Happy Saturday! It’s the 10th anniversary of the Opportunity rover. We’ll be at the the Opportunity party at Kwartzlab tonight, and sadly not at the Polar Plunge today because it’s been delayed by polar vortex. Nonetheless, I’ll be there raising money for children and putting out songs requested by donors in the next few weeks. $20 gets you a song of your choice performed in the freezing cold, and all the proceeds to go helping children with special needs. Anyway, today’s roundup is wonderful.
Space myths
Since it’s Opportunity’s 10th anniversary, we just had to have a space article, and Cracked of all places was happy to deliver. In keeping with lists, six myths about space that everyone believes because of movies. Were I to add a seventh, it would be that there’s no gravity in space. There totally is. It’s what keeps us from careening around the solar system like a meth-head pinball.
Get a new perspective
Sometimes it helps to look down and see things a little differently. Buzzfeed has done it right this week by providing 27 views you’d only see if you were a bird. The tulip fields in the Netherlands are my personal favourite. I had to read the label to figure out why you’d have fields in so many colours, like mixed stacks of plasticine.
Are poor countries doomed?
This was going to be our video pick of the week, but we’ve spent a bunch of time on the vlogbrothers and while it’s a good watch, the one below is utterly amazing. Nonetheless, John Green talks about an open latter from the Gates Foundation and how quality of life in the developing world is actually growing and making progress despite how bleak things might look sometimes.
Study the humanities
We are all humanities majors here, so we’re a bit biased. I used to write about this more often at Labyrinth, and I still think the most compelling answer to what to do if your parents want you to take business but you want to study literature is this: study literature. Your parents don’t have to write your exams, and they don’t have to live with the degree. Business Insider publishes 11 other reasons why majoring in the humanities will make you into a superhuman instead of sinking your life into some kind of kafkaesque toilet.
Think deeper
A University of Guelph professor asked a group of people the questions that comes up in every ethics course at some point. “If you get a good feeling from doing something altruistic, is it really altruistic?” The short answer is yes, but the conversation always results in some pretty interesting reflections. Read the full story in my local paper, the Record.
A tribute to Russian Broadway
I assume you know about all the nonsensical and homophobic legislation that Russia’s been passing. Well, Broadway has taken up arms in an absolutely brilliant way.
