Linkages for Tuesday

No, a kid did NOT find an ancient Mayan city by comparing ruin locations to the stars.

Weapons of Math Instruction?

Ursula K. Le Guin writes about her cat.

Huh. Wizards of the Coast has some tournament judges suing them, claiming they were effectively employees and should have been compensated as such.

The Chronicles of Cisco continues for fans of The Flash tv show: Part One (in which Cisco tries to improve the Flash suit and falls asleep), Part Two (in which Cisco tries to find an intruder at 3:45 a.m.), Part Three (in which Cisco makes a mistake), and Part Four (in which we learn... well, watch and see).

Boing Boing has a list of disappearances that still make people scratch their heads. Some fascinating stories there.

More fascinating stories came out of Remote Year, a social experiment that didn't turn out perfect, but certainly makes for good reading.

Here's a brutal Fortean topic: The terror of albinism in parts of Africa. In short, if you are albino, you do not exist and are constantly at risk of death.

This piece from Popehat has to be read to be believed. This guy seriously wanted an amendment declaring only people descended from white Europeans to be allowed to be citizens? Now the guy is a Trump delegate... what a surprise.

Hugo Corner:

• Boing Boing on Chuck Tingle's epic troll of the rabid puppies.
• GRRM on other awards.
• Bujold on her Locus nomination.
• A review of one of the works I don't plan to bother reading, because it's from the rabid puppies' master's publishing house (It sounds about as worthless as I suspected it would, building strawmen based on scant facts). The reviewer then responds to the morons who support the original piece.
• And lastly, a painful piece on the current status of the comic book industry, which also mentions the Hugo mess.

And now, a four-minute video that will make you cry. Maybe.

The Present from Jacob Frey on Vimeo.

Hugo Post-mortem (part 1)

In case you didn't already figure it out, Eric and I watched the Hugo Awards live together Saturday night. We had only one technical glitch during the stream, when they announced the winner of the Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form, so I had to find out who won from comments on File 770.

The full results have been announced, including how the voting went. The first pages of the Hugo Final Report list how the actual voting went. The more disturbing information is later in the report, where we learn what the puppy slates pushed off the ballot (and also get an idea of how many puppies there actually were nominating).

The business meeting Sunday morning tackled the problem head-on with the elegant but poorly understood E Pluribus Hugo proposal. It passed the first vote 186-62 after much discussion, and will have to be voted on and pass again next year before taking effect in 2017. This makes me wish I could get to MidAmeriCon II even more, now, so I can vote for it in the business meeting (I'm listed in the Aug. 6 Member List as an Attending Adult, which is not the case. I bought a supporting membership. I'm going to have to contact them to correct it.). Another proposal aimed at reducing the effect of slates, 4/6, also passed. This proposal would ask nominees to list only four choices, then there would be six nominees on the final ballot.

Let's see... Ursula Vernon has been incredibly gracious about losing out a nomination to the slates. The excellent "Jackalope Wives" would have made the ballot if not for the slates. Many people, seeing the works the slates pushed off the ballot, are furious all over again at the slate-movement and the slate leadership's dubious tastes.

Next up, I'm going to do math and speculate and think about things that probably would be better off left alone. I'm putting it all after the cut so you don't have to slog through it.

More Links!

Just want to mention this again: Archive Binge helps you catch up with webcomics that have huge archives. I'm currently reading a few of the comics on the list. If you have a webcomic, I really suggest you get your strip on this site.

Speaking of webcomics, have you met Gronk yet? Not a huge archive on this one, just start here.

The comic book blogosphere is up in arms about a stupid ad by a Maryland candidate for State Senator. To me, the picture gives the opposite impression of what she's trying to convey. Kids that young advanced enough in reading to understand Superman, X-Men, and Marvel Previews (?!) are probably very well educated.

OH MAN! Rich Johnston reports on legal trouble that SLG is having over their horror comic Winchester, which I enjoyed as noted here. I'm not sure what the problem is, except that it apparently involves trademarks. It's a pity, because I wanted to see more of that book, and this fight not only makes that unlikely, it might take down SLG entirely as a publisher.

For some reason, DeviantArt doesn't think inkers are actual artists. Their terms of service have declared that any artist must have created the work entirely by his or herself. No collaborative projects allowed. So inkers who have been putting up examples of their work are being shut down by the service. Anyone got the full scoop on this? The second link there indicates that they are only opposed to inking without permission, so is it a copyright issue solely?

You may have heard about Google allowing you to make free voice calls to any phone in the US or Canada? Well, I made two yesterday. The first went through fine, the second didn't.

Want to see Hamlet starring David Tennant as Hamlet, Sir Patrick Stewart as Claudius and the Ghost, Oliver Ford Davies as Polonius, Mariah Gale as Ophelia, and Edward Bennet as Laertes? Well, now you can watch it online at PBS.

The magic diet elixir is... water. For some strange reason, if you drink a full glass of water BEFORE a meal, you are likely to eat less. Who would've thought?

Oooh, Metafilter collects some learning resources links in a post with a great first line.

I adore this post by Ursula Vernon. She's saying, HEY, BUILD IT HERE! to the mosque, and for selfish reasons, too!

WOW, that's a deal! Getting frozen yogurt for 38/100ths of a cent per ounce! *sigh* Want to read something scarier? Some of the people in the comments don't understand why the math is wrong. Hint: the unit specifies cents, not dollars.

A comparison: Kindle, iPad, print magnified at 26x and 400x. I put the latest generation Kindle on my wishlist because it looks pretty good despite the flaws.

A new stove to make all other stoves cry, but will it catch on?

Here's a Doctor Who teaser trailer, but after you watch it, be sure to go to this link. If you don't, you will feel like a fool.

Pretty good for a fan effort, yes?

A respected teen author is dis-invited to a teen literary festival. As a result, other authors withdraw from the event. More here, including links to other authors talking about the situation. I originally heard the news from Sherwood Smith.

Basement Cat is heartless.

An extra pug for the in-laws.

And lastly, if you have any handy prayer weasels, please get them ready to spin. Eric and I are going to need all the help we can get in the next few weeks.

Linkdump

Comic Book Legends Revealed #272: Superboy's DNA, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and Alley Oop.

Both Boing Boing and Lifehacker have information about restoring LEGO bricks to a non-yellowed color.

Speaking of LEGO, I want some of these tattooed LEGO Minifigs. Any but the tramp stamp.

Doctor Who Filming at the National Museum Cardiff.

Make an In-N-Out Double-Double, Animal-Style.

With all the stories of people quitting going around, Boing Boing has a Letter from a freed slave to his former master. I think I would like to have met the man who dictated that response.

Slate's Pre-College Reading List.

Street Fighting Mathematics.

The Depression in color. Color images from 1906.

Penguins!

Do not disappoint Basement Cat, the punishment is too horrible to contemplate.

Pug for the in-laws.

Linkdump

I'm very very happy that the next Miles Vorkosigan book by Lois McMaster Bujold has a few chapters up for reading. One of my favorite series, and one of the few that seems to get better as it goes along. Three books in this series make up a trilogy that I reread when the depression gets too much to handle: Memory, Komarr, and A Civil Campaign.

Superman saves family from foreclosure. Of course, then there is the guy who found Ansel Adams negatives at a garage sale.

Comic Con 2010 Interview with Andrea Romano. Well worth watching if only for the bombshell she drops at almost 4 minutes in, and the fact that she loves Aquaman (5 minutes in).

I hate this math trick. It always manages to screw up my brain, no matter how hard I try to wrap my mind around it.

Bookplates!

Why do vampires sparkle? Eeeeuuuuuwwwwwwwwww.

Sergey Larenkov takes old photos from WWII and puts them together with pictures taken in the same place in modern day. The results are... ghostly.

This video has been making the rounds as an anti-prohibition vid. I like that they included a person who didn't "sniff the flower" as being part of the group.

Russia is on fire.

Davy Jones' Gym Membership.

LOLCat Theology has Preachers.

Pug for the in-laws, or what pugs really think about.

M&Ms!

While out running errands today, hubby-Eric and I ran across some new flavors of M&Ms that we hadn't spotted here before. So here's my thoughts on them...

The first we ran across was M&Ms Limited Edition Coconut Chocolate Candies. These are exactly what the package says. They are coconut M&Ms. And they are pretty darn good... if you like coconut. I can't really compare it to anything else... it's just a coconut M&M. Exactly what you'd expect. They are slightly larger than regular milk chocolate M&Ms, but the same regular shape. Some of the candies are stamped with an M holding an umbrella, others have an M in the center of a flower. The coconut candies are only in white, dark brown, and green.

Then we found some M&Ms Pretzel Chocolate Candies. Again, these are pretty much what you'd expect. They have a chunk of pretzel in them like the peanut M&Ms have a peanut in the middle. I didn't think I'd like them, but they are actually pretty good. I'm not much of a pretzel fan, but this isn't overwhelming and the chocolate makes the taste work. These are round and about the size of the peanut M&Ms.

I wouldn't go out of my way to pick these up, but seeing them while we were already out and about made them worth checking out.

And, just because I haven't posted it in a long time:

The Continuing M&Ms Challenge

I'm still collecting data for this, and will continue to collect for the foreseeable future, so if you feel like participating, please just:

1) Get yourself a bag of Milk Chocolate M&Ms.
2) Note the size of the bag (in oz or g or both)
3) Open bag. Do not eat any (yet).
4) Count the number of Green M&Ms. Do not eat any (yet).
5) Count the TOTAL number of M&Ms (including green). Ok, you can eat them now.
6) Post the size of the bag, the number of green M&Ms and the total number of M&Ms.
7) FUN!

Note: Counts for other types of M&Ms are welcome, but please indicate what the type is when you post the information. Silliness is fine, but please make sure the data is true. A good replacement for the end of step 5 is to have an M&M tournament to determine the best M&Ms for breeding future generations.

Put your counts in the comments.

Linkdump for a Tuesday Night

The Hero Initiative eBay Auctions. Check out the rubber duckies.

Jesse Hamm draws The Doctor. And all his companions.

Hastings will carry comic books? I've never even heard of the store before reading this article, but there's apparently one about 50 miles away. Still not useful to me.

I don't get it.

Mickey Mouse shills for amphetamines.

Pioneer One, a drama made for the internet, debuts its first episode.

Learn how to make a bunch of Five Ingredient Meals In Under Ten Minutes: a free e-book. Has a few clunkers, but others that I'm willing to give a try.

Um, no. I will not tolerate ads on license plates. The state would have to pay an awful lot to make me accept this lamebrain scheme.

Is There A Link Between Autism and Vaccines?

Slashdot discusses health care and the comments have a lot of interesting things to say about all of it.

Pug puppy for the in-laws.

A Tale of Soccer and Calculus

I took Calculus in my senior year in High School. I did pretty well, even stayed after school when I got stuck. But when I got to University, the highest level of math they would let me take was beginning Calculus. Stuff I'd already studied the year before. Well, I had to take a math class, and I wasn't interested in most of the offerings, so I retook Calculus.

The teacher was a Polish gentleman whose name was unpronounceable by American English standards. He asked us to call him Dr K. He was brilliant, funny, and a really really big football (soccer) fan. He would start each lecture with a minute long rant about whatever was happening in the world of football and sometimes use football examples in the rare instances that was possible.

Dr K had a heavy accent, so most of the students relied on what he wrote on the blackboard to understand what he was teaching. Yes, we could follow him most of the time, but when he got excited and spoke too fast, the equations on the blackboard became vital. We copied everything he wrote studiously. But Dr K had one really annoying habit. He was prone to tiny errors, and when he spotted one he'd erase the board back to where he'd made the mistake and restart the lecture from that spot... while we were desperately trying to write the whole thing down. We would often have to start a new page and copy the start and hope we could catch up with him before he said, "Everybody got it? Ok!" and erased the equations. Which he did a little too quickly for most of our tastes.

After class one day, a group of us were talking about this annoying habit and someone said, "He should get a penalty for doing that to us!" And someone else said, "Yeah, a red card." And I said, "Why don't we?" And an evil plot was hatched. I found some red and yellow construction paper at the store, cut it into appropriately sized cards, and handed them out one day of class before Dr K had arrived.

We didn't have to wait too long. At some point in the hour, he realized he'd made a mistake and started to erase, and all of us pulled out our variety of cards and held them up. Dr K was stunned. He was literally speechless. And he looked like he was about to cry. And I suddenly felt incredibly bad that we'd done this to him, because for HIM a red card actually MEANT something. For us, it was a penalty in a game. For him it was something far more important.

I don't remember much about the rest of that year. It was twenty years ago now. I do know that only half the class finished the course, and not everyone who finished passed. I only passed because I'd already taken Calculus, at least that's my excuse. Dr K was the first in a long line of teachers who tried to get me to sign up in their department as my major, because he thought I was a natural. There are days I wish I had. But I'll never forget the absolutely broken look on his face when he was faced with a sea of red and yellow cards. And every time I see a soccer game I remember Dr K, and the last math class I ever took.

Linkages for a Thursday

The Onion is channeling my report from the other day, you know, my wake up call. And no, I've learned nothing new. There was a major DEA operation that morning, "Project Deliverance", that may or may not be related. But my wake up call was not unusual that particular morning, it happened all over the country.

Bill shares a Doctor Who sketch with us. Speaking of, here's Doctor Hoo.

Rachel shares a science video that demonstrates chain reactions.

The characters on Glee are serial copyright pirates and would owe TONS of money, if they were doing this in real life. Under current copyright punishments, the characters would be deep in debt before getting out of High School.

Slate talks about over reliance on GPS.

The NBC Pipes, decorated by bored Muppet performers, and now preserved.

Who killed the Iceman?

More Verizon math, this time at AT&T. People who don't understand the difference between .05 cents and .05 dollars should not be allowed to handle money. Ever.

Survivors of the Deepwater Horizon rig speak out about BP's sloppiness.

A girl whose father is a climate change denier got a cool award for a science project that supposedly disproved Global Warming. As it turns out, the father was behind the hoax. He used the names of the National Science Foundation and Al Gore to convince his child and her school and the local newspaper. Then he makes himself out to be the victim.

The Continuing M&Ms Challenge

I'm still collecting data for this, and will continue to collect for the foreseeable future, so if you feel like participating, please just:

1) Get yourself a bag of Milk Chocolate M&Ms.
2) Note the size of the bag (in oz or g or both)
3) Open bag. Do not eat any (yet).
4) Count the number of Green M&Ms. Do not eat any (yet).
5) Count the TOTAL number of M&Ms (including green). Ok, you can eat them now.
6) Post the size of the bag, the number of green M&Ms and the total number of M&Ms.
7) FUN!

Note: Counts for other types of M&Ms are welcome, but please indicate what the type is when you post the information. Silliness is fine, but please make sure the data is true. A good replacement for the end of step 5 is to have an M&M tournament to determine the best M&Ms for breeding future generations.

POST RESULTS HERE

Saturday Night Linkver

Comic Book Legends Revealed #212: Mike Grell, Batman Beyond, and Wild Dog.

If you want to know why DC Comics is so messed up: THIS! Crossovers suck the life out of a universe unless all creators are on board from the conception of the idea and have enough time to fit it into their own books.

PC Design Mistakes, 15 classic errors in the designs of personal computers.

Speaking of design errors: More Kindle DRM nonsense. Read the original article and the follow-up before getting angry. Still, Amazon has GOT to start explaining what they are selling better. And I refuse to purchase any books with DRM. I'd rather you embedded my name in the code for every page of the book than put restrictions on how I can read it.

Stolen iPhone recovered by three nerds and a laptop.

Three colors, not Four.

Haunt: an experiment to see if the feelings of a haunting can be recreated by controlling humidity, temperature, air movement, electromagnetic frequencies, and sonic frequencies to the norms that ghost hunters find on their investigations. Yes, science! Note: I lean toward a hypothesis that electromagnetic fields playing on human perceptions in ways we don't entirely understand account for a huge number of ghost sightings. I would love to be proven wrong or right with real science. This study won't do it, but it's a step in the right direction.

Pixar grants the last wish of a dying child.

Slashdot on Lockhardt's rant about Math education in the United States. In the comments there are links to HTMLizes versions of the essay.

Hey, the sunspots are finally returning, and scientist may even know why!

Zoo spends half a million dollars on escape-proof Prarie Dog enclosure, prarie dogs escape within 10 minutes of being introduced to it.

And lastly, a video for hubby-Eric to watch:

The Continuing M&Ms Challenge

I'm still collecting data for this, and will continue to collect for the foreseeable future, so if you feel like participating, please just:

1) Get yourself a bag of Milk Chocolate M&Ms.
2) Note the size of the bag (in oz or g or both)
3) Open bag. Do not eat any (yet).
4) Count the number of Green M&Ms. Do not eat any (yet).
5) Count the TOTAL number of M&Ms (including green). Ok, you can eat them now.
6) Post the size of the bag, the number of green M&Ms and the total number of M&Ms.
7) FUN!

Note: Counts for other types of M&Ms are welcome, but please indicate what the type is when you post the information. Silliness is fine, but please make sure the data is true.

POST RESULTS HERE

And, if you're really feeling up to it, you can have an M&M tournament to determine the fittest M&M for breeding purposes.

Linkdump

Oh, I'm way behind on these: Comic Book Legends Revealed #200 part 1: Marx Brothers (1900s), Bringing Up Father (1910s), Amos and Andy (1920s). Comic Book Legends Revealed #200 part 2: Superman (1930s), Captain Marvel (1940s), Simon and Kirby (1950s), The Prowler (1960s). Comic Book Legends Revealed #200 part 3: Steve Skeates (1970s), "Who Is Wonder Girl?" (1980s), Flying Horses (1990s), Mary Jane (2000s). Comic Book Legends Revealed #201: Cable. Comic Book Legends Revealed #202: art spiegelman, Mini-Marvels, Aquaman rescripted (I want to see this whole story). Comic Book Legends Revealed #203: Trademark, Magog, Bruce Wayne.

Evil evil evil (but fun).

Wow. The outpouring has been incredible, and I think Len Wein might get his entire comic book collection replaced just by generous fans. Wow.

Here's a good interview with Lois McMaster Bujold about writing the Vorkosigan Saga. Her words about the newest book in the series: "...I am, for various unavoidable reasons, already months past deadline and mired in the miserable middle, and still don’t have a title..." Yikes. Well, I can wait. I'll just reread Memory, Komarr, and A Civil Campaign again (and again, and again).

I just want to say, "Eeeuww!" Imagine people being able to hack your tattoos.

Bad Astronomy links to ways common sense lies. I agree with the points of the article, but I don't think most of those items are examples of common sense. Common nonsense, maybe.

I'm a teetotaller as well, but I agree with Penn Jillette. The Drug War is a waste of time and money, and destroys too many lives.

How We Signal Creeps that we're easy targets.

Oprah makes a good choice. Personally, I think we should erase the names of the Columbine shooters from the history books. If we bother to refer to them, they should be called "Those idiot murderers" and not by their names. In fact, any mass murdering scum like them should be called "idiot murderers" instead of using names. They should get no fame from their act, just scorn.

Don't Blink. Don't even Blink. Blink, and you're... catfood?

Linkdump

Comic Book Legends Revealed #197: Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Art Thibert, and Savage Finster. Comic Book Legends Revealed #198: Skippy Peanut Butter, Bluto/Brutus, and Gone With the Wind. Comic Book Legends Revealed #199: Rube Goldberg, Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League, and D.B. Cooper.

CBC Article on Vaccines (ht to Carolyn for the link).

Seattle Sketcher visited my old stomping grounds and did some sketching.

Pictures of Pripyat, Ukraine from 2009. This is the home of the the workers of Chernobyl.

Disturbing news about an old baseball trade.

I wouldn't call this brainteaser "tough" so much as "annoying".

The Continuing M&Ms Challenge

I'm still collecting data for this, and will continue to collect for the foreseeable future, so if you feel like participating, please just:

1) Get yourself a bag of Milk Chocolate M&Ms.
2) Note the size of the bag (in oz or g or both)
3) Open bag. Do not eat any (yet).
4) Count the number of Green M&Ms. Do not eat any (yet).
5) Count the TOTAL number of M&Ms (including green). Ok, you can eat them now.
6) Post the size of the bag, the number of green M&Ms and the total number of M&Ms.
7) FUN!

Note: Counts for other types of M&Ms are welcome, but please indicate what the type is when you post the information. Silliness is fine, but please make sure the data is true.

POST RESULTS HERE

The Continuing M&Ms Challenge

I'm still collecting data for this, and will continue to collect for the foreseeable future, so if you feel like participating, please just:

1) Get yourself a bag of Milk Chocolate M&Ms.
2) Note the size of the bag (in oz or g or both)
3) Open bag. Do not eat any (yet).
4) Count the number of Green M&Ms. Do not eat any (yet).
5) Count the TOTAL number of M&Ms (including green). Ok, you can eat them now.
6) Post the size of the bag, the number of green M&Ms and the total number of M&Ms.
7) FUN!

Note: Counts for other types of M&Ms are welcome, but please indicate what the type is when you post the information. Silliness is fine, but please make sure the data is true.

POST RESULTS HERE

Hey, Another Linkdump!

What, have you been out Banana Grassing tonight?

Thor frightens away burglar. He was out banana grassing. Thor, not the burglar.

The MegaPenny Project, helping you visualize very large numbers.

My friend Lou Anders has been nominated for the 2008 Philip K. Dick Award! Congrats Lou!

Wired speculates about Kindle 2.0. Which reinforces my desire to wait and see. I would love a Kindle in its current state, but an improved one would be even cooler.

Speaking of e-books, Fictionwise offers a reason why DRM is a really stupid business model. In short, people bought these books, expecting to be able to read them whenever they wanted, but now a "provider" is turning off its servers, making the books it provided impossible to read. I won't buy an e-book that has DRM on it. I'd rather pirate it and send my money directly to the author than deal with DRM. Note: I like Fictionwise, and don't blame them for this problem. And Kindle reads text files and other formats which are what I'd likely be using on it.

Another note: I don't consider tagging the file to be DRM, as long as the personal info in the file isn't something that could be dangerous if the file got out accidentally. An account number and/or e-mail address is totally acceptable. In my view, DRM (Digital Rights Management) is software that attempts to control my use of the file and, as a result, often makes it unusable.

Modern kids are being denied self-reliance based on the assumption that today's world is more dangerous than when we adults were children, and that all children are stupid. At least the cops agreed with the parents on this one.

Another reason speed cameras are useless for real law enforcement.

Hope in the ongoing battle against AIDS?

Depressingly, this picture decribes the world peace situation about as well as anything.

The Continuing M&Ms Challenge

I'm still collecting data for this, and will continue to collect for the foreseeable future, so if you feel like participating, please just:

1) Get yourself a bag of Milk Chocolate M&Ms.
2) Note the size of the bag (in oz or g or both)
3) Open bag. Do not eat any (yet).
4) Count the number of Green M&Ms. Do not eat any (yet).
5) Count the TOTAL number of M&Ms (including green). Ok, you can eat them now.
6) Post the size of the bag, the number of green M&Ms and the total number of M&Ms.
7) FUN!

Note: Counts for other types of M&Ms are welcome, but please indicate what the type is when you post the information. Silliness is fine, but please make sure the data is true.

POST RESULTS HERE

The Continuing M&Ms Challenge

I'm still collecting data for this, and will continue to collect for the foreseeable future (probably until next Fall!), so if you feel like participating, please just:

1) Get yourself a bag of Milk Chocolate M&Ms.
2) Note the size of the bag (in oz or g or both)
3) Open bag. Do not eat any (yet).
4) Count the number of Green M&Ms. Do not eat any (yet).
5) Count the TOTAL number of M&Ms (including green). Ok, you can eat them now.
6) Post the size of the bag, the number of green M&Ms and the total number of M&Ms.
7) FUN!

Note: Counts for other types of M&Ms are welcome, but please indicate what the type is when you post the information. Silliness is fine, but please make sure the data is true.

Note: You don't have to count any other colors, just green. It's fine if you do, but the green ones are what we are interested in for the sake of the experiment.

POST RESULTS HERE

The Continuing M&Ms Challenge

I'm still collecting data for this, and will continue to collect for the foreseeable future, so if you feel like participating, please just:

1) Get yourself a bag of Milk Chocolate M&Ms.
2) Note the size of the bag (in oz or g or both)
3) Open bag. Do not eat any (yet).
4) Count the number of Green M&Ms. Do not eat any (yet).
5) Count the TOTAL number of M&Ms (including green). Ok, you can eat them now.
6) Post the size of the bag, the number of green M&Ms and the total number of M&Ms.
7) FUN!

Note: Counts for other types of M&Ms are welcome, but please indicate what the type is when you post the information. Silliness is fine, but please make sure the data is true.

POST RESULTS HERE