Death Star PR:

How could something that expensive possibly pay for itself?” we hear you ask. EASILY, that’s how, imaginary question-asker. Once you’ve built yourself a Death Star, you travel around the galaxy and point your $852 quadrillion megalaser at other people’s planets. You’ll be surprised how quickly and COMPLETELY OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL they offer to help cover your costs.

This totally made my day. So awesome, in all its nerd glory.

See also why building your own Death Star is not only totally worth it, but also quite affordable when you think about it. Now, What are we waiting for?

Via Daring Fireball.

Cult of Mac:

LAUGH as the security forces of an oppressive fascist dictatorship try to crush your cards with a 1.6-ton (3,200-pound) vehicle. CHUCKLE at their pathetic attempts to zap the pictures from the card with anything less than a 10,000 gauss magnet. And TAKE IT EASY as these government stooges lamely try to soak the card in water for up to 24 hours. The ignorant fools.

These could come in handy if you’re the type to enjoy some Good Livin’.

Via Ben Brooks.

Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

Carrie Fisher (1956 - ), US author & movie actress.

Terrific essay by Matt Gemmell, and a scathing critique of Pope Benedict XVI’s recent declarations against gay marriage:

The idea that a consensual relationship, between adults of sound mind, could be somehow immoral is itself repugnant. If the charge of immorality arises from nothing but the sexual orientation of those people, we must upgrade that judgement to literally criminal. To even make the association, much less to openly invite others to adopt it, is bigotry - and to create or perpetuate a system where such people’s actual rights are negatively affected, is another thing that religion has long and rightly been accused of: persecution. I find it quite impossible to understand how an ethical, enlightened person can read His Holiness’ appalling, scurrilous and slanderous statement without repugnance. I also strongly doubt the character, moral fibre, and critical faculties of any person who would defend it.

More than criticizing the Pope’s views, Matt is reflecting on religion itself, be it Catholic or otherwise. So much of what he so skillfully says resonates with my own views on the topic, so much of it feels right, that I cannot help but beg you to read it in full.

The legacy of religion is not peace, or morality, or comfort. It is war, and terror, and persecution. The legacy of religion is the Crusades, and tent-revivalist preachers stealing from the poor, and Afghan women who can be imprisoned for being a victim of rape, and can then be murdered by their own families if they will not then marry their rapists. Such a legacy is clearly subhuman, and part of humanity’s fading childhood. It is to be discarded, after it has been fought to extinction. As a thinking, enlightened, rational person, I’m compelled to be its enemy.

Thank you so much for writing this, Matt.

Joel Housman:

Introducing, Allthis.com. They list themselves as being in “beta” on their website and claim to be “the ten-minute exchange”. Apparently users can bid on and purchase blocks of other users’ time! How exciting!

Apparently there are still plenty of douchebags getting funded on the Internet to do bad things to other people. Enter AllThis, the newest-but-already-pretty-fucked-up startup that decided it would be a great idea to steal the profile pictures and info from some of the most followed and respected tech writers on the Internet in order to make it look like they’re using their service. Which, of course, they’re not.

Also, they’ll happily sell you 10 minutes of these people’s time. And they don’t even need to own it, that’s just how they roll.

This is despicable. Fortunately, they messed with the wrong guys. You see, Marco Arment, Mike Monteiro, Andy Ihnatko… These are not only nice and knowledgeable guys, they also know how to deal with Internet thieves. Unfortunately for them, they’ve had some practice before.

Also worth checking out: The much better, much more honest and much more close to reality (and also much less official and I’m guessing pretty soon to be removed) AllThisPR Twitter account. You gotta love the Internet for giving us things like these.

Via MG Siegler.

Marco Arment:

Anyway, the main attraction of Amazon’s Kindle Fire vs. iPad 2 page is the big comparison table. Other people’s feature-comparison checklists always leave out factors that are important to me, so I made my own additions that Amazon is welcome to include on their page.

This is pure awesome. Well done, Marco.

It’s hard to believe that he was only 25 at the time. The Macintosh would not exist for another 4 years. We’ve come a long ways since then.

Via Daring Fireball.

You only live once, and the way I live, once is enough.

Frank Sinatra (1915-1998).

On a day much like today in 1915, Frank Sinatra was born. Here’s a small playlist for today with my favorite songs. Play it to yourself, relax and enjoy his gentle, soothing voice. Play it at work, play it on your way home, or play it to your significant other. Better yet, to your future significant other. This is romance the way it should be. Simply put, nobody makes music like this anymore.

Frank Sinatra was a man of his time. He enjoyed each and every day as if it were his last. He was just as proud of his failures (and there were quite a few) as he was of his successes, and he really went through life with a cavalier attitude until the end, maybe like no one else has.

Here’s to your very good health, sir. You are still, as always, very sorely missed.

I was skimming through my Twitter feed when I found this gem in Matt Gemmel’s timeline. The developers of the shoot-em-up game Serious Sam 3 have embedded a great way to discourage piracy in the game: a giant, immortal, pink scorpion that relentlessly mauls you to death as soon as the game starts, but of course only on illegally obtained copies of the game.

Which in turn led me to the aforelinked piece by Brian Howe about DRM. The real, hardcore DRM, mind you:

Standing five metres high, covered in dense hair and ropy muscle, our Digital Rights Minotaurs are eternally vigilant deterrents against product use. Where did we find them? Don’t ask. These mythical beasts never seem to eat or sleep, and we’ve got a crapload of them. There’s probably one grunting softly outside your cubicle right now, waiting. Since we agree that hand loss is a fair penalty for attempted gaming, it hardly needs to be said that going so far as to make a backup copy for personal use results in an instant deathblow.

The entire piece is filled with rage-inducing awesomeness.