Hi everyone–here are this week’s links.  I’m going to venture into new territory probably starting next week by offering up occasional book and movie reviews, but only if I feel that there’s some aspect of any given film or book that pertains to the study of media or design.  That said, enjoy!

• Thing-A-Day 2008
  I’m all for any activity that boosts creativity, no matter what the end result may be (well, perhaps there are some obvious exceptions, but let’s keep this positive).  That’s why I was pleased to find out about “Thing-A-Day,” wherein individuals are encouraged to create something every single day for the month of February and then document their efforts on a collaborative blog.  I won’t be participating this time around because of work and school obligations, but it’s a great idea nonetheless.
• Library of Congress photos on Flickr
  The Library of Congress recently started posting many of its archived photographs on Flickr, and Flickr users are encouraged to tag the photos to make them more searchable.  An excellent project that to me echoes the BBC’s decision that all of its productions should be freely available (though that project is stalled, or though it seems).
• Mapping data without context
  A new service called EveryBlock launched just a short while ago; its purpose is to display various types of data about your neighborhood so that you can have a better idea of what’s going on in your area.³³   Its minimalist style and understated color palette is engaging, at least to me, but good style does not good design make.  The problem, as Mark Schaver of the Louisville Courier-Journal points out, is that these data points are posted blindly with little context.  It’s raw data, plucked from the datasphere and plopped on a map.  Restaurant reviews sit next to crime reports, with no way to distinguish between any given “event” without clicking on each individual dot on the map.  I don’t know about you, but I’m far less interested in a building code violation than I am in whether or not it’s safe to live in this building.  EveryBlock is going to have to sharpen its focus to draw traffic in; otherwise, it’s going to just blend in amongst all the other data mapping sites that are out there.
• The Design Museum’s Design Library
  An excellent resource–Britain’s Design Museum has posted an online library of various designers and the objects that they are famous for.  Quite stunning to browse through when you need a little inspiration.

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1. Right now the service is limited to three cities–San Francisco, Chicago and New York.333

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