Facebook: Friends inadvertantly sharing your data with app providers.

How Facebook app creators can get your friends' to share your personal data with them, and how to prevent it:  Link.

Via Boing Boing.
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Power & Consequences

...at the Central Institute of Technology in Australia.

Found this hillarious, but a somewhat disturbing as well.  Be warned!

Via Boing Boing.

How to Land Your Kid in Therapy

Check out this article in The Atlantic.

Haven't finished reading it yet, but mentions a bunch of authors, studies and such I think you're familiar with. Might be of great interest.

Lessons in Tag

You may remember them from such greats as The Guild.

Via Freerange Kids.

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Buble's Finest Hour

Bad news for your dissertation

Prognostications which might make the subject matter irrelevant:

28) It will become harder to view your life as “a story”

The way we define our sense of self will continue to morph via new ways of socializing. The notion of your life needing to be a story will seem slightly corny and dated. Your life becomes however many friends you have online.

...

30) Some existing medical conditions will be seen as sequencing malfunctions

...

Dysfunctional mental states stem from malfunctions in the brain's sequencing capacity. One commonly known short-term sequencing dysfunction is dyslexia. People unable to sequence over a slightly longer term might be “not good with directions.” The ultimate sequencing dysfunction is the inability to look at one's life as a meaningful sequence or story.

- Douglas Coupland, A Radical Pessimist's Guide to the Next 10 Years

Via Boing Boing.

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Dunning-Kruger Effect

As described in The Anosognosic's Dilemma.

This sounds like something you've run into a bit over the years.


Via Boing Boing.

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The Lovecraft

Advice from the Little Mermaid

Via Boing Boing.

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The Other, Other, Other White Meat

Canned Unicorn Meat

Also: Canned Unicorn cease and desist.


Via Boing Boing.
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Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus

Also the infographic:

(Click for link to full size PDF.)

Via Boing Boing.

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RPG Humor

Vecna
It helps to have a little background here: Vecna was a lich (an evil wizard who used his power to prolong his life after death) who went on to become a god. Along the way Vecna lost an eye and a hand. These lost body parts became powerful magical artifacts.

Which brings us to the tale of:

The Head of Vecna


The Gazebo
This is a pretty old story. I think I might have even read about it in college. Read on for:

The Dread Gazebo


The Gamers
Dorkness Rising is the movie I was watching.

The Gamers is it's lower budget predecessor (watchable on line though).

On the agrarian roots of civic leadership

"A scandal has erupted in the City Council of Bulgaria's Plovdiv as several councilors have been caught milking virtual cows on the Facebook application Farmville. The councilors were first detected playing Farmville two weeks ago during the debates for Plovdiv's 2010 budget."

Via Boing Boing.

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ZOMG-bies in RPGs (etc.)

A wide variety of RPGs represent zombies in one way or another. Upon request I could supply some information about how zombies are or could be represented in various generic and/or rules-lite systems. The following are a few of the better known representations:

D&D Zombies - from d20 v. 3.5.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten - Wikipedia entry and reviews.

World of Darkness Zombies

• Zombie: the Coil - IIRC Old World of Darkness fan supplement.
• Promethean: The Created - New World of Darkness gameline. Prometheans aren't exactly zombies or golems, but sort of Frankenstein-ish monsters. Wikipedia entry here, review here.

Lovecraftian zombies:

• Herbert West: Reanimator (story)
  
• The Deanimator (short video game)
• Ghouls - Not technically zombies or undead in this representation (more detailed info here).
  

Facebook Games and the Military-Industrial Complex

Just thought you might like to know that your Farmville produce is going to feed the dogs of war.

At least according to this article on India's use of ghost chilis.

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The Tetris God

Via College Humor.

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Vamping

Your icy kiss
- via the FMyLife blog.

Shimmering with life
- via the FMyLife blog.

Meetup for Weirdos (But who am I to point fingers?)
- via Boing Boing

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Failure & Success!

You may be aware of the Fail blog, but what about the one chronicling Success?

The Millitary Industrial Complex vs. Powerpoint

Writing in the Armed Forces Journal, retired Marine T.X. Hammes excoriates PowerPoint and its impact on decision-making in the military.

More at Boing Boing (or even more here).

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Pool rules

Looks like BU's not the only place that requires 'em.

Via Boing Boing.