Guest Thinkers — December 21, 2010

Monday Papers (or News without details)

News Yemen, and a number of other outlets, are reporting that the Ministry of Information has a new guide book for the country’s most wanted.

Al-Ghad attempts to fit all the Islamist news of the past week into one short article, which of course means that there is little to no details on anything – from the fighting in Ja’ar to al-‘Awfi’s “confessions.” (I finally have a transcript of what he said, and not just press articles about what he said, so hopefully I will have a chance to read it today.) Al-Ghad continues its news without details trend writing about an al-Qaeda suspected that was arrested on his way to Hudaydah.

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.

▸

7 min

—

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.

Up Next

Guest Thinkers

Catching-up

I returned home from vacation to find that apparently both Brian and the readership of this blog also decided to take a few days off. The news, however, did not. […]