Friday Links: Best practices from fast-growing firms

• The Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal’s “Fast 50 Diary” latest entry is about best practices from fast-growing firms. You can read about what The Nerdery had to say in the News section.
• Author Neal Stephenson does a Reddit AMA.
• Lifehacker on how passwords are stored & when strength doesn’t matter.
• How a cheeseburger is made for a campaign, food-styling looks crazy and fun.
• Branding talk isn’t helping your company.
• Boing Boing on the ongoing The Oatmeal v. FunnyJunk circus.
• Surface vs iPad, a video mashup of the announcements of each device. Also, John Gruber on the new tablet.
• The next time you’re in Brussels, you should totally stay at The Pantone Hotel.
• How Apple seduces with the angle of its laptop screen. Fascinating.
• If you’re a book nerd, drunk texts from famous authors will make you laugh.
• What makes us laugh.