Whoops. This was meant to be posted weeks ago…

The Unsettling Beauty of Lethal Viruses

• If you can’t manage comments well, don’t offer comments at all
• Love of Musical Harmony Is Not Nature but Nurture
• How to turn living cells into computers
• Small-molecule drug drives cancer cells to suicide
• Declassified: America’s Secret Flying Saucer
• The village with a 9,000 year old history
• A cleaner form of demolition – Japan’s incredible shrinking building
• What it’s like to leave Westboro Babtist Church (for Megan Phelps-Roper no less)
• Stop pretending cyberspace exists as a mythical country
• Damnit science… Germans developing weed-controlling laser armed drones
• Techno Viking and the curse of internet celebrity
• Top 11 Biggest Lies of Mainstream Nutrition
• Unable to afford life insurance, Apollo 11’s crew got creative in providing for their family
• How to win arguments by pretending to be a simpleton
• Cinema Tarantino: The Making of Pulp Fiction
• Link: a 404 page where you save Lemmings
• The search for the genetics of intelligence
• The giant camera resolution tests scattered across America
• Inside China’s genome factory
• Three Plus One Geometries of the Universe
• Kubrick’s rejection letter to Anthony Burgess on their Napoleon collaboration
• “Ok, Glass, record a video”: Google provides another glimpse of Glass

Minority Opinion by Gino Ruggeri

• I have always detested the word meme, and not just because it was coined by Richard Dawkins, though that certainly helps”

  One of many gems in this great article on the ‘Meme Generation’. Dunno why I picked that quote in particular, given it’s just subjective snide humor, but really, the rest of the article is a fantastic observation into the culture of memes, media and meta-humour. Recommended.

• Here’s another good one – on the frequent fliers who flew too much
• From an former employee, this provides a great dissection and history of Amazon’s low margins business strategy
• A wonderful deconstruction of “first world problems” condescending attitude
• Studies show that ‘Moral Realism’ may lead to better moral behavior
• From the writers perspective: How much should ebooks cost?
• Great title: The Pope’s Dove of Peace attacked by Seagull of Irony
• What’s the price of copyright crime in New Zealand? Only $617
• Oh man, the original artwork for all 12 Watchmen covers will soon be up for auction
• I have zero knowledge about the film, but I love the design of Young and Wild‘s end credits
• Cleaning work at Rome’s Colosseum has turned up 2000 year old graffiti
• North Korea is now properly on Google Maps and here 4 interesting ‘must-sees’; Informative, though zero external links to the actual maps/locations. I’m really starting to despise this trend of closed system hyperlinks on blogs. (update: this one‘s at least links out with it’s list and be sure to check out the awesome user reviews)

Mexico’s Haunting Underwater Sculptures

• There’s currently a cheese fire in a Norway tunnel causing traffic issues
• “It might not get weirder than this” an account of being in a North Korean-visiting delegation
• How one man escaped from a North Korean prison camp
• CurbTXT service: contacting drivers through their license plate
• Very interesting study into the growing dichotomy of our online and offline identity
• Sleep problems could jeopardise future missions to Mars
• Using pulsars as a form of interstellar GPS
• What would hyperspace travel really look like?
• How a quarter of the cow genome came from snakes
• How Leprosy reprograms the body
• Wired’s best of CES 2013
• It’ll certainly be interesting to see how Oculus Rift will effect gaming
• The ridiculously charming world of ‘Ni No Kuni,’ Studio Ghibli’s gaming masterpiece
• This device supposedly trains you to become a human compass
• A great send up on attending a tech press release conference (and subtly, tech ‘journalism’)
• Answered: How valid is the implied legal advice in Jay-Z’s “99 Problems”?
• The producer of ‘2 girls 1 cup’ has been sentenced to 4 years for obscenity
• Drew Struzan may return for the new Star Wars trilogy posters
• A great observational piece that goes behind the scenes of Paul Schrader’s The Canyons and what happens when you cast Lindsay Lohan in your movie
• Some anniversaries you can expect to see covered this year
• 7 Strategies to outsmart writer’s block
• Bad writing advice from famous authors
• The Serif Readability Myth
• Clay Shirky: Remembering Aaron by taking care of each other
• A gallery of 30 insane cloud formations from around the world
• Another gallery of 18 Funny Restaurant Signs
• This website interestingly maps and tracks every current flight: https://www.flightradar24.com/
• And then there’s this video of this dog strutting around on two legs. TWO!

• The ‘end of history’ illusion and why we can’t imagine getting old
• “The finite is nested within the infinite” (or my favourite parable: somewhere in infinity, an alternate universe exists where you are the Batman)
• Of last year’s bestselling sci-fi list, only one was published that year
• Does a techno utopia require physical books?
• Reshaping the brain: scientists reprogram neurons after birth
• The mysterious disappearance of the Russian Crown Jewels
• The courtroom sketches of Bill Robles
• Inside the prison journal of West Memphis Three’s Damien Echols
• Papers reveal extent of the British royals’ veto over bills
• The Guardian’s stats on the size of their commenting community
• The science of why comment trolls suck
• An interesting design proposal: I want the world to scroll this way
• Good god, someone’s patent application disturbingly mirrors the artificial second stomach sketch from Tim and Eric
• Parkinson’s treatment can trigger creativity
• Password security in Deus Ex
• What Games Are: the fun boson does not exist
• To look into: a best comedy books of 2012 list

Lastly, a super-cut of famous people playing themselves

• A Pickpocket’s Tale: The spectacular thefts of Apollo Robbins.
• Don’t read the comments! How online communities shape risk perception
• From Mubi: The Best Movie Posters of 2012
• Tree seeds offer potential for sustainable biofuels
• Japan cyber probe cops find cat collar clue
• Nice. PaperTab prototype wows at CES
• SSD predictions at CES: fewer OEMs, lower prices
• Adobe almost does something amazing by accident
• An account of living on 1.5kW
• Scientists look to fireflies to make a more efficient LED
• I’m heavily considering backing this thin-watch kickstarter
• An account of when 1080p does matter (vs. screen size vs. viewing distance)
• Another op-ed on The Hobbit’s 48HFR
• Also, this invisible driver prank video is pretty great

• Cinematic Faith: an interview with Christopher Nolan on the Batman trilogy
• James Bond: 50 years of main title design
• Nielsen will supplement its TV ratings system with Twitter
• Facebook to debut auto-play video ads in 2013
• How to end an argument on the internet
• Best Practices for Raising Kids? Look to Hunter-Gatherers
• Santa Math: How long would it him to deliver presents to every kid on Earth?

• Even Rupert Murdoch wants tighter gun control
• Building a Better Truth Machine: Could algorithms help debunk online rumors before they spread?
• Secretaries of Safe: will Obama’s new cabinet be ‘too safe’?
• 9 signs the War on Drugs is almost over
• Monotremes (Platypus/Echidnas) are still fucking weird
• Bioethics, should we live to 1000?
• Hrm… Basketballer Yao Ming came from a special genetic breeding program to produce super-atheletes
• Why afternoon may be the best time to exercise
• Website: Google60 (punch card interface)
• Website: Moodstream (streams depending on set mood)
• Website: Mathrun (brain-juicing)

• The BBC is making a six-part adaptation of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell!
• North Korea have found a secret Unicorn lair
• A rather rare interview with Fran Walsh on The Hobbit
• The really strong possibility to there being a Planescape: Torment sequel
• Apple, SSDs and the Fusion Drive rip-off
• The Austim Advantage
• The science behind those Obama campaign e-mails
• How long are people willing to wait for a video to load? Two seconds.
• A sociological take on the Powerball Facebook fake
• Video: a 1994 profile of… the Haunted Toaster
• Video: kitty in a claw crane machine

• Women in the porn industry are as healthy as any other women claims new study
• Hacking my vagina: making a vibrator that listens to your body
• Yeah, it’s Pitchfork, but still: How much money is actually made from streaming music?
• Interesting piece on misogyny in Industrial Music
• SpaceX’s Elon Musk: Your ticket to Mars? Half a million dollars
• Sweet… Notch, Gearbox, Yogscast, Day[9], Bethesda and Valve to go head-to-head in a TF2 charity match
• Teleglitch: Doom with a (top-down) view
• Teller (of Penn & Teller) on how magicians manipulate the mind
• How one fake press release on a Google “acquisition” fooled the press
• Facebook makes it official – an external advertising network coming soon
• Researchers have discovered the ‘White Noise’ of smell: ‘Olfactory White’
• And, thanks to nature, you are most likely to die at 11 am