I love the jacket design Small is the New Big. Really, how could you not pick it up? And luckily, the contents of Seth Godin's collection don't disappoint too much. This is one of those books I like to call "toilet books"--a collection of short, snappy sparks to get you thinking about how to be better. Sort of a daily devotional for marketing and entrepreneurial nerds. It's hard to summarize because he zips (or is that zooms?) from topic to topic, but you'll find that Godin is obsessed with: freebies, lagniappe, surprises; JetBlue; change; agility; remarkableness; customer advocacy; etc. And he's similarly frustrated with: protocol, American Airlines, stagnation, old-school advertising, risk aversion. Worship is reserved for the relentlessly focused who are doing special work on their own terms. Cool. It's a nice little anthology, Godin has some great ideas and thought experiments, and I had some truly 'eureka' moments. But is it remarkable? It's worth a glance or two.

Thank you thank you. I love this stuff. The latest in Rebecca Blood's Bloggers on Blogging series, an interview with Scott Rosenberg.

Sam Weber's illustrations are so cool.

Scott Rosenberg interviews Steven Johnson about his latest book, The Ghost Map. I liked Johnson's thoughts on the evolution of popular theories and the role of public intellectuals. "Part of what you're supposed to do as an educated intelligent person is try and figure out the giant weird invisible elephant in the room that nobody's talking about -- the thing that everybody's missing. But it's hard. They're blind spots for a reason." Reminds me of Mises' thoughts on ideas.

Some of the best Lifehacker articles and comments have been freshly collected, edited, and soon available in paperback.

I enjoyed this one-hour documentary on Blade Runner. Two early comments that stuck with me were Philip K. Dick's notion that people "aren't interested in novels of ideas," and in contrast, that "sci-fi is essentially the field of ideas." I'll need to ponder that one. And wow, I still love the soundtrack by Vangelis.

An article all about matching the wine glasses with the wine inside, and the anatomy of the container itself: "The ideal shape reveals all the aromas and taste components in a particular varietal; it creates a balanced interaction between fruit, mineralogy and acidity while de-emphasizing the evidence of alcohol." [via megnut]

At the least, I can say that I'm now more interested in the original 9/11 Report than I was before. I really wanted this one to be good; it was just frustrating. Jacobson and Col??n got off to such a good start with a slick 10 page fold-out timeline that tracks the four flights concurrently. It was a truly powerful experience to juxtapose the events of my own morning with what happened in the air. But it all went down from there. The illustration was disappointingly inconsistent, mixing some really clever, accurately rendered scenes next to some that are just a little sloppy. I'm not sure if scattershot, somewhat arbitrary imagery is due to the nature of the original Report. The lettering and narrative boxes really killed me, though. The box geography was awkward, so I ended up stumbling around the page. Out of hundreds of comics I've consumed, I've never had so much trouble doing the basic task of reading.

Regarding the actual Report material, it's not so bad. For someone like me, who generally steers clear of popular politics, it's a nice intro to the history, who is who among the terrorists, and who is who among the white men in suits. Here's my #1 piece of loveably laughable advice the Commission offers: "It is crucial to offer a way of routinizing, even bureaucratizing, the exercise of imagination."1 Oh, I really wanted this to be good.

Some other links for your curiosity... here's a good review over at Salon, an NPR interview with Jacobson and Col??n, and Slate offers an excerpted version online & an interview as well.

--- 1*ahem* Some other important thoughts on bureaucracy...

I'll admit that I've gotten a bit intimidated by National Novel Writing Month as the start date approaches. Enter my new, slightly less imposing challenge: National Blog Posting Month, where the goal is to write at least a post a day, every day, for one month. I can do that. And there are potential prizes, too! Shweeeeet.

Since the tumult over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial back in the 80s, Maya Lin has disengaged from ideological discussions, taking a turn towards soft environmentalism. [via greg]

This is exactly the sort of thing where Wikipedia dominates: a fresh, current article on internet phenomena and a list of internet memes. Take that, Britannica!

The National Press Photographers Association has posted the Best of Photojournalism 2006.

I love these resume tips posted over at LifeClever. All those subtle, detailed changes add up so nicely you can taste it. (via jb)

Design Observer discusses the pluralist European Union anniversary logo. Here are the top placements in the logo design competition (no, seriously). I think it's fascinating that the "improve by including" tendency is such a natural human inclination. But synergy can backfire. Thinking more broadly, I wonder if this is a side effect of democratization, the political culture filtering down to applied arts. Anyone know any good resources about design and politics?

I stopped by for the season opener at the Atlanta Ballet tonight. Their performance of Giselle was just wonderful. The costumes were really amazing. A couple downers: the lady on my left who had a persistent, throaty cough. Thank goodness another audience member had some spare cough drops! The Fox was only about 1/3 full, which explains why there's no live music anymore. Various musicians and supporters were outside the Fox picketing, as announced in the Atlanta Composers Blog. The recorded music was fine (fine as in "functional"), but it just doesn't feel as warm and fuzzy and human as it did when the orchestra was there. And there's a certain sense of spectacle that's missing. It's a little awkward to walk into a show when someone gives you the earnest plea, "You deserve to hear live music." Good luck to them. Let's hope that each side will come to their senses, and that fellow Atlantans will remember what a treasure they've got.

Photos of computer monitors that look transparent. Windows, indeed. The technique is to photograph what's behind the monitor and set it as the background on your desktop. There's also ghost-in-the-machine versions and x-ray monitors.

A photo of a news anchor reporting on a serial criminal... uhh, security?

BoingBoing tells us that you can search through all of Enron's e-mails with the Enron Explorer. Most of it is what you'd expect--memos, corporate talk, weekend plans. But there are some gems: "why the heck am I getting all the crap on this one....I'm not the one who came back to the table with puke on myself."

37 Signals' book Getting Real is now available for free.

Blik makes decals for your home, because wallpapering is just too much of a pain. They can also do custom lettering.