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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…
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"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.
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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?
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"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.
Sunset
I have remarked in the past that Tooting gets some of the best Sunsets I have ever seen. I have no idea why this should be the case, but it is. Tonight’s was particularly impressive – this doesn’t really come close to doing it justice – when I got off the bus the whole street was bathed in reddish purple light, and was a wonder.
Up
I went to see Pixar’s new release, “Up” at the cinema on Friday night. II appreciate that my friends in other parts of the world will have seen it months ago, because Pixar are apparently the only studio left who like treating England like second class citizens when it comes to release dates, but there’s nothing I can do about that.
Like all right thinking people, I love Pixar movies. In fact, I strongly suspect that people who do not love Pixar movies may in fact be less than human, and I think we should perhaps organise some kind of cull. It’s certainly a yardstick worth considering when we finally decide to do something about this planet’s overpopulation problem, anyway.
I was a little tentative about Up in that the trailer gave away very very little about it – there’s a kid and a grumpy old man, in a house suspended from helium balloons. It didn’t have the immediate accessibility of something like Toy Story, The Incredibles, or even Ratatouille, which had high concepts that were clear from even the short trailer. I didn’t have a lot of idea what to expect, and well, while I don’t think there Pixar have yet made a bad movie, they have definitely made movies that are less good than their usual standard. (From any other studio, Cars would have been a perfectly OK movie. It just didn’t clear Pixar’s usual bar, that’s all.) I had, however, heard good things about Up from people I trust. So I went in with an open mind and some hopes.
I was utterly blown away. I do not mind admitting that they had me shedding a few tears within the first ten minutes of that film, a feat they then repeated at intervals throughout. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie with such a perfectly judged level of sentiment – it remains steadily touching throughout without ever tipping over into mawkishness. The film is an absolute masterclass in how to tug on heartstrings, and have the audience thank you for it. And yes, it’s still as funny as all the other Pixar movies. I really don’t know when I’ve seen the subjects of love and grief handled with such a lightness of touch.
Serious candidate for the best film I’ve seen this year. I’d love to see get a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars, because if ever Pixar have produced a film that deserves to break out of the animation ghetto at the those awards, then this is it. Go and see it.
Links For Thursday 8th October 2009
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By the look of it, Royal de Luxe knocked it out of the park again. I really, really wish they'd come back to London. I mean, I know we got them a few yers ago, and everyone should get a turn too, but they really are a dose of pure magic, and I would love to seem them perform again.
Links For Wednesday 7th October 2009
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This is absolutely brilliant. I've just enabled it on my work Mac, which generally has 10+ apps running. (Browser, Mail, IDE, chat client, iCal, spreadsheet, DB client, RSS reader, terminal, iTunes, PDF reader, various others), and suddenly my level of visual clutter is down to near zero.
Links For Tuesday 6th October 2009
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There's a few absolute gems in here…
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A bunch of leading psychologists give their answers to the above question. It's interesting what's revealed – these are the people who best understand how our brains work, and the cognitive quirks that they throw up, and yet they're still at the mercy of these same quirks themselves.
Links For Friday 2nd October 2009
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Sexy *and* useful.
Links For Thursday 1st October 2009
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Hmm. Might want to have a play with this – I used to use Powazek's themes for all my sites, before deciding I wanted them to be a little more visually distinct. This one would suit tumblelog type content.
Links For Wednesday 30th September 2009
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None of these are rocket science, when when considering them as a checklist, I suspect generally manage about 3-4 of these on any given day – one or two of them almost always fall by the wayside. Must try and find ways to structure my day so I hit all 5 more often.
Links For Monday 28th September 2009
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Interesting definition supplied. I like the term "occult" because it's admirably woobly-woo resistant, when correctly understood (something far too many "practicioners" fail to do). As I'm sure most of you know, it means "hidden". And what is hidden may be revealed with science when we work it out. It's a lot better than "supernatural", which is a term I don't like – there is no supernatural, merely the natural that science has not fully explained yet.
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Must remember to book tickets to see this.
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Beautiful, and I kinda want one, but much, much too pricey to be worth it.
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This sort of combination of abuse of power and utter moronic stupidity by the courts and major institutions makes me incandescent. There are far worse things that happen in the world every day, and I know it, but this sort of thing is a particular hot-button for me, because it's so self-evidently unjust and unreasonable that I cannot fathom how any sane person could conceive of it as a decent or sensible thing to do.
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Well, this is crying out to be recycled into some nasty bit of horror/mystery fiction or something.