Robotperson

To reach the essence of things, all non-essential elements must be eliminated – Dr. Koichi Kawana. This is a lesson that most web content publishers would benefit from. Interestingly, it had never occurred to me before that the word ‘essential’ is rooted in the idea of ‘essence’.

Freebase pancakes One Laptop per Child rolls-out in Nigeria. This is just brilliant. But how to keep laptops with children, rather than them disappearing into the black market? Surely the key is to saturate the market. Supply so many that demand dries up. I wonder if this is possible. Japanese underdog archetypes in anime …This […]

HTML literati, have you ever viewed-source on Google? Take a peek now – I’ll listen out for the rustle of thousands of geek-brows furrowing. Yes, that’s right: table layout; font tags; <b> used instead of <strong>; &nbsp;’s used for spacing, missing quotes on attributes… it’s a litany of non-standards, 1996 era web design. For a […]

I noticed after making my last post that the site was no longer valid XHTML. It turns out that the Youtube standard embedding code, which they provide next to every video (to encourage distribution, presumably) is not valid. This would have been obvious to me if I’d thought about it, because it’s the same as […]

The machine is us/ing us Brilliant and exciting.

This time last year I was in Tokyo. As a sort-of dolorous nod to the great time I had over there (and the time that will pass before I’ll get to go back), here are the various Japan blogs I read. Jean Snow likes to hang around in cafés and write about design and magazines […]

Well, I’ve signed up to Myspace. Not because I’m in desperate need of social networking (although the whole idea is starting to grow on me), or because I secretly have the mentality of a 14 year old (although I actually do), but because I’m interested in it. Interested, and also the fact that more and […]

US presidential speeches tag cloud. Use the slider to see how they’ve changed over time. Keep littlekins entertained and get the hoovering done with the Buster ‘ride-on’ vacuum cleaner. The Register savages a recent episode of Horizon. I haven’t watched Horizon in years, although it was always my favorite program growing up (along with Equinoxe). […]

Walkit.com. Enter your start point and end point, and it gives a Google-maps style view of the best route by foot, complete with path overlay, calorie count for various paces (Robotperson is a brisk walker), time, and CO2 emissions avoided. Seems to work for the whole of the UK, too. Fantastic idea, terrific execution. The […]

For Wednesday’s guest links I totally overlooked this Stef cluster-bomb buried in my inbox. [booooom] …Medic! Pac man plush heads. Cute for the littley? No way: I want one! Okay, I’m joking about the Pac-hat, but I really do want one of these: plane spoon [nnnnyyyyeeeeeee-ooooowwwwwwnn] Which links nicely (almost too nicely, Stef) to Flight […]