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BrandFlakesForBreakfast is right. JetBlue earns +10 humanity points for posting a YouTube video from its CEO instead of the standard press release on its website.

I’m seriously appreciating the musical tastes of CitizenFork.com. Their weekly playlists are more delicious than Multigrain Cheerios.

Jonathan Lethem has plagiarized together an entrancing paean to intellectual theft:

Artists, or their heirs, who fall into the trap of attacking the collagists and satirists and digital samplers of their work are attacking the next generation of creators for the crime of being influenced, for the crime of responding with the same mixture of intoxication, resentment, lust, and glee that characterizes all artistic successors. By doing so they make the world smaller, betraying what seems to me the primary motivation for participating in the world of culture in the first place: to make the world larger.

You might not agree with all of it, but boy howdy, is it a rollicking great read. Definitely do not miss the footnotes:

The effort of preserving another’s distinctive phrases as I worked on this essay was sometimes beyond my capacities; this form of plagiarism was oddly hard work.

Cf. this beautiful Slate photo-essay on visual plagiarism.

Michael Pollan, whose Omnivore’s Dilemma may have been my favorite book of last year, has an excellent essay in today’s New York Times Magazine.

Ratchet Up points to a video demo-ing software that let’s DJs rapidly remix music videos on the fly. The technique is a mix between fast sampling and beatboxing, and I’d be psyched to see it done live. Especially if the source video was this.

Before they were just talking, but now it’s reality: Brian Eno’s scoring Spore. (Walkerrific.)

By the way, speaking of open-source processes and design, I just learned about Architecture for Humanity’s plan for an Open Architecture Network:

By embracing open-source technology and removing barriers to the improvement, distribution, and implementation of well-designed solutions, we can, more than ever before, ensure that communities in need receive innovative, sustainable and, most importantly, dignified shelter. Since the mid-1990s, the sharing of information and technology has steadily gained popularity in the high-tech and arts communities. Why not adopt this approach in the area of humanitarian reconstruction and long-term development?

I’m a bit skeptical, but it’s also well-established that I’m a sap and an open-source triumphalist, so I wish them luck.

Clive Thompson asks the question of whether the U.S. is geographically unable to perceive global warming. Of course, I’m in Minnesota in January and my lake is still liquid, which suggests the answer is “No.”

Liquid!! There are still ducks on it!!

Street Musique, Syrinx and Walking: three works by the incredible Canadian animator Ryan Larkin. I think this is what you’d get if you mashed up Fantasia, The Science of Sleep, The Earthly Paradise, a Bill Plympton cartoon, and some pot brownies.

Then there’s the also-amazing short 3D documentary about Larkin’s life, Ryan (part 1 | part 2). (MetaFilterrific.)

What are the benefits of following the news?