June 29, 2023
The answer to the great question of life, the universe and everything is not 42, as you may have been led to believe. It’s 1/137 (or near enough). This is the greatest of the two dozen or so universal constants. According to current thinking, without the physical and quantum relationships it describes, the universe as we know it could not exist. More →
June 13, 2023
On the doorstep of the British Library, you will find Edouardo Paolozzi’s imposing statue of Sir Isaac Newton. At first glance, this position seems to make perfect sense. Where better for a monument to the Enlightenment’s poster boy than raised on a plinth at the entrance to the world’s second largest library? And yet, there’s more going on here than is evident at first glance.
June 9, 2023
A recent edition of Jon Connell’s daily newsletter The Knowledge included this nugget: “Last month, I heard one of the world’s most successful fund managers admit that the charts and models he previously used “gave almost no clue” as to what to do with money now. (His one firm prediction, that the US dollar would weaken, has so far proved dead wrong.) Same with climate, with migration, with a business world about to be utterly transformed by AI. That, as much anything, will be one of the biggest questions of the coming years and decades: What do we do if we can’t predict the future?” More →
June 5, 2023
In his 1998 book A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking relates the following anecdote: “A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”
May 25, 2023
We learned recently that our website is one of the many that has been used to train Google’s AI, the very thing that would supplant us. We’re not alone in that of course, but we are flattered and appalled to discover we are fairly high up the list, so obviously doing something right as far as Google is concerned. Advertisers and sponsors, please contact us in the usual way. Anyway, never mind that bollocks, here’s the new digital edition of IN, a printed magazine written, illustrated and designed by humans (and one AI). More →
May 24, 2023
What are claimed to be the Midlands and Central England’s most outstanding workplaces have been announced, with British Council for Offices Awards going to five office buildings across the region. Held at ICC in Birmingham, the BCO Awards for the region set out to recognise projects that demonstrate best practice in office design, fit-out, operation and sustainability. The organisers claims that the winners of this year’s competition in the Midlands and Central England stand out for their user-centred design credentials, as well as their creative implementation of wellbeing and sustainability measures. More →
May 24, 2023
FUTURE Designs, the international designer and manufacturer of luminaires and lighting solutions, has launched its latest ultra-thin lighting design, NARO. Subtle in design, the aesthetic makes NARO architecturally neat and understated. Being only 22mm wide, NARO caters for the ever increasing demand for thinner minimal profiles. The innovative product has the creative adaptability to form countless configurations in square or linear formations, offering flexibility for any brief.
The potential applications are extensive; NARO offers 7 different head options to covering all needs, from spot and linear profiles to stick pendants, making this system highly flexible and suited to all types of space from traditional offices to breakout spaces, and boardroom as well as hotels, bar and restaurants.
The FUTURE Designs lighting system offers variable brightness and colour temperatures options, from warm to cool white, providing perfect light levels to visually enhance any environment, whilst maintaining the highest levels of functionality.
May 16, 2023
Quoting George Orwell is the kind of thing that people who haven’t read George Orwell do. I have read Orwell, and even have a drunken story about Paul Shane signing my copy of the Collected Essays, which was the only autograph-able material I had on me at the time I met him in a pub in about 1990. For another time. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell describes Winston Smith’s realisation that the best books are those that tell you what you already know. This is an ancient profundity, and one that is sort of useful during times of significant, rapid change, when we are obliged to confront old truths in a new context. History doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes, as they say. More →
April 21, 2023
Mace has published a new report into workplace trends which claims that hybrid working with a collaborative central space is (brace yourselves) the new normal for a preferred post-pandemic working style. The Mace Operate Workplace Survey looked at the enduring role of a central office for businesses and considered what an office space needs to offer in an era of hybrid working. The majority of respondents (87 percent) said that interaction with people and workplace culture are the main benefits of going to the office with employees and employers seeing eye-to-eye on the need for collaboration for motivation, resilience and effective hybrid working. More →
April 10, 2023
The digital edition of issue 14 of IN Magazine is now available to read free, here. Print copies are in the post. We think it’s the best issue we’ve done so far, but please don’t take our word for it. It’s visually stunning, as always. It offers you the usual eclectic mix of content, covering everything from technology to urban design, management issues, property, office design, the environment, wellbeing and transport as well as all the usual interviews, news, events and commentary. All back issues of IN are available here. More →
April 10, 2023
Perhaps the least surprising news from the current AI media frenzy is that Buzzfeed has already been using the tech to publish a lot of its stories. There’s an obvious response to this and it’s not about how amazing the AI is. If an artificial intelligence can write vast quantities of formulaic clickbait stories on your website without anybody noticing, then the problem is with your original approach to ‘content’ and how it’s consumed. More →
June 19, 2023
Throwing open the window to a new world of work
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Technology
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