(I found it first, but rmd beat me to posting it. But LJ is sluggish enough at the moment that it's easier to post via app than get to her post.)

 

Conway's game of life implementing the game of life

 

It's turtles all the way up!

 

A podcast (Slice of Sci-Fi or one of its brethren) introduced me to Xombie, a continuing flash-animated story set in a world with sentient zombies.

Tom Smith forwards the important question, "How would the Mighty Thor re-interpret contemporary pop hits?" Smite Me, Infant, One More Time

dictionary_wotd entries that I haven't known this year so far: daedal, rebarbative, brummagem, edacious, aubade, titivate, eleemosynary, epigone

A new dinosaur: the Dracorex Hogwartsia. (beware popup ads) Hee!

In the "they did a study to demonstrate that?" department, Verbal abuse triggers adult anxiety, depression. The deuce you say.

And here's someone who doesn't understand "comfort re-reading", never rereads books. To each her own and all... re-reading is a huge thing for me. Fantasy series and children's/YA books especially, but also Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, mysteries (yes!)*, golden age SF, Jeffrey Archer novels, science/math fact books, you name it. I adore the ritual of re-reading a series before the latest book comes out. I've done that with Mercedes Lackey, Laurell K. Hamilton (not anymore, though), Orson Scott Card (ditto), and J.K. Rowling. Heck, my whole library is things I might theoretically re-read. Otherwise, why own 'em?

I love the idea of secular relics. Hee.

Scenes from Minoan life staged with Barbies. May take a while to load; be sure you see the last image on the page. Not worksafe if your work frowns on naked doll breasts.

A hilarious billboard juxtaposition.

A recent scam alert: fraudsters calling to say there's a warrant out because you missed jury duty and flustering you into giving out personal info.

Naked doll breasts!

* I notice that my phrasing implies that Sherlock Holmes and mysteries are separate things. Well, in my mind they are. I have to have a fair shot at figuring it out for it to be a mystery.

I feel the urge to write a proper update, but I fail to have the time--no, really, it's energy--to write rather than passively consume. Thus! Link sausage!

Also, GIP. *points to icon*

Ahem! Courtesy of wcg, an 18th century trephination set, reserve not yet met. Bid now, bid now!

Courtesy of several people, McSweeney's Cookie Monster Searches Deep Within Himself and Asks: Is Me Really Monster?. Awww, Cookie....

As forwarded to metafandom: gaudior's thoughts on cultural appropriation as an anime fan, in response to a rant she links to. It took me a few days simply to read all the comments the original post generated in various forums. Head too full, but of stuff worth thinking about.

And in bizarre contrast, via Neil Gaiman...

The equally megatalented, although significantly shorter than Thea Gilmore, Stephin Merritt, is being defended against what seem to me to be remarkably wrong-headed accusations of racism (he said on a panel that Zip-e-dee-doo-dah was a great song from a bad movie) this morning over at Slate.

... buh? There's more to it than that, but poor Stephin (except really I'm sure he can take care of himself).

P.S. If I type the letter h into the search bar of this browser and look at the autocomplete options, I get "Harvard Shuttle schedule", "Heimdall kills Loki", and "House, M.D. episode guide". Which somehow sums up something about the state of my brain right now. *dashes off to catch the shuttle*

I just spent a long weekend in Las Vegas.

What a strange city.

I had great fun playing poker and meeting poker players and seeing shows and all that. Perhaps I'll do a longer post later. In the meantime, my micro-review of Fashionistas:

Erotic aerial silk.

http://www.fashionistastheshow.com/images/galleries/frontPagePromo/004.jpg is not (okay, debateably) safe at most workplaces.

Hummina.

(Oh, the linkie, ganked from lediva: 250 things Mr. Welch can no longer do during an RPG, all committed by the poster at one time or another. Read, ye GMs, and despair!)

* from Salon: Leonard Nimoy takes lovely photographs (some nudes)

* from bryant and others: Kerry suggests McCain as a new Defense Secretary

* from dglenn: an interesting article in the Monterey Herald about how existing married same-sex couples (where one is a transsexual) may have their currently-valid** marriages tested by scrutiny and even legislative backlash against gay marriage. One person says: "I think the whole gay marriage debate, although it may not always be phrased this way, is a debate about gender." Which kind of makes sense to me. Gender is about identity, and maybe those who feel threatened by gay marriage do so because they feel it strikes at the core of their own identities.

** As the article notes, courts in different jurisdictions have come down differently on divorce issues for such couples.

* from fennel, Rich Lowry on how the abuses at Abu Ghraib reflect on our own society. Of course, his subtext is that it's all the fault of our degrading culture, and I don't think I agree. But he's got some interesting food for thought in there.

* from Talking Points Memo, a Guardian story notes that many of the techniques used at Abu Ghraib are taught to special forces trainees: they're subjected to them, to help them be able to overcome them if captors use them. If those techniques are then transmitted to those who have never undergone them and have no empathy regarding the tortures....

* and from all over, of course there's that charmer, Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma. "I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment." I hope you are, sir, I hope you are.