Link roundup

1. "A Chinese shipping magnate last weekend spent 250,400 euros ($328,000) for a Dutch pigeon."

2. Vanderbilt University apparently employs 67 nonteaching/nonresearch professional staff for every 100 students.

3. A look at the Weyland-Yutani soldiers from Alien 3.

Illustration roundup

School Pride t-shirt by Phil Jones on sale at Threadless.



Pokemon by Olly Moss, who writes, "My plan right now is to draw all 151 first gen Pokemon then do a show where the size of the editions corresponds to how rare the Pokemon is."



Catwoman by Timothy Lim available as a t-shirt.

Link roundup

1. I really like Arkham City Lockdown for iOS (unlike Arkham City, there isn't a billion tools and buttons to keep track of). The only problem was that it was tremendously unstable, crashing frequently. Today's new update seems to have solved the problem, and includes a new free alternate Batman skin.

UPDATE: Well, it's more stable, and the costume change sometimes works.

2. Relatedly, I'm looking forward to the new Popcap game Popcorn Dragon (Plants vs. Zombies is probably my favorite iOS game).

3. A photographic examination of the heights of Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, and the rest of the cast of MI4.

4. I'm amazed/thrilled at how great the cast is for Ender's Game.

5. The efforts to make public school lunches healthier in Los Angeles has been a disaster (my oldest hates them). Megan McArdle explains why such pilot projects so often fail.

Link roundup

1. Tips for fighting bullies.

2. Smart Football:

I can think of really only one example of a guy whose arm now seems significantly stronger than it did earlier in his career as a college player and rookie, and that’s Tom Brady. And, well, Tom Brady is Tom Brady. But it does seem like this is generally true, at least at the higher levels once a quarterback is physically mature: There are almost no examples of guys whose arms went from “popgun” to bazooka through discipline and training, not matter how tall they are or how many weights they lift.

Also, Buddy Ryan's insidious defensive tactic.

3. Weird to see so much anticipation for new comics in the Watchmen universe - - the whole point of Watchmen is that the characters were just knockoffs of other characters. The genius of Moore and Gibbons is what made them special.

4. Lackluster review for the new Deus Ex downloadable content.

Link roundup

1. Neca posted a few WIP photos of the upcoming Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life figures.

2. "Why Do So Many Left-Handed Kids Grow Into Superstars?" (I'm just bookmarking this for my son.)

3. Megan McArdle on kids graduating with useless college degrees and endless debt:

No matter how inflated your expectations may have been, it is no joke to have your confidence that you can support yourself ripped away, and replaced with the horrifying realization that you don't really understand what the rules are.

More here.

4. Gallery of vintage high school photos.

*Buy Neca toys at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Several answers to the question, What’s the Most Important Lesson You Learned from a Teacher?

2. How Ireland's rugby team developed new tackling styles to take advantage of loopholes in the rules. Via.

3. "$39,000 Olsen Twins Backpack Sells Out."

4. And since those last two links are from Gawker media sites, "Nick Denton Loses Bet That The Gawker Redesign Wouldn't Hurt Traffic."

Link roundup

1. Maybe it gets better later, but why would I keep playing Glitch when the first actions it makes me do are collecting a hamburger and watering a tree?

2. Speaking of games, here's three free games: Psychonauts iOS app; Team Fortress 2 demake; Broken Sword.

3. Joel McHale describes his college football career.

4. Walter Russell Mead:

Our educational system isn’t nearly user-friendly enough. Modeled after aristocratic and elitists institutions in Reformation England, American undergraduate colleges still accept as a default model four years of full time residential study. A deep confusion about different kinds of education means that the model of liberal arts education is stretched to fit subjects like “business administration” and “water safety management” which have much more to do with training than with education in the classic sense.

5. Thomas Barnett:

My advice here is simple: It is time for both Afghanistan and Pakistan to stop being our problem and ours alone to solve. The Bush-Cheney unilateralism segued right into the Obama-Biden version: We simply refuse to deal with the regional powers, all of which want a far bigger say in how this whole thing settles out. Instead of working with India, China, Russia, Turkey, and Iran — and accepting that their more vigorous management of the situation would mean "victories" for them and not us — we've chosen consistently to side with Pakistan, which not only wants but is committed to keeping the region unstable.

Super villain training school, perhaps?

Elite Tae Kwan Do and Math Academy. Via.