Friday Media Links

Just like most Fridays I will devote the column to articles that catch my eye.

1. A guilty pleasure I was just thinking this morning about how the other day when I was in a bad mood and an ABBA song came up on my iPod on the way to lunch and it really just made me perk up. They really are good songs, for all the horrid hype that surrounded them at their height. One of the hardest things to deal with in popular culture is to parse out what is good and what is not good. Another outstanding example of this is the major awards shows, especially the Academy Awards, the Academy Awards are really guilty of picking out the most popular movie of the year rather than selecting the truly good movies that can and will stand the test of time.

2. An interesting little idea from Freakonomics I think this is going in the right direction. Having lived the majority of my life in a state where water is an issue I think that like the era of cheap gas, this cannot go on forever. Granted water is not as finite a resource as fossil fuels, but it is still finite. Especially in areas like the American west that have been made fertile through science and ingenuity but cannot remain so forever. Or at least not at the current and expanding levels of agriculture etc. We cannot sustain our level of water usage. Perhaps increasing the prices would help the invisible hand in forcing people to make adjustments, like it is doing for gas usage.

3. This is just too funny An excellent and humorous take off/ addition to Isaac Asimov's rules of robotics.

4. The real story of door to door magazine sales. A little expose-ish but very interesting none the less. Makes me really glad I never caled one of those places and took up the job. I know some people who did similar stuff, and I know that the job of traveling salesman was at one time a worth while and honorable profession. But any more it seems like sotries like this are more common. And this just seems like it is not really all that much fun, and sure am glad I nver answered one of those ads (although I seriously doubt my parents would have signed off on my traveling with that type of group).