Link roundup

1. I mentioned last month that I was really disappointed with Drew Magary's novel, and that he's usually very funny. Here's part of something he posted this week at Deadspin (ADULT language):

There was a cave cricket in my basement last night. They're horrible, nasty creatures that have +8 jumping ability. You have to act FAST in order to exterminate the little cocksuckers and protect your family, and so I quickly pinned him against the wall with a toy rocking chair and he was all mangled up against the wall.

Now, after a good kill, I like to go take a leak and let my victim sit there for a little while, just so the other cave crickets know THERE IS NO FUCKING AROUND HERE. So I go to take a leak, and when I return, the cricket is GONE. No! It cannot be! Inconceivable! I spin around, and there he is, hopping along the opposite wall and seemingly regenerated. ZOMBIE CAVE CRICKET. And I say to him, out loud, "I killed you!" I really did say that to him. Then I said, "I won't make the same mistake twice!" and then BOOM! I laid down the foot of doom, gathered him up in some TP, and down he went. I had failed to heed the lesson of Die Hard 2: Next time you have a chance to kill someone, DON'T HESITATE.

Funnier and more compelling than anything in The Postmortal.

2. "The Culturally Biased SAT: Hip-Hop Edition."

3. There's usually an explanation for superhuman athletic performance.

4. Fictional journalist writing real articles.

5. Laika's hiring.

6. The Black Friday sale has started at TFAW.

Link roundup

1. Gawker on Newt Gingrich's 1.3 million Twitter followers:

About 80 percent of those accountsare inactive or are dummy accounts created by various "follow agencies," another 10 percent are real people who are part of a network of folks who follow others back and are paying for followers themselves (Newt's profile just happens to be a part of these networks because he uses them, although he doesn't follow back), and the remaining 10 percent may, in fact, be real, sentient people who happen to like Newt Gingrich.

2. NBC is claiming that its new show The Playboy Club is about female empowerment.

3. A little less corporate-funded propaganda in schools:

In response to pressure from parents, educators and grassroots advocates, Scholastic Inc. will drastically limit its practice of partnering with corporations to produce classroom material, the company announced last week.

The publisher had been under fire since May, when it was forced to stop distributing a fourth-grade curriculum called “The United States of Energy” that had been paid for by the coal industry and distributed to classrooms across the country.

Via.

Link roundup

1. New Marvel vs. Capcom videos show off a truly devastating, screen shattering finishing move by the Super Skrull.

2. Intel pays Dell a whole lot of money to prevent them from using chips made by rivals.

3. The most valuable material the LA Times has ever published - - its ranking of Los Angeles public school teachers and school. Thankfully, the school my boys will attend gets an excellent score.

*Buy Skrulls at Amazon.

Mug with temperature sensor (link roundup)

Heat activated mug tells you when your batteries are fully charged.

Relatedly, here's a heat-activated mug featuring Tim Burton's Toxic Boy:



I didn't see it on sale anywhere.

And a few more links:

1. Mignola-esque mermaid.

2. Spiral man.

3. The US Foreign Service Institute has made available online language courses for every major language (except English). Via.

4. Burger King has Iron Man kid's meal toys right now.

*Previously: Very cool and absurdly expensive coffee mug.

*Buy heat sensitive mugs at Amazon.

Mug with temperature sensor (link roundup)

Heat activated mug tells you when your batteries are fully charged.

Relatedly, here's a heat-activated mug featuring Tim Burton's Toxic Boy:



I didn't see it on sale anywhere.

And a few more links:

1. Mignola-esque mermaid.

2. Spiral man.

3. The US Foreign Service Institute has made available online language courses for every major language (except English). Via.

4. Burger King has Iron Man kid's meal toys right now.

*Previously: Very cool and absurdly expensive coffee mug.

*Buy heat sensitive mugs at Amazon.

Chimera toy (link roundup)

Painted version of the vinyl toy based on Melita Curphy's design. $52 at Patch Together. Relatedly, over at Toycutter, I've posted a large gallery of custom Mez-Itz by artists including Curphy that will be displayed at Comic Con.

And a few more links:

1. Online-only Concord Law School made it to the finals of a law competition that included top schools such as Michigan, Duke, and Berkeley, before losing to Stanford.

2. Big Bad Toy Store has concept art for a Donald Duck/Bumblebee Transformer.

3. I'm giving away a couple of lenticular Coraline cups at Evil Buttons.

4. The chibi Kingdom Hearts phone charm I mentioned previously is $11 at Entertainment Earth.

*Previously: Kingdom Hearts amigurumi.

*Buy Kingdom Hearts toys and collectibles at eBay.

Library on a donkey

Louis Soriano brings book to the countryside of Columbia on his book-laden donkey. He calls it the BiblioBurro. Via.

*Previously: Wyoming library sexes it up to attract business.

*Buy vintage library posters at eBay.

Library on a donkey

Louis Soriano brings book to the countryside of Columbia on his book-laden donkey. He calls it the BiblioBurro. Via.

*Previously: Wyoming library sexes it up to attract business.

*Buy vintage library posters at eBay.

Daycare at Google costs $29,000 a year

That's not a typo and that's just the cost to the parents. Google's picking up part of the tab. Link.

*Previously: Google News Pillow.

Daycare at Google costs $29,000 a year

That's not a typo and that's just the cost to the parents. Google's picking up part of the tab. Link.

*Previously: Google News Pillow.

Science Documentaries for Youngsters

A poster at Slashdot asked for suggestions. You can read the answers here (just skip over the side discussion about The Matrix).

Here's a few links:

NASA for Kids

Teacher's Domain

Symmetry Magazine

Which books correlate with high (and low) SAT scores?

Fun list here. Here's the FAQ.