahh, I know this p...
Dug finds religion
And decides to join Brigham Young University, though I haven’t seen Austrian soil since new year’s eve 1970 (I still remember walking through people’s legs in this major apres-ski party).
Damn it, I know I entered an &mdash;
Bloggers out there who struggle with <textarea>-based editing tools might want to check this out. It’s a little script that converts your standard ascii into marked-up entities:-)
Head over heels in a large plastic ball
Last night, Piers (Piers and Cally had come over for dinner) suggested I try this. As I seem to remember thinking it was a good idea at the time, I can only assume the wine at dinner was good…
Donkey in the press
Those readers with web-designey bent might wish to have a look at a list apart this week as <shamelessplug>your’s truly has written an article about grid systems</shamelessplug> which is either the mos...
Perl
Have just read that ram speeds are increasing more slowly than processor, bus and disk speeds. The implication is that apps built to use ram (like Perl) will begin to loose favour.
Atom40 make stone tables (really)
Wow, a press ad and a web site and it took a good 30 minutes to figure out what it was about.
Digerati
Absent-mindedly pick up the Nov02 issue of wallpaper that Nicki left on my desk and start to flick…a piece about Stavanger, the town in Norway my gran came from, oh look, an interesting looking ad…it says to go to...
It’s a modern miracle
Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a ‘server’ and a ‘workstation’? You know, you need to buy a machine and are flicking through those little Dabsdirect catalogues that seem to multiply on you do...
Poppies (Monday isn’t Sunday)
I had a discussion with my Dad when I was down in Devon a couple of weeks ago. He was questioning why I don’t wear a poppy at this time of year.
Almond magnums
dear all, it has been mighty quiet of late on Donkey. If I carry on like this I’ll end up on deadsites.com, a combination of total IT meltdown (no workstation, no powerbook), freakout over building works (my dodgy...
Cooked a couple malards
For tea yesterday. Roasted them whole on a bed of garlic, chilli, parsley and plums. Added liberal quantities of delicious French organic butter, olive oil, salt and pepper.
Going on holiday frees your mind
To think about the really important things like why, in American Pie II is the band-camp so close to the beach house?
OSX
So I’m sitting at a table at the Welcome Break just up the M1 working on the actionscript Andy sent me last night and I go to paste it back into his file when tarnations, I realise I’ve only pulled the .swf off th...
Interfaith
Came across the website of an airport’s chapel while searching for airport advertising billboard specs and was amazed by this description. Part of me thinks PC a step too far, while the rest of me is still trying ...
Normal service
Well, got home last night and had a very therapeutic cry. I’ve been letting things stack up recently and really need a break. Faiq, my evil scumbag neighbour manages to add his two cents of pain and frustration to...
Thank you John Trubee
Not sure what reminded me of this song. (Lyrics reproduced without permission)
Scotland
Well, it had to happen, on Wednesday night I grabbed a bag and ran out of the house leaving a pile of smelly dishes and the cat behind me. I got to Dunblane (that’s a place in Scotland, which is not next to Mexico...
Lunch
Very tasty lunch at Liz and Stu’s. Liz prepared jambon persillé the proper way (boil pig’s trotter with aromatics etc.). I haven’t had home made meat jelly in a long time, bit of a treat really. She followed that ...
Adobe
They don’t keep their software up to date in a way that is useful to the user, but I won’t go there…
PS2 (the boy inside)
On the theme of selfish pleasures, I picked up a Playstation 2 a few weeks back. The replays in Gran Turismo are just too gorgeous for words. Take your Tommy Makinen Evo VII around Tokyo special stage 11 in the mi...
Selfish pleasures
Am off to see Woody Harrelson and Kyle MacLachlan in ‘On An Average Day.’ Reviews are good—will report back:-)
The good old days of terrorism (bis)
I was catching up with my newspaper reading this evening, when I came across a story which describes in coherent terms what I was talking about in the earlier post re Baader-Meinhof, Carlos et al.
Dawkinstastic
I came home from the train station with a secret plan to smoke a gorgeous cuban cigar in the bath while reading the newspaper cover to cover with no disturbance but in the end I already miss little CU-1:-(
Parky
Have never watched Parky til now. Saw Bowie and Hanks a couple of weeks ago and am currently listening to Fry and Williams. I think I can safely say that Parky is the daddy.
West Wing series I
Have just watched the twenty-two episodes of West Wing’s first series. I have to say, DVDs of favourite televisions shows rock. Now if I could only get someone to buy me the whole Star Trek collection I could fest...
E2R
Well, haven’t posted much recently, I’ve been working like a dog—sleeping three or four hours and getting straight back to the computer. No fun (Jack dull boy)…
Display problems?
I’ve been getting news of display problems. Apparently, these pages are not completely rendering in IE5 mac and IE5Win98. I’m having a hard time isolating the problem, so have to revert to a cheesier stylesheet th...
Things that work as they should
Just ordered Adrian Frutiger’s l’Homme et ses signes in a rather delicious edition by Atelier Perrousseaux. I believe he wrote the original in German, but this edition from 2000 updates and refines the French edit...
Sympathy
Just wanted to extend some sympathy to Tom, who has been burglared. It happened to me in New York and I know exactly what you mean about the camera, Tom.
Can’t find a mob in your area? Why not start one?
Saw a piece on NTK about a site which had been shut down at the request of a Jim Pearce from the met’s Obscene Publications Unit (though the fax header seems to say “clubs and vice” whatever that means…). All that...
…everybody knows…we like donkeys…lalala…
Not entirely sure what this has to do with donkeys really. But check it out anyway (with your sound turned on).
I’m always the last to spot these things
Where do you want to go today? Try typing “go to hell” into Google.
Frederic Goudy
Have just downloaded the Iraq dossier. While the body of the text is rather crudely set in workmanlike Times Roman, the title page has been worked up by some anonymous designer at the HMSO.
Search semantics
Ok, I’d like someone to explain what the robot or crawler or whatever it is that keeps searching for “quaint or donkey or prosodic or compels or counterbalance” is doing? Is it a component of some large web-catalo...
IBID
Have just re-discovered a photo library I used when I worked in New York. They’re called IBID. They were the first to organise photoshoots with the specific aim of producing one-half of an ad (the other being the ...
Fire
People have been asking about Nicki’s car. The news so far is that Clive Sutton, the UK dealership has replaced it with apologies and we are waiting for the official response from Daimler-Chrysler. If I had polls ...
The good old days of terrorism
I was thinking about Orwell’s Ministry of Information again today and started trying to find some bad guys to focus on. I’m showing my age a bit here, but it seems to me that Carlos, Andreas and Ulricke and even y...
Congrats
Congratulations to Scary Duck for taking away the Guardian BBB. I’m embarrassed to admit I’d not read the duck before, but in any case, there’s five-hundred pounds headed for the pub:-)
Tweed, gunpowder and blood
Piece in the Guardian today with editorial commentary re the countryside alliance march.
Weapons of moderate destruction
Salam’alicum, today is officially Iraq dossier day. The dossier is a document in which the Ministry of Truth Tony Blair attempts to explain to the nation why we should invade Iraq, topple the government and superv...
Why do I evangelise Apple?
Man I am getting sick of supporting Apple. I mean it’s one long lonely road, you know? I used to believe my box was better than the other guy’s windoze machine, but now I’m getting really bored of paying for the s...
Being a Muslim is getting difficult
Came accross this site (in French) as a result of searching my referer logs. Some assumption-challenging stuff here, from the perspective of a Muslim living in a Western country—things like problems with what they...
Threat to world peace
Good Guardian today. Nelson Mandella reckons America is a ‘threat to world peace’ and something we already suspected about the Tories (they make you want to kill yourself, apparently)
Automan
Chrimble has just pointed out that the London Fire Brigade looks just like Automan when photographed at three am
Warm leatherette (Spontaneous Vehicular Combustion)
Ok, in a week where it looked like nothing unusual was going to happen, something finally did.
Busy busy busy
Well, letting the side down again I’m afraid—things are getting a bit frantic at work (which is good). Just crankin away at my “to do” list… Ok, I’d better provide a link: just had a slightly surreal conversation ...
Get your war on
I can’t believe this was posted almost a year ago and I never came across it. There’s fourteen pages of it too:-)
Where are the lawyers
My uncle Jim stayed in Paris for a year and came out with a new mantra, “where are the lawyers?”—he would spend hours watching crazy French game shows where contestants performed acts that fear-of-lawsuit would ba...
Woo-hoo, I’m gonna be on TV
Have just been interviewed by Aline Pestana, a very nice lady from the International Herald Tribune TV station (from Rio, actually) - she’s interviewed Tom Coates and now me! (we are not worthy, grovel grovel) - a...
The Guardian
well, if you are in the UK and you read blogs, you’ll have heard about the Guardian’s “best British weblog” competition. Well, the competition closed last Friday, so the judges are hard at it right now.
More milestones
Took CU-1 to her first swimming lesson yesterday. Nick walked up and down the pool with her in various positions and she seems to like it. Keep this up and we’ll have a wee swimmer in no time :-)
History (Pay attention, George)
Well, it’s just gone midnight here in London and I thought I’d scribble few thoughts about 9/11 before going to bed.
Just because you’re disabled
doesn’t mean you can’t be an evil swine. Billy discovers this (with full history and gory details re Blunkett)
Fambly stuff
Dear family members, CU-1 is now officially too big for her carry-cot. Her proper cot was moved into our bedroom yesterday, and her carry-cot has been folded up and put away (for the next baby?)…
Oils, hard, wood, boards, breasts
well, I’m not sure what CU-1 made of the Rubens… I still can’t get over how bright and clean it is. In some sense this makes it seem more of a fake, but the Delila figure is so obviously his, I’m going to side wit...
Sunny day
We’re off to the National Gallery to show CU-1 the disputed Samson and Delila. Recently, a work was attributed to Rubens and sold for a huge pile of cash. Ever since then, the experts have been haggling about the ...
Security by obscurity
And on the topic of airport, this is unbelievable, a piece of software with security by obscurity actually built in
Cigar ash in my keyboard
Scaffolding is gone (woohoo). What a week… am at this mo typing via 802.11 on a blanket amongst the weeds in the garden :-) I’m chewing on a very moist montechristo number two (the torpedo roll) and have just crac...
Doonesbury
You know, when I got my first job in advertising, Mike was being asked to sell Reagan to Black America. When Mike starts a small new media business, I was starting a small new media business, and darn, now that I’...
The stuff
I thought should stick around for a couple of minutes before disappearing down the cronological listings:
Blood from a stone
This from the MGI-Talk list (Thanks, Joe) this guy is invoicing Verisign for his wasted time:
Sashinka’s dietcoke bigmac AOL speak?
I am so incredibly busy today so why do I keep posting this nonsense? And dude, you have to read this. It’ s like, totally.
Leslie Harpold
Woo hoo, I’ve just donated twenty bucks to Leslie’s fund I say “woo hoo” as I’ve never used my paypal account before. It was kind of exciting (yes, I will get out more)…
Kottle memory prod
It’s funny, I was thinking: God I’m glad no one wants me to do javascript rollovers anymore. For some reason, I’ve just stopped using them—they’re a nasty, cheesy hack and I’m desperately trying to stay away from ...
Hoopla.com
Leslie has put together a legal defense fund and is going to try and reclaim her hijacked domain hoopla.com. Find out more. And yes, I am about to make a donation.
Chewy toys
well, next step on the long and rocky road to university admissions: teething. Of course CU-1 is only 13 weeks old (her birthday was yesterday) so by rights shouldn’t be teething yet. It’s just that she’s started ...
The Pepsi challenge (coffee)
Just had a latte at Costa’s on West End Lane. I can’t believe I used to drink Starbucks coffee. I’d tried it the world over and no matter how many italian-ish words I used, no matter how I attempted to explain how...
Paediatric osteopathy
Nick and I took CU-1 to The Osteopathic Centre for Children this afternoon. There’s nothing wrong with her, it’s just that as she was ventouse (French for suction-cup—sez it all) delivered, the word on the street ...
Search engine referrals
Hadn’t checked my search engine referrals in a while. It’s always interesting to see what’s on peoples’ minds. In order of popularity:
Fuck Verisign
Just got a note from verisign telling me the pumpernickle domain was about to expire. This is interesting because I’ve now started the long slow painful migration away from the servants of Beelzebub and towards th...
New car
I recently bought Nicki a new car. Or more precisely, some faceless financial institution is letting me keep a car that Nicki uses as long as I promise to give them money every month for the rest of my life;-)
Dean Allen and adventures with cable tv
Just thought I’d better tell Dean that there is an unmissable film on Canal Jaune at 22h45 (quarter to eleven) \t It’s Claude Lelouche’s unmissable Un homme qui me plaît which showcases the talents of Farah Fawcet...
Summer hols etc
I was going to say I’m now back at work and describe hols etc etc but i just found the following in my inbox from Jed, my father and I thought it kind of did the job:-)
Alan Watts (on WFMU)
I recently started listening to WFMU again thanks to the miracle of adsl. Can somebody tell me what it is about Alan Watts that make his lectures so impossible to switch off? I know nothing of Buddhism and am not ...
Scottish information architecture
Robbie Bushe is a life-long friend of Billy and one of the most amazing artists I’ve had the pleasure to know. Of course, he makes his own websites and his navigation is as rich, complex and textured as his work i...
24
Right—watched 23 last night and have just finished watching 24. I just have to say I still think it’s rubbish. …don’t let them connect you to Germany oh so Nina is working for some shadowy organisation in Germany?...
24
Billy has chimed in to the 24 debate;-) The offshoot of this email correspondence is that I’m kicking myself for not having sat through the penultimate episode. I guess I’ll just have to pay attention when the “pr...
Re Stupid design rip-off
An open letter to Ian Robson, the guy who put his name to my work. He has apologised and wishes to make amends. Here is his note and my reply.
Man, this is one angry page
Just re-read this blog page… Yes I am going to get out more, yes I will up my hypericum levels and yes I’ll consider anger counselling from Ren and Stimpy;-)
The value of trust is $35
Well, it had to happen — Verisign has handed over one of my domains to some nasty little cybersquatter:-( I’m trying to go on holiday (since yesterday) and shit just wont stop hitting the fan…
Stupid design rip-off
This fucking idiot has grabbed large chunks of the Pumpernickle site (including the basic XHTML template) both code and design and has ‘pre’ dated the stuff and claims it as his own. It’s unbelievable, he’s so bol...
Did you know
That Google is now configurable. It allows you to store useful preferences such as language. Google now reports my results in “Ewmew Fudd”.
Re -- 24
> > (snip) > > But the preposterousness of the series is part of > the fun… Some of it I agree goes a bit too far > (that whole memory-loss thing for one) but on > the whole it knows what it ...
24
Started watching tonight’s episode and just decided on the spur of the moment that this has to be the worst written show on tv.
Bush, Dawkins and ford
I’ve just had a few shitty connectivity days. First of all BT cut off my adsl line (yes, my payment was late, but I’m on a ‘business’ tariff and you don’t just cut off business users without a) a phone call b) an ...
Human endeavour is a beautiful thing
When i was a little boy of about seven or eight (I’m guessing) my father sat me down with his sample books and started teaching me letterforms. The one I remember most clearly was Poster Bodoni Italic. I loved the...
Say goodbye to NetSol / Verisign
When a registrar gives away your name to a fraudulent applicant and then refuses to do anything about it, it’s time to change registrars. I believe I put it like this in an earlier post…
Thank you Nicki
For buying me the most stylish shaving mirror I’ve ever seen. Ok, so she did it to prevent me installing my grotty old one in our lovely new bathroom, but is it not the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen?
Écoutez et répétez
I hadn’t heard this in ages. When I was a kid we used to try and learn all the words…
Just when you think you’re sad
Someone else comes along… This person really needs to get out more;-)
Nadinne and the bathroom
Well, in just two weeks, our grotty hell-hole has become a beautiful designer bathroom — In fact, it’s so posh I keep thinking that a guy is going to hand me a towel and expect a tip every time I take a slash, it...
Beer
Yesterday I had a pint in Kilburn for ?1.20 and a pint in Kentish Town for ?1.45 — so how come I’ve been drinking in the West End?
R1150GS
Well, the bike leasing guy (Paul Preddy) has gone off to make some calculations re my lease… posting from his desktop (is that rude? one needs to use all the connectivity one can). So in a few weeks, the big yello...
PGP designer-aid
OK guys, this isn’t that complicated. There’s a Macos X port on the go complete with binaries to download, and the chaps in charge are doing their best to make it understandable and usable for plebs like myself wh...
Spooky
Good opening editorial from NTK — I’m hoping for a grass-roots reaction. Might be time to finally figure out how to use gnuPG. I wonder how much it would slow things down if we encrypted (almost) every that left o...
Stupid (19k) background image
Sorry reader, I’ve been playing and the result is that the lovely barebones template now includes a goofy background image.
Flash and dhtml select lists
Had a little chat with Eddie Traversa over at dhtmlnirvana.com this morning and we got to talking about how some nice dom manipulation can give you Flash-like effects without the plugin. Or, in other words, how ma...
Italian spelling
Thank you enigmatic mermaid for pointing me at the aria database — perhaps not the net’s most useful resource, but fun, and v. cool :-) Try this text file for the aria that’s been eating me up most recently. Which...
Clever deathmatch chaps
Had a back-up :-) So all is well in deathmatch (trying to get enough to buy the warp drive).
Beer, art and sun
Had a very nice day yesterday kicking around London in the sun with Andrew Keith Ward
bash@local host# rm -rf all kiddies
arse. deathmatch has been hacked. As much as I like the idea of a secure internet with no open relays and exploit-resistant boxes those silly hackers (you know the ones, the ones that shouldn’t be calling themselv...
Been workin nights
I have been sleeping days all week. It’s the only way to be ‘fresh’ for use of the broadband connection without workmen hammering and drilling… I’ve developed a rash and am wondering when The West Wing’s Sam and A...
And as long as we’re hammering antiquity
with poorly framed art-historical references, here’s Pat the plaster hard at work in the bathroom. He does look fairly Herculean, no (or am I thinking Atlas…)? And what a smooth surface — months of practise and I ...
Nadinne
our bathroom designer is sitting in the kitchen weaving silver thread. I half expect her to pull out a golden fleece or pose with a six-legged lion (or was that five-legged, must check my Assyrian art history ;-)...
Flash
But if you have adsl http://www.spent2000.com/2002/ works well. I liked “It’s good to be here” (I would have provided a link, but hey, the whole site is a big swf so no links).
Chrimble the magician in a wardrobe
Clearly old Chrimble has too much time on his hands. His power rating in paranormal deathmatch (and he could afford the magic wardrobe) would indicate that the man has fought 4,761 opponents, taking an average of ...
The 5k
Is it just me or did the 5k disapoint this year? This year for the first time, most of the ‘cleverer’ entries don’t work on my machine. The fact that these same entries are often highly rated worries me. Mebbe nex...
Just put Nick and CU-1 on a train
They’re off to Scotland for the week as the bathroom builders move in this week. On the way home I dropped in on the Odeon and saw Minority Report - interesting film.
Chirpy Cockney cabbies
Just spotted two muslim women with three kids outside the mosque in St John’s Wood trying to flag a cab. As I sat at the lights I saw no less than four (!) empty black cabs refuse to pick them up.
Site update
(Friday 2 August– works still in progress) I was making some moodboards in illustrator the other day and hit “outline” ? which got me this groovy background pattern of random boxes…
Had lunch with Sven yesterday
Hadn’t seen the man in years (literally). It was strangely reassuring - he hadn’t changed a bit, still the same high-energy unstoppable force of nature :-) He has moved on from being London’s top celebrity photogr...
More liberal winging
What is going around here? Can you believe the British government wants to remove the double jeopardy rule, make previous convictions admissible in court and do away with jury trial in some cases. No legal student...
Wear a yellow ribbon
Does anybody else find the thought of Israel building walls around Palestinian enclaves disturbing? Can you say Warsaw? I guess the next step on the road to a peaceful settlement will be the mandatory wearing of y...
Who hosed Nick’s imac
Ooops… Tell you what, kextunload is intense. Imagine editing the kernel via an ssh conection. It was fun til I killed the usb bus completely (no keyboard no mouse)
Decapitation can be fun
from dack.com - the cellphone theatre mini movies (originally designed for viewing via mobile).
Are you listening?
nato davos enron wto chechnya milosovic afghanistan cyberterrorism network terror waco oklahoma suicide bomber iraq iran ngo gmo homeland security ashcroft cia nsa fbi saddam hussein chemical weapon mass destructi...
Blogchalk
I’m sure Blogchalk is a just silly trick to get people to publish this sentence (must be an evil backstory somewhere…): Google! DayPop! This is my blogchalk: English, United Kingdom, London, West Hampstead, Dug, M...
Call-center integration
Very impressed with Tomy UK (the people who make those funny radio powered baby monitor things). I thought mine was broken as its flashing light morse code alarm was doing what I thought was the wrong thing. I che...
Ghost NASCAR driver
I remember preparing for Halloween when I was in 3rd grade at the American school in Milan. One of the kids had a real Bell helmet and a driving suit painted black with a white skeleton all over it. I couldn’t bel...
Shrines
Nicki and I were on holiday in the land of Ben and Laura last year, when we stopped for lunch in West Virginia. Food was fantastic basic southern stuff, served with those large brown plastic glasses full of home-...
more on plagiarism
Hi dug, Here is the site favoured by academics who are involved in the fight against plagiarism. Its quite a big project about electronic detection, and does mention plagiarism.org
A potent cocktail of music and linguistics
playful, retro, unpredictable, jazzy (occasionally, and not in a good sense, I’m afraid). But definite potential overall.
More designs are getting copied
apparently, and these people want to help students avoid it. You’d think that a site called Plagiarism.org might try and make a more unique logo. I mean it’s a logo with a swoosh(!):
More than a misunderstanding
More strange and wonderful stuff from Cal. Check out this icq conversation
The Joy of Sex
Funny article in the Guardian this morning. Barbara Ellen remembers the hairy hippies of “The Joy of Sex”. She laments the passing of said hippies as the new edition has replaced the daft drawings with (no doubt v...
Things you didn’t know about Google
Gosh, you learn something new everyday on the web. The following from a Stanford U paper
Week ending 4 July [media]
Darn, it’s been a whole week - getting sloppy. Piece in the Guardian today theorising about what will happen when punters become able to apply professional-grade special effects to video. The suggestion is that vi...
Forgotten manga
This cracks me up and this makes me want to shoot myself. Fantastic stuff from Patrick Farley at e-sheep comix and while I’m browsing memory lane, remember air guitar? this was the same year that motion-control te...
Bite-sized
great gig, if bite-sized (here’s a few seconds of “Babies” grabbed with the cannon ixus). Perhaps more small-but-perfectly-formed. Billy and I hooked up with Ian, the painter who is doing Andrew’s house. This is a...
Thanks Jed
CU-1 is three weeks old today and my Dad sent me a father’s day card (no, I didn’t send him one…) which is a really nice lino cut based on a photograph taken a couple of weeks ago.
Family post
Mom, Dad and other family folk, there’s a great shot of CU-1 having a bath over in the scrapbook :-)
Raettig vs Jobs
Never have I met anyone more capable of taking a piece of gorgeous, ground-breaking industrial design and turning it to useless rubble in seconds…
What do they fear?
What is it with everyone these days, first KPMG hassles Chris for linking to them and now NPR (no, that’s the NRA - the NPR is the well-meaning public braodcasting lot) are demanding that people complete a form to...
This week
Well, it’s Friday, and Nick and CU-1 have gone off to visit young Gulia, one of the nct babies. It’s been quite a week, Nick’s parents came down to stay with us, CU-1 discovered the fun of staying up all night and...
Browsers are getting interesting again
I’ve just downloaded the new version of netscape — it has all the down-to-basics functionality of Communicator, but with the added extra of a (largely) standards-compliant rendering engine. Also, my parents should...
More nonsense
I’ve modified the generator script so that the selection of links (over there on the right) automatically extracts my bookmark file and chops out links using a seeded number. This happens every sixty minutes. “Coo...
Mr Raettig’s mum
Just a quick grin of thanks to Mr Raettig. His cutdown version of OpenBSD has been powering mum, the pumpernickle intranet box for the last 16 months and his configuration has proved remarkably robust.
Grin
…Eager not only to point out rotundity, He does math too, and shows, with air of profundity, How much more destructive are sweet, fatty snacks Than militant Islamic terror attacks…
CU-1
has been in the house for a week now. She now sleeps in her carry-cot during the day and in bed with Nick and I at night. In between, she is learning to poo and fart at the same time while having her nappy changed...
Cal Henderson
Been visiting the iamcal network a lot ever since Billy decided to download Cal’s metalinker script. Sites like these cheer me up big time.
My first digital camera, the Canon Digital Ixus. (17-1)
This grid showing frames back to ixus/1.jpg
In early pictures with the Ixus,
My first digital camera, the Canon Digital Ixus. (41-18)
This grid showing frames back to ixus/18.jpg
In early pictures with the Ixus,
My first digital camera, the Canon Digital Ixus. (65-42)
This grid showing frames back to ixus/42.jpg
In early pictures with the Ixus,
My first digital camera, the Canon Digital Ixus. (89-66)
This grid showing frames back to ixus/66.jpg
In early pictures with the Ixus,
My first digital camera, the Canon Digital Ixus. (113-90)
This grid showing frames back to ixus/90.jpg
In early pictures with the Ixus,
My first digital camera, the Canon Digital Ixus. (137-114)
This grid showing frames back to ixus/114.jpg
In early pictures with the Ixus,
Thank you
Also, I just wanted to say “thank you” to all those who emailed congratulations and have not heard back from me individually - please forgive me but it has been a bit of a crazy time
pronunciation query (from billy)
The final word in response to Billy’s query — native english speakers address mademoiselle as
My first digital camera, the Canon Digital Ixus. (161-138)
This grid showing frames back to ixus/138.jpg
In early pictures with the Ixus,
CU-1 has arrived at a strange time
In the history of our little planet. There appears to be an increasing lack of clemency.
Those NCT gels
As Nick and I were reading our way through hours of labour, two other couples from the same NCT class were also at the Royal Free Hospital. Sam and Ben now have a daughter called Georgia, and Michela and Andreas h...
It's a girl!
Right, just a quick one as my batteries are almost dead. It’s a girl :-) her name is CU-1 and she finally joined us at 13:23 this afternoon (Friday 31 2002). Pics in the scrapbook
News from the Royal Free
Well, still no baby. But I’ve uploaded some snaps from the inside of Nicki’s ward and great news for Sam and Ben - they have a (not-so-little) girl called Georgia. She is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen and Nic...
British broacasting geeks
The beeb have webcams of their two (Docklands and New York City) telehouse server cabinets - grin:-)
18 x 18 pixels
Those wacky guys at the London design collective bring you a web site that fits in 18 by 18 pixels and still includes a range of content (such as art: http://www.guimp.com/warholsoup.html)
Labour
Well, back at home again. Nicki is spending the night in the antenatal ward (no husbands allowed after 20:00) - they’re keeping her comfy with pain relief and she’s looking a lot perkier. More excitement tomorrow ...
Labour
well, Nick’s just had another bath - this seems to both relax her and slow the contractions (or ‘rushes’ as some womenfolk have been known to call them) which should give her a little window to get some sleep in. ...
Labour - news flash
Nicki still in pain but contractions getting stronger - might head back to the RFH later tonight, if not it’ll be tomorrow am
Have been sent home (again)
this is pretty rough going for Nicki, she’s in labour, but not yet ‘enough’ in labour (getting to know the labour ward quite well, tho…)
Nicki’s just had a bath
the idea being to get a few minutes sleep in preparation for tonight’s big push… Off to the Royal Free soon.
hmmm - ouch
Bit of a weird moment there - I got in the bath and everything slowed down, or at least it was so dreamy in the bath I couldn’t feel the contractions. So I went to bed and they kicked in again with a vengeance. No...
Well, this time it’s finally happening
contractions started at 05:05 and are the right strength and distance (see Nicki’s post below). It’s now nine o’clock, and mum is chilling in the bath. I think we’re both happy that the wait is over…
Re -- quick question
Yeah, it’s the real thing (at least it’s all going ahead as one would expect). Contractions now every 8-9 mins, lasting 45 secs to 1 min. I have been beetling about doing washing and organising the kitchen and wha...
The dark side
my friend Ben in Washington DC wants to know why there are no pictures in the scrapbook of the back wall of the back room. Well, that would be because the back wall is a horrible fright as Luis the carpenter’s bus...
The first one’s often late
EDD+1 - no news on the baboo front… putting finishing touches on nursery and moving on to hall bookcases (if Nicki could keep her legs crossed for two more days we’d be all done ;-)
Unix never crashes
or so the ubergeeks would have you believe. I remember Chris explaining at great length how he could upgrade parts of his Linux kernel while the machine was running.
Waterloo, Stalingrad
You’d think I’d learn to not attack simultaneously on two fronts (bedroom and hall)
Fwd -- this is really really really good
== Forwarded Message == Date: 21 2002 18:54 Received: 21 2002 17:58 From: andy@purplemanchester.co.uk (Andy Ward) To: poncholove@ic24.net (Mark Aspinall)
Chris at the warm company
More legal rubbish Chris and Derek have started trading under the name “warm company” and some other “warm company” in Seattle (yes, trigger-happy lawyers living amongst Starbucks-drinking ingenus) USA isn’t happy...
The gentle art of home improvement
You know, when I started this thing I thought “gee, we’re spending cash on a fancy bathroom refit, why not be mr helpful and do the back room?”
Pass it on…
Info re the latest patent nonsense from the USA (http://panipcase.homeip.net/defendants.asp)
Labour has started (not)
Darn, this is one serious roller-coaster ride ;-) What happened today is only just becoming clear now (at 17:17 - twelve and a half hours after we thought Nick went into labour). What actually happened, was that N...
Images
Have just picked up a nifty digital camera (which works with iPhoto, which turns a gimmick into a useful appliance) and have started snapping. In the nav over on the left there’s a link to “scrapbook” that’s where...
Tribe s.a.f.s. news from New York
Got a call last night from a slightly pissed José-Antonio from a bar in Köln - the whole gang was there, Ben and Laura, Bill and Caroline, I think Ado, Robert and Daniel were all going to make the big day.
An explosion of Billy
I just thought I’d add that my friend Billy has decided to become a prolific blog poster;-) You know you want to read it. Do it now.
Mad Mad Mad? (Re -- Sad Sad Sad)
Billy says: hello? You’re about to have a kid? And you’ve just got yourself some groovy speakers? I’m sorry. There’s something about this that just doesn’t add up. Next thing you’ll be telling me you’re going to j...
Bend it Like Bekham
Nick and I have just got back from an (rare) evening out. Had Thai food in Bayswater followed by Bend it Like Beckham. The film is completely ordinary and faultless in terms of structure, but magic in terms of act...
Sad sad sad
especially seeing as I am about to have a child, but I can’t help being excited about the imminent arrival of my replacement Snell speakers (you remember from an earlier post, that my original ones where damaged s...
Link
considering the amount of time I spend online, I think it’s amazing I’ve only just come accross http://gbloogle.benhammersley. com/
Late night plus music plus internet
always seems to lead me astray. “Moi qui suit peut-etre le Francais le plus brézillien de France” is a silly line from a Pierre Barouh song on the “Man and a Woman” album mostly composed by Francis Lai (you know t...
Fear of dead baby
is something that has been parked quietly off my starboard bow for some time now. Now matter how many midwife visits and trouble-free weeks pass I can’t help thinking that something is going to go wrong… My head i...
Complain about Brahms
is what i did half an hour ago and Nicki put the Beatles’ “Let it Be” on the cd player. Wow, I haven’t heard that particular album in ages, and you know what, it good, very good. I had forgotten the concept of con...
Carpet smile
well, the carpet guy came and I if you had told me that buying carpet could bring you hapiness…
Carpet guy
well, I missed my first deadline. The carpet guy gets here at 8:30 and the plan was for all the plastering and painting to have been done. I’ve still got a fair bit of wall-mending to do so will have to use lots o...
Dodgy website alert
sorry, I thought I’d grab a few moments after hours to update the template and I think I have broken it :-( please send me a note if something appears to not be working properly - am off to bed now but will try an...
Tired
it’s almost nine o’clock and I’m tired. Deep down exausted (yearning for carbohydrates I suspect…). Off to Thorpers tomorrow which will be good, as I definitely need a break.
RE -- vote (from billy)
Well, it looks like there was a wee bit of a Le Pen effect in Oldham and Burnley. Only two council seats for the BNP, but they do generate a lot of publicity from that, don’t they? I went for one Labour and two Gr...
Countdown
we have now started discussing baby arrival in terms of “early”. This is a problem seeing that our flat is still a mess. The bathroom is now going to happen in July and both the hall and the back room (baby room) ...
Vote
today if you haven’t already. I went against my better judgement and voted for the Tony candidates for all three seats. I’m still cross with Labour and in local government I reckon Camden could use some Green Part...
RE -- flying lizards (from Billy)
Do you know what they/he are/is doing now? Have the lizards joined in the eighties revival at all? B-)
More thoughts on le pen etc.
(Hi dug) Here’s two “interesting” (i.e. scary) pieces from the guardian. It’s all quite depressing, imho. I still haven’t forgiven Blunkett for the “read my lips” - “well, I was only joking” thing. I decided then ...
Darn (71.60%)
According to IPSOS (Institut something something something?) the turnout was 71.60 percent. Why did I think that the turnout was poor? Now I’m really confused, I guess the figure I need is what percent of the popu...
Chirac never had it so good
What a non-starter, Chirac started running after the presidency of the Fifth Republic in the early seventies. Mitterand started his campaign in 1948 (now that’s determination). If ever you needed a reason to vote,...
5 weeks to go
Only five more weeks til I become a dad! Haven’t had much time to myself of late as I’ve been doing loads of construction work between bouts of job work. Those of you who have visited West End Lane know what a sta...
And I just wanted to add
that we have a socialist government. (Michael Howard just said “good evening” and has started telling of one of his constituents who waited 83 weeks to see a consultant. Michael Howard. Surely you remember? arg!?)
More diaries?
I’m still working on the next release of this blogging system (no time for personal web projects - work plus decorating leaves no leisure time) but even in its crude state, a couple of friends have decided to set ...
amazed (again, don’t you just love the internet?)
I got the following in the mail today. This one smells like it could run a bit… (reprinted in the original’s all caps)
wey hey!
we have a new reader - hello JASR (José-Antonio Sobrino-Reineke). Jasr is a good friend of mine from New York who lives in Germany and is about to get married :-) I have mentionned beforehand that I am going to mi...
I still remember the first all-nighter
I pulled at my first job in advertising. It was in preparation for a pitch to Conde Nast (Vogue) ah those were the days (what am I doing working at 04:28 am?)
not those corporate anthems again
Will this one not die? Once upon a time a man called Chris Raettig was slogging it out at a small consultancy called pumpernickle when he came across the first corp anthem (kpmg I think it was) - anyway, you all k...
Falby
As part of the child naming process, I’m trying to find the first name of the falby that came over from denmark in 890AD (I imagine). I realise this is entirely impossible, but I can dream can’t I? My branch of th...
another spammer relents
“As Manager of Customer Experience for CustomOffers, your recent claim with Exodus has been brought to my attention. I have personally sent a request to unsubscribe dug@pumpernickle.net from CustomOffers’ mailing ...
ok, I cried
It’s the pipes - does it every time, there’s just something about the sound of a piped lament… I’m glad the Queen mum’s funeral service was well attended. Intellectually, I think the monarchy doesn’t have a leg to...
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Lots on - little time
Well, it’s the 6th of April(!) I haven’t posted in weeks and my mom has just sent me a note to see what’s up, so I thought I’d better post. Well, I’ve been struggling to get a number of things sorted out at once. ...
Lesbian barbecue
Nicki’s friend Julie (who has produced two chilun) says “breastfeeding is worse than a sado-masochistic lesbian barbecue” - I shudder…
Meme alert
Ok, does meme have two ems? (as in memme, not mememe) - not sure about that one. Just came a cross one of them in the making (well ok, not a meme exactly). Perhaps a new form of haiku. Apple have started shipping ...
It amazes me that the phrase “Wireless applications are not dead” only returns one result (a rambling piece I wrote on wml pop clients and so on). Of course without the quotes you get a lot more…
Bathroom
Sophie and Nadinne are recent art school graduates who have moved from their first few jobs to set up on their own as interior designers. They are designing and contracting our bathroom and things are looking up -...
I haven't read a hifi mag in 15 years
Remember when we were all obsessed with ‘rumble’ and balancing our tone-arms? As a teenager, I religiously kept up to date on all the latest hifi technology. Hours lost lusting for some brushed aluminum box…
National childbirth trust
Just got back from our first class. Wow, just like in the movies. More about this later, but nice people and good instructor called Akiko - class at her house in Cricklewood…
My friend Sally and her relationship
Now I’ve been dying to write about this as poor old Sal is going through the most horrendous shitty nasty messy relationship thing right now and I have a lot of thoughts on the matter.
Kitchen and bathroom designers
On the bathroom designer front, we’ve been seeing some more designers. Very multifaceted bunch really. We’ve also started talking to specifically female designers as Nicki is going to be spending a lot of time tal...
The nature of creation
Had a fantastic day on Sunday. Went to see the Paul Klee show at the Hayward and then took in Coppola’s “The Conversation” - yes Billy, I did spot the changed inflection ;-)
Baby boom?
Nick and I spent a large part of yesterday afternoon walking around John Lewis with a ‘baby clobber consultant’. This was the first time I pushed a pram in public (strange) and the first time the sheer logistical ...
Ben used to have this yellowed warning sign above his stereo
Which was designed to look like it might have come from the ammunition store at Colditz. The were lots of achtungs and zis and zat and so on… Imagine my surprise when this showed up on an email list I subscribe to...
Not enough hours in the day
Damn, I’m trying to get all these personal projects together and failing miserably. Ever since we moved Pumpernickle out of Berkeley Street, I can’t seem to focus on anything for any significant length of time. Th...
Bush-to-bush like Joyce Grenfell
Recovering from a weekend spent in Devon, celebrating Jed & Ruth’s 40th (Ruby) wedding anniversary. Dug and I had both been rather dreading the prospect of “hosting” tables at a formal dinner populated by weir...
I take it all back, orange
Well, the fact that they use javascript to forward certain page elements to other pages, including using javascript actions instead of using form submit buttons is infuriating and evil…
The things you find when cleaning out your disk
I was just cleaning out some backup space on the server, and you know how when you’re trying to throw away old magazines and you can’t help reading the articles and you end up not throwing half of them away?
Bathroom designer in London
If anyone reading this has had a good experience with bathroom designers (that’s another word for building contractor…) in London, UK please drop me an email with contact details. I’ve spent the day talking tub wi...
Sheppey
Nicki and I just had a fantastic day down in Kent.There’s a particularly enjoyable type of British leisure activity that involves grey skies, wet lay-bys and hot mugs of tea (or pints of real ale) and today was de...
What is this log about (additional notes)
Ruth, my mother, reads this log and has sent in corrections about the previous post. I have edited the post the get the facts straight (thanks Ruth). I’m trying to get her to keep her own web log as I know so litt...
What is this log about?
When I started the log, it was going to be somewhere for me to put thoughts about our pregnancy. It seemed like I had never written anything down and life was most definitely feeling like sand between fingers. So ...
I’d just like to say whoever built the orange website is a w*****
And whoever’s in charge at Orange and has done nothing about it for the last two years is an even sadder w*****.
Feeling a bit bleugh today…
I can’t seem to focus. Just got a lovely T68 (phone) that has this gizmo where you plug a digital camera in and now all I can think of how cool it would be to buy the (too expensive) camera…
Oldey but goldey (reminded me of a smile I’d had)
NASA fakes moon landing! (reprinted without permission from brainsluice)
I was designing commercial websites in 1992
Don’t you get tired of reading biographies on websites that say the person was there at the beginning of the commercial internet? Just as a reality check, the next time someone points out how they were writing for...
Things you don't remember from childhood
Nicki and I had dinner with Billy and Ohna last weekend. We got talking after dinner about stuff that happened years ago when we were kids growing up in France. There’s been quite a lot of talk about childhood rec...
In childhood memories,Microsoft promotes software theft
I wonder if Microsoft would be willing to pay me for the hours I lose attemping to repair damage caused by their software? Office v.X is beautiful to look at, but has a number of ‘surprise’ features designed to wa...
A friend of mine just sent his cv to a prospective employer
…and asked me to have a look at it first. The guy has the most amazing list of jobs on it. In one, he describes how he had Harrier fighter/bombers drop 500 pound charges around the building he was working in. The ...
The web never ceases to amaze me
http://www.iranmatch.org/ “dating, romance and friendship with other Iranian people around the world” - fantastic.
Few things give me as much pain and pleasure as typography
but this em thing is killing me– just got off the phone to Ben in DC and he says the type’s to small. How can that be? 0.8EM (fractionaly smaller than your usual) seemed like a WAI compliant, sensible, robust and ...
Aside from miscalculating my lovely em measures
and just generally being ugly and crap, win98 and win2000 are failing to render my head-of-dug graphic. Arse. Take a look at the source code - we’re validating to xhtml here. The mac (OS9 and X) versions of IE ren...
If you are American read this
The following is an address from the President of the United States of America (one of the actual ones).
In things Dug cares about,
Messing with templates again
Been messing with templates (there should now be exactly thirty characters in every line) - ed and del buttons might not work terribly well. Oh, I finally wrote my first review for the food site - the trick is to ...
Bad navigation can kill
Ok, strange train of thought here. I’m listening to a song by Serge Gainsbourg “Torrey Canyon” and I have this terrible habit of listening to music without decoding the words. It’s crap really, but for a long time...
Normaly I’m not a huge Mondays fan
But we had a great week-end. Nicki and I drove out to the Suffolk coast and spent the week-end at Andrew’s wee house in Thorpeness. Andrew and Peter have just got a dog (he’s called Potter) which meant lots of wal...
More fun with ems and ens
There’s a great article by Peter K. Sheerin on alistapart for those out there who care about both web and typographic standards. Well worth taking a look at, but watch out for some sub-editorial quirks (remember t...
Am sitting down to write my first piece for the food site
But am sleepy, so sleepy… Why is it any time I try and write a review I get sleepy and crash? Darn!
Another leader for the table-weary masses
Bless his cotton socks - he is Donimo and if you haven’t been there already, you’ll find his impressive source of CSS_politik at:
Owen Briggs
I wish I had more time to share my thoughts on the current crop of CSS issues. This from Owen Briggs’ excellent website www.thenoodleincident.com (reprinted here without permission)
One of the reasons I got over my futuresplash obsession
Before they changed its name to “Flash” (I really need to take a look at the use of case on this site). I’ve followed the development of flash from its infancy and have been endlessly impressed by its capabilities...
System update
I thought this application worked so well, I modified it to regenerate four other diary-style web sites. Oops. Oh well, these things always go a little wrong at first ;-)
don’t know if anyone is using this blog
But I thought I’d mention that I’d spotted a bug (a spare double quote in the markup) which was breaking the newer link in the site masthead. Should work ok now.
State of mind
This is the last week of/01/2002. Nicki (My wife) is six months pregnant with our first baby. I’m deep in a new-business struggle (If someone had told me I’d have to weather another recession I’d have laughed - wh...
Tribe s.a.f.s. news from New York
On Sunday, January 27, 2002, at 10:54 AM, josé-antionio sobrino reineke wrote:
colour
OK the stylesheet is being tampered with a lot today – mea culpa. Apologies for purple type on purple background;-) Actually, the current scheme was created by Nicki, for a wall in our flat…
Drifting further into uncharted web typography
Ok so now the width of this column is defined as thirty times the width of a monospaced character. If you zoom your browser’s type-size settings in and out, the width of the column should expand and contract such ...
Fair fa yer honest sonsi face
Great chieftan o the puddin race. Have you learnt your poems? We’re off to Billy and Ohna’s tonight, and by the time the cron job that posts these things runs I hope to be largely whisky :-)
Diary - Saturday 26 January
Hilda and husband came round to look at the flat (Dug and Nicki live in a groovy two-bed flat in West End Lane in London - a flat that requires some serious work that Dug was supposed to deal with but didn’t) this...
This type is too big (or is it too small?)
Spending one’s Christmas with family really reminds one of that not all web users have good eyesight.
Is this a Blog?
Chris (http://chris.raettig.org) said why not make a web log (a Blog) so I thought, sure, this year has been crazy, maybe I should keep a record of it.
It’s a source of much mirth and jocularity
That I have the spelling skills of a four-year-old. Taunts and jeers to dug@pumpernickle.net if you please.
Jane Birkin:-)
I wanted to clap and say ‘thank you’ and get her autograph and tell her how much I loved her work. But I didn’t.
In childhood memories,
