- What are the Windows A: and B: drives used for?. Well, questions like this are used for making people like me feel old. (See, also, this video of French children playing with vintage technology.) [via]
- Nuclear bomb photo archives. Exactly what it says on the (likely radioactive) tin. [via]
- The Meaning of Dog Barks. Take the interactive quiz! [via]
- There’s something utterly charming about the idea of fifteen-year-old John Updike writing a fan letter to the creator of Little Orphan Annie.
- And finally, Choose your own Night of the Living Dead adventure
science
Tuesday various
- Third Triplet Born 11 Years After Her Sisters. It’s not as incredible as it sounds — frozen embryos, in vitro fertilization — but still. [via]
- Meet the woman without fear [via]
- Ricky Gervais on why he’s an atheist [via]
- “You’re tearing me apart, Lisa…in 3D!” (Though I guess it’s no sillier an idea than The Great Gatsby 3D…)
- And finally, Polite Dissent runs down The Best (and Worst) Comic Book Medicine of 2010.
Wednesday various
- “What killed Mozart?” isn’t the interesting question. The interesting question is: why are there so many wildly different theories about what killed Mozart? [via]
- 10 cool converted bookstores [via]
- Chinese archaeologists unearth 2,400-year-old ‘soup’. Undoubtedly, it tastes like chicken. [via]
- The woman without fear [via]
- And finally, Google’s Zeitgeist 2010. I think the top rank for “chatroulette” reveals just how quickly the zeitgeist can shift. When’s the last time you heard anything about this internet phenomenon? [via]
Monday various
- Caitlin R. Kiernan on coincidence:
Coincidence is a constantly occurring phenomenon with a bad rap. Lots of people treat it’s like a dirty word, or something rationalists invoke simply to dispel so-called supernatural events. And yet, an almost infinite number of events coincide during any every nanosecond of the cosmos’ existence. We only get freaked out and belligerent over the one’s we notice, the ones we need (for whatever reason) to invest with some special significance. Co-occurrence should not be taken for correlation any more than correlation should be mistaken for causation.
- Theodora Goss raises an interesting question — namely, does fantasy writing, with its made-up languages and grammars, present unique challenges for copyeditors?
- Peter David on why Aquaman is actually cool.
- David Forbes re-examines Frank Herbert’s Dune. It’s fascinating, not least of all for its glimpse at the original edition’s semi-ridiculous back cover copy:
A page of medieval history? Not quite. Duke Leto Atreides is moving from a planet, which he owns, to another planet, which he has been given in exchange. The Emperor, Shaddam IV, is Emperor of the known Universe, not a country. And Duke Leto’s son, Paul, is not a normal noble heir. In fact, he is so little normal in any way that he happens to be possible key to all human rule, power and indeed knowledge! [via]
- And finally, a fascinating look at Yogi Bear — and there’s a phrase I never thought I’d write — as District 9:
Yogi Bear is not a kids’ movie. It is a bleak futurist parable about humanity’s inability to accept a non-human sapience. It is also about a bear who wears a hat. [via]
Although you have to admit, with all the weird news of Arkansas recently, it’s tempting to look for correlations and common causes.
Wednesday various
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