Personal Growth — February 2, 2009

Welcome to the New World Reality

In case you were scrambling to find a store that still had chicken wings in stock and missed the Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition, a ‘new reality’ has set in among the slightly less masterful Masters of the Universe.

The Journal reports that since President Obama chided Wall Street bankers over their “shameful” redistribution of federal aid money to pay nearly $20 billion in bonuses, bank executives are now warning that further cuts could be made. Sen. Claire McCaskill introduced legislation that would limit the pay packages of financial executives to no more than what the U.S. president makes, namely $400,000. The writers of the piece, Aaron Lucchetti and Matthew Karnitschnig note that Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein earned that much in about two days in 2007. Here’s an excellent clip from Michael Lewis explaining that greed on Wall Street is a prerequisite.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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