It explains so much

vito_excalibur has discovered what happened to Jem.

Sheckley

Waiting for tech support, so will pass the time by sharing a couple of passages from Robert Sheckley's collection Pilgrimage to Earth.

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And a couple of unrelated cool stories:

Via sclerotic_rings, NY Times article on the campaign to eradicate Guinea worm, now nearing completion, helped by a mixture of diplomacy and dirty tricks.

Via mordwen, U. Minnesota uses Neverwinter Nights to teach journalism. "When we initially did the game, it still had lava pits, the editor looked like an ogre - stuff like that. The librarian had breastplates."

Crocs are for wusses

SMH story: thieves broke into a Rockhampton zoo and tried to steal a koala. But the koala proved to be too vicious for them, so they stole a 40-kg crocodile instead and climbed a 2.4-metre fence with it.

(Those with more than a passing familiarity with koalas may be aware that this isn't as silly as it sounds. The thieves were caught, but the crocodile is still missing, having been traded for drugs.)