Verified Linky

Reverse verification: the process where someone tries to introduce doubt around established facts. This basically functions as a cheat code for our media systems. As Jay Rosen says at the link, verification is what the media should be doing, but they get caught up in reporting what people are saying – untangling these has proved hard. Maybe sharing this “reverse verification” idea around will be a small further step toward change.

“First off, let me just say there was a very heated NZ vs. Australia rivalry on the Cabin set. Apparently, Australia is a prison colony filled with castoffs and criminals, and New Zealand is a glorious land of Hobbit-filled imagination and wonder.
Or, at least, that’s what Anna Hutchison tells me. Suck it, Hemsworth.” – Drew Goddard, in a lengthy Q&A about Cabin in the Woods. (via David Ritchie esq.)

Now this is how you tear a highly-regarded restaurant to pieces in a review. The NYT gives one star to famed Manhattan eatery Le Cirque. (via Mark Cubey. Gator, obviously you’ve gotta click on this one.)

That “crying fire in a crowded theatre” thing – its legal history in free speech cases exhaustively examined. Way too dense for me to do more than skim, but lawyer types and free speech nerds will be fascinated with the detail too. Upshot: stop referring to it goddammit.

Amazing project you can join: help the transcription of documents from the 1920s excavation of the ancient city of Ur.

Y’all seen xkcd’s “click and drag“, right? It is amazing (but also hella frustrating to interface with after a while). Here’s an easier, zoomable version – but is this the complete picture? I don’t know.)

More about the culture and codes of behaviour among magicians, this time through the example of Teller and someone “stealing” his trick. (Gob: “Illusion, Michael!”) I never get tired of this stuff. The article is longer than it needs to be, a writer trying to give the article weight enough to be an anchor feature I guess, but is full of amazing details. (via Theremina)

Fan-made Star Wars space battle anime. Groovy as heck.

The definitive Watchmen 3

Fold your own Flight of the Conchords

There is a Magic: The Gathering puppet musical. This is a thing that exists. (via Liam Frost)

Guy playing Skyrim just decides to add all the mods he can find at once. The game becomes very weird indeed.

The YikeBike – NZ innovation, a super-light transport option?
And a cardboard bike (both via d3vo)

And if I never linked this before, I should have – some research about how our ancestors slept, and how the 8-hour sleep session is quite unusual really (also via d3vo)

Characters on the TV show Community watch a Doctor Who echo called “Inspector Spacetime”. Now there is a webseries echo of Inspector Spacetime called “Untitled Web Series About A Space Traveller Who…”, written by and starring the guy who plays Inspector Spacetime on Inspector Spacetime. Follow all that? Good. Clicky then.

If the phrase “the problem of Susan” means anything to you, you really need to read this very short story. (Narnia fanfic, via Making Light.)

The accidental history of the @ symbol. I always thought it was derived from “ea” for “each”. (via Mrs Meows)

And finally, also via Mrs Meows, gaze into the abyss that is Lindsay Nohands.