I almost didn’t post this because it seemed cheesy to post two links from Sasha Frere-Jones in one day. Really, I don’t read his Internet musings all that much, or even regularly. But this one is quite hilarious, and quite worth your time. Somewhat ironically (or not) it would never work on Twitter.

“Back in the Victorian age of the Web, some people were sharing private moments with the world without knowing it.” The curious phenomenon of accidentally recorded audio tracks that migrated onto the Web via early file-sharing services, and their resurgence. The Internet still seems so young that it’s fascinating to consider that in a little more than a decade it’s already accreted hidden lore like this.

A new photo pool documenting the work of the seminal modernist designer. Via AisleOne.

Very belatedly, I want to offer a requiem for the old Muxtape. In its current incarnation, it’s become a showcase for new bands that shows some real promise, hewing to the artful, minimalist aesthetic that in part made Muxtape famous. But in its original form, as imagined and launched by its creator Justin Oullette last year, it provided an elegantly efficient social space where anyone could upload their own mix of songs — of all the social networks we’ve seen so far, it was for my money the least fussy and the most elegant.

The old Muxtape was a perfect example of going to great — one might say drastic — lengths to minimize distractions, yielding a wonderfully designed experience for the user, and coming as close as anyone has to achieving a truly, thoroughly modernist online environment. Not incidentally, its somewhat brazen flouting of copyright laws allowed scores of would-be deejays to have fun programming their own playlists. It was really, really fun.

A submission from AIGA’s design and public policy group to the Change.gov Citizen’s Briefing Book, the goal of which is to compile the most popular idea submissions for the new administration. “Government must invest in quality graphic design and clear language for all its public communications. We need simple forms, easy-to-use Web sites, quality telephone support, and good signs and communications at public buildings.” It’s also worth browsing through the briefing book’s list of most popular ideas.

With only a few exceptions, the Irish band’s album covers have been aesthetically bereft, in spite of their now iconic statuses. And after their last album, they were definitely in a can’t-do-any-worse position. But the cover art for their forthcoming release “No Line on the Horizon” is more than just an improvement. It’s a genuinely artful image from the photographer Hiroshi Sugimi, apparently from his “Seascapes” series.

Canny observation about how a given medium can alter or even transform the experience of content. I similarly caution designers who assume that one day digital media will provide the same presentation fidelity as the printed page; even if we could create truly digital replica of say a newspaper, the experience would be substantially different from a printed newspaper.

Woke up very early this morning to spot that Nicholas Jitkoff, the genius developer behind Quicksilver, and some colleagues at Google have released what is apparently a new incarnation of that indispensable search utility for the Mac. At first blush, Quick Search Box is not as aesthetically stunning as Quicksilver (some might argue that as a Google app it’s probably not allowed to be) nor in this developer preview does it seem as feature-complete. Still, it’s almost certainly going to get much, much better. Also see the blog post announcement.

Is the commercial airbrush look, once so dominant in the nineteen-seventies and eighties but then quickly discarded as nearly irredeemable, set for a comeback? Norman Hathaway thinks it might be. In this blog post, he gives a brief overview of his forthcoming book “Overspray: Riding High with the Kings of California Airbrush Art,” which looks closely at the work of four giants of the style and the ideas — or lack thereof — underlying their works.

Hathaway notes plausibly if perhaps defensively: “These pictures weren’t beating you over the head with cleverness or conceptualism. Many airbrush illustrations are simply about objects, free of environments or situations included to support a hokey angle or narrative. There’s usually no puzzle to solve, or plot to follow: perhaps that’s why many are quick to brand the work as empty or frivolous.”

For my part, I very much grew up with this visual vocabulary and was surprised to realize that I had neatly swept it under the rug for so long that I had almost completely forgotten about it. Looking at this work is very much like looking at photos from high school (provided one is of a certain age, of course). The work is exquisitely embarrassing, and yet I can’t deny a certain fondness for it. For those like me whose interest is piqued by this leading edge of nostalgic kitsch, Hathaway has more writing on the subject at the book’s eponymous blog.

So over-the-top cheesey and unlikely, I can’t even tell if this product — or this shockingly hilarious commercial — is real or not. Best line: “Microsoft, huh? So it’s pretty easy to use?” (at 1:55).

A look at the innovation that a few of my colleagues in the multimedia and interactive news teams at The New York Times are churning out regularly. Frankly, it’s refreshing to read a positive piece about our future amidst all the gloomy predictions.

Number one: bacon. Number nineteen: Mr. T. Number twenty-three: throwing stars.

Artful maps of posts to Craigslist’s Missed Connections section that mentioned specific places… ack, I just spent three minutes trying to explain it in words when it’s a lot easier just to look at it, so click on the link already!

A bit of back-of-the-envelope math shows that it’ll cost me something like US$60 to upgrade all of my iTunes music purchases to the DRM-free iTunes Plus format. I know, I know. A lot of folks out there will wag a finger and say I should’ve stayed away from buying rights-crippled songs in the first place.

In my defense, I was always skeptical of the iTunes Store and, like the old fogey I am, tried to buy physical compact discs whenever I could. But there was a period of two or three years there when well-meaning people in my life kept giving me iTunes Store gift cards. Of course, as we’re all learning even if we hadn’t realized it before, gift cards are a kind of trap, so it was unavoidable that I eventually accrued a stash of the iTunes Store’s hobbled tracks, in spite of my efforts.

Somewhat understandably then, the upgrade fee burns me a bit. This is mostly because of the way songs from the iTunes Store are limited — in an additive method, not a subtractive method. I pejoratively regard DRM’d goods as broken, but not in that the goods are missing anything. The core of what I need is there; it’s just that there’s an extra layer of restrictions added. All Apple has to do is help me remove the offending code, rather than trade the tracks back in for new ones. As various pirate projects have proven in the past, this is entirely doable so long as DRM cops don’t stand in the way.

No doubt it’ll strike many as suspicious that a guy who pretty much only uses Helvetica would say this, but most of the new typefaces being released today seem very samey to me.

For instance, there’s plenty of good work on display in I Love Typography’s round-up of the best typefaces of 2008, but in my view, not a whole lot of new expression there. Newzald looks like Matrix, FF Utility looks like Klavika, Soho looks like Apex Serif, etc.

The opposite of maxims: proverbially useless wisdom from the humorist Tom Weller. Originally printed in 1982, but available here page for page.

A muted, haunting reminder that the best show ever aired on television is now behind us.

As it happened, last night I started watching the show’s predecessor, “The Corner.” It’s no surprise that it’s just as well-written and vivid as “The Wire,” or that I’ve developed a significant attachment to the characters in just three episodes. But it’s somewhat shocking to me that it’s even more gritty and uncompromising. Recommended viewing.

Handy tool displays type specimens based on typefaces available in your system currently.

A look at how the studios did business-wise in 2008 — better than most, as it turns out. “Ticket sales at North American movie theaters totaled US$9.6 billion, a decrease of less than 1 percent over the previous year, according to Media by Numbers, a box office tracking company. Although attendance declined 5 percent, to about 1.3 billion, the industry was able to buttress revenue with higher ticket prices and premium 3-D offerings.”

That last bit about premium prices is particularly interesting: “In 2008, the studios discovered that audiences would pay ticket prices of up to US$25 to see a movie in 3-D (‘Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour’). Screenings of ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Kung Fu Panda’ at Imax theaters, also carrying premium prices, did blockbuster business.”

From several years ago but still worth a look: typographer Mark Simonson highlights director Wes Anderson’s preoccupation with the typeface Futura in his “third feature film,” a trend that also continued in Anderson’s subsequent inferior yet visually consistent releases.

Impressive full-color drawings made by artist Stef Kardos using Brushes, “a natural media painting application for the iPhone and iPod touch. It offers several realistic brush styles, an advanced color picker, a gallery view, and virtually unlimited undo and redo.” The demonstration video on the Brushes page is quite remarkable.

Edward L. Glaeser says: “Historically, human capital — the education and skills of a work force — predicts which cities are able to reinvent themselves and which ones are not. Those people who are continuing to pay high prices for Manhattan real estate are implicitly betting that New York’s human capital will continue to come up with new ways of reinventing the city.”