Khoi Vihn at Subtraction brings up some interesting points regarding the ever-more pervasive “cloud computing” services in light of the current financial crisis. While Google and some of these other services look steady now, the recent stock plunges have shown how vulnerable some formerly invulnerable-looking institutions and companies might actually be. When it comes to cloud services, we are oftentimes without very good methods of getting our data off should we have to. If the services closed, or even if we just decide to go somewhere else, there may not always be a good way of getting our data back.

This is perhaps hyperbolic at this point — Google probably won’t be closing anytime soon, and some of the best cloud services do allow you to get your data off — but the point does have some merit. I want to have my digital documents, emails, videos, and photos for the rest of my life. Gmail will be around in 5 years, but will it be there in 50?

I have almost always favoured services that let me control my own data in some way. I have used an email client during a time where it seems most people are moving to gmail. I’m using a NAS instead of Amazon S3’s online storage. I use a privately-hosted WordPress because I can walk away with my data at any time.

The sweet-spot for me seem to be pieces of software that bridge the two. They let me keep a hold of my data locally while letting backing-it-up and letting me access it from elsewhere. Apple’s Mobile Me is going in the right direction, but is unfortunately marred by spotty implementation. Along with giving me more control of my data, I also get the advantage of generally having quicker interfaces, more things like drag and drop, and a standard mac-like interface consistency that makes it easier to move from application to application.

This American Life has a good rundown on the financial crisis. For those of you like myself who are outside of the U.S. of A, the TAL podcast is a must-listen, but this episode in particular helped explain a lot of things which were otherwise a little opaque and complicated.

A neat history of a few different characters, like the Section Sign, Asterisk, Hedera, and Pilcrow. Pictured is the ampersand, whose origins are a little more clear-cut than some:

As with the pilcrow, the ampersand has Latin roots. Originally a shorthand mark for et, Latin for and, the ampersand has a very traceable and visible evolution. Simply put, the & is not much more than e and t coming together.

Reuben Miller has posted a pretty great collection of creative “typefaces”, made from everything from stones, meat, paperclips, and beards.

Looks like notorious street artist Banksy has traded in his spray cans and stencils for animatronic hot dogs and chicken mcnuggets. Extremely surreal.

Here’s physicist Patricia Burchat with an enlightening look at dark matter from the TED conference. She’s a fantastic communicator, and makes one of the most compelling explanations of the subject I’ve ever heard.

A frightening take on the economy. It’s hard to not be pessimistic right now, but it seems we should eschew a growth-based economy for something more resilient. My eyes are on the Resilience community (an offshoot of biological studies). I haven’t seen much from them in the wake of the current crisis.

Bugorski, a 36-year-old researcher at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Protvino, was checking a piece of accelerator equipment that had malfunctioned - as had, apparently, the several safety mechanisms. Leaning over the piece of equipment, Bugorski stuck his head in the space through which the beam passes on its way from one part of the accelerator tube to the next and saw a flash brighter than a thousand suns. He felt no pain.

For a bit more visit Neatorama.

Here’s a cute little video of 100 aged 1 to 100 banging a drum, in order of age.

Creattica Daily, a new design blog, has some great little barcodes from Japanese products which go a little beyond what we’re used to seeing in North America. They’re mostly silly, but I think it’s great attention to detail.