Courtesy of khepra: an amusing music video about the Internet, with WoW characters.
Sound, work-safe, funny.
Link o’ the Day: WoW and Porn!
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Tag Archives: linky-links
Cool link o’ the day
Wizards of Winter. A music video, done with stop-motion animation of the Christmas decorations of…a house.
Wow. Just…wow. One of the most creative things I’ve seen in a long time.
Sound, work-safe.
Links: Zombies, Philosophical canoodling, transhumanism, and more!
First, we have the world’s simplest role-playing game, with zombies
Genre: cinematic modern horror. Playing time: 2-4 hours tops.
1. GM supplies general setting of the game, e.g. Teenage Slasher or Suburban Zombie Apocalypse. Everyone creates a character accordingly.
2. List FOUR things that the character is especially GOOD at, such as running, driving, climbing, picking locks, survival in the outdoors, fast talking or decapitating zombies using only a vintage 1940s tea set. The GM must ratify these.
3. List TWO things that the character is especially BAD at, such as swimming, finding their way in the wild, avoiding alcohol, keeping their cool in a fight, or not flipping out in confined spaces. GM ratifies as before.
4. Everyone writes their name on a piece of paper and gives it to the GM.
5. The GM picks out one name at random. This person is the Survivor. No matter WHAT happens (except see below), this person will survive, so long as he is trying to. Everyone else will die. Without exception. Everyone. The players are not told who the Survivor is.
It goes on from there. Looks like a lot of fun. Hey datan0de, think you could turn it into a strip game?
Next up, a couple of links from nihilus:
Turing’s cathedral, an exploration of the question “What makes you so sure that mathematical logic corresponds to the way we think?”
The Ship of Theseus: Identity is not so static nor so clear-cut as you might think. You can never step in the same river twice, but what does it mean to take the same boat across the river twice? (Shelly and I have discussions about this as it relates to transhumanist ideas on an ongoing basis–is a copy of me, perfect down to the limits imposed by Heisenberg uncertainty, still ‘me’?)
I really, really like this photograph (may not be work-safe for some work environments).
BDSM themes are becoming more and more prevalent in everyday media, and beer ads are no exception…this Heineken ad plays with that to very amusing effect.
Work-safe, kinda (it is a network TV ad, after all), and very funny.
What happens when a pro-life protester needs an abortion? It happens more often than you think.
“I’ve had several cases over the years in which the anti-abortion patient had rationalized in one way or another that her case was the only exception, but the one that really made an impression was the college senior who was the president of her campus Right-to-Life organization, meaning that she had worked very hard in that organization for several years. As I was completing her procedure, I asked what she planned to do about her high office in the RTL organization. Her response was a wide-eyed, ‘You’re not going to tell them, are you!?’ When assured that I was not, she breathed a sigh of relief, explaining how important that position was to her and how she wouldn’t want this to interfere with it.”
Interesting news on obesity and Alzheimer’s (damn, I’m posting a lot today!)
First, from wldrose, Vaccine may target obesity in the future
When babies receive shots against diseases like polio and measles, their vaccinations may in the future include protection against getting fat, according to researchers.
Infection by certain pathogens triggers rapid increases in fatty tissue in animals, Nikhil Dhurnadha told the annual meeting of NAASO, the Obesity Society, in this western Canadian city.
At the same time, the discovery that many more obese people than normal-weight people have been exposed to a certain virus suggests a link between obesity and viral infection…
Dhurandhar became interested in viral causes of obesity while working as a family physician in Bombay in the 1980s, during a severe outbreak of SMAM1, an adeno virus that kills chickens.
A friend noticed that the dead chickens were unusually fat, with enlarged livers, kidneys, low cholesterol levels and an atrophied thymus gland…
“In 10 years, people may be able to walk into a clinic and be told that their obesity is due to X cause, such as genes, the endocrine system, or pathogens. That may have a more productive outcome than a blanket treatment right now, (which) is not very successful,” said Dhurandhar.
And because viruses are hard or impossible to treat, he said, prevention through vaccines will be key.”
And this one, from shamangirl: Good News for Pot Smokers
An oft-mentioned danger of marijuana smoking—so widely believed that the smokers themselves admit it all the time—is that it kills your brain cells.
But a new study has found that one of marijuana’s active ingredients actually helps produce new brain cells, and this is correlated with anxiety-reducing effects…
[T]he new study found that rats given heavy doses an artificial version of a potent, active ingredient of marijuana grew new brain cells.
In the journal’s November issue, Xia Zhang and colleagues from University of Saskatchewan found that creation of new brain cells was aided by a “potent and synthetic cannabinoid,” or man-made version of a compound extracted from marijuana.
The rats also exhibited less anxiety- and depression- like behavior after a month of the treatment, the study found.
Weekend stuff, computer peripherals as a metaphor for relationships, and an olive branch
Saturday evening, Shelly and I went out to the Castle to do some danng,a nd hooked up with S, her other boyfriend, nekidsteve, nihilus, phyrra, and their friend and housemate. (Tried to shoot you an IM, johnnymoon, but you weren’t online and it was a really spur-of-the-moment, last-minute thing…)
The main DJ sucked. The alternate DJ ruled. There’s a life lesson in there somewhere, that I’m too lazy to dig out. Anyway, the alternate DJ played the Second Best Song to Dance To Ever Written1, which I’ve heard before but didn’t know the name of. Shelly talked to him after. Turns out the song is by a band called Wumpscut, and the song is called Wreath of Barbs. (Note: direct MP3 download; 6.3 megabytes.)
datan0de, if you aren’t familiar with this song, you should be. 🙂
In old-school computer hackerspeak, a situation can arise between a computer and a peripheral which is called “deadlock” (or, for those of you who hail from MIT, “deadly embrace”). Modern computer protocols have largely done away with it, but generally speaking it’s a situation where a computer and a peripheral stop talking to one another because each is waiting for some sort of response from the other.
There are two basic varieties of deadlock: “starvation,” in which the computer and the peripheral are each waiting for data from the other, and “constipation,” where the computer’s buffer is full and it’s waiting for a signal from the peripheral to receive the data, and the peripheral’s buffer is full and it’s waiting for a signal from the computer to receive ITS data.
It seems the same sort of thing can happen between two people, especially if some kind of problem has existed between them. ach ends up feeling marginalized by the other, and each ends up feeling that the other wants nothing to do with him–so each ends up not reaching out to the other.
Computers can be rebooted, and there’s no hard feelings. With people, it’s a bit more tricky.
So. We had a blast at the club, except for tension etween phyrra and I. I can tell she doesn’t feel comfortable around me, so I don’t try to impose on her, so she feels like I’m avoiding her, so she feels uncomfortable around me, so… starvation deadlock.
And there’s no reason it should be this way. phyrra is a warm and wonderful person who I like very much. Just so y’all know. 🙂
And, just as a bonus, I bring you, courtesy of felisdemens, English As She Is Spoke, the worse English dictionary and phrasebook ever written. From the site:
This 1883 book is without question the worst phrasebook ever written. The writer, Pedro Carolino, who was Portuguese, did not particularly speak English, nor did he have a Portuguese-English dictionary available. Instead, he worked with a French-English phrasebook and a Portuguese-French dictionary. The results, I’m sure you’ll agree, are staggering.
This text is that of a book of excerpts compiled a few years after the book was first published. Anything that looks like an error is, in fact, the way it actually appears in the book. I’ve transcribed the complete text of that book; I do not, unfortunately, have a copy of the original. I’m sure you’ll notice bits that look like typos. They’re not; that’s all part of the fun.
The phrasebook contains such useful gems as a handy list of common English colours (White, Gridelin, Cray, Musk, and Red), popular English games (Foot-ball, Pile, Bar, Mall, Gleek, Even or non even, Carousal, and Keel), handy English phrases (“Give me some good milk newly get out,” “He burns one’s self the brains”), and English idiotisms and proverbs (“He has fond the knuckle of the business,” “So much go the jar to spring that at last it break there”). This stuff predates Engrish by a good century, and is, if anything, even more bizarre. Great stuff!
1All decent, God-fearing people know, of course, that in the great cosmology of Songs to Dance To, nothing can compare to the pinnacle of human achievement, Front 242’s Headhunter v1.0.
Whoa!
Courtesy of purplespark: Scientists create mice able to regenerate lost limbs and regrow damaged organs.
The experimental animals are unique among mammals in their ability to regrow their heart, toes, joints and tail.
And when cells from the test mouse are injected into ordinary mice, they too acquire the ability to regenerate, the US-based researchers say.
Their discoveries raise the prospect that humans could one day be given the ability to regenerate lost or damaged organs, opening up a new era in medicine…
“We have experimented with amputating or damaging several different organs, such as the heart, toes, tail and ears, and just watched them regrow,” she said.
Now, this kind of stuff has always been within the laws of physics, but development of new techniques in genetic engineering and nanomedicine are both progressing faster than even the most optimistic of us transhumanists had expected. And speaking of biomedical nanotech, I bring you another article, Research scientists at Georgia Tech have built nano-scale detectors so sensitive that they will be capable of spotting individual cancer cells.
The detectors are based on a new kind of quasi-one dimensional nano material, dubbed nanobelts or nanoribbons, which can be made from a variety of materials, like zinc or tin oxides. They are typically between 30nm and 300nm wide, and can be a few millimetres long.
The semiconducting nanobelts, first synthesised in 2001, can be tuned to exhibit certain behaviours. Introducing oxygen vacancies can affect their conductivity, surface and optical properties…
These nanostructures are ideal objects for building sensors with biomedical applications, Professor Wang said, ahead of a presentation at the EMAG-Nano 2005 conference in Leeds yesterday, such as force sensors, blood flow sensors and cancer detectors.
I think a lot of people who aren’t really paying attention now are going to be very surprised when these things start hitting the market. I also suspect that people fifty or seventy-five years from now are going to look back on this as the Age of Barbarism: “Someone had a heart attack and you savages thought the best solution was to SLICE HIM OPEN??!!”
Link o’ the Day: “Intelligent Falling”
From an Onion article: Evangelical Scients Refute Gravity with New ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory
Proponents of Intelligent Falling assert that the different theories used by secular physicists to explain gravity are not internally consistent. Even critics of Intelligent Falling admit that Einstein’s ideas about gravity are mathematically irreconcilable with quantum mechanics. This fact, Intelligent Falling proponents say, proves that gravity is a theory in crisis.
“Let’s take a look at the evidence,” said ECFR senior fellow Gregory Lunsden.”In Matthew 15:14, Jesus says, ‘And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.’ He says nothing about some gravity making them fall—just that they will fall. Then, in Job 5:7, we read, ‘But mankind is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upwards.’ If gravity is pulling everything down, why do the sparks fly upwards with great surety? This clearly indicates that a conscious intelligence governs all falling.”
Critics of Intelligent Falling point out that gravity is a provable law based on empirical observations of natural phenomena. Evangelical physicists, however, insist that there is no conflict between Newton’s mathematics and Holy Scripture.
“Closed-minded gravitists cannot find a way to make Einstein’s general relativity match up with the subatomic quantum world,” said Dr. Ellen Carson, a leading Intelligent Falling expert known for her work with the Kansan Youth Ministry. “They’ve been trying to do it for the better part of a century now, and despite all their empirical observation and carefully compiled data, they still don’t know how.”
Hey, it’s no less asinine than this ridiculous “Intelligent Design” nonsense.
In other news, it appears that the ceiling in our new apartment is made of concrete. This has posed quite a significant challenge; I haven’t been able to set up the computers yet. Bought a special drill bit designed for concrete and a bunch of masonry screws the other day, and spent a good deal of last night standing on a table with concrete dust raining down on me, and I still haven’t been able to set up the computers.
This is a serious problem, because I’m having World of Warcraft withdrawal.
In other news, Shelly found my airbrush while we were moving, which means I may need to paint her some time in the near future. 🙂
And finally, we’re desperately trying to pare down our total quantity of Stuff, as we’ve moved from a three-bedroom to a one-bedroom apartment. Things to be got rid of include about 50 “egg” style vibrators (new, unused, in original packaging) and a stunning number of cobalt-blue coffee mugs. We’re considering a Sex Toy and Coffee Mug Giveaway party in the not-too-distant future. Anyone interested?
A mad list of linky-links
First, a brilliant parody of a children’s book about God, My Little Golden Book about Zogg. “Destroy human hosts and begin breeding immediately”…good stuff.
Next, a lengthy and resource-rich post about the the value of emotion, the nature of wisdom, and the perils of believing one’s self to be entirely rational, brought to you by old_man_summer.
Next, The kittays can JUMP!–a bandwidth crushing photo series of some of the most energetic kitties you will ever see, leaping and running along the walls Matrix-style and just generally being cute as hell.
For those of you familiar with the Visible Human project, there’s The Visible Barbie Project, which demonstrates that there is no knowledge unavailable to a person with a Barbie doll and a bandsaw.
From James Randi comes An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural.
And finally, for those of you who like online role-playing games, I offer The Kingdom of Loathing, a browser-based RPG where you can choose from character classes such as “Seal Clubber” or “The Accordion Thief,” and fight adversaries ranging from “The Saber-Toothed Lime” to “Ninja Snowmen.”
Link o’ the day: ACLU intends to take up arms on behalf of polyamory
http://yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=27865
In response to a student’s question about gay marriage, bigamy and polygamy in certain communities, Strossen said the ACLU is actively fighting to defend freedom of choice in marriage and partnerships.
“We have defended the right for individuals to engage in polygamy,” Strossen said. “We defend the freedom of choice for mature, consenting individuals.”
So polyamory is on the radar for both right-wing conservative religious groups and for pro-rights groups. Interesting times, indeed. This could get really, really hairy for a while.
Astrologer sues NASA over Deep Impact space probe
Yep, you read that right. A Russian astrologer has filed a $300,000,000 lawsuit against NASA, claiming that the Deep Impact probe, which intercepted comet Tempel 1, “violated her spiritual rights.”
“The experiment, in which NASA fired a projectile the size of a fridge at the comet Monday, was an attack on “the holy of holies,” Marina Bai’s law suit claims, according to Russian press reports. Her suit, filed at a Moscow court, claims violation of her “life and spiritual values.”
“In any case, it is obvious that elements of the comet’s orbit and associated ephemera will change after the explosion, which interferes with my practice of astrology and deforms my horoscope,” the Izvestia daily quoted Bai as saying.
Folks, you just can’t get enough of this sort of nuttiness for my entertainment dollar!