Haddock Blogs

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Monday 8 February 2010

Beautiful Star Wars travel posters

I'm a sucker for vintage style travel posters in the first place, and these are just drop dead gorgeous. They seem to be art from JustinVG's flickrstream; whether he's the creator or not I don't know. I would buy these... Wonderland

My how they've grown

Front page of the Guardian right now. Bioshock 2 up there with the usual News. A year ago this would have been doubly amazing, and only a few years ago probably unthinkable. Pretty sure the Grauniad was the first to... Wonderland

Week 347

Weeknotes always seem to be written by people who are extremely busy and/or enthusiastic. Let’s look back at last week (346) and momentarily buck that trend. Read more... Phil Gyford

Kiwi: The best Mac Twitter client yet

As you’ll know if you follow me or this blog on Twitter, I’me a voracious Twitterer. I also can’t stand Adobe Air applications, which means that my options for Twitter applications are somewhat limited. There’s a few around [...] Technovia

Sync your Mac with an LG phone with FoneSync

Shocking as this might sound, not everyone wants an iPhone. And if you have a phone from LG, you might want to check out FoneSync, a new application from Novamedia which lets you sync contacts and calendar information from your Mac to a variety of [...] Technovia

HTC Bravo head-to-head with Google Nexus One?

When I predicted that Google wouldn’t launch its own phone, one of the reasons I believed it was unlikely was that everything pointed to it being a rebadged HTC Bravo (otherwise known as the HTC Passion). While I was wrong about Google [...] Technovia

Sunday 7 February 2010

Week 243

kaffe, originally uploaded by moleitau. It’s very quiet here. I can’t remember being more tired, or more pleased with why. Week 243 Magical Nihilism

Tempting treks and trainhotel tribulations....

H and I went to the Destinations travel show yesterday, and had a chat with the Mountain Kingdoms team about what trek to do next, given we enjoyed their Annapurna Circuit trip so much. I'm tempted by Everest, not Base... Sparkly Trainers

Saturday 6 February 2010

sounds: Is Music Killing Home Taping? (Detail), 2008

Is Music Killing Home Taping? (Detail), 2008 92.0mb – mp3 This is a recording of a segment from an installation piece I created for [...] Dorian Moore

The Useful Arts Organisation: public works

I'm pleased to have just launched a new website for public works, a group I've been working with for over 3 years. Indeed this website was actually completed about 18 months [...] Dorian Moore

Friday 5 February 2010

Broadstairs Visitor Information Centre Cut

​THANET council is to axe the staffed visitor information centre (VIC) in Broadstairs, replacing it with a telephone. The decision to axe the VIC member of staff from the desk at Dickens House is part of £75,000 in cutbacks [...] Margate Architecture

Press: ‘Turner effect’ has got the Old Town buzzing

Margate’s cultural quarter is already feeling the so-called ‘Turner effect’, according to some traders in the Old Town.Many are feeling more upbeat as the gallery takes shape, and new shops are opening each month as the arts scene begins to [...] Margate Architecture

Press: Trust boss vows Turner centre in Margate is value

THE Turner Contemporary will receive at least £1 million in public money a year once it opens. A trust is due to take over the running of the gallery from Kent County Council (KCC) on April 1, but it will receive a grant of more than £1 [...] Margate Architecture

Press: Inspector backs fewer bedsits plan for Cliftonville

Unfortunately, Margate Central has similar, if not in part worse stats than Cliftonville West. Yet bedsites and HMOs are not halted in planning yet.Inspector backs fewer bedsits plan for Cliftonville [...] Margate Architecture

Codename Ada

Beatnik Games have posted one little screenshot of their work in progress on a game we commissioned at C4. Provisionally titled Ada, it's set in a post-event, climate-changed, scavenger future where humans are trying to figure things out all over... Wonderland

no map for this territory

I’vebeen playing with Mapumental a bit, as it’s a front end to an awful lot of data, particularly public transport. I’ve been creating maps of how far you can travel in an hour for a few places: 1 hour from EC2: 1 hour from [...] Anti-Mega

Hello Kitty chainsaw

My life is now complete. Wonderland

Original scout notes from I Love Bees

I Love Bees, probably the world's most famous ARG: Jane McGonigal's given Cory Doctorow some of her original scouting notes to use as paper ephemera for his new self-publishing project With A Little Help. She also sent some Lost Ring... Wonderland

Thursday 4 February 2010

I should probably apply for this, you know.

I got forwarded a job advert earlier on today, that I had to read twice to understand. I thought I'd rewrite it, for fun. Really, I should just stick my CV on the end of this, and hit reply, but frankly life is to short.If it sounds like your cup [...] Mildly Diverting

XBL Indie Games channel: the figs

Indie Games channel. Used to be called the Community Games channel, which is to say, it's the bit of XBL that isn't Arcade and is way more wild west. So, if anyone can upload there, do they make any money?... Wonderland

Dante's Inferno: the Superbowl trailer

Do Superbowl slots still go for $2.6m for 30s? ("Images not representative of actual gameplay", hum!) EA's really pushing this one, hard. As it's a God of War clone (sorry team, but at least superficially it really does have so... Wonderland

Replace comments with letters pages

I like this, a CSS file that hides comments on many popular websites. It feels a bit like we’re very slowly turning a corner when it comes to how we think of commenting (unless it’s merely my wishful thinking). Read more... Phil Gyford

Quick life update

James is beginning to read small words (when he wants to). This is particularly because of a C-Beebies thing he looks at on the website, Alphablocks. They're utterly fabulous, and well worth passing on. The bike is currently screwed. Sob.... Moolies

Worst iPad reporting ever

This article by Jonathan Zittrain is why it’s wise not to let law professors write about technology: If Apple is the gatekeeper to a device’s uses, the governments of the world need knock on the door of only one office in Cupertino, [...] Technovia

Tuesday 2 February 2010

News week, day 2

Today started a little better than yesterday on the news project. With two days’ worth of news I was already starting to see themes that would extend across the week, stories that would be worth condensing and summarising in a weekly round-up [...] Phil Gyford

Long Finance

YesterdayI attended the Long Finance conference, taking some of the principles of the Long Now foundation and trying to apply it to capitalism and market economics. There were two panels, the first on the Long Now & long-term thinking with [...] Anti-Mega

truth is stranger than fiction

Asylum,my Lyddle End 2050 building: OMA’s interlace residential complex: Tbilisi Roads Ministry Building: (via Owen Hatherley) Anti-Mega

Spacemakers & RIBA London run workshops exploring "forgotten spaces"

More from Space Makers in London who are working on empty property initiatives.Space Makers has joined forces with RIBA London to run two workshops this month exploring "forgotten spaces". Come and join us in Brixton this Thursday afternoon for the [...] Margate Architecture

Van calamity

Last Sunday, we attempted to go to Cheltenham in the van, as Sarah had a WoPoWriMo launch meetup to attend. We're used to having to deal with ice on the hills leading out of our valley, as water from the farm fields tends to run off into the road [...] Snell-Pym/Alaric

For or against, it matters not

So, here’s a thing. I’m fighting in a boxing match at the end of the month. On the 27th, at the Judgement Day 3 event, at the T47 club by London Bridge. I need to sell some tickets, and I could do with some shouty support. It should be [...] Ben Hammersley

Many Pockets

As I have mentioned before, I have many pockets. A few people have asked about this now, so here's a run-down on what's in them. So, here's the coat of many pockets. It's quite lightly loaded, so I wear it all the time, pretty much. The [...] Snell-Pym/Alaric

PS3 Home: your virtual London Pub

I just bumped into Caspar, who pointed me at his new venture VeeMee: top of their product list is a virtual London Pub for purchase for PS3 Home users. 4.99 euro gets you a virtual version of something quite rare... Wonderland

EVOKE: Jane McGonigal's latest game

Jane's new game is designed to help kids in Africa: Our goal: to empower young people all over the world, and especially in Africa, to start tackling the world’s toughest problems: poverty, hunger, sustainable energy, water security, conflict, [...] Wonderland

Monday 1 February 2010

Press Release - TDC's press after the Coastal Regeneration Handbook Launch

After last week's Coastal Community Conference, TDC released a press release. It does seem to play down TDC's role in putting forward some of the conference content. The Thanet Success Story at least was surely put together by Thanet [...] Margate Architecture

Margate in the Press: The Arts Council 'Making over Margate'

"Making Over MargateDate: 21 December 2009Region: South East It's hard to miss Margate in the news these days, whether it's [...] Margate Architecture

News week, day 1

I was anticipating a period in this news project when I would feel lost and like nothing was working. Most projects have them. I just didn’t expect the feeling to start before I’d begun: last night was full of dreams in which I was [...] Phil Gyford

Haikus in git

I decided I'd write a haiku a day through February, for WoPoWriMo. But I had to make it interesting, so I'm doing then in git, and letting GitHub publish them for me at http://alaricsp.github.com/wopowrimo/ using their pages system. git is a [...] Snell-Pym/Alaric

Perler bead QR codes

QR codes. A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The "QR" is derived from "Quick Response", as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded... Wonderland

CrunchGear catches the TechCrunch bullshit bug

Apparently, Apple is now responsible for via killing hardware innovation throughout the industry, at least according to John Biggs. Remember when Apple bought up all the Flash memory? Well, Apple has also cornered the market in touchscreens. A few [...] Technovia

Guardian CEO says charging for specialist content an option

The Guardian may still be considering a paywall, at least for specialist content: [Chief Executive of Guardian Media Group Carolyn] McCall added that the Guardian, like the New York Times, had looked at six different pay models including a complete [...] Technovia

Nokia app store passes one million downloads a day mark

Brand Republic: Nokia’s Ovi application store is now attracting one million downloads a day around the world, the company has claimed.The store was launched in May last year, allowing the handset manufacturer to join the progress in apps [...] Technovia