1. An average piece of steel manufactured in 1998 was vastly different from an average piece of steel made in 1950. Both pieces weighed approximately the same, but the one made recently is far superior in performance because of the amount of design, research, and knowledge that went into its creation. Its superior value is not due to extra atoms, but to extra information.

  2. Infographideo (new word!) of Sprint’s efforts to restore connectivity after Hurricane Kartina.

  3. Python 3 will zoom forward at PyCon 2010 with the incorporation of Unladen Swallow, a performance-boosting branch of Python initiated by engineers from Google. First made public at PyCon 2009, Unladen Swallow is already accelerating Python applications at several companies. Now the Unladen Swallow team plans to merge their code into Python 3’s codebase, promising big speed improvements to Python 3 and a major new incentive for Python programmers to adopt the next-generation version of the Python language.

  4. Khoi Vinh, Design Director of The New York Times, will play against Nicholas Felton, designer, blogger and creator of the Feltron Annual Reports. Layer-by-layer commentary will be provided by blogger John Nack, a dude with his name on the Photoshop splashscreen.

    The Third Season of Layer Tennis begins in 13 hours.