Links for October 29, 2011: Shave and a haircut

*Games: I highly recommend you drink three cocktails and play first-person Tetris. It’s a disorienting blast, right up until the point you vomit. (On a side note, I am making SAZERACS tonight. Then probably playing first-person Tetris.)

*Money: CNNMoney writes about North Dakota’s new boom economy. “‘We work insane hours,’ said Benjamin Lukes, who gets an average of four hours of sleep a night as a hydraulic fracturer in Williston but earns about $100,000 a year — thanks in large part to overtime.”

*Reading: Let’s have an intelligent debate about the merits of reading while sitting on the toilet. I would like to hear Christopher Hitchens’ thoughts on the matter.

*Video: This invention, a gumball machine that works via a secret knock, is very cool. But just as fascinating is that a secret knock has a name, right? Shave and a haircut. I love it?

*Cameras: These sardine box cameras are fairly awesome, and I bet would smell delicious? (Note that these are merely “vintage-inspired” designs, but I’m sure it would be possible to rub sardines all over them. [psfk]

*Internet: I’ve never used it (I don’t think I will?) but IsItOld seems like a good tool for linkbloggers who want to stay ahead of the curve? (It tells you how long ago a link was tweeted, and how much action it’s gotten.) Do linkbloggers still exist?

*Social: I don’t have an iPad, but I do a little reading on a few devices. I’ve been reading about and wanting social reading features for a long time – usually to the bemusement of anyone I tell that, too. (Usually the line of argument is, “Why would I want to read some idiot’s annotations?” To which I answer, “You don’t want to read some idiot’s annotations – you want to see the notes and additions of specific people you know and whose opinion you respect.”) Truly useful social reading features have been a long time coming (maybe because of that resistance from people?), so I’m not all that optimistic about Subtext (a new iPad app). I’ll give it a try when the iPad 3 comes out, and just hope that social reading is significantly better by then.

*Today’s links: F.