It seems inevitable that eventually this story about cruise ships stuck in unusual levels of Atlantic ice, and this one about a growing Atlantic garbage patch, will merge into floating islands of plastic settled by the pilgrim/passengers of trapped cruise ships.

Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice. Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward position of being ignorant. One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something each time. No doubt, this can be difficult for students who are accustomed to getting the answers right. No doubt, reasonable levels of confidence and emotional resilience help, but I think scientific education might do more to ease what is a very big transition: from learning what other people once discovered to making your own discoveries. The more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will wade into the unknown and the more likely we are to make big discoveries.
~ Martin A. Schwartz (via)

Over at Necessary Fiction I’ve been sharing contributors’ responses to a question about what news stories or events sparked their imaginations in 2009. The answers so far have been diverse and fascinating, and I hope you’ll pop over for a look.

…most publishers have dispensed with tours—or they make the author foot the bill. But Flatmancrooked believes engaging directly with an audience is a major key to the success of a title. Therefore, the more people we can reach, the better. How, though, can a small company afford to send an author on a trip across the country? It’s simple: Make the tour as exciting as the book itself.

For the Zero Emission Book Project, Flatmancrooked will partner with sponsors who will fund a transnational book tour—by bicycle. ZEB isn’t an ordinary book, so the tour can’t be, either. My collection We’re Getting On, the book at the center of the project, offsets all of its production emissions. How, you ask? Firstly, it’s printed on 100% post-consumer material. But the really exciting feature is its cover. Porridge Papers in Lincoln, Nebraska has created a special paper containing spruce seeds. So, if you plant the book in the ground, it will turn into a tree.

Over at Necessary Fiction, the webjournal I edit, we’ve begun a new undertaking this morning. The first chapter of Grant Bailie’s novel New Hope For Small Men is now available for your reading pleasure, and new chapters will be posted each Monday and Friday for the next few months. I hope you’ve been reading NF’s weekly stories already, and I hope you’ll enjoy this novel, too.

Lovers of France’s two great symbols of cultural exception – its haute cuisine and fine art – are aghast at plans to open a McDonald’s restaurant and McCafé in the Louvre museum next month.

America’s fast food temple is celebrating its 30th anniversary in France with a coup -the opening of its 1,142nd Gallic outlet a few yards from the entrance to the country’s Mecca of high art and the world’s most visited museum.

@ Telegraph

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As he clambered over the parapet, rush-hour motorists a hundred yards below screamed at him not to jump. After a moment’s hesitation, he dropped into the void. He left his wife a suicide note clearly stating that his work had driven him to despair. “He was not a depressed man,” she cried.

Mr Rouanet became the 24th employee of France Telecom – which owns Orange – to take his life in 19 months, plunging the company and France deeper into soul-searching over how the once much-loved state utility could have fallen so far.

In the land of savoir vivre, whose President has just declared gross domestic happiness as important as GDP, such despair has come as a nasty shock.
@ Telegraph

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Police in Staffordshire are investigating the mysterious case of a garden that vanished from behind a suburban home and reappeared — plants, rockery, shed and flowers — in the backyard of the house next door.

@ Times (via Shedworking)

Wow is there a story about malleable identities and tight living spaces waiting to be written in this strange occurrence “I came home from vacation and discovered my neighbor had stolen my life…”

Two ways to write about airports: by sitting still, and by never stopping.

And a third way: by being Brian Eno.

Three things that leak at first slowly and unnoticed, then more rapidly with increased risk:

1. The roof of a house;
2. The cooling system of a car’s engine;
3. My patience with houses and cars.

Rock, paper, scissors isn’t just a children’s game. It’s also the history of writing.

~ David Weinberger