Link roundup

1. Fast Company:

In the latest installment of Butterfly Effect, we examine China's cheap knockoff cell phones. After being forced out of China and India, Chinese counterfeiters brought their product to the Middle East, where the sudden availability of information had unintended consequences for the region--and for China itself.

2. Ben Wilson paints chewing gum.

3. Map of undersea cables from 1901. Via.

*Buy vintage maps at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. XKCD looks at The Magic School Bus.

2. Help Lev Grossman design a new crest for Brakebills (and if you haven't read it yet, go out and read The Magicians).

3. "U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion, sent by the planeload in cash and intended for Iraq's reconstruction after the start of the war." (William Gibson wrote a novel about it, actually.)

*Previously: My family crest.

Link roundup

1. Misconceptions about China.

2. Two lackluster reviews of Samsung's Chrome laptop. Tablets, I understand (although I'll wait until they're half the price). But mostly reading the review of the Chrome laptop I'm left wondering why anyone would buy such a thing instead of buying a Windows laptop with a Chrome browser.

3. If you're a Batman Brave and the Bold obsessive, the latest episode starring The Atom(s) was placed for sale at iTunes ($3) and Amazon ($2) before airing. Via.