There were a lot of very good links floating around out in the blogosphere this week–so many that I had a hard time narrowing it down to just four, but that’s what I do for you each week. So, without any further ado, here are my four favorites.

• MSNBC: Alpha Channel
  MSNBC.com just relaunched with a spiffy new design. They’re still working out some of the quirks and I’m still adjusting to the new layout (kind of like how it took me a while to adjust to the redesigned New York Times layout a while back), but I think it works. More interesting to me than the redesign itself, though, is the fact that MSNBC has decided to make the entire process transparent; they’re pretty blog-savvy over there anyway, so it was hardly a surprise that they launched another blog to talk specifically about the design process. For this, I applaud them–and have added them to the blogroll over there.
• When is it time to quit?
  I can’t remember exactly when it happened–it may have been due to a psychology course in college, or it might’ve been because of a book I read–but at some point I decided that if I started reading a book and realized maybe twenty pages in that I hated it, I wasn’t going to finish it (previously I felt like I was almost obligated to slog through the entire thing “on principle”). That said, it isn’t always as easy for me to quit every project I embark on even when I have a sense that it may not be worth the trouble. This is a growing discussion over at 43 Folders on how to tell when it’s time to hang it up. No solid answers or “how-tos,” but the discussion is interesting nonetheless.
• New Jean Nouvel skyscraper to adjoin MoMA
  Some sketches of architect Jean Nouvel’s breathtaking angular spire that has been proposed for the vacant lot next to the Museum of Modern Art have been released. Ordinarily architectural sketches are nothing more to me than pretty drawings, but I am interested in how a good design (like this one) can inspire such excited communication amongst followers of this kind of thing. (via Curbed)
• Tokyu Hands: Things for “making”
  The MAKE: Blog featured several photos of a store called Tokyu Hands in Shinjuku, Japan, which is apparently filled top-to-bottom with everything “from an isle full of tweezers to the largest selection of paper cut-out models I’ve ever seen.” I’d really like to go and see it for myself now. (via MAKE: Blog)