Resources for Churches from the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion
boagworld / Paul Boag
There are two people in boagworld’s collective.
Huffduffed (22)
-
-
Can scientists believe in miracles?
-
The Multiverse, Ultimate Causation and God
-
God and the Brain
-
Kerning, Orgasms And Those Goddamned Japanese Toothpicks
Freud popularised the term, “The Narcissism of Minor Differences”, to describe how adjacent villages—identical for all practical purposes—would struggle to amplify their tiniest distinctions in order to justify how much they despised one other. So you have to guess how much he would have enjoyed design mailing lists. And, Perl.
Truth is, to the untrained (un-washed, un-nuanced, un-Paul-Rand’d, and un-Helvetica’d) outsider, discourse in the design community can sometimes look a lot like a cluster of tightly-wound Freudian villages.
So, how is the role of design perceived by the people who are using the stuff you make? What role (if any) should users expect in the process of how their world is made and remade? What contexts might be useful in helping us turn all of our obsessions into useful and beautiful work?
Can an Aeron chair ever be truly ‘Black’? Will there ever be a way to get Marketing people to stop calling typefaces ‘fonts’? And, when, at last, will the international community finally speak as one regarding the overuse of Mistral and stock photos of foreshortened Asian women?
By leveraging his uniquely unqualified understanding of design, Merlin will propose some promising patterns for fording the gap between end-users and the unhappy-looking people in costly European eyeglasses who are designing their world.
Is there hope? Come to Brighton, pull up a flawlessly-executed mid-century-Modern seating affordance, and we'll see what we can figure out together. One village to another.
http://2010.dconstruct.org/speakers/merlin-mann
Merlin Mann is best known as the creator of 43folders.com, a popular American website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.
-
Everything The Network Touches
The work we’re collectively doing—opening up gradually all of human information and media, making it recombinable, helping people create and share their work—is a huge unspoken, sexy, world-redefining mission.
It’s a mission that many of us have become blasé about, almost unaware of. It’s a project so large that it’s hard to get a grasp on. And the next few years are going to get even more interesting as the network pervades physical objects and environments, sensing and manifesting information in the real world.
It's time to recognise the scale of the project we have in front of us, the breadth of the material we have to work with, and the possibilities of design within it. All of human knowledge, creativity—even the planet itself—is our canvas.
http://2010.dconstruct.org/speakers/tom-coates
Tom Coates is a technologist and writer, focused on the shape of the web to come and on developing new concepts that thrive in it. He’s worked for many prominent web companies including Time Out, the BBC and Yahoo! where he was Head of Product for the Brickhouse innovation team. He’s most known for the Fire Eagle location-sharing service, and for his work on social software, future media and the web of data.
-
The Value Of Ruins
Between The Alexandrian War of 48 BCE and the Muslim conquest of 642 CE, the Library of Alexandria, containing a million scrolls and tens of thousands of individual works was completely destroyed, its contents scattered and lost. An appreciable percentage of all human knowledge to that point in history was erased. Yet in his novella “The Congress”, Jorge Luis Borges wrote that “every few centuries, it’s necessary to burn the Library of Alexandria”.
In his session James will ask if, as we build ourselves new structures of knowledge and certainty, as we design our future, should we be concerned with the value of our ruins?
http://2010.dconstruct.org/speakers/james-bridle
With a background in both computing and traditional publishing James Bridle attempts to bridge the gaps between technology and literature. He runs Bookkake, a small independent publisher and writes about books and the publishing industry at booktwo.org. In 2009 he helped launch Enhanced Editions, the first e-reading application with integrated audiobooks.
-
Jam Session: What Improvisation Can Teach Us About Design
Have you ever had a spontaneous creative triumph, perfectly in sync with your team?
A passionate believer in improvisation as a design skill, Hannah’s session will talk about the importance of this technique in her own design process and what lessons can be borrowed from improvised music.
From the jazz masters to the humble basement band practice, musical concepts such as timing, structure, rolls and expression have many lessons for designers creating an off-the-cuff interface.
Hannah will explore how the methods of music translate for a design/development team, as well as sharing personal stories and techniques for those times when you need a bit of a jam session.
http://2010.dconstruct.org/speakers/hannah-donovan
Originally from Canada’s icy north, Hannah Donovan is creative director at Last.fm, where she’s worked for the last four years. Before moving to London, she designed websites for Canada’s largest youth-focused agency, working on brands such as Hershey, Heineken and Bic. Hannah also plays the cello with an orchestra and draws monsters.
-
The Auteur Theory Of Design
Why is it that some projects never rise to the level of the talent of those who made it? It’s oft said regarding good work that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. But sometimes the whole is less than the sum of its parts—a company or team comprised of good people, but yet which produces work that isn’t good.
In his session, John will explain his theory to explain how this happens—in both directions—based on the longstanding collaborative art of filmmaking. Learn how to recognise when a project is doomed to mediocrity, and, more importantly, how best to achieve collaborative success.
http://2010.dconstruct.org/speakers/john-gruber
John Gruber writes and publishes Daring Fireball, a somewhat popular weblog ostensibly focused on Mac and web nerdery. He has been producing Daring Fireball as a full-time endeavour since April 2006.
He lives in Philadelphia with his wife and son.
-
The Power and Beauty of Typography
Web typography has come a long way, but how do you find inspiration to push your designs forward online? Letters can say far more than the words they spell.
In her session, Samantha will look at the lettering surrounding us everyday, tapping into the way it makes us feel. If you don’t already get emotional about which font to use, you will, looking at letters in a whole new way and learning how to translate those feelings into your web designs.
http://2010.dconstruct.org/speakers/samantha-warren
Samantha Warren loves big concepts as much as she loves badass typography and thrives on telling interesting stories through usable interfaces. She has written articles for .net Magazine, regularly speaks at industry events and is on the Board of the Art Directors Club of Washington DC. When she is not doing any of the above you can find her enthusiastically teaching typography and web design at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University.
Page 1 of 3Older