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Writing: 2012

  1. It’s always been true

    Shoreditch has always been changing, like every other part of London, like every other part of every city.

  2. They hate competition

    On companies hating competition.

  3. Slender gains

    A bit from a review of a book by Katherine Boo, about how the poor complain about their neighbours more than they do about the rich.

  4. Midcult

    Some bits about “midcult”, Dwight Macdonald’s term for middlebrow culture.

  5. Storing private files on Amazon S3 with Django and giving authorised users temporary access

    How to do what that long title says, using signed URLs and all that stuff.

  6. Doing something

    Programming scratches the same itch that building Lego used to when I was a kid.

  7. Buy this!

    Wondering why Amazon doesn’t have a single international page per item.

  8. Manufactured normalcy

    On people who are disappointed by the present, saying it’s not futuristic enough, and who can’t imagine a future.

  9. Failure quotes

    Two quotes about failure, from Samuel Beckett and Stephen Spender.

  10. Face.com closes its API after Facebook purchase

    Face.com announce they’re closing their API only three weeks after saying how they’ll keep supporting their developers.

  11. Placards for everyday life

    Placards aren’t just for demonstrations, but should be carried more frequently.

  12. “Blog” vs “blogpost”

    Complaining to the ‘Guardian’ about misuse.

  13. A Bauhaus for today

    I wonder what a Bauhaus-equivalent in the 21st century would be like, and whether it’s possible.

  14. The value of our historical Instagram products

    Looking at the potential value of all the Instagram photos we’ve taken, with regard to Karl Marx, John Lanchester and Matt Webb.

  15. Doors with no handles

    “…the Volkspolizei would come through the doors, drag the Gruftis and Autonomen into the East, rough them up and throw them back out.”

  16. 1960s videos of London

    Some great videos of London in the 1960s.

  17. Zing!

    Two good quotes about politicians from Stewart Lee and Simon Hoggart.

  18. Password protecting a Django site

    Adding simple htaccess-style password protection to a Django website.

  19. Comments switched off

    I’ve switched comments off on this blog, because of the number of spam comments.

  20. Dreams Of Your Life

    I worked on a project with Hide&Seek, a website themed around the film ‘Dreams Of A Life’.

  21. The Guardian’s iPad edition

    My thoughts on using the ‘Guardian’s iPad edition for a couple of months. It’s good.