Someone from the UK just found this site by searching for “device to stop young people congregating” using a mobile phone provider’s search engine. Now, I know, I know, there may be an important backstory behind that person’s search. Some people apparently really do have […]
All posts filed under “Political design”
Feature deletion for environmental reasons
From the Sunday Times, ‘Standby buttons face axe to curb energy waste’: “Ministers want to do away with the standby buttons that allow [users] to flick their TVs and other electronic gadgets on and off while moving barely a muscle…
Freedom to Tinker – The Freedom to Tinker with Freedom?
At Freedom to Tinker, David Robinson asks whether, in a world where DRM is presented to so many customers as a benefit (e.g. Microsoft’s Zune service), the public as a whole will be quite happy to trade away its freedom to tinker, whether the law […]
‘Anti-Homeless’ benches in Tokyo
Images from Yumiko Hayakawa Yumiko Hayakawa has a very thoughtful and well-illustrated article at OhMyNews on the story behind the variety of ‘anti-homeless’ benches and architectural features (including public art) in Tokyo’s parks and public areas – by making it difficult or impossible to lie […]
Review: Made to Break by Giles Slade
Last month I mentioned some fascinating details on planned obsolescence gleaned from a review of Giles Slade‘s Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America. Having now read the book for myself, here’s my review, including noteworthy ‘architectures of control’ examples and pertinent commentary. Slade […]
Using trees to encourage safer driving
Image from New Urban News, by Eric Dumbaugh Ryan G Coleman kindly sent me a link to this very interesting New Urban News story, ‘Research: trees make streets safer, not deadlier’. The gist is that roads planted with trees cause drivers to put themselves in […]
Ticket off
Henry e-mails: “Perhaps this is too obvious: parking meters; and I mean modern digital ones, enforce arbitrary limits on how much you can pay for at a time (4 hours). Is this to share the enjoyment of democratic parking (at a dollar an hour), or […]
Reversing the emphasis of a control environment
Image from Monkeys & Kiwis (Flickr) Chris Weightman let me know about how it felt to watch last Thursday’s iPod Flashmob at London’s Liverpool Street station: the dominant sense was of a mass of people overturning the ‘prescribed’ behaviour designed into an environment, and turning […]
BBC: Surveillance drones in Merseyside
From the BBC: ‘Police play down spy planes idea’: “Merseyside Police’s new anti-social behaviour (ASB) task force is exploring a number of technology-driven ideas. But while the use of surveillance drones is among them, they would be a “long way off”, police said. … “The […]
Bruce Schneier : Architecture & Security
Bruce Schneier talks about ‘Architecture and Security’: architectural decisions based on the immediate fear of certain threats (e.g. car bombs, rioters) continuing to affect users of the buildings long afterwards. And he makes the connexion to architectures of control outside of the built environment, too: […]
Product psychology to discourage anti-social behaviour
From McGazz (who also has some great music to listen to on his website): “As I was getting myself a cup of tea in work this morning, I overheard a colleague talking about a problem at the tanning salon his wife runs. Each cubicle has […]
Review: We Know What You Want by Martin Howard
A couple of weeks ago, Martin Howard sent me details of his blog, How They Change Your Mind and book, We Know What You Want: How They Change Your Mind, published last year by Disinformation. You can review the blog for yourselves – it has […]