• Font Generator — Make Your Own Handwriting Font With Your Fonts
  Pretty neat. Haven't done it yet, but once I get myself in front of a scanner I will.

• A #fooeast takeaway: Some journalists cling to the idea that the value of what they do goes without saying. It doesn't, so start saying it. #

• The New York Times Global Edition
  Enhanced with IHT content.
• The Line of Deforestation Between the Dominican Republic and Haiti
• One Mouse Per Child
• all streets | ben fry
  Neat visualization of the U.S., as told by its roads.
• Hands Across America
  Jane and I got started talking about Hands Across America tonight (and I told her how it inspired my first great piece of artwork — "Hams Across America." Just like it sounds.) Flashback!

• Last night's #fooeast "beerstorming" (one huge problem + well, beers) totally goes into my pocket as an exercise for political gatherings. #
• Watching WH press conf on Tivo delay, so I only just tasted the deliciousness of "I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak." #
• Looking forward to @mattcoop's open gov meetup thingy tonight in NYC — http://bit.ly/opengov_nyc #

• Last night's #fooeast "beerstorming" (one huge problem + well, beers) totally goes into my pocket as an exercise for political gatherings. #

• Shatnez Testers of America
  Saw a dry cleaner on the Upper West Side advertising shatnez testing. It refers, it seems, to the Torah's prohibition of mixing wool and linen in a single piece of clothing.

• Social media rush as Victorian bushfires rage
  From last month, but a nice round-up of what happened on the social media front during the recent Australian fires.
• House Panel Questions Industry on Food Safety

• Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen
• How to Become a "Death of Newspapers" Blogger
• The Politico Is Transforming Our Approach To News
  Another angle on the atomization of news: "In the Internet-age…what matters is not the container, but the news nugget, the blurb, the linkable atom of information."

The really insane part? The whole mesmerizing thing is built on totally free (and, of course, Google-owned) software.

• Is a Food Revolution Now in Season?
  A catch-all piece on what's happening on the food front. In brief: Alice Waters's food politics are shifting from extreme to mainstream, though she herself hasn't moved a bit.
• Eating Food That’s Better for You, Organic or Not
  Bittman on how we're all mixed up about the virtues of organic and the real meaning of good food.
• Two Tents
  The imagined future(s) of Politico.
• ExecTweets
  A curious model. As a genius-exuding business executive, you can opt out. But you can't opt in for a slice of the ad dollars that your wisdom generates.
• Investigators Find Source of Many Foods Untraceable
  We really do embrace a sort of "black box food" mentality: "For a tomato, a bag of ice, a bottle of fruit juice and a bottle of water, investigators were not able to even guess the product’s supply chain."
• HBO's Depiction Of Mormon Ceremony Upsets Church

• Watching WH press conf on Tivo delay, so I only just tasted the deliciousness of "I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak." #

• MIT to make all faculty publications to be open access – Ars Technica
  And with no buffer period to boot.

• An Open Source Tax Credit
• Intellipedia Marks Second Anniversary — Central Intelligence Agency
• Genetic surveillance for all?
  Using familial DNA to track down criminal suspects.
• Informasjon fra Lovdata
  How Norway does open-access law. But seriously, I'm mostly bookmarking because of the name. Could "Lovdata" be any perfecter?
• Vanity Fair’s Fishy Tales From Iceland — New York Magazine
  Ruh roh. A bit of fact checking on some of Michael Lewis's more, ehem, colorful details. "I personally know no one on this island who believes in elves. Not one."
• Wall Street on the Tundra — Michael Lewis
  “Iceland is no longer a country. It is a hedge fund.”

One question above all others has stuck with me since my recent three-day jaunt over to Germany: what's with all the squishing together of words? Take Freidrichstrasse, for example. Strasse, from what I understand, simply means "street." I'm really not getting the benefit of smooshing together the proper name of the road with the noun itself. And then there's Bundespressekonferenz. Bunde is "federal." And presskonferenze is, obviously enough, "press conference." Is there a German tax on white spaces? The way that 47-letter words look incomprehensible at first glance puts a bit of fear in the stomachs of non-native speakers. Though I guess might be useful in and of itself.

I came here, though, not to condemn the convoluted German language but to highlight this thing called Bundespresskonferenz. As we in the States flail about a bit looking for some working models for how to manage a modern press (seriously, the look of pity in the eyes of journalists from abroad when they talk about the American press scene is a good deal unsettling), I find BPK intriguing.

From what I gathered from talking to a few new German friends and the Internet, the deal is thus: representatives from federal ministries are summoned before a few dozen select members of the press, who assemble every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in a beautiful conference center overlooking the Spree river. The press sets the topics, asks questions, and the ministers are put on the spot and expected to answer. It's the journalists running the show, not the principle. Watch Obama's press conference tonight to see how we do things a bit differently here.

• The layout of the White House garden

• Looking forward to @mattcoop's open gov meetup thingy tonight in NYC — http://bit.ly/opengov_nyc #

• How Chris Hughes Helped Launch Facebook and the Barack Obama Campaign
  Great reported piece on what it took to get MyBarackObama done.
• Google Co-Founder Is Backing a Vast Parkinson’s Study
  The highest-profile 23andMe-powered study thus far.
• Vegetable Garden Will Be Installed on White House Grounds
  Most excellent. It will be organic (in practice, if not in certification). But Michelle is savvy enough to talk about fresh fruits and veggies rather than drop words like organic and local.

• Sign that I might be a wee bit jet-lagged: just spelled "phase" as "faze" in an email. #
• Think I might have a serious crush on Berlin. But will hold off until I get home and have a clearer head to decide for certain. #
• About to brave the Berlin subway, despite knowing no German. If you don't hear from me, start the search at Friedrichstasse station. #
• Nothing to do w/ me, but yesterday's #sxsw #opengov conversation was, IMHO, just great. An extraordinary collection of people in that room. #
• For all you interested and in Austin, open conversation on #opengov, hosted by @sairy and me, starts at 3:30 in room D. Come on by. #swsx #
• Data is the new "plastics." You heard it here first. #opengov #sxsw #

• Sign that I might be a wee bit jet-lagged: just spelled "phase" as "faze" in an email. #