Can’t throw a rock without hitting a recently added jbc mancrush. Case in point: Jonah Lehrer, and this article of his in Wired: Cracking the scratch lottery code.

As a trained statistician with degrees from MIT and Stanford University, Srivastava was intrigued by the technical problem posed by the lottery ticket. In fact, it reminded him a lot of his day job, which involves consulting for mining and oil companies. A typical assignment for Srivastava goes like this: A mining company has multiple samples from a potential gold mine. Each sample gives a different estimate of the amount of mineral underground. “My job is to make sense of those results,” he says. “The numbers might seem random, as if the gold has just been scattered, but they’re actually not random at all. There are fundamental geologic forces that created those numbers. If I know the forces, I can decipher the samples. I can figure out how much gold is underground.”

Srivastava realized that the same logic could be applied to the lottery. The apparent randomness of the scratch ticket was just a facade, a mathematical lie. And this meant that the lottery system might actually be solvable, just like those mining samples.

I came across this chart, which originally appeared in the journal Climatic Change (Education, politics and opinions about climate change evidence for interaction effects), in a blog post by Julia Hargreaves (Picture of the day). I offer it here mainly because I know it will amuse Barb Tomlinson:

I somehow missed this when it was a meme a couple of years ago, then noticed it in a friend’s Facebook stream tonight:

Cute. And immediately suspect, so I googled a bit, and came up with more detail at the Megawoosh site, which made it both more and less believable. So, of course, Snopes has the answer.

Oh, duh: Obviously, I’ve been remiss in my Mythbusters consumption:

Jon Stewart on the Palin “interview” by Sean Hannity:

Stephen Colbert on the same:

This video makes me think of J.A.Y.S.O.N.

I know he likes to disclaim the role, but the reality is that Jon Stewart has become the closest thing that a large swath of the country (including me) has to a de facto media father figure, along the lines of what news anchors like Walter Cronkite were to an earlier generation. The rise of bubble-head (and shouting-head) media spokesshirts in place of a previous generation of people who actually saw themselves as professionals with a professional code of ethics has left a vacuum, one that has been filled by the guy who famously observed that “I’m just a comedian… I follow puppets making prank phone calls.”

Anyway, here’s the Daily Show’s lead item from Monday night:

Offered without comment (from With E-Mails, Palin and Beck Discuss the Arizona Shootings):

“Sarah, as you know, peace is always the answer,” said Mr. Beck, reading from an e-mail he sent her. “I know you are feeling the same heat, if not much more on this. I want you to know you have my support. But please look into protection for your family. An attempt on you could bring the republic down.”

Oh, man-crush Steven Novella, how do I love thy postings at Neurologica? Let me count the ways…

Um, okay: two. That is, I love the latest post at Neurologica (The Coming Bedbug Plague) two ways: It is about an insect (which is a topic I’m lately fairly obsessed with) and it links the insect story with a pithy observation about humans’ mistaken belief in the inevitability of progress.

Here’s my favorite bit from the part about progress:

My initial surprise at hearing this story, I think, reflects an inherent progressivist bias in our thinking. We tend to think of human history as making inexorable progress. This bias is reinforced, especially since the industrial revolution, by the fact that science and technology has been relentlessly progressive. The problem is in the default assumption that all change is progressive – whatever current system we have must be better than the old system because newer is better.

Human history, however, is more complex than our default assumptions. Sometimes history is regressive. And sometimes it is cyclical. Not all current trends will extrapolate indefinitely into the future. Today’s fad is not always the wave of the future.

In my mind bedbugs were a problem of pre or early industrial societies, and were no longer an issue given modern hygiene and pest-control. I associated bedbugs with an earlier age, and it just seemed incongruous that they could return in the 21st century. But the details tell a different story.

I’m not sure I’ve mentioned the recent insect obsession on lies.com, but you can find evidence of it, if you’re interested, at my local nature-y blog, Carp Without Cars. Or you can examine my recently uploaded images at Bugguide.net. Or you can watch this video I took in my bedroom the other day, of a case-bearing carpet moth caterpillar, and contemplate the fact that taking that video was kind of the high point of my week:

Or you could just take my word for it: I’m kind of into bugs lately.

Christmas cheer, courtesy of Pomplamoose:

I was not previously aware of Pomplamoose (other than subliminally, maybe), but came across them in Jason’s (I assume; the blog is our own Jayson’s and his friend Jason’s, but I think the unsigned pieces are without-a-y-Jason’s) snarky but worthwhile post at To Eleven about Any asshole with a holiday song.

I haven’t listened to them all yet, but I think my favorite Pomplamoose video so far is this cover of Gaga’s Telephone:

Both funny and compelling: A Holiday Message from Ricky Gervais: Why I’m An Atheist.

People who believe in God don’t need proof of his existence, and they certainly don’t want evidence to the contrary. They are happy with their belief. They even say things like “it’s true to me” and “it’s faith”. I still give my logical answer because I feel that not being honest would be patronizing and impolite. It is ironic therefore that “I don’t believe in God because there is absolutely no scientific evidence for his existence and from what I’ve heard the very definition is a logical impossibility in this known universe”, comes across as both patronizing and impolite.

Kind of an interesting case: A relative of a close friend helped a school bully drink piss, and now the family is suing. Is he liable? : AskReddit.

Jon Stewart manages not to throw up (barely) long enough to try to explain to Rachel Maddow why she’s a bad person for trying to be like Fox News (well, among a lot of other stuff):

Here are three videos that came through my newsreader in the past few hours. Taken together, they tell a little story, which I can summarize like this: It’s all good fun mocking stupid/misguided/delusional people. But when those people end up in positions of power it’s not so funny, because sometimes the limits of human foresight come back to bite us, and when kids’ lives are at stake we need to take this stuff seriously.

I leave the deeper meanings of this story up to the reader.

And now, on with the show!

From RT America (a Russian-government-sponsored news outlet that has been accused, according to Wikipedia, of providing a platform for conspiracy theorists), here’s an explanation of what was really going on with that sunset contrail over southern California the other day:

Next up, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), who is currently campaigning to be appointed the new chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce:

Finally, the demolition of a 275-foot stack at the Ohio Edison Mad River Power Plant, complete with a group of assembled schoolchildren there to enjoy the spectacle, and to receive an unforgettable lesson in the importance of careful engineering:

Question: Will eighth-grade quarterback Jason Garza ever have a more complete and satisfying moment? And if not, does it matter?

The fourth or fifth time someone told me I should watch this video, I finally got around to doing so. And they were right; it’s pretty good. From Nathan Dintenfass, using the cool xtranormal engine:

Those of you who don’t live in California have your own crosses to bear, I’m sure, but you can be thankful for one thing: You’ve been spared the months-long onslaught of advertising promoting Meg Whitman for governor. Just so you don’t feel left out, here’s an ever-so-slightly tweaked version of what we Californians have been putting up with:

A: Probably not. But if you think you might be, then almost certainly not.

I offer in evidence the following: Smart blind.

But still, if you want to give it a shot, I understand from her Google profile that she is currently “available” (nudge, nudge):

From Aaron/Hiro comes a pointer to this really cool comic. I hope this is true (and have no reason to think it’s not): The greatest Halloween costume ever.

About 30 years ago, back in the days when record stores still existed, I was browsing the bins and was intrigued enough by this cover art to buy, ears-unheard, the first LP from an unknown-to-me band called The Units:

I ended up listening to that record a lot. It’s probably safe to say that I went whole weeks listening to nothing else. The Units never made it big, I never saw them perform live, and a few years later they disbanded. But that record remained (and remains) one of my favorite recordings. In the second half of the 80s I unloaded my vinyl collection, and The Units passed out of my life. I expected I’d be able to replace Digital Stimulation on CD, but it was never released.

Fast forward to today, last night, in fact, when it suddenly occurred to me that even though previous searches had come up empty, maybe things had changed. And they had! Huzzah!

Five minutes later I was downloading an MP3 from Amazon of History of the Units: The Early Years 1977-1983. It’s amazingly wonderful, of course, but it bugs me a little that a few of my favorites are different versions than what I remember. I prefer the Digital Stimulation versions.

Not to worry, though. Thanks to a global information network and a particular intellectual-property-disdaining YouTube user named VinilOldSchool, the entire original Digital Stimulation album, complete with real analog surface noise, is available for listening:

Here’s the whole thing. Listen while you can!

• A1: High Pressure Days
• A2: Digital Stimulation
• A3: Warm Moving Bodies
• A4: Go
• A5: Mission
• A6: Cannibals
• B1: Bugboy
• B2: Tight Fit
• B3: Passions or Patterns
• B4: Town by the River
• B5: Cowboy

Lest you think that YouTube’s Units collection is entirely derivative, I’ll leave you with this: briangainey’s awesome (and hilarious) self-made video for “High Pressure Days”:

James O’Keefe comes off as quite the putz in this write-up by Abbie Boudreau of O’Keefe’s would-be video sting operation, in which he would have “seduced” her in his floating “pleasure palace”: Our Documentary Takes A Strange Detour.

Ew.

Given my recent series of posts about telegenic blondes, I especially liked this observation by Boudreau:

They don’t know anything about my work ethic – my history – my dedication and commitment – and my love for reporting. They just saw my blonde hair. And the ironic thing is that I’m really a brunette.