Links from 2011 (657 links)

"Mark Dwight, who started SFMade in 2010, explains, “For decades we have developed a culture of disposability — from consumer goods to medical instruments and machine tools. To fuel economic growth, marketers replaced longevity with planned obsolescence — and our mastery of technology has given birth to ever-accelerating unplanned obsolescence. I think there is increasing awareness that this is no longer sustainable on the scale we have developed.”

Via russelldavies.

Everywhere Western ideas touch down, people get fatter. Urbanization is literally making us sick.

codepo8: A must read for your web dev teams! > RT @charlesarthur: Why we should support users with no Javascript >> Punkchip http://bit.ly/h55ILx

Solution in the very loosest sense of the word (i.e. it won't work for my particular issue).

Head desk.

More more tea tea, vicar vicar?

More tea, vicar?

Wordoids are words that are made-up, but sound right. They follow the rules of phonetics, and if done properly, roll off the tongue. The need to have an online presence has increased the need for unique product and company names and has led to these wordoids. Yet, even with a made-up name, it’s important for the name to convey something about what the product or business actually is.

Via kevan.

These events are trail races governed by three rules: no fees, no awards, no whining. Distances are typically 50 kilometers or 50 miles, but vary according to a race director’s whims or ability to borrow his buddy’s GPS device. There are no lotteries, no expos, no qualifying times, no triple-digit entry fees subsidizing multimillion-dollar “running clubs.” No one will urinate on you from the upper span of the Verrazano Bridge, and you won’t shiver for hours in a corral before the starting gun.

Stockists of Kunzan hand-casted iron tea kettle.

A new walking group welcoming all Londoners from our diverse city. We organise accessible walks for all members of the community whether young or old. Families are particularly welcome.

CSS sprite maps improve efficiency by making fewer HTTP requests to the server, but most implementations cause serious problems for users who view content in high contrast mode.

Via monospaced.

Good suggestions for API access levels.

maskingtape: @ohskylab Here's the memo on fireworks png-8 for IE6.. http://blogs.sitepoint.com/png8-the-clear-winner/

This could be good...

mono_spaced: Use-able OS X GUI for converting PNG to palletted 8bit alpha (sans Fireworks) http://pornel.net/imagealpha @ohskylab @maskingtape

Great breakdown of different PNG formats.

There is a company that sells radar equipment to the police as well as radar detectors to the public. Clorox is one of the world’s worst polluters of water, and also sells Brita filters to get the bad stuff out of the water again. Lawyers create mazes that you have to hire a lawyer to escape. Similarly social software both creates and cures FOMO. If you didn’t know that party was going on, you’d be home contentedly reading your latest New Yorker. But since you do, you hungrily watch each new tweet.

Via antimega.

That's better.

Via kevan.

The drive-by technorati are well-informed, curious and always probing. They're also hiding... hiding from the real work of creating work that matters, connections with impact and art that lasts. I love to hear about the next big thing, but I'm far more interested in what you're doing with the old big thing.

Aha, this is what XLR8R and others use for their podcasts (bad content farm link - couldn't find anything else).

IfYouOnly: The people behind TV show The Wire explain why they are waging a war against the war on drugs: http://is.gd/AB9fvx (@TIME, 2008)

Sound clips and quotes.

A directory of performance-related research, tips, tools, case studies, articles, and blog posts.

OK!

A potential replacement for Things.

There is nothing wrong with a design methodology that seeks to engage users of a product. There’s nothing wrong with a design methodology that aims to make products more fun to use. But I am worried by a design movement that assumes that users are easily distracted, and I am worried about design methods that seek to mimic game (and particularly videogame) design hooks to retain users and their attention. I am worried about the assumption that attention is a problem. It seems to assume and accept that continuous partial attention is for everybody.

Forum post with 'entire discography with download links and artwork'. Missing some newer releases, though.

Built upon that sinking feeling of tuning into Radio 4 and hearing people acting at you, Radio 4b plays you a string of random programmes from Radio 4's factual archive. [...] You will not hear middle-class actors tapping a teaspoon and talking about divorce.

Via kevan.

Via shrinkwrapped.

A honking great Google doc comparing Javascript loaders like LABjs, HeadJS etc.