Kurt Cobain’s favorite albums
From Kurt Cobain’s journals, a handwritten list of the late Nirvana frontman’s 50 favorite albums, including those from Sonic Youth (duh), Pixies (double duh), and Mazzy Star.
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Tesla Model S wins 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year
Motor Trend chose the Tesla Model S as its 2013 Car of the Year, the first time their top prize has gone to an electric car.
The 2013 Motor Trend Car of the Year is one of the quickest American four-doors ever built. It drives like a sports car, eager and agile and instantly responsive. But it’s also as smoothly effortless as a Rolls-Royce, can carry almost as much stuff as a Chevy Equinox, and is more efficient than a Toyota Prius. Oh, and it’ll sashay up to the valet at a luxury hotel like a supermodel working a Paris catwalk. By any measure, the Tesla Model S is a truly remarkable automobile, perhaps the most accomplished all-new luxury car since the original Lexus LS 400. That’s why it’s our 2013 Car of the Year.
The magazine went on to say that “the Tesla Model S is simply a damned good car you happen to plug in to refuel”. This is how environmentally friendly products win, by being better than the less green products they replace.
The worst passwords of 2012
I cannot believe these are some of the passwords people actually use:
1. password
2, 123456
3. 12345678
4. abc123
5. qwerty
6. monkey
7. letmein
8. dragon
9. 111111
10. baseball
11. iloveyou
12. trustno1
I feel more secure than ever with my “password2” password.
25 richest people of all time
From a site called Celebrity Net Worth (I know, blech), a list of the 25 richest people of all time, adjusted for inflation. Gates, Buffett, and Rockefeller all make the list but the big cheese is Malian emperor Mansa Musa I, with a net worth of $400 billion in today’s dollars.
Mansa Musa I of Mali is the richest human being in history with a personal net worth of $400 billion! Mansa Musa lived from 1280 - 1337 and ruled the Malian Empire which covered modern day Ghana, Timbuktu and Mali in West Africa. Mansa Musa’s shocking wealth came from his country’s vast production of more than half the world’s supply of salt and gold.
(via @DavidGrann)
The most powerful TV shows of the past 25 years
This is a really interesting and eclectic list of 25 TV shows that have had an impact on society beyond the water cooler. There are a few obvious choices, but most of these I hadn’t heard of.
In 2003, 24-year-old machinist Juan Catalan faced the death penalty for allegedly shooting a key witness in a murder case. Catalan told police that he couldn’t have committed the crime — he was at a Los Angeles Dodgers game at the time. He had the ticket stubs and everything!
When police didn’t buy his alibi, Catalan contacted the Dodgers, who pointed him to an unlikely hero: misanthropic comedian Larry David. On the day in question, David had been filming an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in Dodger Stadium. It was a long shot, but maybe Catalan could be seen in the background. When his attorney watched the outtakes, it took just 20 minutes to find shots of Catalan and his daughter chowing down on ballpark dogs while watching from the stands.
Thanks to the footage, Catalan walked free after five months behind bars. And Larry David found one more thing to be self-deprecating about. “I tell people that I’ve done one decent thing in my life, albeit inadvertently,” joked David.
(via @fimoculous)
The 50 best films of the 1990s
The AV Club has compiled a list of the 50 best films of the 1990s, which decade, when you look at this list, is starting to feel like a bit of a film golden age compared to now. Here’s part one, part two, and part three.
Few talk about the ’90s as a filmmaking renaissance on par with the late ’60s and early ’70s, but for many of the film critics at The A.V. Club, it was the decade when we were coming of age as cinephiles and writers, and we remember it with considerable affection. Those ’70s warhorses like Martin Scorsese and Robert Altman posted some of the strongest work of their careers, and an exciting new generation of filmmakers — Quentin Tarantino, Joel and Ethan Coen, Wong Kar-Wai, Olivier Assayas, David Fincher, and Wes Anderson among them — were staking out territory of their own.
I’ve seen 35 of the 50 films and some of my favorites are Election, Eyes Wide Shut, Fargo, Groundhog Day, Boogie Nights, Being John Malkovich, Rushmore, Reservoir Dogs, Dazed and Confused, and Pulp Fiction. Some films I’m surprised didn’t make the list: Iron Giant, Three Kings, Babe: Pig in the City, and The Insider.
Entries from the 2012 National Geographic photo contest
In Focus has a selection of entries from this year’s installment of the National Geographic Photo Contest.
(via @dunstan)
Wes Anderson’s best commercials
Adweek has a list of some of the best commercials Wes Anderson has made. It’s tough to beat his two-minute spot for American Express.
“Can I get my snack?”
“You’re eating it.”
Best tall buildings in the world for 2012
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has released their list of the best tall buildings in the world for 2012.
Business Insider has a nice one-page view of the winners.
Ebert’s greatest films of all time
For Sight & Sound magazine, Roger Ebert came up with his picks for ten best films ever.
“Citizen Kane” speaks for itself. “2001: A Space Odyssey” is likewise a stand-along monument, a great visionary leap, unsurpassed in its vision of man and the universe. It was a statement that came at a time which now looks something like the peak of humanity’s technological optimism. Many would choose “Taxi Driver” as Scorsese’s greatest film, but I believe “Raging Bull” is his best and most personal, a film he says in some ways saved his life. It is the greatest cinematic expression of the torture of jealousy — his “Othello.”
(via df)
101 spectacular nonfiction stories
Conor Friedersdorf has published his annual list of the best nonfiction writing from the past year.
Each year, I keep a running list of the most exceptional nonfiction that I encounter while publishing my twice-weekly newsletter The Best of Journalism. Along with my curating work for Byliner, this hoovering of great stories affords me the opportunity to read as many impressive narratives as any single person possibly can. The annual result is my Best of Journalism List, now in its fourth year. I could not, of course, read every worthy piece published during the year. But everything that follows deserves wider attention.
The 50 greatest cartoons
A book written by Jerry Beck in 1994 called The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals does indeed contain a list of the 50 greatest cartoons as chosen by industry professionals. The list is filthy with Warner Bros cartoons, particularly by the recently aforementioned Chuck Jones (four of the top five are by Jones). I don’t know how many are available on YouTube, but I tracked down a couple to show my 4-year-old son, Ollie: Duck Amuck and Rabbit of Seville.
By the time we were finished with Rabbit of Seville, Ollie had literally peed his pants from laughing so hard. I think I’m gonna get the Looney Tunes collection on Blu-ray so we can watch more but I’m a bit afraid of what the hijinks of Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner might do to my boy’s pants.
Life magazine’s best pictures
Taken by some of the world’s most iconic photographers, a selection of the best photographs ever published in Life magazine from 1936 to 1972. Here’s a photo of Mickey Mantle from 1965:
The caption reads:
In one of the most eloquent photographs ever made of a great athlete in decline, Yankee star Mickey Mantle flings his batting helmet away in disgust after another terrible at-bat near the end of his storied, injury-plagued career.
Mantle was only 33 when that photo was taken but he’d already had 13 extremely productive seasons under his belt and his last four seasons from ‘65 to ‘68 were not nearly as good.
All the World Press Photo Contest winners
Buzzfeed has a collection of every World Press Photo Contest winner from 1955 to the present. Some amazing photos but in general they do not paint a very kind picture of humanity.
The world’s best designed newspapers
The Society for News Design recently posted their picks for the best designed newspapers in the world.
World Press Photos of the Year, 2012
A list of all the winners of the 2012 World Press Photo Photo Contest. I’m not particularly fond of the overall winner but there’s lots of great photography here.
Best movie posters of 2011
From MUBI notebook, a selection of great movies posters from 2011, including Chris Ware’s lovely one for Uncle Boonmee.
(via dooce)
Notable typefaces of 2011
Typographica shares their favorite typefaces of 2011.
The idea is simple: I invite a group of writers, educators, type makers and type users to look back at 2011 and pick the release that excited them most.
(via ★essl)
Tarantino’s favorite films of 2011
Quentin Tarantino released a list of his favorite films of last year. His number one choice? Midnight in Paris. Here’s his top five…click through for his other choices:
1. Midnight In Paris
2. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
3. Moneyball
4. The Skin I Live In
5. X-Men: First Class
(via moviefone)
The world’s greatest invention
Tom Standage argues that civilization’s best invention is writing.
It is not just one of the foundations of civilisation: it underpins the steady accumulation of intellectual achievement. By capturing ideas in physical form, it allows them to travel across space and time without distortion, and thus slip the bonds of human memory and oral transmission, not to mention the whims of tyrants and the vicissitudes of history.
The best “best of” lists of 2011
Still cleaning out some tabs from over the break…this list of the best “best of 2011” lists is worth looking at, even if you’ve got list fatigue. It includes lists like “10 Films Hypothetically Starring Ryan Gosling”, “Top 10 Classical Performances”, and “Top 10 Films of John Waters”.
The most important events of 2011
The Morning News got a bunch of writers and thinkers to name the most important event of 2011.
While they may not yet have a common name, and their causes overlap but are hardly identical, the worldwide protests that began in December 2010 in Tunisia and swept through Egypt, the Middle East, Spain, Greece, the United Kingdom, every state in the U.S then thousands of worldwide cities — these, collectively, are the single most important event of 2011. It was so significant that the year itself may be the only possible name for these people’s revolutions and protests: the same way we talk about 1968 or Sept. 11 or Feb. 15, 2003: perhaps just “2011.”
As Joanne McNeil noted, hindsight provides clarity with questions like this. Events that are invisible at the time become important five or ten years later. Take 1993 for instance. At the time, the European Community eliminating customs barriers or Bill Clinton’s swearing-in or the first bombing of the WTC might have seemed most significant, but with hindsight, Tim Berners-Lee’s quiet invention of the World Wide Web in an office at CERN is clearly the year’s most significant and far-reaching happening.
Update: TBL invented the WWW in 1991, not 1993. ‘91 was a bit busier news-wise, what with the first Iraq war and Gorbachev’s resignation, but the Web’s invention ranks right up there in hindsight. (thx, sean)
Best table tennis shots of 2011
If I made New Year’s resolutions, one of them would be to play more table tennis. (via stellar)
A Year in Reading
The Millions presents their annual A Year in Reading for 2011, where they ask a bunch of people their favorite reads of the year.
With this in mind, for an eighth year, we asked some of our favorite writers, thinkers, and readers to look back, reflect, and share. Their charge was to name, from all the books they read this year, the one(s) that meant the most to them, regardless of publication date. Grouped together, these ruminations, cheers, squibs, and essays will be a chronicle of reading and good books from every era. We hope you find in them seeds that will help make your year in reading in 2012 a fruitful one.
Contributors include Duff McKagan, Mayim Bialik, Jennifer Egan, Colum McCann, and Rosecrans Baldwin.
Yet more best longreads of 2011
These are from the Longreads Tumblr. You’ll never want for 3000-word reading material ever again.
Best longreads of 2011
Load up yer Instapaper for the holidays: Give Me Something To Read’s favorite longreads of 2011.
The year in photos
In Focus delivers part one of an eventual three-part look at 2011 in photography. 2011 was a remarkably eventful year.
Here’s part two. See also Buzzfeed’s list of the 45 most powerful images of 2011.
Five best toys ever
Jonathan Liu over at GeekDad compiled a list of the five best toys of all time.
2. Box
Another toy that is quite versatile, Box also comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. Need proof? Depending on the number and size you have, Boxes can be turned into furniture or a kitchen playset. You can turn your kids into cardboard robots or create elaborate Star Wars costumes. A large Box can be used as a fort or house and the smaller Box can be used to hide away a special treasure. Got a Stick? Use it as an oar and Box becomes a boat. One particularly famous kid has used the Box as a key component of a time machine, a duplicator and a transmogrifier, among other things.
Love it. (via @jsnell)
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