Links For Tuesday 13th October 2009

  • Once every seven yeats, Sagmeister closes his studio completely for one year. Here, he gives a talk at TED on what he gets from that year, and it's a fascinating and compelling idea. I wonder if I could arrange to take a sabbatical somehow – I've been at this for ten years, and I know my general level of enthusiasm for hacking about with the next is not what it was…
  • "I can just about forgive the tendency of these programs to hit the reset switch at the end of every episode, returning the universe to pristine un-played-with shape in time for the next dramatic interlude; even though it's the opposite of real SF (a disruptive literature that focusses intently on revolutionary change), I recognize the limits of the TV series as a medium."

    Mr Stross hits the nail on the head of why I don't get on with televised SF – I'm less willing to forgive the reset switch for exactly that reason.

    (tags: sf startrek)
  • Ever wondered what your oystercard really looks like? The Ghost In The Field shows us the hidden signals underneath fabric of our cities – the invisible maps of data and super-frequency chattering that increasingly underpin our daily lives. What is your data ghost like?
  • "Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again." This is not just a rule for getting web traffic, it is the single simplest rule for a happy life.
    (tags: web seo)