Retro moment: the first American Ford Granada

Above: The US Ford Granada in a contemporary advertisement, as posted at americangranada.com.   Not the European car, but the American one of the same name: the Ford Granada was marketed as a US alternative to a Mercedes-Benz. Not as overstyled as, say, the Ford Maverick, this was an extremely heavy car, and Ford’s marketing […]

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Amazon begins charging dormant-account fee

Here’s a new clause in the Amazon Associates’ contract that I never spotted before, which is available publicly for viewing. European countries have a similar one, with differences in the currency. If you have not earned any advertising fees in the 3 years prior to any given calendar month, then on the first day of […]

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Remember when we had an imagination like this?

I keep telling people, most recently Mark Westerby, the producer, at last night’s Pecha Kucha where we both spoke, about ‘a cartoon strip that’s written by a six-year-old and drawn by his 20-something brother’. Except I encountered it so long ago that, beyond a few initial Tweets and a long browse of their website, I […]

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The ex-Vox testimony

A phpBB forum for former users of Vox (I am one) started in September 2010. I posted there today, going through my history with the service. The below is a repost, which I thought would be of interest to readers of this blog (some of whom have come from Vox). It’s a small summary of […]

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Stutterheim marks the Swedish mood

Sent to me by Stefan Engeseth, Stutterheim Raincoats‘ website conveys a very Swedish feel, touching on one of the emotions we don’t always associate with Sweden: melancholy during the winter. The copy on the site even says, ‘Let’s embrace Swedish melancholy.’    With emotive photographs and a very Swedish soundtrack, it helps create an atmosphere […]

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Doctor Who’s Christmas ’10 special: US trailer

Matt Smith completes his first calendar year as the Doctor with a Christmas special, inspired by Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Michael Gambon! Best guest star since Bill Nighy. And if that’s Katherine Jenkins, that’s an extra reason to watch this. (Hope she sings, and not the Singing Detective.) You may also like Steve McQueen, […]

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An ideal surfing camera, and why we love the Saab 9-4X more

My friend Gareth Rowson is now review editor for WideWorldMag.com (alongside his design practice). Here is his test of the waterproof Oregon Scientific ATC9K Action Camera, filmed while surfing at Vazon in Guernsey. I thought this was very nicely shot.    Less well shot, but significant, is the official video from Saab USA about its […]

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Giving Chrome a thrashing, including its typography

My friends Julian and Andrew both provided advice on how to fix the Firefox problems I had been having. Removing and reinstalling plug-ins seems to have solved the constant crashing, though eventually it stopped loading images whenever it felt like it (hit ‘Reload’ enough times and they would return) and Facebook direct messaging stopped working. […]

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Wellington’s most dangerous intersection (in fiction)

While chatting about the movie Shaker Run with one of our Lucire team (who was not born when the film was made), I noticed that the intersection at Courtenay Place–Taranaki Street–Dixon Street was rather treacherous in 1980s’ fiction (start at 1’56”):    Fast forward to 1986 and the Hong Kong film 最佳拍檔千里救差婆 (marketed as Aces […]

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The “next Google” has to save the web

Spotted on Tumblr yesterday, via Dave Sparks: ‘Why Facebook Browsing Annihilates Web Browsing’, on the Fast Company blogs. The intro pretty much summarizes the whole piece:   Recent research suggests that Facebook is overtaking search engines in terms of “time spent” on the web. Want to see where the trendline is heading? Take a look […]

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