games Victory Points Suck How oversimplified historical simulations can perpetuate regressive views of Colonial history. I really hate victory points (VPs) as a game mechanic. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy playing plenty of games that do
academic Paul Graney, pioneer of Acoustic Ecology? I'd never heard of Paul Graney before Tuesday. In Central Library, as part of Manchester Histories Festival, I learnt about a man curiously absent from any number of histories. Paul is most famous
Portfolio Dear Friend Dear Friend is a letter-writing project celebrating women in public life and struggles for liberation. I co-founded this project with Sylvia Kölling as part of The Cassowary Project, our DIY research project into
Portfolio Tai Chi School Beta website for my own business, Tai Chi School, which offers the best Tai Chi tuition online. After doing so many client sites, it's been nice to work on my own project. Visit
academic What is a factory? Or, how the Industrial Revolution made Facebook possible This piece was written in response to The Modernist Society's callout for articles with the theme factory. It's published in Issue #17 - Factory, which is out now. If you like it please
web Stop making pincushion maps! Originally posted at The Cassowary Project. There has been an explosion in the use of maps to visualise data, prompted by the rise of the "data scientist", available open data, and
Portfolio Noise Eater NoiseEater is a webapp that automatically identifies wind, distortion, and microphone handling noise in your audio file. This was a commission from Salford University in order to show off cutting edge noise detection
games From Civilisation to Pax Porfiriana: how I learned to stop worrying and accept colonialism Civilization was one of the first computer games I really learnt anything from. I'm not sure when I first played it, but Wikipedia says it was released in 1991 so I guess around
Portfolio First National Festival of LGBT History As Communications Director for the First National Festival of LGBT History, I built this site and wrote all copy and communications. This was a huge and engaging volunteer job that took over all
research Art of Noises: risk, live music, play and power Art Of Noises is an experimental board game of avante-garde musical improvisation. Five words are dealt out (like purple, Communism, Taj Mahal, scared, snooker), and players take it in turns to perform one
sound Pass-SING: gender, sound, power and patriarchy In this article I’m going to talk about how both the ability to create sound and the ways that we hear it are bound up in social power: affected by gender (on
games Selective Imagination: you can be anything you want, but you can't be that For me, one of the most frustrating things about any kind of vaguely nerdy fandom is the application of what I can only describe as selective imagination. This is most extreme in things
colonialism Why I love watching England lose This World Cup, I've been quite surprised to find myself really enjoying the football -- but only when England lose. Why is this? What about my native country losing fills me with such
academic Publishing PhD theses PhDs take years, are an "original contribution to knowledge", and are generally paid for by the taxpayer. They are then generally read by a handful of people -- generally a supervisor
Don't trust "I Side With" I've been pointed by a few people now towards I Side With as a policy guide. This site is extremely poorly sourced, and uses a highly flawed questionnare design. I strongly reccomend against
sound Recordings from The Termite Club at Ladyfest Leeds 2007 Dug out some recordings of a noise/experimental night at Ladyfest Leeds in 2007, recorded in Holy Trinity Church. The Termite Club at Ladyfest Leeds 2007 by Ladyfest Leeds 2007
academic Acoustic Citizenship: The Night and Day Debacle Like many others this week, I was amazed to find out that someone moved in next to an iconic Manchester music venue, and then complained about the noise. What were they thinking? Like
sound Rethinking Sound and the Web: Part 3 This idea which I've blogged about previously was worked into a bid for a British Library Labs competition. My submission was unsuccessful but here's where I'm up to for another date. This article
Portfolio Embody Move Association We made Embody Move Association's last website 5 years ago, so it was great to be able to remake it with all the skills we have learnt since then. Embody Move Association are
Portfolio Work for Change Work For Change is a co-op office complex. They had an existing website that wasn’t getting them any Google hits for local keywords (the name of the theater, the workspace itself), and
Portfolio Kate's Cuttings Kate has published a gardening column for a number of years, and had a large collection of photos from this period. Having a lot of writing and photos gave a lot of scope
sound Agriculture: Soundscape recordings from 2007 These are some field recordings I made in 2007 as part of my BA(Hons) dissertation. Despite the age I still really like these, especially the storm drain. At the time I was
Experiments in JavaScript: arbor.js I'm the first to admit I'm pretty horrible at elegant coding nowadays. When I was younger I used to have all the code skillz and none of the ideas - now it's totally
Rethinking Sound and the Web: Part 2 I've bounced the ideas in Sounds and the web off a few people now and had some very valuable feedback. The more I talk about it the more I'm determined to make this
sound Sounds and the Web Don't Work Generally speaking, I think the web handles audio very badly. By comparison, photos and visual data are handled very well, with automatic thumbnails, lightboxes and the light being de-rigueur on the modern web.
