• Whoa, now the KKK are also fighting against Westboro Baptist
• “We still look at ourselves as survivors”: over 80 years later, remembering the deadliest school massacre in American history
• The rather interesting origin story of ‘Miranda Rights’
• Warren Ellis on The Social Web: end of the first cycle (stoked it’s close to what I’ve been mediating on throughout the year)
• UCL research paper on Why the Internet only just works (.pdf)
• What the world will look like in 2030 — as predicted by the Government
• Will we ever… have cyborg brains?
• A few Tolkien-rific facts about the book version of The Hobbit
• Try this interactive/zoomable four BILLION pixel image of Mt Everest
• Earthmoving: Ways of moving the Earth’s orbital path

Lastly, the latest TEDEd on ‘What is colour’ gives a very concise and simple explanation on the how with some very nice animation too.

The Best Astronomy Images of 2012

• Should society be able to tell you how to augment your reality?
• The mind-uploading solution for interstellar missions
• Does Twitter kill TV comedy? Writers from “Daily Show,” “SNL,” “Fallon” and others sound off
• Game of Thrones gets a mind-blowing Minecraft makeover
• Mark Cuban, Minecraft creator donates big to help EFF “fix” software patents
• World’s biggest patent troll saves Kodak from bankruptcy
• Scapegoating at its finest: Proposed US Senate bill to further study violent game effects
• Reformed hitman who inspired ‘The Wire’s’ Omar dies at 58

Also, the chemistry of how snowflakes form their unique shapes.

This looks good. Fingers crossed it’s less heavy handed than The Cove which, while excellent, was pretty self-indulgent in the filmmakers portraying themselves as the ‘framing subject’. The same thing looks to be going on here, but much more justified considering it’s just ice. And holy crap, that is some amazing footage of a lot of ice.

• Cinematic Faith: an interview with Christopher Nolan on the Batman trilogy
• James Bond: 50 years of main title design
• Nielsen will supplement its TV ratings system with Twitter
• Facebook to debut auto-play video ads in 2013
• How to end an argument on the internet
• Best Practices for Raising Kids? Look to Hunter-Gatherers
• Santa Math: How long would it him to deliver presents to every kid on Earth?

• Guns and the limits of shame
• Anonymous continues its hack offensive against Westboro Baptist Church
• I am Facebook friends with Ryan Lanza
• The Un-Wikileaks: new website spots And spreads info already censored
• Canadian company claims to have perfect an invisibility cloak
• Chasing the Cicada: Exploring the darkest corridors of the Internet
• Here’s what happens when a piano is abandoned on the streets of Manhattan
• New photo craze? People being pretend attacked by statues
• A guide to disagreeing and coping with all these bloody end-of-year lists

• Even Rupert Murdoch wants tighter gun control
• Building a Better Truth Machine: Could algorithms help debunk online rumors before they spread?
• Secretaries of Safe: will Obama’s new cabinet be ‘too safe’?
• 9 signs the War on Drugs is almost over
• Monotremes (Platypus/Echidnas) are still fucking weird
• Bioethics, should we live to 1000?
• Hrm… Basketballer Yao Ming came from a special genetic breeding program to produce super-atheletes
• Why afternoon may be the best time to exercise
• Website: Google60 (punch card interface)
• Website: Moodstream (streams depending on set mood)
• Website: Mathrun (brain-juicing)

Five seasons of Breaking Bad masterfully compiled into the style of The Wire‘s five credit sequences.

More amazing splash photography by Markus Reugels via This is Colossal

• Hrmm… 2012 was the best year yet?
• How the internet is accelerating the evolution of language
• 12 Letters that didn’t make it into the alphabet
• Recreating the Mona Lisa using polygon rendering genetic algorithms
• Testing audiophile claims and myths
• An eBay for Professors to sell college courses directly to students
• Why are (almost all) economists unaware of Milton Friedman’s thermostat?
• Unexpected behind-the-scenes horror film photos 
• Authors’ responses to the film adaptations of their work (Ellroy’s praise for The Black Dahlia is somewhat inaccurate)
• The oldest living species of the modern house cat: Palla’s Cat

This view of Earth at night is a cloud-free view from space as acquired by the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership Satellite (Suomi NPP). A joint program by NASA and NOAA, Suomi NPP captured this nighttime image by the satellite’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The day-night band on VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe signals such as city lights, gas flares, and wildfires. This new image is a composite of data acquired over nine days in April and thirteen days in October 2012. It took 312 satellite orbits and 2.5 terabytes of data to get a clear shot of every parcel of land surface.

• The ‘Mad Men’ Economic Miracle: the new business model that’s brought on a wave of great TV
• From the Criterion Collection: Christopher Nolan, self-made filmmaker
• Facebook scans private messages for brand page mentions, admits a bug is boosting Likes
• GravityLight: lighting for developing countries
• Quantum networks may be more realistic than we thought
• Largest glacier break-up yet caught on video
• Video: These guys get two hookers to re-enact a scene from Braveheart
• Video: Kids songs with Cat Power