Data > BS

It’s easy to doubt this equation in the political season, but BSers are common on TV and in the newspapers.

Well, The data folx are getting their due, as Nate Silver, Drew Linzer, Daryl Homlman, and especially, Sam Wang get recognized by the smart press because these people are accurately calling election data. Their observations were pretty dang accurate. Even though some advocates called these data people’s observations biased, it turns out that those observations may actually have been biased the opposite direction!

Be smart about ocean debris

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a blog about marine debris chocked full of interesting entries. As are many other agencies, NOAA is using social media extensively (e.g., see the Facebook page for its Office of Exploration and Research, the Vimeo shows for its Climate Program Office, and, of course, its own Twitter feed and weather information on its own YouTube channel), but the marine debris blog is a bit unique. It has a voice of its own. It’s focused, friendly, informative, and entertaining. It’s a good use of my tax dollars.

Yay, grads!

Randall Munroe’s take on
post-secondary majors.

Over on XKCD (one of my all-time-fave cartoons), Randall Munroe has done it again. He’s produced another marvelous interpretation of the state of the world. Just while I’m finishing up the review of my students’ final exam work and am looking forward to commencement exercises, he’s rendered a cool commentary about higher education that comes flitting through my experience like a butterfly…or is it shooting through like a meteor…or cannonball?

Guide To This Post: (1) Read the XKCD cartoon. (2) Return here and then

Who’s the 99%?

Rev. Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir have an answer to that question. It’s actually pretty obvious, ’cause the 1% (really the one-tenth of one percent) are all those folks you and I see pretty much every day. May Day is just around the corner.

Checking e-mail with Wendy McNaughton

Wendy McNaughton, who draws lots of wonderful things, dropped a classic Thursday 19 April 2012 in her blog. I’ve come to think of e-mail as evil. It’s overtaking my life, I have great intentions of only spending certain periods of time using it each day, but I find myself turning to it still at other times. There is so much of the stuff. I am obsessed with cleaning out all the unopened documents. People call me to ask me if I’ve read their messages. Yikes!

So, go and enjoy Ms. McNaughton’s send up of e-mail. And, after you’ve looked at her blog post, scoot over to her Web site and scout about a bit. Admire her map of the neighbohoods of San Francisco or her bit about the SF Public Library

sopa pipa

search sopa & pipa at  free speech (I care about my copyrights, but some things are more important.)

Skeptic’s Dictionary for Kids!

Bob Carroll announced that he’s completed his latest project, a Skeptic’s Dictionary for Kids, in his weekly newsletter dated 7 August 2011. In the newsletter he explained why he took on this new complement to his massive and long-standing Skeptic’s Dictionary:

I wrote the SD for Kids to promote science and scientific skepticism among young people. I haven’t seen anything else like it on the Web or in print. I was encouraged to do an SD for kids by one big person who thinks kids deserve an SD of their own and by some little people who are already questioning some of their teacher’s beliefs. My 12-year-old consultant took down from her parents’ bookshelf a copy of The Skeptic’s Dictionary to look up “astrology” after her teacher told her class that she believed the stars and planets affect who we are and what happens to us. My consultant thought my writing was a bit obtuse. OK. She said “hard” and “too long.” My 10-year-old consultant wanted more pictures. He especially wanted to see a picture of Area 51, which was mentioned in some movie he saw. He wanted to know more about aliens and UFOs, too.

Mr. Carroll recommends SD for Kids for children ages nine and older and suggest that they start with the about pages and the introduction to scientific reasoning. It’s all at http://sd4kids.skepdic.com/

CLAW climbs to Penthouse?

Or should that headline be “sinks to Penthouse?” Well, anyway, Penthouse magazine, one of those sometime-purveyors of prurience, picked up on the lady-arm-wrestling movement and traced it back to C’ville. Start by considering whether this lead (lede?) describes something with a familiar feel:

The scene taking place in the back room of Chicago’s Mystic Celt bar has all the trappings of a fetish film. A twenty something blonde wearing brown furry bear ears and leggings dances with a modern-style geisha to Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough.” They’re soon joined by a pink Strawberry Shortcake and a pregnant Angelina Jolie impersonator. It’s an almost innocent scene, until the bearish femme growls and rips a baby doll from between the legs of the would-be Angie. Too bad no one else is even paying attention.

Causal pants

Causal Pants, Anyone?

I’m almost certain that the copy writer for the advertisement accompanying this post planned to use the word “casual” as an adjective and simply overlooked the transposition of letters in the middle of the word. I, however, could not avoid noticing.

Then I searched the Internet for “causal pants” and I found nearly 300,000 entries. Try it yourself.

Anyway, anyone else got a fav transposition of letters in a word that leads to another, intriguingly connected word?

Made me laugh

Comprehensivity made me chuckle, if not guffaw. Kudos to whomever it was who registered it with GoDaddy.