I don’t know why, but I actually feel good about having only seen 10 of the things on this “Definitive List of the 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced on the Internet Unless You’re a Loser or Old or Something.” Admittedly, the 10 I’ve seen were pretty good.  (Well, eight of them.  Well, seven.)

But who doesn’t love a good list?

• Reading: read (most of) Kelly Link’s Magic For Beginners online, for free, legitimately!  (And then read an interview with her at Meeting House Mag.)  [via Bookslut]
• Watching: watch Stalker, online.  It’s a movie by the guy who did the good Solaris.  What’s not to like? [via Warren Ellis]
• Listening: all about con men.  And by “all about”, we mean “some about”.  Which is still more interesting than none about.  Australian con men, mind you.  Though there’s presumably some universality to conning. [source misplaced]
• Anticipating: Timecrimes.
• Remembering: That word… you know… the one with… it’s like…  Whatever.  Finally, a resource for finding the word you kind of sort of remember, partially.  [Tip of My Tongue, via Lifehacker]

The top 10 most discarded books in hotel rooms

1. The Blair Years by Alastair Campbell
2. Don’t You Know Who I Am? by Piers Morgan
3. A Whole New World by Jordan
4. Wicked by Jilly Cooper
5. Dr Who Creatures & Demons by Justin Richard
6. The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown
7. I Can Make You Thin by Paul McKenna
8. Humble Pie by Gordon Ramsay
9. The Story Of A Man And His Mouth by Chris Moyles
10. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

(via Bookslut)

• Two words: Velociraptor Safari
• The stillness
• Fears of the end of the universe
• Prosthetic legs with secret iguana-smuggling compartments
• Bikinis cultivate impatience, in more ways than you might expect

…or when they were whatever age it is you put into the form. Some of it depressing, as you’d expect, in that it lists the enormous accomplishments by Historical Figures and Celebrities in their youth(s). Other bits are comical, such as the following two pieces, from which I can hardly pick a favorite:

Jan Birkeland from Norway managed to get to work without hitting a single red light.

Derrick Pallas was horrified to realize he was losing his hair, just like Dad.¹

All of this found at the eponymously-titled web site.

(via MeFi)

¹ Both of these things accomplished by the age of 26, in case you were wondering.

Washington Monthly digs into the omnipresent US News & World Report College Rankings, turning them inside-out and upside-down and everything. WM re-orders the list based on things like national service, research grants & student aid, and so forth. Unsurprisingly, US News & WR’s list is flip-flopped a bit, with some top-ranked schools sinking to the bottom (w/, for instance, national universities, only 2 of US News & WR’s top 10 make it to Washington Monthly’s top 10) and some underdogs rising to the top (like the previously unranked South Carolina State University).

Sure, a list can only tell you so much. But they are fun, lists are.

A bit past-due, I realize.  But worth perusing.  A list-of-lists, Fimoculous compiles links to lists of practically everything, best, worst, or otherwise.  Top 10 kitchen utensils of 2005, 100 most annoying things, best serial dramas, best i-pod accessories… it’s all there.  And more.

…last year, at this time; a list of 100 things, put out by BBC News Magazine. A sampling:

• Baboons can tell the difference between English and French. Zoo keepers at Port Lympne wild animal park in Kent are having to learn French to communicate with the baboons which had been transferred from Paris zoo. (#7)
• In America it’s possible to subpoena a dog. (#23)
• You’re 10 times more likely to be bitten by a human than a rat. (#52)

Lots more, obviously.

(BBC News Magazine: “100 things we didn’t know this time last year.” [Dec 30, 2005])

Not totally up-to-date as far as the more recent years go (e.g., 2002), but interesting for the historical content, or something like that.  1981’s bestselling novel was by James Clavell, and the bestselling non-fiction book was a diet book.  1919’s bestselling novel was The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by V. Blasco Ibanez (which, if you’re interested, you can read thanks to Project Gutenberg).

Bestselling info from Publisher’s Weekly, and hosted web-side by Publisher’s Lunch.

Intel ranks cities for the availability of wireless internet access, listing the top 100. Here are the top 10:

1. Seattle-Bellevue-Everett-Tacoma, Wash.
2. San Francisco-San Jose-Oakland, Calif.
3. Austin-San Marcos, Tex.
4. Portland, Oregon – Vancouver, Wash.
5. Toledo, Ohio
6. Atlanta, Ga.
7. Denver, Colo.
8. Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C.
9. Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.
10. Orange County, Calif.

(via PLANETizen)

US city rankings by SustainLane.

In addition to having a logical color-coded system, SustainLane has a fairly comprehensive break-down of sustainability issues for each city, with individual rankings for everything from concrete things, like air quality and transportation, to less obvious things, like city innovation and knowledge base. The rankings include info for the top 25 cities (of which the bottom half aren’t so impressive, but still in theory rank above other cities).

The American Podiatric Medical Association ranks the top 10 walker-friendly (U.S.) cities. And they should know.¹

1. Arlington, VA
2. San Francisco, CA
3. Seattle, WA
4. Portland, OR
5. Boston, MA
6. Washington, D.C.
7. NYC
8. Eugene, OR
9. Jersey City, NJ
10. Denver, CO

The list includes links to lots of other info, including stretches for exercise walkers, a true-or-false walking quiz (true!), and a handy-dandy FAQ.

Note:
¹ …although the 2004 list does look strikingly different from the 2005 list, potentially indicating that the list is (surprise!) fairly arbitrary, even if the cities included on it are good walkin’ cities.

1 Mother
2 Passion
3 Smile
4 Love
5 Eternity
6 Fantastic
7 Destiny
8 Freedom
9 Liberty
10 Tranquillity
11 Peace
12 Blossom
13 Sunshine
14 Sweetheart
15 Gorgeous
16 Cherish
17 Enthusiasm
18 Hope
19 Grace
20 Rainbow
21 Blue
22 Sunflower
23 Twinkle
24 Serendipity
25 Bliss
26 Lullaby
27 Sophisticated
28 Renaissance
29 Cute
30 Cosy
31 Butterfly
32 Galaxy
33 Hilarious
34 Moment
35 Extravaganza
36 Aqua
37 Sentiment
38 Cosmopolitan
39 Bubble
40 Pumpkin
41 Banana
42 Lollipop
43 If
44 Bumblebee
45 Giggle
46 Paradox
47 Delicacy
48 Peekaboo
49 Umbrella
50 Kangaroo
51 Flabbergasted
52 Hippopotamus
53 Gothic
54 Coconut
55 Smashing
56 Whoops
57 Tickle
58 Loquacious
59 Flip-flop
60 Smithereens
61 Oi
62 Gazebo
63 Hiccup
64 Hodgepodge
65 Shipshape
66 Explosion
67 Fuselage
68 Zing
69 Gum
70 Hen night

(Like any other survey-based list of favo(u)rites, it’s arbitrary, of course. And, yes, meaningless, aside from the meaning these words have to the however many thousands of people submitted their favorites. Together, some of the words are delicious surprises. I am a flabbergasted hippopotamus.)

(Guardian: “Mother’s the word,” by David Ward [November 25, 2004])

(from the Late Show with David Letterman, June 29, 2004)

10. That actor who played the President was totally unconvincing
9. It oversimplified the way I stole the election
8. Too many of them fancy college-boy words
7. If Michael Moore had waited a few months, he could have included the part where I get him deported
6. Didn’t have one of them hilarious monkeys who smoke cigarettes and gives people the finger
5. Of all Michael Moore’s accusations, only 97% are true
4. Not sure — I passed out after a piece of popcorn lodged in my windpipe
3. Where the hell was Spider-man?
2. Couldn’t hear most of the movie over Cheney’s foul mouth
1. I thought this was supposed to be about Dodgeball

(via David Neiwert’s Orcinus, which was tipped off by James Benjamin)

• Freedom of Information Act: so you have some idea what the Freedom of Information Act is, maybe, but did you know that you can read some of the things that have been made publicly available online? Oh. You did? Well, for those of you who haven’t, you may want to check out the FOIA’s Electronic Reading Room, where you can find files on everything from the American Nazi Party to Talulah Bankhead to UFOs to Trotsky to Albert Einstein. You can even peruse Abbie Hoffman’s FBI files… all 4,101 pages of them!
• Or, if you have trouble imagining what a quarter of a billion dollars ($250,000,000.00) in damage means when you’re talking about superfast, superexotic cars (e.g., Lamborghini Murcielago, Bugatti EBs, etc.), looking at pictures might help.
• Everything2 has some quirky and utterly strange entries in its compendium of human knowledge, though it’s not so much an encyclopedia as it is a collection of interrelated monologues. “This sentence is in Spanish while you’re not looking” is a good example, if you’re not quite clear on the concept. “Books that will induce a mindfuck” is another perennial favorite, with the added perk that it’s actually (somewhat) useful.
• Or there’s the end-all reference of Estuary English resources online.
• The Cockney Internet is another good resource (which, admittedly, is listed on the previous page, but I figured I’d bring it up anyway since it’s so helpful). Now aint yer glad I told yer dat? Plus, The Cockney Internet includes a couple good links to dictionaries of Cockney Rhyming Slang.
• The Alternative Dictionaries provides an impeccably useful resource in the form of, well, dictionaries—70 languages—but dictionaries containing words you wouldn’t find in other dictionaries. Like, how do you say go to hell in Icelandic? (Fardu i rassgat, if you’re interested.) Or how would you tell someone in Korean—without being too extreme about it—that they’ve become a retarded lunatic, etc.?

Noam Chomsky, MIT Linguist and Anarchist:

“Kerry is sometimes described as ‘Bush-lite’, which is not inaccurate. But despite the limited differences both domestically and internationally, there are differences. In a system of immense power, small differences can translate into large outcomes.” (The Guardian, March 20)

Mel Gibson, on George Bush:

“I am having my doubts, of late. It mainly has to do with the weapons (of mass destruction) we can’t seem to find (in Iraq).” (NBC6.net, March 16)

(so I realize two items isn’t a great list, but it’s all I have for now)

…and many other weird and often irreverently profane band names, found on the The Canonical List of Weird Band Names. Which, yes, restricts the list to actual band names. Skimming the list, I recognized maybe 11 or 12 names, but I’m not too sure whether that’s a particularly good thing. It might be, it might not.

The list includes such beauties as the following:

The Band Formerly Known As Sausage
Biff Hitler and the Violent Mood Swings
Big Fat Pet Clams From Outer Space
Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggits
Cream of Whoop-Ass Soup
Freud Chicken
He’s Dead Jim
Jim Jones and the Kool Aid Kids
Mate/Spawn/Kill
Not With My Camel
Rats of Unusual Size

And also includes such sage advice as:

Goldfish Don’t Bounce

(found via diepunyhumans)

Okay. So I have a mild curiosity as to the Oscar winners. No major investment—no money riding on any of the nominees (honest!), just a mild, vaguely saprophytic curiosity.

(And yes, I realize that saprophytic almost definintely makes no sense whatosever in that context.)

Moreover, using the seemingly bottomless pool of numbers over at The Numbers, I thought it might be interesting to make some kind of list that showed the box office revenues of various Oscar winners, possibly contrasted against box office grosses of non-winners, of the movies that didn’t make it into the winners’ circle. I thought that, potentially, some interesting patterns might pop up. Like, I don’t know, a correlation between budgetary limitations (or lack thereof) and number of Oscars. Or, you know, whatever.

Actually, I still think it might be an interesting list, but it’s not going to come from me. Trying to figure out how I might go about putting this list together, I realize that it’s way too much work for something that I’m only interested in incidentally. Besides the fact that I understand virtually nothing of Academy Awards politics, a limitation that would severely limit my ability to draw any meaningful conclusions (or even interesting conclusions, never mind whether or not there was any factual basis)

So instead, what you get is the much less interesting (and much less extensive) list of the following items.

• Best Picture: “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.” (US Gross: $358,900,000)
• Actor: Sean Penn, “Mystic River.” (US Gross: $76,812,000)
• Actress: Charlize Theron, “Monster.” (US Gross: $22,000,000)

Amount of water it would take, per day, to support 4.7 billion people at the UN daily minimum:

Amount of water used, per day, to irrigate the world’s golf courses:

Average amount of pesticides used per acre, per year, on golf courses:

Average amount of pesticides used, per acre, per year, in agriculture:

(via WorldWatch Institute’s Matters of Scale (March/April 2004))

Q: “In your view, does the entertainment industry need to make a serious effort to significantly reduce the amount of sex and violence in its movies, television shows and music, or don’t you think they need to do this?”

Q: “On another topic, there has been controversy over Janet Jackson’s exposure of her breast during halftime entertainment at the Super Bowl. Which of these positions comes closer to your view regarding Janet Jackson’s exposure? Television has reached a new low in bad taste. People who are protesting this incident are overreacting.”

Two interesting, if not terribly surpring and/or meaningful polls. The thing that most surprised me about poll #1 was the fact that such a high percentage of people agree (or pretend to agree) that the ent. industry should definitely do something about all the sex&violence that happen to show up in its products (imagine that! how did it get there? I dunno. think we should do something about it? nah, it seems to sell movies. you’re right, how foolish of me— let’s add more…). Less surprising is that fewer people today (assuming the drop is stat. sig., which is very well may not be) think the s&v are something for which Entertainment should take responsibility. This despite the probable increased incidence and prominence of s&v in entertainment today. Following a wildly unproductive vein of speculation: is this due to increased permissiveness, or decreased sensitivity? (And is there a difference?) My guess would be that it’s the sensitivity, not permissiveness. I’m basing this on the assumption that it takes more than nine years for any real, deep chances in what society’s prone to accept with open arms. Or red-eyed indifference, as the case may be. Just a thought. Thought #2 re: poll #2 is that, well, no surprise there. What’s most surprising is probably how unsurprising it is, in fact; how completely, devastatingly predictable the results are. I wonder if there are some highly unexpected and unpredictable factors playing into the ultimate picture of things. I wouldn’t be surprised if I were surprised by whatever an inquiring mind found. (That, for instance, this isn’t an inevitable trend that can be fitted equally well to any decade or period. I have no idea if this is true or not, but I’d expect it to have at least a grain of truth to it.)

p.s. both of these polls are drawn from www.pollingreport.com