April 2013
3 posts
March 2013
1 post
Priceonomics Blog: Is Moleskine Inc Replicable? →
priceonomics:
How can Moleskine, a company that makes notebooks and stationery products, push for an IPO at “a valuation between 22 and 29.1 times the company’s earnings last year”?
The answer, as reported by Quartz, is a recognizable brand and great profit margins:
“Moleskine’s…
February 2013
1 post
“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western...”
– The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
January 2013
2 posts
Post-PC
The idea that we are in a ‘post-pc’ era does not mean that the PC is over. It means that an era that was defined by the PC is over.
Its easy enough to find essays that explain what this means in terms of the growth of mobile, operating systems (notably, those that aren’t Windows), interaction paradigms (touchscreens vs keyboard and mouse), mobility and ubiquitous computing and...
Reflections →
When you look at words in a mirror, how come they’re reversed left to right but not top to bottom? What’s special about the horizontal axis?
This question has been quietly doing my head in for nearly a week. But I’m determined to figure out the answer for myself…
December 2012
1 post
Monsters with guns
When I was very young, a typical Saturday morning would involve getting up before my parents, going downstairs and putting a video of Star Wars on.
When I was about 15 or so – still a child by most measures, but a slightly older one – I watched Star Wars again for the first time in quite a few years. I remember being struck by the realisation that “Empire” and “Rebel”...
November 2012
1 post
October 2012
3 posts
Remembering your first computer is for old people →
So, I guess that makes me old then.
Directors commentary in the cinema →
On the one hand, a new way to enjoy a film on the big screen a second time.
On the other hand, a new way for people with noisy headphones to annoy everyone around them.
(Via The Loop)
Valve Software's Company Handbook →
Sounds like a unique place to work — completely flat organisation chart, so every position is completely transient, so everyone is free to start up their own projects and recruit coworkers (or join other projects.)
I suppose some people would find the idea terrifying, but it would be enough to make me consider a complete change in career direction and a move to the States. (If I hadn’t...
September 2012
2 posts
“When I hear people talk about ‘intelligent’ drum’n’bass...”
– John Peel.
A related YouTube video
My morning PC startup routine
Plug laptop into docking station (connected to a second external monitor. I love having two screens…)
Open laptop and switch on to wake from hibernation (I generally only reboot when I get a BSOD.)
Wait a minute or two for it to boot up
Log in
Try to switch to Lotus Notes
Fail, because its asking for a password in a window that is behind the Notes window, so completely invisible
Open System...
August 2012
1 post
Andy Ihnatko;
The biggest losers here are consumers. If the verdict stands, then the costs of the judgment will be reflected in the cost of mobile devices. Furthermore, other manufacturers will feel the need to buy Apple’s official permission to build useful phones, passing down the possible $20-per-handset fee.
On the other hand, with Android outselling iPhone globally by something like 4:1,...
April 2012
1 post
“…in the future your TV will be a beautiful but dumb hi-res panel that will play...”
– Anthony Rose, Zeebox
March 2012
1 post
“The idea that [Microsoft] has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead...”
– Douglas Adams (amended slightly.)
February 2012
2 posts
“when you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than...”
– _why
“Generally, old media don’t die. They just have to grow old gracefully....”
– Douglas Adams, on The HitchHikers Guide to the Future, a BBC Radio 4 programme about new media produced in 2001
December 2011
1 post
“You remember those Magic Eye books from the 1990s? The ones where you’d...”
– The Oatmeal
November 2011
4 posts
“The spoken word was the first technology by which man was able to let go of his...”
– Credited to Marshall McLuhan (I can’t find the exact source)
Floppy music DUO - Imperial march →
I’ve been chasing the source of this Douglas...
“You can go in the shop now and you can buy a laptop that’s faster than the...”
– Gareth Edwards, writer/director/visual effects artist of Monsters, explaining how technological advances had enabled him to direct a film and create all 250 special effects shots on his own, in his bedroom.
October 2011
3 posts
The Important Field →
Decades-Old ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ Strip Succinctly... →
∞ LA Times gets stupid →
September 2011
2 posts
What last night's f8 Facebook Conference means for... →
The Age of Mechanical Reproduction →
August 2011
6 posts
redlightpolitics:
Don’t know if this has already... →
★ Resigned →
What the Huge Sales of the $99 TouchPad Tells Us... →
“I remember hearing the story of the person who walked into a room and saw...”
– http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/14/kindle-books
London Tonight
Watching 24 hour news channels in London this evening is pretty scary.
But…
London has a population of over 14 million people. The vast majority of those are probably doing pretty much the same as me – watching the news as events unfold, wondering what they should do, probably feeling worried, scared, and angry.
Terrible things are happening tonight, but the media is the lens that most of us...
Found Quotes, 9 →
July 2011
11 posts
‘He’s Not My Character to Write Anymore’ →
UK Police Claim To Have Arrested LulzSec Member... →
‘Look at That, You Son of a Bitch’ →
Bloggers will write for free, but you can't buy...
Amy Winehouse died yesterday.
Less than 24 hours after her body was discovered, this was up on Huffington Post;
Amy Winehouse’s Untimely Death Is a Wake Up Call for Small Business Owners
The post begins;
It would be terribly remiss of me not to blog about the untimely death of the 27 year-old British singer Amy Winehouse today.
…and goes on to draw an incredibly weak analogy...
Cool video of iPhone 4 capturing guitar strings →
The Rise and Fall of the Independent Developer →
iTunes app total downloads (finally) overtook song... →
“Why would we use this very expensive device for a cheapening piece of execution...”
– Gartner vice president David Furlonger to the Banktech summit in Sydney, on the subject of banks using NFC technology
Phone-hacking: a thought experiment →
Gambling on smartphones takes off →
June 2011
5 posts
Who invented e-mail? →
“It’s idiotic to think that technology is going to solve every problem, [on...”
– Cathy Davidson, Dukes university- interview with FastCompany
Every single time…
Please enter your Verified by Visa password
This message might as well be “You are now about to waste 5 minutes or so of your time.”
The reason this added layer of security theatre appears is because I am using a credit card on a website I haven’t used before. Which means that I have just gone through the hassle of setting up an account on that website, picking my username,...
“Thank goodness. There weren’t enough shitty little buttons (Arial, Google?...”
– John Gruber (of DaringFireball.net), on Google’s new +1 button 