Rumpus Linky

Following on from the loss of MCA, there came the sad death of Maurice Sendak. May the wild rumpus continue on forever. Andrew Leonard at Salon wrote this great piece about reading the Wild Things to his the kids. The Comics Journal had a great piece on the man. (Tequila!) And check out these radio interviews with the man via Fresh Air.

Dot thing. (via FogOnWater)

Wolfenstein 3D, the forerunner for pretty much every big computer game today, turned 20 today. The game is now free to play in your browser (and, if you’re quick, on your iDevice). And there’s a director’s commentary! (via d3vo)

The New Yorker got brilliant film reviewer Film Crit Hulk to review the Hulk’s part in this Avengers film.

Speaking of which. Avengers: the actual origin story. No this is really it.

Via JetSimian, a writer reminisces beautifully about being a 12-year-old LARPer in some caves in Thatcher’s Britain. Vaguely related: how to ask on Craiglist for a D&D group.

Have you seen the oatmeal’s Tesla comic yet? You must. Tesla = amazing.

Context-free patent art

The angry underground world of failed pickup artists. (via MrsMeows)

Flowchart: What kind of female character is she?

The Descriptive Camera. Delightful.

And finally: (via theremina) dogs dressed as crustaceans.

Stuff’s “Ice Age” story has changed

Following up on this post: In response to a complaint from me (and presumably communications from others as well), Stuff has stripped the inaccurate material out of their “Ice Age” story and added an apologetic note at the bottom.

It can’t take away the effects of the earlier version, but it at least ensures that this isn’t another link that can be circulated through the climate change denier echo chamber.

The person I communicated with sounded embarrassed by the whole affair – as they should be, it is a humiliating failure. Here’s hoping the lesson has been learned.

RIP Pio

I have a half-finished Friday linky but no stomach to finish it. Just took a call from my mother who saw this in the paper, and let me know a young man I knew had killed himself.

In my last year of high school, Pio was just starting. I was a school prefect assigned to his class, and he was in the basketball team I coached with my friend Matt. But I actually met him the year before, on a bushwalk organized for my year and his, to build some connections between incoming pupils and impending school leaders. We did most of the walk together, forging an instant connection. I can’t remember what on earth we talked about but he was smart, funny, and great company. I was delighted when I ended up assigned to his class the next year.

It was May of that year that Pio’s family was devastated by tragic violence. Everything collapsed around him. The school made some efforts, with the basketball team at the forefront – but my fellow coach and the staff liaison were well out of our depth. I don’t know what else happened around him then. We were all worried.

The next year, I was at university but with my friend kept coaching this young basketball team. Pio was by all appearances back to his old self. Neither of us were convinced, but it was good to see him apparently doing okay. After that year we lost touch. I ran into him in his final year of school, where he was himself recognized as a school leader, and then I did think he’d come right despite his awful experience. But that was just me being naive.

Last time I saw Pio was at a funeral in 2006, one of his classmates from that same class I was prefect for. He was on good form and we had a great chat. On leaving I kicked myself for not trading numbers with him. I’ve thought several times since that I should look him up, particularly since moving back to Lower Hutt. But I never did.

It sounds like his mental wellbeing starting slipping not long after that last time I saw him. It sounds very sad. And apart from feeling upset, I feel angry and helpless. I look around this bloody country and all I see is more and more pressure being applied to those who are the most vulnerable. At the same time, what support we’ve managed to put in place is being undermined and hollowed out or just taken away. There’s nothing civilised about what we’re becoming. If our society is worth anything at all it should have found a way to help Pio, and his family two decades ago.

We have to do better than this.

Peace be with you, Pio

Stuff.co.nz Journalism Fail

Main story at stuff.co.nz for the last hour or two: “Solar Minimum could trigger ice age”

Check the article’s opening paras:

The world could be heading for a new ‘solar minimum’ period, possibly plummeting the planet into an Ice Age, scientists say.

Researchers say the present increase in sun activity with solar flares and storms could be followed by this minimum period.

The period would see a cooling of the planet, refuting predictions of global-warming alarmists.

The research for this comes from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.

WHAT THE HELL.

“Refuting the predictions of global-warming alarmists”? What kind of language is that? Completely inappropriate.

To google, and in moments I’ve found the abstract and ScienceDaily’s summary. From the latter:

…those findings cannot be directly transferred to future projections because the current climate is additionally affected by anthropogenic forcing.

So, from “climate is affected by anthropogenic forcing” to “refuting predictions of global warming alarmists” in one easy step.

This is UNACCEPTABLE. Where did it come from? A media release from one of the “climate sceptic” pressure groups? Heads should bloody well roll over this.

Too angry about this to say any more.

EDITED TO ADD: see also Hot Topic and The Atavism

Cosplay Linky

This is an 18 second video of the best home-made costume I’ve ever seen:

Via Dylan, Eric Valli’s amazing photography of people living off the grid

Great idea well-executed: Broadway show of Mary Poppins puts on special autism-friendly performance. It’s clear they really thought about how to do this. Awesome.

The Republia Times: play at being the editor of a newspaper in a country that is not free (browser game).

This week’s Star Wars content: the Stormtrooper Shuffle. Amazing student project.

The Weird Al Yankovi of other music genres (yes Weird Al does all genres just roll with it)

Search the deep reaches of the net easily with MillionShort, which strips off the first million (or hundred thou, or ten thou) results.

The entire Slender Man mythos – an immense shared storytelling initiative played out mostly through online video – has been compiled.

The Atlas of True Names

Stuck on an essay? Deadline approaching? Here’s your solution: EssayTyper

Tim Denee linked to wiki’s page on distinguishing green and blue in language. Very interesting.

Map of musical styles

Via loads of people: your logical fallacy is…

And finally, via Dave Cormack, depressing cat video

Pohutukawa Linky

My parents today arrive in their new home, which is approximately 30 seconds drive from their old home. Touching to farewell the Pohutukawa Palace, where our family moved way back in 1989. Did a lot of growing up there (and the little long-leggedy beastie has been doing the same), had a lot of crazy times with family and friends, and it has continued to be a shared social destination right up until earlier this week. End of an era. Thank you Pohutukawa Palace.

Maire put this in comments last week: dumb things at 2500 frames per second

Extended (full) version of China Mieville’s essay on London as postapocalyptic place – the shorter version (previously linkied) was splendid reading, this will probably be more so.

Daily Mail-o-matic

Here’s a short, sharp dismantling of libertarianism that will stick in your memory.

Via Ivan – an outstanding example of someone using game theory to outmaneuver a game show

Huge water resource under Africa? This would change a lot of stuff (via Damon)

Via Andrew Salmond – the entirety of legendary visual feast Baraka

Byliner’s 101 best nonfiction journalism of 2011. And I’ve hardly skimmed the surface of the 2010 list (previously linkied). This is the real deal – all sorts of amazing stuff here. (Thanks to the other moose for the headsup that this was out.)

Chomsky on Occupy

Chris M beautifully remembers a game that never actually existed

And finally… spoon-playing grandma rocks out to the Black Keys

(via Dangerous Minds)

Et Alia Linky

Aliens Epilogue – a half-hour fan film set between Aliens and Alien3. Contains some very ambitious staging and plenty of in-jokes. Probably incomprehensible for non-fans. Everything is very amateur, but with an amateur’s deep love. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

The most badass alphabet ever

Google as an 80s-era Bulletin Board system. It works, too.

Film criticism as spiritual discipline

Message to a daughter

Determine your degree of colour blindness (via edel)

The Atlantic profiles dissident art-focused game designer Jonathan Blow – the chap who made Braid, if you’ve heard of that. Pushing for art, rather than artfulness, in game design is an extremely worthy goal. (Although, I think this article undersells though the interesting stuff going on in the indie and small-scale game design scenes, an ecosystem that has exploded thanks to the App Store and various freemium revenue models.)

Theremina linked to the helpful Calming Manatee service, which will calm you down most pleasantly.

Salon.com published an Imprint article about a classic advertiser whose work was satirised on the cover of a very early issue of Mad. Here is that cover. It’s amazing. Mad was so far ahead of its time!

This week’s Star Wars content courtesy the other Moose: a highschool that looks like a Star Wars spaceship.

Which fictional characters share your birthday? Here’s a helpful calendar (thanks Amanda L!)

Double Oh:

Realistic anatomies of cartoon characters (via Maire)

And finally… the most copied comics panel of all time (includes a naked lady so probably not safe for work)

Breakers Linky

Just watched the NZ Breakers basketball team win a thriller in game one of a 3-game final series. I get so invested in these big games! Sigh. Deep breaths.

Ian McEwan on the time his son had to write a book report on one of his novels (via d3vo)

Also from d3vo, one for film design & sci-fi people: spaceships that became other spaceships. one, two, three

Self-portraits in airplane lavatories, wearing classic Flemish style

Via Naomi, an excellent reaction to a friend coming out: act shocked by his website coding choices

I think I’ve linked this before, but it’s been redesigned. Or this is a different site doing the same thing, better. The Food Timeline

Dangerous Minds has turned up a true Monty Python rarity

Hitchcock’s Rear Window – amazing video assembles all the different elements of the scene to construct the whole view

Viking Movies, evaluated by viking history enthusiasts

You might have seen that Daily Mail column by Samantha Brick that was about how tough it is being beautiful because all the other women hate you? The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman has a refreshing take on that whole thing. (I really like Hadley Freeman, whose column got me reading the fashion section of the Grauniad first each Saturday. I was completely thrown when they introduced photo bylines, and I discovered she was a she. I had just figured she was a guy who really understood women’s clothing… Sherlock Holmes I ain’t.)

Via Mike Upton: Existential Crisis and Dragons. (I have actually played games not too dissimilar to this.)

The Pentametron constructs verse from tweets that happen to be in iambic pentameter

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi writes an eye-opening, rage-inducing explanation of what Bank of America did and what “too big to fail” actually means.

Top 10 lessons of the Iraq war.

Vulture had a series of face-offs to determine the greatest TV show in the last 25 years. Here’s part one: The Wire vs. My So-Called Life. No prizes for guessing the ultimate winner, but there are some surprises along the way I think.

This fantastic Lego ad has been all over social media, with the attribution stripped off.

The hallowed DavidR found a detailed read-through and description of the Back to the Future novelization. It is… just click through and see, actually.

And finally, the launch issue of “Conservative Teen” magazine, which shut down its site and disappeared after being mocked a whole lot, can still be found and enjoyed by those who really want to combine their teenage thrills with their conservative political spills.

Birthday 2012

Thirty-six with a bullet baby. Man, last year was a tough year. Amazing and successful but that was some hard work. Not keen to repeat that experience in a hurry.

Anyway today is my birthday and I intend to listen to much jazz, like seriously much.

In previous years on this blog I’ve invited people to leave me a quote in the comments as a birthday gift, like here. But blogging in 2012 is different and most of the social stuff has shifted to the social medias. I ain’t gonna fight it.

(You are still invited to leave a quote in the comments though, if you ain’t Facebook-active or whatever. Just secretly, getting those always makes me delight all up.)

AND I HOPE YOU HAVE A GREAT MY BIRTHDAY!