Tidbits
Items proliferate faster than I can post 'em.
- There's an online (free) nation simulator game called Jennifer Government: NationStates. I've known about it for a while, but I've never looked at it much because I know it would be a huge time sink. But I do think this 3D political map of the nations in the game is fairly cool, partly just 'cause I'm amused by the labels given to the various points in the spectra.
- Foxtrot has had an amusing week of Return of the King strips, with no spoilers. (Link is to last Sunday's strip; click "next date" link to continue. Unfortunately, you'll have to click through annoying flashy blinky ads as you go.)
- Another full-length filk opera: Once More with Hobbits, the entire Lord of the Rings storyline as told via filks of the songs from "Once More with Feeling." Note: plenty of spoilers for the whole Rings trilogy.
- MSNBC confronts Peter Jackson with nitpicks gleaned from moviemistakes.com.
- A couple of ways to record video using an Apple iSight: Boinx iRecordNow for $15, GCam for free.
- At the nano-scale, very small distances and very small durations, it turns out that entropy doesn't necessarily apply. Also a slightly more scientific paper about the phenomenon by the head of the group that did the work.
- Le Guin and others discuss Tolkien on Talk of the Nation (streaming audio).
- Speaking of NPR, every time they talk about underwriting being provided by Korn/Ferry International, I think they're saying "Corn Fairy International," which I assume is a collective organization of wee folk who live among and/or eat maize.
- Just in case you need the NASA editorial style guide, here it is.
- The Asimov's Readers' Award Ballot is now available online. If you read Asimov's, go vote! Apparently the award has sometimes been won by only one or two votes in the past.
- In Texas, it's still illegal to sell vibrators.
- Virtual underage prostitution has apparently been going on in The Sims Online.
- Holly Black discusses a panel called Queer Eye for the Straight Publisher, and the question of whether there are any successful gay male fantasy novelists. (If you remove any one of those qualifiers, there are several.)
- Speaking of Queer Eye, a lovely piece from Wizard magazine (a comic-book news magazine): Queer Eye for the Straight Super-Hero, in which gay comics creators do fashion makeovers for Luke Cage (Power Man), Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, The Angel, Captain Boomerang, and Baron Zemo. Sadly, most of the pictures aren't in the online edition; I'm tempted to go buy the magazine just for the pix.
- R-rated photos of trees and other nature pictures that look like naked human body parts.
- "Oedipus the King (of the Road)," the story of Oedipus told in California personalized license plates.
- Polar Bear Jokes, many of which are dumb but several of which are entertaining, amusing, and/or silly. I especially like the sequence about the refrigerator, near the end of the page.
- There was lots of outrage about this a couple weeks ago, so you've probably all seen it, but just in case: "Breastfeeding driver stuns police." This woman was breastfeeding her baby daughter while driving, talking on the phone, and taking notes. Apparently she was doing all this because her husband ordered her to, and they're members of a religious group that requires wives to follow their husbands' orders.
- One for the conspiracy theorists: billionaire financier George Soros was instrumental in bringing down Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, and "his next goal is making sure U.S. President George W. Bush does not win re-election."
