Category: Random

• Creative Archive Licence
  I’m really interested in this – I wonder if it only applies to audio and video or whether this is basically a license that describes ‘public service’ uses of BBC content…
• British Blog Directory also has charts to help people track the traffic of top British Weblogs
  It’s a really interesting idea, and I’ve decided to register because I’m no better than anyone else and it’s time people realised that I don’t really get that much traffic…

• Tiger’s launch date has been announced – April 29th
  So the question now is how best to get hold of it with the least hassle, and who’s hosting the install party…

This is more of an update than a post and won’t be of enormous interest to an awful lot of you, I’m sure. Basically for those of you reading this site via an RSS newsreader, I’ve decided to remove the splicing of photographs from my Flickr photostream. This is for a number of reasons, but mainly because I’ve started to feel a bit uncomfortable about the enormous shifts in tone between the two feeds and how they inter-relate to one another. If you enjoy seeing pictures from my photostream however, you can still subscribe to a dedicated feed.

For those of you who are not familiar with the plasticbag.org feed, or with newsreaders in general, then I can recommend the Wikipedia article on RSS and newsreaders and if you’re using a Mac, then NetNewsWire remains the client of choice.

This little job is just the first of a large number of changes that you should be seeing around the site over the next few weeks as I work to redesign the place from the ground-up. I can warn you now that many of you are not going to like what I’m going to do with the place. I’m taking it very stark and simple. But I’m finding it quite exciting. If you’re of the speculative sort, then why not have a look at my page on a design history of plasticbag.org and see if you can spot the trends.

• Face transformer
  I can’t believe I didn’t bookmark this at the time – upload your photograph, and then you can feminise it, make it look older or younger or of a different race, etc…

• syncOtunes
  A nice little thing that synchronises iTunes libraries across multiple computers…
• accessTunes shares your iTunes library as soon as you turn on your computer
  You don’t even have to have iTunes open. I think this is interesting mostly because I don’t think it’ll take off. This needs to be a component of something that gives you a direct reward or it won’t spread…
• Blog Business Summit is down on RSS feeds, claiming that although people do subscribe to RSS feeds they never read them
  There’s something in there about ‘design’ mattering as well. I’m a bit conflicted by this one – do people who don’t have time to read their feeds have time to roam across the web either?
• Virtual Magic Kingdom: It‚Äôs a Virtual World After All
  Terra Nova comments on the Disney idea to make a MMORG or social avatar-based space online that resembles the Magic Kingdom…
• Nicolas Ducheneaut’s home page
  “My research focuses on software and technologies that support and enhance social interactions. I observe interactions in online environments; I build tools to analyze these interactions further; and I design, deploy and evaluate new social technologies”
• IT Conversations
  Awesome, if slightly geeky, podcast site that should explode in popularity when Odeo gets out..
• Pete Barr Watson on an Apple themed UI for mobile phones
  It’s very very pretty, although it still looks a little too much like a phone OS, which is never good…
• A glorious response to essays on Hackers and Painters…
  “Great paintings, for example, get you laid in a way that great computer programs never do. Even not-so-great paintings – in fact, any slapdash attempt at splashing paint onto a surface – will get you laid more than writing software”
• Japanize your ass!
  A beautiful and intriguing historical and cultural tribute to Japan’s considerable lead in the International Poo-handling Race
• Lee Bryant talks about the Six Apart weblog conference thing I talked at and makes an interesting point about pent-up demand for this kind of event
  I couldn’t agree more – I would like to attend, and would be prepared to speak at and help organise if that was any incentive (unlikely), other social software events in London…
• Lightspace Corporation – Cutting Edge Interactive Lighting Surfaces
  They make shiny walls and interactive floors and stuff. It’s very prety and cool and I suspect might eventually seem natural and obvious…
• I’ve made the populicio.us 48 hour view my homepage
  It’s probably the best way to keep up roughly with what’s going on in my community and it’s slow enough not to drive me nuts if I don’t read anything else…
• Omniglot is a fascinating guide to written language that I can’t get enough of…
  It has stuff on various alphabets and syllabaries, abjads (like alphabets but with a different handling of vowel sounds) and scripts that defy translation…
• The Pentagon’s Flying Saucer
  Fascinating and awesome-looking hovering beastie developed by the US defence department…
• The dictionary definition of Vambraces
  Vambraces are armored protection for your forearms, like Wonder Woman wears!
• What would Googlemaps look like from the ground?
  This has been everywhere, but it’s good and it’s funny and it’s well assembled. So I don’t care.
• Prospect brings together a panel of thinkers to discuss what it means to be British
  Which is far from an obvious question if you’re English, Welsh, Scottish or from Northern Ireland. Good, well-terrier-ed stuff. No real conclusions, though…
• The EFF has offered guidelines on how to not get into trouble as a work blogger…
  The advice is pretty simple, be vague and keep it anonymous. The interesting part of all of this for me is how squarely the issue of publishing in public but only meaning it for a few friends is at the heart of it all…
• The US TV series “Lost” will be broadcast on Channel 4 later this year (and by the way Desperate Housewives season two will be on C4 too)
  Finally all my friends who have heard me raving about Lost will be able to see for themselves…
• Independent music labels are protesting the launch of a downloads chart when they’re as yet unable to get their music on iTunes
  iTunes apparently has 80% of the downloads market in the UK and that means that songs that aren’t on it pretty much can’t make it into the charts…
• Bronze Shields is a photoset on Flickr for images averaged from all the squared circle images that were around earlier in the year
  When smooshed together they look startlingly beautiful in a burnished copper kind of way. Interesting.
• TypeNavigator – visual font identification system
  It’s not as powerful as Identifont or What the Font, but it is quicker and easier to get to grips with…
• FF Alega font family
  Currently much loving this intriguing little font. Doesn’t look too good in the previews, but I think it has some interesting applications…

• Mark Millar on voting for Labour but campaigning against Blair
  Apparently there’s the father of an Iraq war vet campaigning against Blair in his constituency. Millar’s idea – re-elect the Labour party, but make sure Blair can’t lead it. Strange / intriguing.
• Not Apathetic – not voting in the 2005 general election?
  “NotApathetic was built so that people who are planning not to vote in the UK General Election on May 5th can tell the world why.” I don’t really approve of this, to be honest…

• Amaztype – awesomely beautiful book search engine using the Amazon API
  It creates the search terms out of the books it brings back. You can click on the books too. Sweet.
• A picture of the Odeo recording studio from Ev’s presentation at ETech
  How do you get people to take up a new media delivery system? Help them create content for said delivery system. Very smart.
• BBC News’ Party policies at a glance
  A breakdown of where each UK political party stands on key issues
  (tags: election uk politics labour conservative liberaldemocrats)
• The wiki page for the ‘Blogs in Action’ mini conference I spoke at a while back
  I think it generally went pretty well – I’ll post the notes sometime soon…
  (tags: weblog blog conference speaking sixapart weblogs)
• The ’50 people see’ set on Flickr
  Inspired by Jason Salavon’s work – merges together images with a similar tag to create ghostly beautiful composites
  (tags: flickr art salavon imagery pictures photos digitalmanipulation)
• This year’s BBC Reith Lectures are on technology and will be distributed as MP3s and podcasts
  “This year’s Reith Lecturer is the distinguished engineer, Lord Broers who is President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Chairman of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.”
  (tags: bbc reithlectures podcasting mp3 downloads lordbroers technology audio radio)
• Ivan Pope has rebranded Social Software as ‘sMedia’
  This is possibly the most ridiculously stupid thing I’ve ever read in my life. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Mike!
  (tags: socialsoftware idiotic)
• Nico Macdonald’s lovely title slide for his talk on what happens after Human-Centred Design…
  It’s called Beyond Human-Centred Design. I want to design for Beyond Humans. That would rock.
  (tags: design slide typography nicomacdonald)
• And here is the Beyonder – one of the few people that we should now aspire to be designing for…
  “Indeed, now that the Beyonder realized that he himself was not all that existed, he saw himself as incomplete and felt desire.”
  (tags: funny comics marvel superheroes)
• Mr Webb is using his new iSight to watch TV in bed
  Glad you like the toy, old chap. Missing you already.
  (tags: isight television apple mattwebb)
• Is Batman Nuts?
  “Lots of fans and even some pros characterize Batman as being crazy. However, the rationale given for this judgment has often had little to do with the realities of mental illness.”
  (tags: humour comics comicbooks mentalillness superheroes)
• Microsoft’s new fonts designed for screen and print use
  The article seems to imply that these should be used for web use – hopefully designers won’t be stupid enough to go along with that…
  (tags: microsoft font typography)
• Bits on Wheels – the first fully OSX native BitTorrent client
  And it has a really dumb little visualisation of the people you’re getting your bits from…
  (tags: osx application bittorrent)
• World’s Top Tennis Stars Practice at World’s Highest Tennis Court
  Constructed on a helipad at the top of a skyscraping hotel. Astonishing. Extraordinary. Also a little bit freaky and dangerous looking…
  (tags: tennis sport architecture skyscraper views sky)
• The most compulsively addictive game of all time: 1D Tetris!
  Mm. Classy. Shiny. And most importantly – really really easy!
  (tags: tetris game flash pointless funny)
• A post on Peer Pressure about social television that comments on my Social Software for Set-Top Boxes idea
  Really interesting piece that references some of the work that other people are doing in the area…
  (tags: socialtelevision television tv socialsoftware)
• Science becomes art in ‘Weird Fields’
  John Belcher and colleagues … developed a computer applet into which students put the mathematical expressions that describe a given field. “It then pops out a visual representation of what the field looks like,” he said.
  (tags: science visualisation beautiful art)
• Reader, I shagged him – on the mischaracterisation of Charlotte Bronte
  “Gaskell took Charlotte Bront√´, the author of Jane Eyre, the dirtiest, darkest, most depraved fantasy of all time, and, like an angel murdering a succubus, trod on her.”
  (tags: charlottebronte literature biography)

• Conservative MPs last in gay rights survey
  “The gay and lesbian pressure group is currently trying to pull together a pledge from five major parties at Westminster to conduct non-homophobic campaigns…”
• TimeTrax – Timeshifting Software for XM Satellite Radio
  Apparently records individual songs as played on the radio as well. Interesting little thing. Love to know how well it works…
• Replay Music records music off the radio and automatically tags it
  Uses audio fingerprinting to figure out the beginning or end of the songs as well

• TeeVeePad – taking the piss out of celebrities and SixApart
  Highly entertaining piece of the incredulous ‘you spent how much time on this?’-type….

• Eccleston quits Doctor Who role
  I am surprisingly angry about this. I mean, TV series never get good until the third season anyway. No committment. Slacker.
• Diesel Sweeties on Radio – with thanks to Matt Jones
  “I like big butts and I cannot lie”