Notes

My gift to @manton, @jean and the wonderful Micro.blog community has just been unwrapped: a redesigned help site, featuring an automated topic index and quick search tool on the home page.

“Alexa, show me an example of moral bankruptcy.”

Finally quit my dilly-dallying and got my tickets sorted for this year’s New Adventures conference. See you there?

I have my uses.

Seeking a hybrid design/front-end role with an organisation instigating meaningful change where I can make a worthwhile contribution. Not interested in disrupting the world, just improving it a little. Where should I be looking? Who should I be talking to?

Quite pleased with the accessibility improvements I’ve made to my site’s search form – aided enormously by the examples in WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices, which provide a real sense of the various interactions you need to account for when creating such complex components.

On this 11th day of advent, I return to 24 ways to extoll the virtues of Eleventy, my favourite software discovery of 2018.

I really want to recommend services like @netlify, but the lesson from history is to avoid pushing one particular company or product. I recommended people use Google once, and look how that turned out.

It’s CharityConnect 2.0 launch day! I worked with the team over the summer on the design of their new themed discussion hubs, direct messaging features and post page improvements. Illustrations by @thebundadtwitter.com. Onwards and upwards!

This self-aggrandising video for the new set of Microsoft Office icons seems so overblown and unnecessary, verging on parody almost. I mean, they look lovely… but maybe tone it down a little!?

Did I see the Northern Lights? Yes… just about. Do I want to share the blurry, doubly exposed and incredibly noisy photos I took? Not so much.

Of to see the Northern Lights… hopefully. 🤞🏻

Feeling uplifted and inspired after a day exploring adjacent possibilities around the web and technology at Material 2018. Just what the doctor ordered.

🚨 I’ve redesigned my website! Highlights include use of CSS Grid and Custom Properties, support for dark colour schemes and a service worker for offline reading. @eleven_ty powered and @netlify hosted. And so much more. Phew!

I’m a huge fan of Inside No. 9, but just watched the live episode on iPlayer and feeling underwhelmed. It all seemed a bit obvious, with the story spoon fed to the audience and relying too heavily on pre-recorded material. Maybe it worked better on the night?

Last week: food poisoning/flu/virus.
This week: toothache and a root canal.

Eating a jacket potato, which given the last few bedridden days, is quite an achievement.

The Good Place is a quirky comedy that continually reinvents itself while keeping ethics and moral philosophy at its heart. It’s worth your time… although perhaps not an entire Sunday.

In what has become something of a tradition, preparing myself for re-entry into Britain with a final taste of Europe: a Belgian waffle and a can of Jupiler.

Channel 4’s The Circle has been my guilty pleasure over the last three weeks. Finally, a reality show with funny, genuine and endearing contestants. Hard pressed to pick a favourite from the final four.

Have only spent part of the morning exploring its center and still have so much to see, but Hamburg ist sehr schön! This is absolutely my kinda city.

Travels between Germany and Denmark have seen me spend an inordinate amount of time on DSB’s IC3/IR4, a train that combines the comfort of British Rail’s Class 442 Wessex Electrics with the aesthetic of Star Trek and the absurdity of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.

At #confront18, @p_p_hamilton is speaking my language: about resisting the cult of the individual and building products that reflect the hero’s journey to the exclusion of others, and about having a point of view that challenges Californian ideas about society and technology. 👍🏻💯

On a train. On a ferry. 🚅⛴

And so ends two-weeks of exploration in Berlin. My thanks goes to @sjors, @mryash, @klick_ass, @paulozoom, @thismortalmagic and many others for making me feel so welcome, and giving me the lowdown on the city. Next stop: Malmö!

Finally.

If nothing else, this evening has served as a welcome reminder that it pays to be outgoing and friendly, and that I can thrive whenever pushed to be so. To hell with comfort zones!

Heading to Berlin. See you there?

Idea for a logo.

I rarely have anything good to say about Uber, but thanks to this uncharacteristically restrained work from Wolff Olins, I have to admit that I find their latest rebrand to be damn near perfect. Perhaps finally there are some adults in the room.

So happy to see @loobylu’s Small Batch List make its way into my inbox again after a prolonged hiatus.

A familiar story: England take an early lead only to eventually lose. Heightened expectations following this summer’s World Cup campaign now restored to more realistic levels.

On the occasion of my brother’s wedding anniversary, wishing my eldest niece Maria a happy 8th birthday, and welcoming to the world my fourth niece (fourth!), Emily. Phew!

Google decries URLs as being confusing and untrustworthy. Meanwhile, Google obfuscates URLs via AMP, and appends them with UTM codes for tracking. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Visiting Brixton has been a revelation! Thanks go to @aajhiggs for introducing me to its many gastronomic delights.

It’s mid-afternoon, and yet only now do I realise that today is in fact Thursday, not Friday. 😳