A list of 100 skills every man should know. The annotated version of the list starts here. My dad taught me almost all of the skills you should teach your kids.
The Twelve Virtues of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky. From the top:
The first virtue is curiosity. A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance. If in your heart you believe you already know, or if in your heart you do not wish to know, then your questioning will be purposeless and your skills without direction. Curiosity seeks to annihilate itself; there is no curiosity that does not want an answer. The glory of glorious mystery is to be solved, after which it ceases to be mystery. Be wary of those who speak of being open-minded and modestly confess their ignorance. There is a time to confess your ignorance and a time to relinquish your ignorance.
DARPA is soliciting research proposals for people wishing to solve one of twenty-three mathematical challenges, many of which deal with attempting to find a mathematical basis underlying biology.
What are the Fundamental Laws of Biology?: This question will remain front and center for the next 100 years. DARPA places this challenge last as finding these laws will undoubtedly require the mathematics developed in answering several of the questions listed above.
(via rw)
Ten creative advertising ideas from students. The Smart Car and Match.com concepts are particularly clever.
In preparation for a panel at the New Yorker Festival, Ben Greenman put together a list of the five scariest movies of all time. I've never seen a horror movie (unless Blair Witch Project counts) so Silence of the Lambs would be my top pick.
A list of actors who deserve better careers. Quentin Tarantino should do a film starring all of these actors and raise their boats like he did with John Travolta.
Fifty things every great comics collection needs.
Because comic books are read in a way that we invest a lot of ourselves in the telling, because they're visual in nature, and because for generations they were among the only art forms available for a child to easily own, they can be powerful nostalgic items. It's always great to have a few comics around that you either remember reading or simply recall wanting more than anything in the world. You may be surprised by how much of your comics reading since has been shaped by those feelings.
As part of their monster 40th anniversary celebration, New York magazine has some notes from the past four decades of food and dining in NYC. Gael Greene remembers her favorite meal as a restaurant critic and also lists the 14 most important NYC restaurants over the past 40 years. No Union Square Cafe? Meyer deserves some credit for taking the stuffiness out of NYC dining.
Legendary chef André Soltner and David Chang share a conversation about the state of food in the city. When Soltner was asked if he did interviews, he replied:
If they came to Lutèce, if they came to my kitchen, yes. I would not go out. If they asked me to go to Chicago to do a fund-raising dinner, it was, "No." If they asked me to come to give me a prize or whatever, I said, "Only on Sundays, when I'm not in the kitchen." I was sort of a slave to my restaurant. And my wife too. I don't say it was right. Today, I maybe say it was wrong. Years ago, in Paris, we had no money. But when we were more comfortable, maybe twenty years later, I said, "Simone, you know, you've paid your dues and everything, I buy you whatever you wish." I was thinking to buy her a ring or a necklace or something like that. "Whatever you wish, tell me." She looked at me and said, "Take me to a movie." For twenty years, I hadn't taken her to a movie. I woke up. I said, "Oh my God, what did I do to my wife?"
And finally but wonderfully, a timeline of food in NYC. The first McDonald's opened here in 1972 and Starbucks in 1994. Hanger steak was big in 1990.
Best show poll results
Almost 4000 people have taken the best show on TV poll so now is a good time to take a look at the results. Here are the top five:
The Wire: 16%
The Simpsons: 8%
Seinfeld: 7%
Arrested Development: 7%
The West Wing: 6%
No other show got more than 4% of the total vote. As expected, The Wire topped the list1. Some notes:
- Arrested Development ranked 4th overall, way higher than I would have thought. People love this show more than the ratings and its duration (it was cancelled after 3 seasons) would indicate.
- The Sopranos was not in the top five. My feeling is that if this poll were conducted five years from now, it would rate higher...the influence this show has had on TV is only starting to be felt.
- Beavis and Butt-head beat out The Honeymooners for second-to-last place. Ralph and Alice deserve better.
- Shows I would have liked to see higher in the list: Deadwood, Sesame Street, The Sopranos.
- I love Seinfeld, but it was ranked too high. At 2%, Buffy got 2% more of the vote than I would have given it.
- Shows that some thought should be on the list: Law & Order (love the show but it defines formulaic TV), The Twilight Zone (perhaps), Doctor Who (again, love it, but nothing this cheesy can be the best show on TV), Sex and the City, Rome, Carnivale, Heroes, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Thanks to everyone who voted.
[1] I got some emails saying that The Wire ranked first only because I talk about the show so much on the site. That was probably a factor, but it's not like this is a Wire fan site or something. The poll wasn't that scientific anyway. Run a similar poll on Perez Hilton and American Idol might have won. Or on a site that appeals to 50-somethings and some of the older shows on the list might have done better. All this poll really shows is what people who like the kinds of things I post about on kottke.org also like to watch on television. (This was also not, as someone suggested, an attempt to gather information about viewing habits for advertisers. Duh.) ↩
How to identify interactive or new media art.
7. Someone in your audience wearing a Crumpler bag, slinging a fancy digital SLR and/or standing with their arms folded smugly says, "Yeah..yeah, I could've done that too..c'mon dude..some Perlin Noise? And Processing/Ruby-on-Rails/AJAX/Blue LEDs/MaxMSP/An Infrared Camera/Lots of Free Time/etc.? Pfft..It's so easy..."
(via russell davies)
A list of ten things that you didn't know about the earth. My favorite one, by far:
But what if you did dig a hole through the Earth and jump in? What would happen?
Well, you'd die (see below). But if you had some magic material coating the walls of your 13,000 km deep well, you'd have quite a trip. You'd accelerate all the way down to the center, taking about 20 minutes to get there. Then, when you passed the center, you'd start falling up for another 20 minutes, slowing the whole way. You'd just reach the surface, then you'd fall again. Assuming you evacuated the air and compensated for Coriolis forces, you'd repeat the trip over and over again, much to your enjoyment and/or terror. Actually, this would go on forever, with you bouncing up and down. I hope you remember to pack a lunch.
Note that as you fell, you accelerate all the way down, but the acceleration itself would decrease as you fell: there is less mass between you and the center of the Earth as you head down, so the acceleration due to gravity decreases as you approach the center. However, the speed with which you pass the center is considerable: about 7.7 km/sec (5 miles/second).
Fast forward to the year 2483 and we'll probably all be using such holes to quickly travel through the earth. Spain to New Zealand in 42 minutes! New York to the middle of the Indian Ocean? 42 minutes! I also recall reading somewhere that the tunnels don't need to run through the middle of the earth. You don't get the free fall effect, but with the proper contraption (mag-lev tunnel train?) you'll be pulled through the tunnel at a great speed. Does this ring anyone's bell?
Update: A bell has rung. The tunnels described above are called chord tunnels and the travel time through the earth in a frictionless chord tunnel is always 42 minutes, even if the tunnel is only a few hundred miles long or so (say from New York to Detroit). (thx, mike)
Update: In this short Nova clip, Neil deGrasse Tyson "demonstrates" a trip through the center of the earth. (thx, michael)
Best show on TV ever?
Just for fun, I whipped up a little poll based on the best show(s) on TV post the other day:
What's the best show that's ever been on television?
There are around 30 shows on the list; please consider all the options before choosing.
Production notes: My methodology can be described as "half-assed". I consulted a number of "best of" lists in choosing the shows -- not just the ones listed in yesterday's post -- and excluded some currently airing shows on which the jury is still out (e.g. 30 Rock, Mad Men) for lack of sufficient evidence. No miniseries allowed, episodic only. My feeling is that there are still too many show on the list (there are four or maybe five real choices) but I wanted to give people options. Also, unless the list is missing something *very* obvious, I'm not looking for additions so don't even think about Cmd-N'ing that mail message.
The best show on television, all of them
According to several TV writers, bloggers, and cultural critics, each of these is the best show on television.
The Wire
Lost
Friday Night Lights
Deadwood
30 Rock
The Daily Show
Battlestar Galactica
The Sopranos
Arrested Development
Studio 60
South Park
Veronica Mars
Six Feet Under
Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Dallas Cowboys
The Colbert Report
Mad Men
The West Wing
Mad Men is getting the most buzz lately but The Wire is still the high-water mark (in my opinion as well as the web's collective opinion according to Google). The Sopranos gets surprisingly little love as the top show, although its relatively weak competition back in the early 2000s perhaps means it didn't need to be said. The quality of television for the past 3-5 years is impressive...most of the shows listed above were all on at the same time.
The simple but strict rules for Road Runner cartoons.
1. Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going "beep, beep".
2. No outside force can harm the Coyote -- only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products.
3. The Coyote could stop anytime -- IF he was not a fanatic. (Repeat: "A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim." -- George Santayana).
4. No dialogue ever, except "beep, beep".
5. Road Runner must stay on the road -- for no other reason than that he's a roadrunner.
6. All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters -- the southwest American desert.
7. All tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme Corporation.
8. Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote's greatest enemy.
9. The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.
10. The audience's sympathy must remain with the Coyote.
Charles Miller argues that John Hodgman's PC character in the Mac vs. PC commercials is like Wile E. Coyote...likable but inept. (via df)
A list of fifty great arts video available on YouTube, including Joy Division playing on Granada Television in 1978, Jack Kerouac reads On the Road in 1959, and Jackson Pollock making one of his drip paintings in 1951.
Footnotes, Endnotes, and Parentheticals That Cost Me Marks on My Thesis.
3 Who, although a gifted academic, is still a douche.
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Paul_Sartre
Ten cool TV commercials done by movie directors. Ridley Scott's 1984 Apple ad makes the list along with spots by Messrs. Jonze and (Wes) Anderson. BTW, Jonze's Ikea commercial is superior to his Gap ad. (via self-employedsandwich)
I triple endorse every single one of these 17 simple rules for going to the cinema with me.
9. You will not involuntarily exclaim any of the following, or any derivatives of the following, ten minutes before and ten minutes after the end of the screening: "Oh SHIT! OUCH!", "Woah!", "Oooooooh!", "PAIN CITY!", "Holy [anything]!". Such exclamations are not involuntary. If you are a Tourette's sufferer, you will provide a confirmatory note from a registered and reputable practitioner of medicine before purchasing your tickets, whereupon you will be politely refused entry.
My insistence on the strict adherence to rule #1 is why I often find myself at the movies alone (sobbing quietly, friendless).
More from the bounty of Wikipedia: a list of all of the problems solved by MacGyver.
MacGyver creates a bomb to open a door using a gelatin cold capsule containing sodium metal, which he then places in a glass container filled with water. When the gelatin dissolves in the water, the sodium reacts violently with the water and causes an explosion which blows a hole in the wall. ("MythBusters" questioned the size of the explosion but verified that pure sodium does cause an exothermic reaction when mixed with water, just not enough to destroy a concrete wall.) The amount of sodium required to destroy a concrete wall would greatly exceed the size of a cold pill.
Despite the length of the page, the text warns that "this list is not yet comprehensive". (via gongblog)
A list of writing tips from Walter Benjamin.
Keep your pen aloof from inspiration, which it will then attract with magnetic power. The more circumspectly you delay writing down an idea, the more maturely developed it will be on surrendering itself. Speech conquers thought, but writing commands it.
I find that when I develop an idea for too long in my head, I forget most of it when I go to write it down. Once again proving that Walter Benjamin is a better man than I am.
Merlin Mann lists some attributes of good blogs.
Good blogs try. I've come to believe that creative life in the first-world comes down to those who try just a little bit harder. Then, there's the other 98%. They're still eating the free continental breakfast over at FriendFeed. A good blog is written by a blogger who thinks longer, works harder, and obsesses more. Ultimately, a good blogger tries. That's why "good" is getting rare.
Like Merlin, I'm discovering fewer and fewer good blogs these days. Part of it is that blogging as I would define it is passe. These days people are writing for online magazines like Gawker or Tumblring or Twittering or Facebooking or doing a million other things on the web. But people are also listening to a bunch of bad advice -- CALL NOW TO FIND OUT HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH BLOGS AND WE'LL THROW IN THIS JUICER ABSOLUTELY FREE -- instead of Merlin's level-headedness.
Ten people who have unusual medical conditions, including the woman who can't stop orgasming, the woman who is allergic to cell phones and microwaves, and the boy who can't sleep.
The top ten psychology videos includes footage of the Stanford Prison Experiment and Jill Boyte Taylor's TED talk about having a stroke. Surely this 45-min video about The Milgram Experiment should have been on the list.
A list of possible discoveries by the Large Hadron Collider and the probability of each discovery being made within the next five years.
The Higgs Boson: 95%. The Higgs is the only particle in the Standard Model of Particle Physics which hasn't yet been detected, so it's certainly a prime target for the LHC (if the Tevatron doesn't sneak in and find it first). And it's a boson, which improves CERN's chances. There is almost a guarantee that the Higgs exists, or at least some sort of Higgs-like particle that plays that role; there is an electroweak symmetry, and it is broken by something, and that something should be associated with particle-like excitations. But there's not really a guarantee that the LHC will find it. It should find it, at least in the simplest models; but the simplest models aren't always right. If the LHC doesn't find the Higgs in five years, it will place very strong constraints on model building, but I doubt that it will be too hard to come up with models that are still consistent.
The list also functions as a nice overview of what's happening at the edges of our physics understanding. (via 3qd)
Fourteen ways in which Starbucks has tried to revitalize its brand.
8. Ditch the underperformers: In July, Starbucks announced its closure of 600 stores. Check this map for a closure near you, or peep the full list. It's also dropping 61 of its 84 stores in Australia, and eliminating 1,000 support jobs (not including all layoffs due to stores closures).
Maggie collects the top ten stupidest ideas depicted on Flickr. These are pretty amazing.
A collection of books, compiled by Rex, by people who spent a year doing something and then wrote a book about it. Topics include competitive eating, not shopping, and reading the OED.
In October 2007, the International Documentary Association made a list of the 25 best documentaries.
1. Hoop Dreams (1994), Steve James
2. The Thin Blue Line (1988), Errol Morris
3. Bowling for Columbine (2002), Michael Moore
4. Spellbound (2002), Jeffrey Blitz
5. Harlan County U.S.A. (1976), Barbara Kopple
6. An Inconvenient Truth (2006), Davis Guggenheim
7. Crumb (1994), Terry Zwigoff
8. Gimme Shelter (1970), Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin
9. The Fog of War (2003), Errol Morris
10. Roger & Me (1989), Michael Moore
11. Super Size Me (2004), Morgan Spurlock
12. Don't Look Back (1967) D.A. Pennebaker
13. Salesman (1968), Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin
14. Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance (1982), Godfrey Reggio
15. Sherman's March (1986), Ross McElwee
16. Grey Gardens (1976), Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Ellen Hovde, and Muffie Meyer
17. Capturing the Friedmans (2003), Andrew Jarecki
18. Born into Brothels, (2004), Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski
19. Titicut Follies (1967), Frederick Wiseman
20. Buena Vista Social Club (1999), Wim Wenders
21. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Michael Moore
22. Winged Migration (2002), Jacques Perrin
23. Grizzly Man (2005), Werner Herzog
24. Night and Fog (1955), Alain Resnais
25. Woodstock (1970), Michael Wadleigh
The top nine songs about masturbation. Includes the obvious I Touch Myself by The Divinyls and some less-obvious songs. (via buzzfeed)
Human activities can trigger natural disasters such as earthquakes and flooding.
"Dams are the most dangerous man-made structure likely to cause quake," says David Booth of the British Geological Survey. By artificially holding a large volume of water in one place, dams increase pressure on fractures beneath the surface of the earth. What's more, water has a lubricating effect, making it easier for the fractures -- or faults -- to slip.
List of the 25 most modern libraries in the world. (thx, mark)
If physical theories were women.
Quantum mechanics is the girl you meet at the poetry reading. Everyone thinks she's really interesting and people you don't know are obsessed about her. You go out. It turns out that she's pretty complicated and has some issues. Later, after you've broken up, you wonder if her aura of mystery is actually just confusion.
Would like to see the list for men as well. (via snarkmarket)
Another Wikipedia gem: a list of unsolved problems from a number of different fields, including linguistics, physics, and computer science. (via lone gunman)
Entertainment Weekly recently compiled a list of well-designed book covers from the past 25 years. Not fantastic but a solid list worth browsing.
Oobject is on a roll lately. In particular, check out the railroad snowplows, worst General Lee, medical manikins, pocket sundials, and food rations.
Vulture's wrong, wrong, wrong list of the best Pixar films. Finding Nemo belongs in #1 with The Incredibles and Ratatouille close behind. Then Toy Story 2 followed by the rest. Putting The Incredibles in the #7 spot, that's just plain irresponsible.
A list of predictions about the unthinkable future by Kevin Kelly and Brian Eno, made in 1993. This one by Eno isn't half bad:
A new type of artist arises: someone whose task is to gather together existing but overlooked pieces of amateur art, and, by directing attention onto them, to make them important. (This is part of a much larger theory of mine about the new role of curatorship, the big job of the next century.)
A list of movie cameos that end up stealing the whole movie. The deserving #1 is Alec Baldwin's Glengarry Glen Ross speech. (God, what a great scene.)
A list of the 100 best movie posters of all time. There's a lot to disagree with on this list. American Beauty at #2?
The top ten home cooking mistakes. The name of the post is something of a misnomer...it's really a list of suggestions to improve your home cooking.
2. A real knife. You can do a lot with a good chef's knife, and you can't do shit without one. It doesn't have to be an expensive model; America's Test Kitchen has recommended this Victorinox 8" chef's knife (or its 10" version, about a buck cheaper!) for years, although I have grown accustomed to the handles on my Henckels Four-Star knives. Buy a good chef's knife that feels comfortable in your hand, with a blade 8 to 9 inches long, and buy a honing steel to keep it sharp. Avoid home sharpeners, though, which "sharpen" your blade by destroying it.
(thx, andrew)
Five ways to spot a faked photo. Comparing the light reflection in the various eyes in a photograph is an especially clever technique.
Pay attention: ten books on investing recommended by Warren Buffett.
Kitchen chemist Herve This' 10 basic elements of kitchen knowledge.
Sixteen elusive movie object of desire, including White Castle burgers in Harold & Kumar, the Ark of the Convenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the One Ring from the LOTR trilogy.
A list of ways to get yourself excused from the jury pool in the R. Kelly child pornography case.
I (heart) R. Kelly. Nothing gets prospective jurors booted faster than telling the prosecution they are a fan of Kelly's. Just ask the woman who called him a "musical genius." When prodded to say something negative about Kelly, the best she could come up with was: "He and [rapper] Jay-Z don't get along?" Prosecutors bounced her soon after.
Another potential juror was excused for suggesting that Kelly "led the Taliban in attacking us on 9-11".
1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
Ok, we've done books so let's move on to movies. From the book by Steven Jay Schneider comes a list of 1001 movies you must see before you die. Since it's less time consuming to watch movies rather than read books, I did a lot better on this list...I've seen 214/1001 movies on the list. My favorites are marked with an asterisk.
Nosferatu, A Symphony of Terror(1922)
The General (1927)
King Kong (1933)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Gone With the Wind (1939)
Pinocchio (1940)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Casablanca (1942)
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
On the Waterfront (1954)
Rear Window (1954)
The Seven Samurai (1954)
Touch of Evil (1958)
The 400 Blows (1959)
North by Northwest (1959)
La Jetee (1961)
West Side Story (1961)
Lolita (1962)
Goldfinger (1964)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)*
A Hard Day's Night (1964)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Faster, Pussy Cat! Kill! Kill! (1965)
The Graduate (1967)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)*
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Harold and Maude (1971)
Dirty Harry (1971)
Deliverance (1972)
The Godfather (1972)*
The Sting (1973)
American Graffiti (1973)
The Conversation (1974)
Young Frankenstein (1974)
Chinatown (1974)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
The Godfather Part II (1974)*
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
All the President's Men (1976)
Rocky (1976)
Taxi Driver (1976)
Network (1976)*
Star Wars (1977)*
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Annie Hall (1977)
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Grease (1978)
Alien (1979)
Life of Brian (1979)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The Jerk (1979)
The Muppet Movie (1979)
The Shining (1980)*
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)*
Airplane! (1980)
Raging Bull (1980)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)*
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1981)
E.T.: The Extra-Terestrial (1982)
Blade Runner (1982)
Tootsie (1982)
Gandhi (1982)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
The Right Stuff (1983)
Scarface (1983)
Amadeus (1984)
The Terminator (1984)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Ghostbusters (1984)
The Killing Fields (1984)
The Natural (1984)
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Back to the Future (1985)
Brazil (1985)
Stand By Me (1986)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Aliens (1986)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
A Room with a View (1986)
Platoon (1986)
Top Gun (1986)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Withnail and I (1987)
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
The Princess Bride (1987)
The Untouchables (1987)
Fatal Attraction (1987)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Akira (1988)
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
The Naked Gun (1988)
Big (1988)
Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
Die Hard (1988)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Rain Man (1988)
The Accidental Tourist (1988)
Batman (1989)
When Harry Met Sally (1989)
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Roger & Me (1989)
Glory (1989)
Say Anything (1989)
Goodfellas (1990)
Jacob's Ladder (1990)
Dances with Wolves (1990)
Pretty Woman (1990)
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Total Recall (1990)
Boyz 'n the Hood (1991)
Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)*
JFK (1991)
Slacker (1991)
The Player (1992)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)*
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Unforgiven (1992)
The Crying Game (1992)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Philadelphia (1993)
Jurassic Park (1993)
Schindler's List (1993)
The Piano (1993)
Hoop Dreams (1994)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Clerks (1994)
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
The Lion King (1994)
Natural Born Killers (1994)
Pulp Fiction (1994)*
Muriel's Wedding (1994)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)*
Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Casino (1995)
Babe (1995)
Toy Story (1995)
Braveheart (1995)
Clueless (1995)
Heat (1995)
Seven (1995)*
Smoke (1995)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Fargo (1996)
Independence Day (1996)
The English Patient (1996)
Shine (1996)
Trainspotting (1996)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Princess Mononoke (1997)*
The Butcher Boy (1997)
The Ice Storm (1997)
Boogie Nights (1997)*
Titanic (1997)*
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Buffalo 66 (1998)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Run Lola Run (1998)
Rushmore (1998)*
Pi (1998)
Happiness (1998)
The Thin Red Line (1998)
There's Something About Mary (1998)
Magnolia (1999)*
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Three Kings (1999)
Fight Club (1999)
Being John Malkovich (1999)
American Beauty (1999)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
The Matrix (1999)*
Gladiator (2000)
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Amores Perros (2000)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Traffic (2000)
Memento (2000)
Dancer in the Dark (2000)
Amelie (2001)
Spirited Away (2001)
No Man's Land (2001)
Moulin Rouge (2001)
Monsoon Wedding (2001)
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)*
The Pianist (2002)
Lost in Translation (2003)
Oldboy (2003)
Good Bye Lenin! (2003)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)*
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
A Very Long Engagement (2004)
Sideways (2004)
Caché (2005)
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
The Constant Gardener (2005)
If you'd like to post your movie list, I used this list along with a list of additions and subtractions.
Update: The very latest edition of the book adds and subtracts some more movies to/from the list; here are the added movies that I've seen:
Crash (2004)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
The Prestige (2006)
United 93 (2006)
Children of Men (2006)
El Laberinto del Fauno (2006)
The Queen (2006)
Apocalypto (2006)
The Departed (2006)
Volver (2006)
And deleted from the list:
Monsoon Wedding (2001)
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
A Very Long Engagement (2004)
Caché (2005)
It's interesting to watch the churn on a list like this. With the newest movies, they're making guesses as to how they'll age and in many cases, the guesses aren't that good. Also, removing Caché for Apocalypto? No fucking way. (thx, jack)
David Remnick lists the top 100 essential jazz albums. Caveat:
I thought it might be useful to compile a list of a hundred essential jazz albums, more as a guide for the uninitiated than as a source of quarrelling for the collector.
The list is a companion piece to Remnick's article on jazz DJ Phil Schapp.
A list of 1001 (fiction) Books That You Must Read Before You Die, from a book of the same name. I read too much nonfiction to be well-read fiction-wise, but I have read these thirty from the list:
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen
House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace*
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami*
Contact, Carl Sagan*
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien*
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov*
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell*
Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
Animal Farm, George Orwell
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien*
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Around the World in Eighty Days, Jules Verne
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen*
Candide, Voltaire
Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
Some of my very favorites are on there.
Update: Following Marco's lead, I've marked some favorites with an asterisk. Under duress, I'd admit to the following as my top three favorite fiction books, in order: Infinite Jest, 1984, and Lolita.
A list of the 50 greatest commercial parodies of all time, with video evidence.
A list of 21 ways to shoot better photographs. I can hear my photographer friends snickering about the cliches on the list, but if you don't know much about photography but are interested in learning, you could do worse than to explore some of these techniques.
A list of responses to "The Question" asked of all kilt-wearing gentlement: What's under your kilt?
There's much to argue with on this list of the 50 greatest TV shows of all time. Too many 1 or 2 season shows and recent shows. And Buffy at #2? Christ, whatever.
A list of reasons why people write and explore history with examples of each.
14. The past is heritage: we study it to form or enforce national, ethnic, religious or personal identity, or to combat attempts to destroy heritage. Gertrude Himmelfarb, The De-Moralization of Society.
(via short shrift)
The 10 most appropriate weatherperson names...like Ray Ban and Storm Field. When I was a kid watching the news out of Minneapolis, their morning weather guy's name was Sunny Haus. (Not his real name though...the station wouldn't let Steve Wolhenhaus go by his real name.)
A list of the top one articles by Neal Pollack about how sportswriters should stop writing about the NBA MVP race and, oh yeah, lists of stuff are dumb:
Sportswriters and pundits, on the other hand, are treating the MVP race with the gravitas of a presidential election. That's because they make up the Electoral College. When they're debating who's going to win the award, they're not really talking about who they think the best player is; they're talking about whom they should pick as the best player. It's the ultimate circle-jerk of sports-guy self-regard.
A somewhat uneven list of the best films that never won a Best Picture Oscar. As the commenters point out, lots of good films (like Raging Bull & Dr. Strangelove) were missed. (via house next door)
A visual look at the top 10 trends in spring/summer 2008 fashion, including parachute silk, higher waistlines, and skinny belts.
It will take you literally hours to get through this list of the 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time (video often included). (thx, miguel)
A list of "evil" human experiments, including the Stanford prison experiment (one of the milder examples) and the Nazi experiments on concentration camp prisoners. Heed the warning at the top of the page...this was a difficult list to read.
Update: I had to remove the link because there was a bunch of crappy, virus stuff. If you're on a Mac, have popup blocking turned on, or have a strong constitution, you can click here to see the list.
A list of quintessentially New York books.
New York is a hypertextualized city. By 6 a.m., our commuters have smudged more words off their papers than most cities read all day. How to even begin identifying a canon? While reading, I plotted candidates along two mystical axes: one of all-around literary merit, and the other of "New Yorkitude" -- the degree to which a book allows itself to obsess over the city. Robert Caro's The Power Broker just about maxes out both axes; others perseverate so memorably on smaller aspects of city life that they had to be included.
The list includes Rem Koolhaas' Delirious New York, Don DeLillo's Great Jones Street, and Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities.
A chronological list of fears, from childhood through parenthood. (via lone gunman)
A large list of interesting print catalogs for niche industries and hobbies.
Cabela's. 1400 pages of hunting, fishing & outdoor gear. Comes with foldout index tabs and if you spend appalling amounts there (like my SO), they send you a hardbound version.
(via mathowie)
A short list of What Every American Should Know About the Middle East.
Arabs are part of an ethnic group, not a religion. Arabs were around long before Islam, and there have been (and still are) Arab Christians and Arab Jews. In general, you're an Arab if you 1) are of Arab descent (blood), or 2) speak the main Arab language (Arabic).
A companion list of what every resident of the Middle East should know about the US might also be helpful. (via chris glass)
The top five reasons why "the customer is always right" is wrong. I like the idea that a company should be as ready to fire bad customers as they are to fire bad employees.
Top ten artists suffering the Lindsey Buckingham Paradox.
The Lindsey Buckingham Paradox is what happens when otherwise brilliant musicians decide they're better than their bandmates (creative differences, natch), strike out on their own with solo "careers", and somewhat curiously never again manage to grasp his or her own genius in the way we all know is possible.
Sting clocks in at #2:
Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers brought their own special flavors to the Police party, and without them, Sting is just a big bowl of goddamned puffy cheetos. Like Bono, maybe, without the passion or, you know, cred.
A list of 98 nicknames for New York City, including The City of Friendly People, The University of Telephony, and Father Knickerbocker. (via gothamist)
From the outgoing NY Times Paris bureau chief, eight lessons in the ways of the French.
A doctor I know told me he once bought a coat at a small men's boutique only to discover that it had a rip in the fabric. When he tried to return it, the shopkeeper gave him the address of a tailor who could repair it - for a large fee. They argued, and the doctor reminded the shopkeeper of the French saying, "The customer is king."
"Sir," the shopkeeper replied, "We no longer have a king in France."
Ed Boyden on How to Think "in a world where problems are extremely complex, targets are continuously moving, and our brains often seem like nodes of enormous networks that constantly reconfigure".
Make your mistakes quickly. You may mess things up on the first try, but do it fast, and then move on. Document what led to the error so that you learn what to recognize, and then move on. Get the mistakes out of the way. As Shakespeare put it, "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."
(via spurgeonblog)
A list of foods that were unknown in Europe in the Middle Ages. A good resource for Renaissance Faire planners.
The world's 50 best works of art and where to go to see them. Random Knowledge has links to all the art so you can check them out virtually in less time and for less money.
If you can ignore the stupid one-logo-per-page interface, check out the 25 best band logos.
Five great audio illusions. (thx, marshall)
The UK Sunday newspaper The Observer recently published a list of the world's 50 most powerful blogs. kottke.org is fourth on the list. "Powerful" seems to be a word used here for its succinct headline value...that adjective doesn't fit many of the blogs on the list. But The Observer has made an effort to build a wide-ranging list of blogs that you should be reading...it's very nice to be included.
Typographica's list of their favorite typefaces of 2007. Some great work in that list. I also enjoyed Mark Simonson's explanation of the difference between a font and a typeface:
The physical embodiment of a collection of letters (whether it's a case of metal pieces or a computer file) is a font. When referring to the design of the collection (the way it looks) you call it a typeface.
Oh and also good was that they were thoughtful enough to wait until 2007 was actually over to make their selections.
A long list of obsolete skills, like "tuning in TV stations by using an antenna rotor" and "cranking up or down a car window".
An annotated list of the top ten cinematographic moments in film in 2007: part 1 and part 2.
The shot that stuck out in my head the very first time I saw the film spoke to me so deeply that I referenced it in my initial review: "A few years trickle by as Plainview adds onto his enterprise until finally, oil. A black-tarred hand reaches to the sky and suddenly you sense the influence of Stanley Kubrick on the film. Like the apes who discovered weaponry in "2001: A Space Odyssey," Plainview has come upon the object that will dictate America's destiny for the next century and more." I don't thiink I could say it any better now.
(via house next door)
A list of ten things that won't Change no matter who get elected President.
10. The primary system: Sure, the early primaries give a handful of white, rural voters disproportionate influence over the election and state caucuses make Tammany Hall look like a golden age of democratic participation, but they're an entrenched part of party politics at this point and it's not wise to mess with them. Just ask the Democrats in Michigan or Florida.
Immaculate Heart College Art Department Rules. Saw this on FFFFOUND! the other day and was too lazy to type it up...I'm glad Mike is less so.
6. Nothing is a mistake. There is no win and no fail. There is only make.
7. The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It's the people who do all of the work all the time who eventually catch on to things.
There is only make. Love that.
Update: The list above is likely not by Sister Corita Kent but John Cage or a variety of folks connected with the Whole Earth Catalog. (thx, zach & richard)
The Curly Tail Grub holds the top slot in the list of the 50 greatest fishing lures of all time.
Ten quirky baseball rules and oddities, including a list of the 23 ways to get a man on first base. (via subtraction)
Resolutions 2008, a found list. Reminds me of Hemingway's six word story ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.") in that so few words can tell a big story.
Over at Slice (the pizza blog!), Adam Kuban has compiled a list of all the different pizza styles found in the US.
Once the Italian immigrants brought their Naples-style pies to the States, it evolved a bit in the Italian neighborhoods of New York to something I've seen referred to as "New York-Neapolitan." This is basically what all the coal-oven pizzerias of New York serve. It follows the tenets of Neapolitan style in that it's thin-crusted, cooked in an ultra-hot oven, and uses a judicious amount of cheese and sauce (sauce which is typically fresh San Marzano tomatoes, as in Naples). It deviates from Naples-style in that it's typically larger, a tad thinner, and more crisp.
There's a surprising number of styles.
A list of the 100 books every child should read. No Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and probably a little Brit-heavy for those in other countries but otherwise solid. Plenty of Roald Dahl (I still occasionally reread Danny, the Champion of the World).
Ten recurring economic fallacies, 1774-2004.
One of the most persistent is that of the broken window -- one breaks and this is celebrated as a boon to the economy: the window manufacturer gets an order; the hardware store sells a window; a carpenter is hired to install it; money circulates; jobs are created; the GDP goes up. In truth, of course, the economy is no better off at all.
On the occasion of Tom Brady's incredible season, ESPN compiles a list of the 25 greatest individual seasons in sports history.
If you were still on vacation last week, you might want to check out my list of the best links of 2007. I guarantee you'll find something to get your mind off of that looming deadline.
The 2007 installment of the BBC's list of 100 things we didn't know last year.
31. There is mobile phone reception from the summit of Mount Everest.
The Best Links 2007
For the fourth year running, here are some of my favorite articles, videos, games, photography, discussions, and design pieces that I linked to in 2007. After you're done with these, try the lists from 2004, 2005, and 2006.
The streets of Portland are an ice skating rink for cars in this video.
Reconsidering the original three Star Wars movies in light of the prequels. R2D2 = top rebel spy.
Adam Gadahn's journey from rural California teen and death metal fan to a trusted member of Osama bin Laden's team of operatives.
Chris Jordan's photo series, Running the Numbers.
Michael Poliza's aerial photos of Africa. More here.
Malcolm Gladwell on Enron and the difference between puzzles and mysteries, investigationally speaking.
Smashing Telly, a collection of TV on the web, with an emphasis on documentaries and factual programs. I liked David's post on Zeitgeist and FEBLs.
Video of an autistic person describing the language she uses to communicate with her surroundings.
Good People, a short story by David Foster Wallace.
Nicholas Felton's personal annual report for 2006.
A pair of posts from Neatorama on photography: 13 Photographs That Changed the World and The Wonderful World of Early Photography.
Susan Orlean on Robert Lang, former physicist and current world-class origami master. Here's my post on Lang.
A Line Rider masterpiece. (Line Rider?)
Kremlin Inc., a story of Vladimir Putin's de facto dictatorship of Russia.
2007 was the year of book art: Thomas Allen's pulp cutouts, Cara Barer's water-crumpled books, Nina Katchadourian's Sorted Books whose spines tell small stories, and Brian Dettmer's book sculptures.
Joel Johnson's great post on Gizmodo scolding the site's writers, gadget makers, and the site's readers "for supporting the disgusting cycle of gadget whoring".
Denis Darzacq's photographs of people seemingly floating above the pavement.
Panoramic photos from the Apollo missions. These are stunning.
Michael Pollan on the rise of nutritionism. His advice for healthy eating: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
Desktop Tower Defense. This would top my Ten Best Games of the Year list if I'd done one.
On Conscientious, several photographers answer the question "What makes a great photo?"
Shorpy, a photoblog of old photographs, and FFFFOUND!, an image bookmarking site. Neither is probably legal in the strict sense, but they're both great online curated galleries.
Alberto Forero has collected a staggering amount of photography and design imagery and posted it to his Flickr account.
Social Explorer, interactive demographic maps.
Hypermilers try to wring as many miles per gallon out of their cars as they can. (My post.)
Darwin's God. Are humans biologically wired to believe in God?
Dan Hill reviews Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait, a film that follows soccer star Zinedine Zidane through a single game.
Minority Kart, possibly the GAGOAT (greatest animated gif of all time).
Miranda July's wonderful handcrafted web site for her book No One Belongs Here More Than You.
An article on commuting, this crazy thing that most Americans do too much of.
The graph of US home prices from 1890 to the present as a rollercoaster.
As a social experiment, the Washington Post arranged for internationally acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell to play outside a DC subway station. Would anyone notice?
The New Yorker on David Belle and parkour, the sport he invented.
Maciej Ceglowski reports on the Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel.
NB: Studio's map of London constructed entirely out of type.
Trulia Hindsight, a map of property development through time.
Movies showing a closeup view of the Sun's surface.
Video footage of Joseph Kittenger's record jump from 102,800 feet up. Photo from Life magazine and a Boards of Canada music video that uses the footage.
Alex Reisner's site, especially the baseball section. (My post.)
Interview with journalist Jonathan Rauch.
The greatest long tracking shots in cinema, including those in Touch of Evil and Children of Men.
Meg Hourihan took a bunch of different chocolate chip recipes, averaged the ingredients, and made cookies from the resulting meta-recipe.
The infamous four guys humping an ottoman video.
Does the Piraha language upend the theory of universal grammar?
Vimeo's sign in page is lovely.
Tim Knowles' drawings by trees. (My post. And more.)
How a woman randomly bumped into the person that stole her identity and chased her around until the police showed up to apprehend her.
Portraits of breaking sculpture by Martin Klimas.
Photo gallery that shows families from around the world and the amount of food they eat in the course of a week.
Errol Morris' investigation of a pair of Roger Fenton photographs in three wonderful parts.
Roger Federer's conservation of energy and attention helps him perform when it counts.
Jay Parkinson M.D. makes house calls, visits with patients via IM, and is generally trying to find new ways of doctoring.
Anthony Lane's appreciation of the Leica.
Kohei Yoshiyuki's photos of voyeurs watching lovers in a Japanese park. (My post.)
A restaurant review from the NY Times, circa 1859. My post about the review and lots more from the archives of the Times.
The story of Oscar the Cat, who comforts the dying at a Rhode Island nursing home.
Portraits of bears by Jill Greenberg. More photos at Greenberg's site.
Long New Yorker profile of David Simon and The Wire.
Elizabeth Kolbert on bees and colony collapse disorder. And bee space.
Photoshopped pictures of people's faces combined.
A video round (turn on the sound).
Optical illusion: is the woman rotating clockwise or counterclockwise?
From the excellent xkcd web comic: Little Bobby Tables.
Aicuña is a small secluded town in Argentina with an extremely high percentage of albino residents.
David Foster Wallace's wonderful introduction to The Best American Essays 2007.
Video depicting several ways to melt a chocolate bunny.
Tyler Cowen on some of the opportunity costs of the war in Iraq.
Beautifully terrifying photos of nuclear tests in French Polynesia.
Standing witness to a Guitar Hero wunderkind playing the game's most difficult song on expert level.
How America Lost the War on Drugs.
God's Eye View is an art project by The Glue Society depicting four Biblical scenes as they would have been captured by Google Earth.
The best way to deflect an asteroid turns out to be reflecting sunlight on it with a swarm of mirror bees.
Paul Otlet presages the web in 1934, calling it the "radiated library" or "televised book". (More context.)
This was my favorite post of the year. I hope you'll excuse the self-link.
Oh, and maybe the best thing I didn't link to this year: Daft Hands.
Thanks for reading kottke.org for the past year. Happy new year to you and yours.
My Year in Cities, 2007
Here are all the places I visited last year...much less travel than in previous years. Having a baby will do that to your schedule. For a few months there, I don't think I left a 20-block radius of Manhattan.
New York City, NY*
Rochester, VT
Anguilla
Boston, MA*
Orange, MA*
Waitsfield, VT*
San Francisco, CA
McMinnville, OR
Portland, OR
One or more nights spent in each place. Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days. Here are my lists from 2005 and 2006.
The year in buzzwords from the NY Times. Written by Grant Barrett of the excellent Double-Tongued Dictionary.