film This isn’t the Star Wars VII teaser review you’re looking for Sorry to be that guy and launch another review of The Force Awakens trailer that literally nobody asked for, but I felt millions of voices cry out and I just had to join them. Hopefully soon we will all be suddenly silenced. So a lot of people are picking apart this trailer shot by shot… Continue re
Disrupt me, bro GE15 gets a kickstart We’ve just passed 100-day day on the election countdown, and while once again we’ll find voices calling it as the “social media election” (despite previous elections making the same claims) the thing that’s caught my eye is that it seems to be the crowd funding election. First it was the Greens, cro
Running Night running (deserves a quiet night) Sometimes I think “I need a head torch” but then the road opens out from the woods and I’m running across the top of Blackroot Pool. The thin slither of new moon, the stars, and I’m a mile or more from traffic in any direction. It’s just me and the road through Sutton Park, and… Continue reading Nig
Disrupt me, bro No coding necessary — for your free audiobook download I’ve just started listening to the podcast Criminal, having heard about it when it joined the Radiotopia collective. It’s good, you’d like it, especially if you’re jonesing for Serial. But that’s not what I’m talking about right now. I’ve listened through the first couple of episodes, when the show
what I have been reading Getting in on the ground floor I’m a terribly safe reader. I stick to authors I know until I have a solid recommendation for a new one. Last week though I got to the end of the book I was reading and saw a tweet about The Girl on the Train that got my interest. My book had ended on a… Continue reading Getting in on the ground flo
what I have been watching Mockingbird Cinema, Custard Factory I hadn’t realised that the theatre space at Custard Factory had opened again and is poised to do lots of interesting things (because basically, I don’t get out much so I don’t find out things). A friend had his birthday party there last night (he rented the screen, we watched Top Secret, it was a gr
what I have been listening to Glengarry, Glen Cars I didn’t quite get into Serial hipster-early, but I just got the jump on the popular rush after a few people who really like podcasts tipped me off. Inevitably when they did they all said “…from the guys at This American Life.” And I wasn’t hip to that either. Well, today it was time to… Continue re
Disrupt me, bro Highs & lows street Today I had to do a lot of business with various companies on “the high street” and was struck by just how far we’ve come with remediating the Internet back into physical shops. Beyond all the obvious stuff about unexpected items in bagging areas, and outside of the economic discussion about cost cu
wtf Veg, part 2 So, I have an allotment now. It’s on White Farm Road, which is near the house. The Four Oaks Allotments are on a split site with the other plots around the corner on Four Oaks Common Road. We have our own social club with a club house that people can hire for things. It’s all pretty sweet. SHARE T
what I have been reading Veg, part 1 I’ll never be a vegetarian but I’m not the sort of boorish meat eater who claims he hasn’t had a meal if it doesn’t bleed. And so it goes I like vegetarian cookbooks and my absolute favourite ones are written by people like me: card carrying carnivores. SHARE THIS: * Share * * Twitter [http
design Pull the pull-quotes on mobile Today I was reading a very long read on my mobile and I kept on getting my flow broken by pull-quotes that had no right to be there. What’s a pull-quote? Well, here’s a useful definition and description from Magazine Designing: (A) Pull-quote is a display element which is used to attract the reader
Disrupt me, bro Statutory Notices for the 21st Century When, in the opening pages of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the people of Earth protest about the planned demolition of their planet, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz replies: There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your loca
these are my words But what are you sorry for? My anxieties about the #FoxNewsFacts meme spilled over when Pete Ashton provided a really crucial critique of Emerson’s apology for the lies he pedalled on Fox News: Worth remembering, in these complex times, that a heartfelt apology and charitable donation does not cure one of alarmist racist bigot
being a bit meta This is not for you By you I mean the readers, if they have such things, of The Brummie. The Brummie is a blog whose content is simply scraped from across the web: automated theft of words, pictures and attention. It turns out that my website is one that they pull from, grabbing at content from my RSS feed. I’d never r
acts of daily journalism Unbacked: to the future I’ve done quite a few bits now on Contributoria (an experimental sort-of-crowd-funded journalism experiment from The Guardian). It’s an interesting place, a pretty eclectic collection of writing that people are getting paid for. The deal is if you get enough people to back you with the fake money of
what I have been listening to A week in domain names If a week is a long time in politics then it’s a fucking age on the Internet, and it’s an epoch for the online commentariat. So it seems like an aeon has passed since Tuesday when everybody lost their collective minds and forgot how domain name registration actually works when UKIP’s domain name app
being a bit meta Don’t call it a resolution I’ve got a plan. I’ve had it for a while. It’s a master plan of what my (for want of a less awful phrase) web presence should be. And it’s been a barrier to getting anything done, anything written or shared. I still have that plan, but I’m going to stop letting it be a barrier.… Continue reading Don
Learning & Teaching Harvard referencing a tweet (a guide for students) Undergraduates often ask “how do I cite a tweet in my work”? There is a very simple answer to this: treat it like a web page, and follow your citation system’s guidance for citing web pages. Students can also take this approach when citing material on other social networks too. A quick google search
kit I heart Triage: Email First Aid I’ve just got back to work after paternity leave and I blasted my inbox to zero this morning thanks partly to a nifty app for iPhone called Triage. The idea behind this app is that you can snack at your emails and nibble them down a bit between proper email sessions; GTD purists will hate what Triag
idea #altnational – a thank you Last week I floated an idea about making charitable donations instead of Grand National bets, and then I set up a thing to do just that. I was hoping to raise £50, and I ended up raising the limit throughout the day. We ended up with just short of £230 plus Gift Aid donations of… Continue reading #a
idea update: #altnational Earlier I put a blog post up with an idea to do something positive and useful with my general and growing dislike of the Grand National. A number of people gave me some nice feedback on Twitter along the lines of “that’s a good idea” and “yeah I was thinking about that”. Simon Gray signed… Continue
how to ifttt and twitter – rumours of death exaggerated My friend’s Dad once, apparently, said: You can’t fit six people in that car, even with your stripy trousers on I doubt it ever really happened but it stuck and it became a catchphrase amongst us, a hyperlocal meme for the kids of the Prins Estate. He was right, of course, you couldn’t get six… Cont
idea Tote Amazeballs – a half baked idea for tomorrow Ok, so I have a half-baked idea and you might be able to help before I actually throw it together. When I was a lad we always used to have a flutter on Grand National Day. I’ve not done that for a long time now. I’ve become increasingly uneasy with the idea of the Grand… Continue reading Tote Amazeb
PhD How big is a hyperlocal patch? My final word on the size of a hyperlocale Over the summer I wrote some pieces regarding the scale at which hyperlocal media production might operate. It involved talking about postcodes, more postcodes and US cable TV and its broadcast footprints. Beyond that, I’ve been reading articles that claim all manner of sizes and shapes for hyperloc
Learning & Teaching Unfamiliar Tools So, last week I presented my 2nd year new media class with unfamiliar tools in the hope that they would think more deeply about their practice. We aimed to produce a publication that fills the gap left by the lack of an SU campus magazine. Here’s some quick notes about what they (and I) made… Contin
