1. "Tuesday’s discovery marks the eighth foot to be found on the B.C. coast since August 2007. Three more have washed up in nearby Washington." Via.



2. "Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department investigators are refusing to return a purported Rembrandt drawing that was stolen from an auction at an upscale hotel and then recovered last month, citing questions about the authenticity and ownership of the piece."



3. New Marvel Universe sets/singles have been added as preorders to the BBTS.

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. True Hoop: "Poor handwriting on a birth certificate changed Shane Battier's family name from 'Battle' to 'Battier' and they just went with it."



2. I didn't see the movie, so I don't know if I'd agree, but both reviews I read of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (produced and co-written by Guillermo del Toro) criticized the monster design.



3. From the introduction to a podcast: "Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk co-founded BioWare, the RPG-oriented group that now consists of five locations within Electronic Arts. They started out as doctors (actual practicing medical doctors, mind you), and BioWare was once a developer of games as well as medical software."



4. The upcoming Aliens game for the DS sounds terrific.

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. "A huge underground river appears to be flowing thousands of feet beneath the Amazon River, Brazilian scientists said Thursday." Via. UPDATE: Or maybe not.



2. "A Jewish charity co-founder who claimed he crisscrossed the globe rescuing Torahs as a 'Jewish Indiana Jones' surrendered Wednesday to face mail and wire fraud charges after authorities said he duped benefactors by fabricating dramatic stories about sometimes dangerous trips, including to concentration camp sites in Poland and Germany."



3. On Monday, I'm going to give away $25 Threadless credits to three of my Tumblr followers. (Most of the content I post there does not appear here.)

READ MORE - Link roundup

A Pileus Iridescent Cloud Over Ethiopia. Get a better look here, and read an explanation here.



Here's video of similar phenomena (54 seconds in):







Via.

READ MORE - A Pileus Iridescent Cloud Over Ethiopia

ESPN asks, but the writer says, "I asked them not to call it What If Vick Were White but they did." Via.

READ MORE - What if Michael Vick were white?

1. Whale shark and swimmer.



2. Enrollment at for profit colleges is way down:

new University of Phoenix enrollment is down over 40 percent from last year, 47 percent from Kaplan.

3. Some guesses as to how Hugo Chávez will transport 211 tons of physical gold from Europe to Caracas.

READ MORE - Link roundup

Ken Block's latest insane driving video is a tour through Universal Studios. (I posted a few of his older videos here.)









Video shows how recycled paper is turned into toilet paper. Via.













The latest advertisement for Rock of Ages takes a tour through video game history.









Face forms in the clouds (starting at 57 seconds). Via these sites.









Baseball player collapses/slides into home. Via.

READ MORE - Video roundup

1. First part of a new audio performance of William Gibson's Pattern Recognition. Gibson also has an article in Scientific American, but it's gated.



2. "India has arrested an anti-corruption activist for — conspiring to fast without permission."



3. Comic Book Resources interviewed Chip Kidd, who accuses Mike Mignola of false modesty at 15:05. (This is the video mentioned, showing off his apartment.)



4. Laika art challenge.

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. Win a Kindle (if you're 6 to 14):

Can you write a thrilling, gripping story in just 247 words? We've teamed up with top author Neil Gaiman to set the writing challenge of the summer!



Take the title 'The Guardian', and let your imagination run wild. Tell your story in 247 words exactly, send it to us and the best story will win a Kindle pre-loaded with Neil Gaiman's amazing books published by Bloomsbury (including The Graveyard Book and Coraline). Five runners-up will each received a signed copy of The Graveyard Book.

Details and Neil's story here.



2. Google bought Motorola.



3. "Two construction workers were stuck in an elevator that was filling with water, Captain Melvin explained, with a hint of amazement in his voice. By the time firefighters arrived, the water level had risen as high as the two trapped men’s necks."

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. "Police are trying to defuse a bomb that has been strapped to a teenage girl in Sydney's exclusive Mosman."

2. "Killer rat daubs fur with poison-arrow plant toxins."

3. "Here's an interesting premise for a film: a space assassin wakes up floating aimlessly through space. Unaware of how he got there, his only company is a robot voice programmed to turn off once his human companion runs out of oxygen."

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. "Nineteen years ago three men had the idea of a regular lunch club for crime experts that would try to solve some of the United States' most baffling homicides. The Vidocq Society has now been instrumental in solving hundreds of crimes." Via.

2. On set photographs of Bane will dull your enthusiasm for The Dark Knight Rises.

3. "Inspections by New York's Department of Consumer Affairs found that two-thirds of the supermarkets they visited were overcharging customers at the checkout counter."

*Buy Batman Lego minifigs at eBay.

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. A look at the WIP sculpture that will be Neca's Gordon Freeman action figure.

2. Driving in Nigeria:

Seeking to stem an epidemic of wrong-way driving, Lagos authorities have ratcheted up the standard $160 fine. Scofflaws now also face psychiatric evaluations. Contesting the charge can jack up the fine to $1,600—and you still get sent to a shrink.

And there's much more lunacy. Via.

3. "No Budget Indie Film Has Grossed $200K in iTunes Sales."

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. I mentioned before that I actually preferred Last.fm to Spotify because it does a decent job streaming songs you might like, while Spotify is just a big library. Well, here's Lifehacker's recommendations for how to get a similar service at Spotify.

2. I'm not sure if I've posted about this before, but Boise State's college football team has enjoyed an unfair advantage for years - - they wear blue uniforms and play on a blue field, which makes it very difficult for opposing coaches to study their formations (the players blend into the background). Well, they can't wear the uniforms on that field anymore.

3. Japan is drilling for "burning ice," hoping it will replace nuclear power.

4. Free ios games (at least as of this moment): Allied Star Police by Popcap, To-Fu: The Trials of Chi. Via.

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. Here's a riddle:

“Why would a tiny woman with no criminal record, who worked 10 years on Wall Street, randomly hold up people at gunpoint at night dressed as a policewoman?”

Absolutely bizarre answer.

2. There's a new Humble Indie Bundle.

3. A claim that China is disassembling and burying the crashed bullet trains to hide evidence. Via.

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. Artnet:

Artist Janine “Jah Jah” Gordon has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against photographer Ryan McGinley for copyright infringement, arguing that 150 of McGinley’s photographs, including several used in an ad campaign for Levi’s, a co-defendant in the suit, are “substantially based” on Gordon’s original work.

Via.

2. Double lightning bolts.

3. Beach turned a revolting green by algae in China (like swimming in Nickelodeon's slime). Via.

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. Grotesque corruption at Scotland Yard:

Members of Parliament said in interviews that they were troubled by a “revolving door” between the police and News International, which included a former top editor at The News of the World at the time of the hacking who went on to work as a media strategist for Scotland Yard.

On Friday, The New York Times learned that the former editor, Neil Wallis, was reporting back to News International while he was working for the police on the hacking case.

2. The Michelin Guide (which I believe was originally created to encourage people to drive their cars around France) is just another old media property that's losing money and struggling to remain relevant in the internet age. Via.

3. "The small but energy-rich Gulf state of Qatar is the world’s biggest buyer in the art market—by value, at any rate—and is behind most of the major modern and contemporary art deals over the past six years."

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. Why doesn't this woman get more press? "Hooters Waitress-Turned-Lawmaker Admits to Carving Initials Into Assembly Desk."

2. An estimate of how much it costs to attend Hogwarts.

3. Gizmodo's list of essential Spotify tools. (I've only played with it briefly, but so far I don't see why it's so much better than Last.fm.)

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. $230,000 bodyguard dogs.

2. Philip Taylor Kramer:

(July 12, 1952 – February 12, 1995) was a bass guitar player for the rock group Iron Butterfly during the 1970s. After this he obtained a night school degree in aerospace engineering, worked on the MX missile guidance system for a contractor of the US Department of Defense and later in the computer industry on fractal compression, facial recognition systems, and advanced communications. His disappearance on February 12, 1995 caused a mystery lasting for years.

Via.

3. "[T]he largest landslide in New York's recorded history."

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. Even Jiffy Lube is now saying you don't need an oil change every 3,000 miles (at the location I pass the most, business is so bad, there's typically multiple employees holding signs in front instead of servicing cars).

2. Marie Callender's declared bankruptcy and kicked out diners (and workers) mid-meal. (I sure hope my local store hasn't closed, I need the occasional French apple pie fix.)

3. "The Transportation Security Administration announced Friday plans to fire 36 Honolulu International Airport employees and suspend 12 more" for incompetence.

READ MORE - Link roundup

1. Alex CF posted several photos of the taxidermied White Rabbit he created for Gallery 1988.

2. Medieval Justice League by Ulises Farinas.

3. "The government of Norway has begun offering training for foreign diplomats in black metal, following a reported rise in global interest in the genre." "'We now have 106 foreign service missions and they get many enquiries from people who want information about Norwegian black metal as a phenomenon.'" I didn't watch it, but apparently this episode of the Vice Guide to Everything includes feature on Norwegian Black Metal. Via.

READ MORE - Link roundup