links for 2008-12-09

"Words like "need" or "necessary" lose all meaning around Christmas, even when the economy is collapsing. For example, does anyone actually need a flexible plastic case to prevent their bananas from getting bruised? Of course not. "

So I'm headin out to the store to get some popcorn when a snowstorm hits town an freezes me in a block a ice. A coupla thousand years later I get thawed out by some friendly sciencebots diggin through the arctic tundra who label me an ship me to my new home at the Franklin D. Schwarzenegger Museum of Disposable History where I dazzle and amaze the children of tomorrow with the edutaining puppet shows of yesterday.

A round-up of sf adventure stories set on Venus.

"Scientists in Austria report in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that a dog may stop obeying a command if it sees that another dog is getting a better deal. "

The beginning of the story proper.

The LiveJournal of Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ.

"I learned something that you don't learn as a professor. If you are going to question a long-standing profitable tax break for a powerful industry, get an E-bay account and bid on a "thick skin.""

"I've seen a few people express the notion that Gladwell's conclusion -- that success is determined largely by luck rather than one's powers of awesomeness -- is somehow too banal to waste one's time with. I think those people need to open their eyes and pay a bit more attention to the society we're living in. It's a society that not only seems to believe that the successful are entitled to unlimited monetary rewards for their trouble, but massive and wide-ranging deference."