If he was a tiger, why was he so skinny?

Geheimnisvollen Gebäuden und Denkmälern aus dem ehemaligen...

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:56:00 -0400

Geheimnisvollen Gebäuden und Denkmälern aus dem ehemaligen Jugoslawien.

Mysterious buildings and monuments from the former Yugoslavia.

Miss Lotion illustrates her skills.

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:48:00 -0400

Miss Lotion illustrates her skills.

Raymond Lemstra is brilliant.

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:44:00 -0400

Raymond Lemstra is brilliant.

The future of libraries and research will be decided by Google?

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:53:00 -0400

The future of libraries and research will be decided by Google?:

In the 1990’s I wrote often about information dystopias. In 1994 I said:

It’s clear to me that the information highway isn’t much about information. It’s about trying to find a new basis for our economy. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like the way information is treated in that economy. We know what kind of information sells, and what doesn’t.

How much design is too much design?

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:48:00 -0400

How much design is too much design?:

As we await the launch of Apple’s latest attempt at creating a crediblecloud computing service, an editorial at Ars Technica asks whether Apple can really succeed at this game. Writer Timothy B. Lee argues that Apple’s “centralized, designer-driven culture can be a serious weakness when building scalable network services,” and that analysis and iteration is what is truly necessary to make these things work.

This may or may not be an accurate assessment of Apple’s predicament, but I think the debate about whether designer-driven network products — not just cloud services, but social networks too — can succeed is an interesting one. I wouldn’t say that a strongly designer-led corporate culture makes it impossible for a company to create network products that people really want to use. But it does seem to me that, as much as we talk about the cruciality of design to the success of software that it’s also true that having too much design is often counter-productive.

The Genius of Robert Walser

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 11:57:00 -0400

The Genius of Robert Walser:

On Christmas Day, 1956, the police of the town of Herisau in eastern Switzerland were called out: children had stumbled upon the body of a man, frozen to death, in a snowy field. Arriving at the scene, the police took photographs and had the body removed.

The dead man was easily identified: Robert Walser, aged seventy-eight, missing from a local mental hospital. In his earlier years Walser had won something of a reputation, in Switzerland and even in Germany, as a writer. Some of his books were still in print; there had even been a biography of him published. During a quarter of a century in mental institutions, however, his own writing had dried up. Long country walks—like the one on which he had died—had been his main recreation.

Is there a cure for Britain's most dangerous criminals?

Tue, 24 May 2011 05:48:00 -0400

Is there a cure for Britain's most dangerous criminals?:

Derek and Jean Robinson were a kindly couple who lived in a neat house in Heslington, York. He was a doctor and she worked for Christian Aid. It was the early 1970s; I was a student at the university, and my father, who knew them, had urged me to make contact. I spent a pleasant hour in their kitchen, chatting over coffee, and then took my leave, promising, as one does, to see them again soon. I never did. The next I heard, more than 30 years later, was that they had been murdered by a man with a psychopathic personality disorder who told police he wanted to become Britain’s most prolific serial killer.

How to spot a psychopath

Sun, 22 May 2011 05:42:00 -0400

How to spot a psychopath:

It was visiting hour at Broadmoor psychiatric hospital and patients began drifting in to sit with their loved ones at tables and chairs that had been fixed to the ground. They were mostly overweight, wearing loose, comfortable T-shirts and elasticated sweatpants. There probably wasn’t much to do in Broadmoor but eat. I wondered if any of them were famous. Broadmoor was where they sent Ian Brady, the Moors murderer, and Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper.

Why I love the Guardian homepage

Sat, 21 May 2011 05:10:32 -0400

As a site that I visit on many occasions in one day I have only recently thought deeply about why I like the Guardian homepage so much.

I have identified that the reason for my love of the page is simply its beautiful layout. The page is designed in such a way that I can scroll down to see new information, but I can also scroll back up and see new information too. This is achieved by a 4 column layout that allows me to read the text based first column in a downward scroll, then scroll back whilst taking in the image heavy second column and finally read the text and video third column in another downward scroll. I never look at the fourth column as it is holds no interest for me.

I love the way the content changes with columns too, the first contains news stories, the second features and the third comment, film, music art and culture. This reflects the way the newspaper is structured when read on paper, this combination means that I get a similar experience on and off line, which is probably the main reason I love the page or even site so much.

Are websites elastic?

Tue, 17 May 2011 12:03:00 -0400

A structure is defined as “any assemblage of materials which is intended to sustain loads” when applied to a website it is redefined as “any assemblage of information which is intended to sustain access”.

The behaviour of these structures is precisely what we have been designing. The entry points, the navigation methods, the taxonomy and the labelling have all been carefully thought out and planned to ensure the information is easily accessible and navigable.

Arguably the most important aspect of a website, providing the ability to travel around the information system the navigation is full of potential failure points.

The design of navigation, whether it is to be horizontal or vertical, drop-down or side positioned will depend on the size, use and complexity of the information. The failure point here is that the wrong navigation design is chosen and as a result the site is less navigable at least and unnavigable at worst.

The testing of the navigation is something that starts at the inception of the information architecture. Sorting and classifying the content into a taxonomy is a crucial stage in navigation design. However, the biggest problem here is that “information seekers need to discover that path to a piece of information in the same way that the taxonomist conceived it” (Tunkelang 2009), meaning that our way of classifying the content is different to another and we need to achieve the best guess by validating our ideas using card sorting or other methods.

Please note: This is an ongoing post.

Nothing but the truth

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 04:42:00 -0400

In these times of corporate funded news it is difficult to find a true voice, a voice that many may call subversive and dangerous, but that some see as part of the new wave of news, focusing on what’s really happening where it really matters, street level.

100proofTRUTH is one such publication, now on it’s 5th online edition it has a growing readership from counterculture’s web savvy. As an arts and culture led magazine 1ooproofTRUTH showcases the talents and gives a voice to new and established artists. The content is deftly handled by founder King Adz, a fantastic documentary filmmaker who has profiled greats such as Blek Le Rat and Stass Paraskoss. His enviable talent for finding the best of the new breed is inspiring and marks the magazine head and shoulders above any mainstream publication that attempts to cover the same bases.

Reporting comes from a new school of thought, a school that grew up on Hunter S Thompson’s Gonzo journalism style but adds a new dimension for the future. Alexis Manning brings troubled areas to life getting into the reality that is lost from so much news reporting. Her article from Cape Flats in South Africa in issue one sets out a clear statement of intent; uncompromising, no holds barred, gritty realism. The new dimension is added by fast flowing, urban film which accompanies the written reports. The film brings a visual representation of the sights that Alexis describes providing a quick yet definite insight in her travels.

If you haven’t read the magazine yet then now is the time to start. The editions can be sporadic but believe me they are worth the wait and in the mean time you visit the wooster collective and areyougeneric to keep your mind engaged and up to date.

Culture in a time of waste

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 09:56:00 -0400

A lecture in three parts on and around the topics of consumption, brands and art, presented by the RSA.

Neil Boorman (Bonfire of the brands) began the evening with a spot of audience participation, he asked if anyone amongst us felt that they were unaffected by advertising and brand pulling power. A small amount of hands were stridently raised, one of these self-proclaimed “brand neutral” audience members was invited or possibly cajouled to the stage for a short exercise on unconscious advertising.

The premise of this short task was to establish if the participant was free of feeling and sentiment when viewing logos belonging to a some world leading brands. The participant was asked to write the first word that came into their head on a whiteboard, as the brands were shown words connected to the brand image of each company appeared on the board. The exercise had shown that even if we think we are not affected by brand image, we still find it easy to give the emotional response that the advertising has been feeding us.

It is true that city dwellers in our western society are subjected to some 3000 adverts during their working day. This has the effect of subconsciously conditioning an emotional response to a product or brand (exactly what the advertising is designed to do). This conditioning triggers thoughts and feelings when we visit shops and forms the basis of our eventual choice of product.

Neil took Lynx deodorant as a case in point. Levelled squarely at teenage boys, Lynx adverts seek to show that wearing the product will make you instantly sexually appealing to the opposite sex. Whilst in an adult reality we can see that this is a ludicrous suggestion, imagine the effect it has on an impressionable adolescent already worried about his self image because he does not wear the latest Nike trainers or use the most socially acceptable Sony Ericcson mobile phone.

It is exactly this type of advertising that Neil abhors, having been a fully paid up member of the brand club he self deprecates effortlessly about his former self reliance on brands to make him feel good about his life.

Since his awakening and atonement through setting all his branded possessions alight, he has made it his obligation to educate, through lectures such as these, the consumer, so that they may fight back against the ad agencies and their underhand tactics. A mission made all the more difficult by the observations of anthropologist Professor Danny Miller.

In two studies of the inhabitants of London, Danny has seen his expectations tested. It should be that people who are aware of the power of advertising, emotional responses and the evils of over-consumption, lead more meaningful lives and have more meaningful relationships than those who over consume, as they operate on a level free of materialism and individualism. But, his studies have shown the opposite. People who fully engage with emotional responses and follow them up with purchasing and consumption have meaningful relationships, have more friends and are on the whole happier with their lives.

An interesting observation, but my personal thoughts are that I require further classification on what a meaningful relationship is and of course what it means to be happy (a topic to large to get into now). More potent to me is the statistic that teenagers change their mobile phones on average every 17 months, could this same relationship pattern cause social ennui if it pervades into their personal lives and we see friends discarded when a new and more exciting model turns up.

Danny’s lecture then changed tack to look at the role of consumption in the environment and how it gets lost within a myriad of factors when applied to climate change. He argued that consumption is the driving force behind climate change, it is precisely this singular factor that increases production, pollution and in some cases causes economic and environmental disasters.

He believes that governments should do far more to halt climate change by forcing citizens to stop consuming. I agree that it should be up to the government to lead from the front and not to just leave it to the electorate to choose whether they want to make a difference or not. But, I could only work with this if scientists were to be given the floor to explain the consequences and it was clear that the government did not profit out of the actions taken.

The final lecture was given by Michael Landy a YBA whose work Breakdown found the artist cataloging all 7227 of his personal possessions and then destroying them using an (un)assembly line built inside the former C&A store on Oxford Street. His talk centred around his own experience of losing all of his “things” in the name of art.

Personally I found it quite an emotive action, I felt sadness for him when he said he had destroyed all of his photos, love letters and personal momentos. But, he is unaffected by it, his life has changed although he is still able to carry on doing what he did before, for me this shows with great clarity that possessions do not maketh the man. Many people lose their possessions through theft, fire or flood, these people carry on, rebuild and start again.

Maybe it is this fresh start that we all need, to shed our belongings, lose our materialism and build lives that have meaning based on love and worth instead of the pursuit of money, fame and power.