Standing O for an excellent talk on something I’ve been trying to express for years. Reid does it in minutes.

From The Consumerist:

File-sharing in the United Kingdom just got a little bit more difficult, as the nation’s High Court has ordered the country’s largest internet providers to completely block access to BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay.

What makes this truly idiotic is that now that the entire Pirate Bay can be stored on a flash drive, there’s an infinite number of mirrors that can appear elsewhere. It’s effectively unblockable.

Step 1: a friend of mine on Facebook, whom I’ve known since she was 14 or so and is now in college, posts to say that she’s holding a marathon watching all eight Harry Potter movies.

Step 2: I see this in my RSS feed.

Step 3: I feel like I’ve done something wrong.

It’s been my theory for a long time that once Provigil becomes available as a cheap generic, it’s going to be as widespread as aspirin, and eventually over-the-counter.

Excellent presentation on the use of SMS to crowdsource humanitarian aid in Haiti and elsewhere.

I’m looking forward to attending The Amazing Meeting 2012 later this year. If you missed my coverage of last year’s conference, here’s a recap, and a video of one of the sessions.

The Amazing Meeting 2011: What is the JREF?
The Amazing Meeting 2011: Skeptic Podcasts
The Amazing Meeting 2011: Richard Dawkins vs. Chuck Norris

Normal service was resumed six hours after TSA agents shot the puppy with a sniper rifle. Initial analysis shows evidence of soil on the puppy’s coat, potentially indicating the presence of foreign biohazards in contravention of US import restrictions.

NYT by way of Consumerist:

The tactics, like embedding debt collectors as employees in emergency rooms and demanding that patients pay before receiving treatment, were outlined in hundreds of company documents released by the attorney general. To patients, the debt collectors may look indistinguishable from hospital employees, may demand they pay outstanding bills and may discourage them from seeking emergency care at all, even using scripts like those in collection boiler rooms, according to the documents and employees interviewed by The New York Times.

In some cases, the company’s workers had access to health information while persuading patients to pay overdue bills, possibly in violation of federal privacy laws, the documents indicate.

Thank you, Boing Boing, for reminding me of one of the greatest things Mike Wallace ever gave to the world: this classic SNL skit starring Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, Billy Crystal, and Martin Short.

Capital One, you are my new favorite bank for the next five hours.

Stupid birds.

Many thanks to Eszter Hargittai for pointing me to my new favorite thing ever.

DC networking meeting, where I am handed two tickets for free alcohol, and this.

This mashup gave me a chuckle. Found it on Facebook, can’t remember attribution.

After posting this, I swear to God, I will never click on this link again. Via The Verge:

The HTML5 game is a massively multiplayer version of the influential Atari hit, letting you control a tiny triangular spaceship alongside other players in identical crafts. But in spite of the name, the game differs from the original in that there aren’t actually any asteroids — instead, you’ll spend your time trying to destroy other players.

Does Google think Romney is clinically depressed, or that this is the effect the broadcast will have on America? Captured from the Chicago Tribune.

Nifty idea if you have trouble getting the hell out of bed.

Morning Routine takes a fresh new approach to forcing yourself awake. When the alarm goes off, you have to scan a barcode—like, the one on your carton of orange juice in the fridge—in order to turn it off.

Personally, I think we’d all be better off if we used the word “gynophobic” more often.

The Snatchel Project is encouraging craftswomen to send their congressmen knit and crocheted bags, pouches and decorations in the shape of their favorite ladyparts. Nothing scares a gynophobic congressman like when they open a box and discover what they think is a constituent's lovely knit hat or scarf, only to pick it up and realize they've touched their hands upon the filthy, evil uterus they've been fighting so hard to destroy.

Okay, I’m interested.