Category: Quickhit

[Business advice from Houdini](http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/580-five-marketingbusiness-lessons-from-harry-houdini). Actually, there’s a lot in that list which would work pretty well for politics or policy design too.

[A super computer in a chapel](http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/heavy-metal/marenostrum-the-worlds-most-gorgeous-super+computer-293608.php). If that photo doesn’t send a shiver down your spine, it’s because you’e never read Arthur C. Clarke’s [*The Nine Billion Names of God*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nine_Billion_Names_of_God).

Unstuck the post feed. It turns out when you tell WordPress to publish stuff in 2008, it doesn’t go ‘no, he probably didn’t mean that’ and publish them anyway…

[Olympus is releasing cameras that detect when you’re smiling](http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/digital-cameras/olympus-fe-series-cameras-have-smile-recognition-other-fun-features-up-to-12-megapixels-292473.php). Of course, because it’s an Olympus it will then take a further three seconds to actually *take* the photo. But it will be **exactly** three seconds after you smiled…

[Super deformed Star Wars plush figures](http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/plush/9405/). [Super Deformed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_deformed), in case you don’t know, is the art style where the character has a very big head, which started in Japan.

[TV personality Robert X. Cringely is leading an effort for a private moon flight](http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070927_003043.html). Given his previous efforts to [build a plane](http://www.amazon.com/Plane-Crazy-3pc-Gift-Set/dp/B00003A9RW), I greatly look forward to this one.

[Chilling story of how close World War III came in 1983](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/09/926-is-petrov-d.html). And the man who saved us all. I’m with [Megan McArdle](http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/spasebo_stanislav_petrov.php): Why is there not some kind of prize for this man. Possibly some kind of prize for creating peace?

[The American Institute of Graphic Art Year in Design selections](http://designarchives.aiga.org/) Hours and hours of clever graphic design here.

[John Cleese to start podcasting](http://tpn.thepodcastnetwork.com/2007/09/27/john-cleese-to-release-new-video-series-in-conjunction-with-the-podcast-network/). While I’m talking about The Podcast Network, I should mention that their [Napoleon 101](http://napoleon.thepodcastnetwork.com/) podcast is superb.

[A film projector from 1958](http://www.shorpy.com/project-management-1958). Having been involved in a film society, I can tell you that it looks pretty much (with a few small things only) like the ones in the back of small cinemas today. Still, I suppose when you’ve basically just got a big lightbulb, a shutter and a lot of film…