“Evan williams and Biz Stone have taken back Odeo from its backers to form part of a company focused on innovation through multiple products, rather than exit. It’s like a tech. startup version of the recent trend for private equity takeovers of public companies. But it could point to a better model for Internet startups — the model of normal companies like corner stores. Here’s why.” More: The Birth of Obvious Corp. at evhead.

“In October 2003 the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission placed 200,000 of Enron’s internal emails from 1999-2002 into the public domain as part of its ongoing investigations. The archive offers an extraordinary window into the lives and preoccupations of Enron’s top executives during a turbulent period. Read more about Enron’s demise on Wikipedia. Trampoline engineers used this data as testbed during development of the company’s SONAR technology. The result was so fascinating we decided to open it up and allow anyone to dig in. The Enron Explorer lets you investigate the actions and reactions of Enron’s senior management team as the noose began to tighten.”

“We love Apple. Apple knows more about ‘clean’ design than anybody, right? So why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of their product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have abandoned? A cutting edge company shouldn’t be cutting lives short by exposing children in China and India to dangerous chemicals. That’s why we Apple fans need to demand a new, cool product: a greener Apple.”

“In Beautiful Evidence, Edward Tufte says, ‘If you’re running a business, figure out how to pack a huge amount of information onto a single 11×17″ sheet of paper and print it out on a laserprinter, then give it to decision makers. With that one sheet of paper, they will have as much information as 15 computer screenfuls or 300 PowerPoint slides.’ So why don’t more web sites do this?”

“As the 120-ton space shuttle sits surrounded by almost 4 million pounds of rocket fuel, exhaling noxious fumes, visibly impatient to defy gravity, its on-board computers take command.”

“The purpose of this project is to document experiences — both good and bad — presented by the millions of EULAs (End User Licensing Agreements) as they are both designed and encountered, knowingly or otherwise. This project will only last 8 weeks or so as an academic endeavor, however, this site is designed with the hopes of fostering discussion, suggestion, exposition and implementation of EULAs (electronic and otherwise) in an effort to help define, describe and mediate the nature of agreements in the digital age.”

“Some notes on a presentation by Thomas Friedman, who I’ve somehow managed to unconsciously steer clear of. (Doesn’t help that his stuff is behind the NY Times paywall. If he really wanted to make the impact on this green stuff, he’d get the Times to move that stuff out in the open so us proles can link to it and discuss it.) Here’s Friedman’s five reasons why ‘this is not your father’s energy crisis’ (ie the 1970s)…”

“Open the case of your mobile (cell) phone. Do you see a round white sticker, similar to that in the first photo below? This is a water damage sticker, which changes colour if moisture gets into this bit of the phone, and will be used to void your warranty if your phone stops working for any reason… As a designer, I would much prefer to look at the problem as ‘How can we improve the sealing of phones so that water ingress is no longer a major problem?’ than ‘How can we design something to cover our backs and shift all the blame onto the user for our design fault?’” (Thanks kottke.org!)

“Found on a 37Signals blog, and accompanying comments. Apple’s Steve Jobs describing what he thinks is wrong with Microsoft’s upcoming Zune music player…”

“Y Combinator is now accepting applications for the winter 2007 funding cycle. It will take place in Mountain View, CA, from January through March 2007… How do we choose who to fund? The people in your group are what matter most to us. We use the animal test described in How to Start a Startup, plus, for technical people, the three tests we used for hackers.”

Guy Kawasaki interviews young people about technology. (Thanks Waxy!)

“No, neither Google nor YouTube is engaging in bubble-think — but watch for the onset of that condition in coming days and weeks, as the GoogTube deal gets turned into a valuation yardstick by hungry also-rans and competitors. ‘Let’s see, YouTube had X users and sold for $1.6 billion — therefore my company with 1/20th X users is worth at least $80 million!’ That sort of talk is cheap.”

“The spot: Singer John Mellencamp leans on the fender of a Chevy pickup, strumming an acoustic guitar. He sings, among other things, ‘This is our country.’ Meanwhile, a montage of American moments flies by: Rosa Parks on a bus. Martin Luther King preaching…”

“Nikon did what every major brand should be doing…it got out of its own way and let the real people that counted do the talking: their own consumers. Here’s the frame-by-frame: Nikon sent a bunch of their D80 cameras to a group of Flickr users and let them snap to their heart’s content. They took a bunch of submissions and used them as part of a 3-page spread, which ran in places like BusinessWeek…”

“Every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks ‘mass layoffs.’ That’s the term for more than 50 people losing their jobs at once. In August of this year, the total number of people hit by a mass layoff was 127,944. The number has been more than 100,000 every month except for one in the last decade.”