Interesting Links for 23-11-2013

• 10 of the Craziest Doctor Who Stories That Almost Happened
  (tags: drwho )
• Digital lollipop simulates taste through electric currents
  (tags: virtualreality taste technology cybernetics )
• Store video catches cops behaving badly.
  (tags: police video transparentsociety usa )
• The Inside Story of How the NFL's Plan for Its 1st Openly Gay Player Fell Apart
  (tags: sport usa lgbt )
• Who drives the car – him or her?
  (tags: driving cars gender society uk )
• Official statistics show rise in affordable housing starts
  (tags: housing uk )
• The loneliest human in history was just happy to have a few minutes of peace and quiet.
  (tags: loneliness space xkcd )
• The tweet that sparked a debate over racism in Norway
  (tags: norway twitter racism )

There's an option I wish Kickstarter had

Once I've backed something I want a button I can press which reads "Never send me any more emails until the game is actually completely ready, finished, and I can play the final version. I do not want to help you test it. I do not wish to spend time in your forums giving you feedback. I wish to play the finished, polished, tested version, when it is done. That is all."

I can live with one update per month, telling me that a project is still on track. But I really don't need to know every detail of how the game is put together, complete with videos of developers and artists arguing with each other over what shade of teal to make the bad guy's epaulets.

I paid for a game, and that's all I want.

Some thoughts on The Day Of The Doctor (spoilers,obviously)

Much better than I had feared.

I think I stopped being excited by new Dr Who episodes a couple of years ago. 2010 was the last season that really grabbed me, with 2011 being too much set-up with a rubbish pay-off, and 2012/13 just being a mess.

I still wanted to see the 50th anniversary episode in the cinema though, for pretty-much the same reason I do Valentine's day every year - I don't want to be the person _not_ doing it, and feeling left out*.

So it was with no little trepidation that I booked tickets for both myself and Julie, although by the time we'd queued behind a lot of excited people at the cinema, I was rather bouncing up and down...

And, overall, it was _much_ better than I feared. By no means the most amazing piece of TV ever in the history of mankind, but thoroughly entertaining, and much better than a lot of the stuff that Moffat's written.
( Spoilers after this point. )