Voters at Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2007 poll have chosen "w00t" as 2007's most iconic word. M-W says that the word is a gamer's acronym for "we own the other team," but I'm inclined to think that that's a backronym, a back-formed acronym created to explain a word already in use.

I am simultaneously amazed and annoyed at the misattribution of this word.

Not to mention that they at least 5 years, possibly 10 years behind.

Tards. F M-W. Oxford FTW, bitches.

w00t is Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2007 - Boing Boing

The 6.370 BattleCode programming competition is a unique challenge that combines battle strategy, software engineering and artificial intelligence. In short, the objective is to write the best player program for the computer game BattleCode.

Simulated robot destruction. Now w/ lasers!

--timball

[ Team memestreams? ]

BattleCode

Wallington has discovered what he believes is the incredibly simple secret of how the ancients managed to build Stonehenge. He demonstrates in this video. Got a couple pebbles?

Now only if we could combine his methods with a giant trebuchet in some crazy way it might be possible to launch huge stones hundreds of feet and create sweet henges. possibly even with objects like cars.

[ That's freaking cool... good job, Wally! -k]

Stonehenge: The Incredibly Simple Secret of How It Was Built | snarfd

I've written on this topic myself a number of times, both here and at home, so this is right up my alley, so to speak.

I'm sympathetic to "fetishizing ink and paper", and absolutely believe there's a meaningful experiential difference between reading a well made book and reading something on a screen made of plastic. I think it's largely aesthetic, not fully integral to the meaning or validity of the work, but that's not at all to say it's not important. Aesthetic considerations allow function to transcend and create pleasure. A teapot is merely a metal container for boiling water, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the experience of having tea far more when using a well designed one. So for books.

I suppose my main concern with some of the views expressed here is the notion that the advent of electronic readers must necessarily see the demise of the paper novel. Technology doesn't typically cause the outright eradication of older forms. What it does is relegate them to niches... it places them into the category of collectors items, of art pieces. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that's necessarily a fabulous solution. Nonetheless I have hope that where a market for paper-bound books exists, then so the books will exist as well. Perhaps in the future all such will be custom made, works of skill by independent bookbinders (where the content license has already been purchased as a separate item). Of course, this removes them from the hands of the general public, for the most part; this represents a loss, no doubt, perhaps a grievous one. Still, I've read dozens of books that I felt no particular attachment to, physically. These (which aren't literature, as one of the quoted authors suggests) are better suited for eBooks. Of course, there are a couple hundred volumes that I feel very strongly about, arrayed on my shelves in a way that, I admit, brings me a great deal of comfort and perhaps even happiness thereby. But do I really need them *all*? Not really.

The proposition made by this author, that distaste for the Kindle and it's ilk is a proxy for a feeling of loss of a "solid reading culture" may be accurate, but if so I think it's also misguided. Firstly, I reject the argument that reading Shakespeare on a well designed (read, not yet created, and definitely not a blackberry) eBook reader necessarily robs it of it's "truth" or "integrity" even if it does rob it of some of it's pleasure. Meanwhile I do think that such a device (characteristics of which are discussed at more length in my link above) could offer a lot of people -- people without access to scholars, for example -- far better access to literature and a greater understanding of what they're reading than they could otherwise expect. In that sense, this technology trend may well lead to a revitalized culture of literacy.

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Reading between the lines with Kindle

Loud commentary and cell phone fumbling may be distracting, but new research suggests that the presence of other people may enhance our movie-watching experiences. Over the course of the film, movie-watchers influence one another and gradually synchronize their emotional responses. This mutual mimicry also affects each participant's evaluation of the overall experience -- the more in sync we are with the people around us, the more we like the movie.

Very true. It's risky to try and share a movie with someone... if they hate it, you might not like it either. All of which paints a fairly distressing picture of our ability to critically evaluate what we actually like.

Pass The Popcorn! Study Finds That Film Enjoyment Is Contagious

We actually reached the future about 3 years ago.

And yet, no flying cars, NO FLYING CARS!

Startling - xkcd - By Randall Munroe

A bipartisan group of Congressmen (and one woman) yesterday introduced a major bill aimed at boosting US intellectual property laws and the penalties that go along with them. While much of the legislation targets industrial counterfeiting and knockoff drugs, it also allows the government to seize people's computers.

The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP... groan)...

groan indeed. What a load of shite.

Congress' copyright reform: seize computers, boost penalties, spend money

Any trust which this administration might have at some point had that they would only engage in warfare when there was absolutely no alternative was completely flushed down the toilet years ago. Furthermore, the very idea that military action should only be taken as a last resort is antithetical to the very philosophy of foreign relations to which this author adheres!

[ Gosh, neo-conservative warhawks lying? Quelle surprise! Fucking jackals. -k]

Dark Suspicions about the NIE - Norman Podhoretz

According to Garret, several attempts were made to contact the MPAA before a takedown notice was sent directly to the ISP. "MPAA don't f*** with my s***," wrote Garret in a blog entry. "I did attempt to contact them by e-mail and phone before resorting to the more obnoxious behavior of contacting the ISP."

As Ars notes, it won't change much... MPAA will just start complying, but it's still also, as they say, "delicious irony."

MPAA’s University Toolkit hit with DMCA takedown notice after GPL violation

he verdict is clear: Rarely has a president so vilified for a moral stance been so thoroughly vindicated.

Why? Precisely because he took a moral stance. Precisely because Bush was made "a little bit uncomfortable" by the implications of embryonic experimentation. Precisely because he therefore decided that some moral line had to be drawn.

Let me get this logic straight. Because Bush had a bad opinion and held up critical research long enough, this discovery is vindication of that bad opinion?

Oh Krauthammer, you never cease to amuse. And by amuse, I mean annoy or enrage.

Opinion | Bush got it right on stem cells | Seattle Times Newspaper