Do the crossword in pen

Sit back, relax and enjoy a bit of fun and games!

There's a crossword puzzle from Woodblock100, Jharris shares memories of the extra lives of the Vic Viper video game icon, msalt delves into the literary tradition of palindromes and reversals, Languagehat learns a life lesson after getting conned in New York, Troll reveals the design of a new card-slash-board game , and Mike Mongo has a stencil that is designed to be cut out of the magazine and sprayed in your favorite (legal) haunts.

Buy it through the MagCloud link or get the PDF here free!

Ten Thousand Hours of Community Service

This MetaTalk question about the boundaries of self/friend-linking on Metafilter got me thinking about a podcast run by James Ilgenfritz. I've known him for over ten years, I think he's a good guy, but it's not like we've spoken in a long time. I don't know what neighborhood he lives in or anything.

But I found out about the podcast from James himself, through facebook. We're facebook friends. So I was going to post a comment in the thread saying basically that, and if it seemed cool I might post something about him once I get through listening to the podcast — I wouldn't want to recommend it unless I'd actually listened to all the content there. (That's part of why I don't link to that many things — I like to go through it all first. Stuff that might suck just goes on the blog.)

Anyway, to make this comment, I start to Google "James Ilgenfritz," and everything that comes up is about the bassist. But the front page of his site didn't have an obvious link to the podcast itself (the big one goes to the RSS), so I went back to Google and hit the spacebar once, and it autosuggested James Ilgenfritz Munhall.

Now, Ilgenfritz is a pretty rare name, right? So, I was curious. Turns out there's some cop in Munhall that shares poor James Ilgenfritz's name, and while the news stories that pop up don't mention him specifically, the comments allege that he was banging a 17-year-old girl, and there's a federal civil rights lawsuit out on him.

Avant garde bassist in double life shockah!

Why I like the Blue over the Green

On the Blue, we talk about socialist superheroes.

On the Green, the people look for $20,000 watches.

Let's lynch the landlord.

It's looking like the 13th is the next deadline

For MeFi Mag stuff, so if you're reading this and you've got more to contribute, get it in. Anything from 300 to 4000 words.

MeFi Mag #1 is finished!

MeFi Mag Issue 1:

#1

By Josh Steichmann in Entertainment

Featuring Scody's story about meeting Roger Ailes, Ambrosia Voyeur's critical look at the '70s Scifi flick Zardoz, a short poem by Unicorn on the Cob, story by Devil's Rancher, reprinting a long comment by EmpressCallipygos, Meatbomb's remembrance of airport in Central Asia from the '60s and Flapjax at Midnight's description of the March 2011 earthquake in Japan

It's just so!

In responding to Are Social Sciences Biased Against Conservatives,, MetaFilter commenter Kyradeamon gives this great quote:

Conservatives themselves offer the reasons why there are so few conservatives in the sciences. They will tell you (often, and at length) that they tend to be far more "family oriented" than liberals. Obviously, the numerical difference can therefore be explained by conservatives dropping out of their universities and careers to raise their children. It would be a mistake to see this as a problem -- conservatives are simply naturally more *interested* in children than they are in careers.

It's probably particularly evident in the sciences, because, meaning no disrepect to them, conservatives are simply not as good at math. The Laffer curve? Trickle-down economics? These are not theories that are developed by people with lots of math skills. This isn't to say that conservatives aren't perfectly good at other things, however; someone has to raise all those families, right?

Now, of course it's not known exactly why conservatives have neither the inclination nor the ability to do science. But some recent studies seem to indicate that there are differences in brain structure between conservatives and members of other political parties. Here's a quote from a 2007 study: "The brain neurons of liberals and conservatives fire differently when confronted with tough ... Conservatives tend to crave order and structure in their lives ... Liberals, by contrast, show a higher tolerance for ambiguity and complexity".

So, clearly, brain structures of those dear dear conservatives are simply not suited for scientific tasks, which are often ambiguous and complex.

The mistake here is presenting this as a problem that needs to be solved. We are blessed with a variety of different political groups that are ideally suited to different tasks --liberals serving as scientists, and conservatives cooking food for them and their children. Vive la difference, I say! It's just the natural order of things, and all trying to mess with it is going to do is make a lot of those poor, order-craving conservatives very upset if they try to perform a task they're simply not naturally suited for.

The worst things always win

I can't link to it directly, but Chococat's The Worst Things on MeFi music is some kinda wonderful.