Mike Newall in Metropolis covers the state of Frankford, NE Philadelphia

We moved around Philadelphia a lot growing up but I ended up back in Frankford in my 20s which leads it to have a special place in my bones. Mike Newall, for the new online publication “Metropolis”, has written a must read series on the challenges taking place there in “The Frankford Story”.

Two obits at NPR: one worthy, one not

NPR: In Memoriam: Sweet, Sad Rocker Vic Chesnutt

NPR: The Man Is Gone, But Long Live The Blogosphere (via Garret Vreeland). Jeff Jarvis knows blogging as well as anybody, but NPR should have talked to people who knew Brad Graham, or, as Garret suggests, were at least among his contemporaries in that first wave of blogging. He offered way more than the word ‘blogosphere’ to the history of blogging and way more to the world other than blogging. Check out this related Metafilter thread.

Rafe Colburn’s vote for Software Engineering’s “Trend of the Decade”

Check out Rafe’s thoughts on what he considers software engineering’s “Trend of the Decade”, Decentralized Process: More work done in public, public discussion of that work, and the introduction of new best practices have defined the trend of the decade — developers owning the processes under which they work. Hopefully it will continue in the next decade.

My perspective and experience says he’s right. And I gotta agree with his wish. Read the full post.

Well this explains why ‘Top 10’ stories are so popular

Spiegel: SPIEGEL Interview with Umberto Eco: ‘We Like Lists Because We Don’t Want to Die’:

The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order — not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries. There is an allure to enumerating how many women Don Giovanni slept with: It was 2,063, at least according to Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. We also have completely practical lists — the shopping list, the will, the menu — that are also cultural achievements in their own right.