Persuasion for peace

Influencing individual people’s behaviour often seems to be about mundane or trivial things, such as choosing one type of magazine subscription over another, or using less shower gel in a hotel bathroom.
But if we’re honest, it’s only in aggregate that behaviour change is going to have any real effect on the world outside the [...]

Towards a Design with Intent ‘Method’ – v.0.1

As mentioned a while back, I’ve been trying to find a way to classify the numerous ‘Design with Intent’ and architectures of control examples that have been examined on this site, and suggested by readers. Since that post, my approach has shifted slightly to look at what the intent is behind each example, and hence [...]

The future of academic exposure?

A lot of research is published each year.
Now that I’m a student again, I’ve got access (via Athens) to a vastly increased amount of academic journals, papers and so on. Far more than I could have done ‘legitimately’ without that Athens login, aside from travelling from library to library to library. And while it’s good [...]

More thoughts on the Eaton MEM BC3, CFLs and Power Factor

UPDATE: See this more recent post for information and photos of how to get a 2-pin bulb to fit in a BC3 fitting.
BC3 reactions
The post looking at the Eaton MEM BC3 system, a couple of months ago, has become something of a reference for UK householders and renters trying to work out why they [...]

West Coast code meets Far East code

Thanks to Mr Person at Text Savvy, I’ve just learned that this blog is blocked in China:

Images from the Great Firewall of China test.
I don’t know if that’s good or bad. From a censorship point of view, it’s bad, but it’s certainly interesting to be able to say that the blog’s blocked in China, even [...]

Useful terminat-ology

Image from Black Flag website.
Sometimes there’s very useful terminology in one field, or culture, which allows clearer or more succinct explanation of concepts in another. In the UK we don’t have Roach Motels. There are doubtless similar products, but they don’t have such a snappy name, or one which can be repurposed so easily.
Reading [...]

Friday quote: Fashion & convention

L.J.K. Setright, the late motoring writer and commentator, self-taught mechanical engineer and all-round Renaissance Man, once wrote:
Fashion is a terrible fetter; convention, since it lasts longer, is even worse.
This was in an issue of Car, when it was still any good.
Setright wrote it in reference to car design, and the lack of [...]

Shaping behaviour: Part 2

Speedometer, rev counter and fuel and temperature gauges on the dashboard of my 1992 Reliant Scimitar SST. Photo taken on B1098 alongside Sixteen Foot Drain, Isle of Ely, England.
In part 1 of ‘Shaping behaviour’, we took a look at ’sticks and carrots’ as approaches for shaping (or changing) people’s behaviour. It’s especially worth reading and [...]

Digital control round-up

Some developments in – and commentary on – digital architectures of control to end 2006:
Peter Gutmann’s ‘A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection’ (via Bruce Schneier) looks very lucidly at the effects that Vista’s DRM and measures to ‘protect’ content will have – on users themselves, and knock-on effects elsewhere. The more one reads, [...]

The secret

“The secret to getting ahead in the 21st century is capitalizing on people doing what they want to do, rather than trying to get them to do what you want to do.”
(Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com, in a Wired article quoted at the Public Journalism network)
I think this applies very much to issues of control in [...]