When I wrote about Reddit and Hacker News, criticising their lack of moderation, civility, and basic decency, many people (invariably men) responded in defence of Reddit. Nobody defended Hacker News. Nobody.
Oh, and all of you people (men) defending Reddit? Here’s your party line …I find it abhorrent.
The image-stitching algorithm is trying its best.
A profile of Norbert Wiener, and how his star was eclipsed by Claude Shannon.
I guess it goes without saying at this point, but this piece from Frank is beautiful and thought-provoking.
This part in particular touched on some things I’ve been thinking about lately:
Design’s golden calf is simplicity. Speaking as someone who sees, makes, and uses design each and every day, I am tired of simple things. Simple things are weak. They are limited. They are boring. What I truly want is clarity. Give me clear and evident things over simple things. Make me things that presume and honor my intelligence. Shun seamlessness. It is another false token. Make me things that are full of seams, because if you give me a seam and I pull the thread, I get to see how the whole world is stitched together. Give me some credit. Show me you trust me.
The story behind one of the winning photographs at this year’s Astronomy Photographer Of The Year that I was lucky enough to attend. This is beautiful.
Don Norman bemoans the seemingly-inevitable direction that the internet is taking; from an open system of exchange to a closed, controlled broadcast channel. I share his fear.
A tour of the Global Seed Bank in Svalbard.
Julian Bleecker explains design fiction in the context of science fiction using the examples of gestural interfaces and virtual reality.
A website dedicated to the world-renowned trafficwomen of North Korea.
The nerdgasmic result of a collision between linguistics and Star Wars.
A beautiful video created on London's Monument. "The installation provides a live stream of continually modified time-lapse images 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. A computer controlled digital camera provides a 360-degree panoramic view from the top of the Monument."
The spread of happiness, obesity and smoking habits through social networks.
Intrepid adventurer Ben Saunders is off again. This time he aims to to set a new world speed record from Ward Hunt Island to the Geographic North Pole. He is armed with a beautiful website courtesy of Colly and the lads at Erskine.
Remember when I went off an a big rant a while back about some very badly-designed pedestrian signals? My opinion has only strengthened since I wrote that diatribe.
Those signals of insanity appear to be slowly taking over the whole country. I was in Norwich last week to talk about DOM Scripting and Ajax with the good folks at Norwich Union, two of whom I had already met at the dConstruct microformats workshop. While I was out and about in downtown Norwich during a lunch break, I couldn’t help but notice that the city was infested with the aforementioned signals.
I brought them up during the Ajax workshop—they’re a perfect example of terrible affordances and even worse feedback; both very relevant aspects of Ajax interface design. Nobody had a kind word to say about the devices. One of the attendees described how, just that day, he had managed to stop an elderly couple from getting run over by a bus; they were understandably confused by the awful pedestrian signals.
It’s quite gratifying that I everybody I talk to about this feels the same as I do. Those excruciatingly awfully-designed objects are going to cause fatalities, if they haven’t already.
I couldn’t help but feel vindicated when, walking down Norwich’s wonderfully-named Rampant Horse Street, I saw signs attached to the pedestrian signals on both sides of the road that read:
PEDESTRIANS—YOUR RED/GREEN MAN SIGNAL IS ON THE POLE NEXT TO YOU
Apart from providing a good giggle about what a “man signal” might be, these public-facing instructions are a damning indictment of terrible interaction design. If I need to RTFM before crossing the street, something is seriously wrong with the user interface. I’m tempted to apend my own all-caps message to the signs:
DO NOT WANT
Superb blood donor video. Which reminds me...
Valleywag is using my picture of LOLtek to illustrate a post about the recent resignations at Technorati. Ouch!
It’s the day before @media America and I’ve been making the most of what San Francisco has to offer. That doesn’t mean I’ve been a culture vulture, exploring museums and sits of historical interest. Instead I’ve been meeting up with fellow geeks and observing them in their natural habitat.
I went by the Flickr offices yesterday. It was somewhat, um, whacky. Within five minutes of my being there, a full-blown rubber rocket fight erupted. This sort of thing is, apparently, a perfectly normal occurence.
I liberated Paul, Cal and Dunstan (yes, he’s alive and well, honest) for a short break in the sunshine. They spent the entire time reminiscing about crappy English things that are hard to come by in San Francisco—like fried breakfasts and maltesers (that’s not a serving suggestion). What a bunch of sad bastards!
After a late night of microformat geekiness with Tantek, I went over to the offices of Six Apart. They had very kindly invited me to come by and see what they’ve been working on for the next (imminent) release of Movable Type. I had a lot of fun talking with them about code, user testing and community. I wish I could tell you everything they told me but my lips are sealed on a big announcement that’s coming. All will be revealed on June 5th.
From there, it was a short stroll to the Technorati offices to regroup with Tantek and continue the microformats mission together with Erin Caton, flown in fresh from Vancouver. We left the Technorati hub (which was, as might be expected, buzzing on the day of its freshly-launched redesign) and set up camp at Caffe Centro in South Park.
After a productive afternoon of coffee and wiki-editing, the coup de grace was visiting the offices of Twitter. I’m such a fanboy that I was practically squealing with delight at the mere thought seeing the home of ambient intimacy. The fact that all the people there were absolutely lovely was the icing on the cake.
After a day like that, I feel like a kid that’s been let loose in a toy shop.
I’ve posted a few videos from Web Directions North up on YouTube. You can watch Cindy Li and Dan Rubin showing far more gumption on the snowboard than I was capable of mustering.
My favourite is a portrait of my fellow bunny slopers. They all thought I was taking a picture. I started filming and counted the seconds until they realised. It’s a shame that the video quality on YouTube is so crap: you can’t really spot the subtle changes as their smiles transition from genuine to faltering to strained. I’d like to make a whole series of videos like this; what a wonderful way to break the social contract.
Update: David Swallow points me to Long Awkward Pose, a site dedicated to this technique. Wonderful!
My timid little foray into posting videos on YouTube pales in comparison to my fellow Clearleftist, “nice” Paul Annett. Paul is a magician, you see. I don’t just mean that he’s a really good designer; I mean he does honest-to-goodness magic. It always makes for fun Friday evening drinks.
Anyway, Paul posted one of his card tricks on YouTube. It appears to have a struck a chord. The video has over 2,000,000 views and 5,000 comments, making it one of the most popular videos on YouTube ever. It’s weird to think that Paul’s homemade video has been viewed more often than many television programs.
Oh, and if you’re curious about how the trick was done, read all about it. Now if only Jared Spool would reveal how he did that levitating trick he was showing in Vancouver last week.
Khoi writes about Twitter and its younger sibling, Twitterific. He makes some great points about the differences that the two interfaces confer on the experience of Twittering.
He’s not the only one with something to say about Twitter. At Web Directions North, the subject came up at least once every evening and usually resulted in an hour-long conversation/discussion/argument about its merits and failings. I can’t remember the last time that a service prompted such strong feelings.
Personally, I found my emotional connection to Twitter deepening while I was in Vancouver. I didn’t have much opportunity to Twitter myself because my phone didn’t want to play nice with Canadian networks but Jessica was twittering. Being able to catch up with the minutiae of her activity during the day was just wonderful. Of course there’s always emails, chats, phone calls, blog posts and Flickr pics but they all require a certain level of effort.
I must admit, not having a working phone did feel a little bit like going cold turkey. I’m sure that, like Dan, I would have been Twittering from on top of Whistler.
If you want to see some real Twitter addiction, Patrick Haney has it bad, man. He paid the price for his addiction when a Twitter drinking game was decreed at the Media Temple closing party. The rules are simple:
I hadn’t seen Tantek in an inebriated state until that night.
All I can say is, “Wow!” Web Directions North was one superb conference. The speakers were great, the organisation was slick and the social events were out of this world.
Every conference has its own vibe and this was one of excitement and fun. I was reminded of the atmosphere at a rock concert; when there’s energy coming from the stage, the audience responds in kind.
I’ve already described the presentations I was fortunate enough to attend, but I haven’t yet mentioned how well-put together the whole thing was. Maxine and John have plenty of experience under their respective belts while Dave and Derek have the benefit of being seasoned presenters themselves. Together they put a lot of thought into planning and executing a kick-ass conference.
Oh, and if you happen to be in the conference-organising business and you want some of that same success, here’s a tip: hire Cindy Li. She made sure that everything went like clockwork, mananging both the speakers and the attendees like they were play-doh in her hands.
At Web Directions North, I felt like I had the chance to connect with a lot of people; old friends and new. The end of any conference is often a bittersweet and frustrating time. All the people who have gathered together to share inspiration and knowledge scatter back to their respective homes. The size of this event combined with social events such as the infamous Media Temple closing party ensured that missed opportunities were kept to a minimum. Most of all though, I’ve enjoyed the best post-conference wind-down ever.
What better way to follow two days of wonderfully geeky talks than with two days of outdoor activity at Whistler? I rented a snowboard and all the associated paraphernalia. Even if I couldn’t actually do anything much, at least I could look the part. I had fun in the snow with my fellow bunny slopers but snowboarding is clearly not the sport for me. Racing down the mountainside in a rubber tube, on the other hand, is clearly my forté. The appeal of rubber tubing lies in the almost complete lack of skill required—apart from keeping your bum in the air for the bumpy bits.
And what better way to follow a day of outdoor activity than an après-ski extravaganza courtesy of Microsoft? The Redmond giant thinks that we’re so shallow that our affections can be bought with an endless supply of free food and booze for two days straight. Well, they’re right. I have a new-found soft spot in my heart for Microsoft.
Seriously though, It was really great that Adobe and Microsoft weren’t just faceless sponsors; they also had plenty of delegates in attendance. It felt really good to be able to put faces and names to the software that plays such an important part in the life of a Web developer. I enjoyed some very productive conversations with the Adobe gang and I was humbled to meet some of the developers working on IE7. I’m less likely to pour a vitriolic rant into an anonymous textarea now that I know some of the faces and names at the receiving end of the blogosphere’s ire.
Now I’m on my way back to England. While I am of course sad to be leaving Vancouver, I don’t have the usual post-conference ennui. I feel satisfied. I’m looking forward to getting home where I hope I’ll have some time to reflect on some of the things I discussed with the intelligent and passionate people at Web Directions North.