Link roundup

1. The winners of the Neil Gaiman-inspired short story competition.



2. Weekly Standard reporter in Libya:
I helped call in my first NATO strike yesterday. We were being shelled.
Via.



3. Apparently Ron Artest is going to be on Dancing With the Stars.
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Leaflets being dropped by NATO on Tripoli











Apparently NATO is dropping these leaflets on Tripoli. Via.
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"The Irish teen who tracks and kills Gaddafi's snipers"

"His mother is from Belfast, his father is Libyan and, as if drawn from the script of a Hollywood movie, he is now using what he learnt hunting game in the desert to liberate Zawiyah, his city that lies almost at the gates of Tripoli."
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Lockheed Martin's spinning, flying machine





Lockheed Martin's "Samarai" flies like a spinning maple seed. It can take off from the ground like a helicopter, and you can throw it like a boomerang. Via these sites.
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Link roundup

1. A report that Chelsea Ives, "an Olympics ambassador who helped to promote the Games with London Mayor Boris Johnson was yesterday exposed as a riot suspect." Turned in by her mother. Via.



2. A fun conspiracy theory - - is this the real story behind Bin Laden's death?



3. Photo of Disney's Progress City.



*Buy Disneyland toys at eBay.
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Link roundup

1. How to remove yourself from various background check sites.

2. Good article about the history of DDT. For example:
The German army purposely triggered malaria epidemics, such as in Italy in 1944. Drainage pumps on the Roman marshes ordinarily pumped excess water out to sea, desiccating the land enough to make it malaria-free and thus habitable for thriving cities and towns. By stilling the pumps, the Germans could have flooded the region and effectively impeded the Allies' progress. But German malariologist Erich Martini had studied the habits of the local malaria vector, Anopheles labranchiae, in depth, and he knew that inundating the region with the Mediterranean's salty waters would allow A. labranchiae, which can thrive in brackish water, to flourish. And so rather than simply stopping the pumps, they reversed them, salinating some ninety-eight thousand acres. Then they confiscated local stockpiles of antimalarial drugs. As the German soldiers departed, they left behind "clever sketches," The New York Times reported in 1944, "of the plague of mosquitoes that would follow the flooding of the farmlands." More than 100,000 of the 245,000 locals sickened with malaria.
3. Today's economic news (aside from the stock market's freefall, and the continuing slow motion collapse of the Euro) was about protests in Israel. This was the most interesting analysis. (Hint, their economic problems don't really look anything like the USA's.)
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Link roundup

1. It wasn't (just) an iceberg that sank the Titanic. Via.

2. Two really cool Google Street view events. Click ahead one step to see sudden winter and the rapture. Via.

3. The SWAT team that protects NASA.

*Buy patches at eBay.
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Image roundup

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Link roundup

1. Looks like the next set of Happy Meal toys will be some totally lackluster Clone Wars toys. Via.

2. Night vision contact lenses. Via.

3. "Noir Afloat" - - vintage photos of the gambling boats that used to float just past three miles from the shore of Santa Monica and San Pedro.

*Buy Happy Meal toys at eBay.
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Image roundup

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Link roundup

1. io9 interviewed Neil Gaiman about American Gods (only interesting if you've read the book, or are currently rereading it, like me). He's going to be interviewed in about one hour and it's going to be livestreamed.

2. New, cheaper than normal Navy ships have serious design flaw.

3. More negative comments on the new resin "Finecast" miniatures from Games Workshop. Via.

*Learn how to paint miniatures with these tutorials at Toycutter.
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Moving the SR-71



The SR-71 in transport between Burbank and Palmdale, sometime in the 60's. (This is an SR-71, btw.)
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Image roundup

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Obedience to the law is freedom



Obedience to the law is freedom - - apparently at Fort Dix in New Jersey.
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Link roundup

1. The makers of Deus Ex: Human Revolution get it. The easy difficulty mode is officially described as:
Tell Me A Story
You play games for their story and experience, not for their challenge or competitiveness. Enjoy the Deus Ex experience!
2. Great photo essay on Hell Week for Navy Seal hopefuls:
One particularly difficult stretch involves a length of time staying afloat in San Diego bay at night, and then laying down, shirtless on a steel pier. From what I was led to believe, while embracing the pier, certain classes have chanted, “The cold steel is sucking the life from my body. The cold steel is sucking the life from my body.”
3. I fear we're not even close to the end of the financial crisis. Unemployment in Spain is apparently over 20%.
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Link roundup

1. From an overview of Tyler Cowen's life:
In 2002 he published "Creative Destruction," which argues that globalization created much of the art and music we might consider "native." Reggae in Jamaica, for example, borrowed from commercial rhythm and blues broadcasts that drifted over the water from New Orleans and Miami. The fur trade and the metal knife helped create the totem poles of the Northwestern American Indians.
2. You've seen the flying military drones, now check out the ocean-going versions.

3. Charles Barkley says Nike asked him to stop being critical of LeBron James. Via.
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Link roundup

1. The US Army design guide is available for download (top, right). Via.

2. "On Feb. 5, 1958, a B-47 bomber dropped a 7,000-pound nuclear bomb into the waters off Tybee Island, [Georgia], after it collided with another Air Force jet. Fifty years later, the bomb — which has unknown quantities of radioactive material — has never been found." Via these sites.

3. Custom Portal gun.
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Illustration roundup



Lots of great (and silly) Thor by Kirby pages in this gallery. You can buy Kirby's Thor collection at Amazon.




This is a dating don't.




Editorial illustration by Tomer Hanuka for the NY Times.





Spider-Man and Daredevil by Moebius (from a gallery of Moebius art). (It's interesting that Moebius is so famous, yet doesn't have a single comic in print at Amazon.) Via.




Pen Ward looking for a drinking buddy the other night.
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Link roundup

1. Cory Doctorow has a great short story here about the challenges of building an internet connection between the mundane world and the world of fairy. (Just skip over the technical details if they're as foreign to you as they are to me.)

2. io9 is giving away a tauntaun sleeping bag.

3. No, special forces dogs don't get their teeth replaced with titanium fangs.
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Commander Shanti Sethi



If I understand it right, this is Shanti Sethi, commander of the Destroyer USS Decatur. She has a blog. Via.
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