Robert Currie

When you were young
And your heart was a PowerBook
You used to say, "Live and let live"
you know you did you know you did you know you did...
But if this ever-changing world in which we're livin'
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let Dye.

Barbican revamp to give ‘bewildering’ arts centre a new lease of life Project will make the famously confusing London landmark easier to navigate and more accessible

A firm has been hired to improve the wayfinding at London's notoriously labyrinthine Barbican Centre. Their first task will be to attempt to find any signs of the previous teams that have attempted this.

www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

In every case, the route number of the bus that goes to the airport should be 747. There is no room for argument here. It should be an ISO standard.

The NDP’s leadership candidates aren’t fluent in French. Will that hurt the party’s future? | CBC News Having a leader who can't communicate with the 22 per cent of Canadians whose first official language is French could hurt the New Democrats' credibility as a national party, a concern shared by two f...

"But we're lucky because the language of the working class rises above any language in the world.”

Yeah, Québec is known for being pretty chill about the whole language thing.

NDP copium always amazes me.

www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

It's got a Lego Store
It's got an Apple Store
It's got a Nike Store
It's got a Uniqlo
It's a mall that reminds him of the good times
It's a mall that reminds him of the better times

YouTube video by RuseEntertainment tarp surfing

Wow, has it really been 15 years since the tarp surfing revival?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6-v...

If you want a demonstration of how Canada is orienting itself away from the US, Air Canada just announced summer nonstop flights from Halifax to Brussels. By my count, that's 14 European destinations (in summer).

No, the greatest trick the Devil *actually* ever pulled was inventing that sticky rubber-like coating that Logitech uses on their mice.

I've managed lots of expensive, complicated projects but trying to get a single drug into the arm of an 86-year-old woman, coordinating multiple doctors, pharmacies, nursing organizations and more, has been *way* more frustrating.

As someone whose involvement so far (luckily) with the health care system is almost entirely as an observer and support person rather than a patient, I have no idea how actually sick people manage to navigate it.

The digital folks at the Government of Canada are generally not dummies and so perhaps there's a reason, but a passport renewal interaction that needs you to get info from your passport presented as DD MM YY and input it as YYYY MM DD seems like it could use a little tweak.

Still convinced that the best way to get more people into the construction trades is to play better music on job sites.

Let us remember the not dying (but close) words of Sir Philip Broke:

Na-na, na-na, na-na, na-na, na, na, now
Baby, give it up
Give it up
Baby, give it up.

I think if you have a family charitable foundation named after you, it should be mandatory to include your pet's name as well.

The John D., Mr. Pancakes, and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation sounds much better.

Last week I finally got to Sir John Soane's Museum in London. As bizarre and compelling as everyone says. (And the displays of his work as an architect drive home how great architectural renderings once were, compared to the ones we get now.)

Plain language Communicate with the user in concise and simple terms. The Apple Desktop Interface is approachable by the unsophisticated user. It requires no special "language." In fact, much of the user-computer interaction is graphic. The user points to objects on the screen and selects from available lists; the computer changes text and graphics at the user's request. Occasionally, the computer must display textual messages, cither to describe a particular situation or to ask the user for a specific decision. In these instances, the phrasing must be very direct and unambiguous. It should inform users directly of the options available. Whenever words are involved, the design team should include a skilled writer.

At least a third of UX problems could be solved if people read and followed this excerpt of Apple's *1987* Human Interface Guidelines. (And the first org that should take this seriously is 2025 Apple, whose writing standards have dropped dramatically.)

I once sat through a dept meeting where people advanced theories for an hour about how the department skeleton disappeared and I’ve never quite gotten over it, even after leaving that department. I didn’t even know we had a skeleton.

Hadn't been to London in 5 years, and streets seemed way less noisy. Hoping it was due to ULEZ/congestion fee, gas-powered scooters replaced by e-bikes, etc., and not age-related hearing loss. Tube still deafeningly screechy though, which was strangely reassuring.

It can be hard to customize existing systems, apply business logic to user experience, etc, etc, but changing the contents of a string of text goes a long way. Getting the words right is the lowest of low-hanging fruit.

Screensot with text. Self Service Refund This ticket is not eligible for refund. The remaining value of the ticket is not enough to complete the refund Single Ride Adult 1 Ride Regional Ex| Original Price Pro-rated Consumption Fee CA$4.75 Total Refund -CA$4.75 CA$0.00 Refund Policy Refunds can take up to 10 days to process Refund policy content.

Was poking around the HFX GO app and found this screen - with placeholder text ("refund policy content"), legalese (pro-rated consumption fee) and lack of clarity. While I'm venting, I'll paraphrase the original Apple Human Interface Guidelines - if your application involves text, hire a writer.

The contrast between zooming though the e-gates at Heathrow and navigating a barely-partitioned construction zone at Halifax Stanfield arrivals, with kiosks that barely work, and zero wayfinding or passenger flow consideration really drove home how poorly we do service design here.

‘A literal shoe box’: Why some Toronto renters are avoiding new builds | CBC News Some Torontonians are opting out of moving into new builds — for reasons ranging from a lack of rent control to poor layouts — at a time tenants are increasingly gaining leverage in the market.

This whole article is An indictment of investor-driven housing.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Joyce Carol Oates @Joyce... 17h O So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates— scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend's or relative's accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. In fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. The poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the "most wealthy person in the world."

Elon Musk ' @elonmusk X.com Oates is a liar and delights in being mean. Not a good human.

lol she got his ass and he knows it

A simplified piano score for John Cage's 4'33". Is is blank.

A spider plot of the musical complexity of John Cage's 4'33". It is a dot.

Oh, come on.

Not too long before the dotcom crash, Wired magazine published a list of the top 10 online ad buyers and sellers. I think seven firms were on both lists. I knew then that things were going to go badly wrong. Money is going round and round, but nobody's actually making a profit.

I Like My Presidents to Care When Someone Faints During a Press Event Link to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbSFw7NTneQ&t=49s

daringfireball.net/linked/2025/...

Imagine having tuned cruise ship horns with an output of a kajillion decibels and the only thing you're allowed to play is the "Love Boat Theme."

It's *so* nice to encounter a map that my colour-deficient vision can make sense of.

Munich's surfers left stunned after famed river wave vanishes Eisbach wave in the Bavarian city had been a surfing magnet for decades but disappeared after a recent cleanup

This is my go-to example of an improbably wonderful urban amenity, and its disappearance actually makes me sad.

Seeing people with surfboards and wet hair on the U-Bahn stuck very firmly in my brain.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

🇪🇬😃 The lucky Egyptian Foreign Minister receives a LEGO model of the Giza Pyramids from his Danish colleague, who arrived in Cairo for the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum.