Link roundup

1. Harrison Krix posted about his Potato-Glados here.

2. Rex Ryan says Roger Goodell conspired with him to trick a player.

3. Entertainment Earth is having a 20% off Marvel sale. For example, one of the Cable with baby sets.

Link roundup

1. Tax dollars at work in Southern California:

When it's completed this fall, Riverside's Hillcrest High School will be a high-tech academic hub with wireless Internet, a robotics lab, digital smart boards in every classroom and a first-rate performance hall worthy of any "Glee" hopeful.

But no students.

Sapped by state budget cuts, the Alvord Unified School District doesn't have the money to turn on the lights or hire staff for the $105-million campus.

2. Young Jason Kidd.

3. It's a tremendous shame George Takei hasn't been able to show off his personality until the last few years.

Image roundup

Planking on the news via.



Beautiful way to display a PS3 and its cords. Via.



Shaved alpaca.



Crashed spaceship by Michal Karcz on sale as described here. Via.



Crest Pro-Health Protection - - 24 hour protection as long as you use it twice a day.

Link roundup

1. Cool Foo Fighters concert t-shirts.

2. Fascinating article at Wired about tech startup incubator Y Combinator, including an anecdote about an investor "who dropped more than $6 million on companies he knows almost nothing about—indeed, some of which haven’t yet decided what business they’re in."

3. A video game company retaliated against a negative review of their game by encouraging employees to write negative reviews about the author's novel. Via.

Link roundup

1. At Reddit, a participant on Pimp My Ride participated in an ask me anything:

I actually had to sign a contract that prohibited me from listing their final product on eBay, which I did. I was contacted by Viacom about 3 hours later, ordered to take it down. I then got the contact info of the company that made the Jackhammer woof and made a deal. The problem with the show is, they don't fix any of the mechanical issues, and my car was a piece of shit. What they did was make my piece of shit sound exceptionally awesome, which is great. Just not great enough to drive on roads.

2. I can't believe this really exists - - Spike tv has a show called Repo Games:

From the producers of Jersey Shore and Spike TV comes Repo Games, a whole new kind of game show. Repo Games follows a crew of real-life repo men, Josh Lewis and Tom DeTone, as they give debtors one last chance to keep their cars -- but only if they’re willing to play for it. The debtors are asked five questions, and if they get three answers correct, their cars will be paid off on the spot. If the debtors fail, their cars get a new home at the impound lot.

Via.

3. Telling anecdote about Arnold Schwarzenegger. Via.

Link roundup

1. Animated gifs of Kirsten Dunst reacting to Lars Von Trier declaring his Nazi sympathy at Cannes. Via.

2. Threadless has a Phineas and Ferb Design Challenge.

3. And speaking of t-shirt competitions, Timothy Lim (who I feature regularly) has a Transformers-themed tee up for vote at Qwertee.

Link roundup

1. Comment and win a Kindle.

2. How to "Move From Blogger to WordPress Without Losing Google Rank."

3. "Houston Press apologizes for 'hottest sex offenders' list."

Link roundup

1. I didn't expect to read this:

Thor on the Nintendo DS is not what you'd expect. Despite having to tie into a movie property and needing to work with certain likeness and story parameters, the developers at WayForward (Contra 4) have created a great licensed game. Thor plays incredibly well, and is a remarkably well-executed 2D brawler.

$30 at Amazon.

Kotaku likes the Wii and DS versions too. Just like my experience with the Force Unleashed 2, the Wii version was pretty good fun, while the PS3/Xbox versions got terrible reviews.

2. Gawker:

We all know reality television shows, including and especially American Idol, are basically serial hoaxes. But couldn't they try a little harder to maintain the illusion? Idol producers went to elaborate lengths last night to falsely present Jennifer Lopez's on-air performance as "live," but they left behind a few editing artifacts proving that it was taped.

3. And also at Gawker:

Kate Middleton's Brother Pretends to Be a Lawyer to Get His Dirty Pictures Off the Internet.

Link roundup

1. FYI, you have to pay $150 to $495 to be nominated for a Webby award.

2. If you missed it, Minnesota House Majority Leader Matt Dean said he "hated" Neil Gaiman and called him a "pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota." Neil Gaiman responds here. His response includes a link to Dean's contact page and encourages you to share your thoughts with Mr. Dean.

3. Here's an explanation for why eating asparagus makes your urine smell. Via.

Worst Osama-related headline

From NBC's football blog:

Bin Laden’s death could raise stakes in the [NFL] lockout

The thesis:

the finality that has come from the completion of the protracted mission to capture or kill bin Laden makes it even more important that the NFL properly commemorate the 10th anniversary of one of the darkest days in American history.

First comment:

One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
Nice try though.

Link roundup

1. TomTom sold user data to the police, who then used it to expertly place speed traps. Via.

2. RPS takes a long look at The Old Republic:

And this level of story exceeds anything I’ve seen in an MMO. There’s currently nothing else that comes close, with perhaps only The Secret World as a rival for such a narrative-focused approach. Simply the fact that my character pretended to be someone else – Blade, she went by – for such a protracted period, was novel to the point of gripping me. And within that, as I lied and tricked the various residents of this Hutta enclave, I was able to betray at my leisure. I could come out of that situation – a good day’s worth of play – having decided whose side I was really on.

The other thing to note here is that I was playing alone. And there was little impetus to team up with anyone. The story, in fact, encouraged me to be soloing this. This happens to be exactly how I want to play MMOs, so I was delighted. But those who are all about guilds and the like will have to get through some significant sections before they’ll get their way. That’s not to say that you can’t team up, because you absolutely can. Certain areas will be blocked off to someone who’s not the same class as you, and some quests are specific to you, but it’s more the lack of narrative sense that put me off wanting a buddy.

In fact, at the point where you really do need someone else to help you battle through, the game gives you an NPC companion.

3. Lifehacker's guide to setting up an online store.

*Buy Darth Revan toys at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Sad, sad article about the crooked tricks colleges use to comply with Title IX:

At the University of South Florida, more than half of the 71 women on the cross-country roster failed to run a race in 2009. Asked about it, a few laughed and said they did not know they were on the team.

At Marshall University, the women’s tennis coach recently invited three freshmen onto the team even though he knew they were not good enough to practice against his scholarship athletes, let alone compete. They could come to practice whenever they liked, he told them, and would not have to travel with the team.

At Cornell, only when the 34 fencers on the women’s team take off their protective masks at practice does it become clear that 15 of them are men. Texas A&M and Duke are among the elite women’s basketball teams that also take advantage of a federal loophole that allows them to report male practice players as female participants.

2. From an interview about Portal 2:

At one point two years ago some Cave Johnson dialogue got leaked – so I can now tell you, two years ago Cave was the bad guy in Portal 2 and GLaDOS wasn’t in the game. It was a prequel. We liked the character enough that we snuck him into this.

3. Great article about the balancing act bloggers must perform. (I typically crank out posts before bedtime or before I leave for work in the morning, and schedule posts to appear throughout the day. I also try to post items I hope you haven't seen elsewhere.)

Link roundup

1. "The Cal State Long Beach cheer team was stripped of its national title after it was discovered that one of the competing members was not a student."

2. Funny post about comic strip writers who post idealized version of themselves, with possibly the most cringe-inducing Peanuts strip I've ever seen. (I actually made a similar, albeit more subtle observation about James Kochalka a while back.) Via.

3. OK, file this one away for when the reviews come out. Kotaku says, "Raise Your Expectations For The Captain America Video."