Winks, links, they’re all the same.

• xkcd: Epsilon and Zeta – I don't link to XKCD much, in part because I don't read it much, and in part because everyone else in the world does. That said, this one uses real-deal National Hurricane Center advisories in it, and is really good.
• Ann Aguirre’s Blog – Authors Against Bullying: Blog Hop – "Things were bad. People made fun of me daily. They picked on my appearance, my weight, my geeky interests. Sometimes I hid in the bathroom rather than face a cafeteria full of people who didn’t like me."
• Utah Game Developer Jailed for Not Paying Wages – ABC News – "Hunter lasted two years before calling it quits, hanging onto promises of paychecks that appeared only erratically, with Rushton sometimes handing out checks selectively and demanding confidentiality while blaming companies that licensed games for being slow to pay for their development or royalties."
• Beyond Minecraft: Notch On Fame, Pressure, Sequels | Rock, Paper, Shotgun – A bizarre thing for there to have been contention over: "Sometimes the fans are right, too. Like ladders. I did not want ladders in Minecraft at all. Ladders are never fun. They’re not fun in Minecraft either. But they’re a very good utility. It’s an easy way to get straight up without having stairs going back and forth."
• On Labeling Women “Crazy” | Paging Dr. NerdLove – "I started realizing that when my friends and I would talk about our crazy exes or what-have-you, more often than not, we weren’t talking about ex girlfriends or random dates who exhibited signs of  genuine mental health issues. [...] For the most part, crazy meant 'acting in a way I didn’t like.'"

Given a large block of dry ice and the following substances, create an hour of fun for three people:

• Warm water
• Dishwashing liquid
• Isopropyl alcohol
• Laundry detergent
• A piece of lettuce
• Dark cola
• A Ziploc baggy

I was very late picking up the camera and had a hell of a time getting the 55-200mm lens to focus, but here are some shots:

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This week’s internet cruising:

• APW Book Club: Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed, Round II « A Practical Wedding – Not all choices are empowering. "Because here is the thing: the more we talk about marriage here, the more I worry. I worry that we’re being given the illusion of lots of options, and the reality of really sh*tty options. I worry that the sh*ttiest of options (over-work, under-appreciation, enormous sacrifice) are being sold to us under the guise of 'independent womanhood,' instead of under the guise of 'life is hard sometimes, and you can make it through, but you should fight for things to be easier.'

  I worry when I hear about most of us* doing the bulk of the chores around the house. Not because we have to, but because we want to ('I just care more about cleanliness than he does, so I need to take responsibility for that.')"

• Reproductive Writes: I Choose My Choice: An Interview with Elizabeth Kissling | Bitch Magazine – It's about a commercial that ran back in March of this year, but Kissling defines "post-feminism"–a term I've heard and never seen clearly described–and ties it into an enlightening analysis of this commercial and neo liberalism.  I don't know enough yet to analyze her comparison of post-feminism and neo liberalism, but I agree with her analysis of this "period-control" product: it's control over your body (yay, superficially), but not necessarily actually empowering.

  Her words on the neo liberalism dilemma with regards to menstruation: "A menstruating woman can't present herself as a rational, self-actualizing subject, she isn't able to participate in consumerism 24/7. A non-menstruating body is much better suited to market success in the consumer economy."

• Elf M. Sternberg – Someday, Cognitive Dissonance will be Painful – "He got riled up to the point where he said, 'If I'm ever at a baseball game and the guy next to me doesn't take his hat off and stand up for the pledge, I'm going to knock his hat off, grab him by the collar and stand him up.'" I'll tell you, there'd be two cases of felony assault going on.
• thestar.com iPhone : Controversy pushes girl off coed hockey team – This is absolute bullshit. This young woman (the only girl on a coed hockey team) was singled out for lacking skill–a dubious claim, according to the coach–by the parent of another child on the team. She quit to spare herself the scrutiny.
• Buying individual health insurance policies with pre-tax dollars – "The PPACA may make it possible for workers to get the same tax break for purchasing health insurance on the individual market (via an exchange or otherwise) as they would if they bought their employer-sponsored plan (if they’re offered one)."
• MenTaLguY: Metroid: Other M – The Elephant in the Room – I don't play the Metroid Prime games, but this coverage of the Other M game is an awesome read. "For the last few releases, the games have been getting more and more story-based, with Sakamoto’s very strong emphasis on narrative in Other M turning Metroid into a series with a story that literally can’t be ignored except through well-timed bathroom breaks. This might be fine if the story were different."

This week’s internet cruising:

• Living Like a Millionaire on Pennies a Day – "Now, I’m not talking about racking up thousands of dollars in consumer debt, or buying fancy cars and houses. I’m talking about something more valuable than that: having time. The only pre-requisite to living like a millionaire is being able to overcome your fear of uncertainty."
• Google: Google Street View Cars Sniffed Wi-Fi Networks | News & Opinion | PCMag.com – "Google Inc said its fleet of cars responsible for photographing streets around the world have for several years accidentally collected personal information that consumers send over wireless networks." Good job, Google. I'd completely slept on this until I saw this article about Canada ripping Google a new one.
• SEO for Bing Versus Google – Nice overview of differences. Unfortunately, of course, the differences are all described from an end-user perspective; I've love to see what's really under the hood of both Bing and Google.
• Apple Mac App Store Review Guidelines Hints “No Java” In Lion’s – Oh, boy. The potential for wrong-doing here is immense, if not managed properly. I'd also seen something about non-app store apps not getting full OS access, although I can't find a source for that anymore, so it was possibly (hopefully) just a rumor.
• The Keyboard Cult – For those who love their mechanical keyboards, here you go: an ode to keyboards. Plus, a good dig on developers who can't type (quickly). I know one full-day developer who doesn't type quickly or well. I take him "seriously", certainly, but I wonder at how much better and more productive he could be if he typed faster.
• Hawthorne Cottage – Chunky Yarns – Pretty…
• flash.utils.Proxy (ActionScript 3.0) – Um, this is really cool. Just sayin'.

For some reason, I felt like I didn’t have a lot of links this week for all the cruising I did, but I was wrong. I plowed through 280 Google Reader posts and was caught up as of yesterday afternoon. It may never happen again.

• The survey’s authors concluded that there was “widespread confusion” about “the line between teaching and preaching.” – I'd like to see the stats for people who had taken part in Unitarian Universalist religious education–my understanding is that that program spans multiple religions.
• Earning Extra Income with a (Small) Blog – Another very awesome post on self-publishing. Am I gearing up to something? I dunno.
• $72,000 in E-Books in a Week – 8 Lessons I Learned – Since Greg is considering releasing LORE as a physical book (and e-book/book self-publishing is of great interest to me as well), I've been reading up on book marketing and revenue numbers and what type of experience to expect. It's good reading.
• Killa Appz By Dave Berzack : I Laughed, I Cried | 8bitrocket – I, too, enjoy getting jiggy with legacy apps. I also dance like that when I code or talk with clients. I find it makes everyone far more comfortable with the process.
• Union of mothers create anti-gay ad because of drama “Life Is Beautiful” – This ridiculous ad stating, “If my son becomes gay and dies from AIDs after watching ‘Life Is Beautiful’, SBS [the broadcasting company] must take responsibility!” A gay Korean actor posted a nicely-written series of Twitter posts lambasting them. Go read.
• Do not use Bible to attack homosexuality – A well-written opinion piece. I struggle with the idea of taking any holy text wholesale–so why not pick your passages?–but if you take as a premise that the whole thing is true, then this guy's got a point. I wish they allowed commenting; I'd love to see the discussion that article.
• Could ‘Goldilocks’ planet be just right for life? – Yahoo! News – Look at this: "It's unknown whether water actually exists on the planet, and what kind of atmosphere it has. But because conditions are ideal for liquid water, and because there always seems to be life on Earth where there is water, Vogt believes 'that chances for life on this planet are 100 percent.'" …What? Water hasn't been seen yet, but there's a 100% chance of it being there and there being life? Erm.
• Bollywood Gay film faces Censors – I very much want to see this film. "Kapil commented on the action taken for the submission and said: 'The Censor Board objected to the kissing and lovemaking. They asked us to delete those scenes. We refused. We aren’t trying to do any kind of sleazy stuff here. Ours is the first ever serious gay love story. The intimacy is essential. Our film is now with the revising committee.'"

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