bookmania:

The library of Charles Dickens, as rendered via woodblock engraving and sepia ink on paper by Sir Samuel Luke Fildes, 1870. (via “A Peek Inside the Libraries of Famous Writers”)

gq:

Our Virtual Shrine for Steve Jobs, In Mega-Chart Form

In which we document every inch of his influence on the world, from the very first Macintosh to the Rick Ross lyric “I’m selling dope straight off the iPhone.” This chart is massive and interactive, so you’ll want to head here for the full experience. 

crookedindifference:

The Math That Saved Apollo 13 Just Sold for $388,375

An article from Atlantic Monthly in 2008, more prescient today.

http://www.chicagonow.com/little-kids-big-city/2011/11/black-friday-boycott/

theatlantic:

The 1% Ain’t What It Used To Be

Megan McArdle snags some interesting data:

 I was back at the University of Chicago this weekend for my tenth business school reunion.  And while I was there, I ran into Professor Steven Kaplan, who has done a bit of research into what sorts of occupations contributed to rising income inequality. (Shockingly, finance played a large role.)  And he told me that my initial assumption seems to be correct: the incomes at the very top started falling in 2008.  The Piketty-Saez data, which currently run to 2008, show a little bit of it.  But Kaplan has calculated the incomes of the top 1% and the top 0.1% for 2009, and his results show that they continued to fall pretty steeply.  (There’s nothing more recent than that because tax data take a while to be finalized). Read more.

life:

There was an era when travelling by plane meant dressing in your finest, pulling on the white gloves, and expecting to be swathed in the kind of glamour and top-notch service that you’d find in New York City’s finest restaurants. Though those days have long been replaced by travelers in cargo shorts and fanny packs, and flustered flight attendants handing out $10 sandwiches on overcrowded jumbo jets, the memory of the golden age of flying still lingers…

Come fly with us, as Frank Sinatra might have said, and take a flight back to the heyday of Pan Am.

Pictured: Actress Julie Andrews clutches a Pan Am flight bag and holds her 17-month-old daughter at Kennedy International Airport in New York in April 1963. She is en route to Salzburg, Austria, to film The Sound of Music.

life:

Let’s just state the obvious: All toilets are not created equal — That being said, Weird Toilets Around the World

For instance, this hi-tech toilet seat is equipped with a body-fat analyzer and remote control. Weird, or impressive? Decide for yourself.

Check out the post from Market watch. The naysayers and alleged no governmenters would be in a whole different world if it didn’t exist.