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Slate's got a good article on... Solitaire, and why it's so damned popular.

A woman goes for a drive with some teenagers in Saudi Arabia. Why? Because she was curious about why they number girls. I just can't imagine growing up in some places.

Chad makes a rare blogging appearance, relating some live poker fun. I found it tremendously amusing, and it just furthers my desire to go to Vegas the 2nd weekend of June. Yah, I'll probably be there, just let me check some flights.

Oh... and otters are cute.

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Ever have one of those days where you avoid work?

Iggy's got an UBER up. He talks about poker and shit! Also, he has the usual tonne of great/cute/strange pictures at the end.

Pauly also felt the need to write about poker, because Iggy did. What the hell is going on?

Someone gave some elephants cameras to take pictures of tigers.

Then the elephants took more pictures too. Seriously.

I hadn't heard of MP3tunes before. I have now that EMI is suing them because EMI has got its head so far up its ass that it can see out its mouth again. Something very Möbius about that... or maybe more Klein-bottle. Regardless, MP3Tunes is right here. There is no file-sharing going on, it's simply an online storage medium, which is supposedly the wave of the future. I despise the scared media companies that are terrified of losing money due to their ancient and obsolete business models more all the time.

Oh, and Calgary lost, but Philly won. Round 2 starts tomorrow.

Relieving...

Skipping the Skill Game tonight was a great idea on my part. I get to dominate some SnGs, got stuff done, watch hockey, and relax without the inevitable frustration and awfuckits that would come with Limit Stud H/L.

Good call me.

Methinks I'll even go to bed soon, since one of the cats gets to go to the vet tomorrow morning before I go to work. He'll be pleased.

But first... videos.

In 1999, a man was trapped in an elevator in NYC for 41 hours. I was trapped in an elevator once for 20min with 3 friends. Two of whom totally freaked out, while me and another laughed and then tried to calm them down. I think I'd be a bit pissed after 41 hours... how to get stuck for almost 2 days?

Apparently, there's a swath of Pacific Ocean the size of Texas located north of Hawaii that is full of garbage. Tidal currents accumulate it there. There was no video of this area... until now. That's part 1 of 12. Warning, it's pretty gross.

Oh, and I'm listed on my flights and staying at the "Big O". Now the only issue is that I'm flying standby, so there's a SMALL chance I won't make it out. If I don't make it back, I'll be less worried. :)

Random Stuff

All courtesy of Boing Boing.

Ok, so the technology is actually fairly basic persistence-of-vision stuff with LEDs and some software, but the video is PURE GOLD.



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I put up a link to a Rolling Stone article about the death of good music last week. Here is Clive Thompson's response. Personally I love his attack on Audiophiles.

Really, who the hell needs to drop 325k on speakers? Especially ugly ones. I spent less than that on my condo. I guess the same people that drop $7000 on cables.

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Hello Darwin candidates.

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Here, do some thinking: The Physical World as a Virtual Reality. It starts with preschool explanations of Relativity and Quantum Physics and goes from there. Think The Matrix on a larger scale. Not really a new idea, just altered for a more modern (yet still dated) context. I expect that potheads the world over have already thought of this. It makes for an interesting read from a basic, accessible physics level... not necessarily from an English one.