"How does it work? Just put your image size after our URL and you'll get a placeholder." Nifty!

"As an industry, we need to understand that not wanting root access doesn’t make you stupid. It simply means you do not want root access. Failing to comprehend this is not only a failure of empathy, but a failure of service."

"In collaboration with Bungie and Microsoft we are bringing the artistry and almost infinite content of the Halo 3 world into your world. For the first time ever, custom screenshot images created on the Xbox 360 console during Halo 3 gameplay are available as remastered fine art products, and delivered ready to hang on your wall." Single-click from the Bungie.net screenshot viewer to buying prints (or canvases) of your screengrabs. Superb.

Lots of great stuff in this talk from Mike Kuniavsiky from this year's ETech. I like this explanation of (the confusingly-titled) "avatar", and some of his points on service design are excellent. Lots of meat in here; make sure you get the PDF.

A first, rather long, post on the S&W Blog, in which I talk to Jack about a project he's been working on for a while.

"Thus maintenance would become a punishment for delivery, which may be a hollow joke for some of us working in technology. And every now and then, when reading contracts, I would like to follow Henry VII's lead and pass a law against maintenance."

"The future is terribly easy to predict. It’s predicting the instantiation that’s hard."

"Turn photos of your designs into real life things." Fabbing based upon photographs or illustration. Blimey.

"Just as the words consumer and user are condesending to people, the word experience is condesending to the activity of people, or life. And it’s condescending to the people who work hard to create the products and services. Everyone seems to be an experience manager these days, but we should be proud of what we do." When Heathcote blogs, he blogs big. Great post.

"LINC is leased to the user as a service, not a product." Lovely concept design, especially for the process of migration from an old device to a new one.

"Nocera mentions Bezos’ belief that if you do something good for one customer, they will tell one hundred others. [...] Put it all together, and you begin to see what a truly empowered, truly knowledge-based global economy looks like."

Mark Pilgrim looks at Kindle through what's been said about it so far, and what's been said about the act of reading in the past. His comparisons prove depressing, and worthy of at least some consideration.

Twittercal is "a free service that connects your Twitter account to your Google Calendar". Very nice!

Remarkable piece from Adam Greenfield on experience design. The second time I've seen the Saarinen quotation pop-up, too. A must-read.