I was traveling this past weekend, so unfortunately this week’s link roundup is coming later than last week’s, but hopefully it was worth the wait!
Food:
Restaurant Review: Kin Shop (NYT)
Sam Sifton’s poetic two star review of Kin Shop lives up to the restaurant he’s reviewing: “Mr. Dieterle is as Thai as John Boehner. But he cooks from the Thai larder as if he had stepped out of a novel by John Burdett, a farang who can see ghosts, who knows that the mind is Buddha’s seat, who bleeds fish sauce.” I was going to review Kin Shop at some point (since it’s totally awesome), but I don’t know how I can match this.
Harvard University’s Science & Cooking Series
With lectures from Ferran Adria (El Bulli), David Chang (Momofuku), Dan Barber (Blue Hill), among others, I really want to get around to watching these soon. They range from 1.5 to 2 hours each, so I don’t know when that will be, but I thought I’d post for everyone’s benefit.
For Eco-Friendly Santas: Algae Milk and Cookies (Fast Company)
Anyone tried these yet?
Technology:
App Inventor for Android (Google)
The barriers to entry for mobile applications keep coming down. If you’ve got some spare time, how ’bout mobile app developing on Android?
The iPod Nano Watch Nears $1 Million In Crowdsourced Funding From Kickstarter (TechCrunch)
Is crowdsourcing going to be a major future source of capital for entrepreneurs? With stories like these, it’s hard not to believe.
John Sculley On Steve Jobs, The Full Interview Transcript (Cult of Mac) and Error Message: Google Research Director Peter Norvig on Being Wrong (Slate)
A pair of interviews from current and former top level execs at Apple and Google. What is striking is the vastly different attitudes towards errors and perfection these companies exhibit in their culture. As much as I loathe the Apple ideologues, it looks like Google’s (and Microsoft’s old) approach hasn’t been too successful lately, given what’s gone on with Chrome OS and Google TV. Apple’s model may prove more enduring.
Ideas:
LATER: What does procrastination tell us about ourselves? (The New Yorker)
Great motivating read for those of you procrastinating on final papers or exams, or holiday gift buying at this time of year.
Might Gays Be Better Soldiers? (Good Magazine)
With the DADT repeal this past week, some unconventional wisdom about gays and the military.
Videos:
Video: 270 Films from 2010 in Six Minutes (Good Magazine)
Cool montage of the films of 2010. I don’t watch that many movies, so maybe you movie buffs out there will appreciate this more than me.
I came across this series pretty recently and it has some awesome ten minute Ted-like films featuring animated sketches with former (including Sir Ken Robinson, the most famous of all TED speakers). I’d recommend the video on what motivates productivity at the workplace by Dan Pink as a good starting point.
Misc:
A Q&A With A Vacuum Cleaner Salesman (The Awl)
Kind of bizarre, but an interesting window into a part of America urban-inhabiting folk like me don’t see very often.
5 Typical Acts of Politeness That are Inefficient and Should be Banned and How to Live in New York City (Thought Catalog)
Great social insight from Thought Catalog, as always.
While fascinating, this is just another in a steady stream of articles highlighting Chinese ghost towns and in particular, everyone’s favorite whipping boy, Kangbashi (also see here, here, here, and here (China Daily!)). While genuine excesses in the Chinese property marker are certainly driving some of this coverage, you have to question what other forces are at work to inspire five separate stories in major publications highlighting this one city in a year. Is it a human fascination with urban abandonment and ghost towns? Or is it driven by western visions of modern China? In any case, it’s hard to resist these photos.
Supposedly Good 