One of the key insights in Richard Florida’s latest book, The Great Reset (Harper, 2010) is that rapid transit increases the exchange of ideas and thereby spurs innovation. Where the car used to provide this mass connection, now it hinders it. Increasingly, our cognitive surplus is sitting traffic.
Ideas are networks, Steven Johnson argues in his new book, Where Good Ideas Come From (Riverhead, 2010). The book takes Florida’s tack, comparing cities to coral reefs in that their structure fosters innovation. Good ideas come from connected collectives, so connectivity is paramount.
Human …

I guess it’s logical that the older you get, the more the music you grew up listening to is likely to end up in the last place you’d expect. Gang of Four’s “Natural’s Not In It” in Microsoft’s official Xbox Kinect televison campaign. Good friend and ex-bass player Dave Allen seems summarily nonplussed. [runtime: 0:32]

Longtime BMX homie and amazing photographer Sandy Carson has a show on display here in Austin at Okay Mountain Gallery. The opening on October 23rd was a bicycle scene reunion. We all gawked at Sandy’s photos, and geeked out on bikes, parks, and trails. A good time was had by all.

Here’s what the Okay Mountain site says about the show:
“Paradise Has Relocated” attempts to capture the lifeless remains and emptiness of a once thriving and historic island devastated by Hurricane Ike in September …

For over two decades, Douglas Rushkoff has been dragging us all out near the horizon, trying to show us glimpses of our own future. Though he’s written books on everything from counterculture and video games to advertising and Judaism, he’s always maintained a media theorist’s bent: one part Marshall McLuhan, one part Neil Postman, and one part a mix of many significant others. Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age (OR Books, 2010) finds him back at the core of what he does. Simply put, this little …