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100 Most Creative People

Fast Company lists the 100 most creative people.

This year's 100 Most Creative People offers our own, idiosyncratic perspective on business. The selections reflect the breadth of news ideas and new pursuits at play in our business landscape. From interface designer Yugo Nakamura to HBO Documentary Films president Sheila Nevins to futurist Ray Kurzweil, we can attest that creativity is alive and well in 2010.

Interesting layout too: each person's profile also displays feeds from their various online social media accounts such as their Flickr, blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.

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What's so Strange about Japan?

A provocative and informative essay by Lisa Katayama for Boing Boing that tackles the question--"Why do so many love to gawk at this mysterious, foreign "other" that is Japanese culture?" --changed the way I read the Internet and provided some context to what I see. I highly recommend it.

One important premise of Japanese popular culture is the commitment to have fun and not take offense. Japanese humor works on many different levels and its nuances can be hard to explain to people who didn't grow up with it.

If you're one of those people who watched our wedding video between the man and his DS girlfriend and said things like: "He's such a loser" "He takes it too seriously LOL" and "God help this poor soul" — not to mention the racist comments about Japs and nukes and one-inch dicks — you just don't get it. You're not in on the joke. You're the one taking it too seriously, and you might be imposing your own biases and hang-ups on someone else's situation.

Being majime (too serious) is not cool in Japan; likewise it is important for voyeurs of Japanese culture to recognize that most everything pop-culture-y that is exported to the West comes at us with a wink. If you're all up in arms about it, then maybe the joke is on you.

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YouTube's First Video Ever

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw] This boring and dull clip was the first video uploaded on YouTube. Co-founder Jawed Karim posted it on 8:27 pm on April 23, 2005.

According to his Wikipedia profile, before YouTube, he also designed and implement as chief architect "many of the core components of PayPal, including its real-time anti-fraud system." And if you're reading this while pondering your next step in your career, let me add to your depression with this final bit of tidbit: Karim enrolled in grad school (Stanford for computer science) after he founded YouTube. When Google acquired YouTube, he received 137,443 shares of stock, which is worth as of today $74,837,713.

I think staying in on a Saturday night really worked out in the end for him. His mom however isn't a fan of YouTube: "There are too many crazy things on it. I would wish it was 95 percent science and 5 percent silly stuff, but it's the opposite." I think by crazy she means awesome.

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Talib Kweli Fact

The other night, I learned from my roommate's friend who is a law student at Columbia that Talib Kweli Greene's brother Jamal Greene is a professor of constitutional law at Columbia Law. There is entirely way too much talent in that gene pool!

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How Airplanes are Repossessed

Engrossing article in Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine on Nick Popovich, the repo man of airplanes of the $150 million jumbo jets and presidential variety.

A U.S. financier had hired Popovich to snatch a Boeing 720 from a tour operator in Haiti who was in default. Though the aircraft had a book value of only $600,000, an airport manager refused to release it unless a million dollars was deposited in a Swiss bank account. Having made arrangements with an entrepreneurial Port-au-Prince airport employee, Nick showed up around midnight with an air starter (720s lack an onboard auxiliary power unit to start engines). The field had been closed for hours when the team fired up the big turbofans. As he began adding power, Popovich says, “I saw the first tracer rounds streak over the top of the airplane.”

Coming to a theater near you in 2011 starring Nicholas Cage.

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BASE Jumping off Jesus

Back in the previous century (actually 1999, but saying it that way makes it seem so ancient, rite??) Felix Baumgartner BASE jumped off the outstretched right hand of the famous statue of Christ overlooking Rio de Janeiro. And he saw that the jump was good. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-PsviSStA8]

[Via]

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