archive for 2008

Watchmen by Dave Gibbons

Book Blog Monday 25th August 2008
 

The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd

Book Blog Monday 25th August 2008
 

Devil May Care

Book Blog Tuesday 17th June 2008
 

Bus Tracker API

Edinburgh,Technology Monday 9th June 2008

A while back Lothian Buses fitted some fancy GPS tracking to all of their fleet enabling real-time tracking. Then LCD screens appeared at (selected) bus stops giving you a list of incoming buses and their ETA. All very clever. Then, at last they launched a web site which gave access to the same data: mybustracker.co.uk.

I think that making the website resemble the signs from the street is a poor design choice. Why not work with the medium you are presenting information over (the web) rather than trying to make it resemble something else? They constrain information into a tiny space, put it in a stupid font, make the background looks like all lcd-y, use excessive popups and it takes forever just to get to the basic information.

In shock news, this isn’t just a whiny post with no actual action. I present the beginnings of a “Bus Tracker API”. Think of it as a “cleaning” of the data for a fresh beginning. If we can get clean data out of the system then we can build a clean interface on top of it. My API is REST-ful and inspired by the flickr API. I have one method so far “bustracker.departures.getNext” which takes one parameter: the bus stop code. It shows you all of the incoming departures for a given bus stop. Here it is working for the stop nearest my flat. Feel free to change to bus stop code to another one by digging around the Bus Tracker website. I’ll hopefully have some other, more useful methods done soon and maybe some nifty google maps visuals…

Update: Source code now browsable at: http://code.google.com/p/bustrackr/

 

Apple to Allow iPhone Subsidies?

Links Saturday 7th June 2008

Apple to Allow iPhone Subsidies?

 

Big Buck Bunny

Links Saturday 7th June 2008

Big Buck Bunny

 

Devil May Care

Books Monday 19th May 2008

Penguin are releasing a new Bond novel entitled “Devil May Care“. Guess who’s writing it? Yes, Sebastian Faulks. It’s released next week and it could be awesome.

 

Arrangements of Type

Links Monday 19th May 2008

Arrangements of Type

 

79 Years of Best Picture Winners in Posters

Links Monday 19th May 2008

79 Years of Best Picture Winners in Posters

 

Apparently, The 50 greatest TV show of all time

Links Monday 19th May 2008

Apparently, The 50 greatest TV show of all time

 

Vintage Motoring Maps

Design Tuesday 13th May 2008

I’m loving these Vintage Motoring Maps being posted to flickr by John Hicks.

 

Soon I Will Be Invincible

Book Blog Tuesday 13th May 2008
 

Ordnance Survey Play Catch-Up

Technology Tuesday 13th May 2008

Open Space
I can’t believe this hasn’t been more widely promoted but the Ordnance Survey is finally opening up it’s data for use on the internets. Their new Open Space project allows a Google Maps style interface to their (usually tightly restricted) mapping data. I do like the design of the OS maps, a nice alternative to Google. I’ve knocked up a quick demo centered on Edinburgh.

 

New Bond Covers

Books,Design Saturday 10th May 2008

The new Bond covers from Penguin are gorgeous:

 

Giant NES controller coffee table

Links Saturday 10th May 2008

Giant NES controller coffee table

 

When Obama wins

Links Saturday 10th May 2008

When Obama wins

 

Pixelicious street art in NYC

Links Thursday 24th April 2008

Pixelicious street art in NYC

 

Playing with Animoto

Movies & TV,Photography,Technology Monday 14th April 2008

Animoto generates “shorts” compiled from your photos and set to music. They render lots of fancy effects, using your photos, apparently in time to the music. Pretty neat!

 

Gorgeous New Coin Designs

Links Monday 14th April 2008

Gorgeous New Coin Designs

 

Son of Rambo

Reviews Monday 14th April 2008
  • Brilliant if, like me, you’re a child of the eighties
  • A french co-production that adds to the mix nicely
  • Genuinely touching
  • Great 80s tunes and synchronised dancing scene
My Rating: gold stargold stargold stargold stargrey star
 

2for1 voucher for Wagamama

Links Monday 14th April 2008

Om nom noodle nom

 

Lego Ship Design

Design Monday 7th April 2008

This guy does amazing things with lego:

 

South Park Episodes Online – for free!

Movies & TV,Technology Monday 7th April 2008

So apparently Matt and Tre have negotiated a deal where all past south park episodes are going to be streamable free online. Pretty damn shiny. Unfortunately this isn’t available in the UK yet and we can redirected to this hilarious page.

 

Valley Technology is hiring!

Work Monday 7th April 2008

IT Services company based in central Edinburgh seeks honours graduate with computer-related degree for wide-ranging role in software application development for business.

Essential:

  • One or more of: PHP/Python/Perl/C++
  • SQL
  • Good problem solving skills
  • Good communication skills

See the full job posting for more details.

 

The Net

Movies & TV,Technology Tuesday 1st April 2008

Some awesome guy has posted an episode of The Net online. The Net was a bbc show that started in 1994 that was sort of a Wired magazine on TV. It was way ahead of its time and had a brilliant “Net Cetera” feature at the end of every programme. This was where they would quickly flash screens full of information, URLS, telephone numbers etc that you were supposed to record and then play back in slow motion. Brings back memories…

 

Google Chart API

Meta,Technology Wednesday 19th March 2008

I had a bit of a muck around with the Google Chart API last night. It’s very neat, you just make a request to google with your chart data and parameters all encoded in the get request, you get back a jpg image. I’ve used the API to generate a nice “spark line” graph of my blog posting frequency from July 2002 to the present. You can see it at the bottom of my index page.

 

BrickArms – lego arms dealer

Links Sunday 16th March 2008

BrickArms – lego arms dealer

 

Masters Of Doom

Book Blog Saturday 15th March 2008
 

Semi-Pro

Movies & TV,Reviews Saturday 15th March 2008
  • Rather similar to a lot of other Will Ferrell movies
  • Incredibly similar to a lot of other underdog-team/small-town/sporting/crisis-of-confidence movies
  • Awesomely funky soundtrack
  • Some nice slow-mo basketball shots
My Rating: gold stargold stargold stargrey stargrey star
 

Google Sky now available in browser

Links Saturday 15th March 2008

Google Sky now available in browser

 

The “Do What The F*ck You Want” license

Links Saturday 15th March 2008

The “Do What The F*ck You Want” license

 

Black Book

Movies & TV,Reviews Monday 25th February 2008

Slightly comedy nazis, some good underground/resistance banter, Carice van Houten is gorgeous, Verhoeven’s usual excessive violence.

My Rating: gold stargold stargold stargrey stargrey star
 

Mr Brooks

Movies & TV,Reviews Monday 25th February 2008

Surprisingly dark, Costner pretty good, I was pleasantly surprised.

My Rating: gold stargold stargold stargold stargrey star
 

Lovely info-graphic showing “The Ebb and Flow of Movies” from the NY Times

Links Monday 25th February 2008

Lovely info-graphic showing “The Ebb and Flow of Movies” from the NY Times

 

Nom Nom Nom

Me Monday 25th February 2008

 

African Safari

Gaming Saturday 23rd February 2008

The Consolevania review of African Safari had us in absolute stitches at work the other day. Well worth a read for a laugh, that fence is long.

 

Godfather + Audi R8

Me Wednesday 6th February 2008

 

Microsoft Edinburgh office move sets a rental record

Links Tuesday 29th January 2008

Microsoft Edinburgh office move sets a rental record

 

Video Game Music + Marching Band = Win

Gaming Tuesday 29th January 2008

 

Stay on target…

Links Sunday 27th January 2008

Stay on target…

 

Gun Shaped Egg Fryers

Links Sunday 20th January 2008

Gun Shaped Egg Fryers

 

Holy HDR photo Batman!

Links Saturday 19th January 2008

Holy HDR photo Batman!

 

Neat CSS Gradient Text Effect

Links Thursday 17th January 2008

Neat CSS Gradient Text Effect

 

Woop Woop Design Police

Links Thursday 17th January 2008

Woop Woop Design Police

 

Happy 2008

Me Tuesday 8th January 2008

Happy New Year!

So yeah, this is one of of those “catch up” posts for the new year that everybody seems to be doing. It seems my last post all about me was over two months ago when I moved into my new flat. Slackness.

What has happened since then you ask?

  • I went to Prague – lovely city. Weather wasn’t great and we attempted to visit the Jewish Cemetery on the Sabbath (skills). Lost Ian a couple of times, drank Bekerovka and developed a taste for Mojitos.
  • My sister visited for a weekend – we climbed Arthur’s Seat, went to the Samhuinn Halloween thing and general did touristy stuff
  • Met a Girl
  • Spent Christmas at home with the family. Got lots of shiny things including socks, chocolate and booze.
  • Listened to a lot of Girls Aloud
  • Spent Hogmanay in the Opal Lounge with friends – terrible food, but they compensated us with an extravagant amount of free Moet, wine and cocktails
  • Played far too much Scrabulous on the all-encompassing world destroyer that is Facebook
  • Went to Edinburgh Zoo for the first time – Honey Badgers rock! (so do penguins)
  • Played Crysis (omg shiny), BioShock, Halo 3 on the 360 and just bought the RockStar back catalogue on Steam
  • Assisted in the making of Tapas and had a great evening eating said Tapas accompanied by Mojitos
 

Snooze this alarm clock and it donates to a charity you hate

Links Tuesday 8th January 2008

Snooze this alarm clock and it donates to a charity you hate

 

HD vs DVD comparison of Fellowship of the Ring

Links Tuesday 8th January 2008

HD vs DVD comparison of Fellowship of the Ring