A little alphabet game?

Brian Williams Interviews Ahmadinejad

It's a little long and I'd prefer to read subtitles than have him dubbed.. but still interesting.





Try to catch at least the final question near the end.

Daily Show and Congress' Don't ask don't tell hearing

Amazing.



As for the part about skin on skin.. wouldn't that be solved by asking and telling? I imagine in that situation they don't go coed either.

If this doesn't make you smile...

something may be wrong with you. This man is a genius.


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

This is the second of his dancing videos. If you've never seen the first, go here.

The War on Terror and Torture

Can anyone please explain to me why John McCain has changed his view on torture? How could he call the supreme court decision to give detainees suspected of terrorism the rights of habeas corpus one of the worst decisions in the history of the country?! Anyway... watch this video. The man (Phillippe Sands, director of the Center on International Courts and Tribunals) is quite sensible. I hope someone is listening.

3 Games to Buy

So I'm not nearly the gamer I once was, but I still appreciate a good game.  There are three games I will definitely buy in the next 5 years as they come out.  In chronological order:

Spore

Spore is by the Sim City people but is more like Sim Life.  It's a few games in one, apparently, starting with a single cell pack-man style game.  Eventually you get to the creature creation, which is the most interesting part for me.  In Spore, you can create just about any creature your heart desires within certain game balancing limitations.  The game engine helps you paint it, design it, and it figures out how it walks, attacks, dances, etc.  This is like legos on steroids.

One of the ambitions of Spore is to pack multiple genres into one game.  I find it hard to believe they will all be fun to play for long, but I'm sure some will.  I'm most looking forward to the tribal RTS style stage.

The creature creator is out now for 10 bucks.  Mines coming in the mail, so I'll post some creatures when I make them.  The game comes out in like 70 days.

Starcraft 2

This one is obvious to anyone who knows about me and knows about games.  I love real time strategy, and Starcraft 1 was the king of all RTS games.  SC2 is coming out around November.

Trailer (not gameplay):

Diablo 3

Diablo, like Starcraft, is made by Blizzard.  They always release their games on PC and Mac at the same time, and their games are always super popular.  Diablo 3 was announced yesterday and the gameplay video looks downright amazing.  It's a dungeon crawling click-fest that is sure to be extremely addictive.  The other Diablo games largely owed their addictiveness to their massive re-playability.  The dungeons are randomly generated and each of the classes has a lot of variety in style choices.

For the really high quality videos go to the diablo 3 website.

Trailer:

Game Play:

Shared RSS Feed

If you use an RSS reader you can subscribe to my shared feed.  I mark interesting stories occasionally as they pop up that you may not see.  If anyone else has one, let me know.

http://www.google.com/reader/shared/04740958784295543330

If you don't have an RSS reader but want one, I recommend google reader.  It is nice and easy to use.   http://www.google.com/reader/

Brain Cells

Things that increase brain cells

• Chocolate
• Tea
• Blueberries
• Alcohol (moderate)
• Stress Management
• Cannabinoids (marihuana)

Things that decrease brain cells

• Saturated Fat
• Sugar
• Nicotine
• Opiates
• Cocaine
• Alcohol (excessive)
• Chronic Stress

source

Genes, Memes, and Temes

This is a great TED talk about the 3rd replicators that are almost upon us. It will really make you think.



Science fiction has spent a lot of time on the idea of robots taking over after becoming artificially intelligent. Terminator, the Matrix, etc. But they always make the robots out to be another race who competes with humans. The reality is that they in no way need us once they can replicate themselves. They won't need to be malevolent, greedy or evil. They just need to be able to reproduce. And if they do so at our expense, or at the expense of the planet and its resources, we are screwed. The fragility of it never really occurred to me.

Shakespeare

Shakespeare invented over 1700 words by either changing existing words or making them up. Here are a few you may not have known about:

Bump (Romeo and Juliet)
Hint (Othello)
Rant (Hamlet)

more info here.

He also created a lot of phrases and idioms we use to this day.

From Bernard Levin's The Story of English:

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me", you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is father to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise - why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I were dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut, tut! for goodness' sake! what the dickens! but me no buts - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare. (Bernard Levin. From The Story of English. Robert McCrum, William Cran and Robert MacNeil. Viking: 1986).