10 reasons to avoid talking on the phone
This comic on The Oatmeal pretty much nails why I hate talking on the phone.
If you’re like me, you can’t relax on the phone because you’re constantly looking for an opportunity to say goodbye.
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kottke.org posts about lists
Ten things that influence conformity
They include mood, group size, authority, and social approval.
People use conformity to ingratiate themselves with others. Conforming also makes people feel better about themselves by bolstering self-confidence. Some people have a greater need for liking from others so are more likely to conform.
Have you noticed that nonconformers are less likely to care what other people think of them? Nonconformity and self-confidence go hand-in-hand.
Rules for writing fiction
The Guardian asked a bunch of writers to share their tips for writing fiction. The responses appear in two parts. Elmore Leonard:
Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”… he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs”.
Here’s Philip Pullman’s response in full:
My main rule is to say no to things like this, which tempt me away from my proper work.
(via mr)
The top 10 shots of 2009
This is one of my favorite end of the year lists: the top ten shots in movies (part one, part two). (via fimoculous)
Apple’s 10 biggest problems
Notes from John Gruber’s talk at MacWorld.
The pessimistic dig on Apple, says Gruber, is that it’s a supremely well-organized company organized around one irreplaceable guy. The optimistic view is that Jobs has structured it to run like his other company, Pixar, which manages to turn out hit after hit, year after year, without a charismatic celebrity leader.
Ebert’s favorite films of the 2000s
Even though it’s on The Naughtie List, I missed Roger Ebert’s list of the best films of the decade. It’s an interesting list; several items on there that you didn’t see on a lot of other lists.
Best extended movie takes
Mike Le has collected 20 great extended takes from a variety of movies, including no-brainers like The Shining and The Player but also some you may not have noticed before. (via @sippey)
Online PR dos and don’ts
Lindsay Robertson’s list of guidelines for how PR people should interact with bloggers is spot on, especially the “pick eight sites” advice:
She picked the eight blogs that covered her client’s subject, TV, that she liked the most on a personal level, read them religiously, and only sent them only the content she thought each blog would be into. While the rest of the publicists in her company were sending out mass emails to everyone, hoping to get bites from Perez Hilton, Gawker, HuffPo, or wherever, this publicist focused on a lower traffic tier with the (correct) understanding that these days, content filters up as much as it filters down, and often the smaller sites, with their ability to dig deeper into the internet and be more nimble, act as farm teams for the larger ones. A site can be enormously influential without having crazy eyeballs, because all eyeballs are not equal.
Programming lessons
A programmer lists 20 lessons learned in the past 20 years.
5. You are not the best at programming. Live with it. — I always thought that I knew so much about programming, but there is always someone out there better than you. Always. Learn from them.
(via @h_fj)
For the weekend
If you didn’t get a chance to check this out earlier in the week, a friendly reminder: my 100 favorite links of 2009, culled from the archives of kottke.org. Good for killing several hours.
100 things we didn’t know last year for 2009
One of my favorite end-of-the-year lists: the BBC’s 100 things we didn’t know last year. For instance, the English Channel froze from Dover to Calais in 1673. Thanks, Little Ice Age.
The 100 best links of 2009
For each of the past six years, I’ve collected my favorite stuff posted to kottke.org into a “best links of the year” list. 2009’s list — the original 100 kottke.org posts containing those links, in random order — covers such topics as healthcare spending, Amish hackers, gaussian goats, surfing videos, fun Flash games, Pete Campbell dancing, Rwandan genocide, and something called the McGangBang, as well as the usual array of dazzling video, photos, and art featured on kottke.org in the past year. Kiss the rest of your day goodbye!
Past best-of lists: 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.
P.S. kottke.org’s Person of the Year: Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III.
My year in cities 2009
Not sure why I’m bothering to do this list for 2009 as I didn’t really go anywhere, but here it is for posterity:
Waitsfield, VT*
New York City, NY*
Boston, MA*
Orange, MA*
Springfield, MA
Nantucket, MA
One or more nights were spent in each place. Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days. Here are my lists for 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008.
Waiting for 2010
The AV Club lists 32 entertainments (books, movies, TV) they are most anticipating in 2010. (thx, judd)
Top Vimeo videos of 2009
From Vimeo’s list of favorite videos of 2009, the music video for Luv Deluxe by Cinnamon Chasers:
Also worth watching is the Tarantino Mixtape, which hovers somewhere between an analysis of the themes in QuentinTarantino’s films and a toe-tapping remix of all the great music, visuals, and sounds he uses in them. (via @brainpicker)
Jim Lehrer’s rules of journalism
He listed them during the last broadcast of the The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
And, finally, I am not in the entertainment business.
(via df)
Best stories of the past 4.5 billion years
Now that it’s the end of 2009, The Onion is taking the opportunity to present their top ten stories of the past 4.5 billions years. #5 is Sumerians Look On In Confusion As God Creates World:
“I do not understand,” reads an ancient line of pictographs depicting the sun, the moon, water, and a Sumerian who appears to be scratching his head. “A booming voice is saying, ‘Let there be light,’ but there is already light. It is saying, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass,’ but I am already standing on grass.”
“Everything is here already,” the pictograph continues. “We do not need more stars.”
I also like The Ones We Lost:
Some of the world’s most beloved people have died over the past 4.5 billion years. Here are a few…
World-changing music
To ponder over the weekend: twenty pieces of music that changed the world. #11 on the list is Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive. (via @bobulate)
Lines that defined the decade
Jenni, I don’t want to step on your toes here, but I’m hoping that Scott Lamb’s excellent One-Liners of the Decade — from “Wassap!” to “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” to “I drink your milkshake” — ends up on the Noughtie List.
Best media errors and corrections of 2009
Regret the Error presents its annual list of media errors and corrections. These are two of my favorites:
An article on Aug. 2 about older alumni who have been helped by university career counselors referred imprecisely to comments by a 1990 graduate of Lehigh University who lost his job in February when his company was downsized, and a correction in this space last Sunday misspelled his surname. As the article correctly noted, he is David Monson, not Munson, and he was speaking generally — not about himself — when he said that newly unemployed people sometimes mope around the house in sweatpants.
—
ON 17 July 2008 in our front page article “Ron the Lash” we falsely reported that whilst recovering from an operation to his ankle Cristiano Ronaldo had “gone on a bender” at a Hollywood nightclub where he splashed out pounds 10,000 on champagne and vodka and threw his crutches to the ground and tried to dance on his uninjured foot. We now accept that Cristiano did not “go on a bender”, did not drink any alcohol that evening, did not spend pounds 10,000 on alcohol, nor throw his crutches to the floor or try to dance.
(via df)
Top 10 astronomy photos of 2009
One of the better lists out there: the top astronomy photos of the year. From the list, this is a more detailed view of the Martian landscape than we’re used to seeing:
My personal favorite, the photos taken by the LRO of Apollo 11’s landing site, made the list as well.
Most exciting film scripts of 2009
The Black List is the collection of scripts that got movie executives most excited in 2009. Here’s #1:
1. The Muppet Man By Christopher Weekes
What it’s about: The life and times of the late Jim Henson, the man behind Sesame Street and The Muppets.What it’s like: The Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon, but with puppets. This moving story depicts the life of a creative genius, with occasional surreal appearances by the likes of Kermit and Miss Piggy.
(via subtraction)
2009’s best new blogs
Bygone Bureau asks a bunch of folks: what was your favorite new blog of 2009?
The Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2009
One of my favorite end-of-the-year lists is Foreign Policy’s The Top Ten Stories You Missed; here’s this year’s installment. A Hotline for China and India caught my eye.
“Hotlines” between world leaders, like the legendary Moscow-Washington “red telephone” devised after the Cuban missile crisis, are designed to prevent misunderstandings or miscommunications between nuclear powers from escalating into a nuclear conflict. China and the United States have one. So do India and Pakistan. This year, the leaders of India and China agreed to set one up between New Delhi and Beijing, highlighting concerns that a worsening border dispute could quickly become the first major conflict of the multipolar era.
Global thinkers recommend books
Foreign Policy asked their list of Top Global Thinkers to recommend some books; here’s what they had to say.
The year in ideas, 2009
The NY Times Magazine has published their Year in Ideas issue for 2009. Lots of good stuff in there. Before I got sidetracked with family obligations (Minna!), I planned on pitching the magazine’s editors a couple of ideas I noticed this year:
The Neverending Wake. We got a preview of what death in the celebrity age (more) is going be like when a cluster of notable people passed away this summer. How will we think about death when someone we know or admire dies every day for the rest of our lives?
Machine Gun Photography. Just as the introduction of the machine gun fundamentally changed warfare, so the affordable high-resolution digital video camera will change photography. Now you don’t have to wait for exactly the right moment for the perfect shot; just take 10 minutes of HD video and find the best shots later. Photography was always really about the editing anyway, right?
How con artists exploit human behavior
An extensive analysis of the seven principles of human behavior that con artists exploit (with many examples of cons). Or check out the Cliffs Notes version.
The Time principle: When you are under time pressure to make an important choice, you use a different decision strategy. Hustlers steer you towards a strategy involving less reasoning.
Introducing the Noughtie List
As several of you guessed, the December project I mentioned the other day is a collection of lists and articles that summarize the past ten years, i.e. the decade, i.e. the 2000s, i.e. TEN YEARS, MAN, TEN!! We call it the Noughtie List.
The list is curated by Jenni Leder, an art director and fellow internet enthusiast from Dallas, TX. She would love to hear your Noughtie List suggestions, feedback, comments, etc. via email. Jenni will be posting some of her favorite finds to the front page from time to time as well.
A special thanks to Rex Sorgatz for letting us borrow the idea; his list of 2009 lists is well underway and worth a look for those who are only slightly nostalgic.
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