Friday Linkology: The Best of the Internet, 10/2/09 Edition
Before we get to our standard Friday links, a question. This morning, a water
cooler conversation broke out that got us talking: what are the best movie scenes you remember?
Lots of answers to this, but these are the ones that everyone agreed really stood out.
There’s the famous Glengarry Glen Ross monologue, which many argue launched Alec Baldwin’s career in earnest. Or a similar scene in Boiler Room starring Vin Diesel. Then there’s the wallet scene in Pulp Fiction. Or the courtroom scene in A Few Good Men. Or maybe some more Alec Baldwin in a classic narcissistic rant in Malice. The Billy Madison everyone-is-now-dumber scene. Blazing Saddles’s campfire cowboys. Or, maybe, when John (Owen Wilson) meets Chazz (Will Ferrell) in Wedding Crashers.
What are yours? Let us know in the comments.
With that out of the way, here’s some good Friday reading for you:
- Books that make you dumb. Interesting graph, but where’s the data?
- The coldest place in our solar system is in the craters within craters on the south pole of the moon. How cold? Temperatures within these confines were measured at 397 degrees below zero. For reference, that’s just 62 degrees above what is internationally agreed-upon as absolute zero, the coldest temperature theoretically possible.
- Jeff Simmermon’s touching story about his grandmother, Daro, and her special brand of wisdom and life lessons.
- Absolutely outstanding piece by Rich Cohen over at The Believer about how the history of America is the history of the automobile industry. A must-read. Long, but worth the time. (If you’re an iPhone user at work, this is tailor-made for Instapaper.)
- Marginal Revolution’s Tyler Cowen gives his praise of Twitter.
- Matt Taibbi’s gives an excellent glimpse inside the regulatory kitchen. Whether or not you agree with Taibbi’s views, the guy can flat-out write.
- A smart, humorous TED talk by John Lloyd, who inventories the invisible.
- Finally, by request, a video near and dear to our resident Business Intelligence expert, Larry Zagata. Larry, this one’s for you.
Have a good weekend, everyone.
