Diplomacy v. kindergarten
I have to admit, I know very little about the “rules” of diplomacy, if there are any. So this story seemed very strange to me. Here’s the
Psychology v. economics
Someone forwarded me an article about a controlled study that found that people who went up escalators were more charitable than those who went down
Alcohol laws
I was grading papers today and found out that Mississippi has the most bizarre set of alcohol laws of any state. Namely, you’re allowed to
Verisimilitudes
I was going to start an original series on “verisimilitudes”, ideas that appear true and persist in popular or even scientific beliefs, but are actually
Poor Economics
I just finished reading “Poor Economics” by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, both MIT economics professors. The book was amazing and I highly recommend it.
Moonwalking with Einstein, Part 3
I finally finished reading “Moonwalking with Einstein” by Joshua Foer, where he documents his quest to win the US Memory Championship (even though the quest
The global cooling “consensus” of the 1970′s
For those who have heard that scientists in the 1970′s believed a new Ice Age was imminent, I recommend reading this article, which investigates what
Sects of Islam
I have to admit that although I first heard the terms “Sunni Muslims” and “Shia Muslims” years ago, I never bothered to figure out what
