Friday, August 31, 2007

Friday Links

A weekly time wasting tradition since 1958, now with 30% more fluoride.

First off, Vanity Fair has a fascinating article about Arthur Miller--or, more specifically, Arthur Miller's son Daniel, who was was diagnosed with Down syndrome shortly after his birth in 1966. Within days, Daniel was placed in an institution (which was not uncommon back then for babies born with Down syndrome).

And Arthur Miller, at least publicly, pretended that Daniel didn't exist.

It's a remarkable story for many reasons--most importantly, that Daniel Miller wound up having a rewarding, satisfying life for himself. Read it here.

This man is a genius. His name is "Yahtzee," and he does a weekly video feature for The Escapist that is falling-down funny. See his review of the Heavenly Sword demo here. Language warning for the 99% of you reading from work. There's also a link from that page to his review of Psychonauts. Thanks to Jeffrey Cannata.

Here's a YouTube link that you must see. It's from the "Miss Teen America 2007" pageant, and believe me, Miss South Carolina isn't going to be winning any awards for verbal skills anytime soon. Here's the clip.

From Jesse Leimkuehler, a link to Game Tunnel's feature on the top 100 indie games of the last three years, which you can read here. GT is no longer doing their monthly independent game review round-up, which is a shame, because it was one of my favorite gaming features.

Here's a second link from Jesse to an article about the Mars Exploration Rovers, which are now back in operation after a six-week dust storm where they shut down due to the lack of solar power. Read it here.

From George Paci, a link to an article about strange sea creatures discovered during an exploration of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the North Atlantic Ocean. There are links in the article to some absolutely stunning pictures (look at the "ridge's wonky creatures" and the "viperfish" links in particular), and you can see it all here.

From Sirius, a link to a bizarre and remarkably toothy fish that is, as yet, unidentified. See the savage creature here.

Sirius doubles up with a link to a translation site--for Cuneiform and Hieroglyphic writings. There's also some extremely interesting history about ancient civilizations on the site as well, and you can read it all here.

From Stephen T., a link to an article about a man who lost the top of his skull. This is not easy to do, but if you're having brain surgery and the hospital has a defective refrigerator, there you go. Even better is a court only awarding him 3,000 euros because "the new skull roof was better than the original." Read about it here.

Finally, there's a profile of Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik (Tycho and Gabe of Penny Arcade) over at Wired, and it's a good read. Whenever I read one of their interviews, I'm always reminded (in a good way) that even as they walk through waist-high drifts of hundred dollar bills, they still don't take themselves seriously. Which is probably why they're still funny. Read the profile here.

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