Rachelle's Reading List: Monday, January 31, 2011

The quick, painless roundup of the most imp. things Tumbled regarding Egypt. Then, a look at Oprah Winfrey's desk, how to properly delete your Facebook account, and the first ever library vending machine.

There's idle doodles from famous authors and idle banter from the Today Show in '94, as Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel try and make sense of this new "tool" called "the Internet"....

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThvBJMzmSZI[/youtube]

1. Egypt Roundup. Video above of the unrest in Egypt. Below, some things that caught my eye over the weekend regarding Egyptian protests. Kudos to Tumblr SoupSoup for getting the most comprehensive roundup to me! Also, per soup, if you know anyone in Egypt please pass this on:  To bypass government blocking of websites, use numerical IP addresses: Twitter ”128.242.240.52” Fb ”69.63.189.34” Google ”172.14.204.99”. A French ISP offers free dial up internet access ~ +33 1 72 89 01 50 Login password: toto.

A round up of every live blogger, news website, social aggregation sites and more! Let this be the one stop shop of your day for Egypt news. [SoupSoup]

"Learn from our Mistakes." A letter from an Iranian to the people of Egypt. This is breathtaking. [Soup]

A curated list of live Twitter updates for Egypt. [Soup]

Take a look inside the Al-Jazeera newsroom in Doah. [Nightline]

The most honest blog post ever written [NYT via Soup]

Reuters has a fine Egypt liveblog which allows you to add your comments directly into the stream. The images are fantastic. [PeterFeld]

The length that brave journalists are going to make sure that we see what's happening. [Naveen]

Wikileaks reveals U.S. backed Egyptian Uprising. [Soup]

[President Obama talks on the phone with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in the Oval Office, Jan 28th. Vice Pres Joe Biden listens at left and the President's National Security team confer in the background. Flickr]

Then, use this simple form to demand that your cable operator carry Al-Jazeera. [MHudack]

Egyptian citizens, protesters, and journalists aren't the only one hitting up the social media tools, the state security is also trying to get info on the revolutionists from FBook. [Soup]

Alex Pareene writes about how "America's narcissism taints Egypt coverage. [Salon]

An interesting and heartening chart of the history of global freedom & democracy over the last 35 years. [Atlantic via @KBAndersen]

2. Larry Summers vs. The Tiger Mom. it happened at Davos. Key points: Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg didn't graduate from college. [WSJ]

3. Go behind the scenes of the 60 Minutes interview of Julian Assange which aired last night. [SoupSoup]

4. Bill Gates's 3rd annual letter is up. He writes about Polio, leadership, foreign aid effectiveness and more. [GatesFoundation]

5. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook could BUY NBC if he wanted to. Still, he decided to throw the SNL guys a bone and appear in a cameo on Saturday's show. Check out the video here: [DailyWhat]

6. I have been to Gilt Groupe's amazing NYC offices but have never been able to see the behind-the-scenes operation. Until now. Check out how this mega business manages to organize hundreds and thousands of merchandise. [Notcot via Simko]

7. In this week’s New Yorker (in which Mayor Bloomberg is his own Valentine!): Hendrik Hertzberg on Obama’s clean-energy gambit; Jerome Groopman on food allergies; Ben Greenman on a Super Bowl wager; John Seabrook on the science of crowd control; Daniel Zalewski on Guillermo del Toro; Francisco Goldman on a tragedy in Mexico; Sasha Frere-Jones on PJ Harvey; Joan Acocella on J. R. Ackerley; David Denby on “No Strings Attached,” “Cold Weather,” and “Uncle Kent”; fiction by Tessa Hadley; and more. [New Yorker]

8. Hearst's long-awaited purchase of French media conglomerate Lagardere's international magazine business is finally official. The price: $887 mil. The loot: 102 separate mags including ELLE. [Gawker]

9. Kenny Sharf was in town this weekend for the opening of his new exhibit and returned to Houston Street on Saturday night to once again restore his oft vandalized "wacky/day-glo/surreal"mural. [NYCtheTumblr]

"Kenny was interacting with the crowd." And he might have to come back again. "If it gets hit once, it's all downhill after that," he told the Post. "If there's another blizzard, they'll just do it again."

10. The idle doodles of famous authors. Like the one below from Sylvia Plath, who liked to doodle in her diaries, creating illustrations of her life, her dreams, and in this case, her nightmare about being chased by a hot dog and a marshmallow. [Flavorpill]

11. Ricky Gervais made a cameo on last week's 'The Office' when his character (David Brent) bumped into Steve Carell's character (Michael Scott). It is sadly Carell's last season with the show. [TIME]

12. Congrats to Gabriel Snyder, new editor of The Atlantic Wire. The man responsible for the rapid traffic growth of Gawker pre Remy Stern is a keeper. [@gabrielsnyder]

13. This is so true.

14. The super bowl can be really bad for your heart. The stress and snacks at Super Bowl party have heart attack city written all over them. [SFGate]

15. A Washington philanthropist buys the first map of the U.S. (left) for a record breaking  $1.8 million. [WaPo]

16. Everything you always wanted to know about the difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain, and England, but couldn't be bothered to ask. [DailyWhat]

17. The first ever 24-hour library vending machines! This is so so so cool. The Polk County Library Cooperative in Fl has installed these vending machines-one for books, one for DVDs-at a tourism office off of Highway 27 in Davenport. No credit cards needed: you just swipe your library card! [InOtherNews]

18. I really want to buy this solar charging case for the iPhone4. Except I would need some actual sun which  means I would have to be outside for this to work, which means I will wait until summer. [Eton]

19. 50 things you didn't know about Jackson Pollock. [Hyde]

20. Happy late birthday, Oprah Winfrey. Check out this photo (which I was shocked by) of Oprah as a teenage beauty pageant winner. [WaPoStyle]

21. And, for more Oprah, check out this photo of her desk in Vanity Fair: [Sweethomestyle]

22. Courtney Love is really doing the Tumblr thing this weekend. Check out photos of her and her insane world here: [WhatCournteyWore] Anyone else think Charlie Sheen and she are perfect for each other?

23. "When people decide, for whatever reason, that they want permanently close their Facebook accounts permanently, they can hunt around for the link FB provides to do this, or they can go on a rampage of posting the most horrible, offensive, and explicit photos, videos, and status updates all in an effort to get banned from the site as quickly as possible. Why don't more people choose the second option more? heh. Good question [Topherchris]

24. Local Leaks. A drop-box for Anonymous tips to 1400 U.S. Newspapers. [PonyPony]

25. Minimalist Gmail is the best Gmail Tweaker for Chrome yet. [MHudack]

26. Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia's Contributor List. Only 15% of its hundreds of thousands of contributors are women. Paging Change the Ratio! [NYT]

27. I love this apt photo description: [InOtherNews]

28. Ex GofG editor, Chiara Atik spent the weekend in Concord, MA, where she was checking out the house that inspired Little Women. Also, she found out quickly that this part of our country can be scary, weird, precious and not good for two single girls looking to mingle.

29. If you watch one video today, make it be of this wonderful project. [ZachKlein]

30. I had to defend myself as a non-member of the church of Scientology this weekend. Crazy! [RachelleHruska]

31. Finally, I leave you with this gem that I posted on Tumblr and has taken off! It's 1994 and Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel are trying to make sense out of this new thing called "the Internet." Hilarious. [RachelleHruska]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nTPX4JW_Ts[/youtube]

Well, that's all for me today, do you have something for tomorrow's list? Email me: Rachelle@guestofaguest.com

[Friday's List]