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.

• 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?

40,000 LEDs and a perfect tree

• 10 favourite tweets the Modern Seinfeld account (Comedy gold Jerry! Gold!)
• Six scientists tell us about the most accurate science fiction in their fields
• The hum that helps to fight crime
• Finally! A project to curb down ocean noise pollution.
• Shake It, Baby: GOG.com giving Duke 3D away for free
• Oh wow, only now is it the end of 386 processors
• Why are dead people ‘liking’ stuff On Facebook?
• Raymond Briggs: The Snowman is not really about Christmas, it’s about death 
• Paul McCartney to replace Kurt Cobain in Nirvana reunion
• Website: every animated wikipedia gif
• Video: A student who has fallen asleep in a physics lecture

Replacing guns in movie stills with Nintendo Zappers

• The Flores Hobbit’s face revealed according to a forensic facial approximation
• Op-ed: “Cyborg is a state of psychology” and the line between cure and enhancement
• Googling the Apocalypse: the Web as Epistemological Vortex
• Twitter Tombstones: Why I’m Kind of Obsessed With Tragic Final Tweets
• The end of pasta (and of the climate change debate. Seriously, who the fuck wants to lose pasta?)
• Louis CK answers a magazine questionnaire
• The unidentified man who fell out of the London sky
• A proposal for The Nine Muses of the Internet
• The Thermosaurus radiator (I so fucking want one)

• Some guy called Brad does acid, live-tweets it
• Ordos: The biggest ghost town in China
• Sweden is so efficient with its waste-to-energy program, that it’s importing trash from other European countries
• Awesome: Focus on the Family is giving up on reaching out to Millennials
• The TPP: A first-hand look at the secret international talks that could change the Internet
• A university built a supercomputer with Raspberry Pi(s) and Lego
• Mathematician claims proof of connection between prime numbers
• It Ain’t 1979 Anymore: Why this week’s attacks on American embassies aren’t the Iran hostage crisis all over again.
• Somehow missed: Vice interviewed my hero cinematographer Christopher Doyle
• Cool… 45 Years of the John Peel Show is available on Soundcloud.
• Comedian Josh Sankey will travel across the U.S. with only bacon as currency
• On the tubes: a recording of Tolkien reciting a poem in Elvish

Lastly… cats compilation video, because cats compilation video.

Tech/Science Stuff
• Harvard creates cyborg flesh that’s half man, half machine
• Heat-proof face paint to withstand bomb heat
• Researchers Believe They Have Found a Single Dose Cure for Malaria
• Researchers have also potentially deciphered the ‘manic gene’
• High quality Denisovan genome sheds light on human evolution
• Of course, the Antarctic may host large stores of methane
• Illuminating tales of modern mainframes
• A litigator’s love/hate relationship with Apple
• The History of the Floppy Disk
• From The Atlantic: How Can Bioscience Push the Limits of Lifespan?

Internet/Sociological Stuff
• Placing some context into the ‘odd’ Eastwood bit at the recent RNC: The Long History of Americans Debating Empty Chairs
• But then, #eastwooding twitter trend was pretty amusing
• The Samsung/Apple jury foreman’s explanation for verdict? Yeah, he doesn’t understand prior art
• Twitter Says It’s Going To Start Aiming Ads At Users Based On Content Of Tweets
• 4chan wants Taylor Swift to perform at a school for the deaf
• The Attention Economy is now the Location Economy
• A poll on polls shows they’re not very accurate
• From Ars Technica: How video copyright went insane

Culture/Media
• Another Willy Wonka letter of note: If ever an actor can do it – Gene can
• Inside Author Ray Bradbury’s FBI File: Was He a Communist Sympathizer? 
• Manga Artist Lets Anyone Use His Work, Royalty-Free
• This beer chase ad is pretty damn good
• Watch on this Youtube channel: every Troma film online
• This online tournament of movie sequels will be awesome!

Other Things
• Badass of the Week: Neil Armstrong
• An animation of the growth of Walmart in America
• What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?
• 12 Hotel Secrets by Hotel Staffs, From Minibar ‘Refills’ to Ritz-Carlton Largesse
• https://hackertyper.com/

And just because; here is some Maru…

• How “The Power” Literally Rocked the House
  

  On July 5, 2011, the 39-story “Techno-Mart” mall in Seoul, South Korea shook for ten minutes, causing a two-day evacuation and an investigation. The cause of the tremors? Seismic experts concluded that “The Power,” a dance hit by the band Snap!, simply rocked too hard.

• Mitt Romney to Announce VP Pick Via Smartphone App
• Sad: Pianos are increasingly more likely to end up at the dump
• NY Times profiles the life of a drone pilot, the guy that waits for a kill shot 7,000 miles away
• A black momma with a white baby’s open letter to Louis C.K.
• How Being Wired to the ‘Net Poses an Existential Threat
• An Editorial on: Being too ‘plugged-in’ and tools to help get your life back.
• Advice from 1821 on How Imagination Can Save Us From Information Overload
• Nielsen Sued For Billions For Allegedly Manipulating TV Ratings Data (also, fuck Nielsen)
• On: What Does a Killer Think? and the latest research on mass murderers
• Haha, oh you (America): Man Charged With Illegally Feeding Alligator (That Bit Off His Hand)
• 13 People Who Don’t Know What ‘Literally’ Means
• Twitter account: @JamesHolmesDies

• Military Strategy: What are the optimal siege tactics for taking Magic Kingdom’s Cinderella Castle?
• John McCain Comes to Huma Abedin’s Defense
• The real reason Marissa Mayer left Google: She had to
• Also: Marissa Mayer on the day she ‘broke’ the Internet
• Green streets can cut pollution, says study
• Study: Users more satisfied with Google+ over Facebook
• Texting overtakes talking in UK, says Ofcom study
• What Central Europe thinks of Britain and why
• Broken down: How an executable file works
• 90’s Nostalgia: A Windows 3.1 interface with a working command prompt too!
• The intensity of auditioning for the Boston Symphony Orchestra
• Twitter account: Bane Capital
• 10 Famous Roles Almost Played by Bill Murray
• 10 Bizarre Crimes in Walmart Parking Lots

Also, using a high speed camera, the good folks at MIT have recorded the properties of a drop of water at 10,000 frames/second, revealing a ‘behaviour’ that’s normally invisible to the human eye.

Photos of The Statue of Liberty’s construction in Paris

• Dumbstrucking on so many levels: Under congressional questioning the DEA’s Administrator doesn’t know if meth and heroin is more harmful than marijuana
• Convict testifies: Solitary confinement ‘is driving men insane’
• Supreme Court awesomely rules: ‘Fuck it, swearing on TV fine by us’ (essentially)
• Game designer Kim Swift on why Portal is a toy and toys are awesome
• Gaming distraction of the day: Gare
• The American Swedish Institute offers it’s Twitter to Stephen Colbert
• Erdos-Bacon-Sabbath Numbers: The People at the Center of the Universe
• Scientists Block Excess Aggression in Mice (haven’t they seen Serenity?!)
• How to blow $6 billion on a tech project
• Warsaw museum digitally recreated the destroyed city during WWII
• Photos: Recovering from disaster
• Video: Game of Thrones political attack ads are odd (but funny)

Also, making Easter Island moai heads “walk”.