There's a perfect simplicity to the Delete Gainsbourg Project - see a photo of Serge Gainsbourg and mess it up. Fortunately, whoever runs Magnificent Ruin, the quality Tumblr responsible for this undertaking, knows what they're doing. Over explaining it will just ruin it - go have a look and enjoy.

While this Street Art Utopia 2011 Year in Review is likely just the tip of the iceberg in terms of greatness from the past year in it's definitely an impressive collection. I'm personally drawn to the works from Evol and Isaac Cordal (pictured above) but there's an absurd variety of styles. Something for everyone you might say.

HT Chad.

In all honesty, I had no idea that Nokia had their own Maps system ala Google Maps and I certainly had no idea that they were trying out a 3D Map System but I'm glad I discovered both. The 3D version requires Web GL so choose your browser wisely for the proper experience but once you're in there - it's quite nice. It's faster than the Google Maps WebGL view but not as extension in its city coverage. All and all, quite impressive but a little rough around the edges - as a Beta should be. Well worth checking out.

• What the Heck is Responsive Web Design? - at this point, I'm sure you know the answer to that. However, @johnpolacek put together a nice slideshow breaking the concept down. A pleasant looking refresher never hurts and he's included some excellent resources at the end, including...
• 320 and Up - The "tiny screen first" boilerplate extension that brilliantly loads additional styles as they're needed. Sounds like a helluva way to keep your mobile site quick and slim.

Pretty excited for the forthcoming, Jan. 17th, record from Jessie Baylin, Little Spark. You may recall the previously mentioned Pleasure Center EP that you should have been playing ad infinitum since first encountering it. The trailer for the record is good insight on the process and a decent preview of the actual musical contents of the record.. not to mention a rather ridiculous quote from Richard Swift about having to actually play instruments.

We have more and more ways to communicate, as Thoreau noted, but less and less to say. Partly because we’re so busy communicating. And — as he might also have said — we’re rushing to meet so many deadlines that we hardly register that what we need most are lifelines.

Really interesting article from Pico Iyer, The Joy of Quiet, takes on the notion that we need quiet in our lives to be our best. The onslaught of Internet distraction is too much to keep up with. While I don't agree entirely with the notion that we aren't wired to handle this amount of data I will say that turning off the Internet World every once in awhile is damn refreshing.

via Kate.

Really interesting bit of insight from Jack Dorsey regarding the future of Square over at Technology Review. Apparently he envisions receipts as having far more potential than most would give them:

Typically we get a receipt and throw it away already [but] you can treat receipts as a publishing channel between the merchant and the payer.

Square, to us, is about that communication channel. It's about that exchange of value. Payment is what we have to do to get to that interesting communication channel between merchant and payer.

While that may sound fairly vague on the surface it's pretty easy to imagine a customized slip at any checkout that gives you some statistical information on your purchases there. You could extrapolate even further and imagine something like the merging of your typical receipt and a simplified Feltron report, or a crossover with Twitter based on geolocation, content and other meals you may enjoy at the same vendor. Lots of potential there and I'm consistently impressed by Dorsey's ability to imagine where these things might go.

CloudFTP is a proposed device to wirelessly share any USB storage device with an iOS or Android device. By creating an ad hoc network (or joining an existing one) it allows for the sharing of just about anything. The Kickstarter has garnered more than twice its intended goal but there's still 36 hours to go if you're wanting to get a deal on this little guy (will retail for $99 but on sale here for $69). It's a pretty brilliant little piece of technology and, I imagine, will improve as the web software / app comes together better.

Take a few minutes to watch this Media Probes segment about the Origins of the PBS logo. Herb Lubalin explains the process that went into creating the iconic mark accompanied with a nice bit of animation between the variations.

Great article over at AGBeat covering 60 Genius Brands to watch in 2012. I can't really vouch for how genius a lot of them are but the names I recognize are certainly worthy of praise. The most surprising part of the list is just how many of the undertakings are Real Estate related. ApartmentList, Better Homes, Brookfield, CheckYourLandlord, ClearHouse, Diggsy and the list goes on. It's not all home tool related but it's interesting how heavily weighted their list is in that direction.

Browse through the offerings of Shirren Lim for a bounty of gorgeous black and white photos (and a handful of color). I'm smitten with the likes of Mist Over Valley, Blaze of Glory, Silence, Stop and Behind Frosted Glass - to name but a tiny few.

Huge amounts of respect to TjRus for his iPhone 4 in pure CSS3 - it's impressive to say the very least; particularly the icons once you unlock the phone. I mean, he even drew the clouds in the Mail icon without using canvas or SVG; just 3,395 lines of CSS. Ridiculous!

Over the break I finally took it upon myself to install the Homebrew Channel on my Wii. An SD card, the willingness to read instructions and a little patience and I got everything up and running. With a hacked out Wii you're able to play DVD's in the device, backup games to an external drive (easier to switch games and faster access times), play homemade Wii games and, most importantly to me, install emulators. Granted, Nintendo provides access to many old games via their Store but I've been burned a few times by grabbing games that had been altered from their original or weren't clearly labeled (to me) as to what system they were intended for. In other words, I got burned a few times due to user error on my part and wanted to take matters into my own hands.

If you're interested in doing this yourself I have to admit the process was incredibly simple at first and, then, got increasingly complex as I wanted more software in place. However, it's really just a matter of reading all instructions, throwing a little caution to the wind and learning the file structure setup of the applications. After all, it's just your Wii - what else is it doing?

Fast Code Design has a nice article on The Year's Best Ideas in Interface Design for 2011 - among them the NEST Thermostat, Google+ and iPhone 4S - obvious but worthy choices. The more interesting writeups are these items I managed to miss - such as Fuseproject or the Planetary App. Time to dive into those now.

Yayoi Kusama asked a simple question: What would kids do with thousands of stickers with a giant white room as a canvas? The answer is the The Obliteration Room - and the image above is just a partial view of the onslaught that occurred. Go here to see the final results - such a beautifully chaotic mess.

At first glance, this award winning US map may seem just like any other map you've encountered but if you dig through the article and check out the very small details within you'll see that it's hand-crafted to a degree that's hard to imagine. In fact, creator David Imus worked on the map, solo, seven days a week for two years. Roughly 6,000 hours of time put into making sure every city label, elevation level, waterway and informative bit of insight was in just the right place. Even if you're not much of a map fan there's an admirable lesson here about making sure if you're doing something, do it well.

HT Chad

I'm sure this is painfully clear to most anyone in the World of Developers but Javascript is taking off to new heights lately - particularly with the growth of CSS3. Below are some new frameworks and scripts that you should spend a moment checking out to confirm how much domination JS is bringing to the table.

• Impress.js - insanely great slide-show presentation script that takes things well beyond your average rounded corner box with text. Go through every slide to get the full impact.
• jQuery UI Bootstrap - if you're using the Bootstrap framework this seems like a no brainer add-on. While still a work in progress the benefit is still painfully clear - consistent buttons, widgets and tools that follow the look of Bootstrap but add a lot of extended functionality. While I have reservations about Bootstrap as a whole (lack of customization seems to create a web homogeny) I think this is an incredibly well done tool.
• Scrollorama - a "jQuery plugin for doing cool scrolly stuff." The demo doesn't feel quite as smooth as you might hope but there's a lot of potential here for impressive transitions and seems like a great place to start for creating a site with some fun scrolling action.
• URI.js - a script that creates a "jQuery-style" API of commands to make working with URI's a whole lot easier. You might not know it yet but I can bet good money you'll need this in the next year.

Unroll.me, supposedly, dives into your inbox and creates a comprehensive list of email newsletters you are receiving and, then, gives you the ability to manage those descriptions. I tend to delete, not archive, any mail message from a mailing list so I'm not sure how complete this will be but I do like the idea of a way to see everything I happened to be subscribed to paired with an easy way to kill it off. While RSS readers are not anything new it does appear that Subpug is doing it in a rather classy way. The reader looks very well designed and they've got "subscription packs" of feeds from various sites to get you started. Tags and related tweets display right in line with the content - pretty snazzy! Dropbox Automator lets you run a number of pre-determined automated tasks when you add a file to your Dropbox account. Want any image automatically added to Facebook or Flickr? Done. Want to convert any doc to PDF? Ok. Want to zip the file and tweet about it? Can do. Personally, I don't see myself needing this at the moment but I like knowing it's around.

Last weeks playlist may be stronger in the ridiculous department but I wanted to drop one last compilation of videos for the year just in case you were sitting at home aimlessly browsing the Internet. Who am I not to provide 10 minutes of brainless distraction? So, with that in mind, here's this weeks playlist. Enjoy!

• Don Cherry's Piano Desk - I'm no fan of sports commentators but just wait for it... and then wish all TV was actually done this way.
• I Don't Want My Pizza Burning - the best version of "Beast of Burden" you never wanted to hear; complete with a somewhat terrifying animation.
• G-Thing - I thought you might want a soundtrack to ring in the New Years. Here it is. Send all thanks to Paul.
• Santa's Pub - straightforward mini-documentary on a new(ish) bar in Nashville called Santa's Pub. I can personally attest to its greatness. When in Nashville, go to Santa's Pub. Santa (Denzel) is the best.
• Dice Jobs - 8-bit animation style advertising the job finder Dice.com. Maybe it's just me but it really seems to make tech jobs sound awful and the last thing in the world you'd want to apply for. Self-defeating? Likely. Amusing animation regardless? Yes.
• Lion Cub Gives His Best Roar - not quite there yet but shamelessly adorable.
• Lazy Dog Eating Spilled Food - I feel a great deal of empathy when watching this video.
• Hamlet - one of life's greatest questions as pondered by claymation. Simple and enjoyable.
• Drunk Man Tries to Walk Up a Hill - be careful on New Years Eve or you may end up struggling with a slight incline. via Chris.
• Waving Bear - because I'm still not over watching this.

That's all I got. Hope you have a wonderful New Years and I'll return to regular posting sometime in early 2012.

Just in time for the New Year comes Life in Neutral - a passion project from Josh McCowen (aka Shablazm) that gives you the ability to set monthly goals and become inspired to reach them through friends urging you on. Seems like a pretty handy tool to have ready for all those Resolutions you're sure to make. Go sign up or take a tour.