‘Food Is a Death Sentence to These Kids’

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/magazine/food-is-a-death-sentence-to-these-kids.html?

To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This

http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/to-fall-in-love-with-anyone-do-this/

About that "War on Cops"...

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=34200

The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think

http://www.alternet.org/drugs/likely-cause-addiction-has-been-discovered-and-it-not-what-you-think

The Teddy Bear Theory

http://www.geocities.ws/smerp4u/Theories/teddybear.html

Meet Mason Wartman

http://imgur.com/gallery/6pAfQ

What Happens When a Civilian Kills a Cop in Self Defense?

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/what-happens-when-civilian-kills-cop-self-defense

5 Reasons We Will Always Blame the Victim

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-we-will-always-blame-victim/

The Real Reason Police Unions Enable the Worst Cop Abuses

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/real-reason-police-unions-enable-worst-cop-abuses

Noam Chomsky Slams West's Charlie Hebdo Outrage: 'Many Journalists Were Killed by Israel in Gaza Too'

http://www.alternet.org/media/noam-chomsky-slams-wests-charlie-hebdo-outrage-many-journalists-were-killed-israel-gaza-too

Biotech Companies Are Peddling Dangerous Propaganda About the Risks of GM Potatoes

http://www.alternet.org/food/biotech-companies-are-peddling-dangerous-propaganda-about-risks-gm-potatoes

How Having a Baby Can Land a Woman in Jail

http://www.alternet.org/gender/why-giving-birth-child-landing-poor-moms-jail

How guilt can hold back good employees

http://www.futurity.org/guilt-coworkers-employees-825452/

Why Psychiatry Holds Enormous Power in Society Despite Losing Scientific Credibility

http://www.alternet.org/why-psychiatry-holds-enormous-power-society-despite-losing-scientific-credibility

Kale and hearty: The salad bowl of America turns toxic

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/12/25/kale-and-hearty-thesaladbowlofamericaturnstoxic.html

Ancient Egyptian technology may be our first line of defense from hospital infections

http://m.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/17/1352496/-Ancient-Egyptian-technology-may-be-our-first-line-of-defense-from-hospital-infections?

Uh, oh. Out of stuff.

Erm... I ran out of stuff to link...

Currently playing King's Bounty games (on steam), because I enjoy them despite their flaws. Don't really want to make a post on them though.

*sigh* Sorry.

Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (The Real Reason For The Forty-Hour Workweek)

http://www.trueactivist.com/your-lifestyle-has-already-been-designed-the-real-reason-for-the-forty-hour-workweek

6 Things That Annoy You Every Day (Explained by Science)

http://www.cracked.com/article_19004_6-things-that-annoy-you-every-day-explained-by-science.html

Comcast sued for turning home Wi-Fi routers into public hotspots

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Comcast-sued-for-turning-home-Wi-Fi-routers-into-5943750.php

Propaganda Has Triumphed over Journalism, and the Consequences Are Enormous

http://www.alternet.org/propaganda-has-triumphed-over-journalism-and-consequences-are-enormous?

Chris Rock on Racism in America: White People Aren't as Crazy as They Used to Be

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/chris-rock-racism-white-people-were-crazy-now-theyre-not-crazy

I Don't Play Video Games Anymore. I Wait For Them.

http://kotaku.com/i-dont-play-video-games-anymore-i-wait-for-them-1665496091

This is why my PS3 doesn't have internet access. It can't make me wait for updates to download if it doesn't know there are any.

Walking While Black

http://mic.com/articles/105398/michigan-cop-stops-black-man-for-walking-with-hands-in-his-pockets-in-freezing-weather

Why I don't feel loved.

It's really quite simple: My flaws are a deep part of who I am, and everyone wants to fix me.

I didn't really understand it when I was younger, but I do now: Everything people have all praised me for, exists because of everything people condemn me for. My flaws aren't just a part of the whole package. They are largely responsible for why I am who I am. I wouldn't be me without them.

My high perception? My ability to notice and remember details most don't? That's because I'm very sensitive to stimuli, and it's why I hate taking showers or baths and have crappy hygiene.

My high intelligence and knowledge? That's largely because I can't focus on anything I'm not interested in. I can't make myself do work, and when I try, my mind just wanders. So what I do manage to accomplish, is I end up thinking about, and contemplating everything that ever happens to me. Everything I see or read, or hear gets thought about over and over and over. I end up thinking about everything far more deeply than anyone I know. The whole reason I am smart, is just because I never stop thinking. It is also why I can't work. I can't set myself a goal and expect to accomplish it.

People will say they love me, and in the same breath wish that my flaws would be fixed. Which just sounds like all they really love is their idea of me. Some perfect construct that doesn't exist, and never will. What they want is my potential. Not my reality. They don't want me, just what they think I could be.

My name is Regina

http://www.womenforwomen.org/what-we-do/stories/my-name-regina

A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design

http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/

Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html

Bill Moyers Puts the Spotlight on the Bare Knuckle Fight to Buy and Control Our Democracy

http://www.alternet.org/bill-moyers-puts-spotlight-bare-knuckle-fight-buy-and-control-our-democracy?

America: The Grim Truth

https://americathegrimtruth.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/america-the-grim-truth/

Why Do Sexual Assault Survivors Feel Shame? A Cartoon Sums It Up.

http://www.upworthy.com/why-do-sexual-assault-survivors-feel-shame-a-cartoon-sums-it-up-by-the-4th-panel-im-taken-aback?c=ufb1

Sonic and the Worst Fandom Ever

http://gamebabble.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/sonic-and-the-worst-fandom-ever/

The strange case of Rudolph Fentz

http://coolinterestingstuff.com/the-strange-case-of-rudolph-fentz

Scientists believe they’ve identified the genes responsible for high levels of rage and violence

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/11195840/Are-some-humans-born-evil.html

The man who made a game to change the world

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-10-30-the-utopia-that-never-died

Choice Architecture: How To Commit To Behavior Change When You Lack Willpower

http://thoughtcatalog.com/sam-davies/2014/10/choice-architecture-how-to-commit-to-behaviour-change-when-you-lack-willpower/

The software awards scam

http://successfulsoftware.net/2007/08/16/the-software-awards-scam/

Most People Are Depressed For a Very Good Reason

http://www.violentacres.com/archives/169/most-people-are-depressed-for-a-very-good-reason/

One man's life changing moment

http://www.upworthy.com/it-only-takes-7-images-to-see-things-that-might-have-been-invisible-to-you

Assange: Google Is Not What It Seems

http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447?piano_t=1

The Role Of Men In The Fight Against Sexism

http://thefbomb.org/2012/07/the-role-of-men-in-the-fight-against-sexism/

Ornish Diet Ranked First For Heart Health By U.S. News

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/06/ornish-diet-heart-health-us-news_n_1188205.html

Obama Is a Republican

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/obama-is-a-republican/

"Invisible Electrostatic Wall" at 3M adhesive tape plant

http://amasci.com/weird/unusual/e-wall.html

Good People Don’t Get Good Jobs

http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/leowgerard/good-people-dont-get-good-jobs?page=0%2C1&paging=off&current_page=1

Help, We're in a Living Hell and Don't Know How to Get Out

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/congress-living-hell-1114

Why encouraging intimacy between men might save lives

http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/elliot-rodger-intimacy-masculinty-crisis/

Bisexuals Passing As Gay

http://harriefarrow.blogspot.ie/2014/10/bisexuals-passing-as-gay.html?m=1

3 Examples Of How "It's Policy" Has Become An Excuse For Absolutely Unspeakable Acts

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=35933

Not Simply Double Standards

I've read complaints that when men are abused by women, it's not treated as seriously as when women are abused by men. They complain about double standards. That doesn't really explain what's going on.

When a woman is in trouble, the socially accepted solution is for a man to help/save her. When a man is in trouble the socially accepted solution, is for him to solve the problem himself. This is why people will react so very differently depending on who does the oppressing, and whom is being oppressed.

People will laugh when a man is abused, not because they think it's okay to abuse the guy, but because they think it's absurd for him to not fight back. They will try to goad him into standing up for himself, condemn him for his weakness, and demand that he solve his own problems.

People don't laugh when a woman is abused, because what happens is exactly what they expect to happen. They expect women to just take the abuse and not fight back. They expect men to abuse. It's not funny, because everything is exactly how they believe things are supposed to be.

It's not that men and women are held to different standards, it's that there's one standard being applied to everything: Men are in charge. It's not Feminism refusing to help the men. It's the Patriarchy refusing to.

http://www.robot-hugs.com/strip/

War

http://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/2hrntm/last_week_tonight_with_john_oliver_drones_hbo/ckvmq7m

Deconstructing Masculinity

http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2006/02/deconstructing_masculinity

Out of Sight, Out of Mind.

http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/

What's Going on With Social Security?

http://economixcomix.com/home/social-security/

How Playing Good Christian Housewife Almost Killed Me

www.alternet.org/belief/how-playing-good-christian-housewife-almost-killed-me?

Exploring the Implications of Moral Anti-Realism

http://adversusapologetica.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/exploring-the-implications-of-moral-anti-realism/

Buddha seems to bring tranquility to Oakland neighborhood

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/johnson/article/Buddha-seems-to-bring-tranquillity-to-Oakland-5757592.php

ELI5: Why do all animals, even insects, seem to go nuts over the red dot?

http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gemn1/eli5_why_do_all_animals_even_insects_seem_to_go/ckielrb

How A Foot-Powered Washing Machine Could Change Millions Of Lives

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670355/how-a-foot-powered-washing-machine-could-change-millions-of-lives

Almost All the Books People Say Influenced Them Were Written for Children

http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2014/09/people-like-to-sleep-with-people-who-were-affected-by-great-books

Years of Rape and ‘Utter Contempt’ in Britain

www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/world/europe/reckoning-starts-in-britain-on-abuse-of-girls.html?_r=1

An amusing little story.

http://theuserpool.squarespace.com/journal/2007/11/7/suicidal.html

Saves Go In the Save Place

http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=21611

ELI5: Why do humans cry during emotional distress?

http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2f0gch/eli5_why_do_humans_cry_during_emotional_distress/ck4ropd

'The useless organ': Maggie Lee tells of the devestating effect her hysterectomy had on her sexuality and more

http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2008/11/the_useless_org

France is ditching the ‘Islamic State’ name — and replacing it with a label the group hates

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/09/17/france-is-ditching-the-islamic-state-name-and-replacing-it-with-a-label-the-group-hates/?tid=sm_fb

The Most Amazing Lie in History

http://mentalfloss.com/article/58468/most-amazing-lie-history

Radical Opacity

http://www.juliandibbell.com/articles/radical-opacity/

Dungeons and Dragons: Players vs Dungeon Masters

http://community.wizards.com/comment/51039976#comment-51039976

An insightful post about the nature of running a D&D game, and how player and game master desires can conflict.

Ship Happens - AMV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tc7MH5ZXbg

Was browsing AMVs, this one made me laugh.
If you don't know what Shipping is in this context, check out TV tropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Shipping

No-Win Situation: The Troubled History of Firefall, Part 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20160422234139/http://www.gamefront.com/no-win-situation-the-troubled-history-of-firefall-and-red-5-studios-part-1/

Essential Truths of Corporate Business

http://www.friesian.com/corpor.htm

Why the US Government Is Hated All Over the World

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=22083

What Emotional Intelligence Reveals About Your Personality

http://www.laraequy.com/blog/personal-leadership/emotional-intelligence-reveals-personality/

I am not Anonymous - but they have a point.

http://www.graphictruth.com/2011/06/i-am-not-anonomous-but-they-have-point.html

They are mine, they are mine, they are mine

http://zeroatthebone.wordpress.com/2009/08/07/they-are-mine-they-are-mine-they-are-mine/

Not Everyone Has the Tools to Become Rich: How Our Childhood Shapes Our Ability to Succeed

http://www.alternet.org/economy/not-everyone-has-tools-become-rich-how-our-childhood-shapes-our-ability-succeed?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

Suicide vs. Love

https://medium.com/meaning-meaningfulness/suicide-vs-love-a01df4bed3b

One Little Piggy Had Birth Defects: Is Monsanto's Roundup to Blame?

http://www.alternet.org/environment/one-little-piggy-had-birth-defects-monsantos-roundup-blame?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

What Happens to Police Officers Who Shoot Unarmed Black Men

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/heres-what-happens-police-officers-who-shoot-unarmed-black-men

Why Guys Like Asian Girls

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zWFQ1uiD8LA

Employers Can Legally Lie to Workers, Court Rules

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/career/employment/employers-can-legally-lie-workers-court-rules?page=1

Placebos Are Getting More Effective. Drugmakers Are Desperate to Know Why.

http://archive.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all

Ferguson Feeds Off the Poor: Three Warrants a Year Per Household

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/22/ferguson-s-shameful-legal-shakedown-three-warrants-a-year-per-household.html

People are basically stupid

http://everything2.com/title/People+are+basically+stupid

When Authorities “Don’t Give a Shit”

http://thecurvature.com/2008/05/20/when-authorities-dont-give-a-shit/

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Ferguson, MO and Police Militarization (HBO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUdHIatS36A

Neverwinter (the MMO)

I tried playing Neverwinter. It made me laugh, and also confused me. What I found so funny, was how the game tried so hard to look and feel like an action game, yet underneath the surface it was clearly using standard MMO mechanics. What I found confusing, was that the animations seemed much worse than I'd expected. Champions Online has better animations. Both games were made by the same company: Cryptic. Aside from the animation issues (mainly the run/walk animations and the tails... and the fact that archers don't shoot like that...) Neverwinter was very pretty.

Sadly, I'm not a big fan of standard MMO gameplay, so I didn't play Neverwinter very long. It felt very much like a standard MMO, with some heavy instancing, and tons of polish. It also, really, did not feel like DnD. It felt like a standard MMO paying lip service to DnD ideas.

P.S. Not being able to move and attack at the same time was frustrating. Not being able to fire my cone attack unless an enemy was under the targeting cursor was even more annoying. I have to stop attacking if I want to dodge anything... I liked TSW better.

Even atheists have sacred cows

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/08/13/even-atheists-have-sacred-cows/

Defiance (the game, not the behavior)

Started playing some of the game Defiance. I'm not really sure what to think. Many of the game mechanics and design I'd wanted to see done in an MMO are there, yet the overall quality of the game is somewhat lacking. It's like there's a lot of good ideas executed poorly.

The core element that really sets Defiance apart, and makes it special, is the way everything is built with open missions, which anyone can show up and help with. If someone else is already doing a mission I've been sent to do, I can join them, and we'll both get credit when it's done. I've never had to wait for a boss to respawn because someone else beat me to it.

The core problem with the open mission structure, is how easily it leads to certain missions being swarmed by players in such numbers that the missions become trivial. Other missions are simply ignored, and I end up having to avoid them because I can't handle them solo. Thankfully, most of the plot missions I did were both soloable, and often one or two other players would help out.

Personally, I'd like to see MMOs take advantage of the ability to give each player different mission requests to try and spread players out more. Would probably require a kind of AI director (*cough-L4D-cough*).

P.S. while I have enjoyed the shotguns that shoot grenades, I don't really understand why they are in the game, when there are also grenade launchers. Wouldn't it make more sense to just have a larger variety of grenade launchers instead?

P.P.S. I'm running out of articles to link. I guess I'll have to write more stuff myself. Unfortunately, all I really have to write about, is video games. My life isn't very exciting, and I don't do anything of importance.

Chris Hedges: Why Israel Lies

http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/chris-hedges-why-israel-lies/

Harassment, male privilege, and jokes that women just don’t get

http://www.feministlawprofessors.com/2011/11/harassment-male-privilege-jokes-women-dont/?t=1320806691

When Catcalling Isn’t Just an Annoyance

http://www.racialicious.com/2008/05/25/when-catcalling-isnt-just-an-annoyance

How Reality Caught up with Paranoid Delusions

http://aeon.co/magazine/altered-states/how-reality-caught-up-with-paranoid-delusions/

Murphy's Law and its progeny

http://zira.home.xs4all.nl/murphy.html

About Alcohol Depression

http://aboutalcoholdepression.com/depression-from-alcohol/

Most Republicans Think Jesus Would Denounce Universal Healthcare

http://www.alternet.org/belief/most-republicans-think-jesus-would-denounce-universal-healthcare

"Evolution-like," wisdom of crowds systems

http://karmatics.com/docs/evolution-and-wisdom-of-crowds.html

How one judge single-handedly killed trust in the US technology industry

http://www.zdnet.com/how-one-judge-single-handedly-killed-trust-in-the-us-technology-industry-7000032257/