Interesting discussion of some of the problems, politics, and successes in keeping London's Oyster card simple [MN]

Tom Armitage on "totems and city avatars": [AG]

On best practices for bikesharing.

"Predictable, yeah that's the word of the year..."

This is not a superhighway.

Via Alex, latterday hobo signs spring up in London. Well, not "spring up" - it's a much less organic process. But still.

Ultramapping! It needs to be one word!

Top-notch work.

SO bummed I missed this.

More on Bus-Tops. I don't particularly care for the ho-hum, abuse-magnet way they've got this set up, but combined with Foursquare logic it might get interesting. (Become the mayor of your bus stop!)

Notes toward an art project placing networked LED panels in London bus shelters.

If you happen to be in NYC or London next week, there's an imperial god-tonne of amazing stuff going on. I dumped all my links in one post for easy reference. Enjoy!

Mmmm, tasty.

Nice image of mixed conventions (Web, airport) in address signage.

Lovely intermodal thinking here, with some elegant (and some silly) design directions.

Via Chris Palmieri, an actually-useful, available-right-now iPhone augmented reality application that shows nearby London Tube stations superimposed on the world in front of you. Very, very nice.

Very cool stuff, via good old MetaFilter.

"Mobile Porch is a mobile mini-architecture designed for roaming the public sphere." (!)

Aerosolized G&Ts? In disposable clean-room bunny suits? Sounds doubleplus *awesum*.

Just getting to this now. Sigh.

Via Jones.

Mere weeks past the convent school, months from the bearskin rug, lifetimes from "Lucy Jordan." Luminous.

Shit and civilization.

AKA "Morphê." I like both the sense of a frontal assault on the West End's iconic but not terribly beloved Centre Point building, and the implied compliment.

Via Timo. The (sorry) money graf: "I see no advantage to the involvement of an operator in the value chain at all - apart from specifying NFC chips in future handsets. I don't buy the idea that Londoners would want out travel expenses appearing on the same bill as postpaid phone usage, and prepay users would almost certainly prefer two different "buckets" for transport and communications for ease of budgeting."

Great thinking here.

Piquant look at Nokia's retail experience vs. Apple's, toe-to-toe across Regent St.

"Do you check your surroundings before you decide to quickly pick your nose, or adjust your underwear nowadays?"

"A creative workshop on mobile urban services for London 2012." Exemplary information architecture, too.

Via Jones: Just what I'd called for in class a few weeks back: a touchless card that visibly stores a history of trips taken.

Best. Museum. EVAR.

Yes.

And "zizzi" means...

Some incredibly lovely pictures here.

Lots I actually don't agree with here, but interesting nonetheless. Via migurski.

A [collective noun] of chairs

via Mr. Slavin

Great documentation of Thamesmead