In a shocking turn of events, a police officer who shot a family’s dog for no good reason actually got fired for it.

I walked into someone’s cube to deliver a new document scanner (the excellent Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500), and found this little gem attached to her monitor cable:

1. Ending the cycle of abuse.
2. Moving to a city named Gallatin.
3. Having General Manager Jeff Cooper deliver the announcement.

I’m guessing El Neil is doing a happy dance right about now.

(via Ace)

Amazon has a peculiar idea of what your science fiction short stories are about.

Who knew you wrote chick-lit?

Yes, I know the marketing mouthpieces are insisting that replacing male Thor with a woman isn’t just a gimmick, but yeah, it’s just a gimmick. If it weren’t, they wouldn’t have spent so much PR money to build buzz on it.

So, since it’s a gimmick, and there’s plenty of evidence of what real-life women think a female Thor should look like, I think the most important question is: will she have a thing for Sif and/or Jane Foster?

Most interesting result in that image search: Pikachu Thor.

[Update: …and in another diversity-pandering press release, Captain America will be black. Next week, I’m guessing they’ll announce that the Iron Man armor will be passed to a Thai ladyboy.]

Apparently you’ve been replaced.

Jason Mitchell, professor of Social Psychology at Harvard, vigorously demonstrates Richard Feynman’s point about pseudosciences that adopt the appearance of science without the substance. By aiming the gun at his own feet:

"Because experiments can be undermined by a vast number of practical mistakes, the likeliest explanation for any failed replication will always be that the replicator bungled something along the way. Unless direct replications are conducted by flawless experimenters, nothing interesting can be learned from them."