↩ Jacob's Ephemerata

A guide to taking better pictures…of yourself. (Samsung ad.)

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:40:16 +0000

A guide to taking better pictures…of yourself. (Samsung ad.)

I'm free. Pitch me!

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:17:00 +0000

I apologise for pretty much having given up blogging since I first went out to Bangalore in 2006. Although I’m still essentially working on my own stuff, temporarily from London again, it’s going through a bit of a tedious patch. Thus I feel in need of a distraction from working independently, and doing something altruistic instead…

Do you know an organisation that could put me to work?
I’m not charging! (Pass it on!)

I’m considering putting aside a few months over the summer, to offer my time and assistance to an endeavour with philanthropic or environmental bent of some kind, be it a non-profit or startup, and wherever, I’ll burn jet-fuel to get there.

What can I offer? At the very least nominal physical labour, quick-learning, and ability to research and bounce around concepts in many fields. I can be put to task on implementation or training in my primary domains of design, internet/web applications, usability, technology; plus brand-building, sustainability, CSR, and cheese appreciation. (I cannot help with direct sales or fund-raising. Nor coding on a platform/language not specified by myself, but I might be willing to handle the specification or management of others.)

What’s my background? Fifteen-plus years of varied experience. Eight years in graphic design, web development, and as Technical Director at a marcomms firm in London. Five years, partly in India, developing applications of my own and for clients, in photo-sharing and web-services. Currently developing an ecommerce webapp on a SaaS framework.

What are the practicalities? I can communicate adequately in English and French, anything else and I’m a dummy (I only know one foreign swear-word, I’m so useless). Beyond preferring sunny and arable locations, I’m self-sufficient. I come equipped with the latest in life-enhancing technology, and I enjoy bucket showers.

Post a question, ping me, or carry on.

(This is an open-ended solicitation, and if it works out, I might make an ongoing commitment to donating a proportion of my time. It’s also hopefully a way of avoiding the decision of where exactly to spend the summer, given that I basically have an entire planet to choose from.)

‘MARCH 3’ music by The Few Moments, images by Ira Marcks,...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:05:51 +0000

‘MARCH 3’ music by The Few Moments, images by Ira Marcks, produced by Jake Lodwick. More about the project.

‘Many Moons’ music video (“short film”) by Janelle Monáe,...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:15:12 +0000

‘Many Moons’ music video (“short film”) by Janelle Monáe, directed by Alan Ferguson; via TheUntamedShrew.

Elevator signage, by Mark Jensen; via 23 Leben.

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:13:41 +0000

Elevator signage, by Mark Jensen; via 23 Leben.

‘The balcony’ (Madrid) by David Terrazas; via meebits.

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:48:44 +0000

‘The balcony’ (Madrid) by David Terrazas; via meebits.

Point Lookout, NY by ohheyshan

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:18:00 +0000

Point Lookout, NY by ohheyshan

«It’s not enough these days to simply question authority,...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:08:24 +0000

«It’s not enough these days to simply question authority, you got to speak with it too.» —Taylor Mali; typomation by Ronnie Bruce.

« Wonderfully conceptualized, beautifully executed public...

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:32:16 +0000

« Wonderfully conceptualized, beautifully executed public service ad from Sussex Safer Roads. One of the best ads I’ve ever seen. » ‘Jason F’ on 37signals

"And we’d better pray that noone sticks a finger into somebody’s eye or we’ll have..."

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 10:57:34 +0000

“And we’d better pray that noone sticks a finger into somebody’s eye or we’ll have to chop our hands off and put them in the baggage compartment.”

- Monopod on Airplanes - Photo.net Travel Forum

‘Our City Dreams’ by Chiara Clemente « an invitation to...

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:22:12 +0000

‘Our City Dreams’ by Chiara Clemente « an invitation to visit the creative spaces of five women artists, who span different decades and represent diverse cultures, and have one thing in common beyond making art: the city to which they have journeyed and now call home - New York »

Interview with a scammer

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:41:00 +0000

Interview with a scammer:

I’m 23 years old and was released from prison in Nigeria in October last year where I served two years for fraud. I am now doing a business studies course at college and am in the UK

Even without cookies, a browser leaves a trail of crumbs

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:10:00 +0000

Even without cookies, a browser leaves a trail of crumbs:

Those with no technical knowledge generally believe that they are anonymous when simply browsing the Web

"Delhi’s strangest and shortest season – from mid-February to mid-March – has begun. Neither hot, nor..."

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:53:20 +0000

“Delhi’s strangest and shortest season – from mid-February to mid-March – has begun. Neither hot, nor cold, the city loses its harsh tones and pretends to be gentle.”

- The Delhi Walla: City Season – Palika Bazaar Park, Connaught Place

TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out...

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:08:32 +0000

TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.

Modern Day Flintstones [Spiegel]

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:46:56 +0000

Modern Day Flintstones [Spiegel]:

«A modern-day Stone Age subculture is developing in the United States, where wannabe cavemen mimic their distant ancestors. They eat lots of meat, bathe in icy water and run around barefoot.»

For more see the earlier article ‘Evolutionary Fitness’ from The Times.

Adobe Puts Secret Hold on HTML5 Spec

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:57:31 +0000

«In public, Adobe claims to “support” HTML5. On the private W3C mailing list, though, they’ve placed an objection to prevent the current spec from being published. My understanding is that Adobe is trying to block the API spec for the canvas element. The canvas element hasn’t gotten as much attention as the video element, but clearly, 2D graphics in canvas is competitive with Flash, and it appears that Adobe’s plan is to sabotage it via W3C politics.»
— John Gruber

Hybrowse

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:12:00 +0000

Hybrowse:

Hybrowse is an elegant way to browse the huge quantities of stuff on sites such as Etsy, using simple category (tag) filters by drilling-down through them—from most common to least. With no interface crud, you may only add or remove categories to narrow or widen the scope of items shown, serendipitously limited to a single page of results. If there’s less items than this, you can be sure you’ve found a niche!

I’ll look forward to seeing more sources, merged results across sources, and perhaps even top categories trawled from current trends, my interests, or my network—that would be nifty.

Chilled by Choice - NYTimes.com

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 12:07:56 +0000

Chilled by Choice - NYTimes.com:

«Showering between November and March is a challenge.»

The Accidental Hermit: A short history of the kick sled

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 11:47:27 +0000

The Accidental Hermit: A short history of the kick sled:

«Kick sleds look like Zimmer frames on runners […] can be quite fast in flat areas, and ridiculously fast downhill. […] The ones who use kick sleds now are mostly those champions of common sense, the same elderly women who drink tap water, eat fish and vegetables, read books, knit and live to one hundred.»

If it weren’t for the fact my feet look like they’ve already got frostbite, this post would make me want to move to somewhere icy all year round.