Enter your 16-digit card number folllowed by Arghhh

So I got home late last night and opened a letter containing a replacement bank card. To activate it I had to call one of those automated phone lines. It taught me something interesting. Though standing in the living room just a few feet from a landline phone, I reached for the phone that is … Continue reading Enter your 16-digit card number folllowed by Arghhh →

On newsprint: the potency of cheap paper

This post was going to be all about newspapers, but the more I thought about it the more I realised that before writing about the news I have to explain the paper, specifically the cheap, low quality paper we call newsprint. It's a fascinating story which, I think, explains why short-run, nichepaper projects such as Newspaper Club … Continue reading On newsprint: the potency of cheap paper →

Mobile Gothic: a flight of fancy

I've always found it strange that Eric S. Raymond chose the cathedral as his metaphor for closed development in free software, because the construction of our great medieval cathedrals must have been a very open process. Passing peasants were doubtless discouraged from picking up a chisel to hack at the nearest stone, but Gothic buildings … Continue reading Mobile Gothic: a flight of fancy →

Temple Works 3.0 Alpha

In December I blogged about the perilous state of Leeds' Temple Works. Neglected for several years, this Grade I-listed building had suffered a partial collapse, blocking the road outside with shattered masonry and opening up a gaping hole in the roof where sheep once grazed on a covering of grass. Six months on, I'm pleased to report … Continue reading Temple Works 3.0 Alpha →

Duck, dive, scribble, spray – now gestural interfaces are within everyone’s reach

Lower down this post, you'll probably find some high-flown stuff about gestural user interfaces going mainstream, but in all honesty the thread that joins together the following two-and-a-half things is that they've all left me grinning like a fool. A hand-waving grinning fool. And a bobbing my head up and down like Churchill the nodding … Continue reading Duck, dive, scribble, spray – now gestural interfaces are within everyone’s reach →

Play Small: why mobile challenges designers to make a better web

In a single Noisy Decent Graphics post, Ben Terrett effortlessly segues between my two preoccupations of the moment - agonised middle-class parenting, and the superiority of mobile web over fixed. How could I resist? "City kids are not like country kids", he notes, "... the space available to play is smaller... so they learn to play smaller." … Continue reading Play Small: why mobile challenges designers to make a better web →