Well-Spoken Links

Okay, these are the links you should be reading on the Internet today.

• A smart diagram is the new clever writing: LeisureArts charts out my favorite snowclone. I covered similar topics before in The Story of America and Do you love words? The diagram is excerpted here.

• The New York Times reports on Justin Timberlake's new audience. "Unlike his former boy-band colleagues, Mr. Timberlake has even won over musicians who prefer lo-fi thrash to the slicker sounds of mainstream albums." These hipsters could have been five years ahead of the curve if they'd just have listened to me.

• Misidentified Black Person of the Week. A disturbingly familiar story about mistaken captions, which references my post about the same topic a couple of years ago. Somehow this really stuck with me, perhaps because I was reading this cogent explanation of the problem with "articulate" at the same time. "It is amazing that this still requires clarification, but here it is. Black people get a little testy when white people call them 'articulate'." So, two notes for editors: Get people's names right, and be respectful. Not so hard!

• Speaking of respect, Why didn't Prince get electrocuted while playing electric guitar in the rain at the Superbowl? Because he's Prince, people!

• So it turns out there actually may be some Hunanese origins for General Tso's chicken. I've been using General Tso's chicken as the definitive example of how I became clueful about eating good food ("It's not even a real Chinese dish -- I'm a dummy!"), but I like this story of how it's a creation of cross-cultural entrepreneurism even better. I wonder if my family members in Taiwan have ever tried the "delectable concoction of lightly battered chicken in a chili-laced sweet-sour sauce".

• I'm hoping danah won't be offended if I call her defense of walled gardens articulate. It's also thought-provoking, which is high praise indeed.

• On the flip side of the walled garden conversation is PB's ongoing onfocus series about getting off the grid. The technology here is interesting, but I'm enjoying watching the thought process behind the coding that Paul has been doing.

• And finally, Google is going to start to charge some businesses for Google Apps for Your Domain. I find that refreshing and reassuring.