Links for 2010-01-11

An essay about how newspaper articles are too long. In keeping with the Iron Laws of the Internet, it could probably stand to be cut down a little.

"I spent four years on the book beat, and looking back -- I took early retirement from the Post last summer -- I'm still amazed and grateful for what it permitted me to do. An obsessive reader since childhood, I got paid to read mostly excellent books and have extended conversations with their smart and interesting authors. And if those conversations threatened to become problematic for any reason, all I had to do was remember the Didion Rule:

When in doubt, ask writers about writing."

"In a remarkable case of serendipity, the next evening I was browsing the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and came across an article with the title, "On the bursting of firearms when the muzzle is closed by snow, earth, grease, &c."! The article, by Professor George Forbes, is a theoretical explanation of the bursting of firearms and was published in the 1878-1879 session of the Royal Society, meaning that Forbes' investigation was some 130 years before the Mythbusters! The calculation and explanation are short and entertaining, and I thought it would be fun to take a look at them."

"I'm not sure what's worse, the concept of a crocheted urinal, with - crocheted urinal cakes or... the thought that some drunken idiot may actually use it...."