Yesterday, Jon Gordon (the host of Future Tense, a technology show aired by American Public Media) discussed the major tech innovations of the decade.

Couldn’t let you down. Couldn’t let the year end without giving you a “best of” list. So here it goes. A purely subjective list. 25 items. Some educational; some a little more entertaining; some popular, etc. I hope you enjoy, and you can always search through our complete archive here.

Yup, we mentioned Quentin Tarantino last week, and we’re doing it again this week because Rosario has unearthed this nice clip. In six snappy minutes, Tarantino (director of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dog, Inglorious Basterds, etc) lists his favorites films made since 1992 — when he, himself, started making films.

Today, we’re rolling out a sizable collection of Free eBooks, most of them classics, that features major works written by James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, Nietzsche and others. (We have even thrown in a little Paulo Coelho.

Today’s free story: When They Were Calling You in for Dinner (listen here) or read it in the Charles River Review [To download the story and listen on your MP3 player, just right-click and "save file as..."]
Dear OC readers,
About a week ago, I posted here about my Publishing Experiment Take 1.

It’s that time of the year. Or rather that time of the decade. It’s time for “best of” lists — good ones, often banal ones, and sometimes bad ones. Here’s one good list that might serve you well next year.

One thing is for sure. David Lynch has never been conventional. Not now, and not during his early years. While putting together our collection of Free Movies Online, we unearthed several short films from the 1960s, when Lynch was getting his start. His very first film, Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times), appears above.

Some very powerful images in this New York Times feature. But, taken together, they don’t say much good for 2009.

To eat bacon sandwiches? Or not to eat bacon sandwiches? That’s the question that David Spiegelhalter, “Professor Risk” at Cambridge University, tackles in this short video examining stats, life, and whether we should err on the side of caution … or risk.

Let me quickly call your attention to an interview with Joseph Ellis, the Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling historian, who most recently published American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies in the Founding of the Republic.