Link Archive 8/21/13 – 9/11/13

Trying to do these a little more frequently so they aren't as long.

Cracked is a far better site than any of the professional news media. The 6 Weirdest Things We've Learned Since 9/11

Another *amazing* brilliant science-fiction piece from Ted Chiang is out. One of my favoritest authors ever. "writing is a technology, which means that a literate person is someone whose thought processes are technologically mediated. We became cognitive cyborgs as soon as we became fluent readers"

Transdimensional Justice Monster - A flash piece by an extinctionist. Every now and then I find myself in danger of slipping back into this frame of mind.

MIRI's Five Theses, rewritten with the xkcd-inspired Up-Goer Five text converter.

WARNING: HUMANS CAN REPRODUCE AT A RATE OF 1 PER SPACEYEAR. DESTROY INFESTATIONS IMMEDIATELY (and other fun facts)

Looks like almost every major crop can be altered to draw its own nitrogen from the atmosphere, which would drastically reduce the need for nitrogen fertilizer. Pollution and costs would drop dramatically. "It is anticipated that the N-Fix technology will be commercially available within the next two to three years." :) (taken from Scott Alexander)

A thought-provoking take on minimum wages: Why We Need Minimum Price Laws Today

It’s Your P*ssy, You Can Do What You Want With It - "It wasn’t until I realized I hated sex that I thought: what about me? Then it was on like Donkey Kong."

A video of Korean DOTA 2 announcers. Fun times :)

A British dude gets a toll-number for all those annoying cold-calls, surveys, and political calls you get - and actually makes a bit of money! Now I need to get a landline again :)

This will be vital for my plans. A Protein That May Help Explain Memory Loss In Old Age

A great dissection of the rhetoric Kerry used in his "We gotta attack Syria" speech.

It makes sense that a group that provides the same services to its community that a church does should get the same tax breaks a church does. Feds say OK to atheists on religion tax break.  I guess if you're trying to build a case against special tax exemption for churches, doing awesome things for your community isn't the way to go about it.

So mean, but still funny! A Japanese TV show (of course) pranks dogs. That last dog is a bad-ass!

A dinosaur prank too? Japan is dangerously close to winning the internet!

HAHAHAHA! "Pearsons did her best on Sunday to try to put a biblical spin on why the church had flip-flopped on its vaccination stance." Vaccine-fearing Texas megachurch urges flock to immunize after measles outbreak

A great bit by Louis CK about aging - Incurable Shitty Ankle (and while we're on Louis CK, I now  know why Melissa wants to get married! She hasn't had a divorce yet, so she's missing out on the best part of life!)

An amazing song by Touche Amore. You'll probably like it even if you aren't normally into Screamo. And two more great songs from them.
"And for my final trick I'll make everyone who loved me disappear"
 

Looked up Captain Nintendo again on a lark. Is it just me or... is Mother Brain kinda a racist version of a black woman? Totally didn't notice that as a kid.

Anime: Subs or Dubs? A more bitter fight than Kirk or Picard!

Good news on the "Hah, bit you in the ass didn't it, you bastards?" front: "potential spooks-to-be were tapped early (often while at school or university), vetted, then given a safe sinecure along with regular monitoring to ensure they stayed on the straight-and-narrow all the way to the gold watch and pension ... Gen Y has never thought of jobs as permanent things. Gen Y will stare at you blankly if you talk about loyalty to their employer ... This means the NSA and their fellow swimmers in the acronym soup of the intelligence-industrial complex are increasingly reliant on nomadic contractor employees, and increasingly subject to staff churn ... employees who lack instinctive loyalty because the culture they come from has spent generations systematically destroying social hierarchies and undermining their sense of belonging are much more likely to start thinking the unthinkable."