larryhammer | "Sometimes they wake in the middle of the night / at the same time, giving each other a fright"

Back from WFC, and while I did write something of what happened, it's so small a slice as to misrepresent the whole -- making me dubious even of linking to that. Though I will say, in a fantasy context I found myself oddly reluctant to mention A Desert Year (to use the working title), and that because of a chance comment from someone, I opened the file of "Seven Myrmidons Against Thebes" and discovered that, indeed, the point the draft started going wrong was further back than I thought, and started making notes against the several stanzas to be junked or deferred.

So instead of con reportage, I have linkage.

The newest world's largest web-spinning spider, with a leg-span of 5 inches (12 cm). (via)
Andrew Sullivan comes along with a reminder that the United States was never a uniform, white society. (via)
Another ~~butler~~ candidate for meteor that killed the dinosaurs has been identified. (via)
Thank you, National Geographic. (via)
Paul Krugman's scholarly science fiction. (via)
Do not drink while reading: "A Regency Romance in 2 Minutes" (via)
The death of teapot effect. As the writer says, "If this doesn't win these guys an IgNobel, I don't know what will." (via)
Some light on the vexing question of what V signs mean in Japanese photographs, "victory" or "peace" or "take my photo".
I like these animated color stereoviews of Meiji-era Japan, but if flickering animated GIFs give problems, you probably shouldn't click through. Not even for the stereoview of geishas looking at stereoviews.
Useful tips on how to prolong your batteries' lives, be they laptop, phone, or autotrebuchet. (Not that I have a autotrebuchet, but if I did, it'd want to maximize its battery life youbetcha.) (via)
An intriguing account of the "discovery" of the Afro-Latinosaurus Rex.
A disquisition with footnote on how teenage girls become medieval nerds. (via all over)