This is pretty broken now. Hooray Drupal!

What is this I don't even ...

Note: Hover over questions to reveal them.

$100:

The answer: This ‘true silver’ gets its name from the Sindiarin words for “gray” and “glitter.”

The question: What is Mithril?

$200:

The answer: The discovery of this substance was memorialized in stained glass window in the meeting room of the Unseen University College Council.

The question: What is Slood?

$300:

The answer: You might be tempted to think that the Vibranium used to make Captain America’s shield originated in this fictional country in Africa, but it didn’t. Cap’s Vibranium was made from Anti-Metal found Antarctica.

The Question: What is Wakanda?

$400:

The answer: This metal, from which the robot, “Fender” is allegedly made, is yellow and is said to taste like chicken.

The question: What is afraidium

$500:

The answer: Although this metal does exist, the fiction is that it was sold as part of a 1970’s initiative that aimed to flush out would-be nuclear smugglers.

The question: What is redmercuriciodide or Red Mercury.

I read three books over the winter holidays.
They were gifts of the Baen Publishing Company, given to me through the good graces of the Internet and referred to by a extraordinarily popular web comic .
If you are the kind of person who likes to read things printed on dead trees, or if you simply cannot fathom getting a thing of such immense quality for free, you should run out and buy yourself a copy of any of the Vorkosigian Saga books. They are as good as any you are likely to read. Really.
However, the folks at Baen, because they are smarter than almost all the other publishing houses combined, are cool with you not doing that. They understand that the money to be made in publishing is about more than pushing copies of Dead Trees into homes. They understand that publishing a thing is not the money making part in publishing. You were unlikely to purchase a copy of the dead tree edition of a book you've never heard of before, so the lost of a sale to you is really a non-event. Author Eric Flint put it best, though:

“Whatever the moral difference, which certainly exists, the practical effect of online piracy is no different from that of any existing method by which readers may obtain books for free or at reduced cost: public libraries, friends borrowing and loaning each other books, used book stores, promotional copies, etc.”

The bottom line is that this here post is just one of the many ways that I can give back to Baen. I have enjoyed the Vorkosigian books immensely. (The three I’ve read, and I have several more to go) and I wouldn’t have bought _any_ of them if they’d not been freely offered.
If only our public libraries were so enlightened.

It's not the first time I've been called a priest. And not the first time I've been called Liberal. But the first time I've been called them together? Maybe.

Pleased as punch when Creative Commons just works-- except it never does. Lookie here! This picture of mine was re purposed and reposted as part of a conservative catholic leadership blog. Or something. I have no idea. The Google translation seems to imply that my tie is somehow a liberal catholic? I'm confused.

Anyway, Nice of Kreuz.net to properly attribute the work. I hate to be a ball-buster on this, I know how you conservative clergy like to have special rules just for you, but I share my work under a Creative Commons, Attribution, Share Alike licence. Which means that you're welcome to use my photo for whatever you want so long as you offer your product under the same terms as I did. And the standard copyright notice at the bottom of the page implies that you don't.

So, yeah. No tacky tie photo for you.

This is, far and away, the funniest thing I will ever write on Facebook. It seemed a shame to leave it behind that walled garden. And so I'm posting it here.

Far and away. Far and away.

I don't Tumble anymore, but I have friends who do. And their feeds are the only thing you really need to read on the whole wide Internet. I used this post at work today to emphasize that, in spite of all of our frustrations, I feel like our work in addressing the stigma issues that affect mental health is really making a difference.
"Let's treat every disease like depression" may well be the magnum opus of the millennials. They don't get much, but one thing they do really understand is that emotional states are real things.
My only wish is that the author of "Treat every disease" had offered her work under a creative commons license so I could properly share it with you here.

Piggybacking on a previous post about War Driving: This is great. Listen to the caller try to get Leo to justify her belief that she's rightly using her neighbor's wifi access point for over the past year.

I don't agree with everything Leo says in response to her, but I am really amazed at the caller's sense of self-righteousness.

G: Oh my god Delicious Orange Juice!
G: Mmmm!
*later*
G: My mouth hurts. I drank too much orange juice.
*later still*
G: Oh! I think I'm going to throw up from all that Orange Juice. And Garlic Bread.
*even later still*
J: What?
J: When?

For Ashe...

The Soft Blue Light of the Season’s Second Yule Moon

Hearty souls, some wrapped in broad cloth and bundled in scarves, caps and mittens, bathed together in the blue light of Yule's second moon.

Lit by her silver glow, the powdered slopes leaned in to catch a glimmer of the light that shown within the circle.

They called, they sang, they laughed, they cried.
Though the winter’s chill crept into their bones, their hearts found warmth in fellowship.

Even in single digit temperatures, they found time to linger.

Dec. 29, 2009 \ Read it on Scribd \ Photo attribution