Welcome to this week's edition of our Friday Quality Linkage column. Please enjoy this week’s collection of interesting and entertaining links. Brew a fresh cup of coffee, find a comfortable place, and relax.
Lettering and illustrations by Scott Biersack
The 50 Best Superhero Movies of All Time »
This well-designed list by the folks at The Ringer is great reading for comic book film fans:
Because this debate is already well-worn territory, we at The Ringer set out to develop a ranking that goes beyond personal opinions—to try to synthesize the overall goals and spirit of these films in order to identify the ideal superhero movies. In order to do that, we took into account four factors—Critical Success, Box Office Performance, Rewatchability, and Timelessness—and ran them through a fancy formula to come up with an overall score. (In an effort to streamline this list, animated movies were not considered.)
I agree with John Gruber's take:
I
largelysomewhat agree with these rankings — but far more so than I usually do with such lists. But the whole thing is worth it just for the sub-list of the best superhero villains of all time — they nailed that one.
...although I do have some nitpicks of my own. For instance, I would've ranked Spider-Man 2 (the one with Doc Ock) above the first one.
Photo: Holly Pickett, The New York Times
Inside the Revolution at Etsy »
Fascinating (and somewhat dismaying) profile of Etsy's corporate culture by David Gelles of The New York Times:
Etsy will likely grow with Mr. Silverman as chief executive, but it may never again be the sensitive community fostered by Mr. Kalin and nurtured by Mr. Dickerson. Once a beacon of socially responsible business practices with a starry-eyed work force that believed it could fundamentally reimagine commerce, Etsy has over the past year become a case study in how the short-term pressures of the stock market can transform even the most idealistic of companies.
Shame to hear that such a neat concept is being ground away by the gears of Big Capitalism. Hopefully another small, scrappy company can come along and do what Etsy initially set out to.
Photo: Mauro Mora
The Next Generation of Jobs Won't Be Made Up of Professions »
Alina Dizik of BBC Capital reports that our kids shouldn't focus on job titles and careers, and should instead pour their attention into building specific skills that can be adapted to solve various problems:
It might seem a bit esoteric, but the twist in language helps boil down real objectives. And sometimes those don’t jibe with a single profession or even the career choice you might have imagined wanting at the start. Instead, [career coach Jean-Philippe Michel] says deciding the skills you want to use leads to a career that’s more targeted—and thus more likely to bring you satisfaction. It also might be less a job and more a set of projects and work situations that lead you from one thing to the next.
As interesting as this is to think about, it still feels like it will inevitably be a mere phase in society's shift to fully automated workplaces. Time will tell.
Photo: Sebastiaan de With
The Power of RAW on iPhone, Part 1: Shooting RAW »
Designer Sebastiaan de With of the Halide camera app wrote this excellent blog post to demystify and demonstrate the power of handling RAW photos on the iPhone:
Many of us have felt disappointment when we photograph a beautiful sunset only to find it looking entirely unlike what our eyes see. With RAW, you can change the image afterward to make it resemble what you actually saw. A JPEG capture essentially commits to the white balance the camera estimates was accurate when the photo was taken.
In essence, the stock camera app decides how to process RAW files for you, making choices like ‘What is the most natural white balance?’. Sometimes it’s wrong; sometimes you want to go in a different creative direction. Processing photos is just as much art as science.
Photo: Emily Flake, The New Yorker
Young and Dumb Inside »
NSFW for language.
This comic strip about the perils of aging fandom by Emily Flake at The New Yorker really speaks to me, particularly this line:
Do you ever love a thing the way you do when you're fifteen?
Graphic: American Chemical Society
The Periodic Table of Endangered Elements »
This chart by the American Chemical Society shows that 44 known elements on the Periodic Table (out of 118) are likely to run out in the not-so-far future:
These critical elements include rare earth elements, precious metals, and even life essentials like Phosphorus. Research into more abundant alternatives, more efficient uses, recycling and recovery will help mitigate risks and move industry towards sustainable supply chains.
Via Jason Kottke, who sums it up well:
Until recently, humanity has treated the Earth as an infinite resource. As the Earth’s population has exploded over the past century however, we’ve learned in many different ways that that’s untrue.
Neat Stuff We Published This Week
- Keep your holiday shopping weird: Our 2017 Novelty Gift Guide
- Turn any over-ear headphones into a high-performing headset: Antlion Audio ModMic 5 Attachable Headphone Boom Mic
- Smart charger for vehicle travlers: BESTEK 300W In-Car Power Inverter
- The histories of hip-hop, alternative, and electronic music, all in blueprint form: Music History Blueprints by Dorothy
- Find the exact center of nearly any wood stock: Robert Larson Plastic Center Finder Tool
Got any suggestions for articles, videos, stories, photographs, and any other links you think we should be posting in our weekly Quality Linkage? Please do let us know on Twitter.