Richard Florida – Who's Your City?

I really did say to myself in 2004 " It doesn't matter where I do my MA, it's more about what I do and what I want from it". Well, ahem, I discovered that I got that so wrong. It did matter, and it does matter where I live. A friend of mine, who was also on that course was fascinated by how the city environment affects us, and did an amazing project on psychogeography. Anyhows, I also realise the power of place when I check out the hits to one of my sites and see that there's something about California, Texas and New York that seems to return to it. I like the Monocle 'Top 25 Most Liveable Cities', because I like the magazine. So, when I came across this book I immediately ordered it:

It’s a mantra of the age of globalization that where you live doesn’t matter ... According to Richard Florida, this is wrong. Place is not only important, it’s more important than ever... Globalization is not flattening the world; on the contrary, the world is spiky. Place is becoming more relevant to the global economy and our individual lives. The choice of where to live, therefore, is not an arbitrary one. It is arguably the most important decision we make, as important as choosing a spouse or a career. In fact, place exerts powerful influence over the jobs and careers we have access to, the people meet and our “mating markets” and our ability to lead happy and fulfilled lives.

On his creative class website, are interesting data maps and a nice questionnaire to help you compare your own choice of top cities. Below, a global map of innovation locations, and personality areas in the States.

KHUAN + KTRON – Weekend Knack Magazine

By Khuan + Ktron
Via Grainedit

Hans Rosling - Population Growth

When I learnt about the arithmetric involved in population growth, I was gobsmacked. It seemed like there was no hope for the world to sustain itself once the global headcount would inevitably double. Hans Rosling offers a pragmatic solution, one that involves a positive approach to human welfare.
Via TED

The Professional Walker

My Dad spent his working life walking farms, talking to farmers, looking at the land. For many years he was part of the Irish State's project to divide common lands amoung locals, and once that was done he helped oversee grant allocations from the EU. Despite being part of bureacracies, at the core of what he did best was to walk, look, listen and interact with land and the people on it. I think that's amazing, don't you agree Richard Long?

Matthias Heiderich – Colour Berlin

Behance
via grainedit
matthias-heiderich.de

RSA Animate - The Secret Powers of Time

Professor Philip Zimbardo conveys how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. Time influences who we are as a person, how we view relationships and how we act in the world.
Lots more of these videos here. Super engrossing.

And, following up from a recent post about mirror neurons and the scientific validity of empathy, here is an appropriate video from the series expanding on this. It is based on a lecture by Jeremy Rifkin.

Life Remembered – The Vicon Revue

This gadget is pretty interesting. It just sits around your neck and takes photos all by itself. Either on timer or in response to sensing things happening by changes of location, heat, movement and more. There is no screen or viewfinder. It costs £500 ex VAT. Why?? Well, for people with Alzheimers who want to remember events in their lives. But also for research and arty stuff.

Developed by Microsoft Research Cambridge, via Infostethics ... Reminds me of Jean Luc Godard's latest flick 'Film Socialisme'. The trailer makes my mind spin.

Ramachandran – What you see is what you feel

Alex Ostrowski – Look Up

www.alexostrowski.com

A Daily Practice

Google: 'a drawing a day' and you'll come to the site of Lauren Nassef. Beautiful drawings, the kind that people look at and decide they want to be able to draw too. Like watching Whitney back in the day and deciding you'll be a singer. That kind of amazingness of technique and pizz-azz.

So what else comes up online under daily sketching? Well, not as as many swirly notes (but let me know what you find). The exhaustive A Drawing a Day has been going like clockwork since 2004 and is mind boggling for its tenacity. A professional illustrator's blog, with countless faces drawn on the subway, is impressive for its doggedness. Photographer Thomas Hawk is aiming to take a million photos. The image below is from his $2 Portraits project.

Where does daily discipline end and OCD begin?

Stephen Gardner – Niagara Falls

Tripping across the site Urban Sketchers, I spotted a beautiful pair of sketches of that legendary Canadian destination by Brooklyn illustrator Stephen Gardner (who has a serious habit of sketching). Niagara: So many stories! So many visits! I always imagine kids screaming in the back seat on the long drive flinging ice-cream at each other. The documented memory is more often held onto while the grisly reality forgotten.

A Ransacked Country House - Co. Tipperary

A distant relative had lived here for 86 years before reluctantly giving into the nursing home. Sure enough the property has been continuously raided by burglars (my parents use a different word). It's so sad to see a grand house crumble; a life plundered. Check out David Creedon's shots of similar houses around Ireland.

Baedeker – the first travel guides?

Victorian era guides by Karl Baedeker were characterised by their famous red covers. Exquisite maps and intense details for the discerning tourist.

Prior to World War I, Baedeker's guides were famous enough that baedekering became an English-language term for the process of travelling a country for the purpose of writing a travel guide or travelogue about it (Wiki)

Map Envelope

Remember that great idea for a google maps envelope from Beste Miray? Well I'm delighted to see a site built around that very idea – you can now generate your own map envelope by simply inputting any location that google maps generates, and a template is generated for you to make your own li'l envelope. Now isn't that very neat?! Check out mapenvelope.com, built by tweevio.

Transport China Part V – Stationary

Daniel Kahneman - The riddle of experience vs. memory

Video on TED.com

Jody Barton – Illustrations

Strangely pleasing, witty, to the point, poetic...
Main website
Blog

Transport China Part IV – Four Wheeling

Mary Oliver – The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late enough,
and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world, determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Via The Art of Non-Conformity

Transport China Part III – Walking