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Articles by Robin Wilde
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A Totally Objective Ranking of US License Plate Designs
I am led to believe this is the median America's existence Ah, America. Sweet land of liberty. Of thee I write mockingly. The States have been my home for more than one whole year now, admittedly with most of that time spent hugging the Canadian border like a nervous swimmer clinging to the edge of the pool. One of the design features of the country that I absolutely love is its sense of low-level pageantry, from the pith-helmeted mailmen to the cute conductors' hats they wear on Amtrak trains.
A Totally Objective Ranking of the Flags of Defunct Countries
Clear the mentions, this one's going to get a lot of letters. Flags are a fascinating piece of design lore - at once attempting to be ancient pieces of heraldry and to signify the quintessentially modern notion of the sovereign nation state. I drew up some fairly arbitrary rules for inclusion, but settled on a set which made the list manageable while also giving me enough examples of some of the weirder, more interesting bits of history to dive into.
A Totally Objective Ranking of British Think Tank Logos
I'm going to pretend this stock image is of a young Tory called Alfie who works for something called the Institute for Societal Change. They advocate reducing child poverty by reopening workhouses. Ah, think tanks. Refuges for failed politicians, failed politicians' advisers, and sockpuppets for partisan interest groups. Sometimes a few of them produce interesting research, too.
A Totally Objective Ranking of Every UK University Logo
By Robin Wilde My beloved Alma Mater the University of Sheffield, which will be spared no special treatment. Alright, time for the difficult third album. After early experiments with Canadian political parties and a mid-grade hit with the Council logos, I needed a follow-up set of design work to look through, without taking on a mammoth task (there are 22,000 US local authorities, tragically) or setting arbitrary limits on what I included.
A Totally Objective Ranking of Every UK Local Authority Logo
By Robin Wilde The humble local council. Recipient for every half-informed beef of the British busybody, from potholes to bin collections to tree-felling. But they do some more noble tasks, too - providing housing, social care and public services like libraries for millions of people. These quite disparate functions need a banner under which they can operate, but the brand...
Dream on: inside the Dreamcast's homebrew scene — Wireframe Magazine
Roel van Mastbergen codes for Senile Team, the developers of Intrepid Izzy, a puzzle platformer coming soon to the PC, PS4 and Dreamcast. Of the port to Sega’s ageing console, van Mastbergen tells us, “I started this project with only the PC in mind. I’m more used to developing for older hardware, though, so I tend to write code with low CPU and RAM requirements by force of habit.
Flash Back: preserving a gaming legacy — Wireframe Magazine
The End Is Nigh In 2017, Adobe announced that it will be pulling support for Flash as a platform at the end of 2020, with no more maintenance, updates, or patches to come. After two decades, it will be the end of an era. All this leaves the tens of thousands of Flash games in a difficult place. These were games never distributed in any physical medium, and the amateur nature of their development means many will be cut adrift. Fans are trying, though.
Ranking the logos of every Canadian political party
There’s a lot in a political party logo. Lots of them are terrible of course, but usually there’s a lot of research and expense involved in summing up a party’s philosophy, history and desired public image in a mark that will have to last years if not decades.
Taking the Leap
Before the weighted blanket of enforced isolation came down around our heads, I was being weighed up to participate in a student media conference where I was due to speak to young journalists about the trials and tribulations of going freelance.
Advice for the Professional Loner
Millions of people across the world are about to experience the joys of remote working for the first time. Setting aside the tragic virus-related context of this decision, on which I’m woefully unqualified to pronounce, I’d like to welcome you to the world of the land of the self-employed, and offer a few tips I’ve picked up over the last two years on how to stay sane and productive while the plague rages outside. For Goodness’ Sake, Get Dressed We all like a pyjama day from time to time.
The Many Faces of Trains in Games
Since I spend a lot of my life on trains, crammed into small seats and suffering frequent delays, it’s given me space to consider why they hold such a strong place in the canon of gaming tropes. While games formally about trains are fairly rare — limited to the simulator genre, puzzlers like Mini Metro and a relatively little-remembered Zelda game — some of gaming’s most beloved moments have seen characters taking to the rails.
I spent two weeks travelling in and around Seattle without a car. Here’s what happened
If you’re looking for a West Coast American city with a countercultural heritage, without the hipster reputation of Portland or the cost of San Francisco, you could do worse than Seattle. Nestled between two mountain ranges and sitting on an isthmus in the Puget Sound, the Emerald City is well known for its tech industry and musical heritage, as well as being the setting for Frasier.
A monorail won’t fix the East Midlands. So what could?
I have recently picked up a new bad habit, because obviously I needed one of those. Whenever I mention Manchester in print somewhere, I have taken to describing it as Britain’s “undisputed second city”. The reason this is a bad habit is because I am, quite consciously, trolling.
Here’s everything we learned from the DfT’s database of daily road use statistics
The Department for Transport (DfT) has released averages of daily road use over 22,700 stretches of road across the country, counting cars and bicycles, motorbikes and mopeds, vans and lorries. While the broad conclusions shouldn’t surprise anyone – motorways are busy, country roads in the Highlands aren’t – there are some interesting findings hidden in the spreadsheet. What’s more, we can look at where each of these places is using the handy co-ordinates supplied with the data.
Can The Simpsons explain why monorails never took off as a form of transport?
Conan O’Brien, in the commentary for seminal Simpsons episode Marge vs. the Monorail, described the inspiration for the titular mass transit system as seeing the word “monorail” on a sign in California and thinking, “What could be more wasteful and stupid?” It seems planners generally agree. Indeed, the Wikipedia article listing the world’s monorails counts only 75 in operation worldwide. Of these, 34 are essentially attractions which serve theme parks, resorts and, inexplicably, zoos.
Can The Simpsons explains why monorails never took off as a form of transport?
Conan O’Brien, in the commentary for seminal Simpsons episode Marge vs. the Monorail, described the inspiration for the titular mass transit system as seeing the word “monorail” on a sign in California and thinking, “What could be more wasteful and stupid?” It seems planners generally agree. Indeed, the Wikipedia article listing the world’s monorails counts only 75 in operation worldwide. Of these, 34 are essentially attractions which serve theme parks, resorts and, inexplicably, zoos.
Millennials are killing the car, and other lessons from the DVLA database of driving licences
See what you’re missing? Image: Getty. For much of the late 20th century, the mark of reaching adulthood was acquiring your first car. It didn’t much matter that, at 17, its duties were mainly limited to travelling to a menial job or picking up mates to go into town – the fact that you could just get up and go to John O’Groats on a whim was part of the appeal. But recent data released by the DVLA suggests that driving is losing its popularity among younger people.
For years, newspaper design helped us identify fake news. Not anymore
It's quicker than ever to create a professional-looking website. For purveyors of fake news, that makes crafting—and sharing—believable stories an easy task by Robin Wilde / May 10, 2019 / Leave a comment As the web has developed, the art of web design has grown with it. At the same time, the ubiquity of social media has fundamentally altered how we consume our news.
Seven things we learned from a database of MOT tests with 34 million entries
Cars aren’t exactly CityMetric’s favourite mode of transport, but there’s no denying they’re a popular way to get around. Last month, the Department for Transport released its dataset of MOT tests carried out in England, Scotland and Wales throughout 2017, in a 34 million entry spreadsheet, all broken down by postcode area. Digging into the data reveals some odd, surprising and even useful insights. 1.
Rise of leisure society: how could a four-day week work?
A four or three-day working week could become the norm for full-time workers over the coming decades, writes Scott Corfe In his essay, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren, the great economist John Maynard Keynes presented us with a compelling vision of the future – one in which we would increasingly become a leisure society in which hours worked dwindled as technological progress enabled us to achieve more in a shorter space of time.
Productivity: Labour needs a rethink - Progress
John McDonnell’s recently announced productivity target for the Bank of England could rebound badly, warns John Mann MP At the start of this summer, John McDonnell has announced a three per cent productivity target for the Bank of England to be introduced by a Labour government. As the Trades Union Congress meets this week to discuss the future of our country, I would ask us all to think again.
Tories steamroll Northamptonshire councils
The Tories dismantling of Northamptonshire councils demonstrates a contempt for local democracy, argues Sally Keeble As an exercise in political thuggery, there’s not much to match the abolition of all the councils in Northamptonshire. With the Tories’ national attention focussed on Brexit splits, and Labour’s on our internal rows, the seven Conservative local authorities in the county lined up this summer to vote to scrap themselves.
It's the unions, stupid
Unions will be key to ensuring security for a generation that has already been let down by the economy, writes Ben Campbell It is easy to become distracted by rose-tinted memories of the 20th century as a relatively golden age of economic equality and social mobility. They do, however, hold a basic truth. This came in the form of a generational bargain which dictated that each generation would be wealthier than the one that preceded it.
It's the unions, stupid - Progress
Unions will be key to ensuring security for a generation that has already been let down by the economy, writes Ben Campbell It is easy to become distracted by rose-tinted memories of the 20th century as a relatively golden age of economic equality and social mobility. They do, however, hold a basic truth. This came in the form of a generational bargain which dictated that each generation would be wealthier than the one that preceded it.
A brief tour of Britain’s least used stations
Those among you who haven’t yet received your copy of the Office of Road & Rail Estimates of Station Usage 2016-7 (don’t push, now) might not quite realise the scale of disparity in exactly how many people use Britain’s various stations. Of the 2.9bn rail journeys made in Britain that year, just over 500m started or ended at one of London’s ten busiest stations. If you travelled from or to anywhere smaller than Orpington, congratulations: you’re in a minority.
The future of Labour campaigning
Robin Wilde on winning in a world where digital is standard Those of us who work in the engine room of politics – in Westminster, in constituency offices, or as officers in our local parties – don’t live glamorous lives. Our day to day work consists of ignored emails about the CLP barbecue, and Facebook appeals to leaflet a huge estate in the rain, behind which lies a quiet battle between exasperated officials and the software they use.
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