Linke-poo is flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup

"I’d be impressed if you had to… I dunno, throw a trash can through a window and grab my book off the shelf before the ED-209 police-bot tromps over and fires a photon torpedo up your slurry-chute — at least then I know you really wanted that goddamn book. But file-sharing is so… simple, so effortless, even careless it feels like it dismisses the entire thing we do." Chuck Wendig with some very salient and cogent thoughts on piracy.

Dr. Doyle offers interesting world-building thoughts on the use of technology and how those buggy-whip manufacturers didn't all disappear. Hell, I'm doing a brochure for a guy who also sells buggy-whips (although that's not his main business, but he still has them on display).

The Sony World Photography Award winners. Wow. (Pointed to by Dan)

Study finds that noisy sex is better. While the article sounds a little, "D'uh!", there's a lot about the sexual politics of sound. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

A seven-year old gets suspending for throwing a pretend hand-grenade at an empty box. You know, I understand why the school's policy was written the way it was. I fully grok that. But the implementation of it sucks the wazoo. Seriously, no harm no foul in this case. Although there could be extenuating circumstances the change the whole story. (Grokked from Teresa Nielsen Hayden)

A belated Valentines Day present from the universe. In this case, an asteroid that will pass within the orbits of our geosynchronous satellites. (Grokked from Tor.com)

Sort of like this story about an Akron, Ohio veteran who bought a house that had been condemned. The City of Akron told him he could make repairs (which supposedly he started) or they would demolish the house. Sounds horrible, terrible, ZOMG the guberment is crapping on this guy. You know, until you get to the part of him threatening police, city workers, and city council with actual weapons (including the loaded gun removed from him during his move out, which the city gave him extra time). Personally, whomever did the deed should be taken to court for allowing the house to be sold with all those violations (and, in Ohio at least, deed insurance is a normal part of the contract, and that should compensate this veteran for his purchase price). And if the previous owner (and their Realtor, if they used one) did not disclose those violations, I believe that is another legal course of action (including civil and criminal IIRC, but IANAL). So, yeah, one story up until you get to the sixth paragraph and then it turns.

Everybody is worried about the large drones being used by our military (*cough*CIA*cough*) overseas being brought back to the US. But drones aren't always big. And some of them small ones would be more troublesome domestically.

"The best evidence shows that half of all the clinical trials ever conducted and completed on the treatments in use today have never been published in academic journals. Trials with positive or flattering results, unsurprisingly, are about twice as likely to be published — and this is true for both academic research and industry studies." Strange how that works. Science for profit doesn't work all that well. Also complicating the problem, and not discussed in this article, most "peer-reviewed" scientific journals are pay for play. So if your data is not good, there's even more financial incentive to not publish (albeit, compared to the cost of research, it ain't that much). (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Fred Clark on the essential problem of both conservative politics and Christian conservatism and how they mix in strange ways (and end up being about neither).