Jay-Z and Mary J. Blige on “You’re Welcome“
Jay-Z and Rick Ross on “Maybach Music“

An interesting conclusion from Karrie Jacobs:

If Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House fails, it will not be because her logo looks like a thousand other flag-wrapped identities, or because her typeface bears a strong resemblance to Kerry’s wimpy serif font. No, it will be because she couldn’t quite whittle down her message into a single forceful idea. Obama’s sunrise speaks eloquently of “change.” McCain’s star and bar shout warrior. By contrast, Clinton’s stars and stripes are not that different from Mike Huckabee’s stars and stripes. Maybe they’re intended to speak of her “experience” but they also send an unwanted message: “more of the same.”

An excellent piece from David Wolman on Autistic:

By the mid-1990s, [Laurent] Mottron was a faculty member at the University of Montreal, where he began publishing papers on “atypicalities of perception” in autistic subjects. When performing certain mental tasks — especially when tapping visual, spatial, and auditory functions — autistics have shown superior performance compared with neurotypicals. Call it the upside of autism. Dozens of studies — Mottron’s and others — have demonstrated that people with autism spectrum disorder have a number of strengths: a higher prevalence of perfect pitch, enhanced ability with 3-D drawing and pattern recognition, more accurate graphic recall, and various superior memory skills.

Chris Anderson’s “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business“:

The rise of “freeconomics” is being driven by the underlying technologies that power the Web. Just as Moore’s law dictates that a unit of processing power halves in price every 18 months, the price of bandwidth and storage is dropping even faster. Which is to say, the trend lines that determine the cost of doing business online all point the same way: to zero.

NPR profiles Bill Evans, one of my favorite jazz pianists:

His early work impressed trumpeter Miles Davis, who invited Evans to join a band that included saxophonists Cannonball Adderley and John Coltrane, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb. Together with pianist Wynton Kelly, they recorded the seminal Kind Of Blue.

Neal Ulevich, a photographer in the war, returned to Saigon to capture the changes.

Goddamn, Mariah. You sexy beast.

What a gorgeous site for Jesus Christ, The Son of God.

The ladyboy had a spark when she first started, but now she’s just garbage. Cindy Thai Tai’s second release, Hoi Ve Voi Em, replaces the bittersweet pop-jazz flavor with tasteless remixes.

Can’t blame her though. Songbird Cindy is no longer a lonesome soul. She is now a “Woman In Love” and she’ll do anything to get you into her world. From “Bay Ngay Doi Mong” to “Hay Ve Voi Em” to “Nu Hon Ngot Ngao” to “Gap Nhau Lam Ngo,” the ladyboy is now in love. She even declares love on “I Feel Love,” a track has nothing but an up-tempo beat with the title repeats throughout.

It’s too bad because her vocals showed tremendous improvement—wider range and fluid flow—yet she flushes herself down the toilet trying to please the club heads.

Damn! The Metro was mad crowded