Month: September 2018
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UK’s worst-selling map: The empty landscape charted by OS440
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UK’s worst-selling map: The empty landscape charted by OS440 The story of Glen Cassley and Glen Oykel, the country’s least-popular Ordnance Survey map. On my visit last week, Dave Robertson and I strolled through these wonders that were only intermittently blighted by rain or midges. We met only one set of fellow walkers – who […]
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Wow and Flutter — Stereolab
I’ve recently been digging this old Stereolab song. By chance, this Peel session was recorded 25 years ago today. Promo video
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Health chiefs make urgent order for 112 ambulances amid Brexit shortage fears
Health chiefs make urgent order for 112 ambulances amid Brexit shortage fears When you’ve started stockpiling ambulances, maybe it’s time to admit that Brexit is a mistake. The emergency vehicles, built by Mercedes in Germany and finished off in Ireland, are desperately needed by London Ambulance Service to help hit 999 response times over winter. […]
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Spiders blamed after broken siren played creepy nursery rhymes randomly at night to UK townsfolk
Spiders blamed after broken siren played creepy nursery rhymes randomly at night to UK townsfolk Surveillance gone wrong. The creepy sounds of It’s Raining, It’s Pouring blaring out across Ipswich have been traced back to a burglar deterrent being triggered by spiders. Which, to be honest, doesn’t actually make it any less creepy.
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These classic BBC Two idents designed by Lambie-Nairn have now been retired — but not for the first time
These classic BBC Two idents designed by Lambie-Nairn have now been retired — but not for the first time. They were first replaced in 2001 by the Personality idents, which (despite the name) were actually rather insipid by comparison. Then came the downright dull Window on the World idents. Lambie-Nairn’s idents returned in 2014. But […]
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Why the future of data storage is (still) magnetic tape
Why the future of data storage is (still) magnetic tape A fascinating and entertaining piece about why tape is still used so much for data storage. I sort of knew that tape was still used a lot, but I didn’t know why, and I assumed that it was a legacy thing. This article taught me […]
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The web I want
The web I want Why developers’ obsession with using complicated JavaScript to deliver some text to users needs to stop. I made my first website about 20 years ago and it delivered as much content as most websites today. It was more accessible, ran faster and easier to develop then 90% of the stuff you’ll […]
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Another burned bridge could drive Alonso to Nascar
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Another burned bridge could drive Alonso to Nascar This opinion piece from Dieter Rencken on how Fernando Alonso has destroyed his own F1 career contains an insight on the fate of his team bosses that I wasn’t aware of before. Every F1 team boss Alonso has driven for save Paul Stoddart (who owned Minardi, and […]
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Smart voice assistants and smart homes — from the past
Smart voice assistants and smart homes — from the past A really enjoyable piece on the history of smart home devices, and how Google Home and Alexa aren’t such new ideas. The video is well worth a watch, particularly because it demonstrates 1970s technology from Pico Electronics in Glenrothes! It’s amazing to see it work […]
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The problem with trusting experience over expertise (a story about design thinking, astronauts, Formula 1 pundits and Brexit)
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The media — and society in general — has gradually drifted away from listening to expert figures, in favour of practitioners. But it is leaving us less enlightened.
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Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien: ‘Cricket was my refuge’
Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien: ‘Cricket was my refuge’ On the associations between playing cricket and playing music. I’ve had the odd gig where I’ve been able to slow down my breathing and my heart-rate. I remember playing this show where I could divide the bar up, a four-beat bar into 32 or 64s, and play anywhere […]
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His ’n’ Hers — Pulp
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Happy 55th birthday to Jarvis Cocker. Here are Pulp at the height of their powers, and with a classic moment of audience participation — which was recreated 18 years later. What makes you frightened?
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2019 is going to be brutal
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2019 is going to be brutal. Brutalist Calendar 2019 — from Blue Crow Media.
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The future of SEO has never been clearer (nor more ignored)
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The future of SEO has never been clearer (nor more ignored) I don’t always pay attention to SEO stuff, but I found this analysis of trends in search interesting. It seems that search engines are sending less and less traffic to websites. It’s interesting to compare this trend to the original Google ethos, which was […]
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Four in 10 think British culture is undermined by multiculturalism
Four in 10 think British culture is undermined by multiculturalism This is so messed up, especially considering the concept of British culture is inherently multicultural.
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Stop building for San Francisco
Stop building for San Francisco Realising that forcing websites to go HTTPS makes them more inaccessible for people with poorer connections was a penny dropping moment for me. But this article takes the argument a bit broader. First of all, you need to understand who your audience is, as people. If they’re genuinely wealthy people […]
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Alex and I took our friends Louise and Jamie to a bread making workshop as part of a wedding present
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Alex and I took our friends Louise and Jamie to a bread making workshop as part of a wedding present. Thank you to Colin at Bread in Fife, who led the class and was great fun to work with. Formerly based in Freuchie in Fife, he has since moved to Edinburgh — but remains called […]
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The carrot is not important — Chasing it is
The carrot is not important — Chasing it is “I’ve never had a goal” Two related posts from Jason Kottke. I think I fall into the camp of people who don’t want or need a goal. Alex once astutely pointed out that I will set myself a goal, then work towards it, and once I […]
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Just write
Just write Sara Soueidan on why you should just write, regardless of what the voice in your head may be telling you. Start a blog and publish your writings there. Don’t think about whether or not people will like or read your articles — just give them a home and put them out there. Most […]
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The new Formula 1 timing app is comically bad
The new Formula 1 timing app is comically bad. Even on quite a large screen, it only shows 10 drivers — at a gigantic font size. Meanwhile, the live driver tracker is juddery and completely unusable. But hey, I guess it uses Sean Bratches’ new fonts. The old app wasn’t perfect, but at least it […]
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Wolff says rivals ‘didn’t have the balls’ to commit to Ocon deals
Wolff says rivals ‘didn’t have the balls’ to commit to Ocon deals I am as upset as anyone else that Esteban Ocon probably won’t be racing in F1 next year. But this is not a good look for Toto Wolff. The other teams are perfectly entitled to hire whoever they want (particularly if a top-notch […]
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Dundee’s renaissance — a personal, alternative view
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Dundee’s renaissance — a personal, alternative view Brian Taylor reflects on Dundee’s resurgence. But mostly this renaissance is driven by the collective will of the people. It is marvellous to behold. Together, they have decided to stop apologising for their city. They have decided to revisit her ancient history and, hopefully, pursue her proud future. […]
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After Chris Evans — Why women are leading the race for the breakfast slot
After Chris Evans — Why women are leading the race for the breakfast slot In a sense, it’s no surprise to see women as front-runners to replace Chris Evans as BBC Radio 2 breakfast show presenter. It is a scandal that, until recently, no women had a regular slot during the day on Radio 2 […]
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Are driver development programmes actually hindering young drivers?
Esteban Ocon’s links with Mercedes have closed off opportunities for him to develop in the midfield.
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Inventive tips for separating your job from your life when you work from home
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Inventive tips for separating your job from your life when you work from home I don’t work from home, but I still enjoyed this piece on little rituals that help you separate work time from personal time. I’m glad of my 30 minute buffer between home and work. As I’ve said before, I wouldn’t reduce […]
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Facebook fuelled anti-refugee attacks in Germany, new research suggests
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Facebook fuelled anti-refugee attacks in Germany, new research suggests Evidence that racism or anti-refugee sentiment is correlated with Facebook use. Wherever per-person Facebook use rose to one standard deviation above the national average, attacks on refugees increased by about 50 percent.
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I smashed my expectations at Pedal for Scotland 2018
Yesterday was Pedal for Scotland, the annual cycle from Glasgow to Edinburgh. It’s the second time I have taken part, my first being last year. But I was concerned that I wouldn’t be prepared enough for the 45 mile cycle.
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Alex took me to Training for Warriors
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Alex took me to Training for Warriors, the high-intensity interval training programme she attends three times a week. Usually it is a women-only session. But today, regulars were invited to bring their male partners with them. Alex was keen for me to see what she gets up to at Training for Warriors. I was a […]
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5 thoughts on self-help
5 thoughts on self-help I have never read what I would think of as a self-help book. I’m sceptical of them. But at the same time I am interested in self-improvement. Or at least, keeping check on yourself and learning generally, which I guess is a form of self-help. In this article, Austin Kleon points […]
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Using contractions could be making your writing inaccessible
Using contractions could be making your writing inaccessible We found that some of these users did not understand sentences that had negative contractions in them (negative contractions are words like ‘can’t’, ‘won’t’, ‘don’t’). They interpreted the sentence without inferring the ‘not’. I have been in two minds about using contractions for a while. On the […]
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A lesson from Germany on how to cover far-right leaders
A lesson from Germany on how to cover far-right leaders It’s a radical idea — interviewing extremists without pandering to their extremist ideas. It turns out that by asking them about their policy positions instead of just letting them bang on about their racist ideas, you can quickly show them up. German television viewers found […]
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Designers are defining usability too narrowly
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Designers are defining usability too narrowly Another call on designers to think more widely when they are working on digital products. Khoi Vinh saw a Nielsen Norman Group report on best practice on websites aimed at children — but he felt the report focused too narrowly on usability. I don’t dispute the findings at all. […]
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I used a day off work to listen to the new eight hour long Autechre album — NTS Sessions 1–4
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Autechre’s latest album is so long I had to take a day off work to listen to it. Autechre have ploughed the same sonic furrow in recent years. So was the new album worth the time off?
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Salmond’s £80,000 warning to Sturgeon
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Salmond’s £80,000 warning to Sturgeon I had sort of missed this story while I was on holiday, but this from Torcuil Crichton seems to be a useful summary. Salmond’s fight for “fairness”, as he labels it, only serves to telegraph to them, and us, what forces are stirred when women choose to cross a powerful […]
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Thinking in triplicate
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Thinking in triplicate This is a very strong piece by Erika Hall, raising some seriously good points and questions about where user experience design is, and where it needs to go. It is well worth reading the full piece, and me pulling out a quote cannot do this justice. But here are some selections I […]