Fun links of interest for Friday

I've got heaps of these bookmarked for further reading and exploring, which hardly ever happens. Or I want to use them to write an LJ-entry on it, but that doesn't happen either, so let me entertain you and provide some links.

Research

• Research on Social Network Sites (e.g. LiveJournal and MySpace), compiled by danah boyd.

Literature

• Frostbite, a serial novel by David Wellington. I haven't started reading it yet, but it was recommended by onepotmeal.
• The Veronicas of Literature: Mark Bernstein on why Veronica Mars is a great character, and also what kind of characters people identify with. (I'm not doing his blog-post much justice with this statement. Just go and read it.)

Visual art

• Flight: Great comicsblog from equaly great comic books. (Or does this fall under the name graphic novel?)
• abandonedplaces and deadmachinery: Two rather strange, but interesting photo-communities. Both ask for posts of pictures representing abandones places and decayed machinery respectively. It gives off a rather eery atmosphere.
• Wally Wood's 22 Panels That Always Work: When stuck with a boring story to tell in your comic, use one of these panels to get the suspense going. I think it also works when film-making.
  

Downloads

• The Best Media in Life is Free: Music, audio-books, e-books, all for free to download. No illegal stuff going on here, because this blogger links to downloads licenced with Creative Commons, or that have fallen into the public domain.

Life

• The Saddest Thing I Own: Stories and pictures from people about the saddest thing they own. Don't forget your hankerchief.
• How To Do Video: Don't know how to do stuff? Here are some handy videos that explain all from changing your car's oil to doing a backflip.