Category: notes
- I couldn’t take this photo, so I’ll write it instead ()
Melksham is a small Wiltshire town a few miles from my house, and it’s where I rent an office. The drive from home to office takes me through pretty countryside – mostly flat, mostly green, mostly typical of the sort of countryside you get in this part of the world. But on the edge of […]
- Still European ()
Today we finally, properly leave the European Union, and I’m still sad and angry and frustrated about it. Brexit was sold by liars to people who had no idea what they were voting for. Successive British governments failed to make the benefits of EU membership clear to the British people; instead, there was a constant […]
- Radio retro ()
One of the few good things about pandemic lockdown for me was that it gave me more time to think about radio shows, and more time to practice making them. Consequently, I spent quite a lot of time thinking about radio this year. I wrote a short piece about it. I’ve still got much to […]
- Rules for swearing in client meetings ()
IF: Client does not swear at all during first meeting. THEN: Do not swear until and unless client initiates swearing in future meeting. IF: Client drops a casual “shit” during first meeting. THEN: Respond with anything in the “dammit – bugger” range. IF: Client does not swear in first meeting, but manages a “tosspot” in […]
- Doing something about diversity in the tech sector ()
My fellow Public Digital affiliate Davina Sirisena, founder of the Difference Digital agency, has created something new: an online community called DINT: “A global online community set up to make connections between people who care about diversity and inclusion in tech.” DINT meets online once a month for live person-to-person discussion, and runs a Slack […]
- A big bright yellow Alfred theme ()
I use Alfred all the time, have done for years. I also have a plain grey desktop background, mostly grey windows, a grey-on-grey theme in BBEdit. There’s a lot of grey. And, as I stumble further into middle-age, my eyesight is getting worse. So I made an Alfred theme that’s big and bright and stands […]
- Digital ribbon maps ()
Ribbon maps are an old, old idea. Rather than carry a whole map or a whole atlas on your journey, you just take a map that shows you the route you’re going to take. Ribbon maps were literally long ribbons of paper wrapped around a spool. You could keep the spool in your pocket and […]
- An idea for self-service checkouts ()
Here’s a little idea I had months ago – you can tell, because this is a photo I took in the real world, in a shop, before everything went weird. I was buying something in WH Smiths in Paddington Station. I can’t remember what it was, probably a Twix or something. Anyway the self service […]
- No longer hand-coded ()
For years and years, this website was hand-coded, and I was proud of that. I stubbornly stuck to my ways: writing HTML in BBEdit and uploading it via SFTP to a web host. It worked back in 1999, it still worked now. Why change? Well, because sometimes change is good thing and a good idea. […]
- 4AD and floppy hair ()
A label, with love I’m very grateful to Phil Gyford for creating this playlist on Spotify: Facing the other way: the story of 4AD. It’s given me a chance to remember some music I’d forgotten, and one or two haircuts I’d rather not think about at all. I wouldn’t say 4AD defined my music taste during the late […]