Metafilter rarely misses which is why I post so many things from them.  This one really makes me wonder about Japanese culture.  Although Americans can’t throw too many stones with some of the stage productions we produce.

Get down, Zelda – Zelda wants you to get out of your seats and jump around jump around.

(Via Metafilter)

 I love stuff like this.  No more perfect example of how arbitrary much of the dogma and doctrine we hear everyday really is.  No more Limbo?  What’s next, are we going to get e revised view of Hell?

Anyway, Metafilter asks the appropriate question.  What does this mean for the gaming multiverse? 

Won’t somebody think of the thieves? – It’s looking like the Pope will abolish the doctrine of Limbo. The real story, of course, is how this change in cosmology will affect D&D players. What’s a Chaotic Neutral to do?

(Via Metafilter)

The scary part here is that I can think of half a dozen instances when this would have been helpful. Not nearly useful enough to switch to a new phone or service provider at the moment, but still. I mean, who HASN’T found themselves in a heated argument over…oh, a game of Scrabble, say, without a dictionary or a PC handy? Or been about to head into a meeting on a topic one knows nothing about, with bare moments to gain some modicum of credibility? Or overheard a pretty girl at the pretentious coffee shop you hang out at talking about a literary figure you’ve never heard of, and suddenly been struck with a desperate desire to appear well-schooled in such matters? Well, here’s some good news for you – with this little doodad, you can use your camera phone to do a quick Google search from anywhere.

Just take a picture of the text you want to search for and let the software figure out the rest. So if you’re wandering the aisles of the supermarket and need more info on Froot Loops, just snap a pic of the box and search. nThrum interprets the text from the image and does the rest.

Ah, the Thanksgiving traditions. Turkey, stuffing, wine, and fixing your family’s computers. Aaron Williams has captured this brilliantly in this week’s edition of Full Frontal Nerdity.

For the record? I discovered this year that it’s a lot easier to just set up a new machine than to fix everything that’s gone wrong with the computer in the past 6-12 months. I think that’s going to be my new Family Tech Support Plan(tm): Buy a new computer annually and I’ll set it up for you. No ongoing support provided.
  

 It’s Friday and so we offer something silly, something unexpected, something….

Well, decide for yourself. 

I think we should go to commercial… – Conan O’Brien runs the one Walker, Texas Ranger clip that he never dared run before…

(Via Metafilter)

 Add this to my Christmas list as well.  The addition of the card readers means this thing is perfect for travelling with your digital camera and card based MP3 player.  And at 2.5 pounds I can throw it in the ole backpack and still hike up Mt. Rushmore without breaking a sweat.

Tiny, Mighty, Fujitsu Laptop –

Pretty much everything you need from a bigger laptop smashed into a nice-looking tiny tot of a machine, the Fujitsu T70M weighs about 2 1/2 lb. and comes with a 1.2Ghz Pentium CPU, 60GB of hard drive space and a DVD burner to boot. Rounded out with a WiFi and 56Kbps dial-up modem for all kinds of schlepping, the one thing you may not be super impressed with is the 10.4-inch display and the smaller-sized keyboard. But great for those on the go. Includes PCMCIA Type II, Memory Stick, SD Card and xD slots.

Fujitsu T70M Ultra Portable Notebook [Ubergizmo]

(Via Gizmodo)

An article from Space.com does a great job debunking the parallel that Intelligent Design proponents draw between their brand of nonsense and the logic behind SETI. Apparently the ID nutjobs (my term, not that of the article) suggest that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is concluding that if they find a complex radio signal, it must be the result of intelligence. Since one of the main arguments against ID (other than it’s stupid – again, that’s Jason’s conclusion only) – is that complexity does not imply design, as in the case of DNA, isn’t it a double standard to allow SETI to make the same sort of claim?

Instead of just saying "Uh, you’re dumb" like I would, the author here makes several important points about the assumptions the ID crowd makes, and demonstrates quite effectively that the parallel they attempt to draw with SETI simply doesn’t exist. This quote from the conclusion wraps up the argument well, but it’s worth taking a gander at the whole article.

In short, the champions of Intelligent Design make two mistakes when they claim that the SETI enterprise is logically similar to their own: First, they assume that we are looking for messages, and judging our discovery on the basis of message content, whether understood or not. In fact, we’re on the lookout for very simple signals. That’s mostly a technical misunderstanding. But their second assumption, derived from the first, that complexity would imply intelligence, is also wrong. We seek artificiality, which is an organized and optimized signal coming from an astronomical environment from which neither it nor anything like it is either expected or observed: Very modest complexity, found out of context. This is clearly nothing like looking at DNA’s chemical makeup and deducing the work of a supernatural biochemist.