games

Tuesday various

  • I’ll bet Chelsea Clinton didn’t have wedding invites this adorably geeky. [via]
  • Oh my god! The triceratops may never have existed! That’s so–oh, wait, it might have been the younger form of another dinosaur that looks almost identical except for some cranial features? And, if it is the case that they’re one and the same, palaeontologists will just rename them both triceratops? Wow, what seemed like a stunning revelation is curiously a non-story by paragraph’s end.
  • Syfy Announces Development Slate of 7 New Scripted Projects. Only eighteen of them are Battlestar Galactica or Stargate spinoffs. [via] [Related: Cracked on the Syfy Channel.]
  • I think what I find most interesting and amusing about this whole recent Neil Gaiman/Todd McFarlane thing is that the judge’s decision is ultimately an argument over comics continuity.
  • And finally, as someone who, as part of his day job, spends a great deal of time hunting down potential authors and reviewers at universities, can I just say how right xkcd is?

Wednesday various

  • I know Terry Gilliam’s been having trouble getting films made, but has it come to this: he’s directing webcasts?

    But I kid. It looks like an interesting if unusual idea for a concert series, pairing directors and bands, and I might just check next Thursday’s webcast out if I have a chance.

  • E-books article drinking game. [via]
  • It’s actually been months since I’ve played Plants vs. Zombies, but I thought this was interesting: Michael Jackson Estate Forces ‘Plants vs. Zombies’ Update. Yeah, I can see how an undead Jackson might not sit so well with them. [via]
  • Speaking of zombies, Night of the Living Wonks [via]

    Looking at the state of international relations theory, one quickly realizes the absence of consensus about the best way to think about global politics. There are multiple paradigms that attempt to explain international relations, and each has a different take on how political actors can be expected to respond to the living dead.

  • And finally, baby moose in a sprinkler. Honestly, too cute for words. [via]

Tuesday various

  • Last Thursday, I posted this image to Capper Blog, and I planned to follow up with the original source article here. Better late than never. The pictures there actually give you a better sense of these so-called infinity pools, and moreover just how high up and close to the edge they are. I think I’d be terrified to swim in one these. [via]
  • Going back even further on things I forgot to follow up on: back in June I posted about a link that was going around, suggesting that every actor reads the same newspaper. Well, Slate followed up on that link and found out the story behind the ubiquitous prop. [via]
  • The world really is a poorer place without Jim Henson, isn’t it? [via]
  • I can’t say I’ll miss Blockbuster all that much, but Matt Zoller Seitz makes a compelling argument that we’ve lost something with the company’s (now almost certain) passing [via]:

    I’m talking about the pre-Internet experience of daily life, which was more immediate, more truly interactive: in a word, real. Bland and aloof as it was, Blockbuster was a part of that — and for certain types of people, it was a big part. There was nothing special about Blockbuster as a business, but special moments did happen there, simply by virtue of the fact that the stores were everywhere, and they stocked a lot of movies, and people who wanted to see movies went there regularly, sometimes alone but more often in the company of relatives or friends. You’d go through the front door and pass the front counter — where an employee was checking in a pile of returned videos (when opened, the boxes went whuck!) and check out the new releases wall (Seventy-five copies of “Hard Target?” Seriously?). Then you’d fan out among the aisles and try your luck.

  • And finally, some video game-related links:

Wednesday various

  • Presenting The Human Centipede Video Game. Warning: will spoil the movie (which in turn may spoil your appetite) and possibly your enjoyment of the original Centipede game.
  • Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes really do have great chemistry together. It’s almost enough to forgive their shared bathtub scene in Insurrection. They’re refreshingly candid and engaged.
  • Meanwhile, I am not immune to the cuteness of the sloth.
  • Juliette Wade on teeth in science fiction [via]
  • And finally, ever wonder what happens in Disneyland after dark? (And no, it’s not that Cory Doctorow scales the fence and performs his technomagic in the forgotten recesses of Tomorrowland…although, can you prove that he doesn’t?) [via]

Tuesday various

  • Well this is disheartening:

    “Legitimacy has shifted to the side of the climate skeptics, and that is a big, big problem,” Ben Stewart, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said at the meeting of environmentalists here. “This is happening in the context of overwhelming scientific agreement that climate change is real and a threat. But the poll figures are going through the floor.”

  • Know what’s not going through the floor? Vegetables grown upside-down, that’s what. (And how’s that for segues?)
  • Two words: zombie astronauts. The auction has ended, but the dream lives on forever.
  • Though I think maybe too much of the Internet is devoted to Super Mario Bros. — I know, heresy! — this study of in-game camera movement was surprisingly interesting and something I had never once considered before. [via]
  • And finally, I have to say, ItsJustSomeRandomGuy has really outdone himself with his 100th video: