The Last Decade in 7 Merciful Minutes

Everyday items that have gone extinct since 1999

(NEWSER) - Technology’s come leaps and bounds this past decade, leaving a trove of everyday items in the aughts' dust. New York magazine runs down some of the stuff we won’t really miss:

• Answering machine—Swingers proved why this thing had to go.
• Lickable stamp—Collectors still like them, but the rest of us want self-adhesives.
• Foldable road map—Please, these days you can have Snoop Dogg read your GPS directions.

Terrible events of last decade encouraged a healthy skepticism

(NEWSER) - The aughts were quite a shock after the “remarkable air of unreality” that perfumed the end of the last century—but we may have actually learned something, Alan Murray writes. “Unlike the Hollywood-scripted decade that preceded it, this one turned out to be more like the reality-television shows that proliferated during its span. They showed us that not everyone can sing, not everyone can dance, not everyone can stay on the island.” That sort of self-knowledge is pretty helpful, Murray writes in the Wall Street Journal . More»

The Wire , The Sopranos , Six Feet Under , Mad Men —get the picture?

(NEWSER) - For television, the past decade has been “as the sixties are to music and the seventies to movies”—some of the worst content ever was produced, but the cream of the crop rose to the level of art, Emily Nussbaum writes. Sure, “you could easily memorialize the aughts as the Decade of Reality TV,” but then you’d be leaving out The Sopranos, Mad Men, and, most important, The Wire. The best of the best dared audiences to take them seriously and didn’t have time for those who wouldn’t. More»

From Aaliyah to Tillman to Russert, they had more to offer

(NEWSER) - In looking back at the '00s, the sad tales of luminaries who died too young stand out. Newsweek asked friends and admirers for their reflections:

• Randy Pausch, d. 2008: "Despite it all," JJ Abrams writes, the "Last Lecture" professor "was radiant, kind, and good-humored."
• Tim Russert, d. 2008: "There aren’t many shining examples these days—of anything," Brian Williams writes. "Tim was one."
• Bernie Mac, d. 2008: The comedian's appeal was universal, McG writes. "A little white kid or a middle-aged black guy: everyone loved Bernie Mac."

Even Hollywood can make movies for the non-'lily-livered:' Nile Gardiner

(NEWSER) - "Hollywood may well be a bastion of liberalism, but it does continue to occasionally produce major films that advance conservative principles," Nile Gardiner writes in the Telegraph . His best of the aughts:

1. Master and Commander, 2003: The Peter Weir flick starring Russell Crowe is "an epic tale of heroism and love for country in the face of incredible odds, and a glowing tribute to the grit and determination that forged the British Empire."
2. Black Hawk Down, 2001: Critics may have called it an "anti-war film," but Gardiner doesn't buy it. Instead, it's "an extraordinarily powerful and deeply patriotic tribute to the heroism and bravery of the US military."