AWoL 3.28.09

As the acronym becomes increasingly appropriate, the meaning behind it is less so. Thus henceforth, AWOL shall stand for "Assorted Worthwhile Linkage."

This will be a big one because (a) I haven't done it for quite a while and (b) I recently sorted and reorganized all of my myriad bookmarks into a nice minimalist FireFox toolbar, finding in the process many old ones that had been lost in the archaic menu/folder setup.

H'okay, Here we go!

• Ever seen the TV show Firefly? No? Ever heard of it? Didn't think so. It's one of FOX's infamous scheduled-to-death series that is little known outside of the nerd community. The show features a combination of sci-fi and classic western content ("space western") along with plenty of action and comedy. The entire series, a single season of 14 episodes, is available on hulu.
• Free Rice is an online trivia game with a purpose: for every question answered correctly, the organization donates 10 grains of rice through the UN Food Program*. That may not sound like much, but with thousands of people playing every day they have been able to donate over 60 billion grains of rice, feeding millions in places like Cambodia, Uganda, and Myanmar.
• A buddy of mine runs his own forum and news site for historical and fantasy game mods at Mod Realms. I'm the unofficial CivFanatics liason, posting news stories for Civilization mods. The site also covers mods for the Total War series, Oblivion, Half-Life 2, Mount & Blade, and other popular titles.
  
• For those who enjoy running- or jogging- or walking- WalkJogRun is a simple web app that lets you create and share running routes using Google Maps.
• A very well-spoken 12-year-old girl delivers a speech on abortion (no pun intended) for her 7th grade class. The response from the opposition was so disgusting that the video comments had to be deleted and disabled.
  
• Now that we have robots that make sandwiches on demand, do we even need women anymore? Bonus points if you know why it's named Sudo. Extra bonus points if you know why that's funny.
  
• Yes, this is a real product. The 21st century has finally arrived!
  
• The Xenophile Historian is a website by semi-professional historian Charles Kimball. He writes essays on world history from a Christian perspective, including papers on various parts of the world, the history of Christianity, his interpretation of world history, and more.
  
• Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron (of Growing Pains fame) have created a tag-team program to promote Biblical evangelism with a technique they call The Way of the Master, referring to the way Jesus addressed the lost.
  
• Gamedesign.jp is just another website that features creative Flash games. It's also one of the greatest productivity sinks in my life. Warning: losing Dice Wars repeatedly may drive you mad.
  
• Cyber Nations is a free browser-based MMO geo-political simulation that allows players to create and manage their own countries, trade with others, and declare war. It's no Civilization, but it's fun.
  
• The Mars Society is running a live simulation of a Mars habitat at a desert research station. Would-be astronaut crews stay for 2 weeks at a time, preparing for a real manned mission to the red planet.
  
• If you're interested in space travel but would prefer something more exciting, NASA is offering free zero-G flights on the Vomit Comet for anyone with a viable proposal for advances in space technology. Presumably the flight itself must be part of the research.
• Also on space: I'm not sure what to think of this one. NASA is developing an MMO on the Unreal 3 engine that allows players to explore a planetary habitation and perform associated astronaut duties. Level 70 gnome mages need not apply.
• The F-22 Raptor is a sexy and powerful machine. If USAF doesn't want more of them, then our friends down under will happily take more. Ok, I'll admit it. I bookmarked this article because of its awesome title.
• Unfortunately, even the Raptor is not a perfect aircraft. A Lockheed Martin test pilot was killed in the second F-22 crash to date.
  
• In a surprisingly bold move, bazillionaire Bill Gates released a small swarm of mosquitos at a tech conference full of VIPs, explaining "There is no reason only poor people should be infected." Judging by the lack of subsequent lawsuits, I'm assuming the bugs didn't actually carry malaria.
• Leave it to Woot! to post the most ridiculous stories on the Internet.
  
• More Woot!: the epoch count reached 1234567890 on February 13 at 23:31:24 UTC. For the non-nerds, that means 1,234,567,890 seconds since midnight on January 1, 1970, when the universe began.
  
• Medieval combat RPG Mount & Blade, which I've discussed in more than one post, was named Best Indie Game of 2008 by modding website ModDB. Now go play it already.
  
• WORLD Magazine, a conservative Christian news journal, reports on an interesting Slate column that compares the stem stell research dispute to the controversy surrounding torture as an intelligence tool.
• Ending on a light note as always: Behold, Google H4x0r.