Linkszomania for June 3, 2009

Every Wednesday, I’m going to take you on a whirlwind adventure of 13 links chronicling the news throughout the geek world I inhabit. Movies, music, art, politics, gadgets, science, sports, grammar, and superheroes – nothing’s out of bounds and everything’s interesting.

Let it begin…

If you're a vegetarian who continues to believe eating fish is acceptable… you might want to look away right about now.
A really really really cool innovation that combines the efforts of webcams, wireless internet, Android software, Flickr, and Google to monitor and record – in a very elaborate and impressive way – one's personal utility usage. I wish I was smart enough to pull off something like this.
What does plagiarism look like?
There's so little interesting mysteries left in our world and that makes this “Siberian Ice Circles” story so awesome. My personal, professional assessment? Aliens planted circular ships here a long time ago and they're starting to surface; that would be the ultimate irony, if we couldn't confirm the arrival/existence of extraterrestrials until some of our astronauts – in space – looked down at Earth and saw them.
I can't wait for some things to become really common and, subsequently, really cheap. Custom photographic shower curtains are now on that list.
Based on the fact that the Titanic continues to be a huge cultural touchstone, I am rather surprised that this story did not receive a lot more attention.
Pixar's UP came out last week and if you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for? Regardless, if the idea of a house propelled by helium balloons is too much of a logical leap for you, I've got some science I'd like to drop.
Who knew used car tires could so seamlessly become dragons, sharks, and other terrifying mystical beasts?
Much has been made of the Burj Tower in Dubai and the new World Trade Center in Manhattan (and they are both on this list) but there are a dozen other really astounding science-fiction-looking pillars of industry sprouting up all over the world, as we speak.
The ever-awesome Empire Magazine conducted a poll to determine what their readers considered to be the 100 Greatest Video Games. Go and argue with them.
Need a few astromech droids to help navigate your fleet? Well, it's going to cost you about $10,000 a pop and the wait list is about 3 years long. Oh, and they are basically just really expensive toys – they aren't sentient computers that will help you out of a jam at all (trust me, I inquired).
I spent about fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to succinctly and effectively explain what Google's “Holodeck” is and what it does. Alas, I cannot. Just go here and check it out.
Threadless's $5 heatwave shirt sale is on like Donkey Kong. Go grab summer by the balls in glorious cotton attire.