• It’s Always Sunny in Cupertino

    It’s Always Sunny in Cupertino

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    2–3 minutes

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    My favourite weather app is WeatherPro, from Germany. It isn’t the prettiest – apps like Weathergraph have better widgets for the iPhone and Apple Watch – but in my experience it reflects the UK’s changeable weather best of all: If I look at the icons alone, today in Edinburgh is somewhat sunny, tomorrow is a…

  • All these games, lost in time

    All these games, lost in time

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    3–5 minutes

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    Almost all of the games I’ve made over a fifteen year career are unavailable today. Of the dozens of mobile and web-based titles I’ve been involved in designing, some of which had millions of players, only three can still be installed. Games are an astonishingly ephemeral art form. Outside of a few devoted preservationists, most…

  • The Forever War

    The Forever War

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    7–11 minutes

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    1 comment on The Forever War

    Review of Book Wars: The Digital Revolution in Publishing by John Thompson, originally published in The Author’s Spring 2022 issue. In 2007, Penguin commissioned the company I co-founded, Six to Start, to help its authors design stories that could only be told online. Previous storytelling experiments and marketing campaigns had used the internet, but chiefly…

  • Tear Down This Wall, Mr. BBC!

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    2–3 minutes

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    When I opened my Overcast podcast app to listen to the latest episode of In Our Time, BBC Radio 4’s excellent show on the history of ideas, I was presented with this: Release dates matter. If they didn’t, the BBC would just release an entire season of In Our Time all at once, Netflix-style. Releasing them…

  • Without Reservation

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    12–19 minutes

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    2 comments on Without Reservation

    Since the pandemic began, I’ve taken to walking up and down a nearby hill every lunchtime. Every day, I pass the Burns Monument, a Neo-Greek temple commemorating Robert Burns. Normally it’s closed to visitors, but during the Edinburgh Art Festival this month you can visit a sound installation by Emeka Ogboh. Visiting is free, but…

  • The V&A Dundee Museum is an £80 Million Mistake

    The V&A Dundee Museum is an £80 Million Mistake

    What’s your favourite museum and what does it look like? For me, it’s hard to choose between the V&A Museum in London, with its beautiful, endless art and design galleries and its stylish special exhibitions; and the Exploratorium in San Francisco, which does the best job of explaining science and technology I’ve ever seen; and…

  • First Draft

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    4–6 minutes

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    From my newsletter… Last week, I delivered the first draft of “Untitled Gamification Book” to my editor. I think it’s going to be a good book! It should have something new for even the most familiar with gamification, but it’s accessible for people who’ve never heard the word at all. I hope it will delight…

  • The Cultures Ep 330: The Government Needs a Marketing Budget

    Listen to episode 330 of my weekly podcast with Andrea Phillips and Naomi Alderman: Finnish school kids’ meal bag vs. British school kids’ meal bag (Twitter) UK Government Communication Service blog post example

  • The Cultures Ep 329: Breaking Up the BBC

    Listen to episode 329 of my weekly podcast with Andrea Phillips and Naomi Alderman: The Progressive Case for Breaking Up the BBC – while increasing public funding for the good things it does! Things we’re watching and reading, including: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders It’s a Sin (Channel 4) Catch Me If You Can…

  • The Cultures Ep 328: NICHOLSON

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    1–2 minutes

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    Listen to episode 328 of my weekly podcast with Andrea Phillips and Naomi Alderman: The Lab-Leak Hypothesis by Nicholson Baker (New York Magazine) Did America Use Bioweapons in Korea? Nicholson Baker Tried to Find Out (New York Times book review) Note: Adrian said the wrong episode number at the start, sorry!