lists

The 25 Least Visited Countries In The World

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Here is a moderately surprising list of the 25 least visited countries in the world. North Korea doesn’t even make the list (because of a mostly Chinese tourist base). Why some countries are less visited than others varies, but location, travel related logistics, costs, visa availability, degree of war and governments or lack thereof all matter. Here is the top ten with their approximate annual number of tourist visitors:

10. Turkmenistan: 8,697
9. Guinea-Bissau: 7,500
8. Libya: 6,250
7. Kiribati: 6,000
6. Equatorial Guinea: 5,700
5. South Sudan: 5,500
4. Marshall Islands: 4,600
3. Tuvalu: 1,200
2. Somalia: 400 visitor
1. Nauru: 160 visitors

That would make on heck of a bucket list. The author Gunnar Garfors has visited 198 countries and shares some of his experiences in traveling to these far-flung and rarely visited countries.

Mad Men Reading List

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The New York Public Library (NYPL) has created a Mad Men Reading List, a collection of 25 titles read by the main characters during the course of the series. These titles are a great way to gain insight into the social and cultural eras in which the series takes place.

DON DRAPER’S PICKS

ROGER STERLING’S PICK

JOAN HARRIS’S PICK

BERT COOPER’S PICK

  • Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
    (Episode 108 “The Hobo Code”)

BETTY DRAPER’S PICKS

PETE CAMPBELL’S PICKS

SALLY DRAPER’S PICKS

LANE PRYCE’S PICK

HENRY FRANCIS’S PICK

Billy Parrott has also written a more comprehensive blogpost that lists books seen on shelves and lying around on tables during the show.

Definitive List Of Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet Part 2014

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Greg Rutter has once again created a definitive list of the 99 things you should have already experienced on the internet unless you’re a loser or old or something. Once again, it is a little YouTube heavy, me thinks. But it still a great way to burn an evening. There are a bunch on this years list that I haven’t seen yet. Maybe I really am getting old or something.

01) First Kiss
02) Apparently Kid
03) Hater Blockers
04) The Ice Bucket Challenge
05) In My Mum’s Car
06) Swedish Soldier’s “Greased Lightning”
07) Skateboarding Cat
08) Mr. Pimp Goodgame
09) Kayden and Rain
10) Runner Falls In The Snow After Interview
11) Shia LaBeouf – Live
12) Climbing The World’s Second Highest Tower
13) Snowboarding NYC
14) Brian Williams Sings “Rapper’s Delight”
15) Twitch Plays Pokemon
16) 10 Hours Of Walking In New York As A Woman
17) Cleaning Dancing Roommate
18) Seth Rogen’s Alzheimer’s Senate Testimony
19) Fake Chef Pranks Morning TV Shows
20) Glow Stick Blows Up In Kid’s Face
22) Two Women Caught Stealing Canopy On Beach
22) The Camera In The Mirror
23) Barack Obama’s Between Two Ferns
24) The Ice Cream Van
25) Demon Baby Attack
26) Good Looking Parents Sing “Love Is an Open Door”
27) Superman With A GoPro
28) Andrei Linde Celebrates Physics Breakthrough
29) KTLA Anchors React To Earthquake
30) Louis C.K. and Bradley Cooper
31) Grandmas Smoking Weed For The First Time
32) I Might Boycott Bath And Body Works Rant
33) BASE Jump From The Freedom Tower
34) Instant Karma
35) Action Movie Kid
36) Slow Life
37) Coke + Nutella + Mentos + Durex ITALIA world record
38) Circle Of Life On Flight Home
39) When Mom Isn’t Home
40) Classroom Phone Call April Fools Prank
41) Kids React To The Walkman
42) The Futility Of Existence
43) Kicked In The Head By A Train
44) Baby Conducts Choir
45) Dog Carjacking
46) Reveal To Grandpa
47) Tiny Hamsters Eating Tiny Burritos
48) 100 Days Of Dance
49) Tempura Shrimp Canon
50) Shovel Fight
51) Ellen’s Oscar Selfie
52) Three Year Epic Selfie
53) My Cat Saved My Son
54) Bunny Eating Rasperberries
55) 300 Sandwiches
56) Amazing Jam Session
57) 26 Country Proposal
58) Aug(de)mented Reality
59) Basejumping Dog
60) Luigi Death Stare
61) Full Cycle Inside A Dishwasher
62) Blatant Racism In Cheektowaga, NY
63) Sir Mix-A-Lot With The Seattle Symphony
64) All By Myself
65) Musicless Music Video: Dancing In The Streets
66) Fireworks Filmed With A Drone
67) F*ck Her Right In The P*ssy
68) I Dare You To Watch This Entire Video
69) Pallate Surfing
70) An Oscar-Worthy Toddler Tantrum
71) Zach King’s Magic Vines
72) Sadie Doesn’t Want Her Brother To Grow Up
73) British NFL Commentary
74) Things You Can’t Do When You’re Not A Toddler
75) Seal Wants To Surf
76) Been Walking Up Late For Some Reason
77) Between Two Ferns: Brad Pitt
78) People Power Frees Man Trapped By Train
79) The Gap by Ira Glass
80) East Hills Mall Back To School Commercial
81) Wisdom Teeth Ice Bucket Challenge
82) That J Crew Gingham Shirt
83) Run, Walter, Run!
84) Mascot Traffic Accident
85) Grandpa and Grandmaster Flash
86) Mutant Giant Spider Dog
87) Jam Session Bat Attack
88) First iPhone 6 Gets Dropped
89) You Poked My Heart
90) Dog Thinks Terrace Door Is Closed
91) I Smell Like Beef
92) Kid Goes Diva
93) Auto-complete Song
94) Love At First Touch
95) Dallas Airport Homophobe
96) Walking On Clean Ice In Slovakia
97) Coyote & Crow Dance
98) Crash And Burn Weezer Cover
99) iPhone 6 Plus Bend Test

I always try to add a few that I think Greg Missed, so here you go:
100) Deez Nuts

Top 10 Most Banned Books: 2013

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For the past few years, during Banned Books Weak, I have put together a list of the top ten most banned books of the previous year. Out of 307 challenges (a decrease from the 464 challenges reported in 2012) as reported by the Office for Intellectual Freedom, here are the top ten:

2013

  1. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
    Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group, violence
  2. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
    Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence
  3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
    Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
  4. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
    Reasons: Nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
  5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
    Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
  6. A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl, by Tanya Lee Stone
    Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit
  7. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
    Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
  8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
    Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
  9. Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
    Reasons: Occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
  10. Bone (series), by Jeff Smith
    Reasons: Political viewpoint, racism, violence

Click these links if you are looking for the top 10 lists for previous years with easy links to Amazon: 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001.

Additionally, in 2010, I put together a list of the 100 Most Banned & Challenged Books Of The Decade by aggregating several lists from the American Library Association.

A list Of The 100 All-Time Best Film Noir And Neo-Noir Movies

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In two months Taschen Books will be releasing a photography book called Film Noir. TASCHEN’s 100 All-Time Favorite Movies. The 688 page book is a film-by-film photography book of the 100 greatest Film Noir movies since 1920. It will contain posters, tons of rare stills, cast/crew details, quotes from the films and from critics, and analyses of the films. The list of the 100 greatest film noir movies in the book is below.




1920-1959

1920

  • The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

1927

  • The Lodger

1931

  • M<

1938

  • Port of Shadows

1940

  • Rebecca

1941

  • High Sierra
  • The Maltese Falcon

1943

  • Shadow of a Doubt
  • Ossessione

1944

  • Phantom Lady
  • Double Indemnity
  • Gaslight
  • Laura
  • The Woman in the Window
  • Murder, My Sweet

1945

  • Hangover Square
  • Mildred Pierce
  • Detour
  • The Lost Weekend
  • The Spiral Staircase
  • Leave Her to Heaven

1946

  • Gilda
  • The Postman Always Rings Twice
  • Notorious
  • The Big Sleep
  • The Killers

1947

  • Body and Soul
  • Nightmare Alley
  • Out of the Past
  • T-Men
  • The Lady from Shanghai

1948

  • The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
  • Call Northside 777
  • They Live by Night
  • Force of Evil

1949

  • Champion
  • The Third Man
  • White Heat

1950

  • Gun Crazy
  • Night and the City
  • In a Lonely Place
  • The Asphalt Jungle
  • Sunset Boulevard

1952

  • The Thief

1953

  • Poison Ivy
  • Pickup on South Street

1954

  • Rear Window

1955

  • Diabolique
  • The Big Combo
  • Rififi 366
  • Kiss Me Deadly
  • The Night of the Hunter

1956

  • The Killing
  • Foreign Intrigue

1957

  • Sweet Smell of Success

1958

  • Elevator to the Scaffold
  • Touch of Evil
  • Vertigo
  • It Happened in Broad Daylight
  • Murder by Contract

1959

  • Odds Against Tomorrow

1960-2011

1960

  • Purple Noon
  • Peeping Tom
  • Psycho
  • Shoot the Piano Player

1962

  • Cape Fear

1963

  • High and Low

1966

  • Blow-Up

1967

  • Point Blank
  • Le Samouraï

1971

  • Get Carter

1972

  • The Getaway

1974

  • The Conversation
  • Chinatown

1975

  • The Passenger

1976

  • Taxi Driver

1978

  • The Driver

1981

  • Diva
  • Blow Out
  • Prince of the City
  • Body Heat
  • Clean Slate

1982

  • Blade Runner

1985

  • To Live and Die in L.A.

1986

  • Blue Velvet

1987

  • House of Games

1992

  • Basic Instinct
  • Bad Lieutenant

1994

  • Pulp Fiction

1995

  • Se7en
  • Heat

1997

  • L.A. Confidential
  • Hana-Bi

1999

  • The Limey

2000

  • Memento

2005

  • Sin City

2007

  • No Country for Old Men

2008

  • The Dark Knight

2010

  • Black Swan

2011

  • Drive

2013: The Year In Blogging

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During 2013 Artifacting saw 1,530,685 absolute unique visitors to the site. While this number is larger than last year is doesn’t show the growth seen in earlier years. Below is a graph of my total number of absolute unique readers throughout 2013.

2013 Visitors

The spike on July 7th came from the “Today I learned” Sub-Reddit discovering my post about Venezuela’s Never Ending Lightning Storm.

Below are the top ten most visited posts published on Artifacting in 2013.
Google Street View At Night
Every Human Being
2013 SXSW Music Torrent & Radio
Denver Has The 3rd Best Looking Flag In The Nation.
Climbing The Mercury City Tower
Museum Of Endangered Sounds
Rare Color Film Of The Three Stooges
Gravity Is A Mistake
United States Of Electoral Votes
Bruce Springsteen <–> Dolly Parton

Referring sites sent 165,029 visits from 1,469 different sources during 2013. Less than last year.

2013 Referrals

The top ten referring sites to Artifacting (with search engines removed) during 2013 were:

Stumbleupon
Yahoo Answers
Reddit
Facebook
Squidoo
WikiHow
Just Free Stuff
Metafilter
Disneyland Fanclub
Pintrest

This year Pinterest, Wikihow, Just Free Stuff, and the now defunct Disneyland Fanclub were all newcomers to the list over the past year.

General stats for Artifacting are as follows:

Year # Of Posts Avg. Length Of Posts Total Length Of All Posts Comments (Mine)
2013 30 4,889 146,682 115 (2)
2012 88 2,093 184,142 273 (7)
2011 96 3,369 323,412 304 (13)
2010 172 1,900 326,775 326 (20)
2009 105 1,828 191,907 285 (19)
2008 135 956 129,117 363 (34)
2007 248 835 207,145 568 (124)
2006 221 927 204,804 536 (122)
2005 39 1,392 54,292 295 (0)
2004 117 1,673 195,757 955 (0)
2003 144 1,473 212,112 701 (0)

If you’re interested I also have the similar year-end stat posts for 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008.

2013: My Year In Music

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I have been scrobbling my listening habits to last.fm for almost seven years now. Below I have listed the bands that I listened to most during 2013. Two of the bands in my top ten this year were also on last years list.

  1. Ratatat
  2. Ween
  3. Songs: Ohia
  4. Against Me!
  5. Make Up
  6. Built To Spill
  7. Kanye West
  8. 10 Ft. Ganja Plant (6th last year)
  9. Beastie Boys (4th last year)
  10. Cloud Cult

Below is a wave graph of the top artists that I listened to over the last year (click for a larger image). It’s a great way to visualize the trends in my listening habits throughout the year.
2013 Wavegraph

Additionally, here is a list of my most listened to songs of 2013:

  1. Ratatat – Wildcat
  2. Ratatat – Tacobel Canon
  3. Ratatat – Tropicana
  4. Brassy – Who Stole the Show
  5. Ratatat – Swisha
  6. African Bush Doctor – Not for Sale
  7. Ratatat – Nostrand
  8. Cat Power – Good Woman
  9. Ratatat – Loud Pipes
  10. Junior Toots – This is Fire

Some of the best live shows I’ve seen this year included:
Dinosaur Jr.
Vampire Weekend
Of Monsters And Men

You can also see similar lists put together for 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.

2013: My Year In Cities & Towns

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My travel was light again this year. Below is a list of cities and towns I’ve visited in 2013. I spent one or more nights in each place listed and those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days.

Edwards, CO*
Niwot, CO*
Vail, CO*
Winter Park, CO
Salt Lake City, UT
Nassau, Bahamas
Alice Town, Eleuthera, Bahamas
Dumore Town, Harbour Island, Bahamas

I also have city and town lists for 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.

David Bowie’s Top 100 Must Read Books

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Earlier this year, before the “David Bowie Is” retrospective opened in Toronto, David Bowie revealed his top 100 must read books. The list provides a captivating look into the mind behind Ziggy Stardust and Major Tom. I like that Bowie’s list is expansive and diverse – including comics, autobiography, history, counter-culture, travel writing, poetry and lots of fiction. I also like that the books are relatively new, with only two selections being written before he was born. Bowie is known as “a voracious reader” who is reputed to read as much as “a book a day”. Here they are in reverse chronological order.

  • The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby, 2008
  • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz, 2007
  • The Coast of Utopia: Voyage, Shipwreck, Salvage, Tom Stoppard, 2007
  • Teenage: The Creation of Youth 1875-1945, Jon Savage, 2007
  • Fingersmith, Sarah Waters, 2002
  • The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens, 2001
  • Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder, Lawrence Weschler, 1997
  • A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1890-1924, Orlando Figes, 1997
  • The Insult, Rupert Thomson, 1996
  • Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon, 1995
  • The Bird Artist, Howard Norman, 1994
  • Kafka Was The Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir, Anatole Broyard, 1993
  • Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective, Arthur C. Danto, 1992
  • Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, Camille Paglia, 1990
  • David Bomberg, Richard Cork, 1988
  • Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom, Peter Guralnick, 1986
  • The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin, 1986
  • Hawksmoor, Peter Ackroyd, 1985
  • Nowhere To Run: The Story of Soul Music, Gerri Hirshey, 1984
  • Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter, 1984
  • Money, Martin Amis, 1984
  • White Noise, Don DeLillo, 1984
  • Flaubert’s Parrot, Julian Barnes, 1984
  • The Life and Times of Little Richard, Charles White, 1984
  • A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn, 1980
  • A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole, 1980
  • Interviews with Francis Bacon, David Sylvester, 1980
  • Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler, 1980
  • Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess, 1980
  • Raw (a ‘graphix magazine’), 1980-91
  • Viz (magazine), 1979 –
  • The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels, 1979
  • Metropolitan Life, Fran Lebowitz, 1978
  • In Between the Sheets, Ian McEwan, 1978
  • Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, ed. Malcolm Cowley, 1977
  • The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes, 1976
  • Tales of Beatnik Glory, Ed Saunders, 1975
  • Mystery Train, Greil Marcus, 1975
  • Selected Poems, Frank O’Hara, 1974
  • Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s, Otto Friedrich, 1972
  • In Bluebeard’s Castle : Some Notes Towards the Re-definition of Culture, George Steiner, 1971
  • Octobriana and the Russian Underground, Peter Sadecky, 1971
  • The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll, Charlie Gillete, 1970
  • The Quest For Christa T, Christa Wolf, 1968
  • Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock, Nik Cohn, 1968
  • The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov, 1967
  • Journey into the Whirlwind, Eugenia Ginzburg, 1967
  • Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jr. , 1966
  • In Cold Blood, Truman Capote, 1965
  • City of Night, John Rechy, 1965
  • Herzog, Saul Bellow, 1964
  • Puckoon, Spike Milligan, 1963
  • The American Way of Death, Jessica Mitford, 1963
  • The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, Yukio Mishima, 1963
  • The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin, 1963
  • A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess, 1962
  • Inside the Whale and Other Essays, George Orwell, 1962
  • The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark, 1961
  • Private Eye (magazine) 1961 –
  • On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious, Douglas Harding, 1961
  • Silence: Lectures and Writing, John Cage, 1961
  • Strange People, Frank Edwards, 1961
  • The Divided Self, R. D. Laing, 1960
  • All The Emperor’s Horses, David Kidd,1960
  • Billy Liar, Keith Waterhouse, 1959
  • The Leopard, Giuseppe Di Lampedusa, 1958
  • On The Road, Jack Kerouac, 1957
  • The Hidden Persuaders, Vance Packard, 1957
  • Room at the Top, John Braine, 1957
  • A Grave for a Dolphin, Alberto Denti di Pirajno, 1956
  • The Outsider, Colin Wilson, 1956
  • Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
  • Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, 1949
  • The Street, Ann Petry, 1946
  • Black Boy, Richard Wright, 1945
  • The Portable Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker, 1944
  • The Outsider, Albert Camus, 1942
  • The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West, 1939
  • The Beano, (comic) 1938 –
  • The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell, 1937
  • Mr. Norris Changes Trains, Christopher Isherwood, 1935
  • English Journey, J.B. Priestley, 1934
  • Infants of the Spring, Wallace Thurman, 1932
  • The Bridge, Hart Crane, 1930
  • Vile Bodies, Evelyn Waugh, 1930
  • As I lay Dying, William Faulkner, 1930
  • The 42nd Parallel, John Dos Passos, 1930
  • Berlin Alexanderplatz, Alfred Döblin, 1929
  • Passing, Nella Larsen, 1929
  • Lady Chatterley’s Lover, D.H. Lawrence, 1928
  • The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
  • The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot, 1922
  • BLAST, ed. Wyndham Lewis, 1914-15
  • McTeague, Frank Norris, 1899
  • Transcendental Magic, Its Doctrine and Ritual, Eliphas Lévi, 1896
  • Les Chants de Maldoror, Lautréamont, 1869
  • Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert, 1856
  • Zanoni, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1842
  • Inferno, from the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri, about 1308-1321
  • The Iliad, Homer, about 800 BC

    • Tweets From The 144 Republicans Who Voted To Send The U.S. Into Default

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    Earlier this week a vote was held in congress on HR 2775. This was a vote to reopen the federal government and temporarily raise the debt limit. Despite the dire consequences of this senate amendment not passing, there were 144 republican representatives who voted against it. Below is a twitter timeline of all those representatives.


    It should be noted that representatives John Mica, Tom Petri, and Sam Graves are not included because they don’t have twitter accounts. Here is the complete list of republican representatives that voted to send the United States into default.

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