A list of the 50 greatest film adaptations

A list of the 50 greatest film adaptations of all time. No Lord of the Rings? Anything else missing?

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• movies
• The Lord of the Rings

View the finalists of the Smithsonian’s 3rd

View the finalists of the Smithsonian’s 3rd annual photo contest. Here’s last year’s winners.

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• photography
• smithsonianinstitute

2006 World Monuments Watch 100 Most Endangered Sites, including

2006 World Monuments Watch 100 Most Endangered Sites, including the entire country of Iraq.

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The World Heritage List consists of natural

The World Heritage List consists of natural and man-made wonders from around the globe. Thirty-four of the sites are currently on the “in danger” list, in some cases because of a site’s inclusion on the master list (and subsequent dramatic increase in tourism).

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• tourism
• travel

A list of the world’s 50 best restaurants

A list of the world’s 50 best restaurants for 2006, compiled by Restaurant magazine. Here are the winners from previous years.

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• best of 2006
• food
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• restaurants

Photos of the top 15 city skylines in

Photos of the top 15 city skylines in the world. Hong Kong is #1 and I can’t disagree.

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• cities
• Hong Kong
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• photography

A list of the best Steve Jobs

A list of the best Steve Jobs quotes ever. A contradictory fellow, this Jobs.

• Apple
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• Steve Jobs

A list of the most-linked blogs from

A list of the most-linked blogs from September 2000 (scroll for the notes at the end). Metalog and Metalog Ratings comprised the first weblog tracking/ranking system, predating most of the current crop by at least a year or two.

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PDF of the 2006 James Beard Award Nominees.

PDF of the 2006 James Beard Award Nominees. Dan Barber is up for best NYC chef.

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• best of 2005
• Dan Barber
• food
• jamesbeardawards
• NYC
• restaurants

Top 1000 publications owned by US libraries. The

Top 1000 publications owned by US libraries. The Holy Bible, the 2000 US Census, and Mother Goose top the list. (via o’r)

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• libraries
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2006 National Magazine Award finalists.

2006 National Magazine Award finalists.

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• best of 2005
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• magazines

A list of the best license-free quality

A list of the best license-free quality fonts. From a few months ago, but still useful.

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• typography

Gallery of the winners of the World

Gallery of the winners of the World Press Photos of the Year for 2005.

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• photography

Now that Oscar season is in full-on

Now that Oscar season is in full-on in-your-face mode, check out this list of the critics’ favorite films for 2005. Love the info design on the summary at the bottom.

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• best of 2005
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• Metacritic
• movies
• Oscars

Some of the worst selling DVDs on

Some of the worst selling DVDs on Amazon. Looks like the Hammy the Hamster DVD series isn’t doing so well. See also books and music. (thx, josh)

• Amazon
• best of
• DVD
• lists
• movies
• music

I feel like I’ve pointed to this

I feel like I’ve pointed to this before, but in case I haven’t, here’s a list of the 100 best first lines from novels. I’m partial to those of Pride and Prejudice, Lolita, and Anna Karenina.

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• lolita
• prideandprejudice

The world’s 12 best new buildings.

The world’s 12 best new buildings.

• architecture
• best of
• best of 2005
• lists

The 50 most loathsome people in America, 2005. On

The 50 most loathsome people in America, 2005. On Paris Hilton: “Somehow, everybody in America knew that this completely pointless person had lost her dog, and we are all diminished by the experience.”

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• Paris Hilton
• usa

A list of the top 100 most valuable

A list of the top 100 most valuable books. Signed first editions numbered 1-100 of Ulysses go for 100,000 pounds apiece. More about the list.

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• collectibles
• jamesjoyce
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• ulysses

The world’s best short inspirational quotes including “

The world’s best short inspirational quotes including “no great thing is created suddenly” and “well done is better than well said”.

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• quotations

Biography of Martin Luther King from Time

Biography of Martin Luther King from Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people.

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• Martin Luther King
• Time magazine

A list of a favorite movie moments

A list of a favorite movie moments from 2005. I need to get out to way more movies this year.

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• best of 2005
• lists
• movies

Slate’s The Year in Culture for 2005. “As

Slate’s The Year in Culture for 2005. “As infuriating and crippling as the [NYC transit] strike was for so many, I selfishly appreciated having a city that was uninviting and briefly in turmoil.”

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• best of 2005
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• NYC

A list of bloggers’ favorite books of 2005.

A list of bloggers’ favorite books of 2005.

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• best of 2005
• books
• lists
• weblogs

The top 10 weirdest USB drives, including drives

The top 10 weirdest USB drives, including drives that look like fried shrimp, a human thumb, and Barbie (her head pops off to reveal the plug).

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• usb

How’s this for meta: my list of 2005

How’s this for meta: my list of 2005’s best links made it onto a list of the best links to lists from a list of “best of” lists. I might have to put this link on my list of best links of 2006.

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• best of 2005
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• meta

New York magazine enters the NYC dining

New York magazine enters the NYC dining fray with a listing of the best 101 restaurants in the city. Only two got their highest (5 star) rating: Masa and Le Bernardin.

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• lebernardin
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• masa
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• NYC
• restaurants

Typographica’s favorite fonts of 2005, part 1. Arrival and Vista look nice.

Typographica’s favorite fonts of 2005, part 1. Arrival and Vista look nice.

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• fonts
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• typography

BBC Magazine has compiled a list of “100

BBC Magazine has compiled a list of “100 things we didn’t know this time last year”, including this copyright tidbit: “musical instrument shops must pay an annual royalty to cover shoppers who perform a recognisable riff before they buy, thereby making a ‘public performance’”. Here’s last year’s list.

• BBC
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• best of 2005
• copyright
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2005 favorites

If you’re like me, you’re waiting patiently for that day in early January when you can go more than 10 minutes without seeing a reference to some best of 2005 list. If you’re also like me, you love lists so much that you can’t get enough of them. So, with apologies to that first part of me, here’s a final 2005 lists from me: a few movies, weblogs, books, and musical selections that I enjoyed this past year (in no particular order).

Music (not necessarily released in 2005)

Ladytron, Witching Hour. This one grew on me a lot.
Kelly Clarkson, Since U Been Gone.
Fischerspooner, Odyssey.
Bloc Party, Silent Alarm.
Royksopp, The Understanding.
Diplo, Megatroid Mix. (download)
Boards of Canada, Campfire Headphase.
Mark Mothersbaugh (and others), The Life Aquatic soundtrack.
Stars, Set Yourself on Fire.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
Kanye West, Gold Digger.
Sigur Ros, Takk.
BBC Philharmonic, Beethoven’s Symphonies.

Two disappointments: Franz Ferdinand, You Could Have It So Much Better and Broken Social Scene by the band of the same name. I enjoyed Franz’s debut album and You Forgot It in People so much, but the follow-ups fell flat for me. Still trying though…

Movies (not necessarily released in 2005)

Primer.
Garden State.
Crash.
Revenge of the Sith.
Sideways.
Million Dollar Baby.
Deliverance.
Cinderella Man.
King Kong.

Didn’t see a lot of movies this year, unfortunately.

Books

Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami.
The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen.
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson.
Consider the Lobster, David Foster Wallace.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke.
The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan.
Pieces for the Left Hand, J. Robert Lennon.
Freakonomics, Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubner.

I read a ton of non-fiction but always enjoy the small amount of fiction I do read more.

Favorite weblogs. Compare with last year’s list.

Waxy. Despite a year-end Yahoo! slowdown/hangover, still one of the absolute best.

Collision Detection. Enthusiasm about technology without the irrational exuberance or Web 2.0ness of other tech/tech culture blogs.

del.icio.us inbox. Not technically a blog, but I love this ever-fresh flow of my friends’ favorites.

Robotwisdom. The original weblog was back this year after a 1.5 year hiatus. Jorn still has it.

The Morning News. Also not technically a blog, but TMN has been delivering high quality content on a daily basis for a long time now.

Flickr friends. Still the most fun on the web.

Cynical-C. Can’t remember where or when I found this one, but almost every single thing on there is something I’m interested in.

Scripting News. I skim most of his opinion stuff, disagree with 90% of the rest of what I do read, but Dave has his finger on the pulse of the part of the web I care most about. He gets links so quickly sometimes that I think he’s actually part RSS aggregator. “He’s more machine than man now.” “No, there is still good in him…”

Boing Boing. There’s stuff I don’t care about here, but the best of BB is really good.

3 Quarks Daily. The most accessible smart weblog out there.

Marginal Revolution. Quirky economics. Interesting everyday.

Goldenfiddle. I dislike celebrity gossip, but gf makes it seem interesting somehow. Damn you!

Youngna. Rationally exuberant.

You may notice that there are few “pro” blogs on this list. The best stuff out there is still being generated by interested, enthusiastic amateurs. When you’re producing media for a profit, there’s a certain vitality that’s lost, I think…a loss I’ve been struggling with on kottke.org for the past few months. kottke.org was on last year’s list but doesn’t appear this year…here’s hoping for a better year for the site in 2006.

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• weblogs