Links for an Epic Post

* The Great Game: an experiment in interactive fiction. Looks pretty promising; I voted for “Lovecraftian/cosmic horror.”

* Secrets of pinball economics. Via Boing Boing.

* Fox News is totally going to get serious about not lying all the time.

* How to start reading comics. (Late-breaking addendum.)

* Characters for an epic tale.

* Frightening time-lapse map of unemployment in America.

* There’s a wonderful(ly destructive) cognitive bias at work in this pair of stories, the first on climate change and the second on unemployment: what looks at first like apocalyptic pessimism easily becomes the “new normal” once it comes to pass.

* The Henry Ford of heart surgery. Via Kevin Drum.

* Also from Kevin Drum: “At least it’s something”: U.S. to announce carbon-reduction benchmarks.