links for 2009-05-27

2009 promises to be a good year for science-y books by people with blogs.

"The problem we usually have with arguing about what won awards is that weâre too close to them, or else too far away. 1990 is long enough ago that we should have some perspective, and with these lists, we also have the perspective of the people who were there. Looking at the lists, I thought it was interesting what I did remember. Also, I have a control. Sasha, who was born in October 1990, is now eighteen. He reads SF."

A long love letter to the sort of noodly conclusionless essay that I find infuriating.

"The agent then explained that the mail was from an amateur sleuth in California named Gareth Penn, who had been trying for some time to interest the police in the idea that I was the Zodiac killer. Perhaps he was trying to alarm me into confessing or doing something incriminating. Who knows. Even today, I know little about the man, beyond the odd detail Iâve picked up here and thereâlike the fact that he is a librarian and surveyor by trade, that he has (or had) a wonderful Jesus beard, and that he is a member of Mensa. About the details of Pennâs theory, I know next to nothing (curious readers could find them in Pennâs two self-published books on the subject), except that it has made me the subject of a particularly bizarre and vacuous chapter in the annals of American criminal justice. "