A Typeface for the Underground takes an in-depth look at the history of the Johnston typeface used by Transport for London. You might also be interested in Ken Garland’s book, Mr Beck’s Underground map, detailing the history of a design icon.
Category: links
Geeks and games
Gaming the System is an article from Rands describing the relationship between geeks and their games.
It’s also why we love games — they’re just dolled up systems — and the more you understand this fascination with games, the better you’ll be at managing us.
In a nutshell, geeks love to figure out how things work, improve anything they can and be the best at what they’re doing.
Airbag Industries’ 2009
Greg Story offers his review of 2009. This is my new desktop wallpaper.
3D Mandelbrot
The Mandelbulb is an attempt to create a three dimensional equivalent to the famed Mandelbrot fractal. There’s information about the math behind the Mandelbulb, many images, links to videos and more. If you want the quick version, Wired posted a brief overview and a gallery of images.
Cormac McCarthy on The Road
A discussion with Cormac McCarthy and John Hillcoat. There’s some information about the film adaptation of The Road, his next novel, and insight into McCarthy’s process.
I’m not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.
McCarthy also decided to part with his typewriter, it sold at auction for more than a quarter million dollars. He’s not going digital though, a friend bought him the same Olivetti model to replace the old one.
Warlock consult
British police consulted a warlock in regards to mysterious horse mane braiding. Honestly, I don’t know what’s weirder: seemingly random horse braiding, or the fact that the police consulted a warlock.
Catching the pest
How China won and Russia lost. An interesting read on the driving factors behind China’s apparent economic success and Russia’s failure, while implementing seemingly similar policies. The gist of it is that many of China’s reforms came bottom-up, gradually making their evolving from rural agrarian practices, while Russia’s reforms used a top-down government mandated approach.
Bookstore stupidity
Stupid Quotes from BookMine. You can only wonder what goes on in the heads of some people.
Bike lanes are the devil’s work
Hipsters repaint bike lanes. This made me laugh, it had to have been fun to write.
Scantily clad hipster cyclists attracted to the Brooklyn neighborhood made it difficult, the Hasids said, to obey religious laws forbidding them from staring at members of the opposite sex in various states of undress.
Mario couldn’t jump
Satoru Iwata discusses the Mario brothers with Shigeru Miyamoto. The interview is quite revealing — many of Mario’s trademark characteristics were due to design and programming restraints at the time, including the moustache, the hat and the overalls.
Playboy type
Ministry of Type takes a look at the typography and layouts of Playboy, particularly those from the 50s and 60s. The magazine has put about fifty years of archives online, although the interface is a bit kludgey.
World changing science
Trailblazing is an interactive science exhibit from the Royal Society. It showcases sixty articles from the last 350 years, allowing you to place them in their historical context and read the papers in entirety. My productivity will be going out the window this afternoon, enjoy.