The first data set they analyzed was on the economic productivity of American cities, and it quickly became clear that their working hypothesis — like elephants, cities become more efficient as they get bigger — was profoundly incomplete. According to the data, whenever a city doubles in size, every measure of economic activity, from construction spending to the amount of bank deposits, increases by approximately 15 percent per capita.

A Physicist Turns the City Into an Equation on NYTimes.com. A fascinating article about some constants between cities, and a bit at the end about how laws are different for corporations.

But blogging perseveres–as it should. It is a place where context, thoughtfulness and continuity are rewarded with inbound links, ReTweets, bookmarks, comments and Likes. Blogs are the digital library of our intellect, experience, and vision.

Brian Solis on The State of the Blogosphere 2010.

Mystery Surrounds Cyber Missile That Crippled Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Ambitions, such a cool story.

Groupon has been in the news lately as a rumored 6 billion dollar acquisition target, and of course their blog is powered by WordPress. On that fact alone I’d say, go for it Google!

It’s not that the terrorist picks an attack and we pick a defense, and we see who wins. It’s that we pick a defense, and then the terrorists look at our defense and pick an attack designed to get around it. Our security measures only work if we happen to guess the plot correctly. If we get it wrong, we’ve wasted our money. This isn’t security; it’s security theater.

Bruce Schnier on why airport security is A Waste of Money and Time in the New York Times.

Sylvester Stallone’s website is WP-powered. (I saw The Expendables last night.) Also, am I imagining things or did I read a longish profile of Stallone that talked about his production company, his office, the legacy of Rocky… can’t find it anywhere and search on my Kindle is broken.

New VaultPress security scanning, scans all your core files to make sure they’re kosher.

How To: Build a private collaboration site on WordPress.com in 5 minutes.

Akismet just passed 20 Billion Served.

Top 15 Blogging Best Practices, which I found via the Share the Word blog.

I’ve seen two interesting online short films recently, and I’d recommend both (if you’re above 18). The first is “I’m Here” by Spike Jonze, a love story, which you can see on its official Absolut-sponsored site or on Youtube through these Ebert links. The second is Kanye’s new bizarre but gorgeous short film Runaway, viewable on YouTube, which features the beautiful Selita Ebanks. Both are about 30 minutes long, and will have you thinking and talking to your friends.

Philip Leigh writes about The Implications Of Blogging for MediaPost. “[M]uch like the printing press transformed publishing, the true cultural significance of blogging — which is only incipient at present — will be a consequence of its production process.”

Two fun launches today: FoodPress is a new collection of the best WordPress food writing in the world, right now from .com only. Don’t visit if you’re hungry. 🙂 Second, we’ve launched the WordPress mobile app for Nokia and it’s in their Ovi store. Update: And a bonus, check out the slick new design on Akismet that just launched.

John Medina, the author of one of my favorite books Brain Rules, is going to be at Automattic’s office tomorrow (Tuesday the 2nd) at 5 PM to have some after-work drinks and give a short talk. We’ve reserved some seats for the SF WordPress community to come by, and we even have free copies of his books for the first 30 people to show up. RSVP is required, so register here. Hope to see a few of you guys there!

I first posted about Jane Kim in 2004, on my first visit to San Francisco. Fast-forward 6 years and she’s President of the School Board and going for District 6 Supervisor in tomorrow’s elections. If you’re in San Francisco, or know someone cool who is, check out her website and keep her in mind at the polls tomorrow. Tomorrow will also be my first time voting in person instead of by mail, which I expect to be annoying but worth it Update: And she won!