Three Best Things

THING 1: Help me help my friend in DC from MetaFilter. An internet forum takes on the Russian mob… no, that’s literally what happened. The dad in Taken could’ve saved a whole lot of trouble if he’d simply paid the $5 MeFi registration fee.
THING 2: New Social Networking Site Changing The Way Oh, Forget It by the Onion. This is exactly what you think it is, and you will not regret reading it.
THING 3: I knew it was coming, and it still got me. That means it’s like a dry heave, but in a good way:

Bonus Thing

The perfect soundtrack for old footage of NASA missions? Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” chopped & screwed. This video simultaneously makes no sense and is the most fitting depiction I’ve ever seen of everything about outer space. The glory and horror and striving and solitude — who would’ve ever guessed we’d need an American Idol to soundtrack space travel?

I’ve watched this thing every day this week. I could hammer out 10 pages on it by tomorrow night, but I’ll spare you that if you at least watch it through the 1:53 mark.

THING: Color Survey by XKCD. Men and women see color differently. Everyone accepts this. But according to science!, some things about the effects of gender on color perception aren’t quite what you’d think. And other things are exactly what you’d think. So.
THING: Why Is It Always Minority Players Suffering From Lack of Hustle? by Walkoff Walk. Certain sportswriter cliches — deceptively fast, great motor, reminds me of Wes Welker — have long been suspected of being applied much more frequently to white athletes. Well, somebody finally put it to the test. As Walkoff Walk proves, at least one descriptor, lack of hustle, is almost exclusively reserved for black players. I tried Googling up some football-related racial code language. The most common recipient of Wes Welkerousness as bestowed by pro writers? Looks like it’s Golden Tate, a black player. (If we’re counting message boards, then it’s Jordan Shipley, a white player who’s taller, skinnier, much less agile, and a little slower than Welker — plus they play in very different offenses. Nevermind all that; Jordan Shipley Wes Welker is a Google suggested search at this point. I just football-nerded all over the place, and I apologize.) For whatever reason football writers seem to be less influenced by race than baseball writers. I know, I couldn’t believe it either. Fans and TV announcers, on the other hand…
THING: Local boy with cancer turns into a superhero for a day by the Seattle Times. Half the town of Seattle conspired with Make-A-Wish to give superpowers to a 13-year-old with life-threatening liver cancer. If you can make it through this article without misting up, your not-crying muscles have superpowers of their own.

Bonus

This piece is entitled “Tea with Tyson,” as in Mike Tyson, and as in discussing tea with him. The following three minutes will rank among the best fifteen minutes of your day, unless if you’ve saved Seattle from Dr. Dark today:

Thing: The Revenge of the Brands: How corporate America turned Naomi Klein’s anti-branding manifesto on its head from Reason. Intended as an anti-marketing call-to-arms, Naomi Klein’s No Logo has actually wound up as the blueprint for modern branding. When corporations are tripping over themselves to seem as uncorporate as possible, what’s left to subvert, anyway? Reason argues that, for Klein, “Writing about branding was only an excuse to talk about politics,” which explains her present lack of satisfaction at seeing corporate America playing by her rules. ELSEWHERE IN BRANDING: Ice Cube on co-opting the Los Angeles Raiders brand by force in the early ’90s.

Thing: Riders on the Storm by the New York Times. David Brooks, fresh off a 15-minute break spent dumping on Sandra Bullock for being the victim of infidelity, gets back to work by linking to some studies that declare internet users to be surprisingly open-minded clickers. “People who spend time on the most liberal sites are more likely to go to foxnews.com than average Internet users,” and vice versa. Sure, most of that cross-traffic can be chalked up to troll exchanges, but it’s reassuring to think more and more people might be finding common ground every day simply by being adventurous surfers. ELSEWHERE IN VIEWPOINTS: Design for the First World, a new blog that flips the “Design will save the world” notion — the idea that well-meaning while perhaps patronizing designers can solve developing-world problems just by being great designers who care really hard. DFTFW is soliciting solutions from developing-nation designers for first-world problems like obesity or having nothing to whine to Twitter about.

THING: Super Mario Bros Crossover via Rock Paper Shotgun. You can play through Super Mario Bros, warps and all, as Mega Man, Link, Metroid person, Castlevania man, or Contra guy. This is all you need to know. ELSEWHERE IN RETRO: The Industrialization of Traffic: Why Bicycles Are Faster Than Cars by No Tech Magazine.

BONUS!

You’ve seen parkour videos before, and some of them were ok, but none of them were as good as this one is:

Logorama by François Alaux

The 2009 Best Animated Short Acadamy Award-winner, and probably the strangest 16 minutes of your week, unless you’ve already been gunned down by Ronald McDonald this week.

[NSFW: Language]

Photoshop CS5 Content-Aware Fill Sneak Peek

This should not exist yet. John Gruber says it’s “indistinguishable from magic.”

But is there already a parody? Of course there’s already a parody.

Fantasyland

The next time some wet blanket takes issue with how much you care about your passions, remind them it could be a whole lot worse; you could be like the fantasy baseball mega-nerds (NO SERIOUSLY, these guys are OFF THE RESERVATION but GOD BLESS EM) in this documentary.