funny

Randomness for 4/15

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1) Breaking it down.

2) The Pierley/Redford Disassociative Affect Diagnostic. About as accurate as any internet personality test, but this one’s actually cool to take (and only 20 “questions”).

3) The Amazing Media Habits Of 8-18 Year Olds

4) Seven basic things this Cracked.com writer thinks you’re doing all wrong, for certain values of “you.” The only one my household didn’t know about was the brushing after meals thing.

5) Borders execs try to justify bonuses on the revenue their company will bring in someday after they get this little bankruptcy thing straightened out. God forbid their bonuses should reflect what they’ve already done, rather than what they expect to do.

6) Book reviewers, let me point out a thing that is not cool.

7) This is simply wonderful. Play with it when you can listen to sound on your computer.

Randomness for 4/10

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1) Slow motion photography. Exploding cakes. Techno. I promise you that you will love this: Video. And it even comes with little stories! via @ChuckWendig

2) “I like big butts and I cannot lie, but is there some evolutionary reason as to why?” Sir Mix-A-Lot mashed with the modern just-so stories of sexual selection pressures. The comments are stone hilarious.

3) The sounds of Minecraft, as music. Video.

4) New Zealand brewer markets a “breakfast beer.” I’m not opposed to the idea of a (small) beer at breakfast, but this sounds god-awful.

5) “How I got a blank book onto the Amazon.com bestseller list.” via @victoriastrauss

6) Some posts on the resurgence of “epic” fantasy: One. Two.

7) Alternate Star Wars. What if George Lucas had been inspired by a Kurosawa film other than HIDDEN FORTRESS?

Randomness for 4/5

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1) So you want to get published? A flowchart. Is it just me, or are flowcharts made of awesome?

2) “Don’t you have any vegetarian meat?”

3) A big discussion on selling stolen IP in the Kindle format.

4) Advice for writers who suffer the pangs of jealousy.

5) Nerf guns painted and modified to have that steampunk look.

6) How slavery really ended in the U.S.A.

7) Black Gate is having a sale on their back issues. I have stories in issue #2, #3, and #10.

FYI: Stephen Colbert usually takes Fridays off.

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The back story.

The performance:

They raised $86,000 dollars for charity! Nice work, guys.

Randomness for 3/30

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1) Canadian politics made fun by nitpicking about monsters. Via James Nicoll.

2) Shit my students write.

3) Jon Stewart on class warfare, without ever mentioning class. Video.

4) This is genuinely awesome. It’s better than GARFIELD MINUS GARFIELD.

5) This writer’s evening is nothing at all like mine. How to be a social writer. via James Enge

6) Are these the best D&D adventures ever?

7) Sixty completely unusable stock photos. This is hilarious wtf-ery, but it will take a while to load. Open it up in a tab and do something else for a while, then come back to it. Seriously, people, I can’t pick the worst one (okay, I can: it’s the blackface one).

Randomness for 3/26

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1) How great entrepreneurs think.

2) A flowchart guide to the Affordable Care Act.

3) Ten supposedly sexy super-heroine costumes that really aren’t.

4) Every new social media offering, now online. (This is pretty funny, and it even includes a certain cat)

5) Author Ryk Spoor responds to my hypothetical vampire child question of a few days ago.

6) I know there are a lot of people who don’t like Rachel Ray, but I think everyone will accept that she deserves a comma or two here.

7) J.K. Rowling’s next project, courtesy of collegehumor.com

Randomness for 3/21

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1) Simpsons jokes, by season. via Bill Martell.

2) A James Bond script, written by Ben “The Shakespeare of Hollywood” Hecht. I especially love the idea of giving the name “James Bond” to different agents, just to mix things up. It explains the parade of actors in the role so nicely.

3) Seven massive holes in the Earth.

4) Read this wonderful story by Jane Rice, written in the 1940s.

5) Novels and novelists: imperfect competition

6) An interesting new format for physical books. (Ignore the seo crap about killing the Kindle).

7) Not a real ad campaign for the Smithsonian.

Randomness for 3/17

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1) Homemade pop rocks. via Matt Ruff.

2) 20 Sad Etsy Boyfriends. Also: Sad Dancing Hipster is Sad and Dancing.

3) I’m so tired of this sort of thing that seeing it now just makes me tired. Author demands respect for sf/f from literary lovers.

4) PW’s map of North American chain booksellers.

5) “Nonsense, I did not shave your wife.” via @matociquala

6) 127 Hours, starring Wile E. Coyote. Video.

7) So you need a typeface… Flowcharty goodness.

Happy Irish Day.

Randomness for 3/14

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1) Headlines illustrated.

2) What’s in Spock’s Scanner? Video. This is honestly hilarious. via Tor.com

3) A really beautiful truck crash.

4) Could many cases of ADHD really be caused by food hypersensitivity?

5) This shadow art is amazing.

6) This is amazing, too, but also chilling. Satellite photos of Japan before and after the earthquake.

7) A pro scriptwriter in L.A. tells how she broke in, complete with clueless commenters. Another pro writer straightens those clueless commenters out.

Randomness for 3/9

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1) Cognitive Scientist records 90K hours of his own child’s language development, then graphs it. Soon to come to a TED Talk near you.

2) Andrew Wheeler’s syllabus for his non-existent sf course. I think it would be better served to address some of what happened in the 19th century, even if it was just an overview in the first week.

3) The Muppet Alignment Chart.

4) I wish every review of a reality TV show was this good.

5) Organizing a bookshelf: Video. There are so many simple ideas that work magic as stop-motion. Thank you, computer revolution.

6) A nearly-incomprehensible map of science fiction.

7) The internet is full of wonderful things: Carl Sagan’s Old Spice commercial as an animated gif.

Bonus 8th thing! Soylent Green isn’t the only thing made of people! Now “castles” are, too! Video.