The Ziggurat of Doom

Because when you invite the cousin you actually like (say, Pluto), you have to invite his bigger siblings, too. In related news, I just got the memo that Eris is a frickin’ planet.

No clinically significant difference versus placebo in treating depression

Props to the writer for including the title of the paper in question.

Where the genre is games about Michael Jackson rescuing children from thugs and pimps.

Sega Genesis - Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker (youtube).

You can blame the new kid Shea at work for this.

For anybody interested in the Mai HiME / Mai Otome franchise, fansubs for the new “Sifr” OAV came out tonight. Good times. Again, they focus on the strengths of the Otome franchise: high velocity action scenes, and lesbian fan service. Also, there is a dude with a cape and a mustache. He sets a cyborg on fire.

Star Trek, Twilight Zone, other classics beamed onto ‘Net

Last spring, CBS announced the creation of the Audience Network, which has become the online home for CBS programming. Yesterday, the network gave the site a boost with the announcement that it plans to bring some classic shows there. We’re now able to watch William Shatner overact and Nichelle Nichols wear a red polyester minidress whenever we want, as the Audience Network will begin streaming episodes of Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, and other classic series

Potentially useful, if you are separated from your permanent media.

Stolen bridge baffles Czech police

And according to that article bridge theft is not terribly uncommon. I suspect Discordians. Maybe the bridge is still there, but it’s covered in Fnord graffiti.

BBC NEWS | England | Staffordshire | Restaurant sorry over F word bill
Ten friends found the abusive and sexually-explicit message on their bill at Joe Delucci’s Italian restaurant in Bird Street, Lichfield, Staffordshire.

Stuff White People Like

Are you white? Do you like:
#62 - Knowing what’s best for poor people
#58 - Japan
#50 - Irony
#41 - Indie Music
or #23 - Microbreweries

Russians want to create a rift in the fabric of the universe.

(Hat tip, Phil at The Speculist.)

The battle for Net Neutrality continues.

Machinae Supremacy’s Biography – Last.fm

Machinae Supremacy is a metal band from Luleå, Sweden. Their musical style is based on the use of the Sidstation synthesizer, which incorporates the SID (Sound Interface Device) of the Commodore 64 home computer.

I found Machinae Supremacy, MaSu to their fans, through Pandora a while ago and picked up Redeemer, which was great (though I didn’t buy it through Amazon). The preview “videos” for their new album, Overworld, on Last.FM sound pretty good.
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I bring you a picture with amusing text.

(this one is safe for work)

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Ramen! Right here in Cleveland.
Yes, the real stuff, no hot-pot involved.
Not as good as the noodle place in Boston, but still worth checking out.
Shinano Japanese Restaurant

We must all go there. For great justice.

Beer Consumption in Major Countries in 2004
Before you click through, try to guess who’s #1 in consumption per capita.

brain-safe, but nsfw image below the cut

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Watch the Skies

Something new is coming. Register to be one of the first to join us, and receive free digital books from bestselling and award-winning SF and fantasy authors. This is just the beginning.

Once you register, you’ll receive our newsletter and a link to download a digital book. And you’ll receive a link to another new book every week.

The first week’s free book is Mistborn, by rising fantasy star Brandon Sanderson. Next week’s will be Old Man’s War by John Scalzi, 2006’s winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Over the next several weeks, other books still.

Deal breaker #1 is DRM
How to Get an eBook of Old Man’s War — Free!

(And for those of you who care about such things: My understanding is that they don’t have DRM on them. Or at least, mine isn’t supposed to have, and I don’t think they’re planning mine to be special in that regard.)

Ok, Deal breaker #2 is format. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find out any information on this. So I signed up. If it’s a PDF, or some obscure, new, proprietary format, forget it. If it’s one of the old, established, stupid formats like .lit, I’ll probably skip it. If it’s something sane, like, I don’t know, HTML, the this is pretty awesome news.

Ford Adds RFID To F-150 — RFID — InformationWeek

F-150 drivers who use their trucks for jobs will be able to affix RFID tags to tools and construction equipment that can be read and recognized by RFID antennas installed within the vehicle.

Sounds like fun. Probably has uses beyond just tools, too.

So, yes, there are actual people out protesting.

Favorite signs: “Thetans or GTFO”, also “Super Powers $400,000″ and “Tom Cruise Can’t Fly”.

Google News has more links.

Perhaps today you would like to watch a video of a man wearing nothing but a horse mask dancing to the Kefka fight music whilst he cooks some wild mushrooms

Whedonesque>>

Steven Brust’s Firefly novel now online. “My Own Kind of Freedom,” the Firefly book Steven Brust wrote as a proposal for a tie-in Serenity novel back in 2005, has finally been released as fanfic. Really, really good fanfic.