水道橋重工 | Suidobashi Heavy Industry

I’ll take two.

The Orchid

The new album from The Orchid—Beyond The Vast, Endless Sea—is rather excellent.

co.up’s new Open Device Lab - co.up

First we take Manhattan…

Berlin now has a communal device lab. Wunderbar!

How to support full Unicode in MySQL databases · Mathias Bynens

Some good database character-encoding advice from Mathias.

Making of: People Magazine’s Responsive Mobile Website (Global Moxie)

An in-depth look behind the scenes of the responsive relaunch of People Magazine’s mobile site that Josh, Karen, and Ethan were involved in. I love it when people share their process and build stories like this.

Your Startup is Doomed « Tom Scott

The truth about startups. Got a startup? Take the quiz. It’s harsh but fair.

Special Report #1: Data Protection — Contents Magazine

This is an important subject (and one very close to my heart) so I’m very glad to see these data protection guidelines nailed to the wall of the web over at Contents Magazine.

1. Treat our data like it matters.
2. No upload without download.
3. If you close a system, support data rescue.

Summer Reading… and Programming

This is rather marvellous: a book review from Robin Sloan that requires you to type commands into a JavaScript console.

The Kitschies present… Beukes, Miéville and Ness

An evening with Lauren Beukes, China Miéville and Patrick Ness in London the week after dConstruct. Sounds like fun!

CamHolder 0.2 for iPhone, Android and other mobile handsets - by Heiko Behrens

I’ve seen Heiko present with this gizmo at Mobilism and it worked a treat. I’m very tempted to get one for future presentations.

Matthew Butterick: Reversing the Tide of Declining Expectations

I don’t agree with everything in this presentation—there’s a nostalgic bias to the non-existent “good ol’ days”—but this is still very engaging and thought-provoking.

fberriman » Accidental designer

Everything Frances has written here resonates with me.

I don’t really want a label. I hate labels. I loathe the term “user experience designer”, because I still believe that “user experience” is just a fundamental to what you’re doing, and shouldn’t need stating. There is nothing but user experience design if you’re building products for people.

View from the ISS at Night on Vimeo

Another beautiful timelapse video made from photographs taken from the International Space Station.

The music from Sunshine gets me every time.

JPEGmini - Your Photos on a Diet!

This looks like a really handy tool for reducing the file size of JPEGs without any perceptible loss of quality (in much the same way that ImageOptim works for PNGs)—available as a Mac app or an installable web service.

A Tall Tail by Charles Stross | Tor.com

A terrific little conspiracy theory short story from Charles Stross set at last year’s (very real) 100 Year Starship gathering.

Web Native Design on Vimeo

A great talk on the nature of the web that Paul gave in Copenhagen recently.

The fetishization of the offline, and a new definition of real

A good recap of the recent online/offline/does-it-really-matter discussion …although it does lend a bit too much credence to the pronouncements of that king of trolls, Nicholas Carr.

The Time Traveler’s Cookbook: Meat-Lover’s Edition : NPR

A PDF to download and read that is both funny and fascinating.

London Device Library

London now has its own device lab (at the Mozilla offices).

If you’re in London and you have an old phone you could contribute, please, please add it to the contribution.

Latency: The New Web Performance Bottleneck - igvita.com

This is just wonderful! It combines almost all of my recent obsessions into one unified post: website performance (particularly on mobile) and the locations of undersea cables. The interactive map is the icing on the cake.

bandwidth (tecznotes)

Mike compares the bandwidth usage of the sites he most frequently visits. The results are grim.

The worst sins of the Flash years are coming back with a vengeance, in the form of CSS Frameworks and the magic dollar sign. There has seriously got to be a better way to do this.

HP “On That Cloud Thing That Everyone Else Is Talking About” | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source | Onion News Network

Pitch-perfect parody from The Onion:

HP announced they’re making a new push into cloud computing and that they totally know what that is.

In related news, I’ve ordered my “the cloud is a lie” T-shirt from James.

The Shape of Design by Frank Chimero

Frank has published his book online in HTML. Very lovely it is too.

Twitter without Hashbangs

Remember when I linked to the story of Twitter’s recent redesign of their mobile site and I said it would be great to see it progressively enhanced up to the desktop version? Well, here’s a case study that does just that.

Your Logo Is Not Hardcore

Quadrants created by two crossed lines in an X formation. Hardcore.

Jay-Z’s 99 Problems, Verse 2: A close reading with Fourth Amendment guidance for cops and perps

A blow-by-blow legal analysis of the second verse of Jay-Z’s 99 Problems.

Organized Wonder | Curated documentaries, interviews, short films, and other top videos from around the web.

This is like a video version of Huffduffer (without the timeshifting). It’s very nicely done.

Stephen Wolfram in The European magazine: I Like to Build Alien Artifacts

Thoughts on artificial intelligence, computation and complexity.

Derek Powazek - What If Social Networks Just Aren’t Profitable?

I think Derek is on to something here. Maybe online communities and profit are simply incompatible?

The bigger you go, the harder the road. Meanwhile, small, focused, and yes, exclusionary community sites flourish.

You know what? I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all.

We’ll tell you what you really want: Mobile context, top tasks, and organization-centric thinking | Sara Wachter-Boettcher, Content Strategist

An excellent follow-up to the recent posts on the myth of mobile context.

You often hear about cutting content to cut clutter. I support this—if you’re cutting the clutter from everywhere, not just a mobile experience.

Maybe the answer isn’t cutting. Maybe it’s learning better skills for designing and structuring complex information to be usable and enjoyable in small spaces.

Implementing Responsive Design | Building sites for an anywhere, everywhere web

Tim’s book is ready for pre-order. Looks like it’s going to be good one.

» 13 July 2012, baked by Bruce Lawson @ The Pastry Box Project

More on View Source, this time from Bruce.

The Web has thrived on people viewing source, copying and pasting, then tweaking until they get the page they want.

The Interview — Anne’s Blog

I wish more tech bloggers wrote like this.

Things that compile to JavaScript

Stuart on the importance of View Source.

Bringing a knife to a gunfight — my slide deck from An Event Apart, Austin 2012 | Stuff & Nonsense

Andy remarks on the same synchronicity I talked about at An Event Apart Austin:

Every An Event Apart conference feels special, but at this one the (unplanned) recurring themes were spooky.

Janey Godley’s Blog: Tim & Freya the full story & Conclusion!

Strangers on a train.

Uncle Dave’s Ol’ Padded Box - Dave Rupert

Yet another brilliant technique from Dave. The only caveat is that it uses background images rather than img elements, but it’s still very powerful (and very clever).

Client/Agency Engagement is F*cked, Waterfall UX Design is a Symptom | disambiguity

Leisa nails it. The real stumbling block with trying to change the waterfall-esque nature of agency work (of which Clearleft has certainly been guilty) can be summed up in two words: sign off.

And from a client’s perspective, this emphasis on sign-off is completely understandable.

It takes a special kind of client to take the risk and develop the level of trust and integration required to work the way that Mr Popoff-Walker any many, many other inhabitants of agency world would like to work.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac on Map Tales

This in-depth map tale really works as a way of exploring Kerouac’s most famous work.

When Art, Apple and the Secret Service Collide: ‘People Staring at Computers’ | Threat Level | Wired.com

A good long read that tells the story behind an art piece that used the built-in cameras on Macs in the Apple Store, and the subsequent visit from the Secret Service.

80’s Touch

The Old Aesthetic. It’s eighties-tastic!

A List Apart: Articles: ALA Summer Reading Issue

How about this for a trip down memory lane—a compendium of articles from over a decade of A List Apart, also available as a Readlist epub. It’s quite amazing just how good this free resource is.

The only thing to fault is that, due to some kind of clerical error, one of my articles has somehow found its way onto this list.

If this were Twitter, you’d be at-replying me with the hashtag “humblebrag”, wouldn’t you?

Open Conference Expectations — Gist

This is a really good initiative—a list of minimum expectations from conference organisers (although there’s clearly some differences between cheaper grassroots events and larger industry affairs).

UX Design at Digital Agencies is F*cked | RossPW

This resonates a lot with me. It also hits very close to home: at Clearleft, we’ve definitely been guilty of taking the wrong approach as described here.

Twitter Blog: Overhauling mobile.twitter.com from the ground up

A great behind-the-scenes look at the redesign (and redevelopment) of Twitter’s mobile subdomain silo. Man, I would love to see this progressively enhanced up to the current widescreen view for “desktop” browsers without the need for separate URLs for any class of device.

But I digress …this is good stuff.

It’s time to stop blaming Internet Explorer | NCZOnline

Nicholas is inside my head! Get out of my head, Nicholas!

What makes the web beautiful is precisely that there are multiple browsers and, if you build things correctly, your sites and applications work in them all. They might not necessarily work exactly the same in them all, but they should still be able to work. There is absolutely nothing preventing you from using new features in your web applications, that’s what progressive enhancement is all about.

How to Kill a Troll - Incisive.nu

What Erin has written here makes me want to be a better person.

Scripting News: How future-safe was the first Harvard blogging site?

A cautionary tale from Dave Winer of not considering digital preservation from the outside. We must learn the past. We must.

A Ship Aground

This is how London looked on my birthday, as recorded by the stationary meatspace protrusion of James’s Ship Adrift.

oldtweets - Laughing Meme

Kellan explains the tech behind Old Tweets …and also the thinking behind it:

I think our history is what makes us human, and the push to ephemerality and disposability “as a feature” is misguided. And a key piece of our personal histories is becoming “the story we want to remember”, aka what we’ve shared.

Mobile > Local « Karen McGrane

Yes, yes, yes! Karen drives home the difference between mobile and local (and there’s more about the myth of the mobile context).

If you’re making an argument for delivering different content to mobile users, or prioritizing content differently based on their context of use, stop for a minute and ask yourself if you mean local content. And if you do mean local content, then say that. Claiming that your travel example extends to cover the “mobile use case” leaves out millions of tasks and users.

Just to belabor this point: people use mobile devices in every location, in every context. Just because you know what type of device someone is using or where she is doesn’t tell you anything about her intention.

Grids, Design Guidelines, Broken Rules, and the Streets of New York City (Global Moxie)

Josh writes about the importance of using rules and systems as tools without being bound by them.

Great Works of Fiction Presents: The Mobile Context | The Haystack.

A really great article from Stephen on how we are mistakenly making assumptions about what users want. He means it, man!

Lasting Statement

I’m in Texas right now.

These are the final statements of men and women who have been executed by the state of Texas.

United Pixelworkers — Brighton

Now you can proudly sport a Pixelworkers T-shirt of England’s finest seaside geek town.

oldtweets

A public service from Kellan: the ability to search through your oldest tweets.

Olympic Defence: the Unofficial London 2012 Security Game « Tom Scott

Yet another piece of brilliance from Tom:

Click to make the Olympic Mascots fire their roof-mounted missiles! Aim for terrorists, protestors, and any illegal advertising!

Technology - Howard Rheingold - What the WELL’s Rise and Fall Tell Us About Online Community - The Atlantic

The history of the WELL, a truly remarkable community.

blogging: Beautiful people

It’s worth remembering sometimes just how amazing Twitter can be.

People who don’t know us wanted to send their friendship to a 15 year old learning-disabled girl who was sad. For no reason other than their own humanity. This is a beautiful thing.

That can be my next tweet

A fun bit of Markov chaining of your tweets. Some of mine:

Had a burrito in Barcelona. Thank you get the peacocks plumage.

Stand by to the most helpful. The Fuck Was That type shop and David Byrne walked into a Wikipedia entry?

Last Waltz again. This Is A demonstration of The office doors are they talk right now. Cool your plans.

Picking salad leaves from the people who own them. They’re just resting” at the communal testing lab is!

Heading out the standard option. Alas, there’s no signs of spending Bloomsday as constructive feedback?

Squirrel!

Here’s a brainbuster for ya: a single file that renders both as HTML and as a JPEG. As an HTML page, it even contains an img element with a src of …itself!

Compare the “view source” output with the generated source output to see it’s being interpreted.

Anna Debenham: Using the Nintendo DSi browser

Anna reports on her experience testing on a device we don’t often think about: the Nintendo DS …very popular with the young ‘uns.

As We May Think - The Atlantic

Vannevar Bush’s original 1945 motherlode of hypertext.

The Coming Technological Singularity

Vernor Vinge’s original 1993 motherlode of the singularity.

The Myth of Cyberspace – The New Inquiry

There is a there there after all.

The IRL Fetish – The New Inquiry

The backlash against the backlash against connectivity.

» 29 June 2012, baked by Lea Verou @ The Pastry Box Project

I thoroughly agree with Lea’s approach. It’s all about the craft.

Welcome to the Future Nauseous

I, for one, welcome our Manufactured Normalcy Field overlords.

[this is aaronland] “an index of reality”

Aaron should definitely skyblog more often if this is the result.