NaNuPoMo

[Zeke]

November 22

At this point I hardly need to inform anyone about Cracked.com -- after all, it's been America's only humor site since 1958. (FiveMinute.net actually goes back to 1938, but we're from Canada.) It's a comedy extravaganza with neat history and science facts thrown in for good measure, and it's the most dangerous timesuck on the net, up to and including TV Tropes. What's more, there's often pretty good stuff in the comments, as today's link will demonstrate.

On Wednesday, Cracked posted 8 Cheap Ways to Fake Being a Pro Chef. This was the debut article of Tim Ferriss, a name you may have heard (or may not); he's a motivational efficiency-coach type, and this article was a glorified ad for his new book, The 4-Hour Chef. It's disappointing to see Cracked do this, but understandable -- this sort of thing must be worth more in sponsorship money then simple ad banners. Regardless, Ferriss has been eaten alive in the comments, and there's one in particular I want to call your attention to. Click the Votes link and scroll down to the comment by "bradyyy" (fourth highest-ranked as I write this). He didn't just take Ferriss down a peg, he wrote a better article and posted it for free. I love the internet.

[Zeke]

November 23

Today's link post got long! It got so long that it became an LJ post instead. Go read it.

[Zeke]

November 24

Today's link post didn't get long. It's just a link to one of my favourite programming jokes (or rather, infinite families of programming jokes), "now they have two problems". This blog post will introduce you. For more, consult here and here. The latter is a user-submitted site, so some of them suck, but there are some good ones not found elsewhere. Put "1" in the URL and keep clicking Next to read them all.

(Me, I've got five problems, but a minute ain't one.)

[Zeke]

November 25

Quick one today: The Global Edition. Basically, if you like The Onion, here's more of it. Global Edition is remarkably similar in both its good and bad qualities. It does, however, lack two of The Onion's recent annoyances: video articles and the nag screen that pops up if you forget to click Stop in time.

[Zeke]

November 26

One more link day! Tomorrow there's stuff. Anyway, here's an interesting resource for writers that I stumbled on recently: Writing Injuries. As the name suggests, it's a list of various wounds, lacerations, traumas, contusions, freezings, burnings, shootings, and otherwise tormentings, and how they actually affect people. By consulting this site, you can avoid embarrassing mistakes like having a high-school cheerleader get impaled on a rebar and basically walk it off, while a grown man in another of your stories dies instantly from impalement. Or having a strong guy "save" someone who's falling from the upper atmosphere by leaping up and catching him. Or having the villain get a single bruise from having a car thrown at his head offscreen. Or -- look, I just think Joss Whedon could benefit from this site, okay?

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Originally Posted by Zeke

November 26

By consulting this site, you can avoid embarrassing mistakes like having a high-school cheerleader get impaled on a rebar and basically walk it off, while a grown man in another of your stories dies instantly from impalement. Or having a strong guy "save" someone who's falling from the upper atmosphere by leaping up and catching him. Or having the villain get a single bruise from having a car thrown at his head offscreen.

I recognise the first one, but which shows are the other two from?

Grr, argh.

[MaverickZer0]

Pretty sure the second one is The Avengers, if we're going on stuff Joss Whedon wrote. I don't recognize the third either, though.

=SPOILERS=

Albeit I don't think that site would account for the possibility of the person being caught being in superpowered armor. It probably makes some kind of difference, although it might just be 'different way of dying horribly.' But, I'd give him a pass on that anyway since superhero movie.

[Zeke]

Meant to answer this earlier, but I thought someone else might take a shot. There are actually four references, which I'll now spell out in needless detail.

• High-school cheerleader: Cordelia in Buffy S3, "Lovers Walk". There's a funny bit where the camera pans over a funeral at first, then moves to Buffy and Willow discussing how Cordy's going to be fine. Joss actually has a really good defense for this one -- Charisma Carpenter survived something similar herself. It left her with a scar that they took the opportunity to explain in-universe.
• Instant death from impalement: This is such a shocking moment I won't pin it down in case someone unspoiled is reading. Suffice to say the series is Firefly.
• Strong guy catching someone: Avengers, Hulk "saving" Iron Man. It's the classic fallacy that you can fall any distance just fine as long as you hit something other than the ground. Thor could've done it safely since he can control his flight, but Hulk was just hurtling upward; his vertical momentum would've actually increased the damage to Iron Man.
• Car thrown at head: Dr. Horrible. We don't see it happen, but there's a bruise on the Doc's face when he describes it. This one actually bothers me the least of the four, mostly because it's hilarious. (There's an even stupider fan theory that his goggles protected him.)

I didn't use Angel, but if I had, I'd probably have chosen "Apocalypse, Nowish", where Angel recovers within minutes from being stabbed in the neck and thrown off a building. (He needs to be in shape for witnessing something dramatic elsewhere.) Vampires have a healing factor, but it's not usually Claire-level.

[Zeke]

Merry Christmas! Remember that seasonal banner we used to have? I took two seconds and whipped up a new one. (You can actually count the seconds just looking at it.) Now back to family stuff.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Hah! Nice.

NX the red-bowed starship...

[evay]

Hey Z, it's past Epiphany. Time to take down the Christmas decorations.