Here’s a terrific podcast from NPR’s Ira Glass explaining how greed, conformity and lack-of-oversight made all that money go away. If you prefer a visual presentation, you can’t do much better than this from graphic designer Jonathan Jarvis.

A blogger calling himself Jon Swift has created a twisted view on the world, obviously aspiring to live up to the master satirist Jon Swift who wrote Gulliver’s Travels, and largely succeeding. He spouts intentionally bizarre, sometimes quite off-putting opinions along the lines of Stephen Colbert, or a more-intellectually-inclined Borat. Included here are his contributions to Amazon.com’s Customer Reviews, all of which start out with the phrase “I have not actually read this book but…”

Here is a link to a page from a site called ThinkingPeace.com. It led me to this particular book, World on Fire by Amy Chua, which is an eye-opening look at how emerging globalization and emerging democracy around the world can and has led to violence and xenophobia as ethnic minorities that control economies of many nations, such as the Chinese in Indonesia, or whites in Zimbabwe, become scapegoats for the problems of the nations’ majority populations.

This video produced by the French design firm H5 with hypnotic music by the Norwegian band Royksopp, displays a beautiful mix of information and graphics, utilizing charts, maps and diagrams. (You might recognize the tune from one of those popular Geico caveman commercials).

As you might know, I’m a big fan of Fountains of Wayne. Here’s some sincere flattery of their sound, created by Robbie Fulks. So if you’re stuck in a musical rut, and can’t write a catchy song, just pick up the phone and call the master songwriters…Call the “Fountains of Wayne Hotline!“

The horrors of September 11, 2001 might have been avoided if TPTB (The Powers That Be) had paid more attention to FBI agent John O’Neill. Instead he was marginalized. Here is a profile of O’neill produced by the PBS show Frontline; it tells his amazing story, which has a shocking ending.

Nick Bostrom, philosophy professor at Oxford University, sees the possibility of inhabitable computer simulations and “post-human” life. Strange stuff. Read it here. There is an interesting video dialogue (or “diavlog”) that touches on this subject here at bloggingheads.tv.

Are new hand-held devices, which are proliferating wildly, being designed to accommodate older users with deteriorating eyesight? Today’s 20 and 30-year-olds are tomorrow’s 40 and 50-year-olds. I am 48, and can barely read the screen on my cellphone. This is an important aspect of product design that I hope is not ignored in the hot race to appeal to young consumers. Here’s a post on a forum of a Wall Street Journal article about a old-user friendly phone.

When will we see some fast food that’s healthy? It shouldn’t be hard to make something cheap, tasty and easy-to-prepare that’s not heavy with trans-fats, processed grains and sugar. I think the U.S. food market is ready for it…but the people here disagree.

Here’s a quite amusing video for Simpsons fans to enjoy!