A fantastic flight of fancy which just shows how wonderful the world can be when you never grow Up.

/via swiss-miss

As some of you may know I am currently working on my final master's project at the AAA. 

The project seeks to explore and develop the interfaces we might use to interact with the growing e-book collections of the future.

Already a large proportion of you read a lot of stuff on the internet and the number of
e-book readers, although still in the minority, is growing rapidly.

In order to gain some insight into how people think and feel about their books and book collections I recently prepared a questionnaire and asked as many people as I could think of to give it a go.

The questionnaire is still active and I encourage you try it if you haven't, but today I took a snapshot of the data and have posted the charts for everyone to see. The full dataset comprises both written and multiple choice answers, but I have not posted the written answers in case anyone would object.

About the data:

As you are about to see there is a strong bias towards young students and although you can't see it from the charts, primarily Danish ones. This is because of the channels (Facebook, Twitter & school mail) I've used to recruit my sample (that's you, guys).

I am, of course, keeping this in mind as I analyze the data.

There's a fairly even split between book lovers and casual readers which I'm happy about since that, at least, should give more balanced data. 

Borrowing and lending is very popular and possibly a reflection of the social nature of the mostly young people who also overwhelmingly find new books by personal recommendation.

A huge 82% use their book collection for inspiration which is great news for my project since part of my thesis is that  persistently visible e-book collections make for better, more useful collections.

A lot of work lies ahead, parsing all this beautiful information, but for now I owe a big thank you to all those of you awesome enough to give a slice of your time to help me out.

Anyway, here comes the data...

About you:

About books:

About the book collection:

About the future:

Here's another, in what is becoming a gallery of deeply inspirational, motivational and passionate people; Salman Khan.

Salman Khan is the force behind Khan Academy, which I really hope, and almost dare to believe, can change the way we teach and learn...well, anything.

The best way to understand what he has done, and why it will change everything, is to see his TED talk.

Galco's Soda Pop Stop

This awesome guy, John Nese, had me smiling all through the video. 

Real passion for pretty much anything is such an inspiration to me. If you are anywhere near this place make sure you go pay it a visit.

Real Moxie.

/via @tomcoates / CHOW.com

Katie Shelly is onto something with these visual recipes. 

Her hand drawn instructions show cooking as the fun and playful thing it should be and, because both ingredients and process is visible at once, you get an immediate feel for what is involved in making it.  

/via fastcodesign / GOOD

The Mavenist, a new blog by the hugely inspirational Frank Chimero, set up temporarily (I think) whilst he is writing his book The Shape of Design.

The blog is a scrapbook of research, thoughts and inspiration. He calls it his shot at a commonplace book and despite having only been going since February, it already reminds me of one of my most prized books, The art of looking sideways.

Check it out.

UPDATE: It seems this was more temporary than I thought. The blog has been “not found” for a few weeks now. As an alternative there’s always Chimero’s stellar.io stream.

UPDATE 2: The Mavenist has risen again, this time with its own domain here.

A favourite from the beautiful cover remakes by littlepixel.

The Jolly chair by Valdenassi is beautiful in materials, form and idea.

Wish I'd had it.

A bountiful drink with a befitting name in a beautiful glass.