Hold My Beer This Is Going To Be A Long One

• You Can Stop Apologizing for Your Sick Sense of Humor As an Englishman who definitely has the propensity to say "sorry" way too much, I don't think I ever started apologising for my sense of humour.
• And Here We Go Again! Why Should Guys Pay For Prenatal Care in Insurance? Of all the weird things Republicans believe this, to me, seems to be one of the most indefensible.
• Monkey Island (or, How Ron Gilbert Made an Adventure Game That Didn’t Suck)  A confession: I haven't read this article yet, but it's Digital Antiquarian talking about an absolute classic, so I'm not too worried about sharing it.
• Password Rules Are Bullshit But a solid password is not.
• Dogs use deception to get what they want from humans (a sausage) It's not only cats that can be untrustworthy.
• Pour one out for “Hold my beer” Another phrase declared passé before I've even had a chance to try it.
• Thief: tense narrative through level design and mechanics
• Arkansas wants to ban all classroom mentions of Howard Zinn Because in order to make America great again you can't also be told that maybe America was never all that.
• Dennis Skinner and Richard Burgon just did the ‘heroes and heroines’ of Orgreave proud. A bit of a nothing of an article, to be honest, but always nice to be reminded Dennis is still around.
• XCCD on chat systems.
• The Guardian Looks At Internet Trolls.  The Guardian, of course, not being above trolling its own readership. At least I assume that's why they still employ Jonathan Jones.
• Brutalism's Rise And Fall, As Told Through The Architecture Of Paris. Brutal means raw in French but I wonder if the English meaning was more of an influence. That said some of these buildings do look great, though I can speak to whether they are fit for purpose.
• The internet promised open markets, delivered rigged ones, then fake ones, then outright monopolies. 
• Side Quest Syndrome: Designing The Road Less Traveled Game Informer have a quick look at side quests in RPGs. Witcher 3 is probably better crafted than most in this respect but I don't think it's quite the great leap forward that people want it to be.