The Internet is "the world's most efficient copying machine" -- Cory Doctorow. This is a long and rambling blog post which asks two questions: Given that we can only read one book at a time - can we set up a "Kindle Stock Exchange" for our unused media? If so, what effect would this have on content producers and sellers who rely on artificial scarcity? This has been mulling over in…
Continue reading →
I've moaned before about the crap adverts on social networks. Facebook has suddenly been getting a lot worse. Today they decided that it would be great to show me adverts for a steak restaurant. Which, would be fine, if I hadn't been vegetarian for the last 13 years... Facebook have been spamming my wall with all sorts of rubbish - dodgy share trading deals, timeshare scams, PPI reclaim cons, …
Continue reading →
I've taken a bit of a break from the conference circuit. With my previous job at InMobi I was attending 10 different events per month (on average). Some were merely hosting, others were presenting. It got really tiring after a while. As much as I love the UK tech scene, it can be a bit repetitive to see the same faces and answer the same questions over and over again. It also took a toll on…
Continue reading →
...or do I just need new glasses? I'm not a graphic designer. I find it hard to get into the mindset of excellence through beauty. I understand user flow, interactions, happy paths, delighting the user, humane design, and so on - but when it comes to the art of making something look nice I'm all at sea. I understand that, as Aral Balkan so perfectly puts it, design is not veneer - but that…
Continue reading →
(Hopefully the last naval gazing post of the year...) I asked if using a WordPress theme to emulate the Svbtle theme was unethical. The results were mixed - you can see some of the discussion on HackerNews and AppDotNet. Broadly speaking, people fell into four categories. People who had never heard of Svbtle and didn't see a problem with using a similar theme. People who had heard of …
Continue reading →
For the last few months, I've been using the WordPress theme wp-svbtle. Even with my limited design sense, I think it looks rather spiffy. Recently though, I've had a few people on HackerNews and Twitter criticising me of "ripping off" Svbtle and accusing me of trying to defraud readers into thinking I was part of the Svbtle network. While nothing could be further from the truth, I think an…
Continue reading →
So, here are my mobile predictions for 2013. Although I work for Telefonica, this blog is personal and my day job doesn't involve any of the products or services listed here. I've deliberately left of the boring predictions. Yes, Android will get bigger. No, iPhone won't release a budget model, etc. BlackBerry 10 I want this to succeed. But I don't see it. I had a play with a demo device a…
Continue reading →
I've been using FourSquare and TwitPic to look back through 2012. It's been a pretty amazing year for me. I've been to India, spoken at a dozen conferences, photographed the moon, and got a lovely new job. But none of that - not one single experience - compares to May 30, 2012. That was the day the madness ended. One of the perils of being human is that we look for patterns. Our brains are…
Continue reading →
I'm sat here, in my dressing gown. My fingers are greasy from eating crisps all morning. My back aches because I spent all night playing a stupid video game. The gin hangover isn't helping either. My week off work has been a wash out. I didn't write any code, I didn't cook anything other than pizza, and I'm beginning to smell of used dish water. I log on to Facebook - and this is what I see,…
Continue reading →
A few years ago, I went to a recording of Mark Thomas' "Manifesto" radio show. Members of the audience can suggest humorous changes to the law and society that they would like to see enacted, and the rest of the audience votes on whether they're good enough - or funny enough - to be in a proposed election manifesto. My manifesto suggestion was very simple - every time you visit an MP, it should…
Continue reading →
Last week, I wrote about using my telescope for the first time and seeing the craters on the moon. I had to wait a few more days for the skies to clear - but that just built my anticipation. Last night, I noticed a new star up in the sky. After consulting the astrological almanacs, I discovered that it was the planet Jupiter! To the naked eye, it looked very much like this: I whacked on the…
Continue reading →
If you've ever released an app - or, indeed, any creative work - you know that one of the worst things you can do is read its reviews. Oh, yes, sure - it's important to listen to your customers, it's vital to act on their feedback, and you should always take their suggestions seriously. But when it comes to reviews... well... perhaps it's best to ignore them. Start reading them and you'll find …
Continue reading →
