Thursday News: A couple of 678562014 ‘best of’ lists, predictions for digital life in 2025, and a funny short film for New Year’s Day

JanetPublishing Newsbest of list / Comics / Film / New Year's / photography / technology6 Comments

What will digital life look like in 2025? Highlights from our reports – A compendium of information from a variety of Pew reports on what our lives with technology will look like a decade from now. Some of the areas covered are privacy (not so optimistic on this one), work (expect a lot of change here ), and infiltration of technology into our daily lives (a lot). Still, it will be interesting to see how these predictions are/are not realized.

The internet will become “like electricity” in people’s lives – omnipresent and less “visible.” Technology change is relentless and largely predictable, most of the experts agreed. They saw the rise of the Internet of Things, coming advances in artificial intelligence, the emergence of “smart” machines, the spread of sensors that will make the environment and buildings more intelligible, and the expansion of bandwidth as communities embrace internet speeds 10-to-100 times faster than current bandwidth. –Pew Research Center

The best comic books of 2014: ‘Avengers,’ ‘Lumberjanes,’ ‘The Wicked and the Divine,’ and more – Although the list does not include web comics or manga, EW has compiled an interesting list of their favorite comics for 2014, from what they found to be a very strong field. From Bitch Planet and Ms. Marvel to Low and Lumberjanes, there are some interesting looking reads here. Specific recs, anyone?

2014 was a fantastic year for comic books of all stripes. In fact, it was too good—quality books from publishers large and small flooded shops every week, making it nigh impossible to catch everything. With such an embarrassment of riches available, it’s nearly impossible to be comprehensive. Bearing that in mind: Of the comics we did read this year, these were tops. –Entertainment Weekly

The best photos and Vines you shared with us in 2014 – If you want to kill a half hour or so, this collection of incredible photos and entertaining vines is a good way to do it. –Mashable

Watch Dinner for One, the Short Film That Has Become a Baffling New Year’s Tradition in Europe – I’ve tried to stick to only positive stories for this first day of the year, including this 18-minute German film from the 60s that has become a New Year’s sensation in Europe. It definitely has its moments, although its enduring and widespread popularity is not self-evident to me. The introduction is in German, but the skit itself is in English.

In 1963, Germany’s Norddeutscher Rundfunk television station recorded a sketch entitled Dinner For One, performed by the British comics Freddie Frinton and May Warden. The duo depicted an aging butler serving his aristocratic mistress, Miss Sophie, dinner on the occasion of her 90th birthday. Although four additional spots have been set at the table, the nonagenarian’s friends have long since passed away, and the butler is forced to take their places in drinking copious amounts of alcohol while toasting Miss Sophie’s health. Hilarity, as it is wont to do in such cases, ensues. –Open Culture

Janet

isn't sure if she's an average Romance reader, or even an average reader, but a reader she is, enjoying everything from literary fiction to philosophy to history to poetry. Historical Romance was her first love within the genre, but she's fickle and easily seduced by the promise of a good read. She approaches every book with the same hope: that she will be filled from the inside out with something awesome that she didnʼt know, didnʼt think about, or didnʼt feel until that moment. And she's always looking for the next mind-blowing read, so feel free to share any suggestions!

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