Link roundup

1. "An undercover police officer 'chased himself round the streets' for 20 minutes after a CCTV operator mistook him for suspect." Via.

2. Mark Cuban's always a great interview. Some advice:

Never follow your dreams. Follow your effort. It’s not about what you can dream of. That’s easy. It’s about whether or not it’s important enough to you to do the work to be ready to be successful in that business.

3. Gawker on news of big government resignations in Romania:

The resignations come after some very unpopular budget cuts that were made to comply with IMF demands so that Romania could secure a loan and continue to pay government workers. The IMF is, of course, the International Monetary Fund, which is a fund with international money in it.

4. New Spider-Man promotional site. Via.

Woody Harrelson and his publicist misunderstood Reddit

He volunteered to participate in an Ask Me Anything session, apparently thinking he could simply promote his new movie, and ignore the community's questions. Big mistake. Huge.

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. Links to the personal websites of the Tron Uprising art team.

2. Astonishing data on the number of politicians in India also facing criminal charges.

3. "'Huffington Post' Employee Sucked Into Aggregation Turbine
Horrified Workers Watch As Colleague Torn Apart By Powerful Content-Gathering Engine"

4. Are we headed to a future where our wars will be entirely fought by robots and the only people at risk are contractors?

5. Oops:

An advertising agency for BMW has paid to name a cold weather front sweeping Europe "Cooper" in Germany, after the carmaker's Mini Cooper.

But the public-relations stunt by the agency went wrong after the freezing conditions led to dozens of deaths.

*Buy Tron Legacy posters at eBay.

Link roundup

1. The word of the day is skeuomorph.

2. From Max Silvestri's latest Rachael Vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off episode summary:

Let’s all settle down and stop faking energy. You’re all distracting Coolio, who almost forgot to add Sriracha to his homemade hot sauce. Hot sauce is definitely one of my favorite ingredients to add when I’m making hot sauce. It just makes it so much MORE hot sauce-ey, you know? Another good trick is to brew coffee with coffee instead of water. Your guests will really taste the coffee.

3. "The cruise ship captain under fire for abandoning his vessel while thousands of passengers scrambled for rescue has reportedly come up with an explanation for his flight - he accidentally tripped and fell into a lifeboat."

4. A fascinating observation about George Lucas and the marketing of Red Tails - - scroll down to where it says "in the comments."

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. 13 sno-cone machines bought by the Department of Homeland Security.

2. Vandal captured because he thought "slut" was spelled "sult."

3. Grantland predicts which team will acquire Peyton Manning.

What is Sony now?

Illustration by Al Murphy for last week's Businessweek. The article's a good read and features this gem:

For the past nine years, the business that has accumulated more profit than the rest of Sony combined is financial services, mostly life insurance, with some auto insurance and banking. Sony, Loff says, is a life insurance company with a money-losing TV business.

Combination calculator/mouse by Canon

Combination calculator/mouse by Canon, perfect for everyone on your shopping list. Also available in black. (Although the only review at Amazon is negative.) Via.

Most revolting cover image for a toy, ever?

Little Tikes Makin' Mud Pies Smash 'n Mash Picnic available at Amazon. Via.

Link roundup

1. Wide-ranging interview with Robin Williams about many of his famous roles (including how Star Wars led to Mork and Mindy). On Popeye:

Literally, near the end of the movie ... the studio had pooled all of the money, so all the special effects people left. It was Ed Wood the last weeks of the movie. Shelley Duvall was in a pond, basically, with an octopus with no internal mechanism, having to drape it over her body like a feather boa.

(That octopus scared me badly.) Via.

2. Telltale Games employees were caught posting perfect 10 reviews to Metacritic for their game Jurassic Park (which is apparently terrible).

3. Speaking of video game reviews, here's a really well-written review of Super Mario 3D Land.

4. Good article by Bill Simmons on the NBA negotiations.

*Buy the 3DS at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Wild article about strife at the Occupy people in downtown Los Angeles:

The young man who was leading the informal group yelled: "This is the People’s Forum! There are no committees, there are no rules, everyone gets to speak. Get in a circle! GET IN A CIRCLE!" A majority of the crowd abided, although they were openly chastised when the circle took on non-circle shapes.

2. Relatedly, Gabe Delahaye has written two posts on Michael Moore and the weird way he's talked about his own wealth this week.

3. "Hunter Fine and Aaron Glazer have been installing miniature 'bed bug hotels' at New York City lodging locations known to be infested with bed bugs to warn potential tenants."

4. Storm's mohawk was intended to just be a joke by the artist, who was sure a different new hairstyle would be chosen.

Link roundup

1. Apparently the movie Zombie Apocalypse on SyFy tonight features a zombie tiger.

2. When Toronto's mayor was interviewed by Marg Princess Warrior.

3. Participate in this Toys for Tots campaign and you could win cool prizes like a BBTS credit.

4. Speaking of, the BBTS has the new ThreeA Brambles for preorder ($65 each).

EcoKat (the woman is EcoKat)

Meet the EcoEnforcers:

Meet EcoKat, crusader of conservation and fanatic of fluorescents. She has embarked upon Kansas State University with one mission: Reduce, reuse and recycle.



EcoKat, played by a K-State student who auditioned for the role, is outfitted in a costume made of 90 percent repurposed materials. The department of apparel, textiles and interior design helped with the final look, making it an entirely sustainable project partnering many campus groups.



The EcoKat video idea was born from a serious call to action that morphed into a more humorous, tough-love take on environmentalism.



EcoKat is not affiliated with K-State athletics, but Willie the Wildcat was added as one-half of the EcoEnforcers to make the local campaign uniquely K-State.



Willie the Wildcat

You may recognize Willie as the faithful warrior on the sidelines of every K-State sporting event, but he's taking his talents even further. Joining EcoKat as an EcoEnforcer, Willie is working hard to keep his favorite place on earth beautiful and sustainable. When not perfecting his raise-the-roof techniques and sculpting his arm muscles, Willie enjoys recycling, hunting Jayhawk and watching Planet Earth.

Embarrassing football trophy

"The new trophy designed for the winner of the annual Iowa-Iowa State gridiron showdown was scrapped Tuesday as organizers acknowledged it had too much to do with corn and not nearly enough to do with football."



Here's the old trophy:







Via.

What if Michael Vick were white?

ESPN asks, but the writer says, "I asked them not to call it What If Vick Were White but they did." Via.

Trash truck dangling from a parking garage

Trash truck dangling from a parking garage. Via.

Link roundup

1. This guy boasts that he hacked the communal Starbucks gift card to siphon off money. He's just begging to be hacked, right? Via.



2. Politicians:

The cash-strapped city of Carson has spent $1,200 for new signs so that the names of City Council members could be listed by seniority rather than in alphabetical order, the city confirmed Thursday.



The signs are placed on mostly vacant, city-owned lots.

3. Russian politicians:

Putin 'discovers Greek urns' on scuba dive.

*Buy propaganda posters at eBay.

Link roundup

1. "Bank-Robbing Stripper and Brothers Caught After Car Chase, Gun Battle."



2. Tents that fold up really small. Via.



3. "Gap’s Death-Camp Chic mannequins."

Link roundup

1. If you're going to rescue lobsters and return them to the ocean, don't publicize where you're dumping them.



2. Fascinating article about the last 200 years or so of Libyan history. (With a suggestion that the current war is as much as anything about France replacing Italy in purchasing Libya's oil.) Via.



3. Here's an article claiming that Mitt Romney's campaign manager is best friends with Matt Drudge, so you never hear anything about Romney on Drudge.



4. It's $6 off t-shirts at Zazzle with the code STYLEBTSTEES. I recommend Miskatonic University, Vonster, and my own store.