We're All Doing It Wrong

-- Writing at Five Thirty-Eight, Christie Aschwanden describes some research about brain function that suggests our brains are almost designed to reach false conclusions.

The study she writes about looks pretty complicated, but at least we now have some concrete explanations for a lot of election results.

-- The absence of the local team in the NBA postseason means that the amount of time I will spend following said post-season is a function of several variables, all of which approach zero.

-- The Minnesota state legislature put the kibosh on using sales taxes to build a sports stadium, with lawmakers pointing out that the scheme basically made visitors to the town where the stadium was to be built pay for it. Not bad for a state that elected Al Franken.

-- New York City is going to spend ten billion dollars for a bus station. I got nothin'; I'm just flipping out over the idea of building costs that require eleven digits.

-- Correlation, as we know, does not equal causation. But what's causation? Nick Barrowman at New Atlantis does some digging, and surprise, it's not as simple as people seem to like to say.

Bag-Pourri. Or Grab-Pot. Or Something.

-- Anthony Le Donne writes in the Los Angeles Review of Books that last November's The Lost Gospel: Decoding the Ancient Text That Reveals Jesus' Marriage to Mary the Magdelene may very well be the worst Jesus book ever written. Reading his review, it's not hard to believe him (unless you happen to have scourged yourself with Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ). Regardless, expect at least one prominent newsmagazine, either online or in print, to highlight Lost Gospel as we move through Lent and close in on Easter.

-- Later biographers slammed Pope Sylvester II (999-1003) as a wizard and necromancer. Not, as you might surmise, because he caused the suffering of succotash (well, he might have), but because he used an abacus and was the first pope known to use the Arabic numeral symbols that we know today. More than that, he taught math. But, Vatican and Dark Ages and anti-science and all.

-- A couple of tourist dolts decided that the ancient Colosseum in Rome needed a little something -- their initials, about four inches high, carved into its stone. After which they took a selfie with their work. Italian authorities take a dim view of such artistic additions, even though the IQ twins damaged not the original first century structure but some repairs and additions made during the 19th. Fortunately for them, the Colosseum is merely an exhibit and tourist attraction these days rather than a functioning piece of the Roman justice system. Otherwise we'd probably be looking a something a little harsher than fines.

-- Leah Libresco, in her weekly "Seven Quick Takes" blog entry at Unequally Yoked refers to a study about the different rituals we have built up as we interact with technology. I haven't read the study myself, so I'm not sure if it includes the Laptop Discus Fling for Distance that happens when some Windows system or another locks up again, but I am sure that it will be in a later edition if it didn't make this one.

-- Tushna Commissariat writes a brief note at the PhysicsWorld blog about the "Women in Physics" conference she attended earlier this week, held in the lead-up to March 8's International Women's Day. A key speaker was Hélène Langevin-Joliot, a nuclear physicist who is also the granddaughter of Marie Curie. I'm pretty close to totes jealous, as it sounds like there was a lot of good history and physics talked and I didn't get to go. Well, London and passports and transoceanic flights and all.

New Experience

Give a baby a lemon, and he or she will probably at some point try to eat it or chew on it. A photographic exhibit of some of those results can be found here.

Yes, some of them are obviously put off by the sour taste. But some of them, judging by their expressions, aren't even going to wait for you to make lemonade.

Seuss Set Loose!

A fellow here imagines the way some classic novels and well-known movies might play out if they were written and illustrated by everyone's favorite rhyming doctor.

My favorite ideas are the Iron Man and the A-Team books. My favorite cover art is The Gunslinger, although it also offers a neat idea. Since Seuss was known for paring his narrative down to the fewest words possible -- early readers, after all -- his version of Stephen King's Dark Tower series might be a readable length and omit the horrible Wizard and Glass entirely.

Maybe someone could somehow get in touch with the afterlife and turn the good doctor loose on George R. R. Martin as well?

(H/T Flavorwire)

Replacement Roundup

Well, some issues Blogger had over the last day or so disappeared the real Thursday post, so you'll get some of this instead.

-- Thor was a pretty good movie; a lot better than I had feared. They wisely eschewed the Elizabethan dialogue Stan Lee created for his version of the Thunder God but left his speech just archaic enough for some fish-out-of-water segments. And Asgard looked phenomenal. Somewhere, Jack Kirby is smiling.

-- Look, I know that Will Ferrell created half a hand's worth of funny characters during seven years on Saturday Night Live, fewer than Denny Dillon but spread out over a much longer tenure. And I know that he's put out two decent movies (Anchorman and Stranger than Fiction) from a list that's easily thirty movies long. But that's still no reason for the media to play such a cruel joke on him as to say that he'd be given the Mark Twain Prize for America Humor. What? It's real? Joke's on me, I guess.

-- Rumored that Ashton Kutcher will replace Charlie Sheen on Two and a Half Men. Of all the things Charlie Sheen has done, his failure to kill that show is the one that simply can't be forgiven.

-- Sportswriter Jason Whitlock likes to say that he gives forth the opinions that other sportswriters don't think of or are too chicken to say. Sometimes that's true. And then sometimes, when he says things like the pairing of Dwayne Wade and LeBron James is better than Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, he's just dumb.

-- Is there anything the Scots can't do with booze?