Links
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A [Suggested] Moorcock Reading Order [Work in Progress] - Moorcock’s Miscellany
I wondered whether to re-read the Eternal Champion etc novels, then realised quite how many there are. But interesting to see the suggested order of the Dancers at / Legends from the End of Time stories.
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Butterick’s Practical Typography
Free online guide, which seems quite good, but… all that attention to detail and he makes it almost impossible to tell what’s a link. Bloody Designer designers. (via Daring Fireball)
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NSA-proof your e-mail in 2 hours | Sealed Abstract
Interesting. I’m also increasingly fascinated by the breadth of knowledge about technical things. For example, this is a very hand-holding, step-by-step guide and yet it assumes “you kinda-sorta know how to configure a secure server.” This is for a minuscule percentage of people.
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This column will change your life: the guru who didn’t believe in gurus | Life and style | The Guardian
“…how problems arise: by minding…” This article has helped, I think.
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Sheetsee.js
“A JavaScript library, or box of goodies, if you will, that makes it easy to use a Google Spreadsheet as the database feeding the tables, charts and maps on a website.” (via Infovore)
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Jonathan Coe reviews ‘The Wit and Wisdom of Boris Johnson’ edited by Harry Mount · LRB 18 July 2013
Very good on the futility, even dangerousness, of political satire and dismissing politicians as corrupt buffoons.
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Loopy Ideas Are Fine, If You’re an Entrepreneur | Pedestrian Observations
Good on the vagueness and unreliability of the Hyperloop plans, and also on America’s willingness to unquestioningly think successful people can succeed at anything they fancy.
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Internet of Dreams - Time and Edges
StreetView showing the same street both pre- and post- gentrification, giving a hint at its historical importance. Imagine being in the 22nd century and being able to use today’s StreetView. (via New Aesthetic)
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Automate the Web - Zapier
IFTTT alternative. More complex, more possibilities, costs money for more/faster responses, aimed a bit more at businesses than individuals. But, after a quick play, seems very nicely done.
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The Revelation Wallet | Barrett Alley - Handmade in USA
Small, slim, handmade leather wallets. There must be British places that make things like this. (via Carryology)
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Let’s Be Ambitious, Adventurous and Unexpected: A Complaint About Digital Art and Entrepreneurialism
“Doing stuff for free gets in the way of being entrepreneurial. Asking people for their time is no different to asking for their money: it’s either fun or charity or a bit of both, but it’s no different to subsidy.”
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Britain’s largest diary eight times longer than ‘War and Peace’ - Telegraph
66 years, 21,000 pages, 33,000 photos, illustrations and cuttings.
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John Lanchester · Are we having fun yet?: The Biggest Scandal of All · LRB 4 July 2013
This and the second part are so worth a read. Banks are mind-boggling.
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Slavoj Žižek · Trouble in Paradise: The Global Protest · LRB 18 July 2013
“To demand consistency at strategically selected points where the system cannot afford to be consistent is to put pressure on the entire system.”
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What’s the difference between r/creepshots and a national newspaper?
I’ve become worryingly inured that the Mail, Sun etc are full of scantily clad young women, but why the Telegraph thinks this is news is beyond me. I’d say “the sooner the hypocritical newspapers die the better” but given, for example, the Mail’s online success, that won’t stop this.
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Bootstrap 2.x to 3.0 Migration Guide
For moving Twitter Bootstrap sites to the new version. There doesn’t seem to be anything like this in the official 3.0 docs. Yet, at least.
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How We Build CMS-Free Websites | Development Seed
On using Jekyll, GitHub Pages and Prose.io to make websites without a traditional CMS.
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Sam Jacob Opinion column on modern protests
On how vague so many protests are, and how they involve almost random signs, so long as they generate publicity. (via @cityofsound)
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kjohnston/pgbackups-archive
Ruby app for automating offsite backups of a Heroku postgres database to Amazon S3. I was amazed that having set up the various parts the whole thing worked first time. Brilliant.
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Messenger bags, Canvas bags & Shoulder bags from Millican
Some nice looking bags, backpacks, etc. Classic- rather than futuristic-looking, but modern rather than solely nostalgic. I reckon. Also, British. (via Carryology)
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East Anglian Film Archive: Basildon - Our Town, 1974
Short documentary about the Essex Town. Lots of council-provided facilities. Things that now look a bit small, grey and grim. A lot of standardised typefaces. Great stuff. (via @mala)
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Casting Call: Hollywood Needs More Women : NPR
Something I’ve vaguely wondered about, researched and put in figures. If 17% of a group is women, then men think women make up 50%. And 33% women is perceived as being more than 50%. I wish there was a citation though… (via Paul Mison)
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Pepys Diary erasure project | Via Negativa
Poems made from fragments of Samuel Pepys’ diary entries.
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9 lazy portfolios for UK investors
It’s annoyingly rare to come across UK-specific guidelines for portfolios, so this up-to-date set of examples is handy.
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Sneak peek of Macaw - The code-savvy web design tool
Actually looks quite good. Jump to the end to see the finished page in-browser, and the HTML and CSS. (via @jamesweiner)
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Hugosslade/smackmyglitchupjs
JavaScript for glitching a jpg, no fancy interface.
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Image glitch experiment
Nice JavaScript web-based tool for glitching a jpg image.
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10 questions about Cameron’s ‘new’ porn-blocking | Paul Bernal’s Blog
All this. Censoring illegal content is one thing, assuming it can be done, but anything else is a slippery slope into a whole can of mixed metaphors.
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Just Another Day - Walton on the Naze - Part 1
1983 TV documentary about the Essex seaside town, directed by Adam Curtis. On the one hand, it’s just how I remember it from those days, and on the other, 1983 looks really old.