Quick—before all these things get away from me:

Andrea Branzi’s birch and silver coffee set. I saw this a while ago and couldn’t remember where or who made it. Usually when that happens, the thing morphs in my head until the reality is disappointing when I come across it again. Not so here.

Celeste Biever on creating a conscious machine. And also in The New Scientist, “the first evidence that food bacteria can transfer genes to our own gut bacteria.”

Getting Jane Jacobs right. I’m convinced that a lot of people who talk the talk haven’t actually read Jane Jacobs at all. In fact, it’s probably time for me to reread.

Annie Hall’s fashion at Jezebel.

Look at all these complete books for download at Public Collectors, including an exhibition catalogue for the restaurant FOOD (Gordon Matta-Clark and co) and How To Build Your Own Living Structures.

Kate Kretz’s embroidery with human hair. See the shading detail, done with different colors. Out of all the flirtations art carries on with the abject, I think hair is the most interesting. It’s not straightforward like shit. Everyone knows the meaning of excrement, but most people haven’t really examined their discomfort with hair. People have visceral reactions to hair without a person attached, or even to hair that grows too far from the scalp of its owner, but it’s not always clear why.

Thin slicing and how the intensity of a smile predicts longevity. The big question is how the researcher is certain about the intensity of a single smile or a lot of smiles. I know someone who had a very vacant, unhappy childhood and a miserable teenagehood and has only recently begun to have a solid amount of happiness in his life; and I am always struck when I see pictures of him these days at how utterly different his smile now is from any I’ve ever known on his face, and I wonder at all the times I assumed he was happy when he laughed or smiled before… But that, I suppose, is a matter of deep dish slicing.