Link roundup

1. Comment and win a Kindle.

2. How to "Move From Blogger to WordPress Without Losing Google Rank."

3. "Houston Press apologizes for 'hottest sex offenders' list."

Link roundup

1. I didn't expect to read this:

Thor on the Nintendo DS is not what you'd expect. Despite having to tie into a movie property and needing to work with certain likeness and story parameters, the developers at WayForward (Contra 4) have created a great licensed game. Thor plays incredibly well, and is a remarkably well-executed 2D brawler.

$30 at Amazon.

Kotaku likes the Wii and DS versions too. Just like my experience with the Force Unleashed 2, the Wii version was pretty good fun, while the PS3/Xbox versions got terrible reviews.

2. Gawker:

We all know reality television shows, including and especially American Idol, are basically serial hoaxes. But couldn't they try a little harder to maintain the illusion? Idol producers went to elaborate lengths last night to falsely present Jennifer Lopez's on-air performance as "live," but they left behind a few editing artifacts proving that it was taped.

3. And also at Gawker:

Kate Middleton's Brother Pretends to Be a Lawyer to Get His Dirty Pictures Off the Internet.

Link roundup

1. FYI, you have to pay $150 to $495 to be nominated for a Webby award.

2. If you missed it, Minnesota House Majority Leader Matt Dean said he "hated" Neil Gaiman and called him a "pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota." Neil Gaiman responds here. His response includes a link to Dean's contact page and encourages you to share your thoughts with Mr. Dean.

3. Here's an explanation for why eating asparagus makes your urine smell. Via.

Worst Osama-related headline

From NBC's football blog:

Bin Laden’s death could raise stakes in the [NFL] lockout

The thesis:

the finality that has come from the completion of the protracted mission to capture or kill bin Laden makes it even more important that the NFL properly commemorate the 10th anniversary of one of the darkest days in American history.

First comment:

One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
Nice try though.

Link roundup

1. TomTom sold user data to the police, who then used it to expertly place speed traps. Via.

2. RPS takes a long look at The Old Republic:

And this level of story exceeds anything I’ve seen in an MMO. There’s currently nothing else that comes close, with perhaps only The Secret World as a rival for such a narrative-focused approach. Simply the fact that my character pretended to be someone else – Blade, she went by – for such a protracted period, was novel to the point of gripping me. And within that, as I lied and tricked the various residents of this Hutta enclave, I was able to betray at my leisure. I could come out of that situation – a good day’s worth of play – having decided whose side I was really on.

The other thing to note here is that I was playing alone. And there was little impetus to team up with anyone. The story, in fact, encouraged me to be soloing this. This happens to be exactly how I want to play MMOs, so I was delighted. But those who are all about guilds and the like will have to get through some significant sections before they’ll get their way. That’s not to say that you can’t team up, because you absolutely can. Certain areas will be blocked off to someone who’s not the same class as you, and some quests are specific to you, but it’s more the lack of narrative sense that put me off wanting a buddy.

In fact, at the point where you really do need someone else to help you battle through, the game gives you an NPC companion.

3. Lifehacker's guide to setting up an online store.

*Buy Darth Revan toys at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Sad, sad article about the crooked tricks colleges use to comply with Title IX:

At the University of South Florida, more than half of the 71 women on the cross-country roster failed to run a race in 2009. Asked about it, a few laughed and said they did not know they were on the team.

At Marshall University, the women’s tennis coach recently invited three freshmen onto the team even though he knew they were not good enough to practice against his scholarship athletes, let alone compete. They could come to practice whenever they liked, he told them, and would not have to travel with the team.

At Cornell, only when the 34 fencers on the women’s team take off their protective masks at practice does it become clear that 15 of them are men. Texas A&M and Duke are among the elite women’s basketball teams that also take advantage of a federal loophole that allows them to report male practice players as female participants.

2. From an interview about Portal 2:

At one point two years ago some Cave Johnson dialogue got leaked – so I can now tell you, two years ago Cave was the bad guy in Portal 2 and GLaDOS wasn’t in the game. It was a prequel. We liked the character enough that we snuck him into this.

3. Great article about the balancing act bloggers must perform. (I typically crank out posts before bedtime or before I leave for work in the morning, and schedule posts to appear throughout the day. I also try to post items I hope you haven't seen elsewhere.)

Link roundup

1. "The Cal State Long Beach cheer team was stripped of its national title after it was discovered that one of the competing members was not a student."

2. Funny post about comic strip writers who post idealized version of themselves, with possibly the most cringe-inducing Peanuts strip I've ever seen. (I actually made a similar, albeit more subtle observation about James Kochalka a while back.) Via.

3. OK, file this one away for when the reviews come out. Kotaku says, "Raise Your Expectations For The Captain America Video."

Link roundup

1. Jason Chalker's looking for commissions, starting at $30.

2. Supposedly John C. Reilly is the front runner for to play Haymitch in The Hunger Games. Too bad, I thought Russel Crowe would have been perfect. (Like an informal sequel to Gladiator.)

3. The University of Maryland's medical school is teaching homeopathy?

Link roundup

1. LA Times:

Gang tattoo leads to a murder conviction
Inked on the chest of a Pico Rivera gang member was the detailed scene of a liquor store slaying that had stumped an L.A. County sheriff's investigator for more than four years. It leads to a jailhouse confession from Anthony Garcia — and a first-degree murder conviction.

Via.

2. Animated gif featuring Jesse Venture and Old Painless from Predator.

3. A claim that Jim Shooter's blog is filled with lies.

*Buy Tattoo of Death (Choose Your Own Adventure #22) at Amazon.

Link roundup

1. The WSJ:

When Rabbi Naftali Marrus does his spring cleaning, he doesn't use a mop. He rolls with the Inferno.

The Inferno is a three-and-a-half-foot-long propane torch Rabbi Marrus uses during the critical days before Passover to scour commercial kitchens catering to observant Jews and obliterate the smallest particles of bread and other leavened foods, which are forbidden during the holiday that commemorates the Jews' flight from Egypt.

Maybe next April's art contest should be designing a logo for the rabbi and his Inferno? Via.

2. Digital subscriptions are for suckers:

Apparently, if you're a Kindle owner with a magazine subscription, and you decide to stop subscribing, the back issues you previously downloaded are also lost—for good.

3. Songwriter/music producer/former American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi has a new book to promote, in which she says that she was "date-raped by a well-known music producer" and "sexually harassed by a 'hugely successful artist.'" The article doesn't mention whether she took any steps to protect other women from the men.

Link roundup

1. The NY Daily News says, a woman won a settlement of $850 a month for life in alimony and "the couple's home by convincing a court three years ago that a 1997 car accident left her too injured to work." But her husband spotted photos she had posted about her daily belly dancing and turned them into the court. "Confronted with the damning evidence, [the woman] told the court she was prescribed belly dancing as treatment for her injuries - a statement her doctor contradicted on the stand."

2. The Awl imagines what the menu would be at Passover at Guy Fieri's House (for example, "Gefilte fish parmigiana jammers"). Via.

3. The Mortal Kombat 9 fatalities and Stage Fatalities stepped past amusingly violent and are more like short snuff films. But the babalities are very cute.

Art Contest: Fix the Nintendo 3DS's red screen of death

Apparently this is the Nintendo 3DS's red screen of death. Kind of hard to believe that in 2011, Nintendo would design such a cold message instead of its own version of the Fail Whale.

Your challenge is to create a delightful error page for the Nintendo 3DS. As inspiration, check out the creatures The Oatmeal created for Tumblr:



Submit as many entries as you'd like. All entries must be submitted by midnight Los Angeles time Sunday May 8, 2011. Best entry will win a $100 Threadless credit.

And of course, you can buy the 3DS at Amazon.