The future is back

This is one of very few digital cameras that looks and probably feels like a film camera. Fujifilm's X100, due 2011. Lots more photos of this lovely-looking camera on engadget, where I got this photo.

How do you explain this phenomenon? Is it retro? Is it a manufacturer deciding that actually, by the 1960s, camera ergonomics were pretty well perfect and the sooner cameras go back to that design, rather than confused users blundering through a thousand buried menu options, the better? Is it just following Leica? Do we expect a new Olympus Trip with zone focus any time soon?

Is it creative to loot the past in a new way? If innovation is defined as something which is "novel and useful", does this count?

Further: DPReview just posted a so-so review (brilliantly flawed seems to sum it up). 

Power of visual thinking

Doing the MICL is making me look at stuff like this more thoughtfully. 

/www.wired.com/magazine/2010/09/st_thompson_visual/ 

Zero History

William Gibson's latest is out at last. Interesting interview on Wired, along with a trailer for the book. Yes, a trailer. Well, it is William Gibson. Just be grateful you don't have to jack in... If it follows the previous two novels in this trilogy, it will cover marketing, trends, cool-hunting and the inevitable feeling that the vast mass of humanity are increasingly responding to decisions taken by freelance creatives with MacBooks in Starbucks.

Further comment once I've read it.

You are your own golden opportunity

The perpetual battle between Good and Evil (aka "end of week achievement feeling" versus "end of week failure to feel on top of things") is heating up. This post on personal responsibility over at the Unclutterer is simple, but true.

Reinventing the library

Despite all-pervasive e-readers, a universal lack of time and a sense in the zeitgeist that the analogue era finished very firmly at the end of the last millennium, new libraries are still being built. Intelligent Life on "reinventing the library".

Freaks and strippers do art

Truckloads of urban art in NY.

The Creativity Crisis

Newsweek: "American creativity is declining. What went wrong."

Writer's Block

Alcohol, drugs, suicide and the feeling that loneliness and depression are the best environments for producing great work. Quite depressing, really.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10766308

Glen Campbell - but not as you know him

Seen and heard in a pub in Hawick.
Glen Campbell channelled via The Sex Pistols.
Brilliant, trashy band.
More...

Space... The final frontier...

Wired lists 12 great estate cars. (They're called "wagons" in the US, apparently).

They missed the Citroen DS - see photos below. The most beautiful estate car ever produced. And my Octavia Estate defies attempts to fill it completely. Apart from that, though, not a bad list.

Did you ever get drunk and buy something really, really stupid?

Ok. Haven't we all?

Yes, but... Did it cost you $520,000,000?

Sounds like a movie.

Suck it up, Electrolux... We love you. 

Electrolux want to make vacuum-cleaners from 100% recycled plastic.
Problem: they can't get enough recycled plastic.
Solution: mine the waste plastic that's building up in the sea...

Sounds like a whole new industry: the world is short of it and it's free in the sea. And if you want to hoover pollutants out of the sea, who better than a vacuum cleaner manufacturer to start with? More about this from the Electrolux site.

How much are you paid by the minute? Is it worth more than reading an email? 

This article on mastering email looks at that question. Good ideas on keeping that brimming inbox under control. Most articles of this nature though seem to assume that everyone is a contractor and that most of the email is disposable stuff about cheap pizza and frozen Nigerian bank accounts. Maybe much of this content is written by contractors looking for work. Few articles deal with mountains of corporate email that you can't just file as spam. There's a big market for a magic bullet for corporate email and I'm in the queue.

The big question in the article above is whether you're paid too much by the minute to waste it reading email. Divide your yearly salary by 120,000 and you'll know what you earn per minute. Do it now. It's quite intriguing.

Inbox Zero. While on the subject of email, Merlin Mann's writing a book about email, based on the famous Inbox Zero articles (famous to email ranters like me, anyway). Meanwhile, you can hear Merlin (one of the afore-mentioned contractors) expound on the subject below.

Merlin Mann on Inbox Zero. Presented to Google Staff at Mountain View in 2007. One hour long, so put time aide...

Traffic. Is it random? Does it have patterns? Can you measure it? Predict it? What does it cost? Meet the man who can.

This is just an example of how everything is more and more connected. How do you tie it all together? Twitter won't tell you everything. You do research. And how do you do that? Like this. It's research in a connected world.

Go tribal in Sierra Leone (a Metro story - well done). It's a "taste of paradise".
And no, I haven't been taking bribes from the in-laws to say this.

Just when you think something is dead and unusable, you discover it's alive and rocking somewhere. "In Praise Of Super 8" explains why Super 8 is still popular. You can still buy Super 8 from Kodak (that was a surprise, after the death of so many other films). There are lots of other resources on various sites. Lots of them are here. if you're really into it all, Raindance have a Super 8 course. Just for you.

If you can't be bothered with all that, just listen to the experts.

The sound of a silent mind (BBC).

Here is the Space In-Between. Currently discussing the future of photobooks, but may be talking about something else by the time you get there.

The Champs Elysees go green to help French farmers.

Meanwhile: Johann Hari on Climategate. How big corporations are taking over the environmental to their own ends.

And it's been really hot today in England. Hotter than the med. Not entirely unwelcome, I must admit.

Fan: Thin Lizzy. Docu on "Live and Dangerous" (iPlayer). Lizzy's best album. And still playing, though not with Phil. (Thanks, Scott).

Not fan: Joy Division. Feel the joy by walking around Macclesfield.

"Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn." Gore Vidal.

But we are not all so blessed. So the many style guides online can be very useful. FT Lexicon. Guardian/Observer Style Guide. And the Wikipedia manual of style which contains many more. You may never write anything badly again.

Riveting talks by riveting people.

Even better, TED works on old G4 iBooks.

More than Youtube does.

And while I'm in rant mode... Was Ridley Scott really so short of ideas that all he could come up with was... Robin Hood? It's as clichéd as Richard Hammond looking for the holy grail. Actually, it's even worse.

65 years on the housing list. Better late than never.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a question.

Robert McKee on the fine art of scriptwriting.

Of course, innovation of certain kinds can take you down the toilet.

Innovation is the new production.

From The Economist: "The world turned upside down". Innovation, especially in developing countries. How the ideas economy is heading east. And south. And good for them.

Meanwhile, from Wired.com: "The good enough revolution". Basic technology is enough technology. The success of the Flip wouldn't surprise the innovators mentioned in The Economist survey above. Simple tools for simple purposes are close to the heart of traditional Unix users, single-speed cyclists and zen photographers, who might otherwise have little in common.

Fewer materials. Less weight. Lower impact. Minimal cost. Reliability. Pleasure in use.

Simplicity is the future.

As an alternative to oratory, there's no beating Powerpoint.

MBA student blog entry on Powerpoint. Powerpoint sins.

Toastmasters tips on public speaking.

I don't care what you've been told. The medium isn't the message.

For sale: Tower 42.

Rare opportunity to buy a large building in the City.

It's not complex, but it's not standard. A nice little app - SyncMate - syncs Google contacts and calendars with the iMac. Works on a G4 iBook running Leopard as well. So now, Madam ThingsinPassing can synchronise her phone with my Macs, her PC, Outlook and MobileMe.

Why can't things be more open? Mobile manufacturers are getting it together (thank you, Brussels), admittedly under pressure. Why can't all hardware accessories be like this? Greener, cheaper for the consumer... If we can have smart grids, whole electrical grids running down the eastern seaboard of the USA, alternative power that's no dearer than conventional power (according to the FT) and ever cleaner cars, why do users tolerate software that still struggles to talk to other bits of software?

In conjunction with the oil rise...
UK economy set to outpace OECD average (BBC).
More on that elsewhere (Irish Times).
Irish exports rise 10% third month in a row (Irish Times).

The six pound gallon. In The Guardian, today. Sign of an improving economy? An improving Chinese economy?
If we all used bikes more, the price would drop.

Is it all a dream?

Sci-Fi London. "The festival is now in its 9th year and will take place Wed 28th April – Mon 3rd May 2010 at The Apollo Piccadilly Circus Cinema, London’s most luxurious cinema." Shorts, features, documentaries and world premieres.

Luddites, anarchists and primitivism. Online.

The Guardian's international development journalism competition. Deadline: 30 April 2010.

Do one thing and do it really well. Stay focussed.
Google recognises that multi-tasking doesn't work and other comments on single-tasking.

Distraction doesn't help you get things done (BBC).

There's a movement for happiness.
That's something political parties rarely mention.
The general welfare: yes.
General happiness: no.

Links interestingly with this book on the social impact of inequality.

New William Gibson novel, "Zero History", coming September 2010. Hubertus Bigend is back.

Coping with megacities,north and south. in the Financial Times. Selection of articles on health, transport, impact of climate change. You may need to register.