By brian @ Shoebox blog via Duncan @ The Last Minute

It’s been kind of a geeky day for me so I thought it appropriate that I close it out with this one… You really can design serious games for positive social change. And there’s a non-profit that’s all about helping folks do that. It’s Games for Change. Cory Doctorow quotes Eleanor on G4C: Games for Change, the non-profit devoted to promoting, well, games for change, will hold their...

Author and educator Clay Shirky (his latest masterpiece is Here Comes Everybody) spoke at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco last week on the “cognitive surplus” and how we’ll put it to use. Fascinating: I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos...

Helen Hayes once said, “All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar.” On this May Day I find myself appreciating such thoughts. One can handle only so much politics without a bit of a break. The poisonous nature of political bloodsport really takes a toll on you if you spend too...

WARNING! SCIENCE CONTENT! There’s actually a pun buried in the title of this column, but you might not find it amusing unless you have a pHd in advanced particle physics. The science community is abuzz over rumors that a research team in Italy may have discovered the long sought and highly controversial “dark matter” which some claim makes up a huge amount of the mass of the universe. Researchers...

In the Indian subcontinent the virtues/benefits of “selfless-giving” is not only woven into the religious/social/spiritual discourse in all religions from time immemorial, but commonly practised even by those whose financial position may be just above the subsistence level. Now a “scientific study” (from the very bastion of self-acquisitive culture) tells us that “money can buy...

I always thought that passengers were kicked out of the aircraft after becoming a nuisance… too much tippling, or harassing a woman. Please click here for ten interesting reasons why people were not allowed to remain on board…

Did you see it last night? If you missed it, feel free to take a look at my Flickr set. Here’s one example – it was a beautiful, eerie sky.

Nobody knows how old the narrow road paralleling the banks of the Delaware River in northwestern New Jersey known as Old Mine Road might be. It was an Indian path before white settlers arrived in the late 17th century. The 40-mile-long New Jersey portion of the road is little changed since Dutch miners used it to transport iron ore from the Catskills in upstate New York to Delaware Water Gap across the river...

I like Ike. A version of what became Dwight Eisenhower’s 1952 campaign slogan existed in the late-1940s. In an Irving Berlin Broadway musical of that period, after Eisenhower had become a national hero for his work as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II, an ensemble sang a satirical overview of prospective 1948 presidential candidates, finding each deficient but one. “We...

[This piece was cross-posted at my personal blog.] This past week, the community to which my family and I recently moved, buried one of its most beloved citizens. Leland Conner was killed after a thirteen year old boy stole a vehicle from a rental agency and proceeded to cause a five-car crash that involved Mr. Conner’s car. Conner’s death is one of those freakish tragedies that sometimes happen...

I wrote here about a blood and bone marrow transplant screening drive held in the facilities of the congregation I now serve as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. Members of Saint Matthew spearheaded the event. Its members and neighbors here in Logan, touched by the illness of a young woman from Saint Matthew, responded with an impressive love of neighbor. One thing I neglected to mention...

Several years ago, Slate magazine linked to a post from my blog and described me as “liberal Mark Daniels.” At about the same time, a blogger linked to something I’d written and called me “very conservative.” It’s an experience that I’ve had many times through the years. If that isn’t confusing enough, add this simple fact: I rarely express a political opinion....

George Bell, 7-foot-8 Norfolk sheriff’s deputy, has been recognized Thursday by Guinness World Records as the Tallest Man in the United States. “That makes him 2 inches taller than the NBA’s current tallest player, Yao Ming, but too short to be the world’s tallest living man. “He stands below, according to Guinness, Ukraine’s 8-foot-5.5 Leonid Stadnyk and China’s Bao...

We get so engrossed in the Bushs and Musharrafs of the ‘present’ times that the thrilling ‘past’ concerning thr rulers of a bygone era, as presented to us by the archaeologists, practically goes unnoticed. But the media this time has gone to town to celebrate the first-ever public display of the Egyptian King Tutankhamun in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings more than 3,000 years after...

I actually got some blogging done while in Rehoboth, but the internet was so spotty I couldn’t reliably get the posts online. So here’s a wrap-up of the posts I did: Tony Perkins lauds a soldier for “tak[ing] on Guantanamo”. How does one “take on” an isolated, extra-legal island prison we already own? Fred Thompson supporters seem to think “he’s tall” is...

In which I quote Frank Zappa, piss on American beers and explain why they’re intentionally watered down, discuss the disconnect between the American love of Mexican beer but not Mexicans, and other staff having nothing to do with George Bush, Iraq, bridge collapses or Yearly Kos. Please click here for less.

In a post yesterday, I challenged bloggers to look into whether there is even the slightest chance that the maintenance of the collapsed I-35 bridge in Minneapolis could have been postponed because of a $400 billion-plus infrastructure improvement project known as the Iraq war or the penchant these days for state and local governments to operate on the cheap. After the usual outbreak of Republican kerfuffling...

I realized within seconds of the first aerial shots on CNN from Minneapolis last night that the DF&C and I had been on the southbound span of the I-35 bridge a couple of weeks after the 9/11 attacks on our way back home from Minnesota’s lovely North Country. It took a few minutes for me to ascertain that while the collapse of the northbound span was awful, there appeared to be very little loss of...

I wish I had the moxie to title one of my articles “An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization.” The Pirate Code: More like a set of democratic institutions with checks and balances predating their American and British emergence by a good 70 years than a system of actual rules….

The less philosophically inclined may want to skip this one.

MORE HERE.

The Internet and a small device costing less than $50 have brought the whole wide world of quality radio into our living room. Any radio station worth its salt now webcasts, often in a high-definition format and sometimes through multiple streams. By hard-wiring my computer to my stereo system through a HiFi Link (a more expensive wireless version also is available) I can listen to such superb stations as WBGO...

India’s Sonia Gandhi India’s ruling Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and steel icon Lakshmi Mittal, along with Osama bin Laden and Pope Benedict XVI, are among a packed and varied field chosen by Time Magazine for this year’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, says DNA. “The fourth annual list, which is due to hit newsstands on Friday, omits US President George...

I republish this tribute each year on the anniversary of my friend’s death. I have a lifetime of wonderful memories of Rochelle, from the first time we met at a party when we were high school seniors to her radiant presence at my sister’s birthday celebration last November. We had many adventures over those 40 years, but I’ve recalled one in particular since her passing. Let’s call...