All the Stuff That's Fit to Type

Chances that You Will Believe This: High

Books and Music that Make You Dumb
"With his two Web sites (which have crashed from too much traffic),Booksthatmakeyoudumb.virgil.gr and Musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr, Griffith used aggregated Facebook data about the favorite bands and books among students of various colleges and plotted them against the average SAT scores at those schools, creating a tongue-in-cheek statistical look at taste and intelligence."

Visualizing the US Power Grid
Cool stuff from NPR. Our power grid is ffffucked.

Google Commissions "Ads" for Chrome (which I miss since switching to Mac)

More on Anomaly and Lauren Luke
Probably worth another post to describe my man crush on Anomaly. Lauren Luke's new line is about to hit the stores. I'll be watching closely.

Smashing Pumpkins Offer Subscription to Recording Process
This makes 1998 Paul go crazy, and 2009 Paul appreciate a good idea that will translate into another mediocre album.

"Corgan said in a statement, "The goal is to create a working model that is not profit motivated but rather information and access motivated. In exchange for a fixed resource base fans will be let inside in an unprecedented way to the creative process of preparing to make the next (SMASHING PUMPKINS) album while also inspiring an interactive dialogue that will help shape the work."

The Psychology of the Sale
"Over time, the presence of sales can really diminish a brand. I used to buy all my clothes at the Gap - I'm stuck with the fashion sense of an 8 year old boy - but, starting a few years ago, I noticed that everything at the Gap appeared to be on sale. This is problematic for two reasons: 1) It triggers deflationary expectations - why buy the t-shirt now when you can buy the same t-shirt for less in two weeks, after yet another "final" sale? and 2) It erodes the quality of the brand, at least as perceived by consumers. I implicitly assume that Gap has to put t-shirts on sale because they're of lower quality, when the actual reason might have to do with the overproduction of some factory in Turkey, or an inventory accounting rule, or some other banal corporate mistake."