This Weeks' Links: January 7, 2010

This is a series consisting of articles and postings that I found interesting and worth checking out. I have written a blog or two on some of them, but for the most part, I am just providing the category, headline and link itself. Hopefully, you will find them interesting too.

Week's Links: January 7, 2010

Things you may have missed:

1) Joel Achenbach on the 2000s: The decade we didn't see coming:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/26/AR2009122601822.html?hpid=topnews

2) Google Rests Its Defense of Executives in Italian Privacy Case: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/technology/internet/24google.html?hpw

3) Avatar's 'ugly' message: The $500 million epic is setting the box office alight — but does it traffic in racist stereotypes?
http://www.theweek.com/article/index/104466/Avatars_ugly_message

4) The Battle for Tora Bora: How Osama bin Laden slipped from our grasp: The definitive account. http://www.tnr.com/article/the-battle-tora-bora

5) Never a Year Like '09: Jib Jab sums up 2009:
http://sendables.jibjab.com/originals/never_a_year_like_09

6) "Someday, they'll simply be called phones...".Smartphones were the tech story of 2009: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/24/AR2009122403323.html

Things you should know:

1) A Terrible Decade for Stocks -- and Reason for Optimism: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2009/12/24/a-terrible-decade-for-stocks-and-reason-for-optimi.aspx

2) Apple iSlate and What is a "Magic Slate?
http://www.macrumors.com/

3) The Shady Mainstream Media Payday of Flight 253 Hero Jasper Schuringa: http://gawker.com/5434950/the-shady-mainstream-media-payday-of-flight-253-hero-jasper-schuringa

4) The Exhaustive Guide to Apple Tablet Rumors:
http://gizmodo.com/5434566/the-exhaustive-guide-to-apple-tablet-rumors

Things you wonder about:

1) Why Handwriting Is History:
http://miller-mccune.com/culture_society/handwriting-is-history-1647

2) College Class of 2009 Doomed? Actually, the Recession Liberates Us http://mobile.chicagotribune.com/inf/infomo?view=opinion+article&feed:a=chi_trib_10min&feed:c=opinion&feed:i=51037113&nopaging=1

3) Change of mind: Meyer won't quit, will take indefinite leave instead: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/football/ncaa/12/27/meyer.indefinite.leave/index.html?eref=BrkNews#ixzz0azm0O0eO

4) 370 Passwords You Shouldn’t (And Can’t) Use On Twitter: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/27/twitter-banned-passwords/

5) "Quality content is not free (R.Murdoch)" and how @NYTimes sees the future of newspapers and the web developing.:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/business/media/28paywall.html