My top three top ten lists:
I have to admit, this is partially just to get them off my bookmarks at work. ( =
Article about machinama/cyberporn.
This article includes some, frankly, weird ideas about why men have female avatars:
Why does Slustler only take female models? “It’s mostly for aesthetic reasons,” said Struszka.
No it’s not for asthetic reasons. Don’t be a fool. We live in a culture of beauty that objectifies the female form to an amazing extreme: so as to componentize its parts and put them on display (think about ads that show women’s stomachs or backs or breasts without showing faces or having dialog and you might agree). This guy is playing out a script that our culture has given him about how sex drives and our conceptions of beauty work. It bears some thought.
Great article about Pastafarianism.
My favorite part of the whole article is this:
“WN: Why do you think so many people have responded to this, so many scientists? Henderson: I think it’s just because they have a better understanding of what the ID nuts are trying to do. I think part of it is that the science community, itself, is pretty quiet about the issue. Their strategy is to ignore the “debate” so that the ID people don’t get the forum. WN: Do you think that’s a mistake? Henderson: Yeah, totally. They need to be out there calling these people retarded all the time. Nonstop.”
That makes me so happy!
Meanwhile, Java enthusiasts are leaving the station. Apparently Ruby on Rails is stealing the hype thunder… but this article makes a good point of explaining why without dropping into troll language.
Although I’m sorry we had to hash this out in court, we finally did: Intelligent design cannot be taught in the science curriculum of United States schools.
So, y’know, thank goodness… we’re no longer going Medieval. Jesus.
Update (12/22): This article has a great review of the ‘delicious bits’ of the judge’s decision.
Interesting article about how Bush is angry that he’s not a dictator.
Oh, wait… he’s angry because he’s being portrayed as an evil dictator in the media. My favorite two bits occur right at the beginning of the article:
At a news conference, Bush appeared most angry that the programme ed the programme of spying on American citizens without going through the courts] had been revealed in the press. He said it was an effective tool in disrupting terrorists and that whoever leaked details to the media had committed “a shameful act”.
Bush is upset that his spying program has been revealed to the public. He’s upset that he can’t spy on American citizens anymore because it was an “effective tool in disrupting terrorist…” How effective? Any metrics on that? Nope, because that would give out more info which would be an even more shameful act than the initial reveal was. Give me a break.
On another issue, Bush acknowledged that the pre-war claim that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction complicated the US ability to confront other potential emerging threats such as Iran.“Where it is going to be most difficult to make the case is in the public arena,” Bush said. “People will say, if we’re trying to make the case on Iran: ‘Well, if the intelligence failed in Iraq, therefore, how can we trust the intelligence on Iran?’”
Bush states it very well himslef: If the intelligence failed in Iraq, therefore, how can we trust the intelligence on Iran? How about this, George: Don’t be upset that the “public arena” will castigate you… be upset that you falsified information and then blamed it on the intelligence agencies in the lead up to the war on Iraq. Naturally no one trusts the intelligence agencies that you maligned.
In this other article on the same site which teases Bush about mixing up Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden (c’mon, everyone has a slip of the tongue every once in a while) there’s my final interesting bit:
“In the late 1990s, our Government was following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone and then the fact that we were following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone made it into the press as the result of a leak,” Bush said.
So we should restrict the press in an effort to make ourselves safer. Bush is saying that he is against the transparency of government in the pursuit of “liberty” from dark forces on foreign shores that mean us harm. You’ve got to be kidding me.
Poor President George Bush: it’s been a rough week.
First he has to back down on his previous position and say that we shouldn’t torture people ... and now it’s been revealed that Bush let the NSA spy on US citizens in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Not a good week at all.
Because of the misconception that anti-war is somehow anti-patriotic (and possible terroristic) we have to endure the trampling of our civil liberties in the pursuit of some imaginary safety. If we would only give up those pesky freedoms we would be so much easier to “protect.”
What a miserable failure.
At last, a MMORPG worthy of my complete attention, worthy of the exercise of my not-inconsiderable skills... lo, this game is ProgressQuest!
Do not let the austere and minimalist façade of the website fool you: indeed, this game has a depth of gameplay that I have not heretofore seen in any computer game.
And, if the intensity and complexity of the shifting, interleaved strands of high-fantasy story and gritty, realistic ethical dilemmas leaves you feeling a bit bewildered you can always glance at the strategy guides for help.
Why not try this tutorial that manipulates a galaxy using SQL? It’s pretty frickin’ cool.
On a slightly unrelated note I’m thinking about starting an Austin chapter of the Ad Lib Game Development Society. Any takers?