The Italian Job

what happens is the news

what happens is the news. What a newspaper would look like if you scribbled it on the front of your high school notebook (best link of the week).

The Evolution of Perl Email Handling

The Evolution of Perl Email Handling.

Printer cartridge refilling shops/services becoming more popular

Printer cartridge refilling shops/services becoming more popular. Nothing would make me happier than to see HP’s price gouging come to an end.

Surowiecki on cash-rich companies and how they spend that money

Surowiecki on cash-rich companies and how they spend that money.

Innovation Futures is using predictive markets to

Innovation Futures is using predictive markets to track Google’s IPO price. The crowd’s best guess at market cap is $35-40 billion.

Profile of Miguel de Icaza, the open

Profile of Miguel de Icaza, the open source hacker responsible (in part) for GNOME and Mono.

The classic texts of computer programming

The classic texts of computer programming. Not a single one authored by a woman.

Rolling Stone profile of Marlon Brando from 2002

Rolling Stone profile of Marlon Brando from 2002.

Synface works with your telephone to provide

Synface works with your telephone to provide the hard of hearing an animated face from which to lip-read.

“If you’re going to roll with

“If you’re going to roll with us, you got to put some pep in your step.”. Sasha Frere-Jones hangs out with Russell Simmons.

Top ten costliest, deadliest, and most intense hurricanes

Top ten costliest, deadliest, and most intense hurricanes.

The past and present of newspapers in

The past and present of newspapers in NYC, the last US newspaper town.

Statue of Liberty reopens today, but not completely

Statue of Liberty reopens today, but not completely. We can’t have nice things anymore.

Cartoonist is offering his strip to newspapers

Cartoonist is offering his strip to newspapers for free, bypassing the syndicates. Another data point in the Internet’s march to eliminate the old middlemen.

Tip for investigators: when a pregnant woman

Tip for investigators: when a pregnant woman disappears, it’s *always* the husband/boyfriend.

kottke.org book club, take 1

In this thread from last week, I floated the idea of a kottke.org book club and there was a small positive response from you, the readership. Since I don’t have the time to coordinate a proper book club, I’m going to do this in the easiest way possible. I just started reading McSweeney’s 13, “a beautifully designed anthology of contemporary art comics” edited by Chris Ware. When I finish it, I will post about it on kottke.org and ask for comments. You’re welcome to read along and join the discussion when it happens.

Eat This New York

Pop!Tech 2004 discount

The Pop!Tech conference is coming up in October (read about my adventures there last year and conference-goers’ adventures with the nTag badges). This year’s conference will feature Burt Rutan, Richard Florida, Malcolm Gladwell, Ze Frank, Bruce Mau, and Doug Rushkoff, although, as with last year’s conference, I’m sure some of the most interesting speakers will be the ones you’ve never heard of before.

I’m not sure how many of you are conference goers, but if you’re interested in attending Pop!Tech, the organizers are giving kottke.org readers $300 off the regular registration price. To register, follow this link to the Pop!Tech site and click on “Registration” in the upper left-hand corner. If 5 people register via that link, I get a free ticket. So if you want to go, I’d appreciate the referral.

How to be creative

How to be creative.

The films that never got made

The films that never got made. Kubrick’s Napoleon, Welles’ Don Quixote, Hitchcock’s Kaleidoscope, etc.

Fantastic typography from 1850-1920 in this collection

Fantastic typography from 1850-1920 in this collection of sheet music title pages.

Workers at Indian call centers are learning

Workers at Indian call centers are learning how to fake being American to provide better tech support.

Blink, a new book by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker staff writer and, along with Dave Eggers, the patron saint of a certain segment of the weblog community, has a new book coming out early next year called Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking:

How do we make decisions — good and bad — and why are some people so much better at it than others? That’s the question Malcolm Gladwell asks and answers in the follow-up to his huge bestseller, The Tipping Point. Utilizing case studies as diverse as speed dating, pop music, and the shooting of Amadou Diallo, Gladwell reveals that what we think of as decisions made in the blink of an eye are much more complicated than assumed. Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology, he shows how the difference between good decision-making and bad has nothing to do with how much information we can process quickly, but on the few particular details on which we focus. Leaping boldly from example to example, displaying all of the brilliance that made The Tipping Point a classic, Gladwell reveals how we can become better decision makers—in our homes, our offices, and in everyday life. The result is a book that is surprising and transforming. Never again will you think about thinking the same way.

The book is based on his 2002 New Yorker article The Naked Face, which spawned a kottke.org thread in which Gladwell comments to defend his honor. No surprise that I’m really looking forward to Blink; I loved The Naked Face and enjoy pretty much anything Gladwell has written. If anyone from Little, Brown is reading…I’d be happy to receive a copy for review on this here site.