Alan Travis writes for The Guardian:

A six-year study of Britain's drug laws by leading scientists, police officers, academics and experts has concluded it is time to introduce decriminalisation.

The report by the UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC), an independent advisory body, says possession of small amounts of controlled drugs should no longer be a criminal offence and concludes the move will not lead to a significant increase in use.

So, I imagine the government will completely ignore this and continue to waste money:

The report says their analysis of the evidence shows that existing drugs policies struggle to make an impact and, in some cases, may make the problem worse.

The 173-page report concludes: "Taking drugs does not always cause problems, but this is rarely acknowledged by policymakers. In fact most users do not experience significant problems, and there is some evidence that drug use can have benefits in some circumstances."

This is a radically different view to the legal policy in the UK today. I can't help but feel this is a more sensible and scientific approach to drug law.

I feel the most interesting part of the article is the proposed change to how the classification system would work for drugs in the UK:

• Reviewing the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act so that technical decisions about the classification of individual drugs are no longer taken by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) or politicians but instead by an independent body with parliamentary oversight.

Moving scientists and engineers into positions of power is a smart move: politicians aren't equipped with the knowledge to make decisions about these matters. Scientists are.

Kontra discusses the issues facing online publishers, writers, and the questionable quality of technology writing today:

Nobody likes advertising, and yet we seem to be stuck with its corrupting effects on public discourse online. It corrupts news delivery, Facebook privacy, Twitter flow, Google search, Kindle reading and so on. There doesn’t seem to be any way to make profits online, or often just survive, without pageviews and clicks, and all the shouting that entails.

Shouting sells newspapers. Shouting creates headlines. Shouting grabs attention. And, after all, if writers are paid by advertisers who want their ads seen by as many people as possible, there is a direct incentive for writers to shout, no matter how crazy what they're shouting is.

Making crazy, outlandish predictions and bold statements gets headlines—and on the web, people tend to not remember what was even said after a few days. Especially not by who.

This creates a problem for writers. I don't want to shout. I want to be called out if I make a mistake or say something truly wrong. I'll correct my errors. I enjoy criticism, if it's fair. If I "shouted", I wouldn't care the same way: I'd likely make a lot of bold predictions which would be wrong in the long run. This would be a disservice to my readers.

My most valuable assets are trust, thoughtfulness and taste. Traditional advertising doesn't cater to those. I need something different.

Chasing Perfection 2.0 is here.

It's taken a while, but I'm incredibly proud to finally announce the redesign is complete.

There have been a lot of changes, both front and back end. Firstly, the font you're currently reading is Adelle, a truly beautiful slab serif, optimised for the web and high resolution Retina displays¹. Choosing a typeface is exceedingly difficult, however I believe I've made a great decision: the absolutely stunning italic glyphs of Adelle won me over. The back end of Chasing Perfection has been upgraded to Squarespace 6, and is running a custom template lovingly coded by Jamie Brittain. It not only looks great on different size displays, it loads faster, too.

This redesign is a large step in the direction I've wanted to take Chasing Perfection towards for quite some time. It has been humbling to have witnessed how my creation has evolved since its inception.

Please, if you spot any strange quirks or bugs with the website, let me know.

Thank you.

---

1: Seriously, visit this website on a Retina display.

Great catch by Tom Klaver — use the new "Guided Access" accessibility option in iOS 6 to help you focus.

Notifications won't show up when it's activated, double clicking the home button won't open the multitasking tray and notification centre isn't accessible.

Here's how to turn it on:

Try this:

1. Turn on Guided Access in Settings > General > Accessibility.
2. Switch to your book app.
3. Triple-click the Home button to invoke Guided Access.
4. Tap ‘Done’.

Switching to your distraction apps now takes 3 clicks on the Home button, filling in a passcode, a tap on the ‘End’ button and a click on the Home button. Enough of a hassle to stay focused, I believe.

I will be using this a lot. Do Not Disturb is great — but it only stops notifications when your device is locked. This works when you're actively using it.

People have different tastes. The design of computers — namely the taste surrounding their creation — has changed significantly since their inception. I've noticed a similar shift in my own taste as I've matured and changed, too.

Only a few years ago, this computer would have appealed to my design sense: it looks powerful, exciting and intimidating. It's the alpha male of the gaming world. I was a nerd and a tinkerer. It looks like the kit-car of the computing world.

Whilst I'm still a nerd, I've fairly recently realised just how human I really am. All technology has to be interacted with. Therefore, all technology should be designed primarily with humans in mind. After all, we're the ones using it. That gaming rig is clearly primarily designed with zombie-geek-tinkerers in mind. It's a truck in a world of hatchbacks.

I don't want to fix my computer. I don't want to worry about it. If it breaks, I want to know it can be replaced quickly with as little hassle as possible.

Today, the computer which most appeals to my design sense is much less expensive and, interestingly, less powerful. Strangely enough, the computer I've recently been spending the most time using — and most time enjoying, isn't classed as a computer by some folks at all. And it's cheaper and less powerful again.

Technology shouldn't be intimating to use. It shouldn't have to be powerful — only if the situation calls for it. Technology shouldn't be just for nerds and gamers. Computers and technology should get out of the way and be easy to use.

Technology should be for everyone. Technology should be human.

The first feature touted on Android 4.1's official website is that the OS is now "fast & smooth":

With buttery graphics and silky transitions. We put Android under a microscope, making everything feel fast, fluid, and smooth. Moving between home screens and switching between apps is effortless, like turning pages in a book.

Too late, Google. This is a feature Apple shipped with iPhone OS version 1.0 in 2007.

Every opportunity I get, I pick up an Android device and scroll through a large list—sometimes these are contact lists, sometimes they're within the music app on the device. A consistent trend happens when I do this: the device doesn't scroll smoothly. It kills me.

I hope this changes with Android 4.1, for the sake of the users. A laggy interface causes a disconnect between the device and the user. It makes the person using the device aware they're using a device: it breaks the magic of interacting with a touchscreen. When I use my iPhone or iPad, I forget that I'm interacting with a computer—it feels like I'm directly manipulating the content on the screen. Losing this amazing human-computer interface experience is a major problem.

And when there's a problem with an interface, there's a problem with your product. As Jef Raskin famously said:

As far as the customer is concerned, the interface is the product.

A Shift

The announcement of the Microsoft Surface shows the biggest change Microsoft as a company has ever made. They now directly sell hardware which runs their own software.

This is a sign that Microsoft is backed into a corner and willing to do a lot to get out of it. Gruber sums up the change well:

Microsoft this week showed itself willing to do what was once unthinkable: design and sell its own PC hardware. This is a profound change of direction for Microsoft and the entire PC industry.

When big companies are pressured into making radical moves like this, exciting things happen. The Surface looks extremely interesting — I'd actually love to play with a Metro-only version of the device. The Touch Cover looks like it could be great to type on, too.

Having said that, the Intel powered versions of the Surface show us that Microsoft is terrified to move into the future too quickly. I can't see any reason to buy an expensive, overpowered and overheating version of the Surface. It's interesting to note that Microsoft doesn't mention the two distinct versions of the Surface, even on its official page. The only one which is shown is the Windows RT version.

Interaction

Being able to run "traditional" desktop style legacy Windows applications is being touted as a feature of the Intel powered device, but I see it as a drawback.

All traditional desktop computing software is designed to be interacted with a mouse. Apple is currently slowly transitioning to a much more gesture based input method on OS X, partly due to laptops being the most popular Macs and partly because many features of iOS are being taken back to the Mac. Microsoft is forgetting that almost all desktop applications are meant to be interacted with using a keyboard and mouse and shipping a device which will be unpleasant to use.

A device being enjoyable to use is a feature.

Imagine using Numbers or Pages for OS X via a VNC app on an iPad. It would be slow and frustrating to use. Numbers and Pages for Mac are designed to be interacted with using a keyboard and mouse — not touch input. This is a fair comparison to what it'll be like using desktop apps with Surface. It'll be awful.

Microsoft's "no compromises" approach — running Windows RT apps and full Windows 8 applications on touch-based Windows tablets — is the biggest compromise of them all.

1. Keep good company.
2. Notice the ordinary.
3. Preserve the ephemeral.
4. Design not for the elite but for the masses.
5. Explain it to a child.
6. Get lost in the content.
7. Get to the heart of the matter.
8. Never tolerate “OK anything”.
9. Remember your responsibility as a storyteller.
10. Zoom out.
11. Switch.
12. Prototype.
13. Pun.
14. Make design your life… and life your design.
15. Leave something behind.

Via Swiss Miss.

Look at the technology we had 200 years ago. Now look at the iPhone in your pocket today.

Realise that this massive technological advancement is only increasing. At an increasing rate.

It's incredible.

To steal a line from Jason Silva, one of my favourite inspirational speakers, we really don't need time lapse photography to see the amazing changes happening in our world today.

The iPhone in your pocket is a thousand times smaller, a thousand times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful than a billion dollar supercomputer from the 1960s. That's over a billion-fold increase in price and performance.

That is not stopping.

And yet, here we are, worrying about the market share of a mobile device or whether Apple or Google ships a 3D maps product first.

Why don't we just suddenly snap out of this trance we're in and realise that we're living in the future, today? We can talk to our phones, read newspapers on portable panes of glass and pay for coffees by touching a piece of plastic to a screen.

We're all human beings living on the same planet. Yet we're exploring space — even tweeting from The International Space Station.

We have the world in the palm of our hand and yet we don't seem to realise it.

So, today, I beg of you: stop to think about where you've been placed in the time and space of our universe. Realise what we have around us is mind-blowingly unbelievable and fantastic at the same time. And make the most of everything you do.

I don't like social sharing buttons on websites. They're ugly.

In fact, when I redesigned this very website a few weeks ago, I made the conscious decision to not include any.

Today, iA's Sweep the Sleaze blog post was making the rounds. Marco Arment's comments on the article resonate with me:

I don’t embed any sharing buttons for one big reason: they look cheap and desperate. They would devalue my voice and reduce my credibility.

For me, every other issue — clutter, load times, scrolling speed, privacy, security — is secondary to that.

If people want to share my work (which I absolutely adore), they will find their own way to do it. It is not difficult to tweet a link to a webpage.

I fail to see any compelling reason to include social sharing buttons, besides shoving down your readers' throats just how many times your post has been shared.

This is the story of how I met Bruce Dickinson. He gave me a flying lesson.

If you're not familiar with his work, he's the lead singer of Iron Maiden, a songwriter, airline pilot, fencer, broadcaster, author, screenwriter, actor and former marketing director. He's been busy.

Iron Maiden

I remember when I was first introduced to Iron Maiden. It was entirely thanks to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. This game (one of my favourite titles of all time) included Iron Maiden's song "2 Minutes to Midnight" in an in-game radio station, VRock. It's safe to say that this game moulded me into who I am today - 2 Minutes to Midnight was stuck in my head the entire time I was playing GTA, as well as most of the time I wasn't. It just so happened that I was humming the chorus one day at school when an unknown kid said "Hey, man, you're an Iron Maiden fan? Awesome!" to me. He'd later become one of my best friends.

I was never brought up around music. At the time this happened, almost ten years ago, I didn't know what an album was. My only introduction to music was Top of the Pops on television combined with the rare Now That's What I Call Music CD I'd receive as a present. I understood what singles were, but I didn't realise that a bunch of individual songs combined on one record was called an album. I had so much to learn.

Luckily, this unknown kid turned out to be Victor. He taught me what I needed to know about music. And so much more, besides. Thank you. From that day onwards, Iron Maiden have been my number one band. I've never looked back.

Flying

Aeronautical engineering fascinates me. Always has. I studied maths, physics, product design, ICT and economics during my A-Levels. Then I studied product design at university. I've wanted a private pilot's license(PPL) for as long as I can remember. As much fun as it's possible to have with remote control cars and planes (hell, even real cars), nothing quite compares to soaring through the air in a real plane. I love it.

Bruce loves it, too. That's why he obtained a PPL in the 1990s, shortly followed by a commercial flying license. When the company he flew for (whilst still a frontman for Iron Maiden, mind you) commercially closed down last year, he started offering a limited number of flying lessons in a $10,000,000 Boeing 737 flight simulator. Needless to say, I was one of the first to know.

I booked a lesson with my hero.

Convergence

I met Bruce Dickinson. We shook hands. We taxied down the runway. Then we took off.

Even though my lesson was scheduled to last one hour, we almost flew in the simulator for twice as long. I had multiple attempts landing the plane without any autopilot assistance. My landings were a little bumpy, but I managed. It was not easy. Bruce landed them perfectly, with one hand on the controls – whilst talking to me. Every time.

We talked about trains, planes, technology – even radar systems and engineering. Music was never brought up. Today was about flying, not singing. We did a flyby of London city whilst discussing how primitive some of the technology in aerospace still is, even today, agreeing that sometimes it doesn't matter how fancy something is so long as it works. The man is incredibly intelligent.

I'm still working towards my own PPL. Maybe one day I'll be in a position to give lessons to an inspired fan of airplanes – just like I was given this incredible experience. Thank you, Bruce.

I don't want to write to a deadline. I want to write because I enjoy it. I want to write for me.

The disturbing notion of chasing pageviews can damage the quality of writing on the web. I don't want to fall victim to it.

One of my favourite improvements to Chasing Perfection, having moved the site to Squarespace, is the fantastic Squarespace iOS app. Unfortunately for me, the app makes it far too easy to see how much traffic I'm getting. This results in me needing to exercise great self control to avoid Chasing Pageviews instead of Perfection.

The idea of needing to keep up website traffic could actually be detrimental to its own goal, over time. trying to drive visitors to a website constantly results in a "boy who's crying wolf" scenario – think of the wolf as quality. If I keep sending out poor quality links on Twitter, people will eventually stop clicking on them. I try to avoid this. In fact, I actively strive for the opposite. I don't post a link to every post on this website, for example.

Trying to drive visitors to a website might work in short spurts, but it isn't a sustainable practice over time. Sustainability and natural growth are important.

For me, being sustainable is more important than having unplanned, crazy traffic for a single day. I'd rather have steady traffic in the form of a few thousand visitors per week than no visitors one week, followed by twenty thousand in one afternoon.

So, with this service announcement out of the way, let's get back to the regular schedule. I'm going to keep writing for me.