Link Salad, Because Snow!

It's supposed to snow, and my evening event got cancelled, so have some links.

1) You may have heard of natural nuclear reactors, several of which formed on Earth. Well, in yet another example that "everything is bigger on Mars" it appears that Mars had a natural reactor (PDF). Except Mars' reactor was bigger and underwent "explosive disassembly," (that's scientist-speak for "shit blew up real good!") scattering radioactive fallout over the Martian surface. (hat tip jaylake)

2) There's a reason I don't live in Vermillion County, Illinois, the county of my birth - it's tied for last place as the least wealthy area in America.

3) One shouldn't take lessons about reality from popular fiction, but this article about the Jedi way of war is interesting. To shorter it: there is a difference between a soldier and a warrior. The Jedi were warriors, and so made lousy soldiers.

3b) From a footnote above, something I personally found very useful: Curse of expertise describes how experts often grossly underestimate the time and effort required by novices to acquire skills they possess, particularly when these skills involve large amounts of tacit knowledge the expert assumes they have.

4) Also from jaylake, Four conservative myths about poverty in America.