Month: August 2011

It’s Friday linky time!

Tree gives bicycle long slow hug

Timewaster alert: Amazing science facts!

The AVClub interviews Martin Starr, actor best known in this household as Bill Haverchuck on Freaks and Geeks. He just comes across as a fascinating guy. I love that he and Eugene Levy are developing projects together.

NYT feature on Dollar Stores and the economy that sits behind and around them. Fascinating and worth knowing about.

Ursula K Le Guin writes vividly about the use of curse words in modern fiction. Contains bad language, unsurprisingly.

A fun set of engagement pictures. The photographer turns up in the comments to discuss.

Lovely short film set in the world of the Portal video games. Well worth watching even if you, like me, know virtually nothing about Portal.

Fascinating! New version of mass-market war boardgame RISK makes previous games impact on future games – you add permanent stickers to the board after each play, reflecting what happened. The designer chats about the logic behind this – well worth a read.

Incredibly rewarding essay by comics journalist Tom Spurgeon about facing death, loving comics, working hard, and the shape of life.

Now that the Harry Potter film cycle is finished, refresh your minds with these new takes on the characters by artist Makani.

And finally… French firemen do it fast

There are many like it but this one is mine

Muppet Who. Check out more of Amy Mebberson’s funny, skilful work on her Tumblr.

Young woman journo infiltrates the Gathering of the Juggalos.

Once you would have had to be a seriously dedicated collector who had scoured dozens of books and odd periodicals to collect this information. Now it’s right there on Wikipedia. The Tehran UFO incident of 1976. Whippersnappers these days have it all so easy.

Dogs in flight and dogs shaking off water

Another interesting experiment in alternative exchange models: “I’m going to try offering people a new way to obtain my games without buying them or stealing them. It is this: do purposeful acts of social good, tell me about those purposeful acts of social good, and then you get the game.” For example, you go and pick up litter from a local park, then tell him, and he’ll give you the game. (Obviously this doesn’t scale *at all*, but for niche/small-audience products this has a very nice feel.)

The weird science of coffee stain rings

The only review of Rise of the Planet of the Apes you need to read. (Minor spoilers I guess but they’re worth it.)

The Ross Sea: It’s a Horrible Place

(that’s a competition entry by my buddy Matt. See also this bedtime story.)

[late addition! thanks Maire] Crazy dragon illusion…

And finally… hipster ipsum, because ordinary filler text just isn’t cool enough.

Linky’s back. Like Linky 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold. Or Linky 2: Electric Boogaloo. Or Linky 2: The Squeakquel.

Street flyers that are funny Some of these are clever-clever and annoying, but most are clever-dumb or dumb-clever and very fun indeed. (via Joel Pitt)

Neo-Nazis get a surprise in their t-shirts. This is quite brilliant actually. (via George Langlands)

You will know just from the title whether this link will be your sort of thing; if it is your sort of thing, you could lose weeks in here. Digital Atlas of Roman and Medieval Civilizations

The Great French Post-It Art War of 2011

Over on Facebook everyone, including me, is sharing this great piece on the London riots by the Spider Jerusalem of this reality, Penny Red.

Man, it seems like an age ago when I bookmarked this one. Only two weeks! An eternity. Hey, remember when Rupert Murdoch was a big story? Remember that guy? What Rupert Murdoch means for you, personally. How he’s screwed up your life too.

Fan-made Angry Birds motion comic

Literati call out the great works of literature they didn’t like

Kinda creepy vanity dolls

Dancers among us (via Jamie Norrish)

Everything you need to know about the exploitative history of the superhero comics industry can be extrapolated from this story.

Joggers, before and after

And finally: ‘Harold and Maude’ arts and crafts