A collection of articles and posts that I have been reading over the course of the past week.

• Wired.com: Twitter’s New Political Index Proves Big Data Knows What You’re Thinking – It’s about time Twitter started to use their data for purposes like this. I’m sure they have other ideas like this up their sleeve, and I would bet that everyone who has built applications off of Twitter should be somewhat concerned. If Twitter decides to turn off the hose, and do this all in-house, there goes a market. I am not really sure this will happen since it is such a vibrant ecosystem, and Twitter couldn’t possibly do everything in it, but it could happen.
• Fast Company: Hate Small Talk? These 5 Simple Questions Will Help You Work Any Room – This is awesome and I’m happy they posted this article. Networking is such a key skill that people should learn it formally in high school (or more formally than just “keep your resume polished” and “look someone in the eye when talking to them and applying for an internship”. Some great tips and pointers in there.
• NYtimes: Power Outages Hit 600 Million in India – India’s infrastructure is so dismal that I am surprised it is still even mentioned in the same sentence as Russia, Brazil and China.
• The Economist: Same Old Song – I’ve always wanted to have my music library generate songs based on my mood; this further proves that within my lifetime a company or business could achieve such a product with great accuracy.
• The Economist: Les Miserables – European entrepreneurs aren’t too happy about their prospects at the moment (they have every reason to feel that way), and that is not good.
• My Modern Metropolis: Impressive Lego Olympic Stadium Made From 100,000 Bricks – Love this!
• Fast.co Design: Why Branding Is An Artifact of the Past – “Brands are valuable, so you need to go to work to make brands. There’s a category mistake at work here. Money isn’t valuable because the paper it’s made of is valuable. It’s valuable because we all agree it’s valuable. Society creates that value, not the printing presses or the mints or the chaps in storybooks who cut pound notes out with scissors.” A pretty big assault on brand tracking and the purpose behind brand value, but great read nonetheless.
• TechCrunch: The Protein Echo Reduces All of Your Credit Cards To One Ubercard – Great technology, but I would be worried carrying that around in my wallet especially since my cards usually break because of how I sit on my wallet.
• NYTimes: Still Puritan After All These Years – Presented without comment.
• Wired.com – Raging Bulls: How Wall Street Got Addicted to Light-Speed Trading – Not really sure how government intervention can stop any of this because it has been so loosely regulated for so long. Going to be difficult to reign it in as we race to the bottom.