• Being ‘it’: these guys have played a game of tag for 23 years now and it’s awesome
• Last Saturday, over 2800 spaceships clashed in a battle costing thousands of dollars
• Self-immolators in Tibet near 100 as pressure grows from China
• Smithsonian on the story behind Banksy
• Amazingly, this Russian family was cut off from civilisation for 40 years
• Strange Geographies: the beautiful and alien Iceland
• On Barnes & Noble and the end of the mega-bookstore
• Computer programming languages aren’t copyrightable, says a High Court judge
• Surgeon Simulator 2013 is the new medical QWOP
• Letter of Note: The Alien father is HR Giger
• A great list of 36 supervillain musical numbers
  (I have a huge hankering to re-watch Gremlins 2 right now)

Also, it’s pretty mean, but this edit of Lance Armstrong’s confession interview with Oprah recut to the lyrics of Radiohead’s Creep is very well done.

• The ‘end of history’ illusion and why we can’t imagine getting old
• “The finite is nested within the infinite” (or my favourite parable: somewhere in infinity, an alternate universe exists where you are the Batman)
• Of last year’s bestselling sci-fi list, only one was published that year
• Does a techno utopia require physical books?
• Reshaping the brain: scientists reprogram neurons after birth
• The mysterious disappearance of the Russian Crown Jewels
• The courtroom sketches of Bill Robles
• Inside the prison journal of West Memphis Three’s Damien Echols
• Papers reveal extent of the British royals’ veto over bills
• The Guardian’s stats on the size of their commenting community
• The science of why comment trolls suck
• An interesting design proposal: I want the world to scroll this way
• Good god, someone’s patent application disturbingly mirrors the artificial second stomach sketch from Tim and Eric
• Parkinson’s treatment can trigger creativity
• Password security in Deus Ex
• What Games Are: the fun boson does not exist
• To look into: a best comedy books of 2012 list

Lastly, a super-cut of famous people playing themselves

• Ars Technica’s craziest Craigslist posts of 2012
• Buzzfeed’s 27 science fictions that became science facts in 2012
• io9′s Most futuristic predictions that came true in 2012
• NYP asks designers for their favorite book cover designs of 2012
• Computer Weekly editor on digital publishing, growing revenue and life after print
• SMBC on Economics and the study of scarce resources
• The strange case of Grant Morrison and Alan Moore, as old by Grant Morrison
• A martian dream: What the Red Planet would look like with Earth-like oceans and life
• Profile on Jerry Seinfeld: intends to die standing up
• I now want to play Singularity Chess
• Scientific paper on The Effects of Peanut Butter on the Rotation of the Earth
• What does randomness look like?
• This guy’s assessment of the multiple visual qualities of The Hobbit‘s format is pretty damn good
• And this one at least illuminates some of the science how human perceive high frame rates
• Right on: Love Actually is rubbish
• Website: Essay Typer
• Website: Wi-fi joiner QR Code Generator

• ‘They’re like Cream, but worse’: Harsh early reviews of classic albums
• New York Time’s 100 notable books of 2012
• The great American unproduced screenplay
• Was Tycho Brahe poisoned? According to new evidence, probably not
• Breakfast, lunch and dinner: Have we always eaten them?
• Tips on how to avoid problem people
• How a man found out he has testicular cancer from taking a pregnancy test
• Thinking clearly about personality disorders
• Self-healing electronic skin that’s sensitive to the touch
• The Large Hadron Collider may have produced new matter
• And here’s an awesome interview with Bill Murray

Vogue 120 shoot

• Games of Hoez: Police Seize Pimping Rules During Raid
• Holy crap… A real life Walter White wanted for manufacturing meth
• From Politico: Mission Impossible: Managing Joe Biden
• The ultimate Mitt Romney flip-flop compilation
• Woo! Millennials Buy More Books Than Everybody Else
• Some really fascinating societal trends
• Cool: The Marshmallow Test pays off, 40 years later
• How WikiLeaks Blew It: The sad downfall of Julian Assange and his empire of secrets
• The limit on how tall a building can be

Lastly, this video explaining how computers privately communicate with each other is really good.

by Chip Zdarsky

Boy watching solar eclipse… taken from 1.5 miles away

• If you “Like” something on Facebook, you just gave it permission to post in your Timeline
• Having Access to the Internet is Good for Your Love Life (But Only if you are Under 30)
• White LEDs Lighting Directly On Paper
• Q: Why Do We Wear Pants? A: Horses
• UK government slammed for ignoring key security issues
• Lucas Foglia: the photographer in search of off-the-grid Americans
• The trouble with wind turbines
• No Matter the Drilling Method, Natural Gas Is a Much-Needed Tool to Battle Global Warming
• Mysterious radiation hit the earth just over 1200 years ago
• What divorced readers did with their wedding rings
• How Neuroscience Is Challenging Our Conception of Justice
• The Ghost in the Machine: Unraveling the Mystery of Consciousness
• Scientists Predict Synthetic Life Within a Year
• Crime Waves Will Follow the Heat Waves of Climate Change
• Letters of Note: A government complaint about a ‘debris’ dam and the landowner’s response on behalf of its builders
• Want: I’ve Never Meta-Pizza I Didn’t Like
• Build a bonkers hi-fi system
• Super-Resolution From a Single Image
• A rare interview: with Christopher Tolkien
• If the Wizard of Oz were set in China, it might look something like this

• YES: Rumored film about Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison rivalry starring Christian Bale and Nicolas Cage!
• Bill Murray Announces Party Crashing Tour Starting In August
• Book ‘pirate’ goes underground after being named by Terry Goodkind
• Reddit Cracked a Mysterious Cipher That Might Be a Viral Marketing Scam
• Scientists Figure Out how Dinosaurs Did it
• World’s heaviest woman sheds 98 lbs with seven-times-a-day sex
• South Caroline Funeral Home Adds a Starbucks (of course)
• Facebook Monitors Your Chats for Criminal Activity
• Proving you’re gay to the Turkish army
• Surveyed: Many Wall Street executives says wrongdoing is necessary
• Editorial: The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama
• Supercut: See James Bond Do Vehicles
• North: How a Small Arctic Town Became a Global Epicenter of Climate Science
• Ranked: Disney Princesses From Least To Most Feminist
• 20 Best ‘Arrested Development’ Inside Jokes and Recurring Gags
• Photos: 18 Years Of Friendship

And for your daily freak out, this video demonstrates what one, ONE DROP of Russell’s Viper snake venom can do to blood.

(Kinda graphic, only because of the ‘holy shit! That was from just one drop!’ factor).

Mitch Hurwitz in the writers room of the new Arrested Development via Ron Howard’s twitter

• Researchers Name Language After Colbert
• Carl Sagan’s Reading List
• Hubble Unmasks Dark Matter Rich Galaxies
• A crystal computer that could outlive the universe
• Flowchart: Do you understand the Higgs Boson?
• When Old, Slow and Boring Beats New, Fast and Exciting
• Why We Love Violence in Fiction
• 11 Wonderful Libraries in Africa
• 6 Disorders Caused by the Internet, TV, Magazines and Movies
• Tumblr goodness: Facemath

• Vast Video Game Collection Sells for $1.2M
• A Hot Drink on a Hot Day Can Cool You Down
• Why Were CD Boxes So Big in the Early 1990s?
• Is the Web Driving Us Mad?
• Walker Arts Center Validates the First-Ever Internet Cat Video Film Festival
• Discovery of an arsenic-friendly microbe refuted
• Scientists just discovered what makes migration possible
• Tire reefs fail to revive marine life in Florida
• Share it Maybe with Cookie Monster “Call Me Maybe” Parody (yes, I know, I too feel awful)
• The 20 Awesomest Photos of Women & Bacon
• 17 Famous Literary Characters Almost Named Something Else
• 12 Fascinating True Stories About Guest Stars On ‘The Simpsons’

And lastly, a short commercial by Jon Lajoie. If you were completely honest with yourself, you’d realize that you are a terrible person.

• What Do The Authors Of Serialized Works Owe To Their Fans?
• Thank you for killing my novel
• Girl Accidentally Emails Prospective Employer Pic Of Nic Cage instead of CV
• Batman could fly, but he’d die horribly on landing, science students conclude
• The Mountain Goats announce new album: Transcendental Youth
• The Black Punk, the Black Geek, and Other Black People You Don’t Meet on TV
• Every Single Media Outlet Is Misreporting Obama’s Tax Proposal
• Supreme Court flip-flops: Health care wasn’t the first. It won’t be the last.
• Google Decides To Step Into The Gay Rights Arena
• The 20 Most Beautiful Museums in the World
• Video: 16-bit Game of Thrones, Season 2
• Video: this self taught 6 year old drummer is really good and depresses me
• Infographic: The best and worst places in the world to be a woman
• Comic: Learn Korean in 15 minutes

And then there’s this awesome report on some late-night BBQ chips bandits.

LEGO life-size forest in the Australian outback

• Don’t wipe out the masterpiece! A teacher who makes 25-minute whiteboard artworks in his lunch break
• The Master Race’s Graphic Design Manual
• Here’s What An Animated Font Looks Like
• The Not-So-Perfect Kilogram and Why the Metric System Might Be Screwed
• Dark Matter Filament Found, Says Scientists
• Women Infected with Toxoplasma Gondii Parasite Have Increased Risk of Attempting Suicide
• GQ writer interviews six people on different levels of income
• San Diego Accidentally Set Off All Its Fourth Of July Fireworks at Once
• Pearl Jam Allows Longtime Fan To Create Setlist For Amsterdam Show
• Forget rap disses, here’s The 30 Harshest Author-on-Author Insults in History

Lastly, this: Super Moonwalking.

Rare blue ‘night-shining clouds’ pictured at dusk over Edinburgh

• Seinfeld’s Producer: Listen to Your Gut, Then Fight For What it’s Telling You
• When His Project Was Canceled, an Unemployed Programmer Kept Sneaking Into Apple to Finish the Job
• Higgs week starts with Fermilab updates, strong evidence expected
• Scientists Invent Particles That Will Let You Live Without Breathing
• How Do Glowsticks Glow?
• How To Decide Baking Temperature When a Recipe Doesn’t Mention It
• Why you were just ‘unfriended’ on Facebook
• Anderson Cooper: “The Fact Is, I’m Gay and the internet’s reaction
• With Google Now, Android Puts Apple’s Siri To Shame
• The Oatmeal fights back, snaps photo of cash, sends money to charity
• If Harry Potter was written like a Madeline book
• Bin Laden realized the truth: Terrorism doesn’t work
• Video/Article: On board a real-life ‘ghost train’