Anyone fancy going to this in a few weeks time? White Mischief are doing a night there that should be well worth attending…

I would not wish to suggest that any of our clients has ever said anything like this, or that I laughed in hollow recognition of behaviours I have encountered time and time again. Absolutely not.

There is a part of my brain insisting that some of these had to have been jokes, even for the time. m Sadly, I suspect they weren't. Still, they're kind of funny *now*.

I know only a little about Slavic myth, chiefly just the bits where it brushes up against other mythologies I know better, or what I've got from various bits of fiction, and I think it may be useful to rectify that.

Were I not required to be in the office on Friday, I would be here. If you are in London, and do no have anything pressing to do between 11am and 5pm on Friday, I strongly suggest you go. And take notes. Lots of notes. And then give them to me.

I make absolutely not comment on any similarities that may or may not exist between the Tiny Art Director and our clients at work. I will, however note that to date, no client has ever requested a "poo-poo airplane" as part of any work I've done.

I know I've linked to similar articles in the past, but I rather like the spin this one is using, and I particularly like the opening paragraph: "Newspapers stopped working a long time ago and a better means of doing their job is readily available. It’s an asinine debate. Who wouldn’t want their news delivered in a form that was searchable, saveable, resendable, which you can talk back to, which is linked to other relevant news, which allows you to read as lightly or as deeply as you wanted to, and which combines text, pictures, and video?"

A challenge: Read Infinite Jest between June and September. I've been trying to do this for years, but every time I have a go at it, I find myself distracted by some other book, and not picking it up again. So instead of treating it like a normal book, and trying to read it to the exclusion of all else until I'm done, I think I'm going to try and do it this way, spread out over a three month period. 7 or 8 pages a day should be no problem, and I can read other books on the bus. At least until I become hooked on Infinite Jest, and feel the need to start carting a tome the size of my head around everywhere…

Yes: that twat shouting at someone else on the bus really is spoiling your day. Yes: your rude and/or unpleasant co-worker really is lowering everyone's productivity. Yes: Bad manners really are contagious.

"So many of our grandparents were racist, and some of our parents are homophobes. Which of our own closely held beliefs will our own children and grandchildren by appalled by?" I'd add "wastefulness" to this list, but still it's a fascinating thing to think about.

Some absolutely beautiful t-shirt designs in here. One to come back to when I've got some spare t-shirt money.

Maybe this is where I should go on holiday next. (No, I'm not seriously considering it – it's hot, and y'know, not a city. But it is amazing looking.)

Nothing you won't already have heard if you've read Halting State, but some interesting observations, anyway.

It's money where your mouth is time, children. Dreamwidth aside: if you don't like what LJ is doing, take your friends, and a copy of BuddyPress, buy yourselves some server space, install this, and fuck off away from LJ.

Lawrenece Lessig is required reading, and this one's free. Get to it.

Swine flu amino acids sequenced and turned into ambient music. It's not going to storm the pop charts any time soon, but it's not awful-sounding either.

I keep linking to on-line acquaintance Jamais Cascio's stuff because he's bloody good. I'm really quite sorry that I'm going to miss out on a chance for a pint with him next week because I'll be in Toronto when he's in London. This one is particularly worth reading if all you can see ahead of us is the global failure of the human species. It probably won't cheer you up terribly much, but well, he makes a particularly good point in a particularly good way.

A commercial scale ransomware/fundraising site that'll work for any creative endeavour. Now to think of something people will want to give me money for…

Hadn't seen this before, and I can see approaches in this that clearly got recycled into Promethea, and Tom Strong and the other ABC stuff, which makes it all rather more interesting than just a document about an old Supreme character.

God, I hate it when I discover that Margaret Thatcher said something I agree with.

Never mind "Graphic Design Student" – 7 ways to be a thinking human being. If you're not using a decent number of these services, well, OK, it hardly makes you a bad person, but still: most of these are basic tools for information management and digital note taking, and if you like to think of yourself as engaged with the world, and aren't using them, then you're probably doing something wrong. (Saying that: I keep trying to get some cognitive traction with tumblr, and have never really managed it. Might take another go soon. And it did take me rather longer than many of my friends to get twitter.)

An archive and commentary on some very very striking SF cover design. Well worth a look.

My goodness, do you think I might be very, very angry about this? Why yes, I am. Someone please find me someone to vote for at the next election who actually possesses a principle or two.

Some of these are very lovely.

This is brilliant, and I live near it, and that makes me happy. I shall have to go and find an excuse to purchase something from it.