Delicious LiveJournal Links for 7-28-2009

• The First Few Milliseconds of an HTTPS Connection
  Fascinating walkthrough of how your browser securely connects to a server.
  (tags: security programming encryption networking ssl https web)
• Divorce health scars are permanent
  A Chicago study involving 8,652 people aged 51 to 61 found divorced people have 20% more chronic illnesses such as cancer than those who never marry.
  
  The figure only drops to 12% for those who remarry, researchers write in the Journal of Health and Social Behaviour.
  (tags: divorce health marriage psychology relationships)
• Why Dr Who canon does not exist
  He's so very, very right. With excellent examples.
  (tags: doctorwho fandom television writing Meta canon)
• Ugandan shock as bank disappears
  Bank sets up shop on the Kenyan/Ugandan border, takes $100,000 in deposits and then vanishes. That's even more efficient than we managed in The West!
  (tags: economics banking fraud)

Language and Aspergers

This very much sums up how I feel, on a semi-regular basis.  It's an article about how people with Aserpgers interpret language differently to people without, and how they find it difficult to deal with the subtleties that many people strew into language quite happily.

It's not a problem I have nearly as often as I used to - but I do run into people reading more into my language than I put there, or putting things into language that I don't spot.

It also sums up the sense of kinship and familiarity I felt on reading The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time - not that I'm anywhere near that bad - but it reminded me quite a lot of how I felt as a child.

cheers to randomchris for the link.

Recommendations

It's funny - this game is completely trivially easy, to the point that I don't actually think it's possible to fail.  On the other hand it's incredibly nicely drawn, has a grea jazz soundtrack, is free, takes ten minutes and has an incredibly cute little robot as the main character.  I therefore feel drawn to recommend you play it.  But think of it more as a short movie where you have to click on things occasionally than a game.  Or something.

I also have some reservations about recommending MadWorld for the Wii.  On the grounds that it's a psychopathically unpleasant game made by someone who watched Sin City far too many times.  It gave me extra bonus points for (a) slamming a tyre over someone's head (b) impaling their head with a street sign and then (c) impaling the rest of them onto large spikes.  On the other hand it was incredibly fun.  So should you harbour psychopathic tendencies then you could do a lot worse.  Just don't play it in front of your grandmother.

I have absolutely no reservations about recommending Wii Sports Resort, where I spent a good half an hour hitting Miis with a sword.  A SWORD.  It is fun.  Go and play it at once.  (Archery also fun.  I appear to suck at throwing a frisbee for a dog.  But then I already knew that from real life.)

On the treatment of prostitution in the media