interesting things

Randomness for 6/5

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1) Amazon changing its sales ranking algorithms again?

2) Why movies have so many explosions in them, in graph form.

3) This is an animal, not a monster.

4) Proof that anything is more dramatic with a movie soundtrack: Slinky on a treadmill. Video.

5) How fast food serving sizes have grown out of control, in infographic form.

6) 102 Awful Celebrity Portraits, Drawn By Their Fans.

7) Film producer Keith Calder on Scientology and what it feels like to finally stop biting your nails.

Bonus item: “What does Satanism mean to you?” Video

With the summer season about to start…

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How to recognize when someone is drowning.

It’s not what you think.

Randomness for 5/19

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1) Dungeon Kickstarters.

2) Eleven problems music can solve.

3) George Lucas Does Something Likeable For a Change: Revenge on Rich Neighbors

4) The Nine Circles of Hell… in Lego.

5) Inventor turns Nerf gun into a working Tesla gun.

6) The creator and showrunner of COMMUNITY responds to being fired via press release.

7) The Most Successful Self-Published SF/F Authors.

Randomness for 5/10

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1) The 37 Saddest Failed Kickstarters.

2) Top 10 banned or censured rpg products.

3) Six Common Movie Arguments That Are Always Wrong.

4) Greatest. Romance novel cover. Ever.

5) How much damage did the Chitauri do to NYC?

6) Where do the Avengers eat Shawarma? (Actual location for that shoot)

7) Guy builds an RC flying, fire-breathing dragon.

Against Chairs

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“I hate to piss on the party, but chairs suck. All of them. No designer has ever made a good chair, because it is impossible. Some are better than others, but all are bad.”

h/t to Ezra Klein.

Randomness for 5/5

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1) Avengers Mashup Movie Posters

2) Hard to believe it’s been 20 years.

3) Planet of the Apes Dance Remix. Video. Pure Awesome.

4) Mark Waid’s Thrillbent is live.

5) Bed Cartography. Not that this has any relevance to my life, not at all.

6) Alien vs. Predator, the infographic.

7) D&D co-creator Dave Arneson’s personal collection and archive to be auctioned.

Randomness for 4/30

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We’re game-heavy this time. Must be some sort of sign.

1) This sort of thing makes me miss gaming.

2) Father takes crazier, funnier pictures of his kids than I ever could of mine.

3) A water slide so dangerous it was shut down immediately.

4) Should I check email? A flowchart.

5) How to escape from zip tie “handcuffs”.

6) A fantastic D&D blog. I’ve added this one to my reading list. I especially liked “Items of Moderate Interest in the Ogre-King’s Hoard.”

7) What’s it going to take for the Don’t Read This Book anthology (which I am in) to turn a profit? A little publishing transparency from Fred Hicks.

Tor and Forge drop DRM

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So, yeah, it’s a big deal. Tor/Forge aren’t the first publishers to sell their ebooks without DRM–Baen and Angry Robot have already been doing it for a while–but Tor/Forge is absolutely the biggest. Tor is part of Macmillan, one of the “Big Six” out of New York, and what’s more they’re privately-held. No shareholders to worry about.

If you’ve been reading Charlie Stross on the subject (and you should have been) you know that removing DRM is the best way to prevent online ebook sellers from establishing a stranglehold on the market. If readers can buy books from any store and read them on their preferred device, they will. What’s more, they won’t lose their entire libraries (or be forced to torrent them) once their personal devices become obsolete.

Anyway, Stross had an opportunity to write an essay to the CEO of Macmillan about the benefits of dropping DRM, and he’s posted it on his blog. I realize that there have been many voices within the Big Six publishers who have longed for an end to DRM, and there has been years of work moving the Overton Window on this subject.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if history remembered Stross as the decisive force for change, whatever he says in his post.

Kickstarter follow ups

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The Tales of the Emerald Serpent anthology is over and it’s fully funded:

(Let’s see if iframe will work in WordPress.)

Thanks to everyone who pledged. I know a lot of readers were unhappy that the benefit level for a physical book was so spendy, but when the book itself comes out I’m sure you can pick up a copy at regular book price.

The Dinopacalypse Kickstarter is nearly over…

and is running out of stretch goals. The benefit levels are pretty reasonable, too. At this point you can get ebooks of several of those novels for a paltry pledge. Take a look.

Finally, here’s a project I’m not involved in at all, except as a backer:

Sentinels of the Multiverse is my new favorite game to play with my son, and they made their goal for the new expansion set AND the second edition of the basic game in one day. That’s how popular this game is becoming. Personally, I’m hoping that they make their stretch goals so we can get the “promo cards” that let us change the way games are played.

Anyway, I’ve been recommending this game (as often as I do such things) but at this point I think it would be best to pick up the second edition. It will have better game balance for the villains and will make record-keeping less of a chore. And the Rook City expansion means tougher fights.

Added later: iframe doesn’t work in the cross-poster, so I’ve added links in the text.

Randomness for 4/6

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1) A webcomic appreciation of Doctor Who. via @sinboy

2) The invasive species diet. I don’t care how much good it does for the planet, I’m not eating nutria.

3) The Dalek Relaxation Tape. Video.

4) Worst Album Covers Ever. Some of these are NSFW.

5) It’s Official: Star Wars Kinect Is the Worst Star Wars Thing Ever. I don’t know. To me, a little silliness if just fine.

6) D&D: The Important Questions

7) Awesome animated gifs. No, seriously for real.