A graphical recap of the decade (2000-2009)

Courtesy: The New York Times

How religious is your state?

I am pleased to be living in America's least religious state.

The Best Films of the Decade (2000-2009)

Again, here are the best compilations I've run across in this category.

• The New Yorker
• Internet Movie Database (IMDB)
• The Rolling Stone
• Slate
• The Onion
• RottenTomatoes
• Metacritic
• Roger Ebert
• Fansided
• The Christian Science Monitor
• The Times
  

And since the above lists comprise mostly mainstream films, here's my own list of the best (mostly alternative or foreign) films of the decade gone by.

• Amu
• A Mighty Heart
  
• Bend It Like Beckham
• Bloody Sunday
  
• Bowling For Columbine
• Cache
  
• Catch Me If You Can
• Cheeni Kum
  
• Crash
• Crimson Gold
• Delhi-6
  
• Focus
• Going Upriver
• Gomorrah
  
• Grizzly Man
• Guru
• Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains
  
• Kill Bill, Volumes I & II
• Last King Of Scotland
• Lord Of War
  
• Matchstick Men
  
• Mr And Mrs Iyer
• Nobody Knows
• No End In Sight
  
• Owning Mahoney
• Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!
• Persepolis
  
• Planet Earth
• Rabbit-Proof Fence
  
• Shwaas
• Slumdog Millionaire
  
• Spirited Away
• Syriana
  
• The Child
  
• The Contender
• The Diving Bell And The Butterfly
  
• The Fast Runner
  
• The Fog Of War
• The Pianist
• The Queen
• The Road To Guantanamo
• The Trials of Henry Kissinger
  
• The World's Fastest Indian
• Tibet: Cry Of The Snow Lion
  
• Time Out
  
• United 93
• Walk The Line
• Wall
  
• Waltz With Bashir
  
• Water
  
• Why We Fight
• Zodiac
  

The Best Books of the Decade (2000-2009)

Here's a rundown of the most useful compilations I've come across.

• 100 Best (Times)
• 30 Best (Onion)
• Best (Salon)

My own favorites are listed below.

• My Stroke of Insight (Taylor)
  
• Architecture (Glancey)
• Under the Banner of Heaven (Krakauer)
• Discovering the Sikhs (McLeod)
• The Spiral Staircase (Armstrong)
• The Undercover Economist (Harford)
• The Tipping Point (Gladwell)
• Freakonomics (Levitt)
• A Really Short History of Nearly Everything (Bryson)
• The Future of Freedom (Zakaria)
• My Job Went to India (Fowler)
• Effective Java (Bloch)
• Letter to a Christian Nation (Harris)
• A Little History of the World (Gombrich)
• Vows (Manseau)
• Step Across This Line (Rushdie)
• An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (Roy)
• The Algebra of Infinite Justice (Roy)
• Power Politics (Roy)
• War Talk (Roy)
• Holy Cow (Macdonald)

Anglais!

I once got caught traveling without a ticket in Paris's underground railway. I did not know much French and got out of trouble simply by repeating one word over and over -- Anglais!

Essential websites

An excellent list of essential websites assembled by The Guardian.

Don't throw away your scratched CDs/DVDs

At least not until you've read this advice on how to fix scratched CDs/DVDs.

Linux commands to treasure

Some lesser known but very useful Linux commands.