Lots of intense political discussions with old friends, catching up with some 2.0 people, Mexico this weekend, San Fran/PSFK next week and Beijing on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
It feels like a bubble here; particularly the Hummers. Completely removed from the the outside world and yet the ever present reminder of oil pumps and real estate for sale looms large.
Southern Californians though have to be some of the most generous and helpful on the planet. Pretty much every transaction or interaction is seamless and delightful.
It's not often I post up quality design over here but I think the new British coin designs are really good. Perhaps up there with those Dutch Notes that looked so fantastic prior to the adoption of the Euro.
The new designs have been chosen via an open competition three years ago which attracted some 4,000 entries. I'm really pleased that the winning designer is a young Brit of 26 years-old called Matthew Dent, originally from Bangor who now lives and works in London as a graphic designer.It pleases me that world class designers are still emerging in the UK and so young too.
Here's a Dutch example for those who remember having some beautiful cash in their hands before the Euro. Isn't it just brilliant and beautiful?
Via Core77
All the water in the world (or 1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc. (left). all the air in the atmosphere (or 5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density (right). both shown on the same scale as the Earth.
Via Information Aesthetics
My bookmarks on de.licio.us . I'm looking forward to doing this on a few lengthy posts I've written at some point.
This will no doubt be a boring post for many, but I'm in the States and catching up on a lot of blocked sites that were just too difficult to interact with through The Great Firewall of China. So here's my Blog Wordle thus far. If anybody is in Los Angeles and wants to hook up for a coffee, drop me an email which is in the 'Soundbite' section to the right of this post hopefully.I'm also going to the PSFK conference in San Francisco later next week for a few days so if any of you Stateside progressives need your inspiration and thinking tackle topped up, you need to book your tickets soon over here because those PSFK boys and girls keep it fresh every time.
