The Art of Telling Stories through Architecture

Previously I've written of how architects can take their cues from historical connections to the area or site - I like to think of buildings as cryptic crosswords, with me trying to decipher the story the architect is trying tell.

The photo here shoes the entrance to the new Westpac Melbourne headquarters on Russell Street. In this instance I like how the architect has made a feature of sandstone. As anyone from Sydney knows, it's a city built on sandstone - just like Melburnians know Melbourne is a city built on bluestone. So for Westpac, a Sydney-based bank, to use sandstone in their new Melbourne headquarters is a little architectural dig at Melbourne.

A little piece of Sydney in the heart of Melbourne.

Privacy on the web. What privacy?

Listed above are all the pieces of code and technology that was tracking my activity on a single news website today. Using a browser add-on like Ghostery you're able to see the staggering amount of companies out there tracking our online behaviour.

Of course, if you don't want to be tracked by all these little bits of technology most browsers have the option to tell these robots not to track you (see below). But with all the browsers that you use throughout your day it is quite a chore to escape the net of these trackers.

With all the talk about governments snooping into our private lives it is simple to miss how much privacy we've already given away.

Getting past Log-in gates

You've probably come across sites like this on the web, it has those annoying blurred overlays that require you to log-in/sign-up using a social account just to get to something you might or might not find useful. The example I've given here is Quora. So annoying these type of things have even been given a name - Dark Patterns.

Fear not, there is usually a way around this. Usually these blurred overlays are no more than a < div > in the page source code. Here's how to get around them...


Hit F12 on the keyboard. This will bring up the Page Insprector and the source code of the page. Scroll with your mouse pointer down all the lines of < div >s until you come to the one that highlights the blurred area or the log-in box. For Quora, below, you can see it's called '...signup_wrapper'.

Right-click and select 'Delete Node'.

It's usually that simple.

Simple fix for an annoying dark pattern.

Sharelines

The new design of the LA Times has put sharing at the forefront of publishing - quite literally. Every article on the LA Times now starts with 'sharelines', pre-formatted quotes or facts from the article to make it even easier for you to share.

Often the headlines of articles will be creatively cryptic, too long, or not describing the main point you want to get across. Sharelines aims to do all the work for you. And it's not just the LA Times, across the web publishers are looking for ways to make sharing easier and more enjoyable.

Here's a quick run-down of some of the ways this is happening:

LA Times – they start each article with key facts

Good Magazine – they have a tweet button on quotes they highlight

Other publishers are customising tweet text so the shared text is shorter than the original headline:

DailyMail.co.uk

Headline:

Tweet:

Many more mobile sites are emphasising sharing as well. At The Atlantic, the top of the article has share buttons and when you scroll below the fold, the design of the site keeps two share buttons permanently at the top.

Top of page:

Scrolled view:

With friends, family and colleagues sharing more often, it is interesting to think that there could be room for 'professional sharers'. Adrienne LaFrance takes up this theory in her Atlantic article discussing that there could become a marketplace for subscribing to customised news feeds.

3D projection mapping and face tracking

This is awesome.

OMOTE / REAL-TIME FACE TRACKING & PROJECTION MAPPING. from something wonderful on Vimeo.

What's the future of the 24 hour news cycle?

Image credit: LOC

Today Crikey revealed more hard numbers on the state of the Australian newspaper business, revealing  News Corp advertising fell $320 million in 2012-13.

The daily news cycle agenda is largely set by the morning newspapers. Hard as that may be to believe, it's still kinda the general rule. Newspapers report, radio talks about the newspaper reporting and TV comes in later in the day to re-cap what happened with these stories during the day.

Take the morning newspapers out of the mix and what happens? Where will the radio stations get their news to complain about? How will TV stations know which stories to package up and which ones to leave?

I'm not for one minute suggesting that newspaper reporting is going to disappear just because some legacy operations are losing money. In fact, the quantity of written news and reporting is probably larger than it has ever been. What has changed is that the masses of reporting cannot be neatly bundled under a single Masthead - it has fragmented to niche publishers or niche sections within larger publishers.

Readers are picking the news they read online more selectively, subscribing to only the sections/authors/topics that interest them.

The question is then: how does radio and TV choose what to focus on if the papers can no longer set the agenda? Indeed, it is telling that there is a dearth of news variety on radio and TV compared to the print/online news that has been forced to adapt its offering.

Time to visit your local library

While to many memories of the library might bring back long arduous hours of University researching and study, the library of today is a world away from the rows and rows of dimly lit books.

Today, libraries are, by necessity, one of the most digitally innovative institutions i know of. And it might seem strange to you, but some of the most digitally innovative people I know are librarians.

We've all heard about the statistics of how much more information is being produced every year and the librarians profession as an organiser and cataloger of information continues, but with ever larger volume, mediums and complexities.

I strongly recommend that you visit your local library or your library's website to browse their inventory of digital subscriptions - you will not be disappointed. After all many of you, through your local Council rates pay for the service of a library so make sure you damn well take advantage of it!

Here are just two services that I use:

Zinio - The World's Largest Newsstand. Most local libraries will subscribe to Zinio which offers the latest edition magazines for digital viewing. My local library subscribes to 70 different titles. I'm a bit of a home reno addict, so having access to Home Beautiful, Vogue Living and Gardening Australia is great. There are also heaps of titles on Photography, Business, Lifestyle and Sports.

PressDisplay / Press Reader. Remember when libraries used to have a few daily newspapers hanging off big wooden poles on a rack? No more, now with Press Display local libraries give you access to thousands (yes, thousands) of daily newspapers every day. I keep tabs on the major city Dailies to see what's hot in each city and have the occasional laugh with the US and UK tabloids.

There's also academic databases, eBooks, eAudio, videos and heaps more. I dare say it is one of the most under-utilised Council services out there.

Maker time: beer bottle washer

I've just finished my latest brew and the time has come to wash my bottles. Boo.

Well, wouldn't you know it, the good old maker community of tinkerers and DIY dads has sorted it all out.

MalFat has made this beauty, washes 30 bottles at a time!

This is going on my to-do list.

Embracing Internet Radio and a world of music

An article in today's Age focused on the pressure Australian bands have to supposedly conform to a sound that the national youth broadcaster, Triple J, will appreciate. With precious little airtime for unsigned bands on commercial radio, Triple J is seen as the only real avenue for bands to be found.

But as a former dedicated Triple J listener (it's still my no.1 Australian music station) my tastes have broadened and nowadays Triple J has less airtime in my house. One of the reasons is the radio you see above.

This is my first Internet radio and it has opened up my house to literally a world of music radio stations. Here is my current list of world radio stations:

1. BBC Radio 4
2. BBC Radio 1
3. BBC World Service
4. NPR
5. WWOZ 90.7fm
6. Calm Radio - Big Band
7. El Vacilon Musical Radio
8. Radio Campesina Cubana

I now have news from the UK and USA, jazz from New Orleans, Big Band from Canada and amazing sounds from the Caribbean and Cuba.

Triple J will always be my number one station for Great Australian music, but with the world being such an interconnected place, Australian bands should embrace the fact that Triple J is just one channel in the world of music.

Embrace as many digital channels as possible because there will be people like me on the other side of the world doing the same as me and discovering a world of music via the Internet.