• Google Chart API
  The Google Chart API lets you dynamically generate charts.

• Flip
  Type in text, it flips it upside down. Link via Jwest.
• Table of Condiments That Periodically Go Bad
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• Brian Smith’s powerpoint on data feed optimization
  Comparison Shopping Engine Presentation for ECMTA Spring Summit
• SEOmoz | Lessons from the Domain Roundtable
  Rand Fishkin blogged about Matt Cutt’s presentation
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• Automatic Patch-Based Exploit Generation
  Attackers can simply wait for a patch to be released, use these techniques, and with reasonable chance, produce a working exploit within seconds. Coupled with a worm, all vulnerable hosts could be compromised before most are even aware a patch is availabl
• Growing meat without growing animals. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine
  Lab meat
• BLDGBLOG: Hotels in the Afterlife
  Vienna’s excellent Architekturzentrum will be hosting a new photography show, opening this Wednesday, April 24, called Sinai Hotels.
  With images by Sabine Haubitz and Stefanie Zoche of Haubitz+Zoche, the show looks at “the concrete skeletons of five-star

• Village Voice > Jason Beghe on Scientology: The Full Interview
• Frank Sinatra Has a Cold by Gay Talese - Esquire
  “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” ran in April 1966 and became one of the most celebrated magazine stories ever published, a pioneering example of what came to be called New Journalism — a work of rigorously faithful fact enlivened with the kind of vivid storyt
• 12 Step Program for Comparison Shopping Engine Management
• Domain Tools: Whois Lookup and Domain Suggestions
  Wildcard search of all current/deleted/expired whois domains.
• Want to be in the Affiliate Summit Magazine? | Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

This weekend at UCLA is the annual LA Times Festival of Books.  I’ll be heading to the presentation of the LAT Book Prizes the evening before, and then at the festival all day, both days.  If you’ve never gone before, you should try to head up to UCLA for a little - the Festival is one of the best things about LA.

Here’s my itinerary … drop me a line if you’ll be at any of these panels:

Saturday

10:00 AM
Nonfiction From the Streets (Panel 1101)
Moderator Ms. Jill Leovy
Mr. Miles Corwin
Ms. Celeste Fremon
Mr. Dashaun Morris

11:30 AM
Gay Talese In Conversation with Tim Rutten (Panel 1032)
Interviewer Mr. Tim Rutten
Mr. Gay Talese

2:30 PM
Current Interest: Right & Left ( Panel 1053)
Moderator Mr. Jim Newton
Mr. Eric Alterman
Mr. David Frum
Ms. Arianna Huffington
Mr. Dan Schnur

4:30 PM
Ray Bradbury with an Introduction from Sid Stebel (Panel 1054)
Introducer Mr. Sid Stebel
Mr. Ray Bradbury

Sunday

10:00 AM (Panel 2101)
The Future of News
Moderator Mr. Michael Parks
Ms. Cinny Kennard
Mr. Russ Stanton
Mr. David Talbot

12:30 PM (Panel 2122)
Contentious Ground: The Middle East
Moderator Mr. Zachary Karabell
Mr. Reza Aslan
Mr. Chris Hedges
Mr. Elias Khoury
Ms. Amy Wilentz

1:30 PM
Current Interest: Latin American Identities (Panel 2043)
Moderator Ms. Marjorie Miller
Mr. Jorge Castañeda
Ms. Ann Louise Bardach
Dr. Pamela Starr

2:30 PM
Walter Mosley in Conversation with Michael Silverblatt (Panel 2123)
Interviewer Mr. Michael Silverblatt
Mr. Walter Mosley

• Startup School 08 | Omnisio
  All of the lectures / slides from Y Combinator’s Startup School 2008.
• Sprout Builder - Create living content.
  Novice flash widget design

• Why Bother? by Michael Pollan [NY Times]
  Why go through the trouble of personal sacrifice for the sake of the environment?
• Y Combinator Startup School - Streaming Video
• What Matt Cutts Said at Domain RoundTable 2008 - John Andrews - johnon.com

While in Dutton’s today, I thought about an accelerating trend marking my past 3 years in LA - the shuttering of local bookstores (a trend that doubtless is occurring across the country - Coliseum Books comes to mind).

It’s weird that I’ve come to witness the tail end of some really beloved institutions like Dutton’s.  Here are a few LA bookstores that I’ve had the chance to explore… and have since disappeared from the face of the earth:

• Johnny’s Used Books (in Westwood)
• Other Times Books (on Pico Blvd, owned by Andrew Dowdy)
• Dutton’s Beverly Hills
• Dutton’s Brentwood (in a week)

And the thing is - these are all just in West LA … all less than 5 miles from each other.  What an inordinate amount of closings in such a small area.  I’ve yet to make it down to Acres of Books in Long Beach… but they’re apparently next on the chopping block.

I don’t know what to make of it, but It’s always sad to see a good store (bookseller or otherwise) close its doors.

I try not to be too nostalgic about the passing of an age.  I could just as easily have wrote about how it’s gotten a lot cheaper to build a library of used books thanks to online shopping and the new generation of blogs, meetups, and forums that are supplanting the independent bookstore as social institution.

I can’t begrudge the literary consumer for wanting to buy books more conveniently and for less money.  But no matter what, the old man in me does still mourn the declining pastime of reading books for leisure.

• How to Get Customer Service via Twitter - ReadWriteWeb

If any of you folks follow the ridiculous (if sometimes funny) videos of 1938 Media, you’ve got to admit that videos with puppets are just always better. I’m reminded of Triumph the insult comic dog - the guy wouldn’t have been nearly as funny without the puppet. The list goes on. Well, you can buy your own puppet collection at the comparably cheap price of $90 for 6 puppets.

Ridiculous. But now I kinda want some puppets to torment my girlfriend with.

• Seth’s Blog: Thinking about Bizdev
• Seth’s Blog: Business development
• Soocial • Hassle-free contacts
  Address book/contact management

• How to Get Piles of Links, Subscribers and Comments
• Front Page of The Press of Atlantic City
  The front page of my hometown newspaper, refreshed daily.

• New analysis: California in for a devastating quake within 30 years
  Scientists are calculating that the probability of a magnitude 6.7+ earthquake hitting somewhere in CA in the next 30 years is now more than 99 percent. And 2-1 odds that a quake of this magnitude hits LA. Yikes.