Link Dump

Lots of stuff going on lately, here’s a sampling of interesting links plumbed from the depths of the internets:

  • The Disgusting But Logical Implications of Star Trek Food Replication Technology – This is important nerdery right here:

    But take things to even more logical conclusions. First, there is inevitably going to be some annoying hipster dicks who insist that they can tell the difference between replicator food and real food (and I seem to remember this actually happening on screen).

    In addition, because it’s functioning off of recipes down to the molecular level, does that mean that every dish comes out looking identical to every other time it was ordered? Imagine if every single time you ate a hamburger, every ripple in the lettuce and angle of every sesame seed was exactly the same every single time.

    That’s pretty tame, but the article goes to some… distressing yet surprisingly logical places.

  • 11 Tips To Intentionally Ruin A Mock Draft – Basically, draft Tim Tebow in the first round. So yeah, Eagles are perhaps not in for the best of years.
  • The Benjamin Franklin Effect: The Surprising Psychology of How to Handle Haters – He took an interesting approach:

    Franklin set out to turn his hater into a fan, but he wanted to do it without “paying any servile respect to him.” Franklin’s reputation as a book collector and library founder gave him a standing as a man of discerning literary tastes, so Franklin sent a letter to the hater asking if he could borrow a specific selection from his library, one that was a “very scarce and curious book.” The rival, flattered, sent it right away. Franklin sent it back a week later with a thank-you note. Mission accomplished. The next time the legislature met, the man approached Franklin and spoke to him in person for the first time. Franklin said the man “ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death.”

    The challenge is that both parties must have a certain amount of dignity in order for this to work. That being said, I’ve found that this sort of thing works better than, say, getting someone fired or mobbing their social media accounts with threats.

  • How “oldschool” graphics worked – Another example of limitations leading to creative solutions.
  • How (and Why) SpaceX Will Colonize Mars – Why is it that reading these Wait But Why articles fills me with more sense of wonder than most recent science fiction? This is an epic article, too long to even attempt pulling a quote from, but worth reading nonetheless. And the Tesla post is also worth reading. Basically, you should be reading Wait But Why. Between these two posts, I feel like the future might not be Mad Max-like.
  • Researchers have created a self-healing material that works in less than one second – Neat, and probably a good idea to develop further if we actually do go to Mars.
  • “Gremlins 2” Brainstorm – Uncensored – Everything about this is brilliant, from Key’s dead-on Dante costume to Peele’s glasses.

And that’s all for now! Get ready, though, the Six Weeks of Halloween are coming on strong. I’ve been planning out my themed weeks, and it’s going to be a fun one. Obscure horror auteurs, sinister puppets, and more. Stay tuned.

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