The Missing Links – February 11, 2011

The Missing Links is just what it sounds like – a collection of links to interesting things I found on the interwebs this week. I hope you enjoy them. This is the third in a never-ending series and there’s a ton of links this time.

Top links of the week:


Winner: The Salty Droid on Julian Assange. (p.s. This is a site you should definitely check out and subscribe to ‘cause it’s awesome.)
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A Close Second: Dan Savage of Savage Love fame is awesome. There’s no two ways around it. Here’s his most recent column, which showcases once again how awesome he is. (via the A.V. Club)
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Best in Show: AT&T vs. Verizon! Guess what? They both lose. And so do you.
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And this week’s Crazypants Award goes to… Christine O’Donnell! Delaware represent!
Interesting Links:
In honor of raising awareness of how much paper is wasted by needless printing, Save as WWF – a file format that you can’t print – is now available for Windows and Macs. (via WWF)
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What do Donald Rumsfeld and Julian Assange have in common? They both annoy the shit out of me! No, I kid. Here’s what they really have in common – Rumsfeld’s hopes to vindicate himself with lots and lots of documents. (via Wired)
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Southeast Pennsylvania holla! The dish on the Wedge. (Thank you, mental_floss) 
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Wanna read about Scientology? Here’s this article is from the not-so-crazies at the New Yorker. And coming soon to a theatre near you (maybe) is Paul Thomas Anderson’s thinly veiled Scientology movie. More dirt on the “church” in the second link. (via the New Yorker and the A.V. Club)
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Separating fact from fiction about the Gipper. Sorry to burst your bubble, conservatives. At least now you can find someone who really exemplifies your values.
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I just downloaded GIMP this week and I’m loving it. Soon I’ll be ready to enter the world of photo manipulation. Politicians beware! Check out this WebUrbanist article on some of the more famous fake photos. (Also, to all the dictators out there, I’m not against doing freelance work for you. Hit me up when you need someone wiped out of a picture.) (Thanks again to mental_floss).
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6 things that influence our bad behavior. See, you’re not just an evil little shit. It’s nature that’s against you. (via Cracked)
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Here’s a very interesting article from mental_floss on the development of a malaria vaccine.
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The Patriot Act has not been extended! Rejoice! Everyone go tweet about the Machiavelli and Marx books you just bought online while talking to your friend Mohammed who lives in Pakistan! Wait, that’s not entirely true. Oops. Ok, comrade, Big Brother would like to have a word with you. (both links from Wired)
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Apparently, WikiLeaks has a few problems airing its own dirty laundry. A high-ranking defector brings the hammer down on Assange and Co. (again, from Wired)
Links about Finland:
Finland is attempting to rebrew a beer found in a ship wreck.
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What do we know about vaccines causing narcolepsy in Finland? That we need more research. There may be a connection, just don’t believe everything that you read.
Links on Language:
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The OLAC Language Resource Catalog makes it easy to search language archives from around the world – over 40 languages are included in more than 100,000 resources. Here’s Steven Bird’s short explanation about it on Language Log.
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Mountweazel is the new term to describe what happens when one company plants false information in their product to catch another company from copying them, as Google apparently did to Microsoft with “Hiybbprqag.” Adjust your spell checkers accordingly. Check the link for a short history on this intriguing academic bait and trap game.
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Whew, that was quite a lot of links. Now, let’s go take a nap.

The Missing Links – February 4, 2011

The Missing Links is just what it sounds like – a collection of links to interesting things I found on the interwebs this week. I hope you enjoy them. This is the second in a never-ending series.

Top links of the week:
Winner! The 7 Greatest (True) Bill Murray Stories Ever Told. There’s no two ways around it, people, Bill Murray is my hero.
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A close second: Kanye West on Twitter validates the existence of Twitter. And now his tweets have been put into song.
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Best in Show: More truth from the Onion. If only this were also true (see my review of Gladwell’s The Outliers here).

Links on Language:
Here’s an interesting language for you – whistling.
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A bit of history on the word groundhog and other words we get from Algonquian (via Dictionary.com’s Hot Word column, which I highly recommend subscribing to).
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The Sordid History of the Oxford English Dictionary in 10 facts. Trust me, there are many more worth looking into. Lexicography rules!
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Anyways, in case you didn’t know, it’s perfectly OK to use anyways.
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The Thomas Beale Cipher – pretty interesting stuff. Feel like cracking an unbreakable code to find a large (and possibly non-existent) treasure this weekend. Go right ahead.
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Language! Backronyms!
The Foosball:
Wanna know how that fancy digital yellow line on football broadcasts works? It’s explained here. Tell your friends in between the commercials this Sunday.
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Have fun watching the game this weekend, but don’t forget it’s being brought to you by Greed, Inc. and they will probably be trying to sue you soon.
Links on other cool stuff:
James Randi takes a bunch of sleeping pills and talks about psychics (TED Talk via mental_floss).
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NPR on Vimeo. The animation about why people can’t walk straight when blindfolded was great. I will mos def be spending a lot of time here watching the other videos.
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Talk about a guy who didn’t know the meaning of foreplay, here’s something to think about over your bowl of Kellog’s
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Wanna know more about eugenics in America? Cause who does eugenics better than the good ol’ U, S, and A?
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The amazing powers of the internet (and our internet overlords): Egypt tweets without internet access.
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What’s the matter, Apple? iPad sales not enough for you? If only you could figure out a way to charge websites for appearing in Safari. Wouldn’t that be great? Anyways, it’s nice to know you’re looking out for number one instead of letting those app developers get all customer friendly.
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On a serious note, here’s a photographed life of drugs and poverty. Scroll to the right to see the pictures.

The Missing Links – 1/28

The Missing Links is just what it sounds like – a collection of links to interesting things I found on the interwebs this week. I hope you enjoy them. This is the first in a never-ending series.

You may hate your wireless carrier, but at least they haven’t kill you. This idiot would-be-suicide bomber in Russian, however, got all blowed up by a surprise SMS from their carrier.

Want to follow what’s happening in Tunisia and Egypt online? Check here for the the different ways you can.

There may soon be plants that can smell bombs. For real, for real.

In lighter news, I’m sick and tired of these motherfucking snakes in this motherfucking… house? Yep, there are snakes coming out of the woodwork in this house. No, it’s not in Amityville, but does that make it any less creepy?

Have you heard about those new fangled Do Not Track add ons for your browser? Yeah, well, they don’t work.

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And the best link of the week goes to… dum dum dum… geomagical squares! What’s that? You don’t know what geomagical squares are? Let me see if I can state this mathematically. Ahem… Geomagical squares = Awesomeness.

For even more math, see here (full disclosure: it’s about fractals).