Why did we evolve personalities? I also recommend reading the full NYTimes article on animal personality research.

Edward Tufte, the master of data visualization, has come up with Sparklines, which is a very compact way of displaying large amounts of quantitative data.

A Stanford research project is working on allowing refocusing at various depths from a single exposure. Coincidentally, I met Ren (one of the people involved) at my climbing gym the other night.

Hany Farid is devising algorithms to detect fake art. Hany was a prof at Dartmouth while I was there, in fact I seriously thought about doing a thesis with him.

IDEO takes a stab at redesigning the business card.

The Wand is a cute little movie about what happens when a guy finds a magic wand.

FlySpy seems like it will be a very cool new online travel site.

Ishkur’s guide to electronic music will finally allow you to tell the difference between eurobeat, acid jazz and disco house.

Great article on OXO’s design process. OXO consistently comes up with great, innovative products.

Why french bread tastes better. The explanation that I’ve heard most often is that it’s due to the quality of the inputs – supposedly French flour and butter are better for these sorts of things.