"With static sites, we've come full circle, like exhausted poets who have travelled the world trying every form of poetry and realizing that the haiku is enough to see most of us through our tragedies." A line that particularly resonates in this lovely Craig Mod article on the solace of programming for yourself.

Craig Mod on his long walk; his descriptions of the nature of all-encompassing boredom remind me of hiking the Pembrokeshire coastal path, alone, and how your thoughts change as you slip into walking as your primary focus.

[this is good]. And it leaves me with open, not closed feelings: I'm reading so much on a screen, mainly e-ink, and mainly fiction. Do I remember it the same way as print? Do I care as much? Am I missing things? Some days, what matters is that I *am* reading, that wherever I am in the world, there are books; other days, I can't remember what I read where, because they all felt the same, all looked the same: a slab of grey plastic. Lots of thoughts. Mainly, though, that I'm glad there are books in the world.

"Arrive early. Arrive early? Sounds simple. It is — let me show you.

Arrive so early that a friend will text you, What R U sixty years old? No, you’re not sixty, you’re much older, because the wisdom of the early arrival seems to have eluded even most sixty-year-old travelers."

Really strong piece by Craig Mod on Worldreader and their achievements, focusing on a school in Ghana.

"A not-so-long time ago there were no digital books. There were no Kindles or iPads. There were self-contained objects. Objects unnetworked. The only difference now is that they're touching, they're next to one another. The content is the same. But that small act of connection brings with it a potential sea change, change we'll explore as we continue to platform books." A huge thinkbomb from Craig.

"Realitat is a research and experimental studio founded by Juan Manuel de J. Escalante in Mexico City. Their recent creation "Microsonic Landscapes" visualizes music with physical form as a representation of an algorithmic exploration of the music. Realitat selected some of their favorite albums, including Nick Drake's Pink Moon and Portishead's Third, and converted them into 3D objects. Each album's soundwave were 3D printed in a cylindrical form layer by layer on a Makerbot 3D printer." I don't normally go in for this sort of thing, but it does look nice.

"So, given this [zero-button, move and look] interface, whence interactivity in Dear Esther? I say: from an understated but deadly-precise sense of attention design through spatial design.

You walk along the beach; a path goes up the bluff, another along the strand. You go one way or the other. There are no game-mechanics associated with the choice, and a plot-diagram analysis would call them "the same place" — you can try either, back up, and go the other way. But this misses the point. Precisely because the game lacks keys, switches, stars, and 1ups, it has no implicit mandate to explore every inch of territory. Instead, you want to move forward. Backtracking is dull. Worse: given the game's sedate walking pace, it's slightly frustrating. (They left out the run button for a reason, see?) Moving into new territory is always the best-rewarded move, and therefore your choice of path is a choice. You will not (unless you thrash hard against the game's intentions) see everything in your first run-through." Cracking writing about immersive, environmental storytelling in Dear Esther, and why it's clearly a game.

"…he still remembers his frustration at encountering "sliced-up ghettos of thought" – sculpture, architecture, fashion, embroidery, metalwork, product and furniture design all in separate departments – "which I don't believe are absolute. It's just the way we categorise things and the way we chose to educate people."" Quite excited to see the Heatherwick show.

"Super-simple baseline .mobi templates. Here ya go."

It's basically a satellite that's an external Android peripheral, and they're chucking it into space with a phone attached. Impressive.

"I'd go so far as to say an unarticulated experience or creative process is one left unresolved. By writing about your experience you close the loop, so to speak. When you publish, both the output of the experience (book, software, photographs, etc) and now the ability to replicate that experience is in the hands of your audience. That's a powerful thing. And I can say with absolute clarity, there is as much satisfaction in seeing your experience manifest in others as there is in the creative output alone." Craig's review of the year is marvellous, but this is a particularly salient point, for me, right now.