James Spahr can see the formally- attired digital simian lurking and plotting in all things silicon.

1977. A New Hope. Ash are born, and this is written in Creative Computing magazine:

“The programmer-student acquires a modeus operanti for problem-solving. He plans and weighs his actions, making allowance for unforseen events, and balances the initial programming cost with subsequent debugging effort. He evolves to be a more perceptive, better balanced individual with a deeper understanding of the machine as well as himself”

Hmm.

» Computing Power to the People – A Conservative Ten-Year Projection (man-machine interaction, realism in the classroom) by Tien Chi Chen, Creative Computing, 1977
[via boingboing]

Webb:

“We should be able to sink storage piles in the ground. When you move house, you should go down into the basement and stick a giant spike into the earth, hook it up to your network, and the planet acts as a giant hard drive.”

Also found this morning, more seventies space-art from Don Dixon, including, coincidentally “Data Mountain – allegory on civilization’s efforts to store data, from clay tablets to futuristic crystals”

» Don Dixon Portfolio Images 051-100 (1968-1979) / 085- Data Mountain

» http://www.exploratorium.edu/complexity/CompLexicon.html

[via BrainOff]

I’m very behind with everything, and work is taking a priority as we’re in the final push of design. Not much happening here on BBJ, and if you’ve sent me an email in the last two weeks, I’m still getting through them. Apologies. Hopefully the 1.21 gigawatts I’m about to apply to myself will get me back to the future sometime soon.

Upmystreet.com is up for sale.

Annabel Else, who worked as project manager and content strategist on the BBCi homepage redesign, has unfortunately had to leave us and is looking for pastures new.

If you need an editorial person with skills in project management, copywriting, editing, usability, content-strategy, metadata, CMS and other workflow related stuff; then go visit her homepage.

Chad Thornton’s seminar group got set a problem by Hugh Dubberly last week:

“Using 2 sheets of ordinary 8.5 x 11 inch paper, create a structure that supports the weight of 10 pounds worth of books for 30 seconds. How tall can you make that structure?”

I dimly remember something in, I think, Charles Seife’s “Zero: the biography of a dangerous idea”; which described the counterintuitive process of folding a single sheet of paper enough times for its thickness to become exponentially large-enough to reach the moon.

Or something.

[a-HA! Apparently, folding an A4 sheet of paper 44 times will get you to the moon. Googlesnuffled noosphere post-facts here and here]

Anyway – go and weigh in with your solutions over at BrightlyColouredFood.

» BrightlyColouredFood: Paper holds books

Matt Webb, in conversation [recalled, paraphrased], today:

“Imagine, a universal machine, where everything it could possibly do has it’s own button. That’s what the interface is like.”

Not a lot going on right now apart from work, so I’ve started a photoblog.

First entries in an ongoing celebration of the mundane:

• Bloggers at the British Museum:
  After lunch with Webb, Coates and Cal
• My workplace

Ho hum. Back to project plans.