Things observed during or after Web Design World 2007 (Seattle).

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Airbag iPhone Wallpapers

Richard Turley: Off the Grid

Leaflets for iPhone

View from on stage at Web Design World

What does twenty-four hours of Airbag look like? I want to know.

I'm would love to see a snapshot of Airbag around the world starting and ending somewhere around the International Date Line. If you have a minute take a photo of how you normally digest my attempts molding the English language into sentences and if the response is decent I'll whip something up for us all to take a look at.

Send said photo (no screen shots please lets get some local flavor in the view finder) to this email address—post no photos to the comments please—along with your name, town/city, country, time zone, and the time in which you preserved the moment in pictures.

Oh, and be sure to include the URL to your own website. No reason why you shouldn't get some link love out of the deal.

UPDATE: Submissions have started to come in from Australia, United Kingdom and various time zones across the US. For example:

This lovely photo comes form Michelle Park who writes The Jam Jar and lives in GMT +10 hours.

Now, I didn't mean to leave the impression that this was started and finished in a day. I'm more interested in seeing how many much of the GMT we can fill.

Yesterday a Hindu chaplain was jeered by protesters while providing the opening prayer for Congress (the first ever recited by a Hindu).

Asshats.

These people, and anyone who thinks what they did was a good idea, need to be remind of a few things.

First, the Freedom of Religion that they enjoy so much, that they seemingly take for granted, extends to all religions—it's not singular—never had been nor should it be.

Second, if you seek to squash the practice of any religion then you endanger the freedom to practice all religion. Once intolerance of one religion enters public policy then you can kiss it all goodbye.

Lastly, if you want people to join your belief system, public demonstrations of hate and exclusion are not the way and I'm pretty sure Jesus didn't think so either (see New Testament, all the words in red).

It's all about the Beatitudes morons.

I'm so pissed I can hardly think straight. CNN is reporting that a new US government classified report says that Al Qaeda, that campy little Middle East Haters Club for Men, is now as strong as it was at the time of the attacks on New York and Washington D.C..

In other words our Commander in Chief has failed (like that's a big surprise, nothing he has done has ended in success). In the last seven years we've wasted so much money, allowed our lives and freedoms to be disrupted but more importantly we have lost way, way, way too many good men and women in this "fight on terrorism" and yet none of it has resulted in an over-all positive gain. And to think that our last president was impeached because he lied about cheating on his wife just makes our current president's performance even more absurd.

I hope all of you who voted for Shrub are happy. I hope you are getting what you wanted, whatever the hell that may be.

dConstruct tickets went on sale this morning at 11am BST and literally flew off the shelves. 200 tickets were sold in the first 10 minutes, and an hour later, there were only about 100 tickets left out of 600. Sales have now slowed to a steady pace, but we estimate they will all be gone by lunchtime tomorrow. So if you want to come along, you’d better get your skates on.

If you don’t know about dConstruct, it’s a little conference we run down in Brighton each year. Unlike most conferences that have roughly the same theme each year, we try to mix things up a little and focus on current industry trends. So for dConstruct 2005 we were discussing web apps, while dConstruct 2006 focused on APIs and Mash-ups. This year, we’ve taken a slightly less technical focus, and will be discussing how to design the user experience.

We’ve got some amazing speakers lined up including the likes of Jared Spool, Tom Coates and Peter Merholz. MediaTemple will be getting everybody in the mood at the warm-up party, while the BBC and Yahoo are arranging a great post-event bash. We’ve got Jon Hicks designing the tickets/programs, and the obligatory conference bags will be sporting a custom design by Kevin Cornell of Bearskinrug fame. The ever popular Backnetwork will also be making a reappearance this year.

New this year are a series of pre-event workshops. Three of the workshops have already sold out, and the microformats workshop won’t be far behind.

To get you all in the mood for the event, our roving reporter, Jeremy Keith, has been recording a series of podcasts with speakers, sponsors and attendees from dConstruct past, present and future. The latest edition is an interview with the lovely folks at LastFM, who will be heading down to dConstruct this September to say hi. And lastly, all the sessions from previous events are still online, if you’d like to relive the dConstruct experience.

I’m stoked by the response we’ve had around dConstruct so far, and am really looking forward to the 7th of September. Let the good times roll.

I was interviewed by the new TWiT parenting podcast: Jumping Monkeys Episode 6: Matt Haughey.

We recorded in the afternoon after a long day of work so I sound like I’m on quaaludes for the first five minutes or so, but eventually I perk up.

In addition to the exquisite list of summer reading available from the fine folks at Coudal, I hereby add two to the pile. No bookshelf is complete without these titles:

• The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide - Oh yes. One cannot throw down until he knows the ways of the hand. Written by Douglas and Graham Walker, "leaders of the World RPS Society and organizers of the annual RPS International World Championship."
• The Way of the Thumb - Full-fisted conflicts are for sissies. Real warriors use thumbs. Penned by the fingers (and thumbs) of Oscar Villalon, three-time champion of the 826 Valencia Thumb Wrestling Tournament.

Funny thing is both of these titles warrant attention, despite their somewhat facetious subject matter. The Rock Paper Scissors guide is quite comprehensive, and the Thumb handbook exhibits attention to detail:

On a more serious note, two titles I highly recommend this summer are the following:

• Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design by Shawn Henry, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). This is practical resource offers not only an understanding of how to design for accessibility, but also of how to establish an environment conducive to real-world testing with disabled users.
• Designing the Mobile User Experience by Barbara Ballard, esteemed mobile expert. A thorough, well-researched book that covers mobile applications -- thick client, smart client, web -- in great detail. It isn't a technical book per se, but rather an exhaustive guide to understanding mobility and the mobile user.

I’ve moved this blog to it’s new home at Be Good Not Bad. Update your bookmarks! Grab the new feed! I’ll leave this up for awhile, but no new updates here. All the good stuff is over there. Thanks!