"Had our correspondent developed the gift of foresight? No. He really had heard these stories before. Spend a few moments on Google and you will find that the tale of how Procter & Gamble developed the Swiffer is a staple of marketing literature. Bob Dylan is endlessly cited in discussions of innovation, and you can read about the struggles surrounding the release of “Like a Rolling Stone” in textbooks like “The Fundamentals of Marketing” (2007). As for 3M, the decades-long standing ovation for the company’s creativity can be traced all the way back to “In Search of Excellence” (1982), one of the most influential business books of all time. In fact, 3M’s accidental invention of the Post-it note is such a business-school chestnut that the ignorance of those who don’t know the tale is a joke in the 1997 movie “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion.”" This is a brilliant article on the literature – and culture – of talking about 'creativity'.

"Why doesn’t popular fiction encourage writers as entertainingly skilful as this? Because we do not value the skillset itself, only the story it mediates. We long ago separated the skillset out and donated it to literary fiction. Danny MacAskill doesn’t tell a story. He just is. Indeed, by the look of it, he just is the skillset. As a result I cry every time I watch him perform, because the performance is so much more intense than anything I’ve ever made." Great writing, by a great writer, about a great performer. Perfect.

"Castles In The Sky is a tiny window into a delightful bedtime story. I imagine parents reading it aloud to their children as the child is fascinated by the huge bounds the boy makes through clouds. Very little happens but kites and planes go by; the music gently ebbs into your mind and as the story ends you feel peaceful and contented. It has thawed me a little, from a week of thinking only about GTA V and how serious life must be all the time. It has made me think about how five year old me used to listen to stories in our community library crosslegged and have to shut up, at least for a little while." This is a glorious piece of writing from Cara. And: a reminder that the thing I've always known is that being read to – and reading aloud to others – is so often a complete delight.

"I’m not asking for the world here. I really don’t think I am. I would merely like to suggest some manners, no different to those used by anyone out there who wouldn’t walk in front of someone engaged with a painting in an art gallery, or emit a loud noise during the crucial speech in a play. Music needs a certain environment and respect to have full effect. And no – that is not, not, elitist." I, too, could have punched the man – it was clearly a man – who, in what seemed like an attempt to show off about just how much he enjoyed the performance, was early to the gun. Why not let it breathe? Why not let it sit? Currie's description of applause as a train you get led onto is particularly good, as is his point about how applause-whenever can have its place. But there were only two people who should have been making Contacts with things at that point of the concert, and they were both on stage.

Nice article from Tom Phillips on a potted history of graphic scores – with a rather good gallery "attached", buried in the Guardian's IA.

Yuri Suzuki and Mark McKeague have a new design/invention firm. I like that they emphatically describe themselves as making "machines" (along with products and experiences). (Found because of Ototo).

"If we forget the needs bit then we're just talking about users, which easily elides into audiences, which everyone takes to mean target audiences – which is a whole different kettle of ball games." Yeah, sometimes I forget about that when we – the wider we – talk about users.

OpenEmu: OSX emulation front-end that supports multiple back-ends. Currently in beta (ie, compile-it-yourself) but looking interesting.

"I was no boy naturalist, unlike Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri – whose collecting habits earned him the nickname Dr Bug among friends. And yet I vividly remember catching my first tadpole in a Golden Wonder crisp packet, then cradling this sloppy pouch all the way home to a sluiced-out jam jar. When you know Tajiri wanted to make a game to communicate his joy in catching insects as a boy, and look at Pokémon, it is impossible not to feel how powerfully he succeeded." A really lovely piece of games writing, about breeding and trafficking Pokémon as an adult – but, secretly, about the appeal of the series to players of all ages.

"…the 808 is such a storied instrument in electronics. It casts a large shadow. There's whole genres based on just the kick or the snare or the cowbell sound. As soon as you turn it on and start working, you hear every single gesture that's happened in electronic music since its advent. It's this crazy machine of history, and it's really hard not to be beholden to it in that way." Daedalus on the history embedded in instruments, as part of an interview about his use of technology for Resident Advisor.

"When I started the installation, people passing by would see me draped in cables and ask if I was making the world's biggest Xbox or something. Then when it was done, they would stop and say 'Dude, that's awesome!' You don't get that visceral reaction to online work so much—at least, not so you can hear it in person."

"Sleep is important.  And being on call can lead to interrupted sleep.  Even worse, after being woken up, the amount of time it takes to return to sleep varies by person and situation.  So, we thought, “why not graph the effect of being on call against our sleep data?”" Human factors are important; communicating them in the most effective internal language seems sensible.

"Trust me, Christopher Robin is probably relieved I did it. He’s probably sitting in his apartment right now in a pair of ripped sweatpants, eating ice cream out of a tub and re-watching The Wire and thanking his stars he doesn’t have to actually still be friends with his old, mopey pal Eeyore.” And yet still I managed to get something in my eye at the end of this.