Sunday Diversions

Diversions from what? Oh, you know, this whole thing (more here). Not to mention this (more here and here). And this. And, y'know, everything else.

Okay, on with the diversions:

• Just the title of this web site made my wife laugh so hard she nearly died from lack of oxygen. Use with caution. Not doctor recommended for children under 12.

• Today's Boing-Boing-Did-You-Click-Through?™ Link: chatbots Alice and Jabberwacky talk with each other. It's even better than BoingBoing's post made it seem:

ALICE: Are you alive?
Jabberwacky: Perhaps.
A: Why the uncertain tone?
J: Everything is uncertain except for five facts.
A: The whole universe?
J: And we both might just be some ones and zeros in the computer memory.

More fun at the click-through.

• Sinister Ducks. Sung by Alan Moore. No kidding. (via)

• I usually don't find very McSweeny's funny, but these two posts on the top 20 Democratic Candidates and the top 20 Republican Candidates are hilarious. (via)

• Extra, bonus Boing-Boing-Did-You-Click-Through?™ Link, now with alternate link for the slashdotted content: "A Fair(y) Use Tale": information copyright film made up entirely of fair use from Disney films. Guaranteed to piss off The Mouse, or your money back.

• Finally, an internet classic, just in case you've never seen it: Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Became An Evil Overlord. (Teresa Nielsen Hayden made a random generator out of this, and the many other similar lists.)

Update: More serious than most of the above, but less so than the links in the first paragraph: I don't think you need to read this grumpy "artistic heroes sell out" post to appreciate the wonderful counter-statements by Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon and by Scott Lemieux at LGM. (Particularly since Amanda quotes the relevant bits in her post.) I never thought I'd side with the pro-sell-out crowd... although I've long been less bothered by it than I used to be... but so far as I'm concerned, Amanda & Scott have dusted that vamp idea. (It's part of the whole collapse of the Wagnerian artist-as-visionary-hero notion due to multiple causes, including a more accurate sense of the inevitably collaborative nature of all art... but that's another post.)

Update 2: I don't know if this will be funny to non-comics geeks, but comics geeks should definitely look at these superheroine tampon ads. (via)