Green Green Army animal soldier figurines

There was a six pack at ebay when I checked. Via.

The sporting goods fight scene from Universal Solider: Day of Reckoning (which is on Netflix)

Wikipedia summarizes:

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning received generally mixed reviews from critics and viewers. Some of the main points of contention were that the film deviated greatly from the general idea of a Universal Soldier movie, and that Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren (considered the stars of the franchise) had very little screen time. The level of violence was also considered excessive.

Also, this is how JCVD looks in the movie:

Link roundup

1. "Passengers aboard the Carnival Ecstasy witnessed part of the horrifying incident Sunday evening in which blood poured down the front of the elevator."

"To look and see the elevator with just blood coming down like a sheet, and not stopping ... it was a real life scene of 'The Shining,'"

2. "Disney Inundates General Hospital Episode With References To New Year's Eve College Football Playoff Games"

3. "The Great Mississippi and Missouri Rivers Flood of 1993 (or 'Great Flood of 1993') occurred in the American Midwest, along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and their tributaries, from April to October 1993. The flood was among the most costly and devastating to ever occur in the United States, with $15 billion in damages."

An Illinois man, James Scott, 23 at the time, was officially convicted for "intentionally causing a catastrophe" and sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in causing some of the flooding across the river from Quincy, Illinois. In an attempt to strand his wife on the other side of the river so he could continue partying

James Jean-designed Beats by Dre

$300.

Impressive use of a "complete this drawing" book

Megan Nicole Dong has been tweeting her progress:

Complete this drawing 6 ⛄️💥 pic.twitter.com/hfa0xtweqP

— Megan Nicole Dong (@sketchshark) December 22, 2015

Jellyfishing. #completethisdrawing pic.twitter.com/9l3CQaQRuu

— Megan Nicole Dong (@sketchshark) December 29, 2015

Timelapse-this-drawing. pic.twitter.com/smEsJGnR5y

— Megan Nicole Dong (@sketchshark) December 29, 2015

Link roundup

1. "In defense of paying $400 to eat at the Times Square Olive Garden on New Year’s Eve"

Your perfect New Year’s Eve experience involves taking your wife to New York City and watching the ball drop in Times Square. But you imagine doing it from a warm, hospitable place with good music, lots of food and booze, and clean restrooms that are not an adult diaper. This is exactly what the Olive Garden is offering

2. "Western games use map detail to create a sense of exploration or story that is absent from the game play. Eastern markets don't have as much demand for an exploration experience, so Eastern games streamline the map to maintain laser-sharp focus on score and competition."

3. From October, "Top curling teams say they won't use high-tech brooms"

Gushue, Howard, Jones among 34 teams that won't use brooms with 'directional fabric'

Link roundup

1. The race to claim Antarctica:

On a glacier-filled island with fjords and elephant seals, Russia has built Antarctica’s first Orthodox church on a hill overlooking its research base, transporting the logs all the way from Siberia.

Less than an hour away by snowmobile, Chinese laborers have updated the Great Wall Station, a linchpin in China’s plan to operate five bases on Antarctica, complete with an indoor badminton court, domes to protect satellite stations and sleeping quarters for 150 people.

Not to be outdone, India’s futuristic new Bharathi base, built on stilts using 134 interlocking shipping containers, resembles a spaceship. Turkey and Iran have announced plans to build bases, too.

2. "A University of Colorado professor who launched a global campaign to fight obesity accepted $550,000 from the Coca-Cola Co., traveled the world at company expense on speaking engagements and solicited a job at the soft-drink giant for his son."

The university returned the $1 million gift from Coca-Cola. It says senior leaders made that decision because the company "was redirecting the dialogue" from a scientific discussion about the causes of obesity.

3. "A former official in charge of regulating a massive waste dump that collapsed in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen has killed himself"

"How much money has been spent attempting to bring Matt Damon back from distant places?"

"TOTAL: $900B plus change"

California Governor Jerry Brown's tiny house

"'Nobody likes this place except me,' Mr. Brown said recently."

Link roundup

1. "Wildlife experts and California Highway Patrol officers were in the midst of daring rescue in the North Bay Monday afternoon after a truculent elephant seal tried to cross a highway and was resisting attempts to get it to go back into the water"

2. In The Force Awakens, _______ is found at Skellig Michael:

A Christian monastery was founded on the island at some point between the 6th and 8th century and remained continuously occupied until its abandonment in the late 12th century. The remains of the monastery, along with most of the island itself, became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.

3. Brian Krebs:

My PayPal account was hacked on Christmas Eve. The perpetrator tried to further stir up trouble by sending my PayPal funds to a hacker gang tied to the jihadist militant group ISIS.
...
I then called PayPal and asked how the perpetrator had gotten in, and was there anything else they could do to prevent this from happening again? The customer service person at PayPal said the attacker had simply logged in with my username and password, and that I had done everything I could in response to the attack. The representative assured me they would monitor the account for suspicious activity, and that I should rest easy.

Twenty minutes later I was outside exercising in the unseasonably warm weather when I stopped briefly to check email again: Sure enough, the very same rogue email address had been added back to my account. But by the time I got back home to a computer, my email address had been removed and my password had been changed.

Link roundup

1. The Hustlers at Scores

Here’s a modern Robin Hood story for you: a few strippers who stole from (mostly) rich, (usually) disgusting, (in their minds) pathetic men and gave to, well, themselves.
...
Samantha had come up with the innovation that was making her rich: a special drink spiked with MDMA and ketamine.

“Just a sprinkle,” Rosie recalled, as she maneuvered her SUV out of her driveway and toward her daughter’s preschool. “Like a pinch of salt.”

2. The Beyonder's look was inspired by Bill Sienkiewicz:

I remember being told that his outfit was loosely based on a jumpsuit that Bill Sienkiewicz was wearing around that time,’ volunteers Avengers-scribe Roger Stern. 'You should double-check with Bill. Someone in the office might have been pulling my leg about the jumpsuit.’ Milgrom comments, 'That’s interesting! Nobody ever told me that, but I do remember Bill wearing some of those one piece jumpsuits.’ Sienkiewicz concedes, 'Sadly, this probably has a ring of truth to it – I went nuts with Brit Fashion that had absolutely nothing to do with classic bespoke style and tailoring.

3. Struggle.

Green Mushroom poster

One of several Super Mario posters on sale here.

Cards Against Humanity bought a castle in Ireland

And participants in their holiday special will get to be king for three minutes each. I believe it's the former Castle Curious.

Moon Knight print

On sale here.

Link roundup

1. "The divide...between white parents and Asian-American parents...in 'a high-achieving school district in New Jersey."

So the white people are not the majority nor are they arguing for meritocracy...and yet they seem to be winning. They are winning with the argument that it's not good to have too much winning when they are not the ones doing the winning.

...

meritocracy seemed like a good idea until white people weren't winning, and the notion of judging the "whole person" came about a remedy to the perceived problem of keeping a traditionally disadvantaged minority group from climbing through the use of the meritocracy. Striving for success within the meritocracy got framed as grasping and grade-grubbing — qualities you wouldn't want in a healthy, well-rounded young person.

2. Airbnb's job interview questions.

3. PepsiCo is going to launch an organic Gatorade. Also, exclusively at Walgreens, hot dog-flavored Pringles.

Lego Swordmaiden

Lego by Jerac.

"Keep My Baby Warm" by Charles May & Annette May Thomas

Radiohead's theme for SPECTRE

Radiohead:

Last year we were asked to write a theme tune for the Bond movie Spectre.
Yes we were. It didn’t work out, but became something of our own, which we love very much.
As the year closes we thought you might like to hear it.
Merry Christmas. May the force be with you.

The Overlook Hotel gingerbread house

More detailed shots of the interior scenes here.

Classic movie posters with the text removed

Many more here.

"On Tuesday around 6:15 p.m., people across Southern California, Arizona and Nevada reported seeing a fireball streak across the night sky, prompting speculation over what the source of it was"

"Turns out it just old fashioned space junk, courtesy of the Russians."

Lego roundup

Homer in Hell by Shannon Sproule.




Jakku Falcon Chase by Simon Pickard.




Peanuts Christmas tree by cmaddison.

Emo Kylo Ren

dear diary hux and i are wearing black to commemorate the defeat at the battle of endor we both always wear black but today it means more

— Emo Kylo Ren (@KyloR3n) December 22, 2015

mom please don't even pretend you know what I'm going through right now also we are out of conditioner

— Emo Kylo Ren (@KyloR3n) December 22, 2015

dear diary I told hux I did not think much of his name for our band he said I should go solo I told him never to mention that name again

— Emo Kylo Ren (@KyloR3n) December 22, 2015

holden caulfield knows what it means to commit to a bold choice of headgear and i respect that

— Emo Kylo Ren (@KyloR3n) December 22, 2015

Link roundup

1. "The Food Lab: The Science of the Best Yorkshire Puddings"

2. "Regrets of a Mommy Blogger"

For a brief moment, just a few weeks ago, I felt unexplained panic because my twenty-two-month-old daughter had learned about Elmo away from home. “Emmo!” she declared when faced with a print ad for organic toothpaste in a copy of US Weekly. I was floored. I never told her about Elmo. SHE DIDN’T GET THAT FROM ME, I proclaimed, proudly at first, my pride dwindling quickly as I realized that none of the other parents at her school were ashamed of their children’s knowledge of Elmo. In fact, at school, Elmo was just fine. Elmo was a favorite and beloved character. The other children knew about Elmo. It was only my daughter who had learned about Elmo second hand, away from home. I felt generic and sad
...
I felt inadequate. I had failed. I had failed to provide my daughter with the knowledge of Elmo, or of being too cool for Elmo, and now, all these basic ass fucking parents at her school knew it.

3. Eater:

New York City-based David Chang isn't afraid to stir the pot, and this morning he set his sights on Chipotle.
...
The answer likely stems from a blind item from 2012, and a lawsuit filed in 2013. Back in 2012 Chang told Adweek, "There is a very successful fast-food company that approached us and quite frankly took our intellectual property. And they are running our concept right now.

Link roundup

1. "There's now a museum in China devoted entirely to Stephon Marbury"

2. "The U.S. military’s fight against the Islamic State is costing an average of $11 million a day"

The Defense Department spent more than $5 billion on operations related to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria...between September 2014 and the end of last month, the Pentagon reported Monday.

3. "One Of These Four Teams Will Revamp Pershing Square" in Los Angeles.

Plush Threes! mascot available for preorder

Listed for December 31 at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. Time's Instagram accounts of the year.

2. "There has been a dead cockroach in the anthropology building's stairwell for at least two weeks. Some enterprising person has now made her a little shrine."

3. "for the second time in two months, a rare venomous sea serpent has washed up on a local beach hundreds of miles from its normal haunts"

Discussing rejected plot ideas for The Force Awakens

EW:

The trouble was a simple case of upstaging. “It just felt like every time Luke came in and entered the movie, he just took it over,” Arndt said. “Suddenly you didn’t care about your main character anymore because, ‘Oh f–k, Luke Skywalker’s here. I want to see what he’s going to do.’”
...
Some of the early MacGuffins of the movie – the thing that drives a movie’s plot – were a search for Darth Vader’s remains, or a quest to the underwater wreckage of the second Death Star to recover a key piece of history about sacred Jedi sites in the galaxy.

Imagining what happened after the events of Star Trek Into Darkness

The Awl:

We popped Khan back in the freezer with his 72 super-colleagues (all of whom presumably possessed similarly powerful super-blood), and were ready for our next mission, ready to say no more about the fact that the Enterprise now carried with it the key to immortality and none of us were bound any longer by conventional assumptions about ethics or reality.

Perhaps, upon later reflection, we were naive.

Perhaps it was always more than a little ridiculous to think that Starfleet could be both a peacekeeping and a military service in the light of such an invention. Within a week, the Federation had clawed itself into thirteen warring factions, all ready to destroy entire star systems at the prospect of getting their hands on that serum.

Kirk was immediately taken to a research-torture facility by a group of scientists from Section 31. In a way, I think we all failed to take into account the interest this shadowy government organization, with the resources to build a super-advanced death-ship in absolute secrecy, might take in a serum that reverses death.

Business Town

The most recent Business Town illustrations.

Link roundup

1. "Martin Shkreli Accused of Being Surprisingly Good at Fraud"

I can't shake my sense of amazement that Shkreli seems to have gambled on redemption and won. If you believe the allegations in today's indictment, he lost (or stole) all of his investors' money, then lied to them to string them along, Ponzied it up by raising new money to keep them happy, and then finally found an investment that allowed him to pay off his earlier investors, with profits all around. He wasn't caught because his scheme, like most such schemes, eventually crashed under its own weight. His scheme worked!

And on the album:

The government regularly auctions seized property to raise cash, so perhaps some other rich private buyer will end up owning the album. Perhaps it is cursed and brings an indictment for securities fraud to whoever possesses it.

2. "[Former Laker (and Oz actor)] Rick Fox is the new owner of the League of Legends team Gravity Gaming, which will be rebranded with his name...To be known now as Echo Fox"

3. WaPo: "What was fake on the Internet this week: Why this is the final column"

Where debunking an Internet fake once involved some research, it’s now often as simple as clicking around for an “about” or “disclaimer” page. And where a willingness to believe hoaxes once seemed to come from a place of honest ignorance or misunderstanding, that’s frequently no longer the case.
...
Frankly, this column wasn’t designed to address the current environment.
...
institutional distrust is so high right now, and cognitive bias so strong always, that the people who fall for hoax news stories are frequently only interested in consuming information that conforms with their views — even when it’s demonstrably fake.

Link roundup

1. "The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department failed to properly train deputies before equipping them with a new type of handgun, contributing to a dramatic rise in accidental shootings"

The weapon lacks a safety lever and requires less pressure to pull the trigger than the previous department-issued handgun

2. NYTimes Public Editor:

Mistakes are bound to happen in the news business, but some are worse than others.

What I’ll lay out here was a bad one. It involved a failure of sufficient skepticism at every level of the reporting and editing process — especially since the story in question relied on anonymous government sources, as too many Times articles do.

Here’s the background: A Times article Sunday reported that the U.S. government had missed something that was right out there in the open: the jihadist social-media posts by one of the San Bernardino killers.

3. "How the Mast Brothers fooled the world into paying $10 a bar for crappy hipster chocolate"

But there is evidence that at least some of their early production involved remelting chocolate bought from Valrhona, a commercial French chocolate manufacturer.
...
Eventually, however, experts believe that Michael and Rick Mast did start making at least some of their own chocolate, and as Scott explains, the quality of their bars dropped. “The change was remarkable and obvious,” Lindley, of the Cacao shop in Portland, says of trying the bars in 2010. “Most of the chocolate was simply inedible, by my standards.”

Photos from Secret Cinema's screening of The Empire Strikes Back

More here.

Relatedly, Mandalorian by James White:

"following a period of massive enrollment increases during the recession, for-profit operator Career Education Corporation announced Wednesday that it would close all 16 Le Cordon Bleu culinary schools in the U.S."

"Le Cordon Bleu and other culinary institutes in the U.S. have come under increasing scrutiny for their outrageous tuition costs, high drop-out rates, and dismal job prospects."

Link roundup

1. "Pricey Restaurant Chain Fig & Olive Exposed Using Pre-Made Frozen Food"

2. "Global supermarkets selling shrimp peeled by slaves"

Pervasive human trafficking has helped turn Thailand into one of the world's biggest shrimp providers.

3. "NEXO Knights prototypes & development from LEGO designer Mark Stafford"

Last minute giftwrapping

By Megan Nicole Dong.

Link roundup

1. "Star Trek Beyond Will Politely Ignore Into Darkness"

The end of Star Trek Into Darkness fundamentally changed the status quo of the Star Trek universe. Not only did the Federation now have the ability to beam themselves between planets in different parts of the galaxy, ending the need for starships, they had also cured death thanks to the magic blood of Khan and his crew. The human adventure had come to an end, it seemed, as humanity had ascended to the level of immortals who could be essentially omnipresent in the galaxy.

2. "Experts have discovered a new gait pattern among several well-known top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The authors term this 'gunslinger's gait' because it may be triggered by KGB or other forms of weaponry training."

3. "Three Big Tech Companies All Had Great Gatsby-Themed Holiday Parties This Year"

Link roundup

1. "There Might Still Be Crooked Cops from the Silk Road Investigation"

During Bridges’s sentencing, prosecutors implies that there was more misconduct that they just hadn’t had enough evidence to nail him on—missing bitcoins, odd investigative priorities, suspicious conversations with other law enforcement. In their view, it seems, they were only able to charge Shaun Bridges with crimes that were low-hanging fruit—and in fact, both Bridges and Force were themselves low-hanging fruit, having repeatedly bungled things in very obvious ways.

2. Nightmare fuel.

Link roundup

1. "George Lazenby bluffed his way into being James Bond, then screwed it up"

2. "The Corporate Takeover of the Red Cross"

McGovern and her handpicked team of former AT&T colleagues have presided over a string of previously unreported management blunders that have eroded the charity’s ability to fulfill its core mission of aiding Americans in times of need.

...

This year, the Red Cross quietly made cuts in the formula it uses to determine cash benefits to victims of home fires and other disasters. A family of four whose home burned down previously could have received around $900 in immediate assistance. Now they would get a maximum of $500.

...

As part of her effort to run the Red Cross more like a business, McGovern recruited more than 10 former AT&T executives to top positions. The move stirred resentment inside the organization, with some longtime Red Cross hands referring to the charity as the “AT&T retirement program.’’

3. "Japanese Online Retailer Uses Drones To Perfectly Censor Nude Dancers"

4. Deluxe Metal Gear Solid V-inspired figure and cyborg wolf.

"Many famous social media stars are too visible to have 'real' jobs, but too broke not to"

Fusion:

It was all so painfully awkward. That night, Brittany Ashley, a lesbian stoner in red lipstick, was at Eveleigh, a popular farm-to-table spot in West Hollywood. The restaurant was hosting Buzzfeed’s Golden Globes party. For the past two years, Ashley has been one of the most visible actresses on the company’s four YouTube channels, which altogether have about 17 million subscribers. She stars in bawdy videos with titles like “How To Win The Breakup” or “Masturbation: Guys Vs. Girls,” many of which rack up millions of views.

The awkward part was that Ashley wasn’t there to celebrate with Buzzfeed. She was there to serve them. Not realizing that her handful of weekly waitressing shifts at Eveleigh paid most of her bills, a coworker from the video production site asked Ashley if her serving tray was “a bit.” It was not.

Destiny, The Last of Us, and Space Harrier prints

Available here.

Jurassic Park-inspired (death of the lawyer) ugly Christmas sweater

$30 (half off) at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. "Inside the Secret, Tabasco-Spiked World of MRE Innovation"

“Pizza was an item that they were requesting for quite some time, and we were finally able to develop an item that worked,” says Jeanette Kennedy, a supervisory food technologist and leader for Combat Rations Team, a division within the NSRDEC. The main problem—keeping the sauce from infiltrating the crust over a three-year shelf life—was a major engineering puzzle. Finally, something called “Hurdle technology” made pizza possible. It’s a blend of preservation techniques designed to “inhibit the growth of bacteria, yeasts, and molds” between dry and wet components

2. "Turkeys Attack Falmouth mailman 'Every day.'"

3. "Washington's NFL team accidentally revealed it runs that 'fan' Twitter account supporting its name"

Link roundup

1. "Cruz campaign credits psychological data and analytics for its rising success"

Another emerging tactic that the campaign has employed is “geo-fencing,” a technique that allows people to send messages to digital devices in narrow areas, such as a city block or single building.

When the Republican Jewish Committee was meeting at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas in May, for instance, the Cruz campaign unleashed a series of Web-based advertisements visible only inside the hotel complex that emphasized Cruz’s devotion to Israel and its security.

2. Noelle Stevenson identifies an implied missing scene from Return of the Jedi:

Q: like why did the ewoks have a human sized dress lying around anyway
A: i feel like there was a straight-up Disney Princess scene we missed where the Ewoks sew Leia a dress

3. Great prints by Nico Delort and others for sale.

4. Destiny: The Taken King - Legendary Edition is 40% off at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. New sculpture by Ben Young.

2. FT on a decline in the art market:

the Senate Finance Committee is looking hard at a number of private museums and questioning their tax-exempt status. Among those who have received letters querying their “benefit to the public” are collector and investor Peter Brant, whose “Art Study Centre” is on his Connecticut estate, and businessman Mitchell Rales, whose private museum Glenstone is in Maryland. Lots of costs are tax-deductible for owners of these foundations: not only the value of the art but anything they donate as well as the expenses of storing and looking after the art.

3. Superior Foes of Spider-Man artist Steve Lieber is having a fundraiser sale at Etsy, including original art and trade paperbacks with bonus sketches. (I ordered one yesterday and it shipped today.)

Emperor's Royal Guard

By Drake Brodahl and Mattias Adolfson for a show opening tomorrow at Gallery Nucleus.

Tiny Twin Peaks dioramas

Around $60 each at Etsy.

Link roundup

1. Tumblr devoted to Columbo.

2. "I’ve accepted a commission to write a story about the collapse of the Zano drone project on Kickstarter, its largest project ever to have been funded in Europe."

I’ve been commissioned by Kickstarter itself. The company wants to help the backers of this failed project get the information they are entitled to under their agreement with the project creator. They would like to uncover the story of Zano, from its inception to the present, and decided that the best way to do that was to hire a journalist.

3. Very touching comic about a woman coping with depression.

4. Big Masters of the Universe sale at the BBTS, including Blade and Scorpia.

Grow Your Own Escargot Kit

Available here.

Bombshells Power Girl statue

Fisher vs. squirrel

"My mother once witnessed a fisher attack a full grown doe. The fisher had two young and as the doe was wrestling away from the fisher a hawk swooped down and picked up one kit, then the other. We live in a New England suburb and this is all happening in my backyard."

Model train layout inspired by Lovercraft's city of Arkham

Much more here and here. Via.

Link roundup

1. "Hajj Stampede in September Killed Over 2,400, New Count Finds"

2. "The Los Angeles City Council agreed Wednesday to spend $15 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that the city knowingly ignored the dangers of a North Hollywood intersection that lacked a stoplight before a car struck two sisters crossing the street there, killing one and severely injuring the other."

3. "According to the CDC, November and December are the months with the fewest suicides."

Suicides actually tend to rise in the spring and summer...One reason is that warm weather is activating, so people who are suicidal might not find the energy to attempt suicide until spring....

There might also be biological explanations for the phenomenon. Among the more fascinating: tree pollen.

Link roundup

1. "The Magic Bullet Infomercial Is Actually About Swinging"

Listen to Mimi at the 5:40 mark. This is the key.

...

“I’ve got some grilled chicken here,” she says, voice thick with meaning and perhaps more than a little embarrassment, “from last night’s barbecue.” Her voice drops at least half an octave on “last night,” and she gives a rueful little chuckle on the tail end of “barbecue.” It’s easy to miss; it’s an almost imperceptible moment, but it’s also a dead giveaway.

2. "Miami Heat player Amar’e Stoudemire [wants to] connect the stars of sport with the art community"

“I went to a lot of fairs and I saw a lot of art,” Stoudemire says. “But that one was something that I wanted to add to the Melech Collection.”

That’s what he calls his personal art collection, after the Hebrew word for “King.”

3. "The researchers created 20 identical Airbnb profiles with 20 different names...They found that 'requests from guests with distinctively African-American names are roughly 16% less likely to be accepted than identical guests with distinctively White names.'"

4. Get 25% off a book at at Amazon with the code 25OFFBOOK. Here's the books I recommended earlier this month.

Link roundup

1. "A crack along the Antarctic ice-shelf is making its inexorable way towards an isolated research station, threatening to plunge the scientists on board into the frozen seas."

2. NBC:

"Star Shower" is a plug-in laser light projector that promises to make your home sparkle when the sun goes down, a "better way" to ring in the winter holidays.

The popular decoration definitely adds a festive look. But investigators say that on the night of Wednesday, November 18, lights from a Star Shower projector shined straight into the cockpit of a C130 coast guard plane as it flew over Sacramento — prompting the crew to report the incident to police.

3. The BBTS has the Ganon and Metroid figures in stock.

Link roundup

1. A debate about the meaning of Ex Machina.

2. "Wu-Tang Clan probably made more money selling their album to a jerky hedge fund manager than they would have releasing it in a traditional format."

3. "Even More L.A. Escape Rooms For You To Solve"

Link roundup

1. It's going to be Game of Thrones in space--Spike TV is now turning the sex-obsessed and militarized scientist factions of Red Mars into a series.

2. "A researcher at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business has surveyed over 47,000 Kickstarter backers and concluded that successfully-funded Kickstarters still have a roughly one in ten chance of failing to deliver."

3. The latest chapter in a thrilling playthrough of Fallout 4:

Hence, my Deathclaw Gauntlet finally gets an outing – my gamma-blasting enemies can barely get a shot off when I’m right up in their faces with this thing. All these guys are super tough, making this a long and bloody fight, as I slowly gouge seven people to death. It’s horrific, it really is. But it’s also thrilling, because

Link roundup

1. A claim that Marriott is removing desks from its hotel rooms because millennials don't use them:

I called the front desk where a very nice lady said she understood because guests inundate them with complaints about the new rooms. There’s apparently a daily scramble to get moved to the rooms that have yet been renovated, and thus still have a desk...

I was told this had to do with the habits of Millennials, who don’t use desks. ... They prefer rooms that are designed to “hang out” in and whatever work they do can be accomplished on their phone. Hence we have two beds and a couch but no chair or desk.

2. Oscar Isaac:

After shooting I was pontificating about his past, publicly, and I thought, I’m from Guatemala, and in New Hope at the end, at the medal ceremony, it was shot in Guatemala, in Tikal, where you see the pyramids as the ships are leaving. So I thought, how cool would it be if Poe was from Yavin, if he was a rebel fighter from Yavin? So I started saying that and, sure enough, I see a comic book come out where me talking about my character background suddenly is in panels for a comic book and it’s amazing.

...

Sure. I did the voice in the Disney Infinity video game. It’s a more childlike version of the character, but it was fun.

Was that your first time doing voice over?

I had done a video game before, but I got fired off it.

How come?

I think they just thought I was bad. It was such a shitty game, though. Dante’s Inferno.

3. New Nike App creates an NFL "combine in your pocket":

The new Hudl Combine app features a Nike Football Rating, which, after 2016, becomes the ticket to Nike Football The Opening.

Key features of the app include:

Athletes can conduct and record combine tests, including the 40-yard dash, agility shuttle, a standing vertical and power-ball toss or bench press, using only a smartphone.

After all of the tests are submitted, Hudl representatives will verify each score and calculate a Nike Football Rating: the aggregate of the test scores.

Athletes can complete the tests as few or as many times as they like, so long as they are a Nike+ member.

The best Nike Football Ratings will appear on team and national leaderboards, with the nation’s top scorers earning an invitation to The Opening.

If athletes are not eligible for The Opening, they can still share and compare Nike Football Ratings with those of their friends and professional athletes.

To help athletes improve throughout the process, videos from professional athletes, trainers and coaches will provide tips and football hacks.

Additionally, there will be a 52-week training program offered within the Hudl site to help propel football athletes with drills and tips from professional players, coaches and trainers.

The Hudl Combine app for iOS is now available in the App Store.

4. From my wishlist, The Reappearing Act: Coming Out as Gay on a College Basketball Team Led by Born-Again Christians (by frequent ESPN talking head Kate Fagan) is $1.99 today at Amazon.

Death on the Nile poster

By Johnny Dombrowski, available Thursday, and there's a chance to win one.

"Meet the Artist Behind the Animorphs Covers "

Vice:

The first three Animorphs books were done by another artist, but Scholastic wasn't happy with that artwork. They knew that they wanted someone to do morphing, so Dave called me up and he said, "We heard that you knew how to do morphing." I'd actually never done any morphing at all,

...

Actually, I'll give you some insight into that: In a lot of cases, the publishing companies don't want the illustrator to contact the author. Because, a lot of times, an author has a very distinct idea of what they want for the cover, and [as an artist], you can be put in a bind where you've developed a relationship with the author, and you like them, and then they [tell you], "I want this on the cover," but the publisher does not want that on the cover. I just don't want to be put in the middle.

...

I've never been known as a "beautiful woman" artist—listen, if you can paint a beautiful, busty woman, you're going to stay employed for the rest of your life.

USS Zumwalt

Official U.S. Navy Page:

Future USS Zumwalt's first underway at sea

ATLANTIC OCEAN (Dec. 7, 2015) The future USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) is underway for the first time conducting at-sea tests and trials in the Atlantic Ocean Dec. 7, 2015. The multimission ship will provide independent forward presence and deterrence, support special operations forces, and operate as an integral part of joint and combined expeditionary forces. (U.S. Navy photo courtesy of General Dynamics Bath Iron Works/Released)

Posters for Sherlock: The Abominable Bride

Via.

Over the Garden Wall and Broken Age figurines

By ddpatron.

Link roundup

1. "FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE will be told across a multi-part series, with each entry providing its own unique experience."

2. The reviews of Pandemic Legacy are infectious. (It's 30% off right now at Amazon.)

3. Kylo Ren fashion cosplay.

4. USWNT on deciding to cancel this weekend's scheduled game:

On Friday at practice, we lost a teammate, Megan Rapinoe, to an ACL injury. Megan’s injury took place while playing on a subpar training field. The grass on the training pitch itself was in bad shape. All along the pitch, sewer plates and plastic coverings were laying on the sidelines.

It wasn’t until we got to Aloha Stadium the next day — the day before the match against Trinidad and Tobago — that we finally saw, for the first time, how bad the stadium’s field truly was. The conditions were such that our coach shortened practice to a brief 30-minute training session so we wouldn’t risk injury before the game. There were sharp rocks ingrained all over the field. They were everywhere. The artificial turf was actually pulling up out of the ground, and the turf itself was both low-grade and aging.

"LOTR is just the story of the skeevy homeless stoner from The Hobbit getting clean and trying to atone for all the shit he caused while High"

Excerpt:

Saruman was just trying to find a friend, albeit his friend corrupted him in the long run- but look at the "White Wizard's" peers:

The 2 blue wizards who were off - in the east- doing who knows what. Radagast, the hippie stoner who never showered and wouldn't stop eating mushrooms. Gandalf, the homeless stoner who kept hanging out with all those carnival folk who never wear shoes.

Saruman gets sick of it, and gets on an AOL chat room and meets the Dark Lord. Someone who loves Metal, puts flames on everything and has a bunch of badass minions with piercings and muscles and giant black towers just like Saruman's. So he makes friends.

Next thing Saruman knows, his old stoner roommate rolls up and says, "Hey, I'm going to kick this Sauron guy's ass bro, you gonna roll with me?"

...

So, after some debate- lets Frodo pick the way to go. And Gandalf is terrified to go the way he picks, though he doesn't remember why. This of course gets them into probably the worst case scenario- as he forgets how to even get in, forgets which way they should go, snaps at others who question him- and doesn't remember that the Balrog is there until it's basically right on top of them.

Kate McKinnon cracking up Ryan Gosling on SNL with her story about alien abduction

Link roundup

1. "Librarians in Japan are upset after a newspaper published the names of books that novelist Haruki Murakami, 66, checked out as a teenager from his high school library,"

2. "Zoologist Lucy King came up with the honey fence solution, which takes advantage of the fact that elephants are terrified by the sound of bees."

3. "Owls and falcons hired to scare pesky birds away from Redondo Beach waterfront"

to avoid any incidental viewings of mother nature at work, her company ensures the owls are well-fed before scaring off the seagulls. It doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while an owl will get hold of a seagull or pigeon

4. Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One [Blu-ray] "Complete with glowing Tesseract" is $120 off today at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. The ghost streets of Los Angeles:

That is, that someone's living room is actually shaped the way it is not because of something peculiar to architectural history, but because of a ghost street, or that the wall of maybe your very own bedroom takes its angle from a road that, for whatever reason, long ago disappeared.

2. Fallout 4 screens by Dead End Thrills.

3. Kate Beaton interview.

Link roundup

1. Doublefine is trying to crowdfund Psychonauts 2.

2. The Good Dinosaur crew gift.

3. Telltale is making a Batman game. Relatedly, the Arkham Knight is the newest unlockable character in Injustice.

4. NECA's making action figures based on the characters from the video game Contra.

Link roundup

1. "Drudge has a profound effect on America’s premier news outlets: it’s the top source for referral traffic to industry powerhouses like Fox News, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, and Reuters among others."

2. Photo gallery: "Mount Sinabung looms above the abandoned village of Sukanalu in North Sumatra, Indonesia"

3. "Ebenezer Scrooge is a miser because he lived through the Napoleonic Wars."

4. From my wishlist, The Teleportation Accident: A Novel is $1.99 right now.

Michelle Roque 2015 Flag Football Highlight Tape