It’s Halloween! I’m not really celebrating it this year, except for attempting a Hipster Belle outfit today (and not even a very good Hipster Belle), but that doesn’t really count, does it?

Anyway, to celebrate I’m sharing my favourite Halloween items. Enjoy!

Eeeek Necklace – £10

Spellbound Dress from Modcloth – $89.99

Pumpkin Ring – £21.52

Ghost Earrings – £15.42

Bat Wing Headband – £18.63

What are you doing this year Halloween?

Brrrr, it’s full on Autumn now! Despite the brief warm stint we got recently, it definitely feels like it’s time to wrap up and bring out the proper winter coat and gloves.

I got asked by ModCloth what my best layering techinque is to keep warm, so I thought I’d share that with you: a simple yet elegant ruched dress paired with a stylish blazer and a nice warm coat. I’ve got several blazers and dresses that all combine well together, so I’m always on the lookout for new ones to add to my collection.

In this case, I’ve chosen the emerald green This is Fête dress, the plaid No Matter Putt blazer and the red-orange Pumpkin Patch Pose coat:

I love the elegance of the This is Fête dress; the colour is stunning and the neck line looks interesting without revealing too much. Plus ruched dresses are the best – they look stylish and are flattering on almost everyone!

I also love the Pumpkin Patch Pose coat; it’s exactly the right type of autumn orange. Can you imagine wearing this while running through a lane filled with autumn leaves? Perfect.

And obviously you need to pair it with some simple accessories to finish off the look. Here I’ve gone for the Right Here heels, the Cents and Sensibility bag (awesome name!) and the Hedgehog Pledge necklace.

So what do you think? What is your favourite layering outfit?

Insane:

Can’t. Wait.

Sigh. I’m going to have “I’ve got no strings” stuck in my head for the entire day now, aren’t I?

Miss Geeky Elsewhere

• Meet The Disrupt Europe London Hackathon Judges: Yep, I’m one of the judges at this weekend’s TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. I’m looking forward to see what hacks people will come up with!
• For Ada Lovelace Day: the women who inspire us at FutureLearn: It was Ada Lovelace Day yesterday! I coordinated this post on the FutureLearn blog and wrote my own section about Paula Clerkin, who’s organising the upcoming Women In Tech conference at the University of Nottingham.
• 6 reasons we love our home at the British Library: I wrote this post 2 months back for the FutureLearn blog, but realised I had never shared it here. I love working form the British Library.
• TweetTracks: I attended and spoke at Hackference a few weeks back: a Friday conference followed up by a hackday in the weekend. I built TweetTracks, a Spotify playlist generated from your tweets, and it won the Best Contextual Experience Using the DataTXT APIs prize! More about that in a future post.
• WeddingLy.st: I created this hack at BattleHack last weekend together with Lily,
  Kevin and Ian. It was so much fun working with them and although we didn’t win anything, I really love our idea.
• My DDD: Disney Driven Development slides:

Interesting Links

• The Bézier Game: I’ve never gotten the hang of the Bézier tool in Photoshop; this game attempts to help you master it.
• IamA underwater archaeologist: Awesome reddit Q&A thread with underwater archaeologist Peter Campbell. After reading that, I wish I had his job.
• As A Father Of Daughters, I Think We Should Treat All Women Like My Daughters: “It didn’t always used to be this way. I used to only have sons. Things sure were different then. How merrily I used to drive down country lanes in my old Ford, periodically dodging off-road to mow down female pedestrians (you must remember I had no daughters then). Was what I did wrong? How was I to know? I had no daughters to think of.”
• Toothless by alicexz: Adorable painting of my favourite dragon:

• Cast as thou wilt: A look at who to cast for a potential Kushiel’s Legacy TV Show. I love the books, and it’s interesting seeing how other people imagine the characters.
• Tiny PMS Match: Fun Tumblr matching small everyday objects to their Pantone colours.
• Tampon Club: I was planning on doing something like this when I worked in a proper office, but can’t really at the British Library since we share our toilets with the public.
• Junior Designers vs Senior Designers: Interesting set of visuals to show the difference between the two.
• It Took Two Years To Make Final Fantasy VII’s Midgar In Minecraft: Woah. I’ve never wanted to play Minecraft before this, but woah. Here’s one of the screenshots:

• 2014 Ig Noble Prize Winners: my favourite has to be the “Response Behaviors of Reindeer towards Humans Disguised as Polar Bears”.
• 11 Must-See Agents of SHIELD Episodes You Have To Watch Before Starting Season 2: Want to start watching Agents of SHIELD, but don’t want to go through the entire (somewhat) boring first season? Here’s a list of which eps to check out.
• Collaborative User Testing: Less Bias, Better Research: Awesome post by my colleague Alla about the biases in user testing and how we deal with them.
• What It’s Like to Carry Your Nobel Prize through Airport Security: “And they’re like, ‘Uhhhh. Who gave this to you?’ ‘The King of Sweden.’”

I’ve been looking for cool art for our “new” flat (I’m still saying “new”, but I’m realising it’s been 8 eights months since we moved… woah) and I came across this piece by artist Jenni Sparks:

She was asked to create a map of London that subverted the idea of the traditional tourist map, and instead showcased the culture and personality of each part of the city, as well as the best places to go. It’s a bit tricky to see in the image above, but the map is full of cool details. Here’s a closeup:

The map is available form Evermade with prices starting at £75.

This video gives us an awesome look behind the scenes at the British Library showing the journey of a single book from its arrival at the library to the reader’s desk:

So cool:

Cirque du Soleil, ETH Zurich, and Verity Studios partnered to create this short film featuring 10 quadcopters in a flying dance performance. No CGI was used or needed in the entire thing.

The days are getting shorter, the weather is becoming colder. Meaning: time to bring out those warm winter dresses!

The latest one that has caught my eye is this black and white stretch knit dress from Karen Millen:

It’s a simple dress, but the black and white panels makes it elegant and interesting. You can get it from Karen Millen for £115.