Link roundup

1. Apple's free guide to developing iOS apps. Via.

2. A look at the wild parrot population boom in Los Angeles.

3. I love video game review site Action Button, but I was awfully disappointed with the just recommended iPhone game Ziggurat. (I like Action Buttons reviews so much that I feel betrayed.)

4. On the other hand, I greatly enjoyed Leviathan Wakes by Daniel "James Corey" Abraham. It's excellent pulpy retro-scifi about an oddball crew jetting throughout the solar system to unravel a conspiracy that threatens all humanity.

Link roundup

1. From a Q&A on The Old Republic:

GnovaD: Are there any plans to introduce mobile apps to the game? Eg. Use smart phone/tablet to send companions on missions while offline.

Damion Schubert: Let's just say that this has always been a dream of mine for crew skills - it's almost as if this design was created specifically with this in mind, doesn't it? Good news, sometimes dreams do come true! The bad news is that I have no ETA for you, though, as this is a significant technical endeavor.

2. Assassin of Secrets was supposed to be a hot new spy novel, but then readers started to recognize entire passages lifted from other novels. The resulting investigation into the mysterious author is almost certainly more interesting than the novel itself.

3. GQ has An Oral History of Tim Tebow. Sample:

JOHN FOX (head coach, Denver Broncos): The minute you meet him, he has that presence. I went and met him for dinner during the draft process down in Gainesville. He's got a notebook, and he's into it. He just likes talking ball. And he picked up the tab—I've never had that happen before.

4. How to Prevent YouTube from Keeping a Record of The Videos You Watch .

Link roundup

1. Panasonic lost $10.2 billion for the year. Via.

2. How (and why) to set up Google Cloud Print.

3. A lawyer has the url rapesq.com. Via.

4. Bacon-flavored shake at Jack in the Box. Via.

Link roundup

1. Warren Ellis is selling Valentines showing off his special brand of humor. (NSFW?)

2. Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles is hosting a Celebrity Charity Dungeons and Dragons Game this weekend and the game will be streamed online.

3. Figure out your ring size using this downloadable chart and scotch tape.

4. Now there's a Sith Lord called Darth Undead?

Link roundup

1. "So you wake up tomorrow morning to find almost everyone on Earth missing. The Internet will continue to work for a few hours: what information could you download to ensure your survival and rebuild civilization? A few suggestions:".

2. Donate to the Red Cross and get free original art from Caldwell Tanner.

3. Another horror story about Dell.

4. "How to Find Out if Someone's Secretly Been Using Your Computer."

5. A photo gallery featuring the bright side of living in the country's cheapest zip code. Via.

Link roundup

1. To remove gum from you shoe, put your shoe in a plastic bag, press the gum to the plastic, put the whole thing in the freezer, and after the gum freezes, peel away the bag. The gum should stick to the bag. Via.

2. Great, long article about Stephen Colbert, focusing on his involvement with the genuine political process. (And when I say he, "he" has a staff of 80) For example:

In October, Colbert offered the Republican Party in South Carolina $400,000 to defray the cost of the presidential primary there in January in return for naming rights — he wanted the ballots, the lanyards, the press credentials to say “The Stephen Colbert Super PAC South Carolina Primary” — and for a nonbinding referendum question that asked the voters to decide whether “corporations are people” or “only people are people.” This issue has been Colbert’s hobbyhorse since August, when Mitt Romney told a heckler that “corporations are people, my friend,” and needless to say, Colbert too is on the side of corporate personhood. “Just because someone was born in a lawyer’s office and is incorporeal doesn’t mean he should have no rights,” he likes to say.

Amazingly, the South Carolina Republicans were on the point of agreeing to Colbert’s proposal, and ballots were printed that included the referendum question, when the state Supreme Court ruled that the counties, not the party, had to pay for the primary and that the ballot could not include referendum questions. When the Republicans declined to pursue the matter, Colbert made the same offer to the state’s Democrats, who filed an appeal. Even Colbert seemed a little surprised, pointing out that he had repeatedly warned both the Republicans and the Democrats that his aims were satirical and that their very willingness to negotiate with him could become a joke on the show. “It turns out that both sides are happy to take my money,” he said.

In late December, in an op-ed for a South Carolina newspaper, Colbert sweetened the deal to $500,000 if the Republicans would reconsider, join the Democrats in appealing the ruling and give him his naming rights and the referendum question. “Call it a Christmas miracle,” he wrote. “I’ve already filled out the check, and to prove it’s no joke, I’ve written ‘No Joke’ in the memo line.”

3. Collider has a lengthy video interview with Mondo's Justin Ishmael. Biggest news - - "Drew Struzan remains hard at work on that Dark Tower print Ishmael initially mentioned during the Mondo Mystery Movie screening of The Mist, and says that—“in a perfect world” and pending Stephen King’s approval—they’ll have the print ready for Comic-Con 2012."

*Buy Mondo posters at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Lifehacker says Waze is the best turn by turn navigator for Android and iOS (and free).

2. The new media tools that allowed Martin Luther's message to spread virally. Via.

3. Tips for hacking Scrabble.

4. The beginning of a terrific, long article about a very small town pharmacist:

In the southwestern corner of Colorado, where the Uncompahgre Plateau descends through spruce forest and scrubland toward the Utah border, there is a region of more than four thousand square miles which has no hospitals, no department stores, and only one pharmacy. The pharmacist is Don Colcord, who lives in the town of Nucla. More than a century ago, Nucla was founded by idealists who hoped their community would become the “center of Socialistic government for the world.” But these days it feels like the edge of the earth. Highway 97 dead-ends at the top of Main Street; the population is around seven hundred and falling. The nearest traffic light is an hour and a half away. When old ranching couples drive their pickups into Nucla, the wives leave the passenger’s side empty and sit in the middle of the front seat, close enough to touch their husbands. It’s as if something about the landscape—those endless hills, that vacant sky—makes a person appreciate the intimacy of a Ford F-150 cab.

5. How to turn Christmas ornaments into hot air balloons.

6. I haven't watched it yet, but Mr. Plinkett reviewed Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (Presumably filled with very dark humor.)

Link roundup

1. Comment and win art. (Although I'm hoping I win.)

2. Some useful Google research tips.

3. Newsradio: The Complete Series is $25 at Amazon.

4. $10 t-shirts at Threadless today.

5. It's $5 off t-shirts at Zazzle with the code DECDELIGHTS1. I recommend Miskatonic University, Vonster, Steve Thomas, and my own store.

Internet Movie Firearms Database

Ever wonder what gun was used in that movie/tv show you just watched? Try the Internet Movie Firearms Database. Here's the extremely lengthy article on Predator. (A little disappointing that the current banner ad at the site is for Williams-Sonoma, though.)

I discovered the site from this interview with Neca's lead fabricator Brad Haskins - - he relies on the site when he's making toy weapons.

Link roundup

1. Legend of Zelda comic by Penny Arcade.

2. Lego spaceship.

3. Watch a playthrough of the first 20 minutes of Star Wars: The Old Republic as an Imperial Agent.

4. Email Jesse Philips who is selling his copies of the Star Trek poster he made for Mondo.

5. Don't get too overconfident about spending this holiday season.

6. Cover furniture with plastic wrap to avoid getting paint on it (perfect for painting behind a toilet).

7. Eric Orchard is having a $15 print sale.

*Buy Legend of Zelda toys at eBay.

Link roundup

1. How to hire an artist to illustrate a book cover (and how much it costs).

2. Mumm-Ra paper toys.

3. An assertion that Cleveland sportswriters were well aware of Delonte West's mental problems (and witnessed various outbursts) but decided not to report on them.

4. The process of adding a custom domain to a Blogger blog has been simplified (with Go Daddy).

5. New shirts on sale at Last Exit to Nowhere - - Bedford Falls and Cyberdyne Systems (new color).

6. The BBTS has available for preorder Marvel Select movie versions Hulk and Hawkeye.

Link roundup

1. Now here's a lawyer who knows how to specialize - - he's sued Allen Iverson three times.

2. How to keep a blog anonymous. Via.

3. "Everything You Need to Know About Using iTunes Match."

4. It's that time of year where USC and UCLA have to hide their school mascots - - "the Bruin Bear is enclosed by an approximately $5,000 box engineered like a jigsaw puzzle."

Link roundup

(I'm not sure if my starred items will survive the upcoming changes to Google Reader, so I'm clearing out my backlog.)


Street signs by Anthony Discenza. Via.




Orphaned screech owls get weighed. Via.




Stain removal infographic.




Slap Hat Extreme Self Defense Cap:

This standard baseball cap is one the most simple, least noticeable, and efficient personal defense items on the market. The secret of this hat is a pocket of unique impact material that is 100% the density of lead and which is sewn into the cap. Simply use the bill as the handle and the cap becomes an instant impact weapon to be used against a threat. Simple, fast, and effective! The cap includes Velcro adjustment to fit all sizes.

$20 at Amazon. Via.




Keep the ResQMe in your car in case you ever need to cut your way out of your seatbelt and break the window in your car. $10 at Amazon. Via.

Link roundup

1. Envelope with mysterious styrofoam cube.

2. "A German Ghost Town in the Heart of China." Via.

3. "How to Fix Internet Embarrassments and Improve Your Online Reputation."

How to find out your IP address

If you need to find out your public IP address, you can just ask Google. (Or you could ask Moan My IP (NSFW)). Via.

Link roundup

1. Part of a longer interview, William Gibson explains how he got published:

As soon as he got home he sent me a draft of a short story he had written perhaps an hour beforehand: “This is my new genius short story.” I read it—it was about someone who discovers there are things that live in bars, things that look like drunks and prostitutes but are actually something else—and I saw, as I thought at the time, its flaws. I sat down to write him a critique, but it would have been so much work to critique it that instead I took his story and rewrote it. It was really quick and painless. I sent it back to him, saying, “I hope this won’t piss you off, but it was actually much easier for me to rewrite this than to do a critique.” The next thing I get back is a note—“I sold it!” He had sold it to this hardcover horror anthology. I was like, Oh, shit. Now my name is on this weird story.

People kept doing that to me, and it’s really good that they did. I’d give various friends stuff to read, and they’d say, “What are you going to do with this?” And I’d say, “Nothing, it’s not nearly there yet.” Then they’d Xerox it and submit it on my behalf, to places I would have been terrified to submit to. It seemed unseemly to me to force this unfinished stuff on the world at large.

2. "How to Get iOS 5’s Biggest Features in Android Right Now ."

3. Kotaku and Destructoid gave Arkham City great reviews, but this was definitely my complaint about Arkham Asylum:

It's just confusing to have so many buttons doing so many things, and so many enemies that require so many different ways of dispatching. It's certainly great to have options and variety, but there's an information overload that can drown even the most focused of brains. This is an issue that doesn't just affect combat -- with so many gadgets, it's tough to keep track of which items perform which tasks, and when they're needed against certain obstacles. I was stuck at one point because I forgot that, among everything else he can do, Batman can slide to get under low barriers. It totally slipped my mind among all the things I needed to remember. This ties into the earlier criticism of Batman's grappling hook -- there are so many things to latch onto that the game itself gets confused.

4. Relatedly, Topless Robot is giving away Arkham City figures.

Link roundup

1. Roosters are kept caged next to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles as an early warning device for West Nile Virus.

2. Chrome Remote Desktop sounds useful.

3. "Quarterly Co. is a subscription service that enables people to receive physical items in the mail from influential contributors of their choice."

4. Olly Moss's glow in the dark and dayglo vampire t-shirt has been reprinted at Threadless. (He's also going to be selling some posters tomorrow, but good luck.)

5. My thanks to sponsor the Imperial Trouble Podcast, a weekly uproarious and informative look at pop culture. Placing an advertisement is easy, very cheap, and available by the day.

Link roundup

1. Best adventure gear of 2011.

2. Jess Nevins offers several suggestions for Asian steampunk novels. For example:

One of the archetypal steampunk figures is Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo. While there was no real-life analogue for Nemo, one fictional figure who was similarly archetypal in Japanese popular literature during the early 1900s was Oshikawa Shunro’s Captain Sakuragi, who appeared in six novels from 1900 to 1907. Sakuragi is a Japanese naval officer who grows disgusted with the Japanese government’s inability to do anything to resist the imperialism of Western governments in Asia and Japan. Sakuragi quits the Navy and on an isolated island somewhere in the Indian Ocean builds the Denkotei, an “undersea battleship” armed with futuristic weapons, including torpedoes and high explosive shells. In the novels the Denk0tei demolishes white pirates, the Russian, British, and French fleets, and Sakuragi and his crew go ashore to help Filipino “freedom fighters” against the imperialistic American occupiers.

3. "Men and sometimes women from a group of families disavowed by mainstream Amish have terrorized a half-dozen or more fellow Amish." Via.

Link roundup

1. I didn't realize that the 3 3/4" Venture Brothers action figures won't be made unless there's enough preoders, and they're not remotely close to the alleged cutoff.

2. Serious Eats: "We Tried Everything at Chipotle's New ShopHouse Southeast Asian Kitchen in D.C."

3. How to check out a library book on your Kindle.