Category: Random

• FUCK this website Using stickers with rude words on them to deface and detourn official signs and warnings is big and clever and kind of designy…
• An old “We Make Money Not Art” post details the French Yellow Pages using clean tags to promote themselves around Paris I {heart} the idea of clean tags – even though it puts advertising in completely inappropriate all-pervasive places – there’s something great about people accidentally performing public services in the name of advertising…
• The Sun newspaper reports on a new calender full of men from British universities I had a quick glance in the interests of science and have come to the conclusion that it’s not terribly good.

• An implementation of the Yahoo maps API turns the whole thing into a pirate map. S’pretty. There’s also a radar screen. It’s pretty cool, all things considered. Shiny.
• Blast from the past: In 2001 Macrumors users were not impressed by the recently announced iPod. It took them a couple of weeks to work out why it was cool. It took me about a month – when I bought my first 5Gb iPod for ¬£350… “I still can’t believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player?”
• “Implosion researchers have found that if water is put through a spiral, its electrical field changes and it then appears to have a potent, restorative effect on cells.” “This is not a cultural issue, and this is not about alternative science versus western medicine. It is about the far simpler issue of a proper media organisation presenting made-up marketing rubbish as if it was scientific fact.”

• Public could help BBC to index archive “Inspired by Flickr and Wikipedia, the project is a private, early-stage pilot of social software produced at BBC Radio and Music Interactive that lets listeners slice programmes into chunks that can be identified by using tags.”
• Barbelith discusses “The Psychology Of Trolling” My community are so cool – and sometimes it’s great to remember how many skilled professionals are on the board – including mental health workers – who can really give an interesting perspective to these questions…
• Fern Kinney – as written up by Wikipedia Currently I’m mostly in love with the song, “Together we are Beautiful” by the lovely Fern, which apparently charted at number 1 in the UK but disappeared without trace in the US
• Front Row – as installed on the Apple iMac G5 So I had a play with this the other day in the Apple store and it’s pretty bloody sweet frankly. I’m going to need this in my flat…

• Typeradio.org – a podcast and internet radio station about typography and design The site is beautiful if you’re into Flash and contains some nice interface and audio preview widgets. And it’s about typography which never sucks…
• Hypergene on “Amazoning the News” – a classic article / presentation / bit of design from 2001 that people really ned to re-examine… In so many contexts, as navigation and findability emerges as the fundamental challenge for media in the early 21st Century, we need to be re-reading this stuff…

• ‘Mr. England’ bemuses Alabama locals “British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw joined Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for a weekend tour of her home state to promote understanding of the Anglo-American alliance, but Alabamans struggled to name him.”
• Google’s stock soars higher “Google Inc.’s market value briefly surpassed $100-billion (U.S.) for the first time Friday, its stock scaling new heights after an earnings and revenue spike that astonished investors.”
• “Got a Mac? Want Front Row? You‚Äôre In Luck!” I’m really interested that Apple decided to use software to get people to buy a new iMac rather that putting the software on every computer that could run it. Although clearly, people are excited enough to want it on all their computers…
• Oh this is too sweet – a replacement lanyard for your iPod Shuffle that makes it look like a big crucifix For all your eighties Madonna-inspired retro-fashionistas and people who like to make clever statements with their clothes
• “Lie Girls” – dirty girls who will tell you anything you want to hear It sounds porny, but actually it’s much much worse than that – it’s political!

Yesterday I was awake for about nine hours of the twenty-four normally available to mortal men. Clearly I was catching up from something – I just wish I knew what it was. And today I’ve been cleaning and fiddling and getting my head together for my last four days at the BBC. With any luck I’ll be at a good zero point of ‘things to do’ by the time I leave, and I can spend the next week actually relaxing. That would be so wonderful.

In the meantime, the project my little team at the BBC is working on at the moment is so cool I could just burst with enthusiasm about it. It’s tiny but it’s awesome and I’m so into it right now. If anyone who was at Foo is out there who remembers the little project I talked about then, then we’ve got it working and it rocks. I hope we get it finished before I leave…

• “Yet more ‘fashion inspired’ phones for people who live in London and work for the BBC and are gay and have blogs.” So I live in London, work for the BBC, am gay and have a blog and I think these phones look a bit rubbish. On the other hand, I’m also a little narked about gay jokes from grown-ups, but what can you do. There’s no shortage of fuckwits in the world…
• Ars Technica – the definitive home for comprehensive reviews of tech stuff – has a stab at the Video iPod (and generally likes what it sees) Personally, I’m looking at the return of the classic form factor in the iPod Nano and wondering if Apple are looking to gradually discontinue the larger sized iPods
• Pure California – I’ve finally found a decent juice bar in Central London I’m so happy I could burst with ground- up fruit and dubious dried chemical supplements. Mmm. Sweet and delicious. Sweelicious!

• They’ve discovered a zombie worm or some crap in the ocean or something. Could you care less? How about if I tell you that BBC News translates the name of said worm as “bone-eating snot-flower”!? BONE-EATING SNOT-FLOWER!? That’s so cool…
• Apple Powerbooks now with better screen resolution, faster hard discs, cheaper RAM, fall-over buttons, same-old weird-ass scroll functional trackpads and the right… So basically my current Powerbook is nice and stuff, but it’s kind of falling apart and I think God should give me a new one…

• Kerry Bailey talks about God, atheism and being a “Lincolnist” So basically, the stuff I’ve done that I’m ashamed of just stays with me and continually torments me when I least expect it. I really identify with his description of the homespun ethical principles of Lincoln…
• “A ‘sexy, funny’ spin-off from the Doctor Who television series, is to be made by BBC Wales and set in Cardiff.” Featuring Captain Jack from the series, I can’t help but hope that this paranoid thriller isn’t as lame as it quite possibly could be. Would be good to get some adult sci-fi on the BBC though…
• Wikipedia’s article on the Colbert R√©port, which I really want to see… “The Colbert R√©port (/ko älb…õ…π …π…ôp…î…π/) is a television program announced by Comedy Central that will star Stephen Colbert, currently best-known as a correspondent for The Daily Show. It is said to be a comedic counterpart to media pundit programs s
• The American Society of Magazine Editor’s top forty covers of the last forty years… There’s some stunning stuff here – iconic images. Mostly they’re more about the photography than the design though…

• “Sci-fi film Serenity has ended Pride and Prejudice’s four-week reign at the top of the UK film chart.” “Serenity, created by Buffy the Vampire Slayer mastermind Joss Whedon, took almost ¬£960,000 in its first weekend.”