Behold the next pop culture fad: public libraries. [NPR]

Droid X, the latest Android phone, landed to iffy reviews. Despite the great hardware, Motorola larded it with unremovable crapware, and locked down the operating system so you can't load an alternative version of Android without triggering a kill switch that leaves it in a useless 'recovery' mode. — Read the rest

Crashfaster and Doctor Popular created an entire album's worth of 8bit-inspired music to go with Knife Tank, their entry in our latest game development competition!

Not to brag, but the nerd-rap-knifetank-anthem I did with Beefy is sure to make your head nod… and 8bit bEtty's remix of it is even keener!

This post is brought to you by Cheetos:

Tens of thousands of armies have been created as users engage in snack-sized combat across the web. Fight against opponents live on a myriad of battlefields. Or test your mettle against an army controlled by General Chester himself. — Read the rest

I'm powering through the ending of the smashing, enormous first volume of the first major authorized biography of Robert A Heinlein: Robert A Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century, Volume 1: Learning Curve (1907-1948) and I've just been poleaxed by this quote, which absolutely sums up the way that I approach stories: "My notion of a story is an interesting situation in which a human being has to cope with a problem, does so, and thereby changed his personality, character, or evaluations in some measure because the coping has forced him to revise his thinking. — Read the rest

Dan Lockton, the technology scholar whose Architectures of Control in Design has been one of my favorite reads for several years now, has just released a deck of Creative Commons-licensed cards called "101 Patterns for Influencing Behaviour Through Design." They are an outcome of his research toward his Ph.D., — Read the rest

It shouldn't matter to you whether the top stops spinning, because it doesn't matter to Cobb. [The Awl]

The late Paul Julian is best known for his background art in Looney Tunes cartoons. According to Wikipedia, he provided the smugly chipper "Beep-Beep!" of the Roadrunner (one of the few Warner Brothers cartoon characters I can't stand).

As a sideline, Julian created the title sequences for a number of Roger Corman movies. — Read the rest

The charming geek podcast Tank Riot did a great job this week with a 2+ hour Douchebag of the Week special on Ronald Reagan: "The Tank Crew discuss the complicated 40th President of the United States, Ronald 'Dutch' Reagan. We examine how his life as an actor, his personality and his philosophy shaped the world of the 1980s and what that means for the future. — Read the rest

A paper in ACS Nano describes the use of graphene (nanoengineered, one-carbon-atom-thick material) as an antibacterial surface: "Such graphene-based nanomaterials can effectively inhibit the growth of E. coli bacteria while showing minimal cytotoxicity. We have also demonstrated that macroscopic freestanding GO and rGO paper can be conveniently fabricated from their suspension via simple vacuum filtration. — Read the rest

These clever young gentlemen have discovered that if you lay down a big blue tarp and skateboard across it while a confederate lifts the corner, it looks just like you're surfing on the ocean blue. Gnarly!

tarp surfing

(via Kottke)

Poor old Comic Sans, always getting a bum rap, as in this photo of a pair of dueling passive-aggressive door-notes at an unnamed Fortune 500 corporation. Funny: I fault signmaker the first more for the excessive use of exclamation points; and number two needs a refresher course in capitalization — "lemonade stand" is only a proper noun if you're talking about the Apple ][+ game. — Read the rest

I found Jake Parker's short comic "The Star Thrower" to be sweetly moving and well, just lovely. What a nice way to have started my morning.

The Star Thrower

(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Want to own an enormous, Seth Thomas four-sided tower clock with complete works from 1904? Up for bids on eBay, starting at $26K. Each face is five feet in diameter, and the clock stood for years at Montgomery Brothers jewelers at Broadway and Fourth Street in Los Angeles. — Read the rest

Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, a PhD student researching Computational Trust at the University of Minnesota, has posted research comparing the organizational structure of gold farmers in virtual worlds to drug dealers in the physical world. It's a fascinating analysis, showing the underlying similarities in networks of people who undertake prohibited activities. — Read the rest

I got news for you, McFly. Scientists at MIT have figured out a theory that would allow for time travel without any of the nasty, accidentally-erasing-yourself-from-existence side effects.

Christ, what an asshole. Zachary Chesser, an unemployed 20-year-old man in Virginia who this year threatened South Park's creators over an episode featuring the Prophet Muhammad dressed in a bear suit, has been arrested on federal charges "after speaking openly to the FBI about his connection to a terror organization and his plans to travel overseas to fight with the group." — Read the rest

Fascinating story from the early days of biotech: How three errors in a 166 amino acid protein sequence ended up being the deciding factor in a showdown between two companies who both wanted to patent the genes behind the protein that triggers red blood cell formation. — Read the rest

The discount chain 99 Cent Only Stores is being sued by customers for raising their prices to 99.99 cents. "If they call themselves 99 Cents Only, it should be 99 cents," Orange County lawyer Dan Callahan told the LA Times. — Read the rest

"Perfect for giant robot hugs, super high high-fives, and terrorizing small children." $85 plus shipping. Etsy link. (thanks, Erin)