The Nukezilla Sunday Supplement – April 17th 2011

Every Sunday we’re going to post links to articles we think are interesting from the last week. Sundays are usually very quiet around here, so this seems like the best day to do it. We’re going to link to articles on range of subjects, including videogames, technology, movies, geek culture and much, much more.

Videogames

How early reviews hurt sales of indie games – Ars Technica. Embargos are something that every videogame writer comes across, including us. But why have them? It doesn’t matter for larger games, but for indie titles it gives them the control that they otherwise wouldn’t have.

Postmortem: Team Meat’s Super Meat Boy – Gamasutra. “Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes candidly discuss the development process of smash Steam and Xbox Live Arcade hit Super Meat Boy, diving into the punishing process that lead to the retro revitalization that took hardcore gamers by storm.”

Internet

How News Corp got lost in Myspace – Reuters. An interesting look at News Corp’s (owners of Fox) relationship with MySpace, the failing social network site that was bought by the company in 2007.

Guardian style debate highlights – The Guardian. An interesting video on newspaper style guides, a document which sets out how things should be written or phrased within a publication (you can read ours here). It’s hosted by Stephen Moss, with two style editors, Simon Heffer of the Daily Telegraph and David Marsh of the Guardian.

Science

Can falling bullets kill you? – Slate. “A crowd of Libyans fired guns in the air and chanted slogans in support of Muammar Qaddafi at a rally in the city of Sirte on Monday. Isn’t it kind of dangerous to shoot bullets into the sky?”

NASA Chooses Space Shuttles’ Retirement Homes – The New York Times. ”NASA’s space shuttles, which have been carrying astronauts aloft for 30 years, were assigned to their final destinations on Tuesday: one will head to the nation’s capital, another to Los Angeles, and the third from its current home at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the center’s visitor complex next door.”

History and Politics

A reading list for radical thinkers – New Statesman. Wardrox sent this along, a rather useful reading list to help understand the current political and economic crisis that seems to be affecting the entire world. From basics of the world economic crash to terrorism theory. I shall certainly be looking some of these titles up.

Cool Stuff

The Destruction of Money: Who Does It, Why, When, and How? – The Atlantic. A look at what happens to money after it’s been damaged or has just become to old for circulation. An interesting question that I’d never really thought about. It’s also got some interesting facts on the average lifespan of each type of (American) bill.

The Washington Post Inadvertantly Publishes my online Dating Profiles With the Editor’s Notes Still Included – McSweeny’s. “I really like to cook and THIS PART NEEDS TO BE UNIQUE BECAUSE AT THIS POINT SHE BEGINS PICTURING HOW YOU FIT INTO HER EMPTY, DEPRESSING LIFE play soccer in the local city league. NO. REVISE. SOCCER IS FAR TOO FOREIGN. TRY BASEBALL OR ANOTHER SPORT WITH LONGER SHORTS.”