Links from December 2009 (Phil Gyford’s website)

Cormac McCarthy on The Road - WSJ.com: All good, but mainly for "I hear people talking about going on a vacation or something and I think, what is that about? ... My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper ... That's gold and anything else is just a waste of time."
Mr Bojangles: Worshipping workshops: I enjoy brainstorming workshoppy things but they always feel like a sport that I'm doing badly at, watching the sporty boys have fun.
Royal Society - Trailblazing: A little thin in content so far, and overly flashy for me, and the original articles are all but hidden. But otherwise a good start on making this old material more accessible.

Open Rights Group | The Digital Economy Bill - a first critical look: Good, and alarming, summary of that bloody bill.
The Death Of The Blog Post - Smashing Magazine: Ignore the stupid title as it's worth a read. About people who do custom page designs for every blog post.
Install Movable Type on a Mac - Adventures in Movable Type: This is always more pain than it should be. A handy guide.

Said the Gramophone: BEST SONGS OF 2009: I've failed to keep up with music blogs this year, so this is a lovely catch-up. I'd like more variety of genre, but maybe I should look further afield.
Modern Clix: Another clean and nicely-done WordPress theme.
The Stars Look Down – Jeffrey Zeldman Presents The Daily Report: I'm not hugely bothered whether Favrd exists or not, but I like Dean Allen's comment here, especially the first major paragraph. (via Daring Fireball)
Detainee 063: Real-time account of the interrogation of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner, seven years on, Pepys' Diary style. (via Kottke)

Internet Archaeologists Find Ruins Of 'Friendster' Civilization | The Onion - America's Finest News Source: Brilliant stuff, and an amazing discovery. Why did that civilisation die out so suddenly?
Basic Pandemic Flu Kit - skbfb: Solely for the product shot featuring a package that includes a product shot featuring a package that includes a product shot featuring...
YouTube - Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review (Part 1 of 7): Wonderful. Not only a really interesting and thoughtful (and critical) look at the film, but also very funny and by a fictional character. Set aside 70 minutes and watch... (via Kottke)

Crowdsourced document analysis and MP expenses: About writing the Guardian's site that lets people examine MPs' expenses. Especially good on the lessons learned from the first version, and how they improved for the second.
Barac consulting | Notes on designing the Guardian iPhone app: Always good to read about design processes, and this helps me understand why some of the things I find slightly annoying about the otherwise good app are the way they are. (via Simon Willison)
BarbicanTalk.com • View topic - Barbican Cinemas 2 and 3 to Close: Due to close early 2010 and re-open two years later in the current Barbican Exhibition Hall. Sounds like a cock-up re guaranteeing Frobisher Crescent developers the current cinemas wouldn't leak noise.

960 Gridder - Lay out websites with ease.: Handy bookmarklet that overlays a grid on top of the current web page.
Grand Unified Timeline of Human History - Meta: Sounds interesting, although I'm not quite sure what it is... A project to combine lots of existing timelines? An attempt to create a huge new timeline from scratch?
Jcrop - Deep Liquid: jQuery-based tool for letting users crop images. (via Infovore)

Engage the x drive: Ten ways to traverse deep space - space - 21 December 2009 - New Scientist: Different ways of powering travel to deep space, and how plausible they are. (via The Speculist)
DJ Matthew Africa - I Wish You Would: America'z most complete artist: Haven't heard of DJ Quik, but I liked this mix. I'm also new to Matthew Africa, but will be listening to more. (via Soul Sides)
NGM Blog Central - The Cost of Care - National Geographic Magazine - NGM.com: Nice infographic. Not understandable in a very quick glance but it shows a lot of info after a couple of seconds. Also, the UK looks nicely average. (via Kottke)

Links from December 2009