Journal Entries

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Snowdonia

I’ve finally uploaded my photos from this year’s Coed-y-Brenin weekender. Whilst this annual weekend in Wales is still referred to as ‘Coed-y-Brenin’, we stopped biking in that forest many years ago, and now visit other attractions near the campsite in Dolgellau instead.

This year Mark, Dave, Jon and I climbed Snowdon, the highest mountain in England and Wales. It was a gorgeous day and the views weren’t disappointing either.

Hacked Off

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Murdoch’s money brings F1 to Sky. “Are Red Bull running team orders? Let’s hack into their radio messages to find out…”

– Sniff Petrol

The Sky’s the Limit

Some disappointing news today for fans of Formula 1. The BBC will only be showing half of next year’s races live, as a new deal means it will be sharing broadcasting rights with BSkyB.

New & Improved

Unless you’re viewing this in your RSS reader, you may have noticed a few changes to the site. It’s been well over two years since the last redesign, but I’ve been working on this update on-and-off for the last 12 months. I could probably continue tweaking and refining, but as a wise man once said, ‘real artists ship’.

Remembering Brasilia

Somewhat forgotten in the last few months has been my thoughts on Brasilia which I visited all the way back in March. For such an incredibly city it seems remiss not to record my thoughts before they fade into distint memory.

The Architecture of Brasilia

Brasilia is remarkable for a number of reasons, not least its aeroplane like street layout planned by L�cio Costa. However it’s the distinctive architecture that draws most attention, and much of this was designed by Oscar Niemeyer. Few architects are given the opportunity to design on such a scale, so it’s unsurprising that I recognised many familiar patterns and motifs appearing throughout the city’s many different buildings.

Own a Shape

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Clayton Miller:

Microsoft’s Metro UI owns the square. Apple has a corner on the roundrect, from the Springboard launcher to the iPhone hardware itself. Nokia, despite its late entry with MeeGo’s Harmattan UI, found the squircle unclaimed and ran with it beautifully. Palm has used the circle from the early days of PalmOS, and in WebOS, HP continues the tradition with care (one might even note that both Palm and HP structure their wordmarks around the circle).

I have a nagging feeling this observation will become useful on future projects. (Via John Gruber)