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[caption id="attachment_19723" align="alignnone" width="401" caption="Super Deli Bowl"][/caption]

Westword:

Holy Super Bowl! Someone in the football universe obviously takes his deli platter damn seriously, as evidenced by this snap, a dazzling stadium display of cold cuts, crudites, chips and cheese squares.

Some of the “stadiums” are insanely complex looking. Thanks to Lessien for the heads up via Twitter.

CBS Sports:

This is your regular beer-league hockey game and the small rink gets filled with a rabid fan base complete with body paint, thundersticks and banners. The looks on the players’ faces is priceless.

This video will touch the hearts of every beer league player out there. It’s a shame it will only be shown in Canada during the game.

iTunes:

Trouble is brewing in Westeros. For the inhabitants of this world, control of the Iron Throne holds the lure of great power. But in a land where seasons can last a lifetime, winter is coming…and beyond the Great Wall that protects them, a forgotten evil has returned.

If you are a fan of the “Game of Thrones” series, these free behind the scenes videos might tide you over until the show comes back to HBO in April.

PC World:

Super Bowl XLVI kicks off on February 5 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana, and no matter where you’ll be that Sunday, you have plenty of ways to stream the big game to your PC, tablet, or smartphone so you can watch the Giants and the Patriots struggle for supremacy on your preferred device.

Best to test out your streaming options beforehand in case your provider or country doesn’t allow you easy access. Even better, go to your local pub and watch it with friends and strangers!

Disinformation:

Host Adam Savage of Mythbusters tells how Visa, Mastercard, and Discover had the Discovery Channel put the kibosh on an episode that would have revealed just how “trackable and hackable” the RFID chips found in many credit cards are. It’s a telling example of how corporate advertisers serve as the gatekeepers of mainstream media/entertainment.

The video with the story has Mythbusters host (and fellow Mac user!) Adam Savage explaining how their investigation was shut down by The Discovery Channel.

That is MG Siegler’s response to news that RIM Offering Free PlayBook Tablets to Woo Android Developers.

How about a bit of humor on a Friday. Personally, I like the “drunken radiator.” […]

Reuters:

Japan’s Panasonic Corp warned of a record annual $10.2 billion net loss, joining beleaguered rivals Sony and Sharp in a sea of red ink as they struggle to fix their broken TV businesses and show they have not lost their way.

I think it’s clear they have lost their way.

One of the ways to make your Super Bowl party even more fun is to play and place a bunch of prop bets.

A “proposition bet” usually means a side bet often made in conjunction with a sporting event but one that does not directly depend on the game’s final outcome. So for example, you can make these bets whether you are a Giants or a Patriots fan and still cheer for your team to win.

The Canada based online gambling site Bovada has some bets you can make with family and friends. You can make the bets on their web site but it’s probably less illegal if you just do it among the people at your party.

Bovada has obvious bets like “Who will be named Super Bowl MVP?” and “Who will win the coin toss?” but they also have some fun bets like “Which team will get into the Red Zone first?” and weird bets like “How many times will Andrew Luck be mentioned on TV during the game?”

Prop bets are a fun way to keep people involved in the game while they wait for the commercials to play.

[caption id="attachment_19620" align="alignnone" width="420" caption="This is either sad or exciting to you..."][/caption] Splice Today:

Recently, Wizards of the Coast, the company that now owns Dungeons & Dragons, announced a fifth edition was in development. The reaction, despite mentions in media outlets like the New York Times and Forbes, has seemed muted.Does D&D still have a place in the world, or has it been replaced by new technology?

My three Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books ― the Monster Manual, the Player’s Handbook, and the Dungeon Masters Guide – were prized possessions in high school and college.

Violet Blue describing the “saddest booth babe in the world” at Macworld: […]

Mashable:

The Super Bowl isn’t just the biggest day in American football. It’s also the advertising world’s shining moment.Brands and agencies pull out all the stops to make an impression on the game’s captive audience. Most frequently, they turn to the bizarre and the offbeat, seeking to burn messages into viewers’ brains with humor.And the ads had better be funny; commercial slots are going for a whopping $3.5 million a pop this year.

Any list that includes the “Wassup!” ads but doesn’t include the Budweiser frogs can’t possibly be the ten funniest.

TIME:

A Yale lecture capped at 270 students? And no wireless Internet available? Dial up the anger on the New Haven, Conn., campus.After Alexander Nemerov moved his popular “Introduction to the History of Art: Renaissance to the Present” from the Yale Law School auditorium that easily fit about 450 students to the more cramped Yale Art Gallery auditorium, he not only upset some students and alumni by capping the class size at 270 because of the smaller venue, but also shocked some students that walked into a room void of wi-fi or cell service.

Before you scream, “Luddite!”, read the article. The professor seems to have good reasoning for his decision.

I usually just lay under the Heineken tap in my house, but I suppose if you have to use a glass. […]

[caption id="attachment_19542" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Helix Nebula, NGC 7293"][/caption] Gizmodo:

In a few billion years, our dear Sun will look like this, a beautiful glowing eye of spent starstuff trash in the shape of Sauron’s Eye. And no ring is going to save us from this one.It’s the Helix Nebula, NGC 7293, 700 light-years away from Earth. Once upon a time it was a star like ours.

I’m going to be so bummed when that happens.

New York Times:

In a sharp answer to Amazon and its expanding publishing efforts, Barnes & Noble said on Tuesday that it would not sell books released by Amazon Publishing in its bookstores.The ban includes books released by New Harvest, a new imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt that recently struck a deal to publish and distribute books released by Amazon Publishing’s unit based in New York.It also seemed unlikely that many of the 1,900 independent bookstores in the United States would be willing to stock Amazon books.

To be clear, the B&N ban only applies to books from the publishing arm of Amazon – not all books sold through Amazon.com.

In 1970, at the height of his career, Cash needed a personal limousine. He turned to Rolls-Royce where he acquired a long-wheelbase Silver Shadow Saloon. At the time the Crewe factory did not produce a limousine, so Cash turned to a local Nashville coachbuilder, gave them his specifications and this is the final product. Cash used this limousine up through 1977 when it was sold to another private owner prior to coming to the Burdick collection.

Larry Dignan, ZDNET:

Amazon’s fourth quarter sales missed projections, but earnings were ahead. The big wild card was Kindle device sales, which tripled over the holidays.The e-commerce giant reported earnings of $177 million in the fourth quarter, or 38 cents a share, on revenue of $17.43 billion, up 35 percent from a year ago. Wall Street was expecting earnings of 17 cents a share on revenue of $18.25 billion.

Larry says “Kindle sales surged” and “Kindle sales tripled over the holidays.” But then Larry points out that “As per Amazon custom, no hard numbers were disclosed.” So how do you know sales have surged and tripled?

Adam Davidson, The Atlantic:

In the 10 years ending in 2009, factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years; roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs—about 6 million in total—disappeared. About as many people work in manufacturing now as did at the end of the Depression, even though the American population is more than twice as large today.I came here to find answers to questions that arise from the data. How, exactly, have some American manufacturers continued to survive, and even thrive, as global competition has intensified? What, if anything, should be done to halt the collapse of manufacturing employment? And what does the disappearance of factory work mean for the rest of us?

In light of the discussion about Apple and overseas jobs, this is an interesting article about manufacturing in America.

So some of you may not realize this, but Laughing Squid also offers cloud-based web hosting services via Laughing Squid Web Hosting. We’ve been hosting websites since 1998 and the revenue generated from our web hosting services helps support this blog and our other projects. One of our main focuses is hosting WordPress blogs, in fact we are one of the web hosting companies officially recommended by WordPress. So if you are looking for a web host, check us out!

I had no idea that they did Web hosting.

IDG World Expo announced Tuesday that approximately 25,000 people made their way to this year’s Macworld | iWorld event, which took place last week in San Francisco, Calif. That’s about the same attendance reported in 2011, when the event was … Continued

IGN Entertainment: We’ve compiled the 20 fight scenes we regard as the most electrifying and just plain jaw dropping that have ever been choreographed and committed to film. Do not go to this story if you have any where to … Continued

The Verge: Point-and-shoot camera sales were down 20 percent last year across the industry, with entry-level shooters declining the most sharply…Dying doesn’t mean dead, though: these cheap cameras still account for as much as 80 percent of camera sales. The … Continued

The Telegraph: Forty-nine per cent of British children aged 12 and under, would be sad without access to the web, while one in five would be lonely. The ‘Digital Futures’ project, which surveyed 1,000 young people in the UK between … Continued

CNET: While supplies last, Target has the Apex Digital LD4688T 46-inch LCD HDTV for $379 shipped. So, what kind of 46-inch TV could $350 (ish) possibly buy? On paper, the TV sounds mixed, I’ll admit. Of course, you’ve got to … Continued

Adrants: Mirroring the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, this long version of a RPA-created Honda CR-V commercial that will air during the Super Bowl follows Matthew Broderick throughout his day as he, like his character did in the movie, calls … Continued

Great explanation of how to use these.

[caption id="attachment_19328" align="alignnone" width="470" caption="Is this the future of driving?"][/caption]Wired:

One landmark study cited “human errors” as the “definite or probable causes” of 93 percent of crashes. Faced with the alternatives — that guy who cut us off without signaling, the mom nursing an Ambien hangover who’s drifting into the right lane, the Bluetooth jockey doing 90 mph — I welcome our new robotic Prius-driving overlords.

I love driving but reading the article makes you realize we might be better off if we let computers take over most of the “heavy lifting” of day to day driving.