Stuff and Nonsense

 -- Warner Bros. has a movie version of Frank Herbert's 1965 classic Dune scheduled for release later this year, and over at Comic Book Resources, writer Anthony Gramuglia suggests the proper reading order for the now 19 books in the "Duneverse" series. Herbert himself wrote four subsequent Dune novels and his son Brian, working with Kevin Anderson, has added another 14 that span thousands of years on either side of the original novel. In the interests of full disclosure, here is my suggested proper reading order for the series: 1. Dune.

-- Over at Bored Panda, we can see some photos that show how much places change over the years -- in some cases several decades and in some cases just a few. Several of the changes improve the site while at others "improvement" may be open to interpretation.

-- ProPublica once again shows how real journalism -- investigation, explanation and the willingness to confront and discard biases when they don't fit what's found -- matters when it's done. Elizabeth Weil interviewed California firefighters and fire management officials to find out why the current West Coast fires are so bad. Climate change -- whether anthropogenic or otherwise -- plays a role, but an even bigger one has been played by policy decisions to prevent every possible fire ever in an area that has no better way to clean out highly flammable undergrowth. Both President Trump and his phalanx of detractors and blamers will hate the story for many different reasons, but one they will share: It never mentions him.

-- Also in the arena of photography, the finalists for the 2020 Wildlife Comedy Photo Awards have been announced. Prizes will be awarded in October. My favorite -- a bear who has yet to perfect his ambush predator game -- is below:

Although the photo-bombing giraffe in the row above this one at the link is pretty good, too.