Friday Links

North Korea just launched an official English-language “news” site, and it’s every bit as crazy as you would imagine.

A good piece over at the Washington Post about the Marines who urinated on the bodies of their enemies: “We Are All Guilty of Dehumanizing the Enemy.”

NPR reports on MAGFest, an event for people who love video game music – especially when it’s performed live. As a guy who still gets shivers when he hears the name Nobuo Uematsu, I would love to go to this sometime.

This next one’s pretty geeky, but I know we’ve got a few in this crowd so I’ll throw it out there: Visual Studio Achievements. Yes, it gives you Xbox-style Achievements for doing stuff in Visual Studio. And yes, it’s a real thing.

Purple.com – sometimes you just gotta have some purple.

My mom sent me this one to remind me: PUNCTUATION SAVES LIVES.

Freedom House, a group that tracks democracy and civil liberties around the world, calls 2011 a ‘year of hope.’ They cite the progress so far with the Arab Spring. Their latest ranking classifies 87 countries as “free,” representing 43% of the world’s population.

A very cool video of Earth, as seen from the International Space Station.

Finally, I have to share something that made me laugh this week. A co-worker at my day job printed this out and set it on my desk, where I found it the next morning. He seems to think Mr. Data and myself may have a common goal in life. (Click to enlarge.)

And that’s that. As always, if you have any links to share, leave ’em in the comments. Feel free to link to your own website, too!

Have a great weekend.