Time’s best blogs of 2010
On the list are kottke.org favorites like Hilobrow, The Sartorialist, Shorpy, The Awl, and Roger Ebert’s Journal.
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kottke.org posts about lists
The worst movies never made
A list of ten movies that weren’t made…and a good thing they weren’t. Including a Lord of the Rings adaptation with The Beatles.
According to Roy Carr’s The Beatles at the Movies, talks were once in the works for a Beatle-zation — with John Lennon wanting to play Gollum, Paul McCartney Frodo, George Harrison Gandalf, and Ringo Starr Sam. Collaborating with director John Boorman, screenwriter Rospo Pallenberg thought the Beatles should play the four hobbits (and agreed with McCartney that he would be the ideal Frodo).
Upcoming sci-fi films
A list of the 20 most anticipated sci-fi films of 2011. Notable entries include Tarsem Singh’s Immortals (“mythic warrior Theseus battles demons and Titans on his way to becoming a legendary Greek hero”), Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (“an international team of doctors is assembled by the Centers for Disease Control to battle an outbreak of a deadly virus”; stars Damon, Paltrow, Winslet, Fishburne, Cotillard, and Law, Jude Law), and Kenneth Branagh’s Thor (“superbeing Thor is cast out of the cosmic realm of Asgard and forced to live among humans, where he must find a way to both defend Earth and reclaim his birthright”).
The ten most disturbing scientific discoveries
Number three on this Smithsonian Magazine list is “There have been mass extinctions in the past, and we’re probably in one now.”
Today, according to many biologists, we’re in the midst of a sixth great extinction. Mastodons may have been some of the earliest victims. As humans moved from continent to continent, large animals that had thrived for millions of years began to disappear-mastodons in North America, giant kangaroos in Australia, dwarf elephants in Europe. Whatever the cause of this early wave of extinctions, humans are driving modern extinctions by hunting, destroying habitat, introducing invasive species and inadvertently spreading diseases.
The 101 best sandwiches in NYC
I’ve only had a few of these…I am clearly not exercising my sandwich muscles enough these days. (Although the Brazilian sandwich at Project Sandwich has been treating me well lately.)
Ten maps that changed the world
The head of the map collections department at the British Library shares ten maps that changed the world.
5. Google Earth. Google Earth presents a world in which the area of most concern to you (in this instance, Avebury in Wiltshire) can be at the centre, and which - with mapped content overlaid - can contain whatever you think is important. Almost for the first time, the ability to create an accurate map has been placed in the hands of everyone, and it has transformed the way we view the world.
The 50 Greatest Hip Hop Samples Of All Time
This breaks a few of the rules on my list of Rules for Lists, but I’m a sucker for hip hop samples.
(via waxy)
Properties of successful web apps
From VC Fred Wilson, The 10 Golden Principles of Successful Web Apps.
The Four Great Inventions of ancient China
They are as follows:
the compass
gunpowder
papermaking
printing
There are also many other inventions, including fermented drink, forks, and the noodle.
2009 book sales figures
In fiction, Dan Brown was #1 but James Patterson appears *five times* in the top 25. On the nonfiction side, a certain former Alaskan governor (no, not Walter J. Hickel) tops the list. The full list is here. (via the millions)
When programming errors attack!
From a bunch of security experts, the top 25 most dangerous programming errors that can lead to serious software vulnerabilities.
Cross-site scripting and SQL injection are the 1-2 punch of security weaknesses in 2010. Even when a software package doesn’t primarily run on the web, there’s a good chance that it has a web-based management interface or HTML-based output formats that allow cross-site scripting. For data-rich software applications, SQL injection is the means to steal the keys to the kingdom. The classic buffer overflow comes in third, while more complex buffer overflow variants are sprinkled in the rest of the Top 25.
Americans don’t like movies with subtitles
Only nine foreign films have grossed more than $20 million in the US:
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Life Is Beautiful
Hero
Pan’s Labyrinth
Amelie
Jet Li’s Fearless
Il Postino
Like Water for Chocolate
La Cage aux Folles
And only 22 have made more than $10 million. There are some great great films on the full list. (via latimes)
Health and fitness tips from a trainer
A long-time trainer shares what he’s learned about health and fitness. A lot of good (and questionable) stuff in this list.
Diet is 85% of where results come from…for muscle and fat loss. Many don’t focus here enough.
If you eat whole foods that have been around for 1000s of years, you probably don’t have to worry about counting calories
Our dependence on gyms to workout may be keeping people fat…as walking down a street and pushups in your home are free everyday…but people are not seeing it that way.
(via jorn)
Best movie scenes
The Guardian asked several film directors to choose their favorite movie scenes. Ryan Fleck chose the chase scene from The French Connection and discovered that the 80+ mph chase was done through normal traffic with Hackman just driving like a crazy person.
I did a little bit of research about how they shot the scene. Phenomenal. Basically they just did it. There was no security blocking off other traffic, just Hackman in a car with a camera mounted on the front. They went crazy, lost their minds, and went for it. It was the kind of thing that you just would never get away with these days.
I don’t know if it’s my favorite or not, but the opening scene in The Matrix where the cops walk into a dusty old building to find Trinity working alone at a computer and then she flies up in the air and the camera circles around her as she kicks those cops’ asses, well, let’s just say I want to be that excited about seeing the rest of every single movie I watch. (via @brainpicker)
Update: The FC chase scene was actually done by stunt driver Bill Hickman. (thx, jason)
The Meta Awards
The categories include:
Best Long, Rambling Speech, Which Must Be Forcefully Cut Short by the Orchestra, Given After Receiving This Award
Most Worthy of Winning This Award By Sheer Virtue of the Number of Times She Has Not Previously Won This Award
(via @tcarmody)
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.
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.
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