Friday Five: Links to take you to the weekend in style

I love The Eyeballing Game. (From Kottke.) My first score was 3.20. Second, 2.92. Third, 2.64.

These days, who doesn't need a concise encyclopedia of economics written by bigshot economists?

TED brings us a charming story by John Hodgman

Malcolm Gladwell on big ideas--I'm especially interested in the distinction between artistic and scientific genius and what that distinction means for, say, a liberal arts college making a huge move in the direction of interdisciplinarity

Also via Kottke (sorry, but you gotta see this!), a lovely photo set of Obama on the trail. "I loved that he cleaned up after himself before leaving an ice cream shop in Wapello, Iowa. He didn't have to. The event was over and the press had left. He is used to taking care of things himself and I think this is one of the qualities that makes Obama different from so many other political candidates I've encountered. Nov. 7, 2007."

Friday Five: Links to take you to the weekend in style

(Saturday edition)

From the Freakonomics blog, a brief and useful explanation of the financial upheavals

Map gallery of American ethnic geography, which is so interesting that I recommend it in spite of the vexing PDF format of the maps

Gopnik on Babar

The Big Picture on Hurricane Ike

Via boingboing, Michael Hughes's souvenirs photoset, which explains itself

Friday Five: Links to take you to the weekend in style

Back from a vacation week, and published on Saturday, but that lacks the alliteration I require:

I know I shouldn't link to Nate Silver every week, but I blame him for writing something irresistible every time. This time around it's the best strategic analysis I've seen of the Biden choice.

Merlin Mann on kicking ass with outcome-based thinking. I especially like the Foo for Bar formulation.

Via Very Short List, a great little accent identification game, with creepy patriarchal and colonialist undertones brought to you by Rudyard Kipling.

A good piece on humiliation, China, and the Olympics: "In 2001, the National People's Congress even passed a law proclaiming an official 'National Humiliation Day.'"

And following an impeccable pass of the baton, Errol Morris runs the anchor leg analyzing photography as a weapon.