Here’s a fantastic set of re-imagined movie novelizations. Every single one is great.

See also: Elephants and Dinosaurs, by the same artist

(Thanks Vinnie!)

I have the feeling that just about everyone has experienced going into a chain restaurant and asked them to make an exception on something, only to have it rejected.

“could I get an ice cream cone instead of onion rings? They’re the exact same price”.

“I’m not allowed to do that, sorry”.

Can’t open the cash for change. Can’t even be trusted to put the right amount of ketchup on a hamburger, so they had to engineer a caulking gun-like device to do it exactly the same every time. Want a large glass of water? Too bad, because the management counts the number of cups. This is a serious deficit in trust, and it’s a problem.

On the other end of the spectrum we have the lowly endangered shopkeeper, and her family-owned business. They can’t always compete with the big chains on price, but in many cases the service more than makes up for it.

We might have to pay a little more, but once you find a good shop, you’ll be more likely to get what you want. Getting what you want means more intelligent and effective consumption, which I believe is better for us, and the environment, in the long run.

Jane Jacobs, famous urban planning critic, was also quick to point out that the shopkeeper plays an important role in the neighborhood—watching the street, creating a hub for communication, and keeping money and business local.

Of course, we shouldn’t deify the shopkeeper too much. There are plenty of family-owned stores and restaurants with terrible products and services. The chain business does have consistency going for it. If you go to McDonald’s, you’re virtually guaranteed to get the same meal each time. It will never be completely terrible, but it will never be good either. Locally-owned restaurants might be terrible, but they might also be fantastic.

Part of me thinks we’re simply a society that doesn’t care anymore. We drive through ugly suburbs to mediocre restaurants, and buy cheap crap from the biggest, simplest, most obvious stores, run by people who don’t care, and aren’t given any real responsibilities or incentive to do the sort of real work they could be doing. We have little to no quality public space, and we’re too busy watching television to talk to our neighbors to find out what the good local restaurants are.

So, in concluding this long rant, I’d like to urge you to support locally-owned business. Eat their food, buy their stuff, and enjoy their services.

It’s amazing how well his work has aged. It still looks great.

Read Good Design in 10 Commandments for a small sample of his design philosophy.

My favourite:

Good design is as little design as possible

I’m helping conduct a workshop this week at local non-profit Apathy is Boring along with Montréal-based community builder Michael Lenczner. Come by if you’re interested in learning how to leverage social networking and web-based tools to support your art, non-profit, or business.

The info:

Some of you who know me in person know that I’ve recently gone through a rather large career shift. After years of computer-related technical work—designing and writing about design as a sideline—I’ve recently launched a full-time freelance design business.

I make websites for creative people and small businesses at reasonable rates. I make record covers, posters and business cards.

I’ve just launched a somewhat experimental portfolio page, which shows a selection of my work:

Visit my portfolio

Please, let me know what you think.

When summer comes around, I bike everywhere I can. It’s almost always the healthiest, fastest, and cheapest way to get around. The biggest deterrent for me personally are cars. Every spring I usually have a few close calls because drivers have not yet readjusted to having to look out for bikes. As my city develops a more bike-friendly culture, I have seen this decline, but it’s still there.

Bike lanes can help by creating a clear space for bikes, letting drivers know where to avoid, but they don’t often go where you need them to go.

Enter the Light Lane. It’s just a concept, but it seems like something that could feasibly be built.

“Our system projects a crisply defined virtual bike lane onto pavement, using a laser, providing the driver with a familiar boundary to avoid. With a wider margin of safety, bikers will regain their confidence to ride at night, making the bike a more viable commuting alternative.”

Via Spacing Montréal.

I have to give Rock credit for his great descriptions here. I’m not always a fan but he shows great wit and depth here.

Via Mir.

In an effort to keep older computer file formats viable, the EU is putting up over $5 Million to build a series of emulators to keep old software running and old file formats accessible.

Called Keeping Emulation Environments Portable (Keep), the project aims to create software that can recognise, play and open all types of computer file from the 1970s onwards.

. . .

“every digital file risks being either lost by degrading or by the technology used to ‘read’ it disappearing altogether”

Great idea. The BBC has more.

I stumbled across this article from the economist, which briefly outlines some of the mechanisms which collective animals like bees and cockroaches make decisions. An excerpt:

Another form of groupthink occurs when people are either isolated from crucial sources of information or dominated by other members of the group, some of whom may have malevolent intent. This too has now been demonstrated in animals. José Halloy of the Free University of Brussels used robotic cockroaches to subvert the behaviour of living cockroaches and control their decision-making process. In his experiment, reported in an earlier issue of Science, the artificial bugs were introduced to the real ones and soon became sufficiently socially integrated that they were perceived as equals. By manipulating the robots, which were in the minority, he was able to persuade the cockroaches to choose an inappropriate shelter—even one which they had rejected before being infiltrated by machines.

I think we can easily find parallels to this in our own society. Deliberate disinformation campaigns by the cigarette industry and the fossil fuel industry regarding the safety of smoking and global warming, respectively, delayed the progression of the debate on these issues by years, maybe decades.

Via Policy Economist.

Occasionally in design, things just go wrong without you even knowing. Here’s a silly example I found in Québec city a few years ago—an ad for a video rental store. The content is a classy message about film being an art form, but for an english speaker, there is a decent chance they’ll mainly see the word “Fart”.

See also, the now-defunct Creatifart (which sounds just fine in French).