Interesting Links for 05-01-2012

• Why "vi" works the way it does.
  (tags: unix software vi history )
• How To Be More Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps)
  (tags: interesting life advice )
• Loch Ness is a giant spirit level that shows Scotland bending with the tides
  (tags: tides scotland LochNess )
• You can't run people at 100% efficiency 100% of the time.
  (tags: efficiency management )
• Childhood in the UK - better than every before.
  (tags: children uk happiness )
• A Man. A Van. A Surprising Business Plan.
  (tags: china bureaucracy usa business )
• Google+ Is Going To Mess Up The Internet
  (tags: google plus internet search )
• Not everyone is happy to see cenobites
  (tags: hellraiser comics funny CliveBarker )
• This is pretty much how I feel about Tom Cruise
  (tags: TomCruise scientology funny comic )
• The People's Front of Scientology are not happy with the Scientologist People's Front.
  (tags: Scientology )
• If you asked Calvin's Dad about periods...
  (tags: menstruation comic funny )
• The Name of My Next Band
  (tags: music names JohnScalzi )
• Social Care Services to be merged into the NHS
  (tags: health care welfare nhs uk )
• How to graduate from MIT (or get through pretty-much any challenging situation)
  (tags: education inspiration )
• Prozac increases neuroplasticity - which is why it increases the effect of counselling
  (tags: prozac PTSD mentalhealth psychology )

Video Batch Post

So, you're miles away from home, but you still want to stroke your cat. Luckily you have a Kinect, a treadmill and a robot...

I want one of these, and I want to fly it around children's parties, while playing the Jaws music:

via anton_p_nym.

I can't work out if this is awesomess or stupidity, but _I_ wouldn't want to be a reporter in a crossfire.

Today in Terraria

(via susiemutha)

I believe that under the New Year Resolution Act (2012) I owe you a post that's not just linked content. This is that.

Today has been a tired day, although not as tired as yesterday, when my first proper day back at work (after skipping Tuesday due to Stupid Winds™) was carried out on about 6 hours sleep and entailed me mostly staring blearily at my computer. I tend to suffer from Sunday Night Syndrome, whereby (despite the complete lack of anything negative going on at work) I lie there in bed unable to sleep the night before I go back from any length of break. And I got to have that _twice_ this week, aren't I lucky?

So last night we put ourselves to bed at 9:30, having played our first ever game of Terraria just beforehand. And by just beforehand I mean "We thought we'd play it for half an hour to see if we liked it." starting at 7pm, and suddenly it was bedtime.

Tonight we did much the same thing, and I'm about to go crash. I'm not even sure if I'm enjoying Terraria that much, I just know that there's a massive cavern off to the right of our home that needs to be investigated, because I'm sure I saw a gold seam there and if I could get past the skeletons and mine it out then I can make myself some new armour.

The game is basically Minecraft, in 2D. But with a bit more plot. Not vastly more, because it takes its cues from Rogue and generates a random world each time. But there's definitely a progression of Stuff to find, make, etc. and Evil out there corrupting up the place. But it also has the "Make anything you like out of a set of blocks" gameplay going for it, and frankly that's horribly addictive. Oh, and it's multiplayer - I'm not even sure how many people can play, but it's certainly a lot of fun with two.

You can read more about it here.

The first minute of the trailer is very frenetic. Certainly more frenetic than anything we've done in the game so far. But after that it settles down a bit and shows off some of the crafting stuff. I'm not sure how much we have to work through, but it looks like _lots_.

Anyway, bed clearly beckoning. And I got so carried away about Terraria I didn't even mention that I've had a cold all day and my nose is blocked.

Have the United State of Pop 2011:

(which actually seems to be late 2010->late 2011, but still, very nicely put together)