We missed last week’s weeknotes because the team were all down in Brighton enjoying better weather and plenty of conferences. From dConstruct, Maker Faire, Indie Web Camp and the Food Festival, there was plenty going on.
Weeks 134 and 135 were mostly around getting things setup for the new school year. Vísar’s product, skólapúlsinn, is all about student surveys and September 1st we kicked-off this academic year. Over the next nine months we’ll be working with them on minor tweaks to the existing survey as well as rolling out the new survey collection and reporting software for some pre-tests later this fall.
The dConstruct conference has always been a great conference, and this year was no exception. The keynote speaker, Adam Buxton had us all laughing out loud continuously. All the talks were recorded so audio and video should be available online on the dConstruct archive page.
The days after the conference were also packed with events like the Food Festival, Immaterials gallery show, Maker Faire and Indie Web Camp UK. Brighton was a buzz for that whole week.
The Maker Faire was a brilliant example of what smart people can build with simple tools. 3D printing and small electronics were a main-stay, but lots of other interesting booths. Felting, cardboard construction, laser cutting, knitting, experiments with sound and plenty of other unique booths.
Indie Web Camp focuses on building and discussing the tools that we need to control our own digital lives, how to interoperate and be good net citizens without ceding power to a third-party. There was plenty of discussion about Webmentions, Web Actions, and IndieAuth.
We also had a new chat with Blaine Cook about his new project Poetica. It is a brilliant piece of engineering, but also a useful tool for copy-editting with some dead-simple interaction patterns around document locking which are so simple we’re surprised it took this long to figure them out.
Being based up in Iceland our selection of cuisine is limited, both by available ingredients, cultural tastes and price. It was amazing to wander the streets browsing so many different types of dishes. It might seems a simple and small farmers market style event, but for us it was great to sample mediterranean olives next to Japanese Mochi next to pulled pork next to a plethora of mushroom varieties.
We also finished our Q3 contest, on september 1st we pulled our winner: Neetij from Mumbai, India won a set of postcards. We look forward to getting one in return. Our 4th quarter contest is a holiday special. Back in 02010 24ways created a print book. We have a few left and will give one to a random entry.
This week we are more publicly unveiling our collaboration with Aitor Rey Garcia on Analog, a project focusing on all things analog. We were in WIRED online in an article by Betsy Mason entitled: Mesmerizing Iceland Map Puts a Volcano in Your Pocket. It has a quick survey about what our next round of notebooks should have on the covers. The theme is Islands and we’re looking for something beautiful with an interesting story. There will be a kickstarter project in the next few weeks and we’re sure you’ll be hearing more about that as it gets closer to launch.
Bric-à-brac
We also found out this week that Ancient Romans had some concept of Hypercolor glasses. As the goblets were filled with different liquids, it would change colour accordingly. It is always fascinating to see that what we consider ‘new’ is actually a very old idea. We don’t give the past as much credit as they deserve sometimes.
These Japanese Zip Bags seem to have been making the rounds over the Internet these last few weeks. We picked-up a similar bag back when we were in Japan. They are so simple, it literally is a single zipper sewn to itself.