Monday gifts -- 04/19/2010

Excerpt from Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. This man really knows how to write.

(pages 153-155)
Outside, there is no sign of Taki, though she hasn't really expected any. She looks both ways, wondering where she might more easily hail a cab back to the Hyatt.
"Do you know this bar?"
Looking up into a smooth, tanned, evidently European face that she somehow doesn't like at all. She takes in the rest of him. A Prada clone black leather and shiny nylon, shoes with those toes she hates.
Hands grab her, from behind, hard, just above the elbows, pinning her arms at her sides.
There's something that's supposed to happen now, she thinks. Something that's supposed to happen--
When she'd first move to New York her fater had insisted that she take lessons in self-defense from a small, fastidious, slightly portly Scotsman called Bunny. Cayce had argued that New York was no longer as dangerous as Win remembered it, which was true, but it had been easier to visit Bunny six times than to argue with Win.
Bunny, her father had told her, had been an SAS man, but when she'd asked Bunny about that he'd said that he had always been too fat for the SAS, and had in fact been a medic. Bunny favored cardigans and tattersall shirts, was very nearly her father's age, and told her that he would teach her how 'hard men' fought in pubs. She'd nodded gravely, thinking that if she were ever set upon by literary types in the White Horse she would at least be able to hold her own. So, while some of her friends explored Thai kickboxing, she'd been schoold in no more than half a dozen moves most often practiced in the maximum-security wings of British prisons.
Bunny's preferred term for this was "making mayhem," which he always pronounced with a certain satisfaction, raising his pale sandy eyebrows. And, in the way of things, Cayce had never, that she knew of, come even remotely close to requiring Bunny's mayhem in Manhattan.
With the Prada clone's fingers scrabbling to undo the Velcro fastening between her breasts, trying to free her bag, it comes to her that what's supposed to happen now, in the Bunny plan of things, is this: She shoves her arms suddenly forward, just far enough to grab the glove-thin leather of both his lapels. And as the second assailant inadvertently cooperates, yanking her arms back, her hands buried in Prada's labels, she pulls with all her might and smashes her forehead as hard as she can into Prada's nose.
Never having actually followed through on this move before, Bunny not having had a nose to spare, she's unprepared for both the pain it causes her and the extraordinarily intimate sound of cartilage being crushed against her forehead.
His dead weight, as he abruptly collapses, pulls his lapels from her hands, reminding her to step back, off-balancing whoever is behind her, look down between her legs (a man's shoe, black, with that same horrible squared-off toe), and stamp as hard as she can, with her heel, on the revealed instep, producing a remarkably shrill scream from very close behind her left ear.
Pull loose and run.
"And run" was invariably the footnote to any Bunny lesson. She tries to, the laptop banging painfully against her hip as she bolts for the end of the alley and the lights of a brighter Roppongi.

A lovely Battle of Britain machinima shot in Wings of Prey.

Alex Jones tortures an iPad to death.

The real story behind the Trololo song

He'd like us to write new words for the song.

Ebert defends his contention that videogames can never be art.
I found the matter unexpectedly challenging, as I would immediately say he's mistaken...but then I thought about it further. On a philosophical basis, it seems to me that arguing videogames are/aren't art is like saying Youtube is/isn't TV. Is art passive? Interactive? The work of one, or many? I found Ebert's closing statement pretty compelling, until I remembered that his beloved art form, cinema, has very similar underpinnings. Case reopened.

Similarities

Computational Storytelling

Pebble's Corollary to Clarke's Third Law:
Any *truly* sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from reality.

How to print from an iPad.

Meet Meline (Thanks to Arnold for the link.)

Magnasanti -- 6,000,000 Sim City inhabitants in one city.

This Venn diagram explains nerds, dorks, geeks, and dweebs.

Steorn has created a solid-state version of their generator.

How a fish swims.

Slinkachu

You're Breakfast

Pixar's Use of Harmonic Functions

The Most Awesomest Thing Ever

Dog Sledding

On a related note, here's Bailey.

Guerrilla Public Service (thanks to Chriz for this link)

Evil Clown For Hire (thanks to Diana for the link)

Echo Bazaar

John Murray Spear and the Mechanical Messiah

FWAF means Finish With A Flurry! Tips from a streetfighting master.

Magnetic Solids

Mystery skull still leaks icky brown goo after years.

The proper use of an iPad: amusing simple mammals. It's amaxing how far Apple has come since their famous 1984 Ridley Scott ad. No paradigm busting hammers here, just bright squishy things for entertainment.

Alice, by Jan Svankmajer

CommunityChannel
This girl seems to have an opinion on everything. She's rather charming though...from the safe remove of the Internet. If I lived near her, I'd probably have to kill her.

Her latest, Hackers in Movies, is pretty cute!

Tactile Mind -- Pornography for the blind

It's not your fault if you don't like cilantro. I was interested in this article because of my own experiences with the herb. My first encounter with cilantro occurred when I moved to Los Angeles in 1986, and tasted it in salsa. I *hated* it, and dubbed it 'soap leaf'. But I've come to love the taste of cilantro in various salsas and dishes.

Digital Pointillism

Seat Selection

Complexification


Masterpieces in 3D

Inside xRez Studio (Thanks to Chriz for the link!)

Hermione's Stalker

Behavior Placement -- Movies and TV are telling you how to behave, by design.

Of course, TV isn't the only place you can go to learn how good citizens behave. Just speak to your local clergy, who might be a part of a FEMA-trained Clergy Response Team to offer biblical guidance to help you submit in the case of martial law!