FeedCity

Many years ago I read about Book Mountain, a curious pyramid-shaped library in Spijkenisse, the Netherlands. Today I finally stepped inside.

Good services are verbs.
Bad services are nouns.
AI services are whimsical, opaque or vAPId.

As teams at GDS prepare to launch a refreshed brand for GOV.UK on 25 June, so the X-GOVUK community has been updating its projects in preparation for this go-live date.

Poster I created to mark Good Machine’s first firebreak week.

I’m not convinced that the designer of a $10,000 gold watch (now obsolete), who gets driven around in the back of a Bentley, and who spends his spare time in coffee shops ‘inventing the future’ with the likes of Sam Altman, is capable of designing products for the rest of us.

Happy M&S cyber incident update day for those who celebrate.

Goodbye Dribbble.

The mission patch for the HPV private beta features Mavis the polar bear watching the sun rise over the horizon, representing the launch of our new service into private beta.

The mission patch for the release supporting ‘doubles’ (co-administered MenACWY and Td/IPV vaccinations) features Mavis the polar bear meeting her double.

Hey Guy’s

Diffused (sunrise).

If everything is working correctly, this is the first post from my website syndicated to Bluesky via Indiekit. 🤞

I put a little care into something and sent it out into the world.

Just watched B. J. Novak’s directorial debut, Vengeance (2022) and oh boy, it’s a hoot. A hearty recommendation from me.

Please, make it stop.

If you’re wondering why you can’t find any pineapples in Brighton, thank Fatto a Mano, where for a limited time you can exchange a pineapple for their Bella Disgrazia pizza. Fortunately they also accept tinned chunks!

Blogging about blogging.

Micro Social is to Micro.blog what Tweetie was to Twitter. Sometimes it takes a passionate and attentive third-party developer to design and build the best app for an open platform. Astounding work @gregmorris@micro.blog!

That loud groaning noise you can hear is the sound of a 1000 employees at Williams Racing being told they’ve now got to use Jira.

Watched the penultimate performance of Elektra in Brighton this afternoon, before it transfers to the West End. Dense dialogue compensates for the short running time and an abrupt ending, yet the play is undermined by needless and nonsensical gimmicks (effect pedals, a random blimp, ink guns). Larson gave a forceful performance though, and was an absolute pro dealing with a mid-performance interruption (a cup fell from an upper circle).

Before the new year gets into full swing, time to recap the year gone by.

Another year of counting things.

230 lines and branches, 89 railway companies, 966 towns and cities, 118 counties and regions. And counting.

Went to Lewes Depot this evening to watch a screening of Point Break (1991). Definitely one to file under ‘so bad it’s good’, with plenty of pithy one-liners to share for years to come.

Feeling quite proud of myself for getting my broken microwave repaired instead of mindlessly taking it to the dump and buying a new one. Only cost £45 to replace a blown capacitor.

Just received my first visual voicemail, 17 years after it was announced as a key feature of the first iPhone. 🤯

Prompted by their latest greenwashing campaign, only now twigged that Esso is the phonetic pronunciation of S.O. for Standard Oil. I prefer Jayesso, Just Stop Oil.

Binged the first season of Rivals sorry, not sorry.

♫ Is This Love? by Alison Moyet

Read an article in the Guardian only to have this ear worm firmly lodged.

Kinda wild watching a person sat on the train next to me using Twitter, and then posting an emotive, implicitly pro-Elon reply. Anyway, curiosity got the better of me and I logged in for the first time in ages; the site is unrecognisable, overflowing with spammy ads and pornography, with a user base of boiled frogs digging ever deeper trenches in one man’s manufactured culture war. It’s all very sad, bizarre and dare I say it, weird.