"Using a special PNG as a mask for an img element with a background-image property, you can turn flat-looking static maps into nifty skeuomorph-ized paper objects."

Aaron Bady's fantastic review of a book examining debt: 'It’s an invitation to read the world differently, to see different possiblities in the here and now, and to argue not only that “another world is possible,” as the slogan/cliché has it, but that other worlds are present.' It's now on my (growing) reading list.

Clay Johnson: "When you click on that article about Kim Kardashian over on the right-hand sidebar of that other website, your boss may not see you reading it, but you've made it more probable that she will read it. Your click is a vote, and with that vote, you're not just saying to your media companies that you want to read it, but other people like you want to read it too. Clicks have a significant, and immediate social consequence. As our obesity epidemic challenges our healthcare system, our poor information diets are challenging the fabric of our democracy."

"National Geographic Giant Traveling Maps are oversized vinyl floor maps. They are the largest maps ever produced by National Geographic and require a school gym or large room for use. Each map is accompanied by a set of activities and materials. The map is in one piece, and requires no assembly."

"The 2010 card is a personalized “physical mashup” that combines maps, photos, and business information" Uses Flickr photos and OpenStreetMap and Yelp data. Lovely.

'“We spend all this time thinking about cities in terms of their local details, their restaurants and museums and weather,” West says. “I had this hunch that there was something more, that every city was also shaped by a set of hidden laws.”' Possibly flawed, but definitely interesting, and the NYT article sets the research in an interesting context. I'm looking forward to what comes out when he tackles companies.

"Eric Fischer, an Oakland amateur digital cartographer, mines data found online to examine the information that people leave in their wake - anonymously, on sites like Flickr.com, Cabspotting.org and a NextBus.com - to reveal the patterns of a city."

Gizmodo on Photosketch. "Take any rough sketch, with the shape of each element labeled with its name, find images corresponding to each drawn element, judge which are a better match to the shapes, and then seamlessly merge it all into one single image." Just watch the video.

"A network of citizen crimewatchers will be given the chance of winning up to £1,000 by monitoring CCTV security cameras over the internet." Full of ranting comments, presumably not from people who've read David Brin's classic Wired piece, the Transparent Society (or who just wish the CCTV cameras would go away, which seems unlikely to happen).

Mapping the history of the NY Subway in ridership numbers. Old, but this is the sort of thing it'd be great to get the numbers from TfL for. This article also links to two other versions, the one on diametunim.com being most attractive, I'd say.

"groups tend to spend most of their time discussing the information shared by members, which is therefore redundant, rather than discussing information known only to one or a minority of members" "people talk about more famous people more because it's a social lubricant to have a shared topic, therefore making the famous more famous" This probably explains why talking about The Terminator works so well as an icebreaker.

Shock news just in: the North London Line is pretty busy and fairly unreliable. Who knew? Seriously, though, this is good stuff, although it's a bit odd that I find out things about my nearest rail line from someone in the US...

A really good post noting that "there is nothing unique about the frequency with which cyclists as a class break the law when compared with drivers" which goes on to explain what drivers also do and why cyclists make the decisions they often do.

San Francisco Planning + Urban Research Association report on what the public transport system in the city needs to do to be better. It kind of worked for me as a tourist, but I could tell it wasn't anywhere near London's standards.

UI design and social behaviour on San Francisco's Muni buses. Even in the short time I was in SF I noticed the doors were often problematic.

An interesting writeup on ffffound. Covers the mechanics (and lack of features), but also talks about the culture that's emerged. Generally I'm in agreement, but I do wonder if the lack of retreivability makes it more of a colloborative blog than a bookma

Nice article on the design of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, including musings on appropriate and the iconic role the pulsar radio trace took after its use for that cover.