• Splicer Costumes
  BioShock Halloween costumes. Via Joystiq.
• Megan McArdle - Vouching for vouchers (Education)

The Escapist : Fantasy Congress

You probably know your state’s Senators. You may even know your district’s Representative. But do you know their “reported bills average”? How about what schools each one attended, or how many bills they’ve co-sponsored in this, the first session of the 110th Congress? Unless your idea of a fun night involves a bottle of wine, a cozy fire and C-SPANs 1 through 3, you’re far more apt to know Hayden Panettiere’s birthday (8/21/89) or Tom Brady’s quarterback rating (137.9 seven weeks into the ‘07 season) than Hillary Clinton’s Congressional attendance record (84.1 percent). And really, why should you? In an era of sound bites and single-issue voting, there’s not much incentive to be an informed citizen anymore, and even if there were, you’d need a Poli-sci degree to grasp the day-to-day events. Unless you play Fantasy Congress.

A talked to a couple guys a while back about pursuing this idea. We ultimately decided not to do it, but I’ve continued to mull over the idea. Looks like someone beat us to it.

Evidence Based Scheduling - Joel on Software

Software developers don’t really like to make schedules. Usually, they try to get away without one. “It’ll be done when it’s done!” they say, expecting that such a brave, funny zinger will reduce their boss to a fit of giggles, and in the ensuing joviality, the schedule will be forgotten.

Most of the schedules you do see are halfhearted attempts. They’re stored on a file share somewhere and completely forgotten. When these teams ship, two years late, that weird guy with the file cabinet in his office brings the old printout to the post mortem, and everyone has a good laugh. “Hey look! We allowed two weeks for rewriting from scratch in Ruby!”

Hilarious! If you’re still in business.

A boardgame of the Nixon - Kennedy election of 1960.

The contest between Kennedy and Nixon for the presidency in 1960 was a watershed moment in American history. On the surface, it was between two men who couldn’t have been more different from one another: a young, glamorous war-hero, scion of an immensely wealthy East Coast dynasty, brimming with optimistic visions of the nation’s future, opposing an experienced, stolidly ordinary establishment Republican with a deep anti-Communist streak and solidly conservative policies. Behind their respective facades, though, both men were ruthless, cynical political campaigners who fought bitterly for an entire year over what became one of the closest presidential elections in American history.

This election has been transformed into a board game by Jason Matthews and Christian Leohnard. 1960: The Making of the President is a game whose simple and straightforward mechanisms manage to recreate this struggle for the presidency in all of its gritty glory. It presents an battle between asymmetrical forces that is nonetheless so balanced that the result is often in question right up to the final election.

Sounds fun.

Rant.

All the trappings of Palahniuk’s previous books are present in spades. There’s the bizarre sexuality, the vomit-inducing horror descriptions, and plenty of the supernatural to go around. This is definitely a Palahniuk book, but it’s also a little different. Rant: An Oral History of Buster Casey is probably the closest thing to a Fight Club sequel the world will ever see, but thankfully Palahniuk has done away with the repetitious rhythmic phrases, choosing to weave his themes in subtler ways. I don’t want to say too much, because most of the enjoyment of the book is unraveling the secrets of the characters, plot, and world, but Rant is what you would get if Palahniuk wrote the novelization of Donnie Darko. This book is a welcome return to form for the author after he had a bit of a slump with Diary and Haunted.

Rich states and poor states.
“Maps of which states Bush and Kerry would’ve won if only the votes of the poor, middle-income, and rich were counted.”
Income level is a very good predictor of voting patterns. Kind of makes you look at the red state vs. blue state thing a little differently.

Fake FEMA News Conference
Clearly FEMA learned the right lessons from Katrina.

ABC pushing more Daisies
ABC ordered a whole season of Pushing Daisies! Yay. I have been really enjoying this show, but I was concerned it wouldn’t do very well.

The 6 Most Terrifying Foods in the World

Humans are like goats. We’ll eat any damned thing. Just ask the people who make PowerBars.

In fact, you’ll find foods in this world that don’t even seem possible. Not just that they could exist, but that people would actually stick this stuff in their mouths without a gun to their head.

We’ve found six dishes that seemed to have sprung from Satan’s own cookbook.

This is disgusting.

Student game competition entries announced.

I worked on Master Plan, one of the record 125 entries this year.

Other entries that look impressive: Crayon Physics Deluxe, Empyreal Nocturne, Polarity, and Toybox Heroes.

I highly recommend that you play Master Plan, of course, but also Polarity. It’s a clever little concept for a platformer/puzzle game that will keep you entertained for a lunch break or so. Playing it feels a little like Portal, which is one of the highest compliments I think I could pay to a game.