Wired

In our weekly link rundowns, I usually try to present three great links you may have missed.

But this week was strong internet.

Five.

• For your next love letter or grocery list or PUT DOWN MY SANDWICH note, wouldn’t you like to use the actual letterhead of Elvis Presley, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Johnny Cash, or whatever Robot Salesmen Ltd is? Thing: Letterheads of famous people
• Most articles about How Google Works are actually about How Much The Author Likes Google. Leave it to Wired to dig into how Google’s system of algorithms, basically a machine made of robots made of math, learned that when a human types hot dog, the goal is almost certainly to see something like this, not something like this. Thing: Exclusive: How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web
• You’ve already made your mind up on how you feel about this link from Reason. Thing: Everyone Who Knows What They’re Talking About Agrees with Me
• The way people freaked out about Napster, claiming it would end the music industry, is similar to the way people freaked out about VCRs killing the movie industry. Similarly, the way people freak out about sharing personal location information on Foursquare/Twitter is similar to the way people used to freak out about answering machines and listing wedding notices in the local newspaper. Thing: Regarding Foursquare and PleaseRobMe (SIDE NOTE that proves how NEVER SCARED we are: In all the PleaseRobMe hysteria, I up and joined Foursquare myself, and so did Ben. You ain’t a crook, son.)
• Recently the Guardian ran a series of writing advice lists by successful writers. NY Mag distills them all into a single top ten. Thing: The Best Writing Advice of the Best Writing Advice

Also, regarding this post’s stupid, stupid title: here’s proof Johnny Cash would’ve loved Foursquare…

• Phenomenal (and brief) must-read: Clive Thompson on the New Literacy. You know how certain elderly saints o’ the Lord hang on to the notion that all these fly-by-night SMS-chatblogging and social-textbooking fads are bad for the children’s writing skills? That these flash-in-the-pan wikitubers are robbing themselves of literacy with every single e-minute spent deleting spreadsheets willy-nilly on the Wii-game and the digi-puter? Because back in my day we learned how to write Honus Wagner’s name in cursive by torchlight, back when a person applied for a job at the Pony Express without needing an app forum 2.0 motherboard widget WIDGET, and now they’ve got these portable gang phones with the RAM modules and the CNN quiz shows by satellite!?

I’ve been saying it myself for years, but you’ll likely find a new Stanford study a little more convincing: turns out writing — even if it means Flickr-hacking out some status-cyberspams on the whoozy-Twitterzit while uploading entire iTunes to your buddy lists — is good for your writing. Embrace it: the internet is good for you, but even better for your kids.

• Kurt Vonnegut explains drama. I don’t need to say anything more here.
• Seth Godin on what you compare yourself to to what you compare yourself. The best restaurant in the Atlanta airport doesn’t strive to be a great airport restaurant; it strives to be a great restaurant. Otherwise, he hates Atlanta’s airport restaurant scene. “We don’t compare ourselves to other airport restaurants”

BONUS: The Godfather 3 Syndrome, finest of the many things written about Jay-Z and Raekwon this week.

• Repentant KKK leader reflects on the moment when hate succumbed to grace.

  (Grace as in “mercy,” but also grace as in “charm,” right?)

• Thoroughly enjoyed Wired’s series on the ultimate mystery that is the existence, let alone dominance, of Craigslist. More here, here, and here, every bit of it worth marveling at in hushed wonder.
• Young fellow plays an obscure instrument known in southern Philadelpha as a “pens & desk.” While rapping!
  

This reminds me of my semester as a middle school student teacher. There was one kid who didn’t like class stuff, but loved writing raps. Obviously, I encouraged him to write rhymes then.

We had a free period one day, and he was spitting while another kid banged on a table. Most of the other students were trying to read, so I uttered a sentence that may never have been spoken before or since: “Guys, please rap quietly to yourselves.”

While bloggers are known to nerd out at the idea that we’ll wake up tomorrow to see Twitter or Facebook (or Bing!) have taken Google’s throne, the near future likely looks more like this:

Cool Search Engines That Are Not Google

Instead of a Cold War between Google and the social media giants, doesn’t it seem more feasible that people will rely less on one engine for everything? Collecta is a better real-time search engine than Twitter (and, therefore, MUCH better than Google), but is it better than Almost.at?

Clearly, one search engine cannot meet every need. And, with the explosion of mobile apps, average users are more comfortable than ever with the idea of using different software tools for different tasks.

To use a particular example, I spent a couple hours last weekend comparing football ticket prices at several different broker sites. With FanSnap, I could’ve spent a couple minutes. Sure, Google could come up with something similar, but do we really need them to?