The Ziggurat of Doom

11:31 Dick Clark had a stroke last year. This year, he’s back, and Ryan Seacrest is co-hosting. I told my “right hand man” joke for the fifteenth time tonight.

Well, that’s about it for me tonight.

Ah, Germany. Not only is it the homeland of Heino, but also the land of such grand traditions as Oktoberfest and…uh, watching hilarious old British comedy as part of their New Year’s Eve celebrations. The article contains a link to the Google Video copy of the actual clip; you may find it worth a watch.

I went to Walmart yesterday, to pick up supplies for a party at my friends house, and I noticed an amazing thing in the candy section: Pockey! I had no idea that this was being sold at mainstream retailers. Pretty cool.

Not normally a big fan of flash cartoons, but really, this one’s worth a look.

Damn funny stuff. Features Godzilla, Optimus Prime, and Batman. And others.

Coming up on the one-year anniversery of ZoD, I’ll be making some long-overdue changes and fixes to the layout and back-end. Most of it will be done off-line, but if something seems a little weird, rest assured, it’ll probably be fixed shortly.

Look forward to:

• The return of the Search function
• The return of, uh, date stamps. Don’t know when those got lost, but… yea.
• Archives that can be navigated by sane, rational human beings.
• Other stuff, as it occurs to me.

Feel free to post requests and suggestions in this thread. No promises, but I’ll do what I can.

I can put up with a lot. War, plague, famine, all that, no problem.

But a projected coffee shortage?

Eris, have mercy on us.

PC game releases for 2005: Not so hot.
PC game releases for 2006: Pretty sweet.

I’m particularly looking forward to Spore (Will Wright is a crazy genius), Neverwinter Nights 2 (more hacky awesome), and of course, Supreme Commander (the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation).

(Via Kotaku.)

Since it’s the season and all, we’d like to wish everyone a Very Happy Whatever. Me, I’m celebrating Free Stuff Day, but you can call it what you like.

When it comes to the cr/evo debate, I don’t often post from the religious side of things. Part of that is because the loud, idiot fundie types tend to drown out the sane ones, a fact that I know the Queen of Swords has lamented on no few occasions:

“This galvanizes the Christian community,” said William Dembski, a leading proponent of the theory and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Seattle think tank that promotes intelligent design research. “People I’m talking to say we’re going to be raising a whole lot more funds now.”

But this article from The Austringer is a fantastic response. Go forth and read.

So, I finally caught the Full Metal Alchemist movie. Not going to give a long review, but in short: It wasn’t bad. In fact, it had some really excellent moments, and overall was pretty good. A few flaws kept it from being great: The pacing seemed a little off, it had a few moments that made me wonder where the good writers had gone and why they’d let someone stupid write this part of the script, and it could have used another pass by a continuity editor.

It’s not the movie I would have written, but it was a decent way to go.

Also, it reminds us of that essential advice: Don’t let the Nazis get ya down.

Godzilla: Destroy All Christmas.

Brought to you by Rebecca Sean Borgstrom and Hitherby Dragons.

Another entry for possibly the best ad ever. Long-ish and high-rez, so be broadband.

(Via Making Light.)

Man Charged With Murder in Jogger Death

A property caretaker was charged with murder Wednesday in the death of a jogger whose battered and bound body was found in a shed owned by the “Sesame Street” actor who plays Big Bird.

That’s all. Borring stuff after that.

Return to Comics has a review of comic that doesn’t really interest me enough to read, 3D gimmick aside. However, it’s a comic written Thomas Jane. “Yes, it’s that Thomas Jane”.

The guy who played the Punisher is writing comics, and its not some PR gimmick, although that would be fine, but this is even cooler.
Read the rest of this entry »

Still waiting on the full text, but the Dover decision is in, and so far, the news is good.

(By still waiting, I mean still waiting for it to load - it’s a huge freaking decision.)

The evidence at trial demonstrates that ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism. (Pg 31)

Thank you, sanity.

UPDATE:
Ah, here’s the good stuff, from page 136:

The proper application of both the endorsement and Lemon tests to the facts of this case makes it abundantly clear that the Board’s ID Policy violates the Establishment Clause. In making this determination, we have addressed the seminal question of whether ID is science. We have concluded that it is not, and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents.

Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of ID make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.

Delicious.

(Via The Panda’s Thumb.)

Trio charged with modifying Xboxes to pirate video games

Two store owners and a third man were charged on Monday in a federal copyright infringement case for allegedly selling modified Microsoft Corp. Xbox consoles that allowed them to play pirated video games copied onto a multi-gigabyte hard drive.
The game consoles were modified with a new control chip and a 250 gigabyte hard drive. The embedded software on the chip creates a new start menu. “Turn on the Xbox, and the software comes up with the name of the modification chip,” said Thomas Loeser, assistant United States attorney in Los Angeles. “You’ll page through a menu similar to Windows browser to select any internal game to play it.”

The DoJ claims that they are not running a full investigation yet, but I wonder if moding will be a thing of the past. More likely, if Americans keep getting arrested for it, I expect it to become more popular in Mexico or Canada, and exporting to the US.

Never, ever, ever read your spam.
Computer worm traps child porn offender in Germany

A child porn offender in Germany turned himself in to the police after mistaking an email he received from a computer worm for an official warning that he was under investigation, authorities said on Tuesday.

I wonder if he reads comic books. Probably not.

Another entry for the annals of truly great hacks: MIT invaded by Mario.

Good stuff.

(Via Kotaku.)

Saturday Night Live has a… a what? An actual goddamned hilarious short?

When was the last time that happened?

(Hat tip: Kung Fu Monkey.)

For those of you following the Dover intelligent-design-creationism case, Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District, the decision is due to come out tomorrow. Word is that it’s long, which probably implies a broad decision, which is by and large good. It could be a broad pro-IDc decision, but given the way the trial went, that’s not likely. And if we can land a broad pro-science decision, well, that’s a big win.

(Via The Panda’s Thumb.)

In related news, the NYT has an excellent review of Chris Mooney’s book, The Republican War on Science.