Adactio: Links

Huffduffer saves Web audio to your own podcast stream

This slipped past me somehow: a review of Huffduffer by Jason Snell for Macworld.

Thanks, Jason! Glad you like it.

Building the Great Libraries of the Internet with a DNS time machine by Ben Ward

Ben proposes an alternative to archive.org: changing the fundamental nature of DNS.

Regarding the boo-hooing of how hard companies have it maintaining unprofitable URLs, I think Ben hasn’t considered the possibility of a handover to a cooperative of users—something that might yet happen with MySpace (at least there’s a campaign to that effect; it will probably come to naught). As Ben rightly points on, domain names are leased, not bought, so the idea of handing them over to better caretakers isn’t that crazy.

The irregular musings of Lou Montulli: The reasoning behind Web Cookies

A fascinating look at the history of cookies …from the inventor of cookies.

You should write about yourself more

Yes! Yes! YES!

Tom is spot-on here: you shouldn’t be afraid of writing about yourself …especially not for fear of damaging some kind of “personal brand” or pissing off some potential future employer.

If your personal brand demands that you live your life in fear of disclosing important parts of your life or your experience, the answer is to reject the whole sodding concept of personal brands.

Do things I write about my personal life threaten my personal brand? Perhaps. Are there people who wouldn’t hire me based on things I write? Probably. Do I give even a whiff of a fuck? Absolutely not. I wouldn’t want to work for them anyway.

Teenage Diaries Revisited

Fascinating fodder for Huffduffer:

Beginning in 1996, Radio Diaries gave tape recorders to teenagers around the country to create audio diaries about their lives. NPR’s All Things Considered aired intimate portraits of five of these teens: Amanda, Juan, Frankie, Josh and Melissa. They’re now in their 30s. Over this past year, the same group has been recording new stories about where life has led them for our series, Teenage Diaries Revisited.

SpaceWarps

Zooniverse have done it again. Now you can help in the hunt for sources of gravitational lensing.

It’s informative. It’s fun. It has genuine scientific value.

In The Name of Willie Clancy « Arbutus Yarns

A really nice short film about the Willie Clancy Summer School. It makes me want to get back to Miltown Malbay this July.

The open internet and the web

A history lesson from Vint Cerf. I can’t help but picture him as The Architect in The Matrix Reloaded.

When Tim Berners-Lee invented and released the World Wide Web (WWW) design in late 1991, he found an open and receptive internet in operation onto which the WWW could be placed. The WWW design, like the design of the internet, was very open and encouraged a growing cadre of self-taught webmasters to develop content and applications.

Quietweet - A Simpler Twitter Reader

A cute little read-only Twitter client from James that only displays fully-formed tweets: no hashtags, no @-replies.

The canonical smart city: A pastiche by Adam Greenfield’s Speedbird

Sorta sci-fi from Adam.

Consider this a shooting script for one of those concept videos so beloved of the big technology vendors.

The Secret Door - Step Through To The Unknown… | Safestyle UK

Prepare to lose yourself for hours as you keep hitting “take me somewhere else” through these most bizarre and wonderful Google street view locations.

Strassenblickfernweh indeed.

Brett Jankord – Active development on Categorizr has come to an end

I think it’s a bit of a shame that Brett is canning his mobile-first device-detection library, but I totally understand (and agree with) his reasons.

There is a consensual hallucination in the market, that we can silo devices into set categories like mobile, tablet, and desktop, yet the reality is drawing these lines in the sand is not an easy task.

Science Hack Day is coming to your city! by Ariel Waldman

Want a Science Hack Day where you live? Make it so!

Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World

A truly fascinating and well-written article on how changes are afoot in the worlds of psychology, economics, and just about any other field that has performed tests on American participants and extrapolated the results into universal traits.

Given the data, they concluded that social scientists could not possibly have picked a worse population from which to draw broad generalizations. Researchers had been doing the equivalent of studying penguins while believing that they were learning insights applicable to all birds.

Ideas of March — All in the head

A wonderful rallying cry from Drew.

The problem:

Ever since the halcyon days of Web 2.0, we’ve been netting our butterflies and pinning them to someone else’s board.

The solution:

Hope that what you’ve created never has to die. Make sure that if something has to die, it’s you that makes that decision. Own your own data, friends, and keep it safe.

Thumbs and Ammo

Ay!

On Silos vs an Open Social Web by Tantek

Tantek steps back and offers some practical approaches to reclaiming a more open web from the increasingly tight clutches of the big dominant roach motels.

Notice that he wrote this on his own domain, not on Branch, Medium, Google+, Facebook, or any other black hole.

Science Fiction Film as Design Scenario Exercise for Psychological Habitability: Production Designs 1955-2009

A white paper that looks to sci-fi films as potential prototypes for habitats for humans in space, with an emphasis on dealing with the psychological issues involved.

An interview with Jeremy Keith on The Industry

I really, really enjoyed this chat with Conor, especially the quick-fire round.

Note: I’m happy to report that between doing the interview and its publication, I managed to get the redesign of The Session out the door.

There Was Once a Certain Kind of Cinema

A magnificent piece of writing from Michael, examining the influence of Sergio Leone on George Lucas.

For discussion: viewport and font-size data in client hints

The “client hints” proposal looks really interesting: a way for user-agents to send data to the server without requiring the server to have a library of user-agent strings. But Scott has a few concerns about some of the details.

Control your own content

Honestly, if you value the content you create and put online, then you need to be in control of your own stuff.

Write The Future by Tom Hunter — Kickstarter

Now this looks like my kind of event:

A new micro-conference on science, technology, communication and fiction, organised by the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Knobfeel - Feels good man!

Reviews based entirely on the feel of the knob.

Inside the Battle of Hoth: The Empire Strikes Out

A damning analysis of the Empire’s military strategy at the battle of Hoth, complete with illustrations. The comments are good too:

Guys, cut Palpatine some slack. He’s still in his first term as Emperor…

Forty Years of Movie Hacking: Considering the Potential Implications of the Popular Media Representation of Computer Hackers from 1968 to 2008

An in-depth look at the portrayal of hackers on film.

Ensia

A lovely new responsive(ish) website dedicated to science and the environment.

Brighton Science Festival Edo Wonderpark Hack Day

There’s going to be mini Science Hack Day at Lighthouse as part of this month’s Science Festival in Brighton. Come along — it’ll be fun.

“The Post-PSD Era: A problem of expectations,” an article by Dan Mall

I really like Dan’s take on using Photoshop (or Fireworks) as part of today’s web design process. The problem is not with the tool; the problem is with the expectations set by showing comps to clients.

By default, presenting a full comp says to your client, “This is how everyone will see your site.” In our multi-device world, we’re quickly moving towards, “This is how some people will see your site,” but we’re not doing a great job of communicating that.

The Creeping Garden

I, for one, welcome our slime mould overlords.

The slime mould is being used to explore biological-inspired design, emergence theory, unconventional computing and robot controllers, much of which borders on the world of science fiction.

Owning your own words – is it important?

A fascinating discussion on sharecropping vs. homesteading. Josh Miller from Branch freely admits that he’s only ever known a web where your content is held by somone else. Gina Trapani’s response is spot-on:

For me, publishing on a platform I have some ownership and control over is a matter of future-proofing my work. If I’m going to spend time making something I really care about on the web—even if it’s a tweet, brevity doesn’t mean it’s not meaningful—I don’t want to do it somewhere that will make it inaccessible after a certain amount of time, or somewhere that might go away, get acquired, or change unrecognizably.

When you get old and your memory is long and you lose parents and start having kids, you value your own and others’ personal archive much more.

The impending crisis that is Windows XP and IE 8 by Troy Hunt

A good explanation of the litany of woes that comes from Internet Explorer 8 being the highest that users of Windows XP can upgrade to. It’s a particularly woeful situation if you are a web developer attempting to provide parity. But there is hope on the horizon:

2013 will see the culmination of all these issues; support for IE 8 will drop of rapidly, users of XP will find an increasingly broken web, the cost of building software in XP organisations will increase.

Interview with Lauren Beukes about Shining Girls

Lauren talks about The Shining Girls and the tools she uses to write with.

The paradoxes of time travel by David Lewis

A well-written white paper on time travel. Alas, it relies a bit too much on semantic nitpickery to offer any real insight.

DNA molecule plush on Think Geek

Brilliant little magnetic cuddly nucleobases from Jun. You get all four bases to combine to your heart’s content: cytosine, guanine, adenine, thymine — take that, Pokémon.

Out of Eden — A Walk Through Time

I like this idea of slow journalism: taking seven years to tell a story.

Snapshot Serengeti

The latest project from Zooniverse is, as you would expect, an extremely enjoyable and useful way to spend your time: classifying animals that have captured in camera trap images.

The opening tutorial is a lesson in how to do “on-boarding” right.

The changing face of computers on screen

A look at the depiction of computer hardware and peripherals in sci-fi movies over time.

Responsive web design interview series: Trent Walton & Jeremy Keith

Trent and I answered a few questions for the Responsive Design Weekly newsletter.

Interview with Ian Hickson, HTML editor on HTML5 Doctor

Bruce sits down for a chat with Hixie. This is a good insight into the past and present process behind HTML.

Issue 4 — Offscreen Magazine

There’s an interview with me in the new issue of Offscreen Magazine. Some of sort of clerical error, I’m guessing.

Olaf Stapledon

The out-of-copyright books of Olaf Stapledon are available to download from the University of Adelaide. Be sure to grab Starmaker and First And Last Men.

Mark Lynas » Lecture to Oxford Farming Conference, 3 January 2013

This is a superb talk by Mark Lynas who once spearheaded the anti-GM movement, and who has now completely changed his stance on genetically-modified crops. Why? Science.

You are more likely to get hit by an asteroid than to get hurt by GM food. More to the point, people have died from choosing organic, but no-one has died from eating GM.

Science Hackday Dublin

Dublin is going to play host to its second Science Hack Day at the start of March. It looks like it’s going to be a fantastic event (again!) but they need sponsors. Do you know of any?

Squaremans | Gaming Culture Blog

Ostensibly about gaming (and written by Matt Colville who works in the games industry), this blog actually has a lot of interesting observations on sci-fi cinema. I like it.

Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog

A fascinating blog documenting the secrecy around nuclear weaponry, past and present, by Alex Wellerstein of the American Institue of Physics.

Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold. - Slurtha

The best review of The Hobbit.

Text Adventure: Zork Creators Honored With Pioneer Award | Game|Life | Wired.com

This might well be the best thing Wired has ever published. I wish every article were in this format.

The Smashing Conference: Exclusive Videos And Interviews | Smashing Magazine

Here’s an interview I did during the Smashing conference in Freiburg.

Upstream Color | Shane Carruth

I am giddy with excitement at the prospect of a new Shane Carruth film:

A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism.

All Systems Are Go!(ing to Come Apart) - Cognition: The blog of web design

I really like these thoughts on the importance of design systems for the web. It’s not about providing a few perfect deliverables that won’t survive once they go live; it’s about designing for the unexpected, the unpredictable:

Design for every state, not the best state.

ElectionBot, KineSutra and Other Mad Creations From Science Hack Day | Wired Design | Wired.com

A nice round-up of the most recent Science Hack Day in San Francisco.

Matter: A Look At A New Way To Read About Science - Download The Universe

Just a few hours after launch, here’s the first review of Matter complete with some speculation on where it might go.

Remote Preview

This looks like it could be one alternative to Adobe Shadow or Edge Inspect or whatever they’re calling it now that they’re charging $120 a year for using it.

Science Hack Day San Francisco 2012 - a set on Flickr

Oh My Science! It looks like the most recent Science Hack Day in San Francisco was great.

HTML5 forms (and IE10 (Mobile)) | Andrea Trasatti’s tech notes and more

Andrea looks at support for HTML5 input types in IE10 Mobile.

Skinny Ties and responsive eCommerce » Blog » Gravity Department

Another responsive design case study. This one’s got numbers too.

Paris and the Data Mind - The Morning News

Craig writes about the hologram of his quantified self.

Under Tomorrow’s Sky

Design Fiction at work, imagining a possible future city.

Data Visualization Reinterpreted by VISUALIZED on Vimeo

Peter Saville talks about the enduring appeal of his cover for Unknown Pleasures.

I like to think of all the variations and mashups as not just tributes to Joy Division, but tributes to Jocelyn Bell Burnell too.

Stories from the New Aesthetic : Joanne Mcneil

A lovely piece from Joanne on storytelling, identity and the internet.

IE10 Snap Mode and Responsive Design - TimKadlec.com

Useful advice from Tim on preparing your responsive site for IE10’s new “snap mode”. Don’t worry: it doesn’t involve adding any proprietary crap …quite the opposite, in fact.

Chris Shiflett ▪ Lessons from Brooklyn Beta

Thoughtful points from Chris, delivered on the closing day of this year’s Brooklyn Beta.

So, the next time you feel like you’re missing out, stop it. Zoom out a little bit and give yourself some space and some perspective, so you can focus on what matters.

The Humble eBook Bundle (pay what you want and help charity)

This looks like an excellent deal: buy eight sci-fi books for as much money as you think is fair. Lauren Beukes, Paolo Bacigalupi, Cory Doctorow …all good stuff.

Sight on Vimeo

A well-executed sci-fi short film on augmented reality and gamification.

Encouraging Better Client Participation In Responsive Design Projects | Smashing Magazine

Andy’s talk from the Smashing Conference in Freiburg.

Your brain on pseudoscience: the rise of popular neurobollocks

I like this skewering of the cult of so-called-neuroscience; the self-help book equivalent of eye-tracking.

The Past 100 Years of the Future

This (free!) PDF looks like it could be a nice companion piece to Chris and Nathan’s recent book:

Human-computer interaction in science-fiction movies and television.

It’s a work in progress. You’ll notice a lot of placeholders where the images should be. That’s because the studios are demanding extortionate rates for screenshots.

You, A Rocket Scientist? | Fast Company

Nice! A feature on Ariel and her spacehacking ways.

Street Ghosts project - Google Street View made Street Art and Public Concern

In the hippest areas for Street Art, life-sized pictures of people found on Google’s Street View are printed and posted without authorization at the same spot where they were taken.

Make it So | Interface Design Lessons from Sci-Fi

Chris and Nathan’s book is finally out. I’m going to enjoy reading through this.

Max CSS

I like this suggestion. If you’re using minified CSS in production, it would be a nice gesture to have an easily-discoverable unminified version for people to view source on.

Geeks, Swords and the Snow Crash Movie: Neal Stephenson in Conversation | Tor.com

A really enjoyable interview with Neal Stephenson.

034: With Jeremy Keith - ShopTalk

I had a lot of fun chatting with Chris and Dave on the Shop Talk Show. It is now available for your listening and huffduffing pleasure.

beta.guardian.co.uk

Those clever chaps at The Guardian are experimenting with some mobile-first responsive design. Here’s how it’s going so far.

The code is on Github.

Warren Ellis » How To See The Future

The opening keynote from Warren Ellis for this year’s Improving Reality. I’d like to walk into space with this man.

Space Elevator Science - Climb to the Sky - A Tethered Tower by Michael Laine — Kickstarter

A Kickstarter project for space elevator research? Oh, hell yes!

Your words are wasted - Scott Hanselman

Amen, Scott, A-MEN:

You are not blogging enough. You are pouring your words into increasingly closed and often walled gardens. You are giving control - and sometimes ownership - of your content to social media companies that will SURELY fail.

Kosmograd: The death of Kosmograd

The Ballardian beauty of a dying Baikonour.

Stories and Tools - Anil Dash

This post is ten years old, but I think it might still be the best attempt to demarcate a difference between web “sites” and web “apps”: think of them as stories and tools.

It’s also remarkably prescient about the need for an effort exactly like HTML5:

A widely-distributed, standards-compliant, browser and platform-independent library of functions that would perform the basic user interface functions for a web-based tool, relying on the server side only for the logic and data sourcing.

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

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.

80’s Touch

The Old Aesthetic. It’s eighties-tastic!

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.

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.

The Coming Technological Singularity

Vernor Vinge’s original 1993 motherlode of the singularity.

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