Excellent pieces on Deerhunter's Microcastle, M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes", and Wale's "Mixtape About Nothing." Easily one of my favorite music writers. I think it's the ethnomusicology background.

"'I thought I'd host an end of the world party, but the media might take it seriously.' —Stephen Hawking, reassuring that world was not due to end with the launch of the Large Hadron Collider."

God these are good.

Good rundown of some great and not-so-great logo redesigns in 2008.

A nicely designed list of the words of the year. Seems like half are from the election. Can't say I've ever heard of a "fish pedicure," but there it is.

Beijing held its formal opening ceremony today for the 2008 Summer Olympics. The ceremony, held in the National Stadium known as the Bird's Nest, was attended by thousands, and watched by millions more on television. Below are some highlights of the nearly 4-hour performance.