- Stefan Sagmeister: The power of time off | Video on TED.com
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…
- Charlie's Diary: Why I hate Star Trek
"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. - The ghost in the field – Blog – BERG
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?
- Derek Powazek – Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists
"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.
Tag: creativity
Bookmarks for April 29, 2009
- Kickstarter » Projects
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…
- Daily Scans – Alan Moore's Glory proposal
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.
- Noisy Decent Graphics: "Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end."
God, I hate it when I discover that Margaret Thatcher said something I agree with.
- Noisy Decent Graphics: 7 ways to be a Graphic Design student online
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.)
Bookmarks for April 1, 2009
- The Problem With Music
Steve Albini's breakdown of exactly how much a band can expect now to earn in a normal record industry contact. Figures would need to be adjusted for inflation, but I bet they're still proportionally the same. I've seen this a few times over the years, I just wanted to log it in case I need to refer to it again.
- Micro scope – The Engineer
Some notes about the practicalities of nanomachinery in the body – both the propulsion/navigation, and the means by which they might operate on us.
- Blood powered fuel cells.
Good to know that my future cybernetic implants aren't likely to need batteries.
- Jacek Utko asks, Can design save the newspaper? | Video on TED.com
After the links the other week, here's a talk about how they newspapers might yet be kept alive: by making them beautiful objects.
- Ramachandran on synesthesia, creativity and metaphor
A fascinating talk on the some of the possible neuroscientific explanations for some of the more remarkable and ill-understood operations of the brain.
- wrongcards
I shall be sending these in future. Well, maybe not, but there are a few things in here that made me laugh.)
- Anki – friendly, intelligent flashcards
This could be a really useful little learning tool.
Bookmarks for March 12, 2009
- It's not a crime to download, say musicians – News, Music – The Independent
Not driectly realted to this link, but I was chatting with a friend whose job places him firmly on the side of the PRS in the Youtube/PRS debate, and I find myself wondering: for how long will the notion of musicians getting paid for re-uses of their recordings last? I mean, the basis of my employment is that I continue to create new code and assign the copyright in a manner that allows others to use it. I am not paid based on the number of people that use my code, except in an indirect sense. But when the need for new code runs out, so does my job and the money. What's the argument for treating musicians as a special case?
- Video: Iain Sinclair – At large in a 'fictional' Hackney | Books | guardian.co.uk
Iain Sinclair talks with typical eloquence about living in Hackney over the last 40 years. It strikes me that I would be entirely happy if I were in a position to do this about Tooting.
- Kutiman, Big Media, and the Future of Creative Entrepreneurship | 43 Folders
"Unsolicited tip for media company c-levels: if your reaction to this crate of magic is 'Hm. I wonder how we’d go about suing someone who did this with our IP?' instead of, 'Holy crap, clearly, this is the freaking future of entertainment,' it’s probably time to put some ramen on your Visa and start making stuff up for your LinkedIn page."
Spot on. - THRU YOU | Kutiman mixes YouTube
Everyone's already blogged this pile of ace. I'm blogging it as context for another link. If you've been under a rock, and haven't seen it, this guy has created something truly astonishing by editing together loads of other people's youtube videos.
- The Guardian Open Platform | guardian.co.uk
Everyone and their dog is linking to this today. And do you know why? Because it's *fucking awesome*.
Bookmarks for February 18, 2009
- Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity | Video on TED.com
Interesting talk on models for a relationship with creativity. It's a bit hippy dippy in places, but then, her big book is called "Eat, Pray, Love" so what d'you expect? Still, it's worth thinking about for a few interesting lines of argument.
- Exporting the past into the future, or, “The Possibility Jelly lives on the hypersurface of the present” « Magical Nihilism
Matt Jones takes a look at some of the issues surrounding running geolocation based services, and the opportunities they offer us for the future. Particularly pertinent: "location is a matter of routine. We're in work, college, at home, at our corner shop, at our favourite pub. These patterns are worn into our personal maps of the city, and usually it's the exceptions to it that we record, or share – a special excursion, or perhaps a unexpected diversion – pleasant or otherwise that we want to broadcast for companionship, or assistance."